“You aren’t a man with whom one quarrels,” Val replied. “You hire your killing done.”
Several other men had come into the room, and all were standing about, watching.
Pavel’s face had turned pale. “That’s a lie!”
“I could kill you for that,” Val said, “but I don’t intend to. I think you will suffer more from staying alive.”
He pushed back in his chair. “You gentlemen deserve an explanation,” he said. “The Prince here does not remember me. I was only a child then.” Coolly, in a quiet voice he told them the story. The attempted whipping, the escape over the mountains, the final murder of Will Reilly.
“Three men performed that killing, using shotguns on an unsuspecting man. I should kill him, but I decided that taking his money would cause him more grief.”
He stood up. “Gentlemen, I understand that you may wish to talk business with me. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for the new town of Durango. If you still wish to talk business, I can see you there.”
Deliberately they walked out, and no one looked back at Pavel. He stood there for several minutes, his face gray and sick-looking. Then he went out into the night and started for the hotel. Why had he been such a fool? He might have known he would lose, lose to that, that…
He stumbled once, then walked on. When he reached the hotel he went at once to his room. He had six dollars and a handful of rubles.
Myra was not in, and he went to Louise’s room. There was no one there, but a maid walking along the hall paused and said, “The lady that was in that room left about an hour ago. She said she was going to Empire or Georgetown or somewhere.”
Louise gone? He couldn’t believe it, but at the desk they confirmed what the maid had said.
There was nothing to do but wait for Myra. After a few minutes Masters entered and walked past him, ignoring him completely. Pavel swore, but he remained where he was.
He had to get out of this town. He had to get back east. He began to pace back and forth, then went outside. If only Myra…but suddenly he became uneasy. If Myra knew, if she even guessed, he would no longer have any bargaining position with her at all. The first moment he could get he had best cable for some cash…cable to whom? He owed everybody.
*
CHEYENNE DAWSON WAS sitting at his usual table when Henry Sonnenberg strode through the door. “Hi, Henry! Come an’ set!”
Sonnenberg strolled across the room and dropped down at the table. “Where’s the bar-keep?”
“I let him off. Things’re slack today. Here”—Dawson pushed the bottle toward him—“this here’s better’n bar whiskey.”
When Sonnenberg had filled a glass, Dawson spoke up. “Hank, I been keepin’ an ear to the ground. There’s more goin’ on around here than a body would figure. Me, I got me an idee how we can make some money.”
“I got a job.”
“Now, see here. You been gettin’ work through me. Don’t you figure you should ought to split with me?”
Sonnenberg chuckled, without humor. “Now that would be somethin’, wouldn’t it? No, I got me two jobs, Cheyenne—one of them right here in town, the other one in Durango.”
He paused for a drink. “Cheyenne, this here’s a job I’m going to like. I’m going after Val Darrant.”
Dawson sat up slowly. Val Darrant was living at the same hotel as Myra Fossett, and he was the one they said owned all that property.
“Ain’t he the one who got Hardesty?”
“Uh-huh…and Pike, later. I never figured that kid would get old Thursty.”
Cheyenne was drawing wet circles on the table top with his glass. He was scarcely listening to what Henry was saying. “You know,” he said, “there’s money in this. Not just a few dollars…there’s real money in it, but we got to act fast.”
“I told you I got a job. I got one right here in town.”
“In town?” Cheyenne looked at him. “Who is it, Hank?”
Henry Sonnenberg wiped his mustache. He smiled suddenly, his small eyes almost closing.
“It was this woman,” he said. “She gave me five thousand for Darrant’s scalp, and a thousand for the other job.”
“Who is it? You can tell me, Henry.”
Henry grinned at him. “Sure I can, Cheyenne. It’s you.”
Cheyenne Dawson stared at Sonnenberg, not grasping what he had said. Then slowly the idea got through to him, but even then it was not real. It could not happen to him, not to Cheyenne Dawson.
“You got to be joking,” he said. “That ain’t funny.”
“This woman, she gave me a thousand for you. I never figured to make that much so easy, but she wants you done in, Cheyenne, and tonight. So I taken the money.”
“Why, that don’t make sense. Look at all the money we made together.”
“After I done the work,” Sonnenberg said. “No, she paid me for the job. That Val, he might be good with a gun. He might give me trouble, but not you. Seems you’ve been getting nosey in the wrong places, Cheyenne. You’ve been askin’ questions.”
“Look, Henry, this is real money. You forget this deal and work with me. You’ll make twice as much—”
The gun sound was muffled by the table, but it still seemed loud. Cheyenne felt the blow in his stomach, and he tried to cling to the table as he slid off his chair and fell to the floor.
For a moment he was there on his knees, his fingers on the edge of the table as he stared across at Henry, who picked up the bottle, took a long drink, and got to his feet. Cheyenne slid down from the table and sprawled on the floor.
Henry Sonnenberg nudged him with his foot, then taking the bottle with him, he went out the back door into the alley, through the stable, and out on the street on the other side where his horse waited.
Within twenty minutes he was out of town and riding west.
Chapter 27
*
NOBODY SLEPT IN Durango unless lulled to sleep by the sound of pistol shots. The town was not quite two years old and was still celebrating. The grand opening of the West End Hotel had to be postponed when it was badly shot up by the Stockton-Simmons bands of outlaws and gunmen.
The Stockton gang, from the Durango area, had a going feud with the Simmons outfit of Farmington, down in New Mexico. The West End Hotel happened to be caught in the middle.
Some of the pistol shots in Durango were fired in sheer exuberance of spirits, others were fired with intent to kill, and a good many of them were fired erratically, and often as not it was the bystanders who suffered.
Val Darrant rode into town, coming up the trail from Pagosa Springs. Purposely he had chosen the longest and less traveled route from Denver, for he had a hunch that somewhere along the way he was supposed to be met by Henry Sonnenberg, or somebody like him.
Dube caught up with him thirty miles out, and Boston, not to be left out, had taken the stage.
Animas City had been the town of the locality until the railroad came…but did not come to Animas; so the bulk of the population promptly packed up bag and baggage and moved to Durango, two miles or so to the south. Animas City had been alive for twenty years, and it died in the space of a day.
Val Darrant was riding a line-back dun when he came into Durango, Dube Bucklin beside him on a dapple gray. They rode to the livery stable and left their horses, and packing their Winchesters they walked along the street to the West End Hotel.
Boston met them in the door. “Val, there’s a man here named Cates. He knows you, and has a box for you.”
“Thanks.” He paused before the hotel, sweeping the street with sharp attention. He saw nobody with the bulky body of a Sonnenberg.
He did not know the men who had been reported to be traveling with Sonnenberg, except by name. The half-breed Pagosa, Marcus Kiley, and Tom…he might know Tom.
He would surely know him. Tall, lank, ill-smelling because he rarely bathed, a strange, mentally disturbed man. As Will had said so long ago, nobody ever knew about Tom…and it was something to remem
ber.
He said as much to Dube. “Don’t worry,” Dube replied. “Tensleep is in town. He rode west right behind Boston’s stage, sort of keepin’ an eye on her. She’d throw a fit if she knew…says she can care for herself, and likely she can, but a body never knows. But Tensleep knows them all, especially Tom.”
“I remember him,” Val said. “As a matter of fact, I remember that he knew my grandparents—Myra’s folks. He came from the same town, or somewhere near. He said they were good people.”
It was cool and pleasant here. A few thunderheads showed in the north, over Animas Mountain.
Val went into the hotel, and looked down the street from the lobby window. A man had gotten up from a seat on the edge of the boardwalk and gone into the saloon.
“Val,” Boston said, close behind him, “be careful.”
They heard a door close, and turned to see a man coming up the dark hall from the back of the hotel. It was Tensleep.
Suddenly Val realized that Tensleep was an old man. He had never thought of him that way, for the outlaw-cowhand-gunfighter had never seemed to change.
“They’re all here, Val. I don’t think they saw me, but I seen ever’ last one of them. And they’re loaded for bear. Pagosa’s got him a buffalo gun, and Kiley is packin’ a double-barrel shotgun.”
“Thanks. Stay out of the way, Tensleep.”
“You kiddin’? This here’s my party as much as yours. I never did like that Sonnenberg, and he knows it.”
“How about Tom?”
Tensleep shrugged. “He’s with them, ain’t he?”
Egan Cates came into the room. “Val, we’ve got to talk. There’s this box—”
“I know about it.”
“Yes,” said Cates, “and so does everybody else. I’ve had two flat cash offers for it in the last twenty-four hours. Masters wants to buy it because of what he could do to Myra if she starts trouble. Myra herself wants it…and Lord knows who else.”
“Where is it?”
“Under my bed…and it isn’t easy to sleep with it there.”
“I’ll take it off your hands. Tensleep”—he turned to him—“you go with Cates. Move that box to my room and you sit on it, do you hear?”
“And miss out on the fight?”
“No, just until Boston can get there. She will take care of it.”
Dube had been leaning on the door jamb, watching down the street. “It’s quiet,” he said, “but that’s normal, this time of day. This here’s a Saturday-night town, and by day most folks are about their business, whatever it is.”
“Your canyon is right out of town,” Cates said, “If you want to look at it.”
“I’m selling it,” Val said, “that’s all.” He was cold inside, and he felt oddly on edge, and did not want to talk.
Boston was quiet, and he liked it that way. Just having her here was important. They moved into the dining room. The waitress was apologetic. “They hadn’t really planned to serve meals, and they may not continue the practice, so we’re really not set up for it.”
“Just anything,” Val said. He was not hungry, but he wanted to be busy.
“You hadn’t better eat,” Cates said. “It makes it worse if you get shot in the stomach.”
But they ate, and Val gradually began to simmer down, some of the tenseness going out of him as he drank the coffee.
“Boston,” he said then, “you go back and stay in my room or yours, but watch that box.”
“Is it so important?”
“To me it isn’t important at all, but it is important to her. Everything she’s done goes right down the drain if that box is opened and the contents get known.”
“What about you? And her people?” Boston said. “Val, her people probably believe she’s dead. It would ruin them if all this came out now. Don’t do it, Val.”
“Why should I? She hasn’t anything I want. The one thing she could have given me was just to be a mother to me, but that’s long ago and far away.”
The street was empty except for a dark man who leaned on a horse as if he were sick. He had just come from a saloon and he had his head down against the saddle, one hand gripping the horn as he stood there.
It was quiet in the room. Somebody had put a grandfather’s clock in the lobby when they began fitting the hotel for operation, and they could hear its ticking. Val pushed back from the table and stood up. “I never was much for waiting,” he said. “I’m going down there.”
“That’s taking too much of a chance,” Dube said. “You might get drilled when you walk out on the street.”
“I don’t think so. I think Henry would like to let me have it close up.”
“Even so,” Cates protested, “you’re forted up here. Make them bring it to you.”
Val was wearing a holster, had been wearing one since riding out of Denver. He eased it into position on his leg, dropped his hand to the butt. “You can do me a favor, Cates, by keeping an eye on Boston and that box.”
“All right.” Cates hesitated a moment, started to speak, and then went out.
“Well,” Dube said, “there’s three of us, and four o’ them…so far as we know.”
“That Sonnenberg,” Tensleep said, “is an army all by himself. I’ve seen him work.”
The sick man leaning against the horse was no longer visible, for the horse had turned broadside to the door of the hotel, and the man was behind it now. How old had he been when Will taught him that trick? If he walked out of the hotel there would be a rifle peering at him from over that saddle.
“Sonnenberg is the one I want,” Val said, “I don’t care about the others.”
The rifle muzzle had appeared over the horse’s back now.
Val took up his rifle, and then put it down. He did not want anybody to get hurt helping him. “Dube, there’s a man behind that horse down there with a rifle trained on this door. I can’t take a step if he’s there. Why don’t you go upstairs where you’ll have a better view of him. Just give him a shot to get him out of there…shoot at his feet or whatever you like, but move him.”
Val poised at the door, waiting. Suddenly a rifle’s sharp crack cut the stillness of the afternoon. The horse sprang away, and the suddenly exposed rifleman raced for the door. He had taken no more than two steps when a second shot ripped splinters from the boardwalk. He fell, got up, and a second bullet struck his boot heel and knocked him sprawling.
Val left the door running, reached the back of the buildings, raced along them to the saloon, stopped suddenly, and stepped inside.
At the sound of his step Sonnenberg, Kiley, and Tom turned as one man. They were spread out badly, but that could not be helped.
“Well, Henry,” Val said quietly, “it’s been a long time since that time on the mountain in the snow. I never figured you’d live this long.”
Sonnenberg was smiling. He looked huge, invulnerable. His body seemed like the side of a battleship. “You come to get it, kid? We’re goin’ to kill you, you know.”
Val was smiling and easy. All the tenseness seemed gone from him. He heard himself talking as if he were another person.
“Howdy, Tom. You’re the one I’m not likely to forget. You knew my grandparents once, Tom.”
“They were good people,” Tom said, “not like their daughter.”
“But she’s the one who is paying to have me killed—or did Henry tell you?”
“No, sir, he never told us that. You never told us any of that, Hank.”
“Hell, who cares?” Kiley said. “Her money’s as good as anybody’s.”
“But she’s his mother! She’s blood kin to ’im! Why, I used to deliver milk to that house when I was a boy, I—”
“Shut up, old man!” Kiley said. “We got us a job to do.”
“I remember you, Tom,” Val said. “I was a mighty lonely, frightened kid then, and when I left in the sleigh with Will Reilly, it was you who tucked the blanket in.”
“What is this?” Sonnenberg said. “Old home week?
”
“No,” Val said, “I just wanted Tom to know I wasn’t going to shoot at him,” and he drew.
Henry Sonnenberg was fast and sure, but that split second of reaction time cost him his speed. Val’s gun slid out as if it was greased.
The speed of it shocked Sonnenberg, and something clicked in his brain. I couldn’t have beaten him anyway! it said.
The bullet slammed into him, but he never moved his body, only his gun came up like the arm of a well-oiled machine. The gun muzzle dropped into line and the hammer slid off his thumb just as the second and third bullets jolted him. He took a step back then, his arm swinging wide.
Guns were hammering in the room, but Val Darrant knew the man he had to kill was Henry Sonnenberg. He took a step to one side, so that Sonnenberg would have to swing his gun into line, and he shot the big man again.
Four bullets…one more.
Sonnenberg turned and shot and the bullet knocked Val around and to his knees. He felt another bullet cut through the hair at the side of his head, a sure hit had he not been knocked down.
He lunged up and dived into Sonnenberg, who took a cut at his skull with his gun barrel, but Val had ducked in close and stabbed the muzzle of his gun into the big man’s belly. He held it tight and squeezed the trigger and felt the man’s body jolt into his arms. Their faces were only inches apart.
“Hello, Henry,” he said, and then, “Good-bye, Henry.”
The man sagged against him, his gun going off into the floor, and Val stepped back, letting him fall heavily as Tensleep and Dube came bursting through the door.
Marcus Kiley was down, shot to doll rags by Tom, who was sitting wide-legged, his back against the bar.
“They were good folks,” Tom said. “Used to let me warm before their fire on cold mornings. They never deserved a girl like Myra…even then she was a mean one.”
Blood was staining his shirt. “You got him, boy. You killed ol’ Henry. He never believed the bullet was made that could kill him.”
Val dropped to his knee beside him. “Thanks, Tom. Will Reilly always said you were a good man.”
“But a little crazy. Just a little crazy in the head, that was what they always said about me—but Myra’s folks, Will Reilly, and you…it never made no difference to you all.”
Novel 1970 - Reilly's Luck (v5.0) Page 24
