Reilly's Luck (1970)

by L'amour, Louis

  One day he was approached by a cattleman who was having nester trouble. Did Cheyenne know of a man who was discreet, good with a gun, and who could keep himself out of trouble?

  Cheyenne did, and the man proved to be just as good as Cheyenne promised, and he also kept out of trouble. Soon Cheyenne became known as a reliable source for hired gunmen, or anyone who was needed to do anything at all, and Cheyenne got a satisfactory payment without moving more than a city block or two from one of his accustomed chairs.

  For some time now Cheyenne had been getting notes, accompanied by cash, for various errands, mostly for information he acquired simply by listening, or through minor thefts. The first time it was connected with assays on gold from a certain mining property, and after his report the property’s source of eastern capital dried up. Cheyenne noted the cause and effect with considerable interest, and over the years he learned that whoever was asking for the information had considerable money, and furthermore seemed to have a wide knowledge of the West and its people.

  Often when that person asked for a man to do a job, the man was asked for by name, as in the case of Henry Sonnenberg. In every case that mysterious person in the East had known exactly whom to ask for, and the person requested was the best at his job.

  Cheyenne Dawson owned a part of a saloon, a part of a livery stable, and had more than a passing interest in several cribs in the red-light districts, but during the past ten years the income from that person back east had been so substantial that he had roped in, through women or drink, bookkeepers or shift bosses from various mining and railroad ventures to keep him supplied with the information he needed.

  The notes that came to him were invariably written on a typewriter, until one day he received a hastily written note in longhand. Interrupted in the reading of it, he had started to get up when Lila Marsh, one of the older girls, indicated the note. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in years. What’s she want … a job?”

  Cheyenne’s scalp prickled, but he merely folded the note. “Who? Who ya talkin’ about?”

  “Myra Cord. I’d know that handwriting anywhere. We worked in the same house in Pioche one time … and again in Ogalala.”

  Cheyenne fished the stub of a cigar from his capacious coat pocket and lit it. “How was she?” he asked.

  “Good … maybe the best I ever saw at taking them for money, but cold … all she ever cared about was money. Even her man—Van Clevern, his name was—didn’t seem to mean a whole lot to her. She owned her own place in Deadwood for a while, then she sold out and I haven’t heard a thing of her since.”

  “How old would she be then?”

  Lila hesitated. That was cutting closer to her own age than she liked. “Oh, she was older than most of us! I guess she’d be forty-odd now, but she’d look good. She always kept herself well.”

  Cheyenne started for the door. “Are you going to bring her down here?” she asked.

  “I’ll think on it. I doubt it,” he said.

  Outside on the street, he rolled the cigar in his fat lips and considered. Of course, Lila had had only a glimpse of the handwriting and she could be wrong. On the other hand, a woman who’d been on the line would know the people she had mentioned. Cheyenne went on up the street, stuffing in his shirt-tail.

  During the year that followed he had pieced together quite a dossier on Myra Cord, without any idea of how he expected to use it … or if he intended to.

  There were a couple of rumors … a trail-drive foreman had sold a large herd, paid off his men and headed for the station with the bulk of the cash, some sixty thousand dollars. He dropped the comment to one of the hands that he had found himself a girl and was going to stop in Kansas City for a wild time.

  He had disappeared, and investigation brought nothing to light except that he was said to have visited Myra at least twice after the herd arrived in town. Now, nearly five years after he had received that first handwritten note he received another. Only this one was written on Windsor Hotel stationery. Not that the printed heading had been left on, for in fact it had been neatly creased and torn off, but Cheyenne Dawson knew that paper, and knew the watermark. Nobody else in town used it.

  This woman then, Myra Cord or whoever, was in Denver and staying at the Windsor.

  Cheyenne Dawson, like a lot of people before him, had tired of the petty day-to-day deals he was making. He wanted a big killing and retirement. This looked like it. He tucked his shirt-tail into his pants, rubbed out his cigar and put it in his coat pocket, donned his narrow-brimmed hat, and walked to the Windsor.

  He leaned his heavy forearms on the desk and stared at the desk clerk from watery blue eyes. “Woman here … stayin’ here. Wanted to buy a horse. Forgot her last name … Myra … Myra something-or-other.”

  “You must mean Mrs. Fossett. However, I did not know she wished to buy a horse. If you would leave your name, Mr.—?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll come back,” he said, and padded away through the lobby. He was just going out of the door when Myra Fossett came in from the dining room.

  She caught a glimpse of him, and then the clerk said, “Oh, Mrs. Fossett, I didn’t know you were in the dining room. There was a man here … said you wished to buy a horse.”

  “I had thought of it,” she replied. “Did he ask for me by name?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, no. He wasn’t sure about your last name.”

  “I see. Well, thank you very much.”

  In her room Myra Fossett sat down quickly, for suddenly her legs were trembling. She had been a fool to come west! A triple-dyed fool!

  Yet how could he have traced her? Even if she had written from here in the city …

  Now she was in trouble, in real trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-Six.

  Val knotted his tie before the mirror. It was time to leave. He should not be going to the game, but to that horse that Dube had for him. He should be riding out of here, for his every instinct told him he was heading for trouble.

  His room was somehow different. Not that anything was disturbed, but there was a vague, troubling suspicion of perfume in the air, as though a woman had been here. It was the perfume his mother wore, but no, that could not have been.

  He looked at himself. It was for the first time, it seemed, that he truly saw himself as he was. He was two inches over six feet, and he weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, though he looked less. His clothes were well tailored, his general appearance perfect. Even the pistol under his waistband made no bulge.

  He knew what it was—he looked like Will Reilly.

  He was as tall as Will, a little heavier, and perhaps broader and heavier in the shoulders. He looked like Will and he could do a lot worse, for Will had been a handsome man. And tonight, if all went well, he could pay Will’s debt to Pavel.

  For it was Pavel, after all, who was to blame. Avery Simpson and Henry Sonnenberg were only tools. The man who had pointed the gun was Pavel. Once free of that burden, he would marry Boston and they could make a life for themselves here in the West. But first there was Pavel.

  Suddenly he was uneasy. He had that cold chill, that quick shudder that comes when, as the saying is, somebody has stepped on your grave. He had the feeling that he was caught fast in a web, and the strings were drawing tighter and tighter. For an instant he felt panic, the desire to get away. He did not want to be killed, and he did not want to kill.

  It was all very well to have faith in himself, and he had it. He knew he was good with a gun, but many men had died who were good with their guns. Billy was dead, and Hickok was dead … it could happen to anyone. There was no divine providence that would watch over him.

  Yet while he was thinking these things, he was straightening his tie, buttoning his vest, and drawing it down … but not over his gun.

  He checked the room one last time, then stepped out into the hall.

  Before him, not fifty feet away along the passage walked a woman alone. He felt his mouth go dry … he knew that
back, those shoulders, that carriage. He started to speak, then turned and went back. He unlocked his door, entered the room and rummaged among his things. He found the book where he kept it, at the bottom of his trunk. He had stored it there after he repacked his clothes in the trunk after his arrival in Denver.

  Then he turned and went down to the lobby. It was early, but dinner time still. He walked into the dining room. She sat across the room, her back toward him. He motioned to a waiter, handed him the book and a coin. “Take it to the lady,” he said.

  He waited, his heart pounding. He saw her take the book, and he was walking toward her when she turned.

  “Val!“She held out both her hands to him. She was a beautiful, a truly beautiful woman. “Val!” she said again. “Can it be!”

  For a moment she looked at him. “Val, you have become quite a man. Will would have been proud of you.”

  “I hope so.” He seated her, then rounded the table and sat down opposite her. “He loved you, you know. You were the only woman he ever loved.”

  “Thank you, Val. I believe that. I always wanted to believe that. And I loved him … I still do, I think.”

  “He was not a man it was easy to forget.”

  “Val, how did he die? I heard it was a shooting of some sort.”

  “You don’t know then?” Val hesitated, but this was no time to hesitate. “He was murdered, shot down in cold blood as he walked out of a door in a town not very far from here. There were three men … they were paid to do it.”

  “Paid?“There was something like fear in her eyes.

  “Paid through an American attorney, a cheap lawyer called Simpson … it wasn’t even his real name.”

  “Who paid him, Val?”

  “Who could it have been but Pavel? Avery Simpson confessed that. I am sorry, for your sake.”

  “You needn’t be, Val. For a long time I felt sorry for him. He was always borrowing money from me, but his mother had been good to me, and I always liked her, and Pavel seemed harmless enough. When I began to see that he was using me, that he was interfering in my life … I tried to get rid of him, and for a few years I did.

  “That was when he had money. He inherited a little, won some gambling, then lost it all. I had not seen him in a long time when he came to suggest this trip to America. I don’t know why I came. Maybe I was hoping just to see where Will had lived, what his country was like.”

  Suddenly, she looked at him. “Val, you’re not going to—”

  “In a way. He is gambling tonight, I think. I am going to play in the game. I play very well. I am going to bring up the question of Will Reilly.”

  “Val! He will kill you—in those rages of his he is terrible!”

  “I have a debt to pay. I must pay it the way Will would have done. I do not want to kill him, only to face him with it.”

  “Don’t do it. Please.”

  “One of the men who actually killed him is here in town, too.”

  “You said there were three.”

  “Two of them are dead … I killed them in gun battles. I did not really look for them. They came to me.”

  He changed the subject deliberately. After a few moments, he got to his feet. “I will keep myFaust , if you do not mind. I have treasured it. You were very kind to a boy who was often lonely. I never saw much of women in those days, and it meant a lot to me.”

  “I am glad.”

  “Will is buried at Empire. It is a little town not far from here. When this is over I will take you there, if you wish.”

  The game had been in progress for at least an hour when Val arrived. Pavel was winning. He was flushed and excited, and he was pushing. Val watched the game for a few minutes. Stephen Bricker was one of the men, the only one except Pavel whom he knew.

  Bricker nodded when he entered, and continued playing. After a while he looked up. “Would you like to sit in, Val? That is, if these gentlemen do not mind.”

  Bricker introduced them. “Valentine Darrant—Jim Cope, Quentin Masters, Clyde Murray. I believe you know Prince Pavel.”

  Val seated himself and received his cards. Cope glanced at him. “Darrant? Are you the man we’re looking for?”

  Val smiled. “That’s a dangerous way to put it, out here, but I guess I am if you’re referring to the right-of-way business.”

  They played, and did not talk then about the right-of-way. Val’s cards were nothing to speak of, but he passed or went along for the sake of staying in the game and seeing how the others played.

  He lost fifty … a hundred … thirty … He won a little, lost a little more. Then bucking Pavel, he drew two pair and on a hunch stayed with it and added a third queen for a full house. He won sixty dollars, then won again.

  “You have been doing all right,” he commented to Pavel. “You’re a lucky man.”

  Pavel shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  An hour later Pavel was sweating. His run of luck had failed him and he lost three hands running, at least two of them when he was obviously beaten.

  Bricker had been losing, Masters had won a little. Murray cashed in and left the game. Cope was watching Val with some curiosity and a little puzzlement. He had become aware that Val was playing against Pavel, that it was only when Pavel was raising that Val pushed his luck.

  Val was taking his time. He had played poker since he was a child, and he had been coached by a master, and had watched many games. Moreover, he knew that Pavel was a compulsive gambler as well as a complete egotist.

  He picked up his hand to find three nines. Pavel was staring at his hand, trying to compose himself. Pavel took one card, Cope threw in his hand, and Masters took two cards. Val hesitated, seemed uncertain, then asked for two cards. He drew a trey and a nine … four nines.

  Pavel was raising, Masters stayed, and Val saw Pavel’s raise and boosted it five hundred dollars. Masters threw in his cards, Pavel saw the five hundred and raised another five.

  “It’s been a long time, Pavel,” Val said, “but for old times’ sake I am going to raise you one thousand dollars … if you aren’t afraid.”

  Pavel stared at him, his irritation obvious. “What do you mean … afraid?” He counted one thousand dollars from the stack before him and shoved it to the middle of the table.

  Val glanced at him. “Are you going to boost the price a little bit? You must have six or seven hundred on the table.”

  Pavel stared at him. “All right, if you have money to lose.” He shoved the money to the middle of the table. When Pavel spread out his cards he had a full house—aces and kings.

  Val took his time placing his four nines on the table; then he reached for the pot.

  Pavel flushed as he watched the money drawn in and stacked. “I have had enough,” he said lurching to his feet.

  Val remained where he was. “As I said a few minutes ago, it has been a long time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t lose well,” Val said, “but you never did.” Val tucked a sheaf of bills into his inside coat pocket, and gathered the coins into a sack. “I think you had better get on the train and go back to New York, and from there back to Russia, and be glad you’re getting there alive.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Pavel said. “Are you trying to quarrel with me?”

  “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 shotgu
ns 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.”

  Louisegone? 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 barkeep?”

  “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.”