Mose stood with his face a few inches away from the wall to which he’d just been introduced, too stunned to do much else. That left a scant few options for Paul. Naturally, he chose the wrong one by drawing his pistol as soon as he’d pulled himself up to one knee. Fortunately for Clint, Paul was even slower after getting knocked down and tripped over than he’d been at any other time.
Clint’s boot came down onto Paul’s wrist, pinning it to the boardwalk that ran outside the saloon’s main entrance. He then reached down and tapped the barrel of the Peacemaker against Paul’s temple just hard enough to draw his attention.
“You make one more move as stupid as that one and I’ll give you another knock,” Clint warned him. “Believe me when I tell you the next one won’t be nearly as gentle as the first.”
Having regained what little sense he had, Mose turned around and said, “Give me back my gun!”
“Or what?” Clint asked. “You’ll hurt me some more? Oh, wait. I’m the only one here who hasn’t been hurt just yet. There goes that threat. Care to try your luck with another?”
As Mose fumbled with the effort of coming up with a retort, Paul said, “This was a mistake.”
Removing his boot from Paul’s wrist, Clint offered him his free hand while saying, “Now that’s the first smart thing you’ve said in what I imagine has been a hell of a long time.”
“We can still do this,” Mose snarled. “It ain’t too late.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” Paul said.
“What are you two talking about?” Clint asked.
Ignoring Clint completely, Mose fixed his eyes intently on Paul and said, “She told us we could do this! It’s all we got.”
“What seems to be the problem here?” asked a man who’d decided to wander up to the small group in front of the saloon.
Clint looked over at the man who’d just spoken, fully prepared to tell him to get the hell out of his sight. He thought better about that when he noticed the tin star pinned to that man’s shirt.
“No problem here, Sheriff,” Clint said.
The lawman’s lanky build and thick, wide mustache made him look like a broom that had come to life and been given the job of keeping the peace in a small town. Narrowing his dark blue eyes, he said, “Doesn’t seem that way to me. That man’s bleeding.”
Since both Paul and Mose were slightly worse for wear, Clint wasn’t certain which of them the sheriff was referencing. “Just a friendly disagreement,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Paul sighed. “That’s all it is.”
The sheriff looked at each of the three men in turn. “You sure about that?”
“I was just about to suggest settling the matter with a drink,” Clint said.
“Good,” the sheriff said. “You’re making a disturbance out here. Move along.”
Clint tapped the brim of his hat in a casual salute. “No problem.”
THREE
Even though Mose was still unsteady on his feet, he was less than thrilled to be sitting down. He continued griping under his breath as Paul and Clint took seats of their own around the same table inside the saloon.
“Back already?” the bartender hollered from his post.
Clint nodded. “I’ll have another one of those beers. Actually, bring some for my friends here as well.”
“Coming right up!”
“I don’t want a beer,” Mose snapped.
“Take it and shut the hell up,” Paul snarled.
“But I ain’t thirsty.”
“Then do us all a favor and drown yourself in it.”
“My guess is that the two of you aren’t exactly the best of friends,” Clint mused. “From the amount of venom in your tone, I’d say you’re brothers.”
Paul glared at Clint. “Look, you got the drop on us without taking a scratch for yourself. What do you want by keeping us here?”
“I’d like to know what the hell you two were thinking when you stepped up to me in the first place.”
“Thought you were someone else, is all.”
“No,” Clint said. “You called me by name.”
“You mentioned it to the bartender and we overheard.”
“Right, so you know damn well who I am.”
“What’s that matter? I imagine plenty of folks know who you are.”
“That’s right and the ones who introduce themselves the way you two did aren’t normally out to strike up a new correspondence with someone.”
“You think you’re so smart with all them fancy words,” Mose said through gritted teeth.
The banjo player launched into a spirited rendition of “O! Susanna” as Paul said, “Shut up, Mose.”
“You got lucky, Adams,” Mose continued. “That’s all and I bet that’s the only reason anyone knows who you are.”
“I told you to shut up. Do it. Now.”
As the two men bickered, Clint merely sat back and quietly waited for the beers to be brought over to the table by a young lady with her black hair tied into two braids. After sipping the dark brew, Clint nodded his approval over to the man who’d poured the drinks.
“Told you, didn’t I?” Barry said.
“Yes, you did,” Clint replied. When he put the mug down, Clint noticed that the other two men at the table with him were now the ones keeping quiet. “You two through snapping at each other?” Clint asked. “I’d say if I was wrong about you being brothers, the only option left is that you’re married.”
“You plan on keeping us here?” Paul asked.
“I’m no lawman,” Clint told him. “I couldn’t arrest you if I wanted to . . . which I don’t.”
Paul’s eyes wandered to the modified Colt holstered at Clint’s side. Tucked beneath that same gun belt was the Peacemaker that had been confiscated during the recent scuffle.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Clint said as he pulled the Peacemaker from his belt and slapped it down on the middle of the table. “Go on and take it.”
Neither of the men at that table with Clint was inclined to accept that offer.
Taking advantage of the nervousness he’d fostered in them, Clint asked, “Who’s the woman that told you to come after me?”
“What woman?” Paul asked.
“When we were talking before, you mentioned something along the lines that ‘she’ said you could do this and that it was your only chance.”
“I don’t recall saying that.”
“That’s because he did,” Clint said while pointing across the table at Mose. “And don’t treat me like an idiot. Who’s ‘she’?”
Mose shifted as though a campfire had been lit under his chair. Even though he didn’t look like he was about to say anything, the expression on his face said more than enough.
Paul noticed that as well and sighed at his partner’s terrible poker face. “You won’t know her,” he said.
“I know plenty of people,” Clint said. “Try me.”
“Her name is . . .” Paul glanced over to Mose, rolled his eyes, and let out another labored sigh. “Her name is Madame Giselle.”
“She run a whorehouse around here?” Clint asked.
“No.”
“Sounds like the name of a woman who’d run a whorehouse.”
“Maybe so, but she don’t run a damn whorehouse,” Paul snarled. “She works down the street.”
“Opium den?” Clint asked.
“No!”
“I can probably come up with a few more guesses based on her name, but it’ll be easier if you just told me.”
“This has gone on far enough,” Mose said. “We don’t have to sit here and tell this man a damn thing.”
The only part of Clint that moved was his eyes as they shifted in their sockets to look at Mose. When he spoke, his lips barely even wavered. “You will sit there
and you will answer my questions. It’s the least you could do to make up for the fact that you came at me with your gun drawn for no good reason.”
Placing both hands on the table, Mose pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Then I suppose I’m runnin’ low on courtesy because I’m fixin’ to leave anyway.”
“If respect or manners don’t mean a thing to you, then what about self-preservation?”
“You threatening me?” Mose growled unconvincingly.
“Call it what you like,” Clint replied. “All I’m saying is that, considering how we were first introduced to each other, it makes perfect sense for me to assume you’ll try to take another run at me. That means I should gun you down before that happens. That could be the next time we cross paths, or it could very well be if you try to storm away from this here table.”
Mose may have tried to keep a mean look on his face, but it was crumbling faster than a thin coat of old paint in a hailstorm.
“Sit your ass down,” Paul said. “Ain’t no reason for this to get any worse.” When Mose didn’t obey right away, Paul put him in his place with nothing more than an angry stare. Averting his eyes as if he was embarrassed by his partner as well as what he was about to say, Paul told Clint, “Madame Giselle is a fortune-teller.”
“You mean . . . like a palm reader?” Clint asked.
Paul nodded. “Among other things.”
“Why would she send you after me?”
“She didn’t send us after you specifically. We asked if we could find a way to prove ourselves to Mr. Torquelan, and she said we would if’n we spent enough time at this here saloon.”
“She said a man would come who had a big name,” Mose said. “Clint Adams is a mighty big name.”
“Depends on who you ask,” Clint said.
“If you ask us,” Paul said, “it is.”
“I’d be flattered under different circumstances. Who’s this Torquelan fellow?”
Paul squinted at Clint. “You sayin’ you don’t know him?”
Before Clint could respond, Mose said, “I thought you were here for him. You sayin’ you’re not?”
“I’m saying I don’t even know who he is,” Clint said. “Now could one of you, I don’t care which, tell me?”
“Mr. Torquelan is a prospector,” Paul said.
Clint waited to hear more. When nothing else was offered, he asked, “That’s it?”
“He gathers claims and puts them under one roof, so to speak.”
“And how does he acquire these claims?”
“However he can manage, I suppose,” Paul replied. “I don’t exactly have a head for figures and such.”
“No, you’re gunhands.” They were inept gunhands, but Clint kept that part to himself for the sake of speeding this conversation along. “And if you were looking to impress this Torquelan fellow by coming after me, I have to figure he hires gunhands to work for him.”
Paul nodded.
“I get the picture.” Clint had plenty of other questions, but doubted the two idiots in front of him could answer them. More than that, he was sick of looking at them so he said, “You two get out of my sight.”
Mose began to reach for the pistol on the table, but stopped short so he could look to Clint.
“I’ll leave it with the barkeep,” Clint told him. “Come back for it while I’m not here.”
Nodding, Mose followed his partner out of the saloon.
Clint sighed and scooped up the Peacemaker so he could head over to the bar. “Keep this safe until its owner comes back, would you?”
“Sure thing,” Barry replied cheerily.
“One question,” Clint said as he leaned against the bar. “What do you know about a man named Torquelan?”
“Enough to know it’s not good for business to talk about him behind his back.”
FOUR
When Clint had broached the subject of Madame Giselle, Barry had been much more willing to talk. In fact, his face lit up a bit as he gave him directions to the fortune-teller’s place of business. Even though it wasn’t very far from the saloon, Clint decided to ride Eclipse over there rather than leave the stallion where he’d been tethered. As it turned out, that was the best choice he could have made.
No two streets of Las Primas were the same size. Some were wide enough for two carriages to pass each other comfortably, and others were barely wide enough for a man to get past a horse without being knocked aside. The section of town where Clint was headed was crowded to the point of being nearly impassable. Storefronts were pressed together like the baffles of an accordion. Vendor carts and tents clogged the street and blocked alleyways, making the district feel like it was about to spill out into the surrounding parts of town.
If Clint had been on foot, he wouldn’t have been able to see much through the constant barrage of people, fluttering tent flaps, and smoke coming from any number of cooking fires started by salesmen who lived in their tents or stalls. Even with the height he gained by being in the saddle, it still wasn’t easy to see past all the commotion closing in on him from all sides. Barry’s directions had told him to go down this street about halfway and look for a man selling fish. At that moment, Clint could barely tell whether he was halfway down the street or still at one end of it. Since there wasn’t enough room to turn Eclipse around, he pressed forward.
Every step he took was a fight for territory. People constantly bumped against him and the Darley Arabian in an attempt to draw his attention. Some of them were just being jostled by others, who knocked them around like balls inside a child’s toy. When the scent of fish caught his nose, Clint followed the pungent odor to the left side of the street. Because he could see above the heads of the women clustered nearby trying to sell cheap necklaces, Clint was able to spot the little wooden stall displaying several fish dangling from hooks.
“Pardon me,” Clint said to a confused man who’d just realized his pocket had been picked.
“Excuse me,” Clint said to some of the women selling necklaces.
Before he could get past those women, a few of their competitors selling even cheaper jewelry came along to close the gap. “Make way,” Clint told them. Only half of the women listened to him and the other half cursed at him when he rode past them anyway.
“This is no place for a damn horse!” someone shouted.
Clint couldn’t see who was hollering at him, so he turned in the general direction from which the voice had come and said, “Then I’ll be on my way if I can just find somewhere to go!”
When he twisted around in his saddle, Clint had only been trying to make sure he hadn’t accidentally trampled someone or knocked anyone over. As chaotic as the street felt to him, most everyone on it with him seemed to be much more accustomed to the insanity. Despite the complaints and raised voices, the people moved when they had to and came together again to continue whatever they’d been doing. Once Clint had moved along, they found other targets for their shouted complaints.
Apart from noticing those things, Clint also spotted one man in the crowd who wasn’t complaining or being affected in the slightest by his surroundings. He stood like a post driven into the ground with a river flowing around him. In the quick look he’d gotten, Clint was almost certain that man was staring directly at him.
“Watch where you’re going!” a hoarse voice scolded.
Clint shifted back around to see that Eclipse had taken it upon himself to veer to one side and had almost pushed over the fish vendor’s cart. “Sorry about that,” Clint said.
The fish vendor grunted something in Spanish and reached out to swat Eclipse’s rump to get him moving a little faster.
“Hands to yourself!” Clint roared.
Some of the fish vendor’s next words may have been an apology as he chopped off the head of a salmon, but he grumbled them too softly to be heard.
When Clint turned back around to try and find the man who’d been watching him, the river of people had swallowed him up. After taking a few more steps, Eclipse was able to slow to a stop without being prodded or poked. Clint took a breath and was rewarded by the sight of a small tent with fringe around the upper edges and a small square banner hanging above the entrance flap. On the banner was painted a picture of an open hand with a crystal ball resting on its palm. Even though there were no words on the sign, Clint was certain he’d found the place he was after.
After climbing down from his saddle, Clint tied Eclipse’s reins to the closest post he could find and then walked toward the tent. It was about half the size of a modest cabin and had a fragrant smoke drifting out through a small crease between the flap and the banner. Clint reached for the flap, pulled it aside, and spotted a bulky figure standing less than two paces beyond the entrance.
“Hello?” Clint said tentatively.
The figure turned around to point a shotgun at Clint’s chest.
FIVE
Clint held his hands where they could be seen while keeping them close enough to reach for his holster at a moment’s notice. “Easy now,” he said. “If this is a bad time, I can come back.”
“Who the hell are you?” the man with the shotgun asked. He stood only an inch or two taller than Clint, but seemed like a giant while inside the confines of the tent. He had a doughy face and thin, stringy hair that was so light in color it seemed closer to white than blond.
“I’m just a customer. The name’s—”
“It’s all right, Patrick,” a woman said as she stepped around the big man. She was about a foot shorter than the man with the shotgun and had a smooth, rounded face framed by thick waves of dark hair. She reached up to touch his arm, displaying delicate fingers with nails painted dark red. Looking to Clint, she said, “That is, unless I’ve misjudged you.”
“As long as your judgment tells you not to point a shotgun at me,” Clint said, “it’s correct.”
Reluctantly, Patrick lowered the shotgun. Studying Clint carefully, he said, “He ain’t one of them that was here before.”
Deadly Fortune Page 2
