Vance looked a little embarrassed as he nodded. “That’s true. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, Stovepipe—”
“Aw, shoot. Don’t think nothin’ of it. You want to handle things on your own, and nobody can blame you for feelin’ that way.”
“So what are you going to do from here on out? Continue investigating Cabot?”
“Maybe. But he ain’t the only one who might be behind all the trouble the Three Rivers has been havin’.”
Vance looked interested. “What do you mean by that? Who else could be trying to destroy the ranch?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“But Stovepipe never rules out anything until he’s sure,” Wilbur said.
“Mr. Malone doesn’t know who you really are?”
Stovepipe shook his head. “Nope. We’d be obliged if you’d keep it that way, too.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t give you away . . . if you let me help you any way I can.”
“Right now I reckon you’d be better off tryin’ to get back in Miss Rosaleen’s good graces. That’s liable to be a full-time job by itself.”
“But if you need me, you’ll call on me?”
Stovepipe nodded solemnly. “You can count on it.”
Before any of them could say anything else, Keenan Malone bellowed from the loading chutes, “Stewart! Coleman! You gonna stand there jawin’ all day or are you gonna earn your keep?”
“We’re comin’, boss,” Stovepipe said. He pulled his gloves from the place behind his belt where he had tucked them and added, “Come on, Wilbur. Let’s go punch some cows.”
* * *
Mort Cabot and his men galloped out of Wagontongue a short time later. Through the wall slats of one of the cattle cars, Stovepipe saw them go. He didn’t figure that was the last he would see of Cabot and the Rafter M gunnies, though.
The rest of the cattle were loaded without incident. The train pulled out in late afternoon, steam whistle blaring, heading east with its four-legged cargo. The cowboys who had worked all day were ready to go back to the hotel, clean up a little, and then blow off some steam of their own.
Vance had been at the loading pens ever since Rosaleen had stormed off. With the job done, he said to Stovepipe and Wilbur, “I suppose I’ll spend the evening with you fellows.”
“The crew, you mean?” Stovepipe asked with a skeptical frown. “I don’t know about that. It don’t matter none to Wilbur and me, of course. ” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “We’ve got a few secrets of our own, after all, but the rest of the boys might not like it that you ain’t what you made yourself out to be.”
“How can they be angry with me? Haven’t I pitched right in and worked just as hard as anybody?”
Wilbur said, “You sure have, but now that they know, they won’t be able to forget that you’re rich. To them, you’re just playing cowboy. You can stop any time you want and go back to a comfortable existence back east. For them, this is their life. They have to keep working hard for forty-a-month-and-found if they want to eat and have a roof over their heads.”
Vance thought about that and nodded slowly. “I understand, but I can’t really do anything about it. I didn’t ask for my life, any more than they did for theirs. It’s just the way things worked out.”
“You’re right,” Stovepipe said. “I’m just tellin’ you, don’t be surprised if they don’t see it the same way.”
As they all walked back toward the hotel from the depot, Vance could tell Stovepipe and Wilbur were right. The other men talked tiredly but happily among themselves, making a point to exclude Vance from the conversation.
As Vance fell behind the rest of the group, Stovepipe lingered and said quietly, “Don’t think they’re mad at you. They ain’t. They know you’ve done a lot to help the boss and Miss Rosaleen, and they’re obliged to you for it, but to them you’re a different breed o’ animal now. They don’t know how to act around you. So they just shut you out.”
“I sort of wish things would go back to the way they were before.”
“That’s the trouble with life,” Stovepipe said. “Things change, and there ain’t no puttin’ ’em back the way they were. But sometimes that’s a blessin’, too, and it takes a while to figure out which is which.”
* * *
Vance could have forced himself in among the crew and they would have had no choice but to accept him, but he didn’t want that and figured he might as well move to the Wagontongue Inn for the night. Although the better of the settlement’s two hotels, it hardly compared to the hostelries where he had stayed in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. It was where Malone and Rosaleen had rooms.
“What can we do for you, Mr. Armbrister?” the clerk asked when Vance came up to the desk. The man’s use of his real name and the deference he showed made it clear he was aware of Vance’s true identity. Evidently, the news had spread all over town already.
“I’d like a room for the night and a hot bath.” Vance looked down at his dust-covered garb. “And since I don’t have any other clothes with me, could I get these laundered?”
“Absolutely. I’ll have a tub brought up to your room and filled with hot water. It shouldn’t take too long. We keep some heating all the time for just such a purpose. One of the boys who brings the water can take your clothes over to the laundry and wait for them, so you’ll have them back as soon as possible.”
“Thanks,” Vance said. “About the bill—”
“No need to worry about that now, Mr. Armbrister. We can settle up when you’re ready to leave.”
Vance nodded distractedly. It was the sort of treatment you got when you were rich. Anybody else would have had to pay in advance.
“Room seven,” the clerk said as he handed Vance a key. “Right at the top of the stairs. The boys with the tub will be up there in just a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” Vance said again. He went up to the room . . . wishing he was at the other hotel, getting ready to head for the Silver Star with the rest of the crew.
The service was as good as the clerk promised. Two boys in their middle teens carried a metal tub up to the room, then lugged buckets of hot water up the stairs to fill it. Vance shed his dirty clothes and sank into the water, which had little wisps of steam curling from its surface. He was careful to keep his bandaged arm from getting wet as he sat with his back to the door.
The boys left with his clothes. Vance sat there soaking with his eyes closed, letting the heat work its way through him. It was the first hot bath he’d had in a couple weeks, and it felt good.
He would have been content to let his mind drift aimlessly, but that was impossible. Too much had happened. His masquerade had been shattered and everything had changed in a matter of moments. From now on, he would never be able to pretend to be a cowboy.
He was going to miss it, he realized. He had worked in his father’s steel mill, feeling the heat of the giant forges, sweating and toiling alongside other men. The challenge of it had touched something inside him, something that made him realize he enjoyed the hard work and even the danger. It had certainly been much better than his stints in various offices connected with other enterprises owned by his father.
But the Three Rivers had been different, even better than the mill. Riding out on that range, Vance had felt like he was coming home for the first time in his life. The vast sweep of the mountains and the plains and the sky had touched something inside him he had never known was missing. All the years he had spent among the mansions and tall buildings of the cities had fallen away from him, as if that life had been the masquerade and this the reality.
Simply put, he was cut out to be a cowboy. He was convinced of it.
And of course, Rosaleen made him feel more than ever that the Three Rivers was where he was supposed to be.
She was furious with him, considered him to be nothing more than a no-good liar. Maybe when she calmed down some, he could talk to her, make her see he hadn’t lied to hurt he
r. Hell, it hadn’t really been a lie, he thought. Those days he had spent on the Three Rivers, he actually was Vance Brewster, grub line rider, or at least he had felt that way. If she would just give him a chance to make her see that . . .
With his mind full of Rosaleen and his feelings for her, he was barely aware of the door opening behind him. He heard a step, figured vaguely it was the boy returning with his clothes, and then realized it couldn’t be. Even in his reverie, he knew not enough time had passed for that to be the case.
He started to sit up straighter, and just as he did, a rope dropped past his face, looped around his neck, and jerked tight, cutting off his air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Caught by surprise, all Vance could do was react instinctively. His fingers clawed at the rope, but he couldn’t get them underneath it to relieve the terrible pressure on his throat. His pulse hammered like a steam engine inside his skull. Water splashed out of the tub as he struggled.
He knew he was going to pass out any moment, and that would be the end of everything. The man holding the rope would finish the job of choking him to death.
With the urgency of that knowledge coursing through him, he summoned all the strength he could get into his legs and pushed down against the bottom of the tub. That brought him up and back in a powerful surge against his attacker. The man couldn’t maintain his balance on the wet floor. His feet slipped out from under him and he went over backwards with Vance on top of him.
The tub overturned, flooding the room with water. The would-be killer’s grip on the rope slackened just slightly, but it was enough for Vance to get the fingers of his left hand underneath it and pull it away from his neck.
He brought his right elbow back and sank it in the man’s belly as hard as he could. Breath gusted from the man’s lungs. His grasp weakened a little more. Vance grabbed the rope with both hands and shoved it up and over his head. He twisted away, rolling over on the wet floor.
The man lunged at him and swung a gun he held by the barrel. Vance jerked aside to keep the gun butt from smashing his skull.
Lack of air had caused a red, hazy curtain to drop over his eyes, and he still couldn’t see very clearly even though he was gulping down breaths as fast as he could. He struck out almost blindly, his fist thudding against something. The attacker grunted. Vance swung again and landed another blow.
Someone shouted nearby. The would-be killer cursed and scrambled to his feet, leaving the rope tangled on the floor. Vance made a grab for his legs in an effort to tackle him, but he missed. The man darted through the door into the hotel’s second-floor corridor.
Vance had managed to push himself to his hands and knees when the clerk from downstairs rushed in, looking shocked and frightened.
He saw Vance on the floor and exclaimed, “Good Lord! Mr. Armbrister, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I . . . I think so,” Vance said, his voice raspy from the rope’s pressure on his throat.
“I saw water dripping down through the ceiling and knew something was wrong,” the man said as he took hold of Vance’s arm to help him up.
“Yeah, I’m sorry . . . for the mess.” Vance was still a little breathless, but his pulse was starting to slow down and his vision was clearing.
“What happened? I saw a man run out of here—”
“Where did he go?”
“What? Oh, you mean . . . He went down the rear stairs. I shouted for him to stop, but he never slowed down.”
“He tried to kill me.” Vance pointed to the rope laying on the floor. “Snuck in while I was in the tub and tried to strangle me with that.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. Did you get a good look at him? Did you recognize him?”
The clerk shook his head. “I’m afraid not. He had his back to me. I never saw his face. He was just a man in jeans and a vest and a brown hat. I think his hair was dark, but I’m not even sure about that. It all happened so fast.”
“That’s all right.” Vance was becoming uncomfortably aware that he was dripping wet and naked. He picked up one of the big white towels the boys had left and wrapped it around his waist, knotting it in place. It seemed pretty obvious he wasn’t going to finish his nice peaceful bath.
“I’ll send for the sheriff.”
Vance shook his head. “No need. The man’s gone. We don’t have any idea who he was or where to look for him. He might’ve left some wet footprints on the stairs, but that won’t tell us anything. That rope won’t, either.”
“No, you could find a dozen more just like it on the saddles of horses tied down in the street. There are probably hundreds of lariats like that around here.”
Vance suddenly wished Stovepipe and Wilbur were there. The range detectives might notice some clues he hadn’t. But he didn’t know where they were. Probably the other hotel or the Silver Star. He could tell them later about the attempt on his life, but by then the trail would be cold.
He looked around the room. “I’ll help clean up this mess . . .”
The clerk shook his head. “Absolutely not. This is a terrible thing, and on behalf of the hotel, I can only offer you my profoundest apologies, Mr. Armbrister. You’re sure you don’t want to report the incident to the sheriff?”
“I’m sure,” Vance said. What was that expression Stovepipe had used? Stomping his own snakes, that was it. As Vance rubbed his sore throat, he thought for once he was going to stomp his own snakes, and that would start with figuring out who had tried to kill him.
* * *
The hotel clerk insisted Vance move to another room so the one he had been in could be cleaned up. That seemed like the simplest solution, so Vance agreed. The clerk also provided a clean shirt and pair of pants from his own clothes so Vance would have something to wear until his clothes got back from the laundry. The borrowed garments were a little too small but better than nothing.
Vance had just gotten his own clothes back and pulled them on when Stovepipe knocked on his door.
The lanky cowboy said, “Thought you might like to know that Miss Rosaleen and her pa are fixin’ to sit down to supper in the dining room downstairs. I don’t reckon they’d make a scene if you wanted to join them.”
“I don’t know,” Vance said with a faint smile. “Rosaleen was pretty mad.”
“Yeah, but she’s had time to think about it. She’ll have figured out by now that you didn’t really mean any harm by pretendin’ to be somebody else. If you ask her to forgive you, she might. You never know.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Vance paused. “There’s something you don’t know about, Stovepipe.”
“Reckon there’s a whole heap o’ things in this world I don’t know about. Which one in particular are you talkin’ about?”
“The fact that someone tried to kill me a while ago.”
Stovepipe stiffened and drew in a deep breath. “What in tarnation? Tried to kill you, you say?”
Vance explained the incident with the would-be strangler. “I didn’t get a good look at his face,” he concluded, “and neither did the clerk, so I don’t have any idea who it could have been . . . but it seems like there’s a good chance the man was working for Mort Cabot.”
Stovepipe rubbed his chin. “That’s a mighty serious accusation. Cabot’s rough as a cob and used to gettin’ his own way, but I ain’t sure he’d try to have a fella murdered in a bathtub.”
“Who else would want me dead? I ruined his plan with the railroad cars, after all. And now that he knows who I really am, he might think having me killed would damage the Three Rivers.”
“Maybe,” Stovepipe said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Sure wish I’d been close by when it happened. Then maybe we’d have some answers . . . assumin’ that fella didn’t have a stick of dynamite in his pocket, too.”
Stovepipe wanted to check the rear stairs the would-be killer had used when he fled. Any footprints the man had left were gone. Stovepipe and Vance went down the stairs and opene
d the rear door at the bottom. It led out into an alley. Enough people used it as a shortcut that the dirt was covered with an indistinguishable welter of tracks.
“Fella could’ve gone anywhere from here,” Stovepipe said.
“I guess I should’ve sent for you right away,” Vance said. “You might have been able to locate some clues. I guess I didn’t think of it because I was so shaken up from almost dying.”
“That’ll do it, all right. Well, there’s one good thing to consider.”
“What’s that?”
“If whoever it was wants you dead bad enough, chances are he’ll try again.” Stovepipe nodded solemnly. “More than likely you’ll have another crack at him.”
* * *
A short time later, Vance entered the hotel dining room, which was small but nicely furnished. The tables had white linen cloths on them, and the room was lit by brass chandeliers.
He spotted Rosaleen and her father at one of the tables right away. They saw him as well. Malone frowned while Rosaleen looked away and wouldn’t meet Vance’s eyes.
He took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and strode toward them anyway. “Good evening.”
They had cups of coffee in front of them but no food, which meant either their meals hadn’t arrived yet or they had finished and the plates had been taken away.
He hoped it was the former. “May I join you?”
“You’re the boss,” Malone said. “Reckon we can’t stop you.”
Vance rested his hands on the back of the empty chair in front of him. “I’m not the boss. You don’t work for me, Mr. Malone. Not by any stretch of the imagination. My father has always said you have his complete confidence and complete discretion in running the ranch. There’s only one boss on the Three Rivers, sir, and that’s you.”
“Well . . . nice o’ you to say so, anyway. Don’t reckon I’d ever feel right about givin’ orders to the owner’s son, though.”
“And that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you the truth about who I am. I wish there had been some other way of handling it, but I wanted an honest, unbiased look at how the Three Rivers is run.”
Hang Them Slowly Page 15
