“Give it to him.” The cool voice was familiar. “I’ll stand good for it.”
Chantry released his hold and turned half around. Sparrow was walking toward him, folding a newspaper.
“All right,” the clerk said grudgingly. “If you say so, Mr. Sparrow.”
The cattleman held Chantry by the arm, and took the key the clerk held out. “Come on, young man,” he said, “we’ve got some talking to do.”
As they entered the hall to the ground-floor rooms he turned and called back to the gambler, “Mobile, do me a favor and get hold of Sam Baker for me.”
The man got to his feet and took his coat off the back of the chair.
Sparrow walked Chantry back to the room, went in, and closed the door behind them. “Get out of those wet clothes,” he said. “You need a stiff rubdown and a drink. You get undressed … I’ll get the drink.”
He went out and Chantry dropped to the wooden chair and stooped to pull off the rags of buckskin that hung from his feet. He got one off, and then he pitched over on the floor.
But only for a moment. Slowly, he pushed himself up … there was so much to do. He needed a horse. He had to catch up with the herd. He pulled off his buckskin coat and his shirt, both heavy with water. He took the rough towel and began to dry his head and his face and chest. He sat down again, unbuckled his belt and got out of the soaked pants, torn and ragged from his struggles against the brush and the rocks.
Sparrow came back bringing a bottle and a glass, “Get a jolt of this into you. I’m not much of a man for whiskey, but in your condition it’s what you need.”
Chantry took a gulp of the whiskey and felt the heat of it go all through him. He waited a moment, then took another.
“You get some sleep now,” Sparrow said.
“We can talk in the morning.”
“We’ll talk now,” Chantry said.
“Morning may be too late.” He took another gulp of the whiskey, a small one this time. “Somebody tried to kill me.” Briefly he told of Sarah and Paul, and the horse he had let loose.
“Do you know them?” Sparrow asked. “I don’t.”
“Strangers … but they knew me. They wanted me—I don’t know why.” He added, “They didn’t look or act like western people … from the border states, perhaps.”
Sparrow reached into his waistband. He took out a short-barreled .44. “Do you still have a prejudice against using one of these? They’ll trace that horse, and they’ll find you.”
“I just lost my prejudice,” Chantry replied shortly. “Give me the gun.”
“Keep it close by,” Sparrow said.
There was a rap on the door. The gambler named
Mobile and another man, somewhat
older, stood there.
“Come in,” Sparrow said. “Baker, this young man is a friend of mine. He’s going to need an outfit, from the skin out, and he’ll need it tonight. He’ll also need a pistol and a Winchester. Can you open up and get them for him?”
“For you? You’re damned right.” Baker turned away. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “From the look of him, what he needs is some hot soup … a lot of it.”
“I’ll get it,” Mobile said. “It’ll have some rain water in it by the time I get back, but it’ll be soup and it’ll be hot.”
Chantry pulled a blanket around him. The liquor and the warmth of the room were taking effect, but he was feeling very tired.
“Sparrow, why are you doing this for me?” he asked. “I thought you had no use for me.”
Sparrow smiled, and took a cigar from his pocket. “I didn’t,” he said, “but you’ve been moving and you’ve been making friends. I ran into Koch down in Las Vegas. He hates your guts, but he carries the marks to show why. That was part of it, and then everybody is talking about your deal with French.”
“You know about that?”
“Everybody does. That’s why I knew you’d
need an outfit. I’ll have a horse for you, too, the best one I can find.”
“Do you think French had me shot?”
“No, that doesn’t sound like him. He’d have it
done right out in the open where anybody could see it.
He’s got his own sense of honor about things. He’ll steal everything you own, and he’ll get you killed in a gun fight if he can, or by a bad hose or a steer, but I doubt he’d ever have a man dry-gulched. Of course, that’s just one man’s opinion.”
Mobile came in with the soup, and he stayed behind after Sparrow left. “You get some sleep,” he advised. “I’ll kind of set around and keep an eye on things.”
“You don’t even know me.”
Mobile shrugged. “I don’t have to. I
used to punch cows for Sparrow. I came up the trail with him from Texas, decided that was too rugged a life for a man, and settled down here to deal cards. Contrary to what you might figure, I don’t make much more than I would punchin’ cows, but I sleep in a bed at night and I don’t have to ride drag.”
Slowly, carefully, Tom Chantry stretched out on the bed and drew the covers over him. His muscles, stiffened by cold and weariness, slowly relaxed.
“Mobile?” His eyes opened. “Do you know a couple of people named Sarah and Paul?” He went on to describe them, and added, “They’ll be hunting that horse, but I’ve got an idea that horse came from town here, sold to them or rented. He sure wanted to come this way. He was a big bay, about sixteen hands, with three white stockings. It looked like a Pitchfork brand … I caught a glimpse as he ran off.”
“That’s Henry Hazelton’s. He’s got a ranch outside of town—deals in horses and mules. I’ve used that horse myself.” He took a step toward the door. “Now you get some sleep. I’ll ask around.”
The door closed, and there was silence in the room. For several minutes Chantry lay quiet, then he got out of bed and limped across the room and propped the chair under the knob. It was an inside room with no window. He closed his eyes. Nothing had ever felt so good as this bed, nothing ever would.
He slept … and outside, rain fell upon the town—a rain that drowned the sound of a horse’s hoofs splashing through the mud. It smothered the sound of footsteps of a man walking along the alley and trying the back door of the hotel, then entering.
It did not wipe out entirely the sight of a young woman walking across the street and mounting the outside steps of the building across the way.
Mobile, shuffling cards at his table, saw the girl dimly through the rain, saw her put a key in the lock and enter the door. Mobile Callahan trusted neither people nor the appearances of things. Of Tom Chantry he knew nothing beyond the fact that he was respected by Sparrow.
Two people had apparently tried to kill Chantry, one of them a girl, one a man. A girl had just mounted the stairs to the rooms and offices across the way, and it was unlikely that there would be two young women out in the rain on such a night. And where was the man?
This was the only hotel in town, and anyone looking for a homeless man would be likely to come to it. Anyone wishing to kill such a man would not be likely to come by the front door, for he would be seen and remembered.
Mobile made a neat stack of his cards and got to his feet. A glance told him the light in the back hallway was out, and he could smell the faint fumes left by a coal-oil lamp that has recently been blown out. Somebody wanted it dark, and Mobile Callahan was not going to walk along a dark hallway looking for a killer. His mother had raised no foolish children.
His own room was the first on the right side of the hall, Chantry’s next to the last on the left side. Mobile stretched and yawned noisily. “Looks like a chance to catch up on some sleep,” he said to the clerk. “I think I’ll turn in.”
He walked back to his room, ignoring the bit of dark hall that lay beyond the light from the lobby, and opened his door. He went in, closing the door, then promptly eased it open a fraction of an inch.
Standing in the darkness with a drawn gun, Mobile listened and heard a faint creak from down the hall, then another. Gently, he eased his door open a little more. By standing tight against the wall he could look along the door and down the passage. At first he could see nothing, and then he made out a darker shadow, and from it a hand that took hold of the knob on Chantry’s door and tried it, ever so carefully. Turned it, and pushed … nothing happened.