Mobile heard a muffled curse, then the man put a shoulder to the door and lunged against it, but it did not give. Chantry had put a chair under the knob and braced the door.
What happened next was completely unexpected, and ready as Mobile was for almost anything, he was not ready for this.
The man stepped back, drew his gun, and suddenly opened fire.
He held his gun low and Mobile saw the stab of flame in the darkness even as he heard the thunder of the gun in the narrow hall.
Caught flat-footed, it was an instant before he could react, an instant in which the unknown gunman got off at least two shots.
Leaping into the hall, Mobile fired. The gunman wheeled, fired one quick shot at him, and fled. Mobile fired again as the man went through the door.
Doors burst open, the clerk came running. Sparrow, gun in hand, appeared in a door in his long-johns. Mobile ran to him. “He tried to kill him,” he said to Sparrow.
I’ll light up.”
He scarcely noticed the warmth of the lamp chimney as he removed it and applied a match to the wick of the hall lamp.
A dozen men were gathered outside Chantry’s door, while Sparrow hammered on it.
“Chantry? Are you all right?” he called.
The wall near the door was of one-inch pine boards, and it held three bullet holes. A .44 could penetrate several inches of pine, and the bullets had been fired to strike a man lying on the bed.
For a moment there was no sound inside the room; then a chair scraped on the floor and the door opened. Tom Chantry looked out.
“Are you all right?” Sparrow asked again. As Chantry stepped back, Sparrow entered, followed by Mobile.
“I’m all right. I was lying on my back. If I’d been on my side he’d have gotten me.”
Mobile glanced at the bullet holes, then at the wall opposite. In the light from the bedroom lamp he pointed out a bullet buried in a washstand, another that had gone through the wall on the opposite side of the room.
When the others had left, Mobile told about the girl he had seen climbing the steps across the street.
“That’s Webb Taylor’s office,” Sparrow said. “He’s an attorney, but so far as I know he’s out of town.”
After the two men had gone Chantry stretched out once more on the bed. They would not try again—not right away. Hands clasped behind his head, he tried to put things together to make sense.
Out there in the woods the girl had said, “I want French to have those cattle. Then there’ll be just one man.”
One man? For what? And why did she want French to have the cattle?
He thought and thought, but found no answers, and presently he fell asleep.
Across the street, in the upstairs office, Sarah looked at Paul with disgust. “You fool! Now everybody will know somebody is trying to kill him.”
“They’ll believe it was French, or that other man we heard about … Koch.”
She was silent for a few minutes, and then she said, “We’ve got to stay out of sight, Paul. So you leave town. Now.”
“In this rain?”
“They’ve seen you, Paul. They caught a
glimpse of you, anyway. Go up the trail of the cattle. You can be sure Chantry will be coming along, and you can kill him then. But this time don’t make a mess of it. Take your time and be sure you get him. Ten thousand dollars may not be all the money in the world, but it is all we’re likely to have.”
Paul went to the door and peered out. The night was veiled with rain.
“All right,” he agreed reluctantly, “I know where there’s a shack up the line. I’ll stop there.” He paused for a moment. “What about you?”
“They know nothing about me. I am just here visiting Webb Taylor and getting some legal advice. You go ahead—and be careful that nobody sees you.”
Paul opened the door quickly and went down the stairs, turning at the foot of the steps to walk back to the barn where he had left his horse.
At the back of the building next door and some thirty yards away there were several old boxes and barrels. Crouching among them, and sheltered from the rain, Mobile Callahan, gambler, cowhand, and drifter, watched him go, and looking through the open door of the barn, he saw him lead his horse to the door.
Paul was a slender man about five feet ten, weighing perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds, give or take a few. He wore two belt guns and there was a rifle in the scabbard on his saddle. This horse, too, was from Hazelton’s place.
Mobile watched him go, and when he heard the hoofbeats die out, he studied the rooms in the building opposite. There was a lamp lighted now, and occasionally somebody moved back and forth between the light and the window.
After a few minutes he got up and walked back to the hotel. Sparrow was waiting in the lobby.
Mobile told him what he had seen, and Sparrow considered it. Taking two cigars from his pocket, he offered Mobile one of them, then bit the end from the other.
“Mobile,” he said slowly,
“I’ve heard it said around the cow camps that you’re a good man with a gun.”
“That’s a reputation I never hunted, Mr.
Sparrow, and it’s one I don’t want.”
“I understand that. I don’t want just a gun.
I want a man with judgment, and you always had that. I want you to ride up the trail and see that Chantry stays alive.”
“He’s already got one man. He’s got Bone McCarthy working for him.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw Bone a while back. He was
askin’ questions around. I just put two and two together.”
“Just the same, I want you to help Chantry get through. I’ll pay you two hundred and fifty dollars to stay with him to the railhead.”
Mobile drew on his cigar, and looked at Sparrow. He had known Sparrow for going on eight years, and had never known the man to make a foolish or an unnecessary move. “What’s your stake in this?” he asked. “Two hundred and fifty dollars—that’s seven, eight months’ wages for a top hand.”
“I have my reasons.” Sparrow got to his feet. “You do that, Mobile. I don’t want you to get yourself killed, just be around a little while. I think Tom Chantry is riding into more trouble than he can handle. He’s a good man. Maybe as good a man as his father was. I want to see him have his chance.”
After Sparrow had gone to his room Mobile sat alone in the lobby, drawing on his cigar. Presently he crossed to his table, picked up the deck, and began to deal the cards. He always thought better when he was handling cards.
He shuffled the deck and dealt a hand, then turned them over and looked at them.
Aces and eights … black aces and eights. The dead man’s hand.
Who was to die? Was it him? Was it Chantry?
Who?
Chapter 11
Tom Chantry opened his eyes and lay still. Slowly it came back to him. The shot out of nowhere, the missing horse, knife, and boots, his struggle to make it through the rain, and then the discovery by the two who intended to kill him … why, he didn’t know.
He turned his head toward the door. The chair was propped under the knob.
Throwing back the covers, he swung his feet to the floor, but when he tried to stand the pain brought cold sweat to his forehead. Dropping to his knees, he crawled to the door and removed the chair.
When he eased the door open he found several packages wrapped in brown paper. He brought them into the room, and opened them on the bed. A dark red wool shirt, a black handkerchief for his neck, a pair of black jeans, and a wide belt. A couple of suits of underwear, another shirt, socks, and boots. There was also a gun belt and a holster containing a .44 Smith and Wesson, as well as several boxes of cartridges. There was a black, flat-brimmed hat and a fringed buckskin jacket, obviously Indian-made.
The man named Mobile had brought him some salve and bandages the night before and Chantry treated his feet now with the salve, bandaged them, and slipped on the socks.
The day clerk came down the hallway and rapped on the door. Chantry opened it, his right hand holding the pistol.
“No need for that,” the clerk said. “I brought you this Winchester. Mr. Sparrow’s up and havin’ breakfast if you’d care to join him.”
“Is Mobile around?”
“Him? He’s around somewheres. He’s the kind you