There was silence. Then a voice said, “You just bed ’em down, Mister. We’ll be quiet. Thank you for warning us. There isn’t a man here who would use profanity in front of a lady!” Then more quietly, he said, “Now you boys shut up!”
There was a long silence, and then a voice said, “All right, Joe! We heard you! And we heard the gent who’s with the ladies, so we’ll shut up. But tomorrow morning when we see you in the street, you sure won’t be no lady, and you’ll get a cussin’!”
At three o’clock in the morning the town was dark and still. The man who dismounted at the corner of the hotel, tied his horse there, out of sight. He waited for a moment, listening, then came up on the boardwalk. He peered into the hotel.
A light glowed over the desk, but nobody was in sight. Slipping off his boots he pushed a rawhide thong through two of the loops and slung them around his neck. Then he eased into the door.
Frank had made up his mind. The whole shooting match of a thing had gone down the drain. It was all over, but the one thing left to do. He was going to kill Mac Traven.
The lobby was empty but for some old newspapers scattered over a table and some chairs. A door was open behind the desk, and there was a bell on the desk to ring for the clerk, which would have been a futility, for all the rooms were gone.
Walking in his sock feet Frank went into the sleeping area, pausing suddenly, confused by all the ghostly white partitions. After the first moment, however, he realized it made his task the easier, for he could see through the cotton hangings. Although there was no light, there was a full moon outside, and Mac Traven’s handle-bar mustache was like no other.
A gun or a knife?
A knife if possible. If not, a gun. In the confusion he could easily escape.
He was a burly, strongly built man, but he moved like a cat. That was Traven, right there at the end of the room, right where it would be easiest. Next to him two women were sleeping on low cots.
Those damn Travens! He never had liked them, seeing them around, riding their horses so big and brave! They’d never even known him, although before he joined up with Ashford he’d led a guerilla outfit that raided into Texas. Not that he led them. Guided was more what he’d done, although he could have led them, and better than he who did it.
He’d helped steal most of their horses and some of their cattle. He’d stolen Ranch Baby, the one they prized so much. He’d done it a-purpose, and it was Ranch Baby who was tied out there around the corner, waiting to carry him away after he killed Mac Traven.
He felt along the curtain, trying to find the opening that would let him through. He found the wrong one at first and stepped into the room where Dulcie slept in one bed and Mrs. Atherton in another. He stepped in ever so gently, but a board creaked and she opened her eyes. The moment they opened she was wide awake. She saw the man, saw that he clutched both a gun and a knife, but she had her Deringer.
Her eyes were on him, her hand moving ever so gently out from under the blanket. She held the gun out of sight below the edge of the bed, her thumb on the hammer.
The prowler was fumbling with the curtain. He was going into the compartment where Mac Traven lay. It was he whom the prowler intended to kill.
“Major Traven! Look out!”
The man turned like a cat, turned toward her, and she fired. The man jumped, then ran blindly at the curtain, hesitated there, torn between his desire to kill and the need to escape. Suddenly with a curse he tore down the curtain and ran for the door.
The cry awakened Mac and he came out of his bed, gun in hand. He saw the prowler and raced after him. The startled clerk lunged from his room in time to see a heavy-set man plunge through the outer door into the street.
Mac sprang after him, and the man turned sharply around, gun in hand. “Damn you, Traven!” The gun came up, and Mac Traven turned sharply, his right side to the man, and they both fired.
Mac saw the man shudder as he took the bullet; then he fired again.
Gun ready, he walked toward the man. He was on his knees now. It was the man called Frank. The man he had first seen in the streets of this very town. One of Ashford’s men.
He was on his knees, his features twisted with hatred. “Damn you!” he muttered. “You’ve got all the luck! If it hadn’t been for that woman … !” Mac Traven waited, holding his gun ready. The man was on his knees. He started to get up, then fell head-long. He lay sprawled on the board-walk, his fingers slowly relaxing his grip on the gun.
Lights were going on all over town. People would be asking questions, wondering, wishing these strangers would go away who had brought violence into their town. There hadn’t been so much trouble around the country since the plague, and that was years ago.
Mac went back inside, glanced at the torn curtain, then looked over at Mrs. Atherton. “Thanks, ma’am,” he said softly.