Now she was in trouble, in real trouble.
CHAPTER 26
VAL KNOTTED HIS tie before the mirror. It was time to leave. He should not be going to the game, but to that horse that Dube had for him. He should be riding out of here, for his every instinct told him he was heading for trouble.
His room was somehow different. Not that anything was disturbed, but there was a vague, troubling suspicion of perfume in the air, as though a woman had been here. It was the perfume his mother wore, but no, that could not have been.
He looked at himself. It was for the first time, it seemed, that he truly saw himself as he was. He was two inches over six feet, and he weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, though he looked less. His clothes were well tailored, his general appearance perfect. Even the pistol under his waistband made no bulge.
He knew what it was—he looked like Will Reilly.
He was as tall as Will, a little heavier, and perhaps broader and heavier in the shoulders. He looked like Will and he could do a lot worse, for Will had been a handsome man. And tonight, if all went well, he could pay Will’s debt to Pavel.
For it was Pavel, after all, who was to blame. Avery Simpson and Henry Sonnenberg were only tools. The man who had pointed the gun was Pavel.
Once free of that burden, he would marry Boston and they could make a life for themselves here in the West. But first there was Pavel.
Suddenly he was uneasy. He had that cold chill, that quick shudder that comes when, as the saying is, somebody has stepped on your grave.
He had the feeling that he was caught fast in a web, and the strings were drawing tighter and tighter. For an instant he felt panic, the desire to get away. He did not want to be killed, and he did not want to kill.
It was all very well to have faith in himself, and he had it. He knew he was good with a gun, but many men had died who were good with their guns. Billy was dead, and Hickok was dead…it could happen to anyone. There was no divine providence that would watch over him.
Yet while he was thinking these things, he was straightening his tie, buttoning his vest, and drawing it down…but not over his gun.
He checked the room one last time, then stepped out into the hall.
Before him, not fifty feet away along the passage walked a woman alone. He felt his mouth go dry…he knew that back, those shoulders, that carriage. He started to speak, then turned and went back. He unlocked his door, entered the room and rummaged among his things. He found the book where he kept it, at the bottom of his trunk. He had stored it there after he repacked his clothes in the trunk after his arrival in Denver.
Then he turned and went down to the lobby. It was early, but dinner time still. He walked into the dining room.
She sat across the room, her back toward him. He motioned to a waiter, handed him the book and a coin. “Take it to the lady,” he said.
He waited, his heart pounding. He saw her take the book, and he was walking toward her when she turned.
“Val!” She held out both her hands to him. She was a beautiful, a truly beautiful woman. “Val!” she said again. “Can it be!”
For a moment she looked at him. “Val, you have become quite a man. Will would have been proud of you.”
“I hope so.” He seated her, then rounded the table and sat down opposite her. “He loved you, you know. You were the only woman he ever loved.”
“Thank you, Val. I believe that. I always wanted to believe that. And I loved him…I still do, I think.”
“He was not a man it was easy to forget.”
“Val, how did he die? I heard it was a shooting of some sort.”
“You don’t know then?” Val hesitated, but this was no time to hesitate. “He was murdered, shot down in cold blood as he walked out of a door in a town not very far from here. There were three men…they were paid to do it.”
“Paid?” There was something like fear in her eyes.
“Paid through an American attorney, a cheap lawyer called Simpson…it wasn’t even his real name.”
“Who paid him, Val?”
“Who could it have been but Pavel? Avery Simpson confessed that. I am sorry, for your sake.”
“You needn’t be, Val. For a long time I felt sorry for him. He was always borrowing money from me, but his mother had been good to me, and I always liked her, and Pavel seemed harmless enough. When I began to see that he was using me, that he was interfering in my life…I tried to get rid of him, and for a few years I did.
“That was when he had money. He inherited a little, won some gambling, then lost it all. I had not seen him in a long time when he came to suggest this trip to America. I don’t know why I came. Maybe I was hoping just to see where Will had lived, what his country was like.”
Suddenly, she looked at him. “Val, you’re not going to—”
“In a way. He is gambling tonight, I think. I am going to play in the game. I play very well. I am going to bring up the question of Will Reilly.”
“Val! He will kill you—in those rages of his he is terrible!”
“I have a debt to pay. I must pay it the way Will would have done. I do not want to kill him, only to face him with it.”
“Don’t do it. Please.”
“One of the men who actually killed him is here in town, too.”
“You said there were three.”
“Two of them are dead…I killed them in gun battles. I did not really look for them. They came to me.”
He changed the subject deliberately. After a few moments, he got to his feet. “I will keep my Faust, if you do not mind. I have treasured it. You were very kind to a boy who was often lonely. I never saw much of women in those days, and it meant a lot to me.”
“I am glad.”
“Will is buried at Empire. It is a little town not far from here. When this is over I will take you there, if you wish.”
* * *
—
THE GAME HAD been in progress for at least an hour when Val arrived. Pavel was winning. He was flushed and excited, and he was pushing. Val watched the game for a few minutes. Stephen Bricker was one of the men, the only one except Pavel whom he knew.
Bricker nodded when he entered, and continued playing. After a while he looked up. “Would you like to sit in, Val? That is, if these gentlemen do not mind.”
Bricker introduced them. “Valentine Darrant—Jim Cope, Quentin Masters, Clyde Murray. I believe you know Prince Pavel.”
Val seated himself and received his cards. Cope glanced at him. “Darrant? Are you the man we’re looking for?”
Val smiled. “That’s a dangerous way to put it, out here, but I guess I am if you’re referring to the right-of-way business.”
They played, and did not talk then about the right-of-way. Val’s cards were nothing to speak of, but he passed or went along for the sake of staying in the game and seeing how the others played.
He lost fifty…a hundred…thirty…He won a little, lost a little more. Then bucking Pavel, he drew two pair and on a hunch stayed with it and added a third queen for a full house. He won sixty dollars, then won again.
“You have been doing all right,” he commented to Pavel. “You’re a lucky man.”
Pavel shrugged. “Sometimes.”
An hour later Pavel was sweating. His run of luck had failed him and he lost three hands running, at least two of them when he was obviously beaten.
Bricker had been losing, Masters had won a little. Murray cashed in and left the game. Cope was watching Val with some curiosity and a little puzzlement. He had become aware that Val was playing against Pavel, that it was only when Pavel was raising that Val pushed his luck.
Val was taking his time. He had played poker since he was a child, and he had been coached by a master, and had watched many games. Moreover, he knew that Pavel was a compulsive gambler as well as a
complete egotist.
He picked up his hand to find three nines. Pavel was staring at his hand, trying to compose himself. Pavel took one card, Cope threw in his hand, and Masters took two cards. Val hesitated, seemed uncertain, then asked for two cards. He drew a trey and a nine…four nines.
Pavel was raising, Masters stayed, and Val saw Pavel’s raise and boosted it five hundred dollars. Masters threw in his cards, Pavel saw the five hundred and raised another five.
“It’s been a long time, Pavel,” Val said, “but for old times’ sake I am going to raise you one thousand dollars…if you aren’t afraid.”
Pavel stared at him, his irritation obvious. “What do you mean…afraid?” He counted one thousand dollars from the stack before him and shoved it to the middle of the table.
Val glanced at him. “Aren’t you going to boost the price a little bit? You must have six or seven hundred on the table.”
Pavel stared at him. “All right, if you have money to lose.” He shoved the money to the middle of the table. When Pavel spread out his cards he had a full house—aces and kings.
Val took his time placing his four nines on the table; then he reached for the pot.
Pavel flushed as he watched the money drawn in and stacked. “I have had enough,” he said lurching to his feet.
Val remained where he was. “As I said a few minutes ago, it has been a long time.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t lose well,” Val said, “but you never did.” Val tucked a sheaf of bills into his inside coat pocket, and gathered the coins into a sack. “I think you had better get on the train and go back to New York, and from there back to Russia, and be glad you’re getting there alive.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Pavel said. “Are you trying to quarrel with me?”
“You aren’t a man with whom one quarrels,” Val replied. “You hire your killing done.”
Several other men had come into the room, and all were standing about, watching.
Pavel’s face had turned pale. “That’s a lie!”
“I could kill you for that,” Val said, “but I don’t intend to. I think you will suffer more from staying alive.”
He pushed back in his chair. “You gentlemen deserve an explanation,” he said. “The Prince here does not remember me. I was only a child then.” Coolly, in a quiet voice he told them the story. The attempted whipping, the escape over the mountains, the final murder of Will Reilly.
“Three men performed that killing, using shotguns on an unsuspecting man. I should kill him, but I decided that taking his money would cause him more grief.”
He stood up. “Gentlemen, I understand that you may wish to talk business with me. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for the new town of Durango. If you still wish to talk business, I can see you there.”
Deliberately they walked out, and no one looked back at Pavel. He stood there for several minutes, his face gray and sick-looking. Then he went out into the night and started for the hotel. Why had he been such a fool? He might have known he would lose, lose to that, that…
He stumbled once, then walked on. When he reached the hotel he went at once to his room. He had six dollars and a handful of rubles.
Myra was not in, and he went to Louise’s room. There was no one there, but a maid walking along the hall paused and said, “The lady that was in that room left about an hour ago. She said she was going to Empire or Georgetown or somewhere.”
Louise gone? He couldn’t believe it, but at the desk they confirmed what the maid had said.
There was nothing to do but wait for Myra. After a few minutes Masters entered and walked past him, ignoring him completely. Pavel swore, but he remained where he was.
He had to get out of this town. He had to get back east. He began to pace back and forth, then went outside. If only Myra…but suddenly he became uneasy. If Myra knew, if she even guessed, he would no longer have any bargaining position with her at all. The first moment he could get he had best cable for some cash…cable to whom? He owed everybody.
* * *
—
CHEYENNE DAWSON WAS sitting at his usual table when Henry Sonnenberg strode through the door. “Hi, Henry! Come an’ set!”
Sonnenberg strolled across the room and dropped down at the table. “Where’s the barkeep?”
“I let him off. Things’re slack today. Here”—Dawson pushed the bottle toward him—“this here’s better’n bar whiskey.”
When Sonnenberg had filled a glass, Dawson spoke up. “Hank, I been keepin’ an ear to the ground. There’s more goin’ on around here than a body would figure. Me, I got me an idee how we can make some money.”
“I got a job.”
“Now, see here. You been gettin’ work through me. Don’t you figure you should ought to split with me?”
Sonnenberg chuckled, without humor. “Now that would be somethin’, wouldn’t it? No, I got me two jobs, Cheyenne—one of them right here in town, the other one in Durango.”
He paused for a drink. “Cheyenne, this here’s a job I’m going to like. I’m going after Val Darrant.”
Dawson sat up slowly. Val Darrant was living at the same hotel as Myra Fossett, and he was the one they said owned all that property.
“Ain’t he the one who got Hardesty?”
“Uh-huh…and Pike, later. I never figured that kid would get old Thursty.”
Cheyenne was drawing wet circles on the table top with his glass. He was scarcely listening to what Henry was saying. “You know,” he said, “there’s money in this. Not just a few dollars…there’s real money in it, but we got to act fast.”
“I told you I got a job. I got one right here in town.”
“In town?” Cheyenne looked at him. “Who is it, Hank?”
Henry Sonnenberg wiped his mustache. He smiled suddenly, his small eyes almost closing.
“It was this woman,” he said. “She gave me five thousand for Darrant’s scalp, and a thousand for the other job.”
“Who is it? You can tell me, Henry.”
Henry grinned at him. “Sure I can, Cheyenne. It’s you.”
Cheyenne Dawson stared at Sonnenberg, not grasping what he had said. Then slowly the idea got through to him, but even then it was not real. It could not happen to him, not to Cheyenne Dawson.
“You got to be joking,” he said. “That ain’t funny.”
“This woman, she gave me a thousand for you. I never figured to make that much so easy, but she wants you done in, Cheyenne, and tonight. So I taken the money.”
“Why, that don’t make sense. Look at all the money we made together.”
“After I done the work,” Sonnenberg said. “No, she paid me for the job. That Val, he might be good with a gun. He might give me trouble, but not you. Seems you’ve been getting nosey in the wrong places, Cheyenne. You’ve been askin’ questions.”
“Look, Henry, this is real money. You forget this deal and work with me. You’ll make twice as much—”
The gun sound was muffled by the table, but it still seemed loud. Cheyenne felt the blow in his stomach, and he tried to cling to the table as he slid off his chair and fell to the floor.
For a moment he was there on his knees, his fingers on the edge of the table as he stared across at Henry, who picked up the bottle, took a long drink, and got to his feet. Cheyenne slid down from the table and sprawled on the floor.
Henry Sonnenberg nudged him with his foot, then taking the bottle with him, he went out the back door into the alley, through the stable, and out on the street on the other side where his horse waited.
Within twenty minutes he was out of town and riding west.
CHAPTER 27
NOBODY SLEPT IN Durango unless lulled to sleep by the sound of pistol shots. The town was not quite two years old and was still celebratin
g. The grand opening of the West End Hotel had to be postponed when it was badly shot up by the Stockton-Simmons bands of outlaws and gunmen.
The Stockton gang, from the Durango area, had a going feud with the Simmons outfit of Farmington, down in New Mexico. The West End Hotel happened to be caught in the middle.
Some of the pistol shots in Durango were fired in sheer exuberance of spirits, others were fired with intent to kill, and a good many of them were fired erratically, and often as not it was the bystanders who suffered.
Val Darrant rode into town, coming up the trail from Pagosa Springs. Purposely he had chosen the longest and less traveled route from Denver, for he had a hunch that somewhere along the way he was supposed to be met by Henry Sonnenberg, or somebody like him.
Dube caught up with him thirty miles out, and Boston, not to be left out, had taken the stage.
Animas City had been the town of the locality until the railroad came…but did not come to Animas; so the bulk of the population promptly packed up bag and baggage and moved to Durango, two miles or so to the south. Animas City had been alive for twenty years, and it died in the space of a day.
Val Darrant was riding a line-back dun when he came into Durango, Dube Bucklin beside him on a dapple gray. They rode to the livery stable and left their horses, and packing their Winchesters they walked along the street to the West End Hotel.
Boston met them in the door. “Val, there’s a man here named Cates. He knows you, and has a box for you.”
“Thanks.” He paused before the hotel, sweeping the street with sharp attention. He saw nobody with the bulky body of a Sonnenberg.
He did not know the men who had been reported to be traveling with Sonnenberg, except by name. The half-breed Pagosa, Marcus Kiley, and Tom…he might know Tom.
He would surely know him. Tall, lank, ill-smelling because he rarely bathed, a strange, mentally disturbed man. As Will had said so long ago, nobody ever knew about Tom…and it was something to remember.
Reilly's Luck (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 24