Clint Adams the Gunsmith 15

by JR Roberts

  “What do you know about the senator?”

  “Not much,” Gates said. “He seemed to come on the scene pretty late, but he’s now in his second term, and there’s some talk of him running for president at some point.”

  “How old is he?” Clint asked.

  “I think he’s in his sixties,” Gates said. “About my age. Why the questions about the senator?” He leaned forward. “Is there a story in this for me?”

  “There might be,” Clint said, “but I can’t discuss it now.”

  Gates sat back.

  “Why’s the Gunsmith interested in politics?” he asked. “And where does this lovely young lady come in?”

  “I can’t say,” Clint answered.

  The waiter came over with three beers and three roast beef sandwiches on soft bread. Gates ignored his. Molly bit into hers and nodded her head. So far the food she’d had in San Francisco had been pretty good.

  “You don’t know anything about Winston’s past before he became a senator?”

  “He was born in Georgia, served in some office there before going to Washington,” Gates said. “There was a statement released when he first ran for office but there wasn’t much on it. He’s pretty much a mystery man.”

  “And Washington, and the press, accept that?”

  Gates shrugged.

  “He hasn’t done any harm since he’s been in office,” Gates said.

  “Has he done any good?” Molly asked.

  Gates looked at her and grinned.

  “You know – that’s a very good question.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They ate their lunch and then accompanied Gates back to the offices of the Examiner. When they got there, Gates went into his file cabinet to see what he could find on Senator Winston.

  “Nope, not much,” Gates said. “Even the statements his people released are sketchy.”

  “How does a man get into public office and keep his past a secret?” Clint asked.

  Gates closed his file cabinet drawer and turned to face Clint.

  “Why are you so interested in his past?” he asked. “What do you think is there?”

  “I can’t say right now,” Clint answered.

  “You can’t say much,” Gates said. “You’re bein’ as secretive as the senator.”

  Clint didn’t respond.

  “What will I find out about you from Duke?” Gates asked.

  “Not much, but go ahead and ask,” Clint said.

  “I think I will.” Gates looked at Molly. “And who do I ask about you, young lady?”

  “Ask Clint,” she suggested.

  “Won’t be much forthcoming from there, I’m afraid,” Gates said.

  “Then I guess you’ll just have to wait,” Clint said.

  “If there’s a story, will you give it to me?” Gates asked.

  “If there’s a story that needs to be told,” Clint said, “I’ll give it to you.”

  “And an interview.”

  “I don’t do interviews, Mr. Gates.”

  “I know,” Gates said. “That’s why gettin’ one would be so exciting.”

  “I’ m sorry—”

  “Well, maybe if I can come up with somethin’ for you, you’ll reconsider.”

  “Maybe,” Clint said. “No promises.”

  “I’m not askin’ for promises,” Gates said. “Just say there’s a chance.”

  “Okay, Larry,” Clint said, “there’s a chance ...”

  “But not much of one,” Clint said when he and Molly got outside.

  “Why don’t you like interviews?” she asked.

  “Because newspaper people tend to write whatever they want.”

  “Newspaper people?”

  He nodded.

  “Men or women, it doesn’t really matter much.”

  “So what do we do now?” she asked.

  “Head back to the hotel, see if I got any telegrams,” Clint said.

  After they’d walked awhile, Molly asked, “Will you really give Gates the story – if there is a story?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “He wasn’t very helpful, was he?”

  “Maybe he’ll come up with something, though,” she said.

  “Maybe he will,” Clint said. “I guess I’ll decide if and when that happens.”

  As soon as they walked in the hotel door, the clerk started waving at Clint.

  “You got two telegrams, Mr. Adams,” he said, handing them over.

  “Thanks.”

  “I knocked on your door,” the clerk went on. “Tried to get them to you earlier, but you wasn’t there.”

  “I appreciate it,” Clint said, and handed the clerk a dollar, making him very happy.

  “What do they say?” Molly asked.

  “Come on,” he said, “we’ll read them upstairs.”

  They had spent the night in Room 6, so when they went up, Clint let them into Room 7. Once inside, he opened the telegrams and read them.

  “You look disappointed,” she said.

  “These are two of the men I trust the most to get me information,” he said, speaking of Rick Hartman and Talbot Roper.

  “And?”

  “They both came up with the same thing as Gates,” he said. “Which is to say, not much. Senator Harlan Winston is still a mystery man.”

  “I guess we should have asked some questions about him while we were still in Georgia,” she said.

  “And I would have,” Clint said, “if Colonel Tate had told me he was from Georgia. And if Tate hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry to get me out here to San Francisco.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Clint had depended on either Rick or Roper to get him some information. He was disappointed. That only left Dorence Atwater to get information from.

  He and Molly went back to the offices of The Reporter and found Atwater sitting at his desk. Clint was surprised that the man did not look like he had been drinking the day before.

  “Good afternoon, you two,” Atwater said. “Sorry about yesterday. Guess I drank a little too much at lunch. Thanks for getting me home.”

  “That’s okay,” Clint said. “No harm. Mind if we sit?”

  “Are we going to talk about … the same things as yesterday?” Atwater asked.

  “I’d like to—”

  “Well, we can’t do that here then,” Atwater said, standing. “If I get fired from this job, I won’t get another one with a newspaper. This is my last job in journalism.”

  He rushed past them to the stairway and they had to hurry to catch up to him by the time they got to the main floor.

  “Where are we going?” Clint asked.

  “Dinner” Atwater said.

  “Look, Dorence—”

  “Not the same kind of dinner as yesterday,” Atwater promised, “although that was lunch, not dinner. No, I’m not going to drink myself into a coma today, Clint. I’m taking us someplace where we can talk. I mean, really talk.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, looking at Molly. “Lead the way.”

  It seemed to Clint he was spending all of his time in restaurants, either with Atwater or Gates. Was that all that the newspapermen in San Francisco did—eat and drink?

  Atwater took them to a restaurant that was surprisingly nicer than the one they’d gone to the day before. At the door he found out why.

  “Dinner’s on you, right?” Atwater asked. “I haven’t been able to afford this place in a long time.”

  “It’s on me,” Clint said.

  They went inside.

  Atwater ate as if he hadn’t eaten in months.

  “I would have bought you something to eat yesterday,” Clint pointed out.

  “Yesterday I needed whiskey,” Atwater said. “Today I need food.”

  “Do you ever need both on the same day?” Molly asked. “Or neither?”

  “Sure,” Atwater said, “but lately I’ve had more days when I need food.”

  “Why?” Molly asked.

  �
�Because I have to keep my strength up,” he said. “When the time comes, I have to be strong enough to do what must be done.”

  “And what is that?” Molly asked. “What must be done?”

  “I have to kill Henry Wirz,” Atwater said. “See, if I had been able to keep up my strength in Andersonville, I might have been able to do it then.”

  “You never would have been able to do it then, Dorence.” Clint said.

  Around a huge mouthful of food Atwater asked, “Why not?”

  “Because no amount of food or water would have given you courage,” Clint said. “And no amount of food or whiskey will give you courage this time.”

  Atwater stopped chewing. Suddenly, he leaned forward and spit the food back into the plate, then pushed the plate away.

  “I need whiskey,” he said.

  “Later,” Clint said. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Senator Winston.”

  “You mean Henry Wirz.”

  “I mean Harlan Winston,” Clint said. “Have you done any research into his background?”

  “It’s enough for me that he claims to be from Georgia,” Atwater said. “Don’t you see. Henry Wirz died in Georgia, and Harlan Winston was born. Don’t you see, Clint?”

  “No, I don’t see, Dorence,” Clint said. “I need more proof.”

  “You’ll have all the proof you need,” Atwater said. “All you have to do is wait here until he arrives. When you see him, you’ll know him, Clint.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They went from the restaurant to a nearby saloon and stood at the bar. Apparently, it had gone from being a food day to a whiskey day for Dorence Atwater.

  While Atwater drank, Molly asked Clint, “Are we just going to let him get drunk again?”

  “Well,” Clint said, “he made a good point.”

  “What point?”

  “When I see Harlan Winston,” he said, “I’ll know if he’s Henry Wirz.”

  “And then what?” she asked. “He’ll still be a U.S. senator.”

  “If Winston is Wirz,” Clint said, “then somebody helped him escape execution and change his name. And somebody helped him become a senator. I’d like to know who, and why. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I never heard of Henry Wirz until all of this,” she said. “I really don’t care if Wirz is Winston, or if Winston is Wirz. I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “That’s because you weren’t there,” Clint said. “And you’re too young to remember.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  They looked at Atwater, who was tossing back another whiskey.

  “I can’t believe he’d be able to kill anyone, Wirz or otherwise,” Clint said.

  “So you don’t think he’s a danger to the senator?” Molly said.

  “Not in this condition,” Clint said.

  “Drunk?”

  “No,” Clint said, “I’m pretty sure he’s still a coward, and no amount of whiskey is going to change that.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked “Maybe a small one.”

  In a corner of the saloon three men sat and watched as Atwater drank.

  “You think he’s tol’ them about us?” Angus Edwards asked.

  “I don’t think the newspaperman has been in shape to tell them much of anything,” Ted Bellows said.

  “That’s Clint Adams, though,” Jake Fester said. “He was at Camp Sumter with us.”

  “That may be,” Bellows said, “but he was a Regulator and we was Raiders. He never did see us.”

  “But he busted us up,” Edwards said.

  “Yeah, but we wasn’t among the ones who got tried and convicted, was we?” Bellows asked. “No, they was happy with the few they caught.”

  “And with Parker,” Fester reminded them. “Don’t forget Parker.”

  “How could I forget Frank Parker?” Bellows said. “After all, he was our leader, right?”

  “So what’re we gonna do now?” Fester asked. “If Adams keeps at Atwater, he’ll talk eventually.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bellows said. “Atwater ain’t no different here than he was at Camp Sumter. He’s a coward. He’d be too afraid to tell Adams that he joined up with us.”

  “I thought we joined up with him because he recognized Wirz,” Fester said.

  “Never mind who joined who,” Bellows said. “Atwater recognized Wirz, that’s all we need to know. It don’t matter if we was Raiders or Regulators. We all hated the Johnny Rebs, and we hated Wirz more than all the others.”

  “I can’t wait to kill ‘im,” Edwards said.

  “Let’s keep an eye on Atwater,” Bellows said, “and keep an eye on Adams and the girl. It’s less than a week ‘til the senator gets here. By that time maybe Adams will join up with us. After all, he hated Henry Wirz just as much as we did.”

  “He made a deal with Wirz, remember?” Edwards asked. “Got extra rations.”

  “For him and his Regulators,” Bellows said. “It ain’t like he was a traitor or nothin’.”

  Fester’s face was all scrunched up as he tried to think it out.

  “How do we keep an eye on all of them at the same time?” he finally asked, giving up on trying to figure it out. “We separate, you idiot,” Bellows said. “We split up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Clint and Molly dropped Dorence Atwater into his bed again.

  “I hope we don’t have to do this every night,” she said.

  “We won’t,” Clint said, “because we won’t be seeing him every night.”

  As they walked back down the stairs, Molly said, “I wonder how he keeps from being fired?”

  “Who knows?” Clint asked. “Maybe he was a decent newspaperman before he got obsessed with Senator Harlan Winston being Henry Wirz.”

  “That’s not the way it sounded to me,” she said, “him saying this was his last job. Sounds like he’s pretty much been messing up his whole life.”

  “Or at least,” Clint said, “since he got out of Andersonville.”

  “What about the rest of you?” she asked.

  “What about us?”

  “Why haven’t you messed up your life?”

  “Who says I haven’t?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I came out of Andersonville angry,” he said. “I started looking for a fight wherever I went. Much of my reputation was gained in the few years after the war. Even Lincoln’s death fueled my anger.”

  “No,” she said, “everything I’ve heard from Jim West, and what I’ve seen since I met you, tells me you haven’t messed up your life.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “many others have.”

  “What about Tate?”

  “I can’t speak for Tate,” Clint said, “but he is a colonel.”

  They were on the street now, walking side by side. She put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “You’ve been trying to check up on Senator Winston,” she said.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Why not check up on the colonel?”

  He frowned at her, but the frown was meant for himself. “I should have thought of that,” he said. “It’s a good idea.”

  “So? More telegrams?”

  He nodded.

  “More telegrams.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They went to the same telegraph office as before and Clint sent two telegrams. The clerk was instructed to send any replies to the Bucket of Blood.

  “To the same two people?” she asked afterward.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you were disappointed in them.”

  “I was disappointed in what they found out,” he said. “Actually, there is a third telegram I wish I could send.”

  “To who?”

  “Jim West.”

  “Maybe I can help there,” she said, turning around. “Let’s go back inside.”

  “You know where he is?”
>
  “I know a few telegraph drops around the country,” she said. “All we have to do is send the same telegram to each one. At some point, he’ll pick one up.”

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it, then.”

  They went back to their hotel, nodded to the clerk on the way in. He looked away.

  “Stop,” Clint said at the top of the stairs.

  “What is it?”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “The clerk didn’t look at us,” Clint said. “In fact, he looked away.”

  “He’s always looking for an extra dollar.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Somebody’s in our room?”

  “Somebody’s in one of our rooms,” he said.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with the men following us?”

  “You saw them?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “They’re not very good.”

  “We can deal with them later,” he said. “This one is in our room, which makes him more of a concern.”

  “Could be the same one who was in my house,” she commented.

  “Let’s find out.”

  They started down the hall. Molly drew her gun. Clint left his in his holster, but he was ready to produce it if the need arose.

  “Which room?” she asked.

  Rooms 6 and 7 were across from each other. He looked at both doors in turn.

  “Both,” he said. “You take six, I’ll take seven. On my mark.”

  She stood by the door of Room 6. He drew his gun and stood by the door of Room 7. They both listened, then shook their heads. She watched him, and when he nodded, they each opened the door.

  The rooms were empty, but had obviously been gone through. The contents of Clint’s saddlebags were on the bed and the floor. Extra shirt, extra gun, a book he was reading.

  “This reminds me,” she said.

  “What?”

  “We have to do some shopping,” she said. “We’ve been walking around in the same clothes for days.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Before they went shopping for clothes, Clint decided they should have a talk with the clerk. When they went back downstairs, he wasn’t behind the desk.