“The answer to your next question is no.”
“And which question might that be?”
“Whether or not I’m going to look in on Bethany tonight,” Aldus said.
Hayes glanced toward the distant houses. “We’ll have plenty of time. Even if I get the proper permission to set up or if I learn we don’t need permission to use this spot, we won’t put the gallery together until tomorrow.”
“I can wait.”
The salesman placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “We’ve all been nervous about approaching someone special, but we can never become too wrapped up in how we might fail. Instead, we must forge ahead.”
Slowly, Aldus turned to look the other man in the eye. “You done?” he grunted.
“Mostly.”
“I ain’t some nervous kid. I used to wade through blood, plenty of it my own, in bare-knuckle fights. You think I’ve got my knickers in a twist about this?”
“Well . . . it is quite a big thing.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to run up to that house, pound on the front door, and invite myself in for supper. I’ll go tomorrow. That’s why I’m here, after all. I’ve still got a face full of trail dirt and greasy whiskers. Shouldn’t I put my best foot forward?”
“Yes,” Hayes admitted. “That would be wise. Why don’t I just go see who I need to talk to about using this patch of land while you put up the horses?”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Aldus was never really sure where Hayes went when they arrived in a town. Part of that was because Aldus had so many of his own duties to perform that he didn’t bother with what the salesman was doing. Another part was that he was simply content to let the other man do his job. Hayes had explained it to him once about how certain fees might need to get paid in order for them to set the gallery up on certain plots of land. Other times a landowner was cut in on a percentage of Hayes’s profits while they were in town. Every so often, no fees needed to be paid at all. Aldus never had much of a nose for finances and he’d never wanted one. All he concerned himself with was having enough money to put food in his belly, a roof over his head, and the occasional swig of whiskey down his throat. Everything else was gravy.
He unhitched the horses from the wagons, led them back into town, and found stalls for them in the livery on Third Street. There were two hotels on Garver Street, one north and one south of Third. Aldus liked the looks of the southern one simply because it was farther from the saloon district and therefore a bit quieter. He did run into one problem, however.
“I’ll have to ask for one night’s payment in advance,” said the tall fellow behind the hotel’s front desk. He wore black pants, a wrinkled vest, and a crooked smile. Stringy hair grew at awkward intervals from his scalp, making it look as if he wore a poorly made wig.
The moment he reached into his pocket, Aldus realized he’d made a crucial mistake. Instead of bargaining for a smaller down payment at the livery, he’d paid up front. After the robbery in Cedar Rapids and the lack of payment in Seedley, the traveling fund was paltry to say the least.
“Is there any way I can pay you tomorrow?” Aldus asked.
“Afraid not, sir. It’s our policy to have partial payment up front.”
Aldus wasn’t nearly as good at smiling as Hayes, but he gave it a try, anyway. Judging by the look on the clerk’s face, the cracked and missing teeth in Aldus’s mouth made his grin as ugly as he’d feared. “Any chance you could overlook that policy just once?”
It was plain to see the clerk was about to flatly refuse that request, but he was suddenly distracted by some commotion from upstairs. At first, it sounded as though someone might have tripped. There was a heavy thump overhead, followed by several loud scrapes. Those were followed by a muffled curse that was still loud enough to be heard by almost anyone within the hotel. What caught Aldus’s attention even more was the woman’s voice that followed. She laughed and then let out something that was a cross between a yelp and a moan.
The clerk sighed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“I . . . didn’t know this was a hotel that provided them kind of services.”
“Services?”
“Yeah,” Aldus replied. “You know. Girls and all.”
The clerk nearly jumped out of his skin in his haste to say, “We most certainly do not provide those services.”
“Oh. Well, I was hoping that this place would be quieter. Maybe I should look in one of the hotels down the street.”
Just when Aldus had become convinced the two people upstairs were engaged in their own little party, he heard another thump. When the woman’s voice came again, it wasn’t laughing and it wasn’t anything close to a passionate moan.
“Was that a scream?” Aldus asked.
Now the clerk seemed nervous. “It’s room eleven,” he said. “Normally I run a clean house that is very peaceful, but he’s been getting drunk the last few nights.”
“Maybe you should do something about it.”
“I will, sir. I assure you.”
Every instinct that Aldus had sharpened on the docks of New York was finely tuned to pick up on fear. Sniffing out when another man was afraid was crucial for survival in a fight, and the man in front of him right now reeked of it.
“Who’s the woman up there with him?” Aldus asked. “His wife?”
There was another thump and crash as something upstairs was thrown against a wall or door to shatter on impact.
“Not his wife,” the clerk sighed. “He’s not married. Most likely . . . he brought a woman to his room, although it is expressly forbidden.”
Knowing the tall man wasn’t about to lift a finger to stop whatever was going on upstairs, Aldus growled, “Yeah, well, someone ought to go up there and remind him of that.”
Without checking on what the clerk was doing, Aldus walked over to the staircase and climbed to the second of three floors. At the landing, he stopped and waited. Room number eleven was just down the hall. When the next thump came, Aldus could see that door shaking in its frame. He was halfway down the hall when a man’s muffled voice could be heard. Aldus approached the door and pounded his fist against it.
Inside, the man launched into an obscene rant. Now that he was closer, Aldus could hear the woman inside sobbing.
“What’s goin’ on in there?” Aldus shouted.
Nobody inside responded. The door to room number eight opened a crack, and when Aldus looked over there, it was quickly shut again.
Turning his full attention to number eleven, Aldus placed his shoulder against the door and shoved. The door was sturdy, but Aldus was able to force it open with one more shove.
He stumbled inside, keeping hold of the handle so the door didn’t swing all the way inside. It was stopped by a body just inside the room. Directly in front of him stood a man with a solid build, wide shoulders, and thick arms protruding from rolled-up sleeves. A large mouth hung agape beneath a small mustache that formed a straight line on his upper lip. Both fists were tightly balled and sweat rolled down his face. The front of his pants was open, held up, thanks to the suspenders attached to them. “Who the hell are you?” the man grunted.
Aldus eased the door back to get a look behind it. There, on the floor, a woman was curled into a defensive ball. Her dark red hair was a tangled mess, and every part of her was trembling. She looked up at him with one blackened eye, her mouth bloody, and stretched out a hand to shield herself.
“It’s all right, miss,” Aldus said as he gently took hold of her wrist. “Let me help you up.”
She shook her head wildly. “No! No, just leave me be.”
The man in the room jabbed Aldus’s shoulder with a sharp push. “You heard her! Leave her be.”
Ignoring him, Aldus asked the woman, “He did this to you?”
First, her eyes darted over to th
e man. Then she looked at Aldus for less than a second before letting her head hang forward. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered.
“You heard her,” the man grunted. “She’s gonna be fine and this ain’t none of your concern.”
Aldus straightened up to his full height and wheeled around to face him. The man reflexively flinched backward a fraction of a step before steeling himself and putting the fierce expression back on his face.
“You hit this woman?” Aldus asked.
“Ain’t none of your concern, I says.”
Having been in so many brawls, Aldus needed to learn to rein himself in. It never paid to fight when angry. Even worse, allowing himself to get carried away when he was hurt or overly emotional only led to him being reckless and making mistakes. However, there were a few things that made him want to kill a man with his bare hands: when that man spat in his face or harmed a woman.
Since Aldus hadn’t taken a swing at him yet, the man felt confident enough to step up and glare directly into his eyes. “You’d best turn around and walk outta here, mister,” the man said.
“Haven’t you been asked to leave?”
“What did you say?”
“I wanted to know if you’d been asked to leave,” Aldus said. “By someone from the hotel.”
The man spat out a laugh. “What of it?”
“I think it’s time for you to go.”
“You look like you ain’t had more than one thought at a time,” the man replied. “Do yourself a favor and leave before I make you even uglier than you already are.”
Aldus slowly turned around and offered his hand to the woman.
“Are you deaf?” the man said. “I told you to make yourself scarce!”
Even though the shove from behind hadn’t been unexpected, it had enough muscle behind it to send Aldus staggering sideways to bump his shoulder against the wall. The man let out a wobbly laugh as he started shoving him toward the door.
Aldus had been hoping so deeply for the other man to make a move along those lines that he had to struggle to keep from smiling as he planted his feet in the doorway and turned around. The man had a similar build to Aldus, but was all bluster as he puffed out his chest and grabbed the front of Aldus’s shirt with both hands.
“You must be deaf,” the fellow growled. “Either that or just plain stupid.”
He’d barely gotten those words out when Aldus brought both arms up so they were in between the man’s arms. From there, he snapped his arms straight out to either side, forcing the man to lose his grip on him.
“You been asked to leave,” Aldus said as he turned the tables by grabbing the other man’s collar. “You also need to learn that it ain’t right to beat on a woman.”
The man tried to answer back, but he had a tough time speaking as he was wrangled out of the room and into the hallway. He pounded against Aldus’s arm and even grabbed it, which didn’t help in the slightest. When he swung a wild punch at Aldus’s face, he still wasn’t able to make a dent. Aldus shook off the punch without much of a reaction and then shoved the man’s back against a wall between the doors to rooms eight and ten.
“Are you gonna leave on your own accord or do I need to toss you down them stairs?” Aldus said.
The man glanced toward the stairs before staring petulantly back at him. “I’ll go. Is that whore somethin’ special to you?”
Aldus turned the man toward the stairs and then gave him a push. Once he regained his balance, the man made a show of straightening his shirt and walking to the lobby. Aldus followed him down. Once the man got to the front door, he paused and asked, “You got the backbone to follow me outside or are you gonna run off to hide?”
This time, Aldus didn’t try to hide his grin. “I would be pleased to follow you.”
The man wasn’t wearing a pistol, but he did have a hunting knife hanging from his belt. He strutted outside, walked into the street, and turned around to find Aldus standing less than two paces away from him. Raising both fists in a fighting stance, he said, “Let’s see how well you do when you ain’t taking me by surprise.”
Aldus took one step forward. His fists were held at slightly higher than waist level and his shoulders were stooped forward. The other man came at him with a vicious right cross, which Aldus ducked beneath, and followed up with a left uppercut. Aldus stepped in while bringing his own left arm around to deflect the incoming blow. Having knocked aside that arm, Aldus opened the other man up like a Christmas present and drove a straight right punch into his stomach. The man let out a wheezing grunt that stank of liquor and staggered back. Aldus’s instinct was to stay with him and he did so with a few short, shuffling steps.
There were at least a dozen things Aldus could do with his opponent reeling the way he was. Reminding himself that he wasn’t in a true fight, he eliminated some of the more brutal options and instead grabbed the man once more by the collar. This time, there was no resistance and the man dangled from his fist like a fish that had been yanked from its pond.
“You . . . you yellow piece . . . piece of . . . ,” the man grunted.
Before the insult could be completed, Aldus delivered a quick punch to his face that snapped the man’s head back and put him down for the count. Still holding him by the shirt, Aldus lowered him to the ground and said, “The problem with men like you is that you never know when to shut up.”
The scuffle hadn’t taken long and hadn’t been loud enough to draw much attention from anyone other than the clerk from the hotel, who’d come out from behind his desk to watch in the doorway. When Aldus turned and started walking toward the hotel again, the clerk hurried inside.
Aldus didn’t say a word to him as he walked to the stairs, climbed to the second floor, and made his way back to room eleven. That door was still ajar, so he eased it open and looked inside. The woman with the battered face sat on the edge of the bed wearing a cautiously fearful expression. She was too tired, however, to do much else than look at him.
“You’d best go,” Aldus said as he offered her a hand.
She took it while watching him as if expecting him to pick up where the other man had left off. Once they were outside and she saw the drunk lying where Aldus had dropped him, she walked over and kicked the man solidly in the ribs. Even though the drunk barely even stirred in reaction to the kick, the woman seemed to feel a lot better for it. She had the sunken features and tired eyes of a dove who had been soiled for most of her life. When she looked at Aldus now, some of her sadness disappeared. “Thank you.” She started to walk away, but then spun back around to rush at Aldus so she could wrap her arms around him and plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thank you so much!”
“It wasn’t much, ma’am. You have a good evening, now.”
“I will.” She put her back to the hotel, crossed over to Douglas Street, and headed toward Second.
Aldus returned to the desk, where the clerk was waiting for him. “So,” he said to the tall man with the stringy hair, “you think you can make an exception to that policy of yours requiring a deposit?”
“How many rooms do you need?”
Chapter 19
Aldus returned to the wagons. By the time he’d unloaded the bags with some of their personal effects inside, Hayes was strolling back to him. “Did you find us a hotel?” he asked.
“Yep. The one at the southern end of Garver Street.”
“The Kolby Arms?”
“I suppose,” Aldus said with a shrug. “We’ll need to raise some money pretty quick, though. I used up the last of it.”
“You got rooms and put the horses up with what was left?” Hayes asked. “Did you do a few odd jobs to make up the difference?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, there’s no lot fee for this field, so we can set the gallery up bright and early tomorrow. The man I spoke to about that was bending my ear about
hunting geese, so I should be able to sell a few rifles right away. There’s a whole group of hunters and trappers coming through here in the next few days! It seems fortune is smiling on us, my friend.”
If fortune was smiling, Aldus Bricker was smiling even wider. Hayes winced and then asked, “Is that blood in your mouth?”
After running his tongue over his teeth as if he’d just finished a well-cooked steak, Aldus replied, “Must’ve bit my cheek.”
“Well, keep your spirits up. I have a feeling this is going to be a very profitable place to stay.”
“Will you be helping me get the gallery set up?”
“You won’t need any help,” Hayes said. “Because you’ll have the whole day and a little of the next to get it done.”
“It’d go faster if you helped me.”
“I still need to ride into Omaha to make a delivery that should fill our coffers a bit. It’s a one-man job. I’ll head out tomorrow and you can get everything set up here. If you get done early, feel free to open up for business.”
Surprised, Aldus asked, “Open up without you here?”
Hayes gave him a few friendly pats on the shoulder. “You know what you’re doing. You’re reliable with numbers. Just don’t attempt any repairs until I get back. If any specialized work needs to be done, take appointments at fifty cents apiece. I trust you for the rest.”
“I appreciate that, Zeke. Thanks.”
“You’ve earned it. Now I’m going to scout a few of the local saloons. Care to join me?”
“No. I’m going to have something to eat and then get some rest.”
“I’ll be riding out first thing tomorrow,” Hayes said. “If I don’t see you, take good care of things while I’m away. And say hello to Bethany for me.”
“I will . . . on both counts.”
Giving Aldus a sly grin, Hayes headed for Second Street, which would take him into what passed for Corbin’s entertainment district. Aldus had only seen a pair of saloons, but if there were any more entertainments to be found, his partner would sniff them out before the night was through. Aldus was left with the bags containing both men’s things. Since hauling those things to the hotel was part of his normal duties, Aldus didn’t complain before taking hold of them and making his way back to the hotel. The only thing he didn’t like was the fact that the drunk had slithered away from the front of the hotel before he could take another crack at him.
Ralph Compton Straight Shooter Page 19