“Can I have my key?” Caleb asked of the desk clerk at the Castle Hotel. He was a spindly man in his fifties with thinning hair combed straight back over a balding scalp. His face was thin and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed prominently in his skinny throat.
Caleb had just come from the Frontier House Cafe. He was dog tired and looking for a good night’s sleep. He was still worried about the Lowerys, but he was too tired to deal with it tonight.
“I gave it to your two friends, Mister Gant,” the clerk explained as if delivering good news. “They’re upstairs in your room right now. Waiting for you.”
“My two friends?” More of a muse than a question. Caleb jerked upright, wide awake. Adrenaline was starting to rush through his veins.
The Lowerys!
Caleb tossed a furtive glance up the stairway, just to the left of the hotel desk. Filtering light from the upstairs hallway had cast shadows engulfing the top two thirds of the hallway. If the Lowerys were up there waiting for him, they could pick him off easily on the stairs without him even seeing them.
“Thanks, friend,” Caleb said to the clerk and turned away from the desk. He started up the stairs, slowly. It was quiet in the hotel for this time of night and no one seemed to be out and about. Caleb had the stairs all to himself.
“Have a good night, Mister Gant,” he heard the clerk say after him, but he paid no attention and gave no response.
He continued to climb slowly and as he stepped into the shadows, he released the thong from his Colt’s hammer and lifted the weapon silently from the leather.
Step after step, he climbed, expecting an attack at any moment, but he managed to reach the top step with no event.
He stood in the middle of the hallway, his eyes searching the shadows in both directions of the hallway. It was empty and silent. Perhaps the Lowerys were, in fact, in his room waiting for him. What better way to stage an ambush, he thought. But, surely they should know he had been warned by the absence of his key. Were they that stupid? Could be. The other two Lowery brothers had not been too smart either. That’s why they ended up dead in the streets of Alamogordo.
He turned to the left. His room was halfway down the corridor at number six Stealthily, he cat-footed down the hallway, taking each step deliberately and as silently as possible.
He found room six and stepped up close; his ear to the wooden panels of the door, and listened closely. All he could hear was his own breathing. He tried to control it by taking a deep breath and holding it. Still he heard nothing on the other side of the door.
He glanced back along the hallway. Maybe they were not inside at all. Maybe they were hidden someplace in the hallway where he couldn’t see them. Flecks of sweat began to bead on his forehead.
Turning his attention back to the door, he held his pistol chest high at the ready. With his left hand, he reached for the doorknob.
If the Lowerys were inside, they would be alerted by seeing the knob turn. But if the door had been locked again from the inside, they could hear his attempt.
Gant made up his mind. He would have to move fast. With a lightning flash of wrist and hand, he reached out grasping the knob. It tuned. Unlocked! He twisted it quickly and shoved the door wide open with a single lunge, bursting into the doorway, half crouched in a gunman’s stance, his pistol thrust out in front of him with the hammer cocked and ready.
“Now is that anyway to greet old friends, Caleb.” The voice was calm and friendly.
Caleb froze, standing stock still. The hairs on the back of his head bristled. The two men sat on the edge of his bed. They were not the Lowery brothers at all, and, he was pretty sure these were not the men that had been dogging him in recent days!
His heart was still throbbing in his head as he stood there. Then as realization swept over him he relaxed, sighed, locked his knees and straightened. He let out a huge breath, lifted the muzzle of his weapon to point toward the ceiling. His thumb relaxed the hammer of his pistol and he let it down easy, but still kept the weapon in his hand. His eyes remained hard and steely. His jaw set.
Lifting his right foot, he kicked the bottom of the door behind him, slamming it shut
“What the hell are you two doing here?”
“We could ask you the same question,” Mort Glick said. He was a stocky man with broad shoulders. Clean shaven round face and bright blue eyes. Well dressed, wearing a grey suit coat over white shirt and black string tie. The man with him was similarly well dressed but was somewhat lighter, though much taller. He had a pencil thin black mustache on his upper lip Dark black eyes peered dully out of deep sockets. His name was Johnny Leach. “But I won’t ask,” Glick added, “We know. You’re here after Bishop.”
“That’s nothing new,” Caleb said, resting the muzzle of his pistol against his collarbone. He nodded and strode forward, standing over his two visitors. “I’ve been looking for him for a long time.”
“Yes, we know,” Johnny Leach put in. His voice was husky. “Ever since you left us in that stinking Mexican jail four years ago.”
“It was every man for himself,” Caleb said. “You know that. If I could have taken you with me, I would’ve. Three guns would have been better than one. I saw my chance and I took it. You could have done the same.”
“We didn’t have the same talents as you, Caleb,” Mort put in. There was a slight southern drawl to his mellow voice. “Never saw a chance and we had to serve out our full time until the Juaristas let us out. Had a damn time explaining what happened to the two hundred thousand we stole from the treasury.”
“That damn Bishop running out on us and taking it all with him.” Johnny Leach growled. “Leaving the three of us to rot in that prison.”
“That’s all water unde the bridge now,” Caleb said.
“Is it?” Mort said. “Then how come you been trailing him all over the west, Caleb?”
“My share. That’s all I want. Not out for revenge. Just the money.”
“We want our share too,” Glick said.
“However,” Leach put in. “It would be plumb satisfying to put a slug in the bastard besides.”
“Now, Johnny,” Glick pleaded. “Don’t go getting greedy. I can’t say that I don’t appreciate your sentiment though.”
“Come on, Mort,” Caleb said, finally lowering his pistol and dropping it in the holster. He didn’t fasten the thong though. “Enough of this chit chat. How come you’re here? You been dogging me?”
“No. Not dogging. Merely following along. Figured you catch up with Bishop eventually. Then we could be there to get our share too.”
“How’d you track me here?”
“That ruckus you pulled in Alamogordo last week. Seems you made yourself a couple of enemies. A rough pair, if I ever saw one.”
“And I suppose you just happened to mention you were looking for me?”
“Yeah. I suppose we did. How else, were we supposed to get a line on you?”
“And, I suppose they decided to follow you hoping you’d lead them to me?”
Glick nodded sheepishly.
“Kinda like follow the leader, huh? And now those boys are here. I kind of wondered how they knew I was here. Now, it seems like I have you fellows to thank.”
“I guess it does look that way.” Glick smiled broadly. “You’ve led us to Bishop. We’ve led these boys to you. Now, it would be a damn shame if those boys were to plug you now. Just when you’re on the verge of getting Bishop and the money. Johnny and me would just have to split your share.”
“Well don’t count your money too soon. We don’t even know if Bishop still has the money. I didn’t get a chance to see him before he left for his honeymoon in Santa Fe. Won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon if the stage from Santa Fe is on time.” He wasn’t about to reveal that it wasn’t the real Dave Bishop.
“He seems to own a lot of prime real estate,” Mort said. “I should think he could dig up enough to oblige us.”
“If he can’t, we’ll just kill him,” Johnny leac
h chuckled. Mort grinned with satisfaction.
The moment was suddenly broken by a rapping on the door behind Caleb. As he turned, he heard the voice from the other side. “Gant! Open up! It’s Sheriff Randall.”
Glick’s and Leach’s mirthful grins dissipated quickly. Their eyes flashed to Caleb. They suddenly became uneasy and wary. They said nothing, but their grim expressions said it all. Their hands moved beneath their coat tail and rested fingers on gun butts.
Caleb nodded, indicating ‘Keep Quiet.’ He turned to the door and opened it a crack, fitting his long craggy face into the open space.
Gil Randall’s face was grim. “Let me in, Gant,” he ordered.
“What’s the matter, Sheriff?” Caleb stalled.
“You let me in and I’ll tell you ‘what’s the matter’.” He pushed the door open shoving Caleb back.
Randall’s glance passed over the two men; his face registering his acknowledgement of two hard cases. He saw the expressions on the faces of Gant’s visitors and read it correctly. He saw the hunched shoulders, bodies leaning forward, elbows bent and right hands under coat tails. They were just waiting for the telltale movement that would prompt action.
Randall’s expression said it all. ‘Who are these men?’
Caleb offered the explanation. “This is Mister Glick and Mister Leach,” he said. “They were just leaving.”
Glick and Leach nodded; their hands relaxing and coming out from under their coats.
“Yeah that’s right,” Glick chimed, standing up and putting his broad brimmed grey Stetson on his head. “Come on Johnny,” he said to his partner as Leach got up with a slouch; also donning his hat.
“See you around, Mister Gant,” Mort said with a wry grin, that held a touch of hostility, as he pushed past Caleb and the sheriff, squeezing through the open door. He pulled it closed as Leach followed through behind him.
“Friends of yours?” Randall demanded.
“Let’s just say, associates, Sheriff.”
“The Lowery brothers. I suppose are associates, too?”
“Not exactly. What about them?”
“Only that they were looking for you. I smelled trouble and ran them out of town.”
“Well now Sheriff, that was mighty thoughtful of you,” Caleb smiled slightly. There was an unspoken question there and Randall took it.
“I don’t want any shooting in my town,” he said. “I’d run you out of town too, but I won’t.”
“Don’t seem like you got any call for that.”
“That’s right, because I’m putting you in my jail, right now.” His right hand pulled the pistol smoothly from Caleb’s holster.
Caleb made a start, then raised his hands to mid-section level. The gaping muzzle of his own pistol was pointed straight at him and Gib Randall’s face was grim and dark.
“Mind telling what for?” Caleb asked cagily.
“This your rifle?” Randall asked lifting the rifle in his left.
Caleb nodded. “I lost it this afternoon. Where’d you find it?”
Randall took a deep breath. “Next to Dirk Bennett’s body.”
Mort Glick and Johnny leach stood in the shadows of the alley next to the Castle hotel and watched as Gib Randall and Caleb Gant came out the front door and headed down the street towards the sheriff’s office.
They had lingered outside of Caleb’s room just long enough to hear through the door what was happening. Not wanting to be caught there, they hustled away and down the stairs before the door could open. Once outside, they hurried into the shadows.
“Now isn’t that just the hoot,” Mort Glick said. “Looks like we got Dave Bishop all to ourselves and we don’t have to split anything with anybody.”
“You got a plan, Mort?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah. I got a plan. While Gant’s cooling his heels in the hoosegow we’re going to meet tomorrow’s stage from Santa Fe and take Bishop off it.” He grinned broadly; proud of himself and satisfied with how things seemed to be going his way. Not ‘our way’, he thought looking thoughtfully at Leach. It was going to be his way, only.
****
Chapter Fifteen
The Whispering Bandit Page 14