by Jim Woolard
“Not yet, but I will,” Alana vowed.
Glancing at his pocket watch, Pedigrew’s bodyguard squeezed his employer’s shoulder. “Time for the shift change at the smelter, boss.”
Pedigrew came to his feet, swept up his Tower Stetson and mackintosh coat, and said in parting, “It may look bad for Eldon. But I know men. I know which men will steal and which won’t. I know which men will condone murder. Trust me, Eldon wouldn’t steal from his partners, nor would he condone murder, not unless he was forced into it. As for the proof you’re after, I’ll wire the Grand National Bank in the morning and instruct them to confirm my payment of the Payne invoices. The document will be waiting for you in Alamosa. Good evening, Mrs. Tanner.”
Nathan thought Alana would be overjoyed with what they’d learned. It surprised him she was no more excited than him. “Nephew, nothing’s ever what you anticipate,” she said with a long sigh. “Before our talk with Pedigrew, I was certain Eldon was willingly siding with the Buckman’s. Yet Pedigrew could be right. Maybe I was so mad that Eldon would go against Seth and me that I’ve judged him too harshly. Maybe they threatened to have him murdered like they did Seth and your father. That would explain a lot of things, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would. But, as Mr. Westfall would say, it doesn’t make him any less dangerous,” Nathan reasoned. “Even if the Buckmans threatened his life, he didn’t have the courage to warn you or Father or Uncle Seth as to what they were planning.”
Alana pushed her chair back from the table and hefted her rifle. “That’s what bothers me the most. Eldon Payne is not a coward. He may not leave his office much today, but he was a cavalry officer and was recognized for valor while serving with General Crook.”
Nathan shrugged into his mackinaw, and though he knew the answer, asked, “What now?”
Alana stuffed strands of loose hair beneath her canvas cap. “We need to talk with J. Franklin Abbott about confronting Eldon with the bank document. It’s the only card we have to play.”
“Unless Mr. Westfall tracks down the murderers,” Nathan reminded her.
They stepped away from the table and Sam unwound from his place in the corner to take his normal station at Alana’s hip. They were approaching the door exiting the dining room when the huge dog attacked.
Twenty
Sam went up and over the table with no warning other than a rumbling growl. Chairs overturned, bodies scattered, and a scream raised hair on the back of diners’ necks. Nathan understood immediately what was happening. Sam was trained to attack on command, and for him to do otherwise would occur only if he’d scented a person known to him from a prior encounter, and what sprang to mind was the ugly affair in the Payne stable when Nathan had been brained with a club.
The crowd split apart, creating an ever-widening opening at the point of attack. A booted foot stuck skyward beyond the overturned table. The scream had come from the same location.
Nathan never questioned what he should do. He freed the tie-down thong from the hammer and drew his six-gun from its holster. A tug with his free hand rolled the overturned table out of the way and there was Sam gnawing on a big man dressed in a brown duck coat. If not for the thick cloth and heavy lining of his coat sleeve, Sam’s ripping teeth would have been tearing hunks of flesh from the man’s forearm. As it was, the thick duck cloth was beginning to come apart at the seams. Spying Nathan’s pistol, some of the startled crowd urged him to shoot Sam.
The crack of the rifle quieted the room. Smoke drifted from the rifle’s barrel and the fresh bullet hole in the wooden floor at the edge of the crowd. The crisp click of Alana cocking her Winchester prolonged the silence. “Down, Sam! Down!”
Sam dropped the big man’s arm and retreated. The big man scrambled to his feet, face beet red with anger. In all that red, the white scar at the corner of his left eye could easily be seen. It was shaped like a question mark. The chance of any two men having the same precise scar was so remote Nathan knew he was looking at one of the men who’d shot at him on the St. Louis waterfront. He wanted to yell for somebody to fetch the marshal or the sheriff or the police, whoever the law was in Creede, but he hesitated.
There had been two shooters. Was the big man alone or was his fellow shooter, the one Burt Dawes described as skinny, red-haired, and gimlet-eyed, somewhere in the room with a weapon of his own. What would he do if his partner were threatened with arrest? It was a chance Nathan wasn’t prepared to take, not with Alana equally vulnerable to a bullet from the crowd.
“Cool down, Mister,” Nathan ordered. “You’re not hurt. I apologize for Sam going wild on us. We’ll pay for your coat.”
Alana made it easy for the big man to cease and desist by laying a gold piece on the table nearest him with enough monetary value to buy two duck coats even at Creede’s inflated prices. The big man swept the coin from the table and bolted from the room. Nathan suspected he not only wanted to get clear of the growling Sam, but also escape the attention of the crowd. He watched closely, but no one seemed to follow the big man, at least not right off.
His arm tired from holding his pistol level, Nathan holstered the Colt. Members of the crowd righted the overturned table, and except for the few gawkers debating why the huge dog had jumped the big man, diners throughout the room went back to work with knife and fork.
Alana lowered the hammer of her rifle and stroked Sam’s shoulder. “It’s just like that night at the Payne stable. He attacked without an order to do so.”
“It was the same man. I recognized him from the description Mr. Dawes gave me.”
“Then why didn’t you have him arrested?”
“Because there were two of them that night and I was afraid the other one might be in the crowd with a gun.”
Alana shuddered. “Nephew, if those two men are here searching for us, Roan Buckman’s been a step ahead of us every minute.” With a hearty sigh, Alana roughed Sam’s ears. “I’ll be glad when this whole affair is over and the only thing I have to worry over is feeding cattle through the winter. Let’s find our room.”
Yet another abrupt development awaited them at the dining room door. A woman blocked their path. She wore small rimless spectacles and braided her hair into a tight bun, but unlike Doc Ellie, the woman was comely and well proportioned. By the standards of Nathan’s mother, the puffed sleeves of her striped shirtwaist would have been deemed acceptable by the ladies of St. Louis, as would have her plain black Henrietta skirt. Her square-toed leather boots would have provoked talk behind raised hands.
The woman’s warm blue eyes and friendly smile put Nathan and Alana at ease. “I’m Mary Zhang, and I believe you’re Mrs. Tanner, are you not?”
“Guess my disguise isn’t as good as I thought.”
“It’s not that, Mrs. Tanner. The night clerk at the office recognized you from your previous visit. Jake didn’t speak with you personally then, but he hasn’t forgotten the most beautiful female to ever grace Creede Avenue. After he told me you had a big dog with you I didn’t have much trouble picking you out of the crowd.”
Mary Zhang’s warm smile returned. “I was traveling in the east when you were here with your husband last summer. Now that I’m home, I insist you share my accommodations upstairs.”
“I’d like that very much,” said an appreciative Alana, “as long as your invitation includes my dog, Sam.”
“Jake warned me your dog sleeps in your room. I’m sorry to say we couldn’t awaken the drunks in time to clean and mop the room Jake promised you. But Jake has a cot in the rear of the reading room. Your young friend can sleep there.”
“Nathan’s more than a friend,” Alana said. “He’s my husband’s nephew from St. Louis.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Nathan,” Mary Zhang said, shaking Nathan’s hand. “Have you any luggage, Mrs. Tanner?”
“No, we’re just here overnight. We’ve finished our business and will be taking the train home tomorrow.”
“Come along then,” Mary Zhang said. �
��I have extra night clothes and you look like you would enjoy a freshly made bed and a cup of tea.”
“Those are the best words I’ve heard in a week, Mary Zhang,” Alana said. Snapping her fingers to gain Sam’s attention, she touched Nathan’s arm. “I’ve changed my mind. It would be better if Sam bunked with you. He can stand guard over you until morning. Go with Nathan, boy. Go with Nathan.”
Mary Zhang and Alana ascended the lobby steps to the second floor. Once he was outside, Nathan stood to one side of the door and studied Creede Avenue. Though it was well past midnight, a steady flood of humans and burdened animals still passed in each direction. The red and blue lamps of the makeshift mercantile establishments reminded Nathan of the lights his mother strung for parties on the lawn of the Tanner Mansion. The wind was stronger; the air colder and damp on his cheek, hinting of snow, and Nathan sought the warmth of the hotel office.
Street noise apparently didn’t bother the night clerk, for he was dozing behind the counter. Nathan rapped on its wooden surface and the toothless, scrawny clerk shot from his chair. “Jake Spain at your service, sir!”
“I’m with Mrs. Tanner,” Nathan informed the clerk. “Mrs. Zhang said I’m to sleep on your cot. Sam will be happy with the floor.”
“Sam? Who’s this Sam? Are you funning with me, young man?”
Nathan pointed at his feet. The clerk leaned over the counter. Sam growled and the clerk snapped upright, his face ashen. “Lord have mercy, it’s him,” Jake Spain sputtered, swiping his forehead with a palm. “You’re more than welcome to my cot, young man. Just be sure the dog stays back there with you. I can’t have him roaming around scaring customers.”
One eye on Sam, the clerk pointed at the doorway to the left of the counter. “Cot’s yonder, necessary is straight out back. Sometimes there’s a wait.” Jake Spain snorted. “Course, you take that dog with you they’d sure-fire move you to the head of the line.”
Jake Spain’s old single-blanket army cot, creaky enough to be a remnant of the Indian Wars, sagged but held Nathan’s weight when he fell on it fully dressed except for his mackinaw. What little heat filtered under the door from the office coal stove barely dented the chill air, and Nathan soon piled his mackinaw atop Jake’s single blanket. The heavily furred Sam curled into a ball in the center of the tiny room.
Too tired to visit the necessary, Nathan turned down the wick of the kerosene lamp on the rickety table beside the cot and tried to sleep. He found he couldn’t ignore the constant barrage of drunken shouts, profane cursing, female whoops, slamming doors, and sporadic gunshots emanating from the street and rear of the hotel. He thus lay awake pondering the day’s events in what he knew would be another vain attempt to avoid dwelling on the loss of his mother.
What disturbed him most was the fact that despite their efforts to deceive the Buckman brothers, they hadn’t fooled Roan and his hired killers. And with the telegraph readily available at the D&RG station, Roan would shortly receive word of the incident in the Zhang dining room. It would be like the scheming Buckman brothers to have a personal messenger lounging about the Western Union Office in Alamosa. Corbin Smythe and Cousin Hobie, if those were truly the killer’s names, could secure fresh orders within a couple of hours, and the sporadic gunshots Nathan was hearing made wild, lawless, teeming Creede the perfect site for murder.
The wind moaned outside the shuttered window above the cot. Nathan slid his six-gun beneath Jake’s straw filled, smelly pillow and pulled his cap down over his ears.
He lay cold and shivering, afraid neither he nor Alana were a match for Roan Buckman’s paid assassins.
They desperately needed the brains and muscle of Ira Westfall if they were to leave Creede alive, and though Nathan felt guilty he’d asked so much of the Lord of late, he nonetheless prayed fervently that the former policeman would be on the morning train from Alamosa.
Then, body and mind completely spent, he slept.
Twenty-One
The gunshots came in rapid succession. The first bullet smashed into the plank porch of Zhang’s. The second produced a soft plunking. Alana halted in mid-stride, pain and shock freezing her features. Then her legs turned to rubber and she was falling.
Nathan lunged to catch her. The quick movement spared his life, for the third bullet whipped past his right ear instead of drilling the center of his forehead.
Panicked by the gunshots and Alana’s collapse, miners in the street and mounting the porch steps ducked and scattered. A bullet plucked Nathan’s cap from his head, and when he looked frantically about, he realized the dispersal of the crowd would momentarily leave the fallen Alana completely exposed to the shooters.
Cover was what they needed, and the closest available was the hotel lobby. He clutched Alana’s lumberman shoes and began dragging her inert body, not worried if the rough handling caused her further harm. They were as good as dead if they stayed where they were.
It seemed to take forever to drag her a few precious inches. Then Sam latched onto her pants leg with his massive jaws, and together they pulled her into the lobby with quick, powerful tugs as another bullet shattered the doorjamb. Nathan had the presence of mind to ensure they were far enough inside the hotel to be out of danger.
He then saw a sight he would never forget.
A barrel-shaped figure in sack coat and derby hat was leaping miners cowering in the street while he fired at the roof of the saloon opposite the hotel with his pistol. The running figure jumped to the porch of the hotel and dove headlong into the lobby, turning as he landed to train his weapon on the roof of the saloon.
Nathan sobbed with relief. He’d just witnessed an astonishing feat for a man of Ira Westfall’s age and size. The ex-policeman’s voice was as calm as if he were asking the time of day, “Your friend dead or alive?”
Alana was lying on her side. Nathan pressed his fingers against her throat. There was a pulse, faint and irregular, like it might quit with the next beat. “I don’t know for how long, but she’s alive.”
“She!” Ira Westfall exclaimed, spinning about and levering himself into a sitting position.
“Yes, it’s my aunt,” Nathan said.
“Couldn’t tell for that cap she’s wearing,” Ira said, hurriedly reloading his pistol with bullets from his coat pocket. That task completed, the ex-policeman slid the weapon into his shoulder holster. He ignored the crowd forming in the lobby now that the danger was past, gained his feet, and knelt before Alana. “There’s blood on her coat. We’ve got to get her flat down and find where she’s hurt.”
They carefully eased Alana onto her back, both of them hearing her slight moan over the gasp of the crowd. Nathan blanched. Blood was everywhere. His hand was slick with it.
Ira opened Alana’s mackinaw, lifted her shirtwaist, grimaced, and began to unbutton it. The curious crowd closed in another step. “Keep them back, Nathan. She needn’t be stared at.”
Nathan uttered a single sharp command. “Sam!”
The resulting growl and snap of fangs drew a swift glance from even the preoccupied Ira. The crowd slunk away, withdrawing to the porch and the dining room, but huge Sam persisted, walking a continuous circle around his mistress and those tending to her.
When Ira had Alana’s shirtwaist unbuttoned, he hiked the tail of the cotton vest beneath it. Blood pooled in her navel. Nathan wanted to look away, but couldn’t. The bullet hole was between the left hip and the ribs. Ira felt the area behind her hip.
His sigh was as loud as a trumpet blast in the hushed lobby. “Lots of blood, but the bullet apparently missed her vitals and passed through her body. We need to get her to bed somewhere and send for a doctor.”
A contemptuous honking erupted. Mary Zhang leaned over Ira and the prone Alana. “Ain’t no doctor in Creede you’d trust to clip your toenails. Bring her upstairs to my room.”
Ira studied the steep stairs connecting the lobby with the second floor. “Couple of you men fetch a door off one of the guest rooms, and be quick about i
t.”
“Stay, Sam,” Nathan ordered. The huge dog settled by his mistress. With the threat of being chewed to pieces removed, boots thundered on the stairs. The fetching took but a few minutes. Mary Zhang folded a table-cloth over Alana’s naked middle, and Nathan and Ira, one holding her hips and the other her shoulders, eased her onto the door.
“Take the top end, Nathan. Those stairs are too narrow for more than the two of us.”
The inert Alana and the thick door were surprisingly heavy. If it hadn’t been for the muscle he’d grown working at the Tanner warehouse, the strain of holding the door steady while climbing the steep stairs in Creede’s thin air would have been too much for Nathan.
Mary Zhang preceded them. She waved them toward the room at the end of the hallway. “Straight ahead, gentleman.”
They crossed a small parlor outfitted with leather furniture, brass table lamps, and a chandelier with etched globes. The adjoining bedroom was much larger. The flowered quilt of the four-poster bed was turned down, revealing sheets of gray flannel.
Nathan was concerned about how they were going to move Alana from the door to the bed without treating her like a sack of meal, but the resourceful Ira had the answer for that dilemma. “Let’s lay her on the bed, and then we’ll slide the door out from under her.”
They were as gentle as possible, but the exchange wrung groans from the wounded Alana. Mary Zhang considered them a healthy portent for the future. “Goodly amount of life left in her. I need Zeta from the kitchen and then you two can wait in the hallway or the dining room. You needn’t worry. Zeta and I have considerable doctoring experience. We’ll wash her and swab the wound. We won’t let that drunken sawbones of ours near her lest we must.”
Ira extended a large hand in the direction of Mary Zhang. “I’m Ira Westfall. We appreciate your help.”
Mary Zhang ran her eyes over the burly ex-policeman. “You remind me of my James. There wasn’t much he couldn’t handle neither.”