by Paul Colt
“Did you also serve?”
“I did.”
The waiter returned with their drinks. “May I take your order, ma’am?”
A twinkle crossed her eye. “He’ll have the roast beef special and I’ll have a petite portion.”
“Very good.”
Longstreet lifted his glass. “Suddenly I feel rather useless.”
She lifted hers. “That remains to be seen.”
They toasted.
“Do you live in Evanston?”
She shook her head. “I have family in the Wind River country. I’m on my way to visit them. What brings you to Evanston, Beau?”
“Business.”
“What sort of business?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Oh, my, that sounds exciting. Are you with the Pinkerton Agency?”
“I was. I now represent the Great Western Detective League.”
She knit her brow. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of that.”
“We prefer it that way.”
“I see. What sort of nefarious activity brings you to Evanston? It seems a rather sleepy little place for such mischief.”
“Bank fraud.”
“That does sound sinister.” And too close for comfort. Pity.
The waiter returned with steaming plates.
Longstreet drained his glass. “Care for another?”
She nodded.
“Bring us the bottle.”
By the time they finished the apple pie and sherry, Cora Collier had a rosy glow on her golden complexion. She took his arm for the short walk back to the hotel.
“May I walk you to your room?”
She lifted her eyes to his. “A most gentlemanly offer, Beau Longstreet, but perhaps it might serve propriety if I found my own way this time.” She patted his cheek. “Until then.” She turned and climbed the stairs.
Longstreet watched her go. He shook his head. Until when?
Green River
Cane returned to his room after supper. He was tired after a long day on the train. He lit the bedside lamp and poured water into the basin from a pitcher on the small dresser. He splashed water on his face and dried it on a towel. He hung his gun belt over the back of a chair and draped his coat over it. He tossed his backup Forehand & Wadsworth Bull Dog on the nightstand next to the lamp. He kicked off his boots and britches and took off his ribbon tie and shirt. Down to his long-handles he pulled back the bed cover and tested the springs to a welcoming squeak. He huffed out the lamp and stretched out, his body heavy with fatigue.
Dark eyes glittered black light. A tongue tasted the scent of water in the air. Brown markings edged in black spread a pattern over the diminutive length of gray coils. The dusty rattler, smallest of all rattlesnakes, is a rare breed native to the Green River formation. Boasting the most potent venom of the species, this serpent ideally suited the assassin’s purpose. It slithered forward from the safety of the corner beneath the bed.
Sleep tugged at Cane’s eyelids. He drifted off. A soft sliding sound intruded somewhere at the back of his subconscious. He snapped alert, listening.
He’d imagined it.
No, there it is again.
Something lightly brushed the foot of the bed, a rat?
It moved again. The barest whisper of sound, a faint sensation climbed the bedpost toward his right foot. Rats don’t climb posts!
He reached for the nightstand, fumbling in the dark for a lucifer. He found one. He transferred it to his left hand and reached out again, groping for the Bull Dog.
The bedpost betrayed movement again.
He waited.
Movement stopped.
He flicked the match. Sulfur light flared. Bright eyes glittered. The Bull Dog barked muzzle flash and powder smoke.
Cane rolled out of bed and lit the lamp as the hallway beyond the door exploded with hotel guests reacting to a gunshot reverberating down the hall in the middle of the night.
He held up the lamp. The shattered snake lay on the floor at the wall across from the foot of the bed; twisting in spasmodic reflex it went still. Not just any snake, a dusty rattler. His knees took on water after the fact. What the hell is a dusty rattler doing here?
“Mr. Cane, Mr. Cane!” The night clerk pounded the door.
Cane opened it.
“What happened? Is everything all right?”
He swung the door wide and held the lamp to light the dead snake.
“Oh my! I’m dreadfully sorry. I’ve no idea how this might have happened.” He stepped back into the hall. “Go back to your rooms, folks. Just an accident. No harm done. Sorry you’ve been disturbed.”
The following morning mood of the Boatman’s Bank cashier matched the dreary gray drizzle. He’d already issued a letter of credit to a woman who was certainly long gone. Too late again! Cane seethed. Then there was the matter of the snake in his hotel room. Not just any snake mind you, the most deadly venomous snake in the territory. In his room. On the second floor. Coincidence? Stranger things have happened. Too much to credit to coincidence, the woman isn’t working alone.
Evanston
Longstreet opened the bank the next morning. The cashier returned a blank stare when he inquired about a Texas & Pacific Railroad bond in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. The man was certain he hadn’t seen one of those. He warned the banker to be on the lookout for anyone approaching him with a bond like that. He agreed to contact Longstreet at Essex House should anyone make such an attempt.
Longstreet pondered this turn of events on the short walk back to the hotel. Something wasn’t right. The pattern fit. Where was she? Is it possible he got to Evanston before she did? That seemed unlikely, but possible. He was still mulling the puzzle when he reached the lobby desk.
“May I help you, sir?” The clerk blinked owlishly behind spectacles drifted down the bridge of a beaklike nose.
“I’d like to leave a message for a guest.”
“Certainly, sir.” The clerk slid paper and pencil across the counter.
It was a wonderful evening last. Would you care to join me for lunch?
—Beau
He folded the paper, wrote her name on the blank side, and passed it to the clerk.
“Cora Collier,” the clerk said as he knit his brow. “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have anyone registered by that name.”
“Are you sure? We had dinner last night. She was staying here then.”
The clerk shook his head, running a finger down the register.
“She’s an attractive woman, chestnut hair, hazel eyes.”
“That could be Miss Antoine, but she checked out early this morning.”
“Miss Antoine?”
“Cecile Antoine, she spent a couple of days with us.”
Why would she use an alias? Unless . . . What was he thinking?
Later that morning a swarthy man with a pockmarked face wearing a black suit approached the registration desk.
“May I help you, sir?”
“I need a room.”
He spun the register for the stranger to sign.
“Very good, Mr. Escobar, that will be a dollar.” He turned to a board with the available room keys. “Let me see, ah, we have a message for you.” He slid the paper across the counter.
Escobar read.
Meet me in North Platte.
—C
North Platte? Why double back east? To break the pattern. The problem must be bigger than the man in Green River. He turned on his heel and strode toward the door.
“Sir, what about your room?”
The stranger never looked back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Denver
The moving picture show gave Mr. Twain’s Tom Sawyer a passing portrayal, though much of the depth and feeling was sacrificed on the altar of brevity. We partook an early supper and I walked Penny home in the stillness of a mild spring evening. We sat on the front porch, listening to cricket songs as we watched the stars come out.
“Did you enjoy the moving picture show?”
She tilted her chin eye to eye. “I did. I tried to imagine your name scrolling by in the credits.”
I felt my cheeks warm. “There goes that runaway cart again.”
“I can dream. We can dream. You said it’s our cart.”
I slipped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “It does feel better when you’re in it. The cart I mean. She turned her lips to mine. I took them softly at first. I felt her shiver. The porch swing groaned. Wild imaginings exploded in my mind’s eye and elsewhere. We rocked. The swing made little sounds at the back of her throat. We gasped for a breath.
“Oh, Robert, the cart, I’m afraid it is running away.”
I drew on the lines, holding her still. “I shouldn’t allow my feelings to become so bold.”
“And I shouldn’t allow myself to be so willing, except . . .”
“Except what?”
“I like it.”
I kissed her again, more chastely this time. A question gnawed at me all the long walk home. What would Beau Longstreet do?
Laramie
Samantha drummed her fingers on the small side table as she gazed out the yellowed lace curtains covering her hotel room window. The dusty street below baked in late afternoon sun. Commerce slowed to a plodding pace in the shimmering heat. She hated waiting. Time crawled. It might have been entertaining if Longstreet were still here. He had a certain, irresistible charm? That was one way to describe it. The handsome southerner made for a rather more pleasant pastime. He’d disappeared as suddenly as she had in Cheyenne. Where had he gone? It stood to reason the Great Western Detective League had a lead the Pinkerton Agency did not. And so she had nothing further to do but wait. Wait for what? At this point it seemed she waited for little more than the next drop of sweat to trickle down the cleft between her breasts.
A muffled knock at the door broke the monotony.
“Telegram, Miss Maples.”
She got up from the table and rummaged in her purse for a quarter. She crossed the room in three strides and cracked the door. A freckle-faced lad in coveralls blinked and registered adolescent interest in a gap-toothed grin. He handed her the envelope. She tossed him the coin.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Oh, please not that schoolmarm address too.
He scooted down the hall.
She closed the door and slit the envelope with a finger.
Client reports bond redemptions in Rawlins and Green River.
They are following the U.P. west.
Meet me in Evanston.
—Kingsley
If nothing else the message was good for a change of scenery. Could Longstreet have known? He must have. More than likely they’d be too late for that party. The best she could hope for was pleasant diversion should Beau still be there. The thought brought a small shiver of anticipation and the hint of a smile to her lips.
Evanston
Muted late afternoon sun gave the Essex House lobby a golden glow. Cane cast a long shadow as he signed the guest register.
“Is Mr. Longstreet in?”
The clerk glanced at the pegboard where the keys were hung as if reminding himself of the guests’ comings and goings. “I believe he is.”
“Mind sending someone up to his room with a message?”
“Sir?”
He slid four bits across the counter. “Tell him to meet Cane in the saloon.”
Fifteen minutes later Longstreet swung through the batwings. He squinted in the dim light. Cane waved from a back corner table, waiting with a bottle and two glasses. Longstreet crossed the room and pulled back a chair.
“I take it not much turned up in Green River.”
“She was there. Boatman’s Bank took another bond, but I got there too late.”
“I’m not surprised. I think she was here.”
“You do. Why?”
“I had supper with her.”
“You what?”
“I had supper with her, at least I think it was her.”
“I won’t ask how she got away, though that’s probably the more interesting part of the story. What makes you think it was her?”
“We had the beginnings of what I thought would become a very pleasant evening until it ended rather abruptly. The next morning, she was gone.”
“Did she pass a bond here?”
“No, that’s the odd thing.”
Cane poured drinks, knocked his back, and poured another. “Maybe not so odd. Did you tell her who you were?”
He nodded.
“You got to her before she hit the bank.”
“I’m afraid so. Now she knows we’re on her trail.”
“They already knew.”
“They?”
“She’s not working alone.”
“What makes you think so?”
“When was the last time a dusty rattler found its way into your second-floor hotel room?”
“Did you get bit?”
“Look at me, Beau. I’m here, ain’t I?”
Longstreet knocked back his drink. “Coulda been professional courtesy.”
Cane poured him another. “The rattler got professional courtesy, courtesy of Forehand & Wadsworth.”
“Any idea who her partner is?”
Cane shook his head. “Whoever it is must have seen me talking to the banker and put two and two together.”
“So she knows who I am and somebody who plays with snakes knows who you are. Where do you suppose they are now, Ogden?”
“That would be next, but I’m guessing they will break that pattern.”
“Then they could be anywhere.” Longstreet swirled his drink and took a swallow. “What do you reckon we should do?”
Cane shrugged. “Wire Crook.”
Shady Grove
Crook gazed at the early spring snow-capped mountainside from the veranda at the Shady Grove Rest Home and Convalescent Center. I waited patiently for him to continue.
“The news Cane and Longstreet telegraphed me from Evanston amounted to a dead end. Suddenly this didn’t feel like the old days where you saddled up a good horse and went looking for the owl hoot’s trail. We knew the trail sure as hell. It was a rail bed. The questions were which direction to go and how far. More importantly, how the hell do you answer those questions?”
“A good lunch, shepherd’s pie as I recall, gave me a notion. I wired Salmon Chase to inquire as to any further redemption of counterfeit bonds.”
His chin dropped to his chest. I waited. He snapped awake.
“Next morning, I had an answer. Rawlins and Green River were old news. At least the cashier at Salmon Chase knew we were on the case. We knew she left Evanston. We figured she wouldn’t head west again. I consulted the map. Best bet was east, but you couldn’t rule out going north or south overland. The first step was to notify league members to be on the lookout for an attractive woman. That should get their attention. More importantly they needed to notify their banks to be on the lookout for anyone attempting to pass Texas & Pacific bonds. Now what to tell Cane and Longstreet?”
North Platte
Nebraska
She stood at the curtained window watching thunderclouds gather in the southwestern sky beyond the rooftops across the street. She forced herself to relax. Certainly reversing her pattern would leave the big detective confused. Even if he guessed she’d gone east, he’d have no idea where. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Escobar’s abrupt order to leave Green River should have alerted her to the likelihood the authorities were on to them. Then there was Beau Longstreet. Lightning streaked out of purple green thunderheads in the distance. He was disturbing in many ways. The building trembled to a rumble of thunder she felt deep inside. Beyond the matter of legal entanglement, she’d found him disturbingly attractive. She’d seriously considered bedding him even after she knew the risk posed by his identity. Fortunately she’d overcome her sherry-mellowed judgment and avoided further comp
lication. Lightning flashed again. Even now, she regretted it. For the first time in a long time, thunder rolled through every fiber of her being. A knock at the door recalled her from the pleasant prospect of a violent storm.
“Who is it?”
“It is I,” Escobar hissed.
She opened the door to the pockmarked man with glittering ferret eyes.
“What made you come here?”
She closed the door. “The detective I met in Evanston. He’s looking for us.”
“He’s not alone. I encountered one in Green River. That one I think will not trouble us more.”
“You killed him?”
“I acquired the services of a friend to do it for us.”
“Can this friend identify you?”
“La serpiente does not speak.”
She pictured the killer in the man’s eyes.
“Now tell me about this one in Evanston.”
“His name is Beau Longstreet. He says he works for something called the Great Western Detective League, whatever that is.”
“What does this one look like?”
Her eyes glazed at the picture. “Southern gentleman, he’s big, dark, handsome.”
“Seen through a woman’s eyes. Did you get close to him?”
“Close, but not that close. What difference does it make?”
“Does he suspect?”
“He didn’t. Then I did leave rather abruptly. He might now.”
“He can identify you then.”
“Yes. If he has suspicions and they are confirmed. What do we do about that?”
He drew a cigarillo out of his coat pocket, pursed thin lips, and struck a lucifer. He drew it to light and huffed out the match in a cloud of blue smoke.
“Cash a bond here. Then move on to Grand Island.”
“Do you think that is wise? What if they are watching for us?”
“I, Escobar, will be at your back. If your southern gentleman detective comes for you, he will be my pleasure.”
Thunder rattled the windows with the first spatters of rain.
Escobar escorted the woman to the train station in the gray light of early evening two days later. He saw her safely aboard the eastbound to Grand Island. As the train pulled slowly away from the station, his thoughts followed. She has been exposed. She may have outlived her lovely usefulness. The Patron must be told. It is for him to decide. Pity. He turned to the Western Union office at the depot.