Under a Turquoise Sky

by J. R. Roberts

  Markstein answered the knock on his door and found Wooster standing there, blood dripping down his face from his nose and dropping onto the floor. He leaped back.

  “Jesus Christ, man!” he said. “What happened to you?”

  “Uh, the man says you should ask him about the room yerself,” Wooster said, “but I wouldn’t, mister—”

  “He did that to you?”

  “Yeah, he hit me with his gun.”

  “This is preposterous,” Markstein said. “This is no way to conduct business.”

  “Uh, he ain’t a businessman, mister—”

  “Excuse me,” Markstein said, barging past Wooster.

  “He’s got a woman in there with him,” Wooster warned. “He ain’t gonna take kindly ta bein’ interrupted.”

  “I’ll reason with the man,” Markstein said confidently.

  He stopped in front of room five, heard some squeaking and grunting sounds from inside, but knocked on the door nevertheless.

  The man and the woman had the bedpost banging on the wall pretty good when there was a knock at the door again.

  “Forget it,” she told the man, but he withdrew from her, grabbed his gun and stormed to the door.

  “What?” he demanded, extending both the gun and his dick.

  “Good God, man!” George Markstein exclaimed, jumping back. He hardly noticed the gun as the man’s glistening, raging, blood-engorged dick alarmed him.

  “Are you the dandy from the East who wants my room?” the man demanded.

  Markstein, trying to avert his eyes from the male nudity, looked past him and saw the thin blonde on the bed with large, pear-shaped breasts, watching them impatiently. She seemed to have some welts and bruises on her body, as well.

  “My God, is that…is that a prostitute?” he asked.

  “That’s a whore,” the man answered. “Don’t they have whores back East where you come from?”

  “I suppose—”

  “Look, I’m busy.” He waved his gun in the man’s face to get his attention away from the whore. “You got an offer to make me, make it and be done with it.”

  “An offer—”

  “You want my room, right?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Markstein said. “There really was no need for violence. Poor Mr. Wooster’s nose—”

  “Violence is the only way to get things done, friend,” the man said. “And if you don’t start sayin’ somethin’ I wanna hear, you’re gonna find out the hard way.”

  He extended his gun again, and cocked the hammer back. It got very quiet in the hall.

  FOUR

  All Clint Adams wanted when he rode into Kingman was about ten or twelve or fourteen hours of sleep. He’d arrived after dark and hadn’t bothered with a drink, a meal or a bath. He’d just flopped onto the bed and fallen asleep. He hoped to wake up sometime during the afternoon, but of his own accord, not to a racket out in the hallway.

  When the shouting and slamming against walls got to be too much to bear, he practically leaped from the bed and rushed to the door.

  “A thousand dollars,” Mike Dolan said to George Markstein.

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “You want the room, don’t you?” Dolan demanded. “That’s the price. Take it or leave it.”

  “I will give you a hundred dollars and no more, sir!” Markstein said. “You will find that a fair price.”

  “Mike!” the whore, Loretta, called from inside the room. “We ain’t done, are we?”

  “No, we ain’t done,” Dolan shouted. “Just hold on. Me and this dandy are doin’ business.” He turned his attention back to Markstein.

  Wooster watched the action from down the hall, standing inside Markstein’s room, sticking his head out. He hoped the dandy wouldn’t get killed, because he figured the man was good for some more drinking money.

  “You can take your hundred dollars and shove it up your ass,” Dolan said. “A thousand is the price.”

  “You are being unreasonable, sir.”

  Dolan put his hand against Markstein’s chest and pushed. The man bounced off the wall on the other side of the hall. Dolan followed him out, and put his forearm beneath the man’s chin and his gun beneath the man’s jaw.

  “A thousand,” he said, “or I’ll blow your head off right now.”

  “Th-this is robbery!” Markstein said,

  “You interrupted me, friend,” Dolan said. “That’s worth a thousand right there.”

  “B-but—”

  “Come on, come on,” Dolan said, “I got me an impatient whore waitin’ on me.”

  “I—I don’t carry that much money on me.”

  “You don’t, huh?” Dolan took his forearm away, began patting the Easterner down for his wallet. “Come on, where’s your wallet?”

  “Here now!” Markstein said. “I’ll put up with no more of this.”

  As Mike Dolan pulled Markstein’s wallet from his jacket pocket, the man made a grab for it. Dolan slammed his gun down on Markstein’s head, driving the man to the floor. He was bloodied but not unconscious.

  The door to room seven opened and Clint Adams stepped out. He was still wearing his gun because he’d been too tired to remove it and had fallen asleep with it on.

  “What the hell is going on out here!”

  Mike Dolan turned toward Clint’s voice, tearing his eyes from the many bills he’d seen in George Markstein’s wallet.

  “Go back into your room, friend,” he shouted. “This ain’t none of your affair.”

  “You woke me up,” Clint said. “That makes it my affair.”

  “He’s robbing me!” the bloodied man on the floor said.

  “No robbery goin’ on here,” Dolan said. “Me and this feller are just doin’ some business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “He’s payin’ me a thousand dollars to switch rooms with him.”

  “That’s not true!” Markstein cried. “I offered him a hundred—”

  Dolan kicked Markstein in the chest absently, just hard enough to shut the man up.

  “Like I told ya, mister,” he said, still delving into Markstein’s wallet. “Not your business.”

  “If you’d kept it down, I’d agree with you,” Clint said, “but your noise brought me out here, so now I’d suggest you give the man his wallet and go back into your room.”

  “What?” Dolan froze, wallet in one hand, gun in the other.

  “Don’t even think about turning to face me with that gun in your hand, mister,” Clint said. “I’m not in a good mood when somebody wakes me up from a deep sleep.”

  “Friend,” Dolan said, “if I turn toward you with my gun, you’re gonna end up in an even deeper sleep.”

  “Don’t try it,” Clint said. “I just got to town last night and I haven’t had anything to eat yet.”

  “That a fact?”

  “It is,” Clint said, “and I’m not killing on an empty stomach.”

  “Yer a funny guy.”

  “I told you,” Clint said. “Not so funny when somebody wakes me up. So why don’t we all go back to our own rooms?”

  “You tellin’ me what to do?”

  “I am,” Clint said. “I’m telling you to give the man his wallet and go back into your room.”

  “Mike!” Loretta wailed from inside the room. “Come on, do like he says. I ain’t done yet.”

  “Shut up, Loretta!” Dolan shouted. “Mister, take yer own advice and go into your room before you get hurt, you hear?”

  Wooster, watching from down the hall, didn’t know who the man from room seven was, but he sure hoped he could draw against an already palmed gun, or Mike Dolan would kill him for sure. Still, as long as the Easterner on the floor didn’t catch a stray bullet, he’d be happy.

  God, he was thirsty. He never should’ve gotten involved in the room switch. Should have just gone and had that drink.

  From the floor, with blood in his eyes, George Markstein couldn’t be sure what was happening
. He was also holding his chest where Mike Dolan had kicked him. He didn’t know who the man from room seven was, but he seemed to be the Easterner’s only chance of coming out of this alive.

  Damned hotel! They should have held that room for him like they were supposed to.

  Loretta had other business to do that day. She needed Mike Dolan to finish fucking her and beating on her so she could get paid and go back to the whorehouse. One of her best customers was coming in this evening, and she wanted to have a bath first.

  She didn’t know who the other man in the hall was, but she hoped he wouldn’t kill Mike Dolan before she could get paid.

  Clint was in an even worse mood than he’d been when he’d left the comfort of the hotel bed. All he needed now was to have to kill this jasper and then have to explain it to the local law.

  But the situation looked like it was beyond talking it out.

  “Put the wallet and the gun down,” Clint said.

  Dolan turned his head to look at Clint again. The tension in his shoulder gave away what his next move was going to be. He whirled on Clint, bringing the gun around. Clint’s hand moved like a blur. He drew his gun and blew a hole in Mike Dolan’s chest.

  Dolan flew backward, his gun and the wallet flying from his hands. As he landed on his back, his gun hit the floor but the wallet landed on top of its owner, Markstein, who grabbed it and then covered his head with both hands.

  Wooster couldn’t believe what he’d seen from down the hall. He’d never seen a man draw his gun that fast.

  The whore, Loretta, came to the doorway, one hand scratching her crotch and the other cupping one of her big breasts. She looked down at Dolan, knew he was dead, and then looked at Clint.

  “Guess I ain’t gettin’ paid today,” she said, then added, “unless—”

  “Try him,” Clint said, pointing at the man on the floor. “He looks like he needs some tender loving.”

  He backed into his room and closed the door. Let somebody else clean up the mess.

  FIVE

  When the knock came at his door, it was no surprise, but at least now he had splashed some water on his face and was awake. He opened the door and found himself facing a man wearing a sheriff’s badge.

  “Sheriff.”

  “Your name Clint Adams?” the man asked.

  “That’s me.”

  The sheriff had a craggy face behind a bushy mustache, and looked like a man who had been wearing tin for about twenty years. Clint had no desire to give him a hard time.

  “The Gunsmith, right? No joke?” the lawman asked.

  “No joke.”

  “Well, based on what the witnesses said, I’m inclined to believe you,” the sheriff said. “Of course, two of the witnesses are a drunk and a whore.”

  “And the man with the wallet?”

  “He’s in room ten,” the sheriff said. “Says you saved him from bein’ robbed, and probably saved his life.”

  “I don’t know, you tell me,” Clint said. “Were you acquainted with the dead man?”

  “Mike Dolan? Everybody around here was acquainted with Mike Dolan. He needed killin’. Yeah, you probably saved the fella’s life.”

  Clint looked out into the hall where a couple of men were removing the body.

  “My name’s Cafferty,” the lawman said. He put his hand out for Clint to shake.

  “Sheriff Cafferty.” Clint shook the man’s hand.

  “Fella down the hall whose life you saved wants to thank you,” the sheriff said.

  “That’s it?” Clint asked. “You’re not going to ask for my gun? Tell me to leave town? Ask me when I got here, what I want here?”

  “Desk clerk says you got here last night, all you wanted to do was sleep,” Cafferty said. “Seems to me the commotion in the hall woke you up and you came out just at the right time.”

  “Or wrong time.”

  Cafferty shrugged.

  “That depends on how you look at it, I guess,” he said. “Wrong for you, right for the dude from the East. He’s in room ten, by the way. Wants you to stop in.”

  “How is he?”

  “Battered, bruised,” Cafferty said. “The doc’s in with him now, patchin’ him up.”

  “I’ll stop in.”

  “By the way,” the lawman asked. “What are you doin’ in town?”

  “Just passing through, Sheriff,” Clint said. “Just passing through.”

  After the lawman left, Clint closed his door, locked it, and walked to room ten. He knocked on the door and heard someone shout “Come!”

  As he entered, the man on the bed pushed the doctor away and said, “That’s the man who saved my life! Come in, come in, my friend.”

  Clint looked at the sawbones, who had an exasperated look on his heavily lined face. He got the same feeling from the doctor that he got from the sheriff: that they’d been here awhile and seen a lot.

  “How’s he doing?” Clint asked.

  “He’s got a bump on his head,” the doctor said, “and he’s ornery. I’m Doc Miller.”

  “Clint Adams.”

  “Mr. Adams,” the man on the bed said, “my name is George Markstein and I owe you my life.”

  “Mr. Markstein,” Clint said, “you really don’t owe anything, not for killing a man—”

  “That man needed killing,” Markstein said. “He was…brutal. Did you see the marks on the woman?”

  “On the whore?” Clint asked.

  “Whore or not, he needn’t have marked her that way,” Markstein said. “Any man who would treat a woman that way deserves to be shot.”

  “Well, I just wish I hadn’t had to do it,” Clint said. “I only came out of my room because the noise woke me up.”

  “And lucky for me that you did,” Markstein said. He had a bandage on his head, and there was a little blood seeping through. “I hope you’ll let me repay you in some way.”

  “I think you’d better just concentrate on healing up, sir,” Clint said. “I just dropped by to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m doing quite well, thanks to you.”

  “And the doctor.”

  “Yes, of course,” Markstein said. “Will you dine with me, sir? Perhaps tomorrow evening? My treat, of course.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I’d like to talk with you about a business proposition.”

  “Business? What business are you in, Mr. Markstein?”

  “Stone,” the man said, “precious stones.”

  The doctor was closing his bag and said, “You must be here about the mines, then.”

  “Doctor, how much do I owe you?” Markstein asked.

  “You two settle up,” Clint said. “I just got to town last night and I haven’t eaten a thing yet. I’m going to go out and find a restaurant.”

  “Find a good one and we can go there tomorrow,” Markstein said. “I believe I can make it worth your while.”

  “Sure,” Clint said, “why not? I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Mr. Markstein.”

  “Now, Doctor,” the man was saying as Clint left, “about your fee…”

  SIX

  Clint found a place for a decent steak and a good cup of coffee, then found a saloon with cold beer and poker. He was definitely unhappy about having had to kill Mike Dolan, but everywhere he went he heard people talking about it, saying that “finally” somebody had killed Dolan, who “needed” it.

  The saloon he settled in was called the Nighthawk Saloon. Kingman, which just several years earlier had been a one-tent, one-saloon, one-horse town, was growing, but the Nighthawk had been one of the first saloons and was not only still around, but was prospering.

  He could still smell the new wood scent as he entered. While the long bar was scarred in places, they obviously were not years worth of scars. With a cold beer in hand he turned to examine the room. It had everything it was supposed to have—games, girls, music. And in one corner, eyeing Clint Adams, it had Carl Breckens and Aaron Edwards…

  “It
’s a damn good thing we didn’t go into that hotel today,” Edwards said. “Who knew the goddamned Gunsmith would be in there. We’d both be dead by now.”

  “And why didn’t we go in?” Breckens asked.

  “I know, I know,” Edwards said, “it was because you wouldn’t let us. You was right, we got to go slow and think first.”

  “You can go slow,” Breckens said, “but the thinking is gonna be up to me. Right?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “So why don’t you go slowly up to the bar and get us two more beers,” Breckens said. “And try not to get killed while you’re doin’ it.”

  At the far end of the bar to his left Clint saw somebody he recognized, but he couldn’t quite place him. It took him a few moments, but then he realized he’d seen the man in the hallway near his room in the hotel during all the ruckus.

  He called the bartender over and asked, “Who’s that fella down there? At the end of the bar, by the window?”

  “Him?” the bartender said. “That’s Wooster, Charlie Wooster. He’s the town drunk.”

  “Town drunk?”

  “Well, as much of one as we got,” the man added. “He ain’t fallin’ down drunk all the time, but he does odd jobs for whiskey money.”

  Clint wondered what odd job Wooster had been doing in the hotel. Was he the go-between for the room switch that was supposed to take place? Did he get the amount of money wrong? At the moment the man was staring morosely into a glass of whiskey. Clint decided to leave him alone. He’d probably be able to get the whole story from Markstein at supper the next night, anyway.

  “That an open game?” he asked the bartender, indicating a four-handed poker game that was taking place across the room.

  “Yep. Anybody can play. Just walk over, sit down and put your money on the table.”

  Clint finished his beer first, because he didn’t like to drink at the poker table. The he walked over and did like the bartender said, he just sat down and put his money on the table. They dealt him in the next hand.