The Vengeance Seeker 4

by Will C. Knott

  “Your partner is winning for a change, looks like.”

  Reno nodded and threw down the drink. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “About time, I’d say.”

  There was a hoot from the game and a few of the onlookers glanced at each other and began talking excitedly. It sounded to Reno as if Wes had taken another big hand. He slapped his glass down onto the bar and walked over to watch.

  He found himself a chair, turned it around and sat down, his legs straddling it. A puncher was in his way. Reno tapped the fellow on the shoulder. The man bridled and looked back. When he saw it was Reno, he stepped quickly to one side. Reno moved his chair closer to the table.

  Despite the hour—it was close to two in the morning—the crowd had not lost a spectator and had recently gained one more. Sheriff Barnum had just pulled up a chair beside Reno.

  A few minutes before, a tired Rose had accidentally spilled the stein of beer she was bringing Wes, almost upsetting the table in her confusion. Fortunately, the deal had not been interrupted and when Randall asked Wes if he wanted a new deal, Wes had told him he’d stay with what he had.

  Watching Wes closely now, Reno noticed the man’s face coloring as he looked again at his hand. Glancing quickly at Randall, Reno saw the tiny beads of perspiration visible on the man’s forehead. The switch was on, it looked like—and Wes was about to go for it.

  At the moment, Reno knew, Wes was holding close to the best hand he had ever drawn in his life—or would ever draw again. Undoubtedly, as he looked at his four aces and king, he was considering almost frantically how best to keep Randall and the other two in the game long enough to build the pot. Tonight’s game was table stakes—as Reno had suggested to Randall—and a glance at the pile of chips in front of Wes assured Reno that Wes had at least three thousand in front of him. His luck had changed all right, Wes was probably thinking at that moment. And this hand had proved it for damn sure.

  Wes looked craftily over at Randall, who was dealing. “I’m standing pat,” he said.

  The other two players’ eyebrows went up, but they stayed in and each asked Randall for two cards. Randall, however, like Wes, was standing pat. After one more go around, both of the other players folded, leaving the pot for Randall and Wes to play for. The crowd of onlookers went silent.

  “You stayin’ in?” Wes asked Randall. His voice was somewhat slurred, since Rose had been bringing him a steady supply of beer throughout the game.

  “I sure am,” said Randall casually, pushing into the pot two hundred dollars worth of chips.

  Moistening his lips, Wes pushed out two hundred worth—and then two hundred more, looking up quickly to see if Randall was hooked. Randall glanced at his hand, shrugged and pushed out enough chips to match Wes’s bet, then raised Wes two hundred more.

  “Table stakes,” Wes told Randall. “Remember, we settled on that earlier.”

  Randall shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Table stakes it is.”

  With greedy eyes Wes looked across at Randall’s pile of chips, then at his own. Though Wes had been winning steadily all night it had only brought Randall’s pile down to a level with his own. Each had close to three thousand sitting in front of him.

  “How much you got there?” Wes asked the gambler.

  With a sudden frown Randall looked down and counted quickly. Then he looked across at Wes and cleared his throat. “Three thousand, two hundred.”

  “All of it,” Wes crowed. “We bet all of it. That’s close enough to what I got.”

  Randall paused for only a moment, then pushed what he had into the pot. Wes did likewise. Reno glanced at Rose. At once she bent close to Wes and whispered something to him.

  Whatever it was she told Wes, it was enough to shake him. The color rose dramatically into his face. He glanced quickly behind him at Milt. Then he looked back at Randall and slammed his cards down—face up.

  “Beat that, you sonofabitch!” Wes cried, drawing his Colt and jumping to his feet.

  The sound of scraping chairs and shuffling feet suddenly filled the saloon as everyone scrambled back. Randall looked with pure dismay from Reno to Rose—and then back to the gaping muzzle of Wes’s Colt. With shaking hands he showed his cards.

  Wes was beat—his four aces topped by Randall’s straight flush, king high.

  With a cry of rage Wes started to aim his Colt. But before he could pull the trigger, Randall lunged forward, driving the table back against Wes. As Wes went reeling back he fired, but his shot went wild and then both Randall and Milt drew their own weapons and opened up on him.

  By that time Reno had ducked back and drawn his own six-gun. His first shot hit Randall low and slammed his back against the wall. His second shot took off the top of Milt’s head, splattering and sickening the frantic onlookers behind the man. Milt collapsed without getting off another shot and Randall sagged forward, both hands clutching at his stomach, his derringer falling to the floor.

  Barnum reached out and pushed Reno’s gun down. Reno offered no protest, holstered his six-gun and turned to see Wes. Randall’s shot had caught Wes in the belly, and Milt’s bullet had entered even lower, coming from the side.

  This wasn’t Wes’s lucky night after all.

  To the onlookers Rose explained what she had seen. When she had spilled the beer, Milt had leaned forward and replaced the hand Randall had dealt Wes with a different hand—a setup. It had all happened so quickly that Rose had not been sure at first that she had seen correctly. But when she noticed the flash of cards in Milt’s jacket pocket, she realized what had happened—and warned Wes.

  Sheriff Barnum examined the contents of Milt’s jacket and found five cards, the hand originally dealt Wes—two jacks, a ten and a couple of fives. Good enough to open, but certainly not good enough to bet table stakes.

  Barnum spoke to Reno. “He was your man. You’ve been bankrollin’ him all week. The pot is yours.”

  Under Barnum’s direction a few of the onlookers had picked the chips up off the floor and piled them back onto the table. Reno nodded to Barnum, then walked back over to Wes. Someone had given him a bottle of Scotch, and he had almost emptied it. There was no doctor in the town, but a couple of old-timers were ready to make a judgment. When Reno glanced questioningly at them, they stood up and shook their heads. One of them hit a spittoon with a gob of tobacco juice before he turned and walked out of the saloon.

  Reno looked down at Wes. The man did not appear to know he was there. He was staring straight up at the ceiling. One hand was holding tightly to the bottle of Scotch he occasionally brought up to his mouth. The other hand was clutched about the mass of glistening, blood-flecked entrails that flowed out of his wound.

  “Get him to his room,” Reno said.

  As two men carried the dying man out of the saloon, Reno walked over to Rose. She was sitting at the table with a shot glass of whiskey in front of her. Her eyes were wide and staring. As Reno sat down beside her, she looked at him.

  “You knew this would happen ... that Wes would get it too—didn’t you?”

  Reno didn’t reply. Instead he took the chips that had been piled loosely back onto the table and began counting them. After a while he pushed a pile over to Rose.

  “Give me a hand,” he told her.

  She looked at him, startled. Then she wiped her nose with her finger and reached over to gather in the chips.

  Soon she was counting as rapidly as he.

  Nine

  Wolf reined in to watch the two gravediggers. His black—in sight of Lawson and close to a cool stall and fresh oats—shook his head impatiently.

  Reaching down, Wolf patted the horse’s neck to quiet him. He had been watching the gravediggers from a long distance through the mid-afternoon heat and he knew there had been no mourners, not even a preacher to say a few words over the dead.

  Wolf touched his heels to the black and started up again, wondering idly if those three graves had anything to do with Johnny Reno. It wouldn’t surprise
him if they had. There was another rider on Reno’s trail, it seemed, following him as tenaciously as Wolf—and perhaps a little closer—a darker, more terrible rider.

  This thought and others, equally grim, occurred to Wolf as he peered through the shimmering haze at Lawson’s weathered cluster of buildings. They were the thoughts that stay close to a man too long in the saddle.

  He had sent Juanita back to Silver City. She had not wanted to go back and had cried when he insisted. In her pride she had been furious with herself for showing tears. But she had gone.

  And now that he was rid of her there was nowhere he looked that he did not find reminders of her. Juanita’s healing, caressing hands still seemed to hover about him like an uncanny presence through the days and nights—until he was willing to believe she had cast a spell over him. Still, no matter what he felt, nothing could change the fact that he was a man bent to only one cruel purpose, while she was just another woman whose job it was to comfort lonely men for a price. It was a little late now for either of them to turn onto a different trail.

  As Wolf rode into Lawson, the sight of the rusted railroad tracks and the high grass growing in the cattle pens brought him back to the present. This busted cow town had a reputation that had already extended south into Wyoming. At this time of the day the sun baked streets were empty of traffic, but Wolf had no doubt that when night fell the streets and the saloons would fill up soon enough.

  He spotted the livery just beyond the Lawson Hotel and pointed his black toward it.

  Reno pulled Rose away from the window and looked for himself. She was right. It was Caulder, all right, clopping slowly across the intersection, heading for the livery. He looked beat, his lean, crooked shoulder sagging wearily forward, his flat-crowned Stetson pulled low to protect his one eye from the sun. It was unsettling to find Caulder here so soon, but however he had managed it, he was here.

  You’re cutting it close, Reno, he told himself. Damn close.

  Reno looked back at Rose. “I ain’t got no more time to argue, Rose,” he told her bluntly. “This is as far as you go with me. I told you once before—no camp followers.”

  What was left of her good looks hardened at once into something cold and malevolent. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Reno. I know what you done! I could go right to the sheriff and tell him everything!”

  Reno smiled and finished strapping on his gunbelt. Flinging the four saddlebags over his shoulder, he started past her toward the door. Suddenly, her eyes alight with fury, she ran to the window and flung up the sash, her intent obvious.

  Before she could call out to Wolf, Reno dragged her away from the window, hurled her back against the wall and slammed down the window. Then he turned to face her.

  “I want more than that thousand dollars,” she hissed. “I want five thousand. Or I’ll tell Wolf Caulder just where you’re going!”

  Reno glanced at the ten bills she had tossed angrily onto the bed moments before. He had hoped that would be enough to satisfy her. Her demand for more was out of the question. He had taken her from a man she had felt only contempt for and allowed her to serve his purposes. He was through with her now—completely. But she was too stupid to know when she was well off. She had to threaten him—she just had to show her claws.

  He tossed the saddlebags onto the bed and started toward her. “I guess there ain’t no amount I could give you would shut your mouth.”

  Her eyes widened in sudden terror as she caught the look in Reno’s eyes—and instantly she realized her mistake in ignoring his capacity for violence.

  “All right, Reno,” she cried. “All right. I didn’t mean it! I just wanted you to take me with you! I won’t tell Caulder anything! I swear!”

  Reno stopped. “You mean that thousand dollars is going to be enough for you?”

  “Oh, yes! Of course it is, Reno!”

  He laughed and drew his weapon.

  “Please, Reno! Oh, please God, no!”

  Reno cocked the Colt and pointed the muzzle at her terrified face. She sagged down the wall and fell forward onto her knees. “No, Reno! No! Please!”

  As she lifted her face to his, he brought the Colt down and across in a brutal swipe that caught her flush on the left side of her face. The barrel raked a wide furrow in her cheek as it snapped her head around, pulling her whole body with it. She was unconscious when her body came to rest at Reno’s feet.

  Reno holstered his Colt, lifted Rose from the floor and deposited her onto the bed. Leaning close, he inspected her face with clinical detachment, then slapped her roughly a couple of times in an effort to bring her around.

  When she didn’t regain consciousness immediately, he busied himself picking up the hundred-dollar bills he had given her and stuffing them into an already bulging saddlebag. By the time he had finished, she groaned and stirred.

  He reached over and grabbed the front of her silk blouse and pulled her upright. Her eyes fluttered open, then stared wide at him as he leaned close.

  “I’m taking my money,” he told her. “You don’t need it. You’ll be all right. You can make your own fortune here. But don’t tell Wolf Caulder anything. I’ll know about it if you do, Rose, and I promise you, I’ll come after you!”

  Then he pushed her back onto the bed. She stared up at him without saying a word, her left hand raised to the rapidly swelling welt on the side of her face. She had a curious, crooked look, he noted. Satisfied she would not dare now to talk to Wolf, he snatched up the saddlebags and left the room without looking back.

  He didn’t have much time left to set up Wolf’s reception.

  Leaving his gear with the hostler, Wolf emerged from the cool, horsy smell of the livery and walked along the boardwalk, heading for the saloon next to the hotel. He was looking forward to a steaming hot tub to soak the stiffness out of him and then a clean bed upon which he could stretch his long frame. But first he needed a few shots of whiskey to flush the trail dust from his mouth.

  As he pushed through the batwings and paused just inside the saloon to let the street glare fade from his eye, he became aware of a sudden silence and the smell of stale liquor and of men who had lived long, careless hours between baths. To his right he saw a bar that ran the length of the room and three tables along the wall to his left. Despite the hour, men were crowding a few of the tables and the clink of poker chips ran a steady accompaniment to the sound of his spurs as he crossed the floor and bellied up to the bar.

  “Whiskey,” Wolf told the barkeep, surprised at the dry rasp in his voice.

  As the barkeep poured, Wolf looked at him.

  “How much?”

  “Four bits.”

  “Ain’t that a mite steep?”

  “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to.”

  Wolf pulled the glass to him and downed it in one quick, grateful gulp. Then he slapped the glass down sharply onto the bar and shoved it toward the barkeep, indicating with a quick nod of his head that he wanted another shot.

  The barkeep held the bottle. “You sure you can afford it, mister?”

  Wolf regarded the man coolly and felt the weariness of the day’s ride lift—as if by magic—from his shoulders. He always perked up when challenged. “Pour, mister,” he said, “or I’ll comb your hair with that bottle you’re holding.” He smiled as he said this to take some of the sting out of his words. But the barkeep knew Wolf was on the prod.

  The man poured quickly. Wolf dropped two half-dollars onto the bar’s polished mahogany, then pulled his drink to him and turned about to watch the players at the tables while he drank.

  They were all cut from the same rough cloth—hard cases mostly—and all of them down on their luck, holing up in this town waiting for a change in fortune, which could be anything from another gold strike to a train or bank to rob—or to a passing drummer ripe for the plucking. The good old days were gone for these men, but they refused to believe that and were sitting here in the heat of the afternoon gambling away the hours
as they waited for their return.

  At the sound of someone pushing through the batwings, Wolf glanced over to look at the newcomer. He frowned in quick recognition as the bearlike figure strode toward him. The thickly bearded face creased into a grin as he saw that Wolf recognized him.

  “Hello, Wolf.”

  “Hello yourself, Pete.”

  And then Wolf caught the dull glint of the badge on the man’s vest.

  “What’s this, Pete? You the law in this rat’s nest?”

  “Times are changing, Wolf. Can I buy you a drink?”

  Wolf shrugged. “At these prices, I’d consider that most generous.”

  The barkeep poured and the two men drank quietly and talked—mostly about old friends and outlaws Wolf had met on his grim errands of the past. A depressingly large number of them were now dead or on their way into Mexico or South America, Wolf learned. At last their conversation brought them back to Lawson as Wolf asked Barnum why a town like this one needed—or wanted—a sheriff.

  Barnum smiled. “The few businessmen left here need someone to handle the hard cases this town attracts. Something about fighting fire with fire,” he finished with a shrug.

  “Seems to me you’d still be setting fires yourself.”

  “I still do,” the man replied softly, “but I pick my places carefully.”

  “Like the Green River County Savings Association?”

  Barnum turned his attention back to the drink in his hand.

  “When you passed through Green River this spring, you weren’t just passing through, were you, Pete?”

  Barnum gave Wolf a sidelong glance. “I guess you might call it a business trip at that.”

  “Where’s Reno?”

  “He ain’t here, Wolf.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “How much of that money did he give you to case Green River?”

  “What we agreed on—not much, but enough.”