Juanito made his way to the head of the bed and carefully examined the wall, the night table, and the kerosene lantern on top of the table. He lifted and studied first one pillow, then the other. Turning back to Emmett, he said, “If I had to guess, I’d say there were two killers.”
“What tells you that?”
“If either Señor or Señora Singleton struggled in their death throes, one might awaken the other. The other one might scream or try to scramble out of bed. But all of the blood seems to be right here. Neither one fought back or tried to run.”
Emmett surveyed the wood flooring for drops or smears of blood. Even though the daylight was beginning to fade, he was pretty sure there weren’t any.
“Where’s the safe?” Juanito asked.
After returning to the doorway that separated the bedroom from the parlor and taking a quick survey of both rooms, Emmett said, “Must be up in the hotel. But having a go at the safe—probably nothing more than a poor stab at making this look like a robbery attempt rather than the work of shameless assassins.”
“Might’ve gotten greedy,” Taft said. “Then maybe they heard somebody moving about and got spooked before they finished the job.”
No, Emmett thought. People hardened enough to kill for money wouldn’t take to the tall timbers at the first sign of trouble. He eyed Taft and wondered whether the saloon owner was ready to lay the blame for his own misfortunes elsewhere yet.
“Day before yesterday,” Emmett said, “when I came to tell you about the murder of our friend Sikes…”
“Yes?”
“I told you I had witnesses. I didn’t tell you who those witnesses were.”
Taft’s hands went to his hips. “Are you suggesting that somebody else did tell me? And that I sent someone to do this?”
“I wasn’t going to suggest that.” The thought might have crossed his mind, but he didn’t think it was very likely. “I’m simply trying to get a handle on who else knew about the Singletons and Augusto and our alibi. Somebody didn’t want them to testify.”
“Well, I didn’t know.” Taft ambled to the open window and pulled the gently flapping curtain aside. “On the other hand, I assume your ranger friend VanDorn knew.”
“He knew,” Emmett said.
“And the marshal? And his deputy?” Taft was still peering out the window.
“Yes, VanDorn told ’em both. But the marshal was dead by the time these murders took place.” Emmett gestured toward the bed.
Taft looked back over his shoulder. “What about the deputy? Where’d he disappear to for more than twenty-four hours following the gunfight?”
Emmett recalled what Li had said about Deputy Livingston—taking shots at Taft before withdrawing from the shoot-out. “What are you saying? You think the deputy was in cahoots with those who robbed you?”
“Maybe him and the marshal,” Taft said. “The morning I was robbed, the only thing the marshal did was put me off. Wouldn’t hear of getting up a posse. Insisted I wait on your ranger friend, Jack VanDorn.”
Emmett stared. True enough, the marshal hadn’t been in any big hurry to investigate things. But—unlike Taft’s supposed witnesses—he hadn’t been quick to make accusations, either. Fact was, Alonzo Perry had made it as easy as pie for Li and Juanito to walk in unhindered and spring him out of the hoosegow. Never made a fuss over it afterward at the Cantina Las Flores either. Whatever all that might mean, Emmett simply couldn’t imagine the marshal as the kind of man to be involved in a robbery, much less in the cold-blooded murder of folks like the Singletons and Augusto.
“You’ve got a point about Deputy Livingston—disappearing in the middle of the shoot-out,” Emmett said. “Something’s off there.”
“So maybe you can tell me what’s off,” Taft said.
Juanito took a step forward. “Are you really still accusing us?” He motioned toward the blood-stained mattress. “Even after seeing all this?”
Emmett held Juanito from stepping any closer to Taft. “The deputy’s disappearance isn’t the only thing that’s off,” he said to the saloon owner. “Where was your new lookout man the other night when all hell broke loose?”
Taft said, “I don’t know.”
“And that doesn’t raise any questions in your mind?” Juanito leaned against Emmett’s restraining hand.
The saloon owner stepped to the side of the window and turned to face them square on.
“Sounds like we need to head back to El Paso early tomorrow morning,” Emmett said, “to ask both men some questions.”
Taft shook his head. “We won’t need to ride back to El Paso to start the questioning.”
Emmett suddenly had a sinking feeling. His gaze shot to the open window. “You had folks follow us out here. Who?”
Taft hesitated. “My witnesses—Russ Johnson and Slim Walker.”
Juanito edged to the window casing and eased the curtain aside just enough to peek through with one eye. “I don’t see anyone.”
“What about your shotgun man?” Emmett tried to read Taft’s eyes in the fading light.
“Not sure I trust him anymore,” Taft said. “Didn’t intend for him to follow along.”
Emmett cocked his head. “But…”
Taft looked grim. “But I just spotted him, too, not even a minute ago. Right across the yard.”
The words were hardly past Taft’s lips when a gunshot sounded from up in the hotel.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Emmett reached the Singletons’ front door with pistol drawn. The upper half of the door had glass panes covered by lace curtain. As soon as he touched the curtain to pull it back to take a peek, another gunshot cracked the air, and a bullet smashed the glass. Shards nicked his hand.
He retreated to the bedroom. There he found Juanito holding Taft up against the wall. The saloon owner’s Schofield revolver was lying on the mattress.
Closing fast on Taft, Emmett thumbed back the hammer of his Colt and stuck the muzzle to the saloon owner’s temple.
“You had your boys follow us,” Emmett said. “Was it to cover you or to gun down Juanito and me? ’Cause as you plainly heard, they’re shooting at us now.”
Taft drew a breath to answer, but Emmett cut him off. “And the women are up there. What were your amigos supposed to do to the women?” In a flash of a thought, he hoped desperately that that first bullet hadn’t wounded or killed Li…or Geneve or Lupita.
The saloon owner stuck out his chin. “I just told Russ Johnson to get together one or two of the boys to cover my backside. Nothing more. You’d have done the same.”
Taft claimed he didn’t trust his own shotgun man. Emmett, of course, knew that Russ Johnson and Slim Walker and the new lookout man had been lying all along. He decided then and there that it was probably just as he’d been considering the entire time—that whole bunch had robbed Taft, and now they were looking to get rid of any and all who might accuse them of doing the job.
Emmett spun Taft physically and shoved him toward the window. “Let’s give it one chance to see whether they’ll listen to you. Tell your boys to come out into the yard. All of ’em. Now.”
When Taft hesitated, glowering over his shoulder, Juanito drew his Colt and tossed a nod toward the window. “Like Emmett said…”
Slowly, Taft turned and sidled up to the edge of the window. Dusk was settling in. “Russ,” he called, “you and the men you have with you, all of you, come on out into the yard back here.”
For a few seconds, all was quiet.
“We can’t,” someone called back. “It ain’t that simple no more.”
Emmett eyed Juanito. Whatever wasn’t so simple up there anymore had to involve Li, Geneve, and Lupita.
“Ask him what the problem is,” Emmett murmured and shoved his gun barrel into Taft’s back.
“You’ve got to come out,” Taft sho
uted. “Bring the women with you.”
Again, there was a brief silence.
“Can’t exactly bring the women,” came the shouted response.
Please, God, no, Emmett prayed silently as he pressed his Colt harder against Taft’s spine.
Her Colt Lightning ready, Li peered through a two-inch opening where she held the door ajar. From there she had a clean line of sight—and line of fire—to the top of the stairway.
She fought to keep her breathing calm and steady. Though her heart drummed away, she felt she could use the Colt if she had to.
She couldn’t decide whether the fading light was her friend or her foe. While the dimness might conceal the fact that she had the door cracked open, she feared that the growing darkness would allow Taft’s men to get up the stairs before she realized they were there.
When they had first shown up, her initial thought had been that it was just Emmett, Juanito, and Taft returning from the Singletons’ house. That conclusion, however, she had discarded instantly. She had heard footfalls on the hotel porch. Not ordinary footfalls but cautious, calculated steps—two, maybe three men, trying to reach the hotel lobby door undetected.
She had put a finger to her lips to silence Lupita and Geneve.
“Emmett?” she’d said in full voice.
Instead of an answer, Li had heard only the distinctive click of a gun being cocked just outside the front door of the hotel.
She had motioned for Lupita to take Geneve upstairs. No sooner had the women risen from the settee than two men—one a redhead with a peach-fuzz beard, the other a thickly mustached fellow with stringy blond hair—had rushed into the hotel lobby. Geneve and Lupita left off attempting to move silently. All three women had made the turn and run for the stairs. One of the two men had fired a single shot. The other one had said, “No, you damn fool. If you kill Miss Geneve, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Now Li waited at the door of the guest room where she, Geneve, and Lupita had taken refuge. Emmett will come, she assured herself. But if Taft’s men come up these stairs before that, I will shoot—and I will kill. She brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek and reminded herself that if it came to firing repeatedly, she needed to let the delicate trigger mechanism of her otherwise dependable Colt Lightning reset between shots.
“Cover Taft for a minute,” Emmett said to Juanito.
“I’m no longer your enemy,” Taft said gruffly. “Your enemies are up there in the hotel with your women.”
“Things are changing so fast, I’m not sure either you or I know exactly what to think of each other,” Emmett said. “So if you’ll pardon the cautious measures…”
He nodded to Juanito. Juanito kept his persuader pointed at Taft.
Emmett closed his eyes and tried to envision everything he knew about the layout of the hotel. One entrance in the back—the kitchen door. A single door going into the restaurant on the street side. Double doors just down the porch leading into the hotel lobby.
The shooters up there had the hotel’s back door covered. Emmett was pretty sure that’s where the bullet that shattered the glass a minute ago had come from. If Taft’s shotgun man had enough gunmen with him, they’d no doubt leave a man at each of the other doors, too.
Should he and Juanito split up? No. They had to keep an eye on Taft while all this was going on. Unless…he opened his eyes and began to search the house for something to use to tie Taft to the bedframe. Then he and Juanito could go after the outlaws up in the hotel without worrying about getting shot in the back.
“Give me a minute,” he said to his brother-in-law.
Juanito, gun in hand, continued watching Taft.
“I swear,” Taft said, “there’s no need for you to worry about me. After what I’ve seen here”—he held out his hands—“plus all the other bits and pieces, I don’t believe you robbed me. More than likely it was those cusses up in the hotel.”
Time was wasting, and all Emmett could find were articles of clothing and dishtowels. No rope, cord, or leather thong. He glanced at the window to check how much daylight remained. Dusk had not yet taken complete hold of the evening.
He could take the time to tear one of Sid Singleton’s nightshirts into long strips and use several of those to tie Taft’s wrists and ankles to the iron bedframe while waiting for complete darkness. But the fabric might not hold up very well. And Li needed his help now.
“Give me my gun, and I’ll go in side by side with the two of you,” Taft said.
Emmett stopped and stared hard at Taft. Was this the man’s poker face? Perhaps the one that had won him the Wild Hog Saloon? Was he sincere, or was this a bluff of the sort he’d practiced a hundred times over?
At last Emmett said, “Don’t make me regret this.” He tipped his head toward the mattress where the saloon owner’s gun lay.
Showing both his palms, Taft said, “You won’t regret it.”
As Taft made his way to retrieve his Schofield, Emmett gave the slightest nod to Juanito.
“Six beans in the wheel,” Emmett said, releasing his Colt’s cylinder and inserting one more cartridge.
Once he was done, Juanito added another bullet to his gun, as well.
Emmett led the way out the back door of the Singletons’ cottage. “You go left, Juanito. Take Taft with you.”
“Once Juanito starts shooting at the back door, Taft, you make a beeline for the left-hand side of the hotel. Make your way to the front, and wait till you see me at the far end of the building.”
Taft looked like a different man. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Cover the back, Juanito,” Emmett said. “If you get the chance to make it to the back door, then by all means, take it.” He gripped his brother-in-law’s elbow and looked him square in the eye. “But don’t take any risks that’ll get you killed, cuñado. You hear?”
Juanito stepped away from the door, putting Taft between himself and where they’d be heading. “Are you ready, hermano?”
“Yep.”
As soon as Taft and Juanito headed left, Emmett went right. He was going to have to traverse a longer stretch of backyard to reach the end of the hotel he was headed for than Taft was going to have to cover. The saving grace was that the Singletons’ bedsheets that Lupita had hung on the clothesline would provide a screen for him partway across the yard. And the sheets were waving gently in the twilight breeze. For a moment at least, whoever was standing in the hotel’s back door might attribute Emmett’s movement to the rippling laundry.
Emmett’s heart picked up a beat as he waited for Juanito to open fire. It wasn’t long. One shot. A pause to let the fellow in the hotel doorway focus on that corner of the house. There was no immediate return fire.
Then Juanito opened up again. Now bullets were flying in both directions, and Emmett set off as fast as his boots would carry him.
Before Emmett reached the far corner of the hotel, Juanito was out of bullets. The no-count in the back door was then free to get off a shot in Emmett’s direction. One round snapped past him far too close for comfort. But he made it to the side of the building without getting hit.
He hurried along the side of the hotel then peered cautiously around the front corner.
Cautious gawkers stood behind the swinging doors and in the front windows of the nameless saloon across the street. He wondered whether Russ Johnson had stashed anyone over there to plug him in the back when he tried to approach the hotel’s front doors. It certainly couldn’t be the pickled old coot—bottle in hand—barely able to sit upright on the boardwalk across the way.
Emmett eyed the string of horses that lined the rails right in front of the hotel—five animals, all belonging to his party. Russ Johnson and his outfit must’ve tethered their mounts over at the saloon to keep them out of the line of fire.
Holding his hand out to signal Taft to stay put at the far end of the
hotel, Emmett rushed to the nearest horse, Taft’s sorrel. The horse snorted as Emmett untied its reins from the hitch rack. He stroked the horse’s muzzle gently, then led the animal back to the end of the hotel porch where he’d come from.
Once he had the sorrel situated just where he wanted him, he gripped the unfamiliar horse’s bridle by the cheek strap and pulled its head toward him as he stepped into the stirrup. In one fluid move, Emmett hopped up, set his right boot in the middle of the saddle, released his left boot from the stirrup, and grabbed onto the edge of the porch roof.
Juanito and the fellow in the back doorway began to exchange shots once again. Hoping the distraction of that uproar would cover his own noise, he scrambled for the nearest guest room window. Much to his relief, it was not locked.
As he slid the lower window sash up, he hoped Taft would realize he should wait until the shindig started up inside before rushing the front door.
In the dimness inside the guest room, Emmett was keenly aware of every soft muted clomp of every careful step he took and every corresponding creak of the room’s floorboards. His only consolation was that if any of Russ Johnson’s boys were in the hallway outside the room, they’d make just as much noise as they approached the guest room door.
Emmett stood stock still at the door, listening. His own pulse whooshed in his ears. The shooting out back had stopped once again. The rafters up and down the wooden structure popped periodically as they cooled after the long day under the beating sun.
Where would Li and the others be right now? Held at gunpoint by Russ Johnson? Holed up hiding somewhere inside the building? He heard no sobbing, no talking, no hubbub. Under other circumstances he might wonder whether another living soul was in the entire hotel.
Whatever he did next, he’d have to do it in a fashion that would not impede swift and accurate gun work.
He reached to extract a cartridge from a loop at the back of his gun belt, but as soon as his fingers touched the brass casing, he changed his mind—he might need every last bullet he had. Instead, he slipped his fingers into his vest pocket and drew out a coin. Felt like two bits.
Strong Suspicions (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 2) Page 24