She peeled the cold, wet sock off The Revenger’s other foot, and sucked a startled breath. “See there? The same thing!” She cradled his foot in her lap and went to work, massaging it, bending the toes forward and back.
“Gala!” Harken wheezed, staring in scandalized shock over his newspaper. “He may be a brother in need, but you’re not a doctor. You’re a twenty-three-year-old young woman, and it is my duty to see that—”
“Stanley, I’m merely tending the man’s feet,” Gala said, rolling her eyes at Sartain. “I promise to ask your permission if I intend to go any higher.”
Harken glanced around again. All eyes were indeed on the governor’s daughter and the Cajun. It seemed as though the card players were having trouble concentrating on their game.
The three bodyguards watched Sartain and muttered in low, angry tones among themselves. Even the Germanic-faced blond young man cast quick, furtive glances Gala’s way, while, hunched over the table, he continued to hold his wife’s hand.
His face was dark red, as though deeply embarrassed by the young woman’s display, but that didn’t keep him from continuing to cast quick, sheepish but lusty glances at her.
Sartain groaned as she worked the blood back into his foot. He hadn’t been able to feel her manipulations at first, but now he was starting to. He felt the valley between her thighs under his heel, the supple warmth of her hands massaging his foot. As she toiled, she often leaned forward, and her black hair brushed across his toes, and he was even starting to feel the mesmerizing, silky, intimate sensation of that, as well.
Along with his foot, his blood was starting to heat up.
Harken polished off his brandy and summoned Dalton for another. After the proprietor had brought over the bottle and Harken had refilled the snifter, the girl’s chaperone took a long gulp from the glass and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
He kept his voice low as he said, “Tell me, Mr. Sartain, exactly what was it you saw out there? What is it that you think killed Mr. Dalton’s hired man?”
“I don’t know what it was,” Sartain said, wincing as the girl manipulated the blood back into his other foot. “All I know is, it's crafty and it’s strong.”
“A bear? Mountain lion?”
Sartain took another pull from his bottle. “I don’t know.”
“Should we be worried?”
Sartain glanced around the room. Most of the eyes in the room had drifted away from the girl and the Cajun’s frozen foot.
The Revenger considered Stanley’s question.
He himself wasn’t so much worried as angry that the beast had made off with his prey and killed a good man. Should the others be worried? Probably not. The beast couldn’t get inside the saloon.
Could it?
Everyone in town should be wary, however. And no one should step outside tonight. But the weather would likely keep them all in, anyway. Slop buckets would be used for nature calls. Dalton was probably right to not get anyone riled, and there was a fine line between being duly concerned about a bona fide threat and panic.
Panic could make the situation far worse than it was.
As soon as the storm broke, Sartain would go out after the beast and kill it for killing his prey and Hector Lee Wallace and, probably, Dorian, as well.
Footsteps sounded on the broad wooden stairs flanking Sartain. He glanced over his shoulder as the stout Alma Dalton stopped halfway down the stairs and declared, “Your bath—.”
The moon-faced woman, her brown hair pinned in swirls above each ear, frowned in surprise at the young woman kneeling between The Revenger’s spread legs, his bare left foot getting a workout in the girl’s lap.
Alma Dalton returned her gaze to Sartain and said, “Your bath is ready, Mr. Sartain.”
She continued down the stairs and disappeared through the curtained doorway flanking the bar.
Sartain took another pull from the bottle and looked at Stanley.
“Forget about it,” he told the middle-aged man and stuffed the corked bottle into his coat pocket. “The beast can’t get in here. Besides, it’s gonna be dead real soon...just as soon as I can get outside and track it.”
He pulled his foot from the girl’s lap, gathered his saddlebags and rifle, and rose from his chair.
“Thanks, darlin’,” he said, smiling down at the girl gazing up at him from her knees. “Sure do appreciate it. That hot bath is callin’.”
As he clamped his boots under his arm, Gala said, “If you need someone to wash your back, you know where to look, Mr. Sartain.”
One of the bodyguards said, “Crap, that son of a...”
“Gala!” Harken reprimanded his charge.
The girl laughed.
Sartain winced at the tightness of his trousers and started barefoot up the stairs.
Chapter 13
Room Six was small, with a lumpy bed and a dresser with a cracked mirror. Sartain closed the door and considered the key in the lock. He gave a snort and didn’t turn the key. Something told him he’d have a visitor if Gala could pry herself away from Stanley and her bodyguards.
The girl could probably do anything once she set her devious mind to it.
A tub sat on the braided rug. It was one of those large copper affairs with a high back, and it held enough steaming water that a fellow could soak his half-frozen hide for a good long time. Sartain dumped his gear on the bed and then looked out the window between the bed and the dresser, sliding the flour sack curtain aside with the back of his hand.
The window looked out on the back of the saloon. He couldn’t see much now because of the heavy, murky darkness threaded with wind-driven snow, but he could make out the hulking outline of the barn between howling gusts.
Where was Dorian?
Where in hell had she gone?
Had she left the barn to look for him and then never made it back? That was the only conclusion he found himself coming to. If that were so, she was likely dead by now.
Guilt hammered at him but continuing to look would be pointless. All sign of her would be long gone, and her body would likely be buried in a snowdrift. If the thing that had taken Charlie Scanlon and decapitated Hec Wallace hadn’t gotten her, which was just as likely.
Sartain shrugged out of his coat, removing the bottle and setting it on the floor by the tub, and shucked out of his cold, stiff clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed, naked, warming himself by the charcoal brazier glowing in the corner, and hastily rolled a smoke.
When he’d lit it, he poked a toe into the tub and winced.
Alma hadn’t cut the hot with cold. That was all right. It was a cold night.
He dropped both feet into the scalding water and sank slowly, slowly into the tub, watching the water inch up past his belly to his chest, turning him red. At first, the hot water made him feel even colder, but then, as he lolled against the backrest and leisurely smoked the quirley, the heat engulfed him, soothing.
The heat made him groggy, as though a syringe filled with sleep had been plunged into him.
He took a long, deep drag from the quirley, blew the smoke at the ceiling, then reached for the bottle. He took a long pull, enjoying the burn inside as well as outside of him now. That made him even groggier. Suddenly, his eyelids were as heavy as anvils. Sleep began to roll over him but rolled away when footfalls sounded in the hall.
The footsteps stopped outside his door. He looked at the holstered LeMat he’d positioned on the bed to his right, three feet away, for a quick grab. Then he grinned.
Three knocks sounded, louder than he would have expected.
“Who is it?” asked the Cajun, the grin still half in place.
“It’s Dalton,” came the raspy male voice in sharp contrast to the one he’d expected. “Can I come in, Sartain?”
The Cajun was needled by a vague disappointment.
“As long as you don’t get fresh, I’m butt-naked, but the door’s open.”
Hinges chirped and groaned, and Dalton ambl
ed in, his stockmen’s boots with high, undershot heels scraping along the floor, a loosely rolled quirley dangling from the Sundance proprietor’s thin, wrinkled lips. He closed the door and turned to Sartain, ashes dribbling from the smoldering quirley.
“Wanted to talk to ya,” he said.
“Forgive me for not getting up. There’s a chair, though it don’t look none too sound.”
Dalton pulled the room’s lone, Windsor chair out from the corner and positioned it beside the tub. He eased his gnarled body into it, wincing against the popping of his weathered joints, and leaned forward. A clump of gray ashes dropped from his quirley to bounce off the side of the tub, half of the ashes dropping into the water, the other half dribbling onto the floor.
“Christ, Dalton,” Sartain said.
“Sorry.” Dalton removed the quirley from between his lips, blew smoke at Sartain, and said, “Wanted to discuss the...uh...the problem.”
He glanced at the door, as though someone might be listening just outside of it.
“By the problem, I assume you mean the beast that separated Hector Wallace’s head from the rest of him and likely killed the girl I rode in here with?”
Dalton turned his mouth corners down, sheepish. “Yeah, well...sorry about that, Sartain.” He kept his voice low, just above a whisper. His raw, sweat-and-tobacco and stale-ale stench filled the room as well as Sartain’s nostrils, which the Cajun tried not to pinch. “We got us a little problem, you see.”
“Yes, I’ve seen. Believe me. What is this problem, Dalton?”
Again, the wizened oldster glanced suspiciously at the door. “Bear, I think.”
“A bear?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Dalton brushed his fist across his nose and then took another, shallow drag off his cigarette. “Started moonin’ around here a couple weeks ago. Must be one o’ them that’s late to hibernate. We get ‘em every once in a while. Night owls, I call ‘em.”
The saloon owner tried a grin. Sartain stared blandly back at him.
Again, sheepishly, Dalton said, “They usually head back to the mountains by now, or drift on down to the badlands south of here, and hole up for the winter. But there’s sometimes one that gets confused...and gets owly cause he’s confused.”
“So, you think it’s a bear on the lurk around here, killin’ folks.”
“Sure enough. I seen it. From a distance. A bear, all right. Hell, I know what a bear looks like! But don’t you worry, I’m gonna hire me a couple of hunters to go out after it just as soon as the storm clears.”
“No need. I’m gonna go out after this bear of yours, Dalton.” Sartain narrowed an eye at the bony, little man. “Are you sure it’s a bear?”
“Sure as hell, I’m sure!” Dalton declared, suddenly indignant. “Are you tellin’ me I don’t know what a bear looks like?”
“No, I ain’t sayin’ that at all. It’s just that this thing doesn’t act like any bear I’ve ever encountered or even heard about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the thing is...well...the thing seems smarter than most bears. Cunning.”
“Oh, bears can be cunning, by God!” Dalton slapped his thigh, and more ashes sprayed from his cigarette. “And, yeah, this is a pretty damn cunning one. That’s for sure.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer to the Cajun. “But let’s just keep this whole unfortunate episode under our hats, all right, Sartain?”
“Why?”
“Those folks down there are gonna be gone just as soon as the weather clears, and we can get another crew for the train. Another train is due in two days. There won’t be any trouble till then. I’ll keep everybody inside. It’ll likely be too cold to go out, anyways, and me an’ Alma will keep the slop buckets emptied. Yessir, we’ll just keep everybody inside. Everbody’ll be safe in here, for sure!”
“Why so secretive, Dalton?”
“Because, by God, we’re tryin’ to grow a town here. These is modern times a-comin’. Been comin’ ever since they put the railroad through here. You know what was here before the railroad come?”
Sartain just stared at him.
“Nothin’ but my saloon, and it was only a ten-by-ten trader’s shack, half of it canvas! A little canvas-and-log shack along the old Army and freight trail. Once the railroad said they was comin’, I rode over to Grand Island and got me a loan from the bank to add on. And I did, by God. Look around you. All this is due to the railroad movin’ in, and soon a real town is gonna grow, and me an’ everyone else around here is gonna get right prosperous.”
“Why, next spring I got some pleasure girls from Omaha comin’, and there’s a doctor from Minneapolis givin’ serious thought to hangin’ up his shingle hereabouts. We already have us a blacksmith and a wheelwright, though they both went to Kansas for the winter. But they’ll be back in the spring, and they’ll likely stay all year next year. There’s plenty of folks back in the hills around here—wheat farmers, mostly—and more are comin’ on account of the railroad and my saloon!”
Dalton leaned even closer to Sartain, his pale-blue eyes twinkling giddily within deep sockets. “Do you know there’s even a rumor that back East they’re startin’ to get electric lights an such? Sure as hell, Sartain, this elec-sissity is gonna take the place of coal oil. Soon you’ll be able to just flick a switch and a lamp fires up!”
Sartain looked at the man, incredulous.
“A passin’-through Easterner told me streetcars are gonna run on this elec-sissity, too. No need for wood or coal—none of that stuff. Just elec—”
“...sissity,” Sartain finished for the man.
“Darn tootin’!” Half-bounding out of his chair, Dalton gave his thigh a loud whack!
When he sank back in his chair, his face acquired a serious expression. “If them people down there start spreadin’ it around that it’s still half-wild around here, and that folks is gettin’ ate by bears, why, that word’ll keep spreadin’ like a wildfire. It might ruin our chances of becomin’ a real town and gettin’ prosperous as they are over in Grand Island.”
Dalton brought the stub of his quirley to his lips and puffed, slitting his eyes against the smoke. “You wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would you, Sartain?”
“No, no. Of course not,” the Cajun said. Hell, Dalton’s enthusiasm for his prospective town almost had Sartain convinced that it was indeed best to keep the bear under his hat.
If it really was a bear.
What else could it be, though?
Had to be a bear...
“All right, Dalton,” Sartain said. “I won’t go announcin’ it around about the...thing...no more. But tomorrow, by God, I’m goin’ out after it. Just to make sure it is a bear, and that that bear pays for killin’ Hec Wallace and Dorian if that’s how she ended up.”
“Dorian, eh?”
“That’s her name. Dorian.”
“Odd name.” A nerve twitched in the hotel proprietor’s cheek as he gained his feet. He dropped the cigarette on the floor and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot.
He jerked with a start, and plucked the mashed quirley up, chastising himself with, “Look there! See how hard it is to make a place civilized? Why, I’m already for the streetcars runnin’ on elec-sissity through Sundance, and I’m still stubbin’ my quirleys out indoors!”
The old man clucked to himself, holding the quirley in the palm of his gnarled hand, and opened the door.
“I think we had us a nice talk here, Sartain. I do appreciate it.”
“Do you appreciate it enough to bring me a plate of food? Maybe a pitcher of cold water?”
“Sure, sure. Comin’ right up!” Dalton grinned, nodded, winked, went out, and closed the door behind him.
Chapter 14
The beast moved out of the howling darkness from behind the barn, sleeved blood from its lips, and shook itself, flinging snow in all directions. It was a futile move, for another gust of wind pelted its fur once more.
The beast studied the saloon’s dully
glowing windows. It slogged through the snow to the saloon’s rear wall and peered into the two windows left of the back door. No humans moved within. There were only barrels of flour and meal, and shelves stocked with airtight tins and small burlap pouches.
Cured meat hung from the rafters.
The beast moved to the door and stood before it, studying it, touching the knob, and then brushing its nose across its planks. Faintly, the cold air was touched with the smell of cured meat and humans emanating from within.
The smell had little effect on the beast. The beast was sated on the flesh of the half-breed.
It slogged through the knee-deep drifts and moved around the saloon’s rear corner. It moved up the side wall, blinking against the blowing snow and the snow ricocheting off the saloon’s red, clapboard wall. The beast stopped at the first window, crouching, and slid an eye around the edge of the frame to peer inside.
The little man who was always here, with the big woman who was always here, stood before the hearth not far from the beast, crouched forward to stir something hanging over the flames. Through the window, the beast could smell the food it knew humans to eat and which the beast itself could taste when it sunk his teeth into their flesh.
Their flesh, however, was much sweeter and more succulent than the food the humans themselves consumed.
The beast snorted, grunting softly deep in its throat, as it studied the broad, low-ceiling room before it, beyond the crouching little man.
Men were clumped here and there. Most were flipping cards back and forth across their table, tossing coins or green money down before them, occasionally laughing, coughing, drawing on cigars or cigarettes and exhaling great plumes of lantern-lit smoke. They picked up their glasses and paused to speak to each other and sometimes to chuckle or laugh, and then they lifted the glasses to their lips and drank.
They sat around together, laughing, being together and enjoying each other’s company, occasionally patting each other on the back. One man looked as though he were angry as he rose from his chair and wrapped his hands around the neck of the man—a black man—sitting beside him. The beast drew an excited breath, widening its dark eyes, but then released the breath when the standing man laughed and only made as if to strangle the black man.
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