Dark Trail (4 page)

“I'll tell him I'll give him just one more chance.”

“Umm-hmm.”

“No call to get sarcastic.”

“I'm not getting sarcastic. I'm just saying you've given him one last chance a lot of different times.”

“But this time he'll understand.”

“Why this time?”

“Because he's getting older, Leo. He's got to understand that. A girl like Beth . . . if Ben Rittenauer can't hold her, how can Frank hold her?”

“I wouldn't bet Frank believes that.”

They were back at her hotel. The lobby was filled with geezers reading newspapers and
The Police Gazette,
smoking cigars, and chewing tobacco, which they deposited in impressive brown arcs into tarnished brass spittoons. Pimples of steam covered the front display window.

“You're really a good friend, Leo, and I appreciate it. Sometimes I wish I hadn't—”

But he put his hand to her soft warm lips and stopped her from saying it. He knew she didn't mean it—it was just the moment and her grief speaking—and in some way it would be painful to hear her say it, so he stopped her.

“You get some sleep,” he said.

“That Hollister.”

“I was thinking about him, too.”

“Wonder how he knows Frank.”

“I don't know.”

“And he even knew my name.”

“I noticed.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“I don't have any idea.”

“You'll tell me?”

“I will.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Maybe I should never have left you, Leo.”

So she'd said it after all.

“You go get some sleep, Sarah.”

“You'd never treat a woman this way.”

So he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and said, “Just try and relax a little, Sarah.”

“Leo, I—”

“Really,” he said. “Just relax.”

And then he was gone, footsteps in the gloom moving briskly toward the saloons and taverns along the river.

At ten o'clock Guild walked into the Swenson Tap Room. The lights ran to kerosene lanterns, and the atmosphere to the kind of leather-seated opulence the more successful drummers not only enjoyed but insisted on. The place was only a few blocks from the depot and likely did a lot of business with travelers. There was a man in a dark and conservative suit at a piano. A woman with high-piled hair and a nice bosom framed in a low-cut dress greeted Guild as he came in. There was nothing coy about her. Her smile was pleasant, perhaps even sincere, but utterly without sexual promise, and Guild admired her for that.

When he told her he was looking for Hollister, she nodded and led him to the back of the place where a large booth was hidden behind massive burgundy-colored drapes. She parted the drapes and peeked in, saying, “Mr. Guild is here.”

A low, masculine voice rumbled something. She closed the drapes and looked up at Guild. “Could you give them a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.” She nodded to the front door. “I need to get back.”

Guild nodded. She left.

He stood there looking over the place—the huge cloud of smoke that had settled in the center of the room, the nicely dressed clientele, the pinochle game going on over in the corner. He did not belong in a place like this. It brought to mind the fact that he was by trade a farmer and rancher and now bounty hunter, that he was not educated well and did not always dress well. He felt ashamed of himself and then angry at himself for feeling ashamed. If Hollister had not invited him, Guild would never have come into a place like this.

The curtains parted. Two men sat at a round poker table. One was Hollister. The other was a tall, white-haired man with a long white mustache and pitiless blue eyes. He wore a gray suit that lent him the air of a Confederate general. He was probably forty.

He sat there quite frankly taking Guild's measure. Guild couldn't tell if the man was impressed with what he saw. He was the sort of man you'd never know anything about unless he chose to tell you, and that wasn't very likely.

Hollister said, “Mr. Guild, this is Tom Adair.”

Adair put a long arm out. Guild shook his hand. The man had a strong, dry grip.

“And you're drinking what, Mr. Guild?” Hollister asked.

“A shot of whiskey and a schooner would be fine.”

“Any particular brand?”

“Whatever they've got.”

Hollister's eyes showed a kind of amused tolerance for Guild.

Once they were all seated and the barmaid had set their drinks in front of them and drawn the curtain, Hollister said, “Do you know who Tom Adair is, Mr. Guild?”

Guild looked at Adair. “I've heard the name. But right off I couldn't tell you where.”

“Richest man in this river valley,” Adair said. “I have farms, two bauxite mines, several retail stores, and a half interest in the short-line railroad that serves this state and the four contiguous states. I also have a lot more, but I've probably done a pretty good job of impressing you already, haven't I, Mr. Guild?”

There was no hint of irony in the man's voice.

“You'd think so, wouldn't you?” Guild said.

Tom Adair leaned forward. There was something predatory about his face up close in the glow of the Rochester lamp. “I also have a lot of important friends.”

“I'm sure you do.”

As if he were a vaudevillian taking over his part of the act, Hollister asked, “Have you ever studied history, Mr. Guild?”

“Not as much as I should have.”

“Well,” Hollister said, “if you ever read about the Roman emperors, you'll find that they all had one problem in common.” Guild didn't say anything. Hollister looked at Adair and then continued. “They had a difficult time keeping their friends—and all the other citizens of Rome—amused. You're familiar with the Coliseum and the games?”

Guild nodded.

“Well, during the reign of each emperor, the citizens and friends of the court got bored with the games and demanded new pleasures.”

“I see.”

“Have you ever heard of Tiberius?”

“I'm afraid not.”

Adair took over once more from Hollister. “He had a particularly bad problem, Mr. Guild. His palace courtiers were so bored with the games that they began to dislike Tiberius personally. He had to come up with something that was really unique.”

Hollister said, “So that's why he came up with the idea of the bear and the baby.”

“The bear and the baby?”

“He'd have his soldiers capture great black bears from the mountains and then bring them to Rome.”

Guild wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest of this.

Hollister continued, “Then he'd gather the elite citizens of Rome along the river's edge. Before their eyes, he'd have the bears killed in a very brutal fashion, after which he'd have them gutted and laid open.”

“I see.”

Adair said, “Not yet you don't, Mr. Guild. Do you know what he'd put inside the bears?”

Guild said nothing. Knowing what was coming next, he felt sick.

Leaning even farther forward so that Guild could feel the man's spittle spray across his face, Adair continued. “He'd take the youngest infants of the palace slaves and have them sewn inside the empty bellies of the bears. The babies were alive inside there. You could hear them crying and screaming.”

“And then the guards would take the bears and hurl them into the water,” Hollister took over, “and the crowd would watch the bears sink with the babies drowning inside.”

“And it turned Tiberius' fortune around. He was known, for the rest of his life, as one of the great games-givers of Roman history,” Adair said.

Guild knocked his whiskey back. He wanted to reach across and slap Adair. Hollister was too much of a toady to even bother with.

“What do you think of that, Mr. Guild?” Hollister asked.

“I think Tiberius should have been killed. With somebody's hands.”

Hollister laughed. “Now don't go and get moral on us, Mr. Guild. We told you that story for a reason.”

The barmaid came, and Hollister ordered another round for the three of them.

When the barmaid had gone, Adair said, “Important people tend to get bored easily, Mr. Guild. They're too sophisticated to put up with things that would amuse ordinary people.”

“Tomorrow night there's a birthday party out at the ranch for Mr. Adair. He'll be forty-two,” said Hollister.

“I haven't been able to come up with any event that would really please my friends,” Adair said. ‘Till now, that is.”

“What he's got in mind is a real honest-to-God gunfight held right at the ranch,” Hollister said.

Adair said, smiling for the first time, “And I'm willing to pay you two thousand dollars to deliver the two men to my place tomorrow night. I'm talking about Frank Evans and Ben Rittenauer, Mr. Guild. And you can tell them for me that the winner gets ten thousand dollars in good Yankee cash. Now how does that sound, Mr. Guild?”

“Not interested,” Guild said.

“Not interested?” Hollister said. “In two thousand dollars?”

“That's right. Not interested.”

And with that he stood up.

“I appreciate the drinks, gentlemen.”

“You're actually going to turn down two thousand dollars?” Adair asked.

“I am,” Guild said.

“You don't have to take part in any of it, Mr. Guild. All you have to do is deliver them,” Hollister said.

“I realize that.”

“And you still won't do it?”

“That's right,” Guild said, taking a certain pleasure in frustrating two men as sure of themselves as these two. “I won't do it.”

“Well, I'll be damned,” Adair said. “A bounty hunter with scruples.”

Guild touched his hat in a farewell salute and left.

Ben Rittenauer stood in the street across from the hotel and looked up at the fourth floor window, the one where the desk clerk said Beth and Frank Evans were staying. A kerosene lamp burned beyond the gauzy white curtains, and once or twice he'd glimpsed the silhouette of a woman passing quickly by the window. He'd felt sick and exhilarated alike. Twice a uniformed policeman walked by the comer where Rittenauer stood, taking suspicious note of the stranger standing there.

It was getting late now. Everything but a few saloons was closed up. Fog in silver tatters floated down the streets. Inside the fog you could hear footsteps on the board sidewalks, and the occasional sounds of lovers laughing about something to each other. A huge clock mounted on a pole outside the jeweler's chimed loudly at midnight. Far away a single surrey worked its way home, the hoofslaps of its one horse lonely in the silver gloom. The fog made everything dreamy and unreal. Rittenauer stood there staring up at the fourth floor window, having absolutely no idea what to do with not only this evening but with his entire life. Being heartsick made him like this, crazed and frantic in a quiet way.

The third time he passed by, the policeman said, “You got business here?”

“I'm just getting some air.”

“You keep looking up at the hotel.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I'd like to know why.”

Rittenauer sighed. “There's a woman up there.”

“Oh?”

“A woman I know.”

“Why don't you go up and see her then?”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“She's with somebody.”

The policeman raised his eyes to the fourth floor, third window from the right. The silhouette was there again. Beth.

“Yeah, she might complain,” the policeman said.

“Complain?”

“Look down and see you standing here and complain. You've been here a long time. She's apt to get frightened.”

The policeman, who had a belly beneath his blue uniform with the smart gold buttons, wore a wide creaking holster and a pair of stylish fawn-pink gloves. He tugged the gloves on tighter now, as if he were going to punch Rittenauer. “You don't take a hint very well, do you?”

“Huh?”

“I'm asking you to move on.”

“Oh.”

The policeman stared at him. “Now.”

“Oh. Right.”

Rittenauer took one more look up at the window. He felt sick to his stomach. She was so close. In a minute or two he could be at her room. He had so many things to say. Soft and loving things, hard and bitter things. He wanted to hold her and feel her and taste her. He wanted her to be the way she'd been back in the days when he'd been the peacekeeper in the infamous Kansas City saloon where everybody from the Earp brothers to Wild Bill took time to get drunk.