Dark Trail (5 page)

Being a gunfighter wasn't in itself lucrative, but when you were a gunfighter of some repute, rich and powerful people always wanted to hire you for something or other. Rich and powerful people seemed to like gunfighters as much as young kids did. You could sit with a rich man and he'd buy you steaks and drinks all night, and maybe even get you a woman or two. Just as long as you kept playing hard at being the tough and fearless gunfighter he wanted you to be. You never told him about the night before a gun-fight, how you paced and prayed and sweated, or about the aftermath sometimes, how you couldn't quit shaking till way into the next day. They wanted to believe that you were brave and fearless, and so that's how you played it for them.

“You hear me?” the policeman said. “About moving on?”

Rittenauer, moving his gaze from the window to the policeman's doughy, middle-aged face said, “I hear you.”

And then Rittenauer, too, was just invisible footsteps on the board sidewalk in the silver floating fog.

He didn't even really look at the place or anybody in it while he downed three shots of whiskey and two glasses of beer. When he saw that one drunk was in the process of recognizing him, he turned his face away. He was in no mood to amuse hayseeds with tales of gun battles.

Rittenauer was in the place an hour. He didn't feel any better when he left but he did have an idea anyway. Tonight, this very moment, he was going to speak his piece, and if Beth didn't like it or Frank Evans didn't like it, he didn't give a damn.

He walked straight over to the hotel.

Except for an old man sleeping in a chair, the lobby was empty. The young desk clerk was reading a magazine when Rittenauer walked past.

The desk clerk looked up. “Hey.”

“Pardon me?”

“You got business upstairs?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What sort of business?”

“Seeing a friend.”

“What friend?”

Rittenauer walked over to the desk. “Son, do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes. Because if you did know who I was, you wouldn't be taking that tone with me.”

“Oh, I wouldn't, huh?”

“No, you wouldn't. I'm Ben Rittenauer.”

And it worked. Just like that it worked. Rittenauer didn't even have to drop his hand to the .44 strapped around his waist. He just spoke his name and watched the reaction.

“You really are?” The desk clerk now sounded as young as he looked.

“I really am.”

“I'll be dogged.”

“Now I'd like to go upstairs if you don't mind.”

“All I ask is you don't get me in trouble. Don't shoot anybody or anything.”

“Right.”

“I'm really glad to meet you, Mr. Rittenauer.”

“Right.”

Rittenauer went upstairs.

Beyond the doors were the sounds of coughing, of nightmares, of snoring. Beyond the doors drummers lay lonely, long-married couples lay sleeping with a familiar hand planted fondly on a familiar hip, and young married couples lay making love. He felt separate from all this. He had his anger now, his need to tell her everything that was constantly exploding in his head and heart.

He found their door and put his head to it and listened. And heard nothing. They were sleeping.

He wanted to ease open the door, go in there and slap the hell out of Evans, and then take her by the arm and drag her down the stairs and out of this place forever.

His hand touched the doorknob. Started to turn it. His heart hammered. He was eager to get inside.

And then he heard the footsteps creaking down the hall. He turned to see this slender and very pretty woman standing there. She had an odd, almost crazy smile on her face and she said, “I see we both got the same idea.”

“Ma'am?”

“Go in there and tell them what we think of them. Make them just as miserable as they've made us.”

“Ma'am?”

The woman took a few steps closer to him. “You're Ben Rittenauer. I'm Sarah Evans. I'm Frank's wife.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

Guild was halfway back to his boardinghouse when he heard footsteps coming up fast behind him on the board sidewalk. He touched his hand to his .44, ready to draw and fire if necessary. The fog, thick and chill, unnerved him.

“Mr. Guild! Mr. Guild!”

The footsteps got faster. He could hear an overweight human being panting now from exertion. From the fog there emerged the shape of Adair's hired man, Hollister.

Hollister got his hand on Guild's shoulder and slowed him down. Hollister's chest was heaving so hard, Guild was afraid the man was going to have a heart attack.

“Mr. Adair thinks we misjudged you,” Hollister panted, swatting silver fog from his face the way he would gnats. In the shadows from the streetlight, Hollister's face looked fat and sweaty.

“He does, huh?”

“He said that he didn't know you were a man of honor.”

“A man of honor. I see.”

“Like himself, that is.”

This time Guild didn't bother to be sarcastic. He just snorted. “Is that what Adair is, a man of honor?”

Hollister looked hurt, as if Guild had said something dirty about Hollister's father. “That's how he likes to think of himself, Mr. Guild.”

“I'm still not interested in your deal, Hollister.”

“He said he wants to give you till morning to reconsider.”

“I won't change my mind.”

“Then he'll have me talk to them myself—Evans and Rittenauer, I mean.”

“Then you talk to them.”

“They're going to fight anyway, Mr. Guild. You might as well make two thousand dollars on it. You can make it easier for everybody involved.”

“No, thanks.”

Hollister paused and looked carefully at Guild. “I'm told Evans' wife used to be your wife.”

“You're not going to get to me that way, either, Hollister.”

“You shouldn't have any love for Frank Evans.”

“I don't.”

“Then why wouldn't you want to see him go up against Ben Rittenauer. Ben may very well kill him.”

“If they want to fight, that's up to them. I just don't think they should do it for the amusement of a bunch of railroad barons.”

Hollister sighed. “They're not such bad folks when you get to know them, Mr. Guild.”

“Maybe not. But I don't plan to meet them to find out.”

“Who do you think will win?” Hollister asked.

“Evans or Rittenauer?”

“Yes.”

Guild shrugged. “Hard to say. Evans is faster, Rittenauer's a better shot. They're probably pretty even.”

“Then it should be a very good fight.”

“Your friend Adair will get his blood money's worth, if that's what you're really asking.”

“One of those men is going to make a nice profit that day. Whichever one of them gets out alive, that is.”

“Good night, Hollister.”

In a moment, out of the circle of lamplight, Guild became nothing more than footsteps on the boards in the fog.

“Good night, Mr. Guild. You've got till morning to change your mind.”

Guild just kept walking.

He sat by the window, at the table. Frank Evans wore trousers but no shirt and no shoes. Before him on the table was a stack of greenbacks, a modest stack. In the summer past he had traveled with a carnival, doing fast-draw exhibits and taking part in a laughable presentation about gunfighters put on by an ersatz Southern colonel who went by the name Fitzsimmons. The money had been good and Beth had liked the celebrity that attached to being Frank Evans' girl.

That was the odd thing about her. For all her beauty, for all the splendid manner she affected, she was really a naive young woman. The show was tawdry, really, but Beth didn't seem to notice. She just liked the way the townspeople swirled around her, asking her questions about Frank and other gunfighters. After a show, she always made Frank go for a walk in town with her, her arm in his, watching people point at them and smiling.

The curious thing was, when they were alone, she never asked him about gunfighting, about what it was really like, about the early years when he'd been earning his reputation. And she never asked about money. She just seemed to assume it would always be coming in. At least that was how she spent it. So many clothes; so much time in front of the mirror.

That reminded him of the one thing he missed about his wife Sarah. Her wisdom. Bring any sort of problem to Sarah, and in her quiet, almost brooding way she could solve it for you. But that was part of Sarah's problem, at least as Frank saw it. Her drabness. There was no fun left in her. She was more like his sister or mother than his lover. Beth was the opposite. The very opposite. Beth was a prize. Beth was the woman all the other men envied. Beth was the girl who made you feel as young as you'd once been. Beth was the girl who made you just a little better than the other men. Beth was the measure of your manhood. And as he neared forty, he realized that he must keep Beth at all costs.

But lately he hadn't been able to sleep well. He'd sit up at night in their succession of hotel rooms, counting his money and counting it yet again, as if it might have magically multiplied since the last time he'd counted it. Winter would have to come and then spring before the carnival was ready to roll again, before he was collecting a steady paycheck again. He could have gotten a regular job somewhere, he supposed, but he knew that both Beth and he himself would have been disappointed if he did. Frank Evans couldn't work at an ordinary job like an ordinary man. Just couldn't.

Beth rolled over now, snoring softly and wetly. She had a way of sleeping with one hand flung across her face like a tiny girl. Standing above her at such times he found her so adorable that he was afraid of her. . . . of losing her. . . . of not having the prize other men envied.

This time he didn't get up to look. He just stared out the window at the fog. Seen from four floors up, the stuff was like a silver river floating through the midnight town, the moon a round golden disc behind the haze.

He sighed, and counted his money once again.

They found a place over by the railroad tracks where a respectable woman could go without being embarrassed.

The place was crowded and smoky and the service pretty bad. Ben Rittenauer ended up getting them their own coffee and bringing it back, along with cream and sugar.

They sat in a back booth and sipped their coffee. Finally Sarah said, “Have you ever seen them together?”

“Ma'am?”

“Seen them arm in arm walking down the street?”

“Oh. No. I guess I haven't.”

“They look good.”

He shrugged. “I suppose they do.”

“Frank's hair is getting gray, but he's still a good-looking man.”

“I've never thought about it before but I guess he is.”

“And Beth is certainly a beautiful woman.”

“You won't get any argument about that.”

Sarah lifted her cup and blew gently across the dark surface. The coffee shimmered, like a pond on which you were skipping a stone. “I tried to do what you did,” she said.

“Oh?”

“The other day I marched right up to their room and was all prepared to go in there and give them a big speech.”

“But you didn't?”

“No. At the last minute I decided that I had more pride than that.”

“I'm glad you came along tonight. And stopped me, I mean.”

Sarah stared at him. “You mind if I ask you something, Mr. Rittenauer?”

“How about calling me Ben.”

“Ben, then.”

“Be my guest. Ask away.”

“Do you want her back?”

“Sure.”

“You say that pretty quickly.”

“Why wouldn't I? I love her and I want her back.”

“Has she ever left you before?”

Just then a group of men at the counter got loud over some joke. The oppressive smoke from cigarettes and cigars, and the smell of grease from the grill began getting to Ben.

Rittenauer said, “I know what you're trying to tell me.”

“And what would that be?”

“That she's done this to me before with other men and that she'll do it to me again.”

“That's right. And Frank will do it to me again, too.”

Rittenauer stirred more sugar into his cup. He had already put four spoonfuls in there. “How long you been with Frank?”