Ed Gorman - Showdown

"You're right," the clerk said, sweeping the money on the counter up with a massive hand. "Now, you promise no rough stuff?"

"No rough stuff."

"And you promise no gunplay?"

"No gunplay. Just give me the room numbers," Neville said with increasing impatience, "and let me get on with my business."

With an important sigh—the things I have to do to make a living, the clerk's sigh said—he leaned forward, took a blank sheet of paper, a No. 3 lead pencil, and wrote down the two room numbers.

Neville hitched up his holster and set off for the stairs.

Chapter Twenty

"It ain't gonna work," Tolan said.

"What isn't going to work?" Rooney said.

"You think I'll get drunk and pass out and then you'll take all the money and run."

"Our train'll be here in two hours or so. That wouldn't be enough time to get you that drunk."

They were in Tolan's room. Tolan had checked Rooney for weapons before letting him come in and sit down. Rooney had brought a bottle of rye with him. It had sat, unopened, for nearly an hour now.

Tolan nodded at the bottle. "That's a nice bottle."

"I figured we'd have ourselves a nice little drink before we left. We've been friends a long time, Tolan."

"We've never been friends, Rooney. You're too selfish to have friends. You even left me behind when I was wounded."

"You would've left me."

Tolan eyed him and shook his head. "That's the funny thing, Rooney. I wouldn't have. I would've been dumb enough to find you a horse and take you with me."

Rooney smiled that cold, cold smile. "You're a sentimental man, Tolan. Nobody'd think you were, if they just met you and all." The smile vanished. "But it's dangerous, Tolan. Being sentimental like that. It gives other people a weapon against you."

"You left me, and even so I took up with you again."

"Nobody forced you, Tolan."

"And you kept on screwing me every way you could. A little bit here and a little bit there. But it all added up."

"I thought we'd have a friendly drink before train time, Tolan."

"I'm like that poor old collie we had on the farm. The old man'd get drunk and try and teach it tricks, but the dog never picked up on 'em very good. And so the old man'd beat her and beat her with his razor strop. He'd draw blood. He even put one of her eyes out. My little sister 'n' me'd cry and beg my old man to stop hitting the dog. But he never would. He'd go beating her until he got bored and turned on one of us. The funny thing was that we were just like that collie. No matter how much the old man'd beat us, we'd forgive him. We loved him. There wasn't any reason to love him. But we loved him just like that poor old collie did. I guess that's what you mean by sentimental, huh, Rooney?"

But Rooney's mind was elsewhere. He'd never taken any interest in Tolan's trouble, and he clearly wasn't about to start now.

Without warning, Tolan picked up the bottle of rye and tossed it to Rooney. Rooney caught it with his crotch. He laughed. "You could've caused some permanent damage there."

Tolan didn't smile. "You take the first drink."

"Tolan, God Almighty, you think I put something in this drink."

"I sure do."

"You're too smart for something like that. I wouldn't even try it."

Tolan sat up on the bed, pointing the six-shooter at Rooney's head.

"Take a drink, Rooney."

"I just had a full meal. Don't really feel like drinking right now."

"You don't take a drink there, Rooney, I'm gonna kill you on the spot."

"Now, that wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it?"

"Sure it would. I'm pretty dumb, but I can sure make it look like you fired at me first. I might spend a night or two in a cell. But a good lawyer'd get me off. And I'd still have plenty of money left to go to California." Tolan pulled the hammer back. "Now, go on, Rooney, and take a drink."

"Aw, shit," Rooney said. Then he laughed—almost giggled, in fact, like a tyke who'd been caught stealing something from his old man's coin box. "I might as well admit it."

"Yeah. You might as well."

"I queered the rye."

"You prick. I knew that's what you done." Rooney pitched the bottle on the bed.

"You took my money, Tolan. What the hell else could I do?"

"I thought you said I was too smart to go for queering the drink."

The icy smile. "Well, you didn't go for it, did you? But I still thought I'd give it a try anyway."

Tolan was about to say something when they heard heavy footsteps in the hall. And then a heavy knock.

Tolan and Rooney glanced at each other.

"Who is it?" Tolan said, not moving from the bed.

"Sheriff's office. Deputy McBride."

This time when they glanced at each, there was tension in their eyes. Somebody from the sheriff's office wasn't what they needed with less than two hours to go until train time.

"What is it you need?" Rooney said.

"Sheriff wants me to ask you a couple questions. This won't take long."

Tolan started up from the bed, his gun aimed directly at the door. He holstered that and picked up a sawed-off.

Rooney half-leapt at Tolan, grabbing the man's gun wrist, pushing against the sawed-off.

Rooney whispered: "We sure as hell don't want a shootout. Let's just see what he wants. Maybe they just like to hassle strangers here."

With that, Rooney shrugged and tugged his suit into proper fitting position, slicked back his hair with the palms of both hands, and then wiped a heavy finger across his lips, in case he'd left some crumbs there.

He looked back at Tolan. Tolan was ready to reenact the Civil War right here and right now. That was all he knew how to do.

But this situation called for a civilized man of intelligence and self-control. One who could, through charm and subterfuge, make short order of a hick deputy sheriff.

He opened the door, and Richard Neville hit him in the face with the butt of a Sharps buffalo rifle.

Rooney—not a tough man, not a tough man at all—went wheeling backward, a womanly sound emitting from his lips.

Tolan tried to reach his sawed-off, but it was too late for that now, wasn't it?

Neville closed the door behind him and said, "You two were supposed to be on a steamboat two days ago. God knows I paid you two enough money to take care of my sister and then get away from here. What the hell happened?"

Chapter Twenty-one

There was a lot of disagreement from people in the hotel—staff and guests alike—as to which came first: the sound of the Colt or the sound of the sawed-off. Opinion seemed to divide right down the middle.

The sheriff's name was Walt Naismith. He was tall, sinewy, and carried a wad of chaw that made his cheek look eight months pregnant. He wore a dusty suit and a suspicious expression.

He checked it all out upstairs, where the killings had taken place, meanwhile keeping Neville in the temporary custody of a lone deputy in the lobby.

The gunfire hadn't been difficult to hear. Prine had been less than a block away when it came. He knew who was involved. What he didn't know then was who had survived.

Now he sat next to Neville in the hotel café, across the table from Naismith, who had dragged a spittoon over to his chair.

"These the men killed your sister?" Naismith said.

"Yes, sir, they are," Neville said.

"And you're sure of that?"

"Yes, I am, Sheriff. And the deputy here will vouch for me."

"Is that true, son? You'll vouch for him?"

"If you're asking me were these the men who killed his sister, yes. I believe they were."

"And you don't have any reason not to believe they were?"

"I guess I don't follow."

Naismith smiled around his chaw.

"Not fun when you're the one being asked the questions. You're too used to bein' the asker instead of the askee."