Ralph Compton - Bluff City

“Sir?”

Stanley glanced around the office, then lowered his voice. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but she has been following you around. Asking questions of everyone you know. Trying to find out more about you.”

“Has she, now?” Clay shammed innocence.

“She wouldn’t tell me why. All she would say was that she was investigating you because she likes you.” Stanley fell silent as the typesetter walked past, then said, “Now I ask you, isn’t that just like a female? Her logic is no kind of logic at all, but there you have it.”

“Why are you telling me this, sir?”

“Because I would like for the two of you to get back together. It’s her I’m thinking of. She needs more in her life than work. Hell, we all do.” Stanley clamped his teeth on the pipe stem and puffed. “Well, back to work.”

It was shortly after two when a short, scruffy man in a slouch hat, wearing a revolver tucked under his belt near the buckle, slunk into the Courier. On seeing him, Clay slid his right hand under his jacket. “Can I help you, mister?”

“Would you be Adams?”

“If I am?” Clay rejoined.

“Skagg sent me. I’m a friend of his. They call me Rat.”

Clay made sure no one was near, then crooked a finger. “I’m listening.”

Rat leaned across the counter. He had yellow teeth and fetid breath. “Skagg says to tell you he found out what you wanted to know. He says you’re to come to the stone bridge over Pine Creek at ten tonight.”

“Why did he send you instead of coming himself?”

“He says he has to be careful. That the gent you have had him asking about is as dangerous as a wolverine. Skagg doesn’t want to be seen anywhere near here.”

“I would rather meet him at the Rusty Spittoon,” Clay said.

“The bridge is better. That late, and that far out, no one will be around.” Rat turned to go, then snapped his finger. “I almost forgot. Skagg says to be sure to bring the money you promised.”

“I will have the hundred with me. Tell him not to worry.”

The rest of the afternoon crawled by. Clay glanced at the clock above Jerome Stanley’s desk a score of times. Twice he caught himself impatiently tapping his fingers, and stopped.

Shortly after five Melanie returned. She ignored Clay, sat at her desk and set to work on her story about the fire, consulting her notes when she had to. Every now and then she gazed out the front window, but only when Clay’s back was to her.

It was almost seven when Jerome Stanley, puffing on his pipe, announced that Clay could go home. Clay promptly donned his derby, but instead of heading for the door, he stepped to Melanie’s desk.

“Might I have a word with you, Miss Stanley?”

“I’m busy,” Melanie said without looking at him.

“I wanted to let you know I’m leaving,” Clay said.

“I heard my uncle. Off you go. I have work to finish.”

“Should I wait outside?”

Melanie’s head snapped up. “Whatever for? We don’t have a supper date tonight, if that is what you are implying.”

“I just wanted to make it easy for you to follow me as you have been doing,” Clay said.

Melanie sniffed and continued writing. “I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Remember Gressel from the Rusty Spittoon? He remembers you. Remembers the questions you asked about me. And he’s not the only one, is he?”

Her eyes flashing, Melanie said, “You have only yourself to blame. I asked you to be honest with me and you refused. If you had been more forthcoming I would not need to unearth the truth about you by other means.”

“What have you found out so far?” Clay asked.

“That I was right. There is something peculiar about you.”

“Name one thing.”

Sitting back, Melanie folded her arms. “For starters, how about the fact that you spend a lot of your free time at the worst saloon in Bluff City. And by worst, I mean it’s the haunt of some of the most vicious characters on the frontier. Yet you mingle with them as if you are one of them.”

Clay shrugged. “They accept me, is all.”

“Don’t be coy. Mr. Gressel told me that you beat the toughest man in the saloon with your bare fists.”

“I landed a lucky punch.”

“Was it luck when you helped Cavendish and me escape from Jesse Stark? Was it luck when you killed two of his men? Was it luck that kept us out of their clutches and brought us safely to the mine?”

Clay leaned on the edge of her desk. “I thought you liked me.”

Taken aback, Melanie replied, “I do. I like you a lot. Well, more than a little, possibly. Why else would I be so curious about your past?”

“Because your nose is twitching,” Clay said. “Because you like to bite into a mystery and worry it until you have bled it dry.”

“You think you have me all figured out, but you don’t,” Melanie said stiffly.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a woman has confused a man,” Clay said. “I suppose it’s pointless to ask you to leave well enough alone?”

“It most definitely is. I love a challenge. And you, Mr. Clay Adams, are proving to be a most interesting one.”

On that note Clay walked out. He was mad but he was also flattered. “Her uncle did say she likes me,” he said aloud in wonderment, then glanced quickly around. No one had noticed.

On this particular night Clay did not bend his step to the Rusty Spittoon or the Emporium. He hurried to his apartment. From a valise he stored in the bottom of the closet he took an entirely different set of clothes and laid them out on the bed: buckskins and knee-high moccasins. At the bottom of the valise were a gun belt and holster. He unwrapped the belt and palmed the pearl-handled Colt nestled in the holster. With a skilled flourish he twirled the Colt forward, then backward, then forward again. He flipped it high into the air and caught it by the grips, his trigger finger curling around the trigger in a single smooth motion.

“I’ve missed you,” Clay said to the revolver. Grinning happily, he slid the Colt into the holster and proceeded to change clothes. When he was done, he examined himself in the full-length mirror attached to the closet door. The pearl-handled Colt rode high on his right hip, the cartridges gleaming brightly in the lamplight.

“Now that looks more like the real me,” Clay addressed his reflection. “One thing is missing, though.” He went to the closet. From a shelf near the top he took the article that completed his transformation: a wide-brimmed black hat.

About to leave, Clay did a strange thing. He ran a finger up and down his nose several times, and laughed. Then he snatched his saddlebags from off the table, slid a Winchester from under the bed and walked out humming.

His saddle, saddle blanket and bridle were in a shed next to the picket fence. He slid the bridle on the claybank, threw the saddle blanket over its back and smoothed the blanket, and reached for the saddle. After tightening the cinch he tied his saddlebags on, shoved the Winchester into the saddle scabbard and informed the claybank, “We’re ready.”

Leading the horse by the reins, Clay opened the gate, looked both ways and led the horse into the side street. It was deserted. He quietly closed the gate, then forked leather, the saddle creaking under his weight. The claybank stomped a hoof.

“I know, I know,” Clay said. “You have been cooped up too long. I don’t blame you.”

A jab of his heels and Clay was on his way. Pine Creek was a mile to the south of Bluff City. The stone bridge where he was to meet Skagg Izzard was another half mile past the junction. He rode slowly, relishing the sense of being himself after weeks of being someone else.

To the west reared Bluff Mountain and the chain of peaks the bluff was part of. They bulged gigantic against the sky. Several were crowned with snow.