Colorado Sam (15 page)

   “Yes, it would. But, as Mr. Westfall would say, it doesn't make him any less dangerous,” Nathan reasoned. “Even if the Buckmans threatened his life, he didn't have the courage to warn you or Father or Uncle Seth as to what they were planning.” 

   Alana pushed her chair back from the table and hefted her rifle. “That's what bothers me the most. Eldon Payne is not a coward. He may not leave his office much today, but he was a cavalry officer and was recognized for valor while serving with General Crook.”

   Nathan shrugged into his mackinaw, and though he knew the answer, asked, “What now?”

   Alana stuffed strands of loose hair beneath her canvas cap. “We need to talk with J. Franklin Abbott about confronting Eldon with the bank document. It's the only card we have to play.”

   “Unless Mr. Westfall tracks down the murderers,” Nathan reminded her. 

   They stepped away from the table and Sam unwound from his place in the corner to take his normal station at Alana's hip. They were approaching the door exiting the dining room when the huge dog attacked. 

   Sam went up and over the table with no warning other than a rumbling growl. Chairs overturned, bodies scattered, and a scream raised hair on the back of diners' necks. Nathan understood immediately what was happening. Sam was trained to attack on command, and for him to do otherwise would occur only if he'd scented a person known to him from a prior encounter, and what sprang to mind was the ugly affair in the Payne stable when Nathan had been brained with a club.

   The crowd split apart, creating an ever-widening opening at the point of attack. A booted foot stuck skyward beyond the overturned table. The scream had come from the same location.

   Nathan never questioned what he should do. He freed the tie-down thong from the hammer and drew his six-gun from its holster. A tug with his free hand rolled the overturned table out of the way and there was Sam gnawing on a big man dressed in a brown duck coat. If not for the thick cloth and heavy lining of his coat sleeve, Sam's ripping teeth would have been tearing hunks of flesh from the man's forearm. As it was, the thick duck cloth was beginning to come apart at the seams. Spying Nathan's pistol, some of the startled crowd urged him to shoot Sam.

   The crack of the rifle quieted the room. Smoke drifted from the rifle's barrel and the fresh bullet hole in the wooden floor at the edge of the crowd. The crisp click of    Alana cocking her Winchester prolonged the silence. “Down, Sam! Down!”

   Sam dropped the big man's arm and retreated. The big man scrambled to his feet, face beet red with anger. In all that red, the white scar at the corner of his left eye could easily be seen. It was shaped like a question mark.  The chance of any two men having the same precise scar was so remote Nathan knew he was looking at one of the men who'd shot at him on the St. Louis waterfront. He wanted to yell for somebody to fetch the marshal or the sheriff or the police, whoever the law was in Creede, but he hesitated. 

   There had been two shooters. Was the big man alone or was his fellow shooter, the one Burt Dawes described as skinny, red-haired, and gimlet-eyed, somewhere in the room with a weapon of his own. What would he do if his partner were threatened with arrest? It was a chance Nathan wasn't prepared to take, not with Alana equally vulnerable to a bullet from the crowd.

   “Cool down, Mister,” Nathan ordered. “You're not hurt. I apologize for Sam going wild on us. We'll pay for your coat.”

   Alana made it easy for the big man to cease and desist by laying a gold piece on the table nearest him with enough monetary value to buy two duck coats even at Creede's inflated prices. The big man swept the coin from the table and bolted from the room. Nathan suspected he not only wanted to get clear of the growling Sam, but also escape the attention of the crowd. He watched closely, but no one seemed to follow the big man, at least not right off.

   His arm tired from holding his pistol level, Nathan holstered the Colt. Members of the crowd righted the overturned table, and except for the few gawkers debating why the huge dog had jumped the big man, diners throughout the room went back to work with knife and fork.

   Alana lowered the hammer of her rifle and stroked Sam's shoulder. “It's just like that night at the Payne stable. He attacked without an order to do so.”

   “It was the same man. I recognized him from the description Mr. Dawes gave me.”

   “Then why didn't you have him arrested?”

   “Because there were two of them that night and I was afraid the other one might be in the crowd with a gun.”

    Alana shuddered. “Nephew, if those two men are here searching for us, Roan Buckman's been a step ahead of us every minute.” With a hearty sigh, Alana roughed Sam's ears. “I'll be glad when this whole affair is over and the only thing I have to worry over is feeding cattle through the winter. Let's find our room.” 

   Yet another abrupt development awaited them at the dining room door. A woman blocked their path. She wore small rimless spectacles and braided her hair into a tight bun, but unlike Doc Ellie, the woman was comely and well proportioned. By the standards of Nathan's mother, the puffed sleeves of her striped shirtwaist would have been deemed acceptable by the ladies of St. Louis, as would have her plain black Henrietta skirt. Her square-toed leather boots would have provoked talk behind raised hands.

   The woman's warm blue eyes and friendly smile put Nathan and Alana at ease. “I'm Mary Zhang, and I believe you're Mrs. Tanner, are you not?”

   “Guess my disguise isn't as good as I thought.”

   “It's not that, Mrs. Tanner. The night clerk at the office recognized you from your previous visit. Jake didn't speak with you personally then, but he hasn't forgotten the most beautiful female to ever grace Creede Avenue. After he told me you had a big dog with you I didn't have much trouble picking you out of the crowd.” 

   Mary Zhang's warm smile returned. “I was traveling in the east when you were here with your husband last summer. Now that I'm home, I insist you share my accommodations upstairs.”

   “I'd like that very much,” said an appreciative Alana, “as long as your invitation includes my dog, Sam.”

   “Jake warned me your dog sleeps in your room. I'm sorry to say we couldn't awaken the drunks in time to clean and mop the room Jake promised you. But Jake has a cot in the rear of the reading room. Your young friend can sleep there.”

   “Nathan's more than a friend,” Alana said. “He's my husband's nephew from St. Louis.” 

   “I'm pleased to meet you, Nathan,” Mary Zhang said, shaking Nathan's hand. “Have you any luggage, Mrs. Tanner?”

   “No, we're just here overnight. We've finished our business and will be taking the train home tomorrow.” 

   “Come along then,” Mary Zhang said. “I have extra night clothes and you look like you would enjoy a freshly made bed and a cup of tea.” 

   “Those are the best words I've heard in a week, Mary Zhang,” Alana said. Snapping her fingers to gain Sam's attention, she touched Nathan's arm. “I've changed my mind. It would be better if Sam bunked with you. He can stand guard over you until morning. Go with Nathan, boy. Go with Nathan.”

   Mary Zhang and Alana ascended the lobby steps to the second floor. Once he was outside, Nathan stood to one side of the door and studied Creede Avenue. Though it was well past midnight, a steady flood of humans and burdened animals still passed in each direction. The red and blue lamps of the makeshift mercantile establishments reminded Nathan of the lights his mother strung for parties on the lawn of the Tanner Mansion. The wind was stronger; the air colder and damp on his cheek, hinting of snow, and Nathan sought the warmth of the hotel office. 

   Street noise apparently didn't bother the night clerk, for he was dozing behind the counter. Nathan rapped on its wooden surface and the toothless, scrawny clerk shot from his chair. “Jake Spain at your service, sir!”

   “I'm with Mrs. Tanner,” Nathan informed the clerk. “Mrs. Zhang said I'm to sleep on your cot. Sam will be happy with the floor.”

   “Sam? Who's this Sam? Are you funning with me, young man?”

   Nathan pointed at his feet. The clerk leaned over the counter. Sam growled and the clerk snapped upright, his face ashen. “Lord have mercy, it's him,” Jake Spain sputtered, swiping his forehead with a palm. “You're more than welcome to my cot, young man. Just be sure the dog stays back there with you. I can't have him roaming around scaring customers.”

   One eye on Sam, the clerk pointed at the doorway to the left of the counter. “Cot's yonder, necessary is straight out back. Sometimes there's a wait.” Jake Spain snorted. “Course, you take that dog with you they'd sure-fire move you to the head of the line.”

   Jake Spain's old single-blanket army cot, creaky enough to be a remnant of the Indian Wars, sagged but held Nathan's weight when he fell on it fully dressed except for his mackinaw. What little heat filtered under the door from the office coal stove barely dented the chill air, and Nathan soon piled his mackinaw atop Jake's single blanket. The heavily furred Sam curled into a ball in the center of the tiny room. 

   Too tired to visit the necessary, Nathan turned down the wick of the kerosene lamp on the rickety table beside the cot and tried to sleep. He found he couldn't ignore the constant barrage of drunken shouts, profane cursing, female whoops, slamming doors, and sporadic gunshots emanating from the street and rear of the hotel. He thus lay awake pondering the day's events in what he knew would be another vain attempt to avoid dwelling on the loss of his mother. 

   What disturbed him most was the fact that despite their efforts to deceive the Buckman brothers, they hadn't fooled Roan and his hired killers. And with the telegraph readily available at the D&RG station, Roan would shortly receive word of the incident in the Zhang dining room. It would be like the scheming Buckman brothers to have a personal messenger lounging about the Western Union Office in Alamosa. Corbin Smythe and Cousin Hobie, if those were truly the killer's names, could secure fresh orders within a couple of hours, and the sporadic gunshots Nathan was hearing made wild, lawless, teeming Creede the perfect site for murder.

   The wind moaned outside the shuttered window above the cot. Nathan slid his six-gun beneath Jake's straw filled, smelly pillow and pulled his cap down over his ears.

   He lay cold and shivering, afraid neither he nor Alana were a match for Roan Buckman's paid assassins.

   They desperately needed the brains and muscle of Ira Westfall if they were to leave Creede alive, and though Nathan felt guilty he'd asked so much of the Lord of late, he nonetheless prayed fervently that the former policeman would be on the morning train from Alamosa.

   Then, body and mind completely spent, he slept.

   The gunshots came in rapid succession. The first bullet smashed into the plank porch of Zhang's. The second produced a soft plunking. Alana halted in mid-stride, pain and shock freezing her features. Then her legs turned to rubber and she was falling. 

   Nathan lunged to catch her. The quick movement spared his life, for the third bullet whipped past his right ear instead of drilling the center of his forehead. 

   Panicked by the gunshots and Alana's collapse, miners in the street and mounting the porch steps ducked and scattered. A bullet plucked Nathan's cap from his head, and when he looked frantically about, he realized the dispersal of the crowd would momentarily leave the fallen Alana completely exposed to the shooters. 

   Cover was what they needed, and the closest available was the hotel lobby. He clutched Alana's lumberman shoes and began dragging her inert body, not worried if the rough handling caused her further harm. They were as good as dead if they stayed where they were. 

   It seemed to take forever to drag her a few precious inches. Then Sam latched onto her pants leg with his massive jaws, and together they pulled her into the lobby with quick, powerful tugs as another bullet shattered the doorjamb. Nathan had the presence of mind to ensure they were far enough inside the hotel to be out of danger. 

   He then saw a sight he would never forget. 

   A barrel-shaped figure in sack coat and derby hat was leaping miners cowering in the street while he fired at the roof of the saloon opposite the hotel with his pistol. The running figure jumped to the porch of the hotel and dove headlong into the lobby, turning as he landed to train his weapon on the roof of the saloon. 

Nathan sobbed with relief. He'd just witnessed an astonishing feat for a man of Ira Westfall's age and size. The ex-policeman's voice was as calm as if he were asking the time of day, “Your friend dead or alive?”

   Alana was lying on her side. Nathan pressed his fingers against her throat. There was a pulse, faint and irregular, like it might quit with the next beat. “I don't know for how long, but she's alive.”

   “She!” Ira Westfall exclaimed, spinning about and levering himself into a sitting position.

   “Yes, it's my aunt,” Nathan said. 

   “Couldn't tell for that cap she's wearing,” Ira said, hurriedly reloading his pistol with bullets from his coat pocket. That task completed, the ex-policeman slid the weapon into his shoulder holster. He ignored the crowd forming in the lobby now that the danger was past, gained his feet, and knelt before Alana. “There's blood on her coat. We've got to get her flat down and find where she's hurt.”

   They carefully eased Alana onto her back, both of them hearing her slight moan over the gasp of the crowd. Nathan blanched. Blood was everywhere. His hand was slick with it. 

   Ira opened Alana's mackinaw, lifted her shirtwaist, grimaced, and began to unbutton it. The curious crowd closed in another step. “Keep them back, Nathan. She needn't be stared at.”

   Nathan uttered a single sharp command. “Sam!”

   The resulting growl and snap of fangs drew a swift glance from even the preoccupied Ira. The crowd slunk away, withdrawing to the porch and the dining room, but huge Sam persisted, walking a continuous circle around his mistress and those tending to her. 

   When Ira had Alana's shirtwaist unbuttoned, he hiked the tail of the cotton vest beneath it. Blood pooled in her navel. Nathan wanted to look away, but couldn't. The bullet hole was between the left hip and the ribs. Ira felt the area behind her hip. 

   His sigh was as loud as a trumpet blast in the hushed lobby. “Lots of blood, but the bullet apparently missed her vitals and passed through her body. We need to get her to bed somewhere and send for a doctor.”

   A contemptuous honking erupted. Mary Zhang leaned over Ira and the prone Alana. “Ain't no doctor in Creede you'd trust to clip your toenails. Bring her upstairs to my room.”

   Ira studied the steep stairs connecting the lobby with the second floor. “Couple of you men fetch a door off one of the guest rooms, and be quick about it.”

   “Stay, Sam,” Nathan ordered. The huge dog settled by his mistress. With the threat of being chewed to pieces removed, boots thundered on the stairs. The fetching took but a few minutes. Mary Zhang folded a table-cloth over Alana's naked middle, and Nathan and Ira, one holding her hips and the other her shoulders, eased her onto the door.

   “Take the top end, Nathan. Those stairs are too narrow for more than the two of us.”

   The inert Alana and the thick door were surprisingly heavy. If it hadn't been for the muscle he'd grown working at the Tanner warehouse, the strain of holding the door steady while climbing the steep stairs in Creede's thin air would have been too much for Nathan.

    Mary Zhang preceded them. She waved them toward the room at the end of the hallway. “Straight ahead, gentleman.” 

   They crossed a small parlor outfitted with leather furniture, brass table lamps, and a chandelier with etched globes. The adjoining bedroom was much larger. The flowered quilt of the four-poster bed was turned down, revealing sheets of gray flannel. 

   Nathan was concerned about how they were going to move Alana from the door to the bed without treating her like a sack of meal, but the resourceful Ira had the answer for that dilemma. “Let's lay her on the bed, and then we'll slide the door out from under her.”

   They were as gentle as possible, but the exchange wrung groans from the wounded Alana. Mary Zhang considered them a healthy portent for the future. “Goodly amount of life left in her. I need Zeta from the kitchen and then you two can wait in the hallway or the dining room. You needn't worry. Zeta and I have considerable doctoring experience. We'll wash her and swab the wound. We won't let that drunken sawbones of ours near her lest we must.”

   Ira extended a large hand in the direction of Mary Zhang. “I'm Ira Westfall. We appreciate your help.”

   Mary Zhang ran her eyes over the burly ex-policeman. “You remind me of my James. There wasn't much he couldn't handle neither.”

   Nathan had never before seen Ira Westfall blush. “We'll send your Zeta up and wait in the dining room.”

   They encountered Sam in the small parlor. He was seated in the doorway, face more doleful than usual. “The dog can stay,” Mary Zhang said. “Alana comes around, she'll be asking for him and I don't want her to fret weak as she is.”

   Zeta was snake thin and black as coal with a smile whiter than the snow that had fallen during the night. Once summoned, she wasted no time bearing numerous pans of steaming water and white cloths to Mary Zhang's room. Satisfied Alana was receiving the best possible care, Ira ordered a pot of black coffee and found a table just beyond the dining room doorway, a location that afforded a view of the lobby stairs. 

   Burt Dawes joined Ira and Nathan before they finished filling their coffee mugs. “I heard the shooting at the depot and come fast as I could,” the levee rat explained. He stared into the lobby where the hotel swamper was mopping blood from the floor. “What happened?” 

   “That's Mrs. Tanner's blood,” Ira said. “Our boys Corbin and Hobie ambushed her and Nathan. She's been wounded, but I believe she'll survive.”

   Burt Dawes couldn't conceal his agitation, a failure Nathan attributed to his growing admiration for Alana Birdsong. “Why ain't we hunting them down? You're giving them a bigger start on us every minute you sit there slurping coffee.”

   Ira Westfall's smile was stern, but forgiving. “Sit down, Burt,” he said, sliding an empty mug toward Dawes. “Enjoy some coffee.” 

   The levee rat slumped into a chair, laid his bowler hat on the table, and poured coffee from the enamelware pot. “You're the boss. I still think we should be searching for those bastards from one end of Creede to the other.”

   “Burt, Corbin and Hobie are responsible for two dozen killings and they've never seen a jail cell. They're professionals, and if we chase after them, they'll set an ambush and cut down on us like they did Mrs. Tanner.”

   “They'll get plumb away,” Burt challenged. 

   Ira sipped coffee. “For now, Burt. Just for now.”

   “What's next then?” Dawes prodded.

   “We'll return to Alamosa. None of us are safe here, not even Nathan's aunt with that dog watching over her. The shooting ended half an hour ago and we haven't seen the first peace officer.” 

   Nathan thought of Ellie Langston, and how much better he'd feel if she were tending his aunt. But even Doc Ellie couldn't revive the dead. “We don't dare move Aunt Alana, not for several days,” he protested. “That passenger coach sways and lurches worse than a bucking horse. She might bleed to death.” 

   “Nathan, it's a risk we must take. I've been a policeman for forty years, from New York to Chicago to St. Louis, and I can't recall any criminals more cold-blooded than Corbin and Hobie. Only a few men on this earth will kill a woman for money. But these two murdered your mother in her own home, and today, they came within a whisker of murdering your aunt in broad daylight. 

   “The safest place for the both of you right now is her ranch where we know everybody coming and going. Once she's forted up at the ST, we'll sic the law on Corbin, Hobie, Roan Buckman, and Eldon Payne. Burt and I visited with lawyer Abbott early this morning like your aunt wanted. Did Josiah Pedigrew provide you evidence that Eldon Payne's stealing from his own till?”

   “Yes, he did,” Nathan said. “There'll be a letter waiting for us at the Grand National Bank in Alamosa.”

   “Good, lawyer Abbott can request an audit of Payne Merchandise via the county court. Maybe we can pressure Eldon Payne into talking.” 

   “You need to be aware of something where Mr. Payne's concerned,” Nathan said. “Mr. Pedigrew and Mr. Payne are friends and he doesn't think Mr. Payne would steal unless he was forced into it.” 

   “Nathan, it's been my experience that men break the law because they want to, not because a gun is being held to their head. Maybe Eldon Payne will prove the exception. Just remember, though, no matter why he did it, Eldon Payne's guilty of theft and you can never tell how a man will react when he's confronted with a stretch in prison.”

   “That's all well and good,” Burt Dawes interrupted. “In the meantime, how we gonna get Nathan's aunt out of this burg alive? If she don't bleed to death between here and the station, Corbin and Hobie might ambush the lot of us along the way. I don't mind admitting it, Ira. Those two scare the bejesus out of me.”

   Ira Westfall refilled his coffee mug and winked at Nathan. “All in good time, Burt, all in good time. Nathan, hike upstairs and check on your aunt. I'll wait here in case the police ever show.”

   “And what about me?” Burt Dawes demanded.  

   Ira extracted five silver dollars from a leather pouch. “You, Burt, are to find a coffin maker. Fast as people die in Creede, there's probably more than one. I want a coffin delivered to Mary Zhang's room within the next hour. For all Creede knows we'll be toting the late Mrs. Tanner to the station, will we not?”

   “Ira,” Burt exclaimed, “You're a genius.” 

   “No, I've just lived long enough to see everything at least twice,” Ira said, reaching into his money pouch again. “We'll need a brace and bit with a half-inch drill blade, too. Now, shake a leg the both of you.”

   Nathan took the stairs two at a time, anxious to learn Alana's condition first hand. His knuckles were poised to rap on Mary Zhang's door when she shouted, “My pistol, Zeta! Get my pistol!”

   Nathan fisted his own weapon and shoved the door open. Zeta was lifting a .38 police special from the drawer of a writing desk in the parlor. Mary Zhang filled the bedroom doorway, hands gripping a wooden club. “Do something about him. Don't just stand there. Do something!”

   “About who?” Nathan asked, thoroughly confused. 

   “Him!” Mary Zhang yelled, stepping aside so Nathan could see into the bedroom. He had to admit it was a shocking scene. Sam was on the bed, straddling his mistress, licking her bare midriff with wet sweeps of his tongue. “We were finishing our swabbing,” said Mary Zhang, “when Alana moaned. All of a sudden he growled, shoved between us, jumped on the bed, and started that infernal licking.”

   Nathan slowly advanced to the bedroom door. “You best kill him,” said Mary Zhang. “He'll eat you alive you come near that bed.” 

   Right then, Sam's head turned. Spying the new intruder, the huge dog bared his teeth and loosed a deep growl that made Nathan cringe. Nathan halted. He could understand why the huge dog had driven off those tending Alana without warning. The question was how to get him under control, for if Sam adamantly refused to let anyone touch Alana, then, God forbid, he would have to be shot.

   Gun at the ready, Nathan took a small step toward the bed. Sam switched ends in a flash, and still straddling his mistress, dropped into a crouch, fangs snapping and clicking, growls low and vicious. 

   The vivid memory of tearing skin and flying blood snagged Nathan's breath. The mastiff that had scarred his arm and leg had crouched exactly like Sam before he attacked. Nathan cocked his Colt and aimed at Sam's forehead, determined not to suffer another mauling. 

   He couldn't bring that final ounce of pressure to bear on the trigger. He couldn't dismiss the morning he'd awakened at the Imperial House with a docile and sniffing Sam perched on the side of his bed. He squeezed the butt of the pistol instead of the trigger and lowered his arm.