Showdown (21 page)

Besides, splash on a little bit of that smelly stuff he bought off that barber in Idaho that time, who could tell you hadn't taken a bath?

What he should do now was get on a horse and ride as wide of that sawed-off little prick Rooney as he could.

That's what he should do.

But much as he hated to acknowledge that Rooney was right, he'd tried it so many times before. Got right up to the point of leaving—told Rooney off right to his face—and then just couldn't quite do it. Couldn't quite get on the horse. Couldn't quite leave.

But this time, dammit—

And then he got one hell of a good idea.

R
ooney knew that this was not without risk. If Tolan caught him, he just might think of all the ways Rooney had pushed him around, humiliated him, stolen from him, and generally been what you might call a real bad friend.

So.

So he had to be very, very careful.

He had to get Tolan's money and then clear the hell out. He had a horse waiting for him at the livery. He hoped that he would be a good ten miles away before Tolan ever figured out what had happened.

Getting into the room was no problem. He'd merely slipped the desk clerk some extra money.

That was the easy part—the only easy part.

Tolan could turn any room he squatted in into something that even barnyard animals would shun. There was Tolan's stench, for one thing. Rooney opened the window. There was Tolan's messiness, for another. You wouldn't think a carpetbag could hold such a cornucopia of junk—reeking clothes; a collection of photographs depicting bovine naked ladies; an array of patent medicines that offered to cure every disease known to men of all colors, creeds, and political persuasions; and fruit that was now covered with maggots. Tolan had been told by some barfly somewhere that fresh fruit was one good way of holding scurvy at bay. The trouble was (a) you couldn't always find fresh fruit and (b) fresh fruit didn't stay fresh very long and (c) Tolan hated fresh fruit. He claimed he always got pieces of it stuck in his teeth and spent half the night lying in his bed with a quiver of toothpicks trying to get rid of the aggravating little chunks between his rotted black teeth.

Not that a, b, or c made any difference to Tolan. Anytime they were anywhere near fresh fruit, Tolan would buy some and toss it into his carpetbag. And leave it there to rot. Who the hell wanted to lie awake half the night picking pieces of apples or plums or pears from your teeth?

Such was life with Tolan lo these many, many years.

Rooney searched for nearly fifteen minutes, stopping every time he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Once he got nervous enough to excrete a sheath of cold sweat that covered his entire body. Another time his bowels clenched with such force that he doubled over. Damn.

None of the warnings turned into anything.

He went back to work. Under the bed. Under the mattress. The bureau drawers. The closet. The closet shelf. Nothing nothing nothing.

And then the most dreaded place of all: the inside of the carpetbag. Easy to imagine pit vipers in the deep, dark interior. Or hellfire-breathing dragons from the medieval fantasies of his boyhood reading. Maybe it was the portal to Hades itself and would suck him in with the force of a vortex.

Whatever it was, he knew it would be vile. God, just touching the outside of it was slimy enough. Imagine the inside.

He closed his eyes, held his breath, and began to insert his arm when

He heard noise in the next room.
His
room.

His first thought was that Prine and Neville had found them. But how, with the head start they'd had? And how, when they had no idea where he and Tolan had been headed? He thought of the old man in the ghost town saloon. But how could the old man talk? Rooney had killed him personally. He'd checked his pulse at neck and wrist. Dead for sure.

Then who the hell was in there?

He realized what was going on soon enough. A hotel. Daytime. This was the busiest time of day for hotel thieves. They'd figure that most gents who stayed in a place like this would be drummers or traveling businessmen of some kind. The perfect time to toss a room and steal any and all of its valuables.

Frustrated that he hadn't found any of Tolan's money, he decided to have some fun. He'd kill the bastard who was in his room, was what he'd do. Then he'd wait for Tolan to show up and rob him right at gunpoint.

I want your money, Tolan. Or I'll kill you right here on the spot
. And when he got the money, off he'd go. Points unknown. Tolan would never find him again, because Tolan would be dead.

For the first time in decades, Rooney would be a free man. No more dragging Tolan along. Being embarrassed by him whenever they were in polite company. Always worried that he'd get some dumb-ass idea to steal the money that Rooney had had the initiative to go out and steal himself.

Drawing his Colt, he crept out of Tolan's room, tiptoed to the adjoining room, and then flung the door open.

And it opened, all right—just fine and dandy, it opened. But the sight it opened on was enough to make Rooney slump against the door frame.

"What the hell're you doing in my room?" he said.

"You're s'posed to be the smart one, you figure it out." Tolan's Peacemaker was pointed right directly exactly unerringly at Rooney's head.

"You mean while I . . ."

Tolan smiled that dark rotted smile of his. "While you were robbin' my room, I was robbin' your room." The smile vanished. "Get in here and close the door."

"Thanks for inviting me into my own room."

"You're more than welcome."

Rooney closed the door and went over and sat down. The bed squeaked. A bird had left a streak of white shit on the window in Rooney's absence. Now he had Tolan to contend with.

"Guess what I found?" Tolan said, and held up an envelope that Rooney recognized right away.

"You bastard."

"For a smart man, you can be pretty dumb sometimes. Slitting a hole in the side of the mattress and shoving the envelope in there. All them little strings hanging out when you cut it open—hell, they led me right to the money, Rooney." The grubby smile again. "You, on the other hand, you didn't find nothin', did you?"

"You sonofabitch, Tolan."

Tolan stood up, confidently opened Rooney's envelope, peeked inside.

"I'm gonna have me one hell of a time in California, Rooney."

"Give me my money."

"Why the hell should I?"

"Because it's mine."

The smile. "You were tryin' to do the same thing to me. If you'da found it, you'da kept it."

"Tolan, listen, this is the most money—"

"You don't have to tell
me
, Rooney. This is the most money we ever had at one time. Least, that I know of, anyways. You pro'ly stole this much from me over the years, but I didn't know anything about it."

He crossed the room in three steps and slashed the barrel of his gun down across Rooney's jaw. A fireline of blood opened up instantly.

He stepped away. He knew that if he hit Rooney again, he wouldn't be able to stop hitting him. Too much anger stored up for too long. Too much humiliation. He'd heard Rooney making jokes about him to other people. Tolan knew how the sight of him disgusted people. Ever since little Daisy ate that glass, he'd been ugly. As if the same ugliness on his soul was now on his face. Both to his face and behind his back, Rooney had commented on this many, many times. Too many times for Tolan to handle any more.

"How was you gonna do it, Rooney, if you didn't find it in my room? Wait till it was dark and then backshoot me right before the train rolled in? You'd be in Denver by the time they figured out who killed me. Then it would all be yours."

"Why the hell'd you hit me?"

"Because I'm sick of your bullshit. Sick of the way you look down on me. You think I don't know how ugly I am? You think I don't see when women get sick inside when they see me? You think I don't know what all your fancy friends think when they see me? I think about it all the time, Rooney. And every time I think about it, I hear you laughin' in the background. You got a real mean laugh, Rooney. And half the time you're fuckin' laughin' at me."

This time Tolan used his fist, hooking it up under Rooney's jaw, knocking him back flat on the bed. Now there would be a bruise through the line of blood Tolan had opened up.

"I'll tell you how it's gonna be, Rooney. You 'n' me are goin' to Denver together. I'm keepin' your money till we get there. I'm gonna take your gun. You won't have no weapon. And if you try anything on me, I swear I'll kill you on the spot."

"What about my money?" Rooney said, closing his eyes, apparently from the pain of Tolan's fist.

"When we get to Denver, you get half."

"Half? What the hell're you talking about, half?" He came up off the bed angry. Rage had revived him. "Half? Bullshit."

"Half. Or nothing. Up to you."

"Why the hell should you get half?"

"Well, for one reason because you wouldn't give me even half if you were in my place. So I'm being generous. And for another reason, the money I take from you should clear us for all the money you stole from me over the years."

"Half," Rooney said. "You sonofabitch." Then, bitterly and to himself: "Half."

"It's up to you."

"So you're with me till train time?"

"You ain't gettin' out of my sight."

"Maybe you'll change your mind, Tolan. Maybe you'll start thinking more clearly."

The bad teeth once again. "I wouldn't bet on it, Rooney."

P
rine and Neville reached Junction Gap at eight o'clock that night. A light, cold mist gave the town an ominous look. Ground fog was up to the hips.

On the trail, they'd debated whether to ask the local law for help. They'd decided against it. Get the local law involved and somebody would immediately start thinking about the reward. And the prospect of all that money would make them secretive rather than cooperative. They'd fix it up so a friend or relative of theirs made the arrest and could claim the reward.

They found the livery stable. Their animals deserved food and a rest. It'd been a difficult trek. Not only the terrain. They'd been running the horses fast and hard. They described Tolan and Neville, but the liveryman didn't recall seeing such a pair.

"'Course, Junction City, an awful lot of people come and go," the liveryman said. "You'd best try the saloons and the hotels. That's where most fellas end up when they come here."

Prine remembered something. "You got a roster?"

"Roster?" The moon-faced man wore a sheepskin, had a red scarf wrapped around his neck several times, sported heavy blue earmuffs, and had his hands snugged into mittens. The temperature was still in the low thirties. Prine wondered what the man wore when deep winter came. Maybe he didn't leave his house.

"A list. All the horses you put up today."

"Say, I never thought of that."

The liveryman led them back to a cubbyhole with a desk and two rickety wooden chairs. There was no escaping the acid smell of horse dung. In a confined space like this livery, the stench could make your eyes sting and water.

"Here you go."

Plain piece of paper. Date at the top. Nine names had been entered today. Tolan and Rooney wouldn't be foolish enough to put down their real names. The earliest they could have gotten here was just after dawn. The trouble was, the names weren't accompanied by the time a given horse was brought in.

"That help you any?" the liveryman said.

"Afraid not. Well, thanks. Guess we'll be going."

"I sure don't envy you goin' out on a night like this one," the liveryman said, huddling down into his sheepskin and batting his mittened hands together. "Like to freeze your tail off."

"Yeah," Prine said, "and just wait till it gets down into the twenties."

They went to the railroad station.

"Wish I could help you fellas," said the middle-aged man at the ticket counter. "But I just come on here a while ago. You'd want Vance. He works the seven-to-three shift. He might be able to help you."

"When's the next train due in here?"

"Supposed to be about an hour from now. But we got a telegram sayin' they're runnin' a little late. Some cattle got on the tracks. Lucky the train stayed upright. You run into four or five beeves when you're doin' sixty, you got some fine mess on your hands."

The ticket agent yawned every two minutes or so. And got both Prine and Neville yawning, too. Any other time and circumstance, Prine would've found this pretty funny.

"How many hotels in town here?" Prine said.

"Four."

"They all on the main street?"

"Yep. Two on the same little block, in fact. Good place for you fellas to put in for the night. A real friendly place, Junction Gap."

As they walked away from the railroad station, Neville said, "We could always sit here and wait for them to come to us."