Dark Trail (9 page)

He smirked. “Sure I do, Beth.”

She disregarded his implication that her flattery might be nothing more than another example of her wiles.

She looked around the room. “Not very festive, is it?”

“I haven't been in a festive mood lately.”

She walked over to the cheap, chipped bureau and ran a white-gloved finger over the top. “They don't dust very often.”

“I hadn't noticed.”

She turned from the bureau and stared at him. “You need a woman, Ben.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I don't think I should have left you, Ben. I think I made a mistake.”

He laughed. “So you did hear about it. I was wondering.”

“Hear about what?”

“The gunfight. And the ten thousand dollars.”

“That isn't the reason I'm here.”

“Oh, no. It couldn't be. An honorable woman like you.”

“You can sneer if you want to. But I really have missed you.” She paused. “Haven't you missed me, Ben?”

For the first time he let his real anger show. “You know I have. But what the hell does that prove? I missed you the other times you walked out on me, too. That didn't mean you changed when you came back.”

“I didn't know myself, Ben. Didn't know what I truly wanted.”

“And now you do?”

She nodded. “Now I do, Ben. I really do.”

He walked over to the window and looked down into the dusty street. “I'm going to kill him,” he said. “You know that, don't you?”

She said nothing.

“You know that, don't you?” he asked again.

And finally she said it. “Yes, Ben. I know.”

He came away from the window then, back to where she stood in the middle of the room.

He took her in his arms and kissed her.

Sarah was ten feet from Ben Rittenauer's door when it opened and Beth came out.

“I'll see you later, then,” Beth said. She paused in the doorway long enough to kiss him full on the mouth. She turned around, pulling the door shut behind her, and started down the hall. Then she saw Sarah.

At first, Beth looked as though she were going to say something harsh, but finally she just pulled herself up tall and pushed past Sarah, as if the woman weren't worth speaking to. In a rustle of organdy, Beth disappeared down the second-floor steps.

Sarah hurried to Ben Rittenauer's door and knocked. Having seen Beth here—and easily surmising what had happened—Sarah felt more certain than ever that she could convince the gunfighter to withdraw from the fight this evening.

Ben Rittenauer did not look happy to see her. “I was trying to take a nap.”

“I won't take much of your time.”

The brief friendliness they'd enjoyed the other night was gone. This was the hard, cold Ben Rittenauer of gunfighter legend.

He sighed. “C'mon in. But I really want you to make it short.”

Once she was inside, Sarah said, “I saw her leaving your room. Beth, I mean. You're going back with her, aren't you?”

He glared at her. “Seems like that would be my business, wouldn't it?”

“I didn't mean anything by that. I just—”

“Why'd you come up here, anyway?”

Sarah started chewing on the inside of her lip. She did this so fervently sometimes that she drew blood. “So I could talk you out of fighting Frank. But now I don't have to.”

“Oh? And how would that be?”

She was almost exultant. “You've got her back. Now there's no reason to fight him.”

“That's how it works, huh? I've got her back and that's all I care about?”

“Why, yes. What else would you want?”

She could see how angry he was. “What about my pride?” He hesitated. “And what about the money?”

“Is money really all that important to you? Enough to risk—”

He shook his head. “You know something?” He sounded warmer suddenly, more the way he'd been the other night, and she was surprised by this.

“What?”

“You're a good woman.”

“Oh.” She blushed. “Thanks.”

“You think I'm just saying that but I'm not. You really are good. True and honest and loyal.”

She shook her head. “I left my first husband a long time ago. I'm not the saint you seem to be saying.”

“But after that you changed. You became a good woman.” He sighed. He looked sad now instead of angry, and there seemed to be a weariness behind his words. “Frank and Beth and me—we're riffraff, Sarah. You don't seem to understand that. We don't have a good or true bone in our bodies.” He came over and took her hand. “You deserve better than Frank, Sarah.” He looked at her and smiled. “You ever thought of going back to Guild?”

“Not after what I did to him. It could never be the same.”

“He's a good man, Sarah.”

“I know he is.”

“Sarah, I want that money.”

She started crying. “Oh, God, Mr. Rittenauer. Does it really have to be that way?”

“I'm afraid it does.”

“But you'll kill him.”

“If I'm lucky, I will. If he's lucky, he'll kill me.”

“You're willing to take that chance?”

“For ten thousand dollars I am.”

“Oh, God, Mr. Rittenauer,” she said again and started crying all the harder.

He came over to her and took her in his arms, holding her with great, almost reverent delicacy. He sort of started rocking her then, a barely perceptible movement, the kind of subtle thing you do instinctively when you hold a small child.

“You know what you should do, Sarah,” he said softly. “You should go over to that depot and buy yourself a ticket to the farthest place you can go on this continent, and then get on that train and never think about any one of us again.”

Crying into his shoulder, she said, “That's what Leo says I should do.”

“Leo's a smart man.”

“Oh, God, Mr. Rittenauer, do you really have to fight him?”

“Yes,” he said, in that strange soft voice again, “yes, Sarah, I'm afraid I do.”

“And I can't change your mind?”

He took her by the shoulders and held her out from him so he could see her face. “You do what I tell you.”

“About the train?”

“Yes. About the train. As far and as fast as you can get away from the three of us. Somewhere out there is a good man who'll appreciate you.”

“But, Mr. Rittenauer, won't you—”

He shook his head. “You won't change my mind, Sarah, no matter what you say. I want and I need that money, and I plan to get it. Or at least I plan to try. I'm sorry. That's just how it is.”

Finally, feeling exhausted, she realized that Ben Rittenauer was not in fact going to change his mind. He was going to go through with the gunfight.

“All right, then,” she said. “All right.”

In a moment, she was just faint footsteps down the hall.

Guild saw her leaving Rittenauer's hotel. He'd been looking for her the past hour.

He fell into step with her. “How're you doing?”

“I didn't mean to slap you.”

“I know. You just kind of startled me is all.”

“Ben Rittenauer thinks you're a fine man.”

“He must be running for office and wanting my vote.”

“You always did have a crazy sense of humor.”

But he noticed that she didn't laugh. She was scarcely hearing anything he said.

“I really am sorry about slapping you, Leo,” she said.

“I know. It's all right.” There was a restaurant on their left. “How about some coffee?”

“I don't know what I'm going to do about Frank, Leo.”

Now, she wasn't listening at all. He steered her into the restaurant. She went along like a docile child.

It was after the lunch rush, and the place was empty except for an old-timer in the back reading a magazine and chewing on a cigar stub that looked to be near as old as he was.

Guild went up to the counter and got them two cups of coffee and brought them back.

She had her face in her hands and was shaking her head as if demons were whispering filthy words to her. The Greek café owner was watching her with lurid fascination. She was offering him a little something to break up the otherwise dull day.

She parted her hands, looked at Guild, and smiled. “You really are a fine man, Leo.”

“And here I keep trying not to get a swelled head.”

“Would you talk to him for me, Leo?”

“To Frank?”

She nodded.

Guild sighed. “Why do you think he'll listen to me?”

“You two may not be the best of friends, but he respects your judgement. Maybe you can make him see that Ben Rittenauer will kill him.”

“He doesn't know that?”

“Maybe he knows it, but he won't admit it to himself.” She sipped her coffee. “Besides, there isn't anything to fight over anymore anyway.”

“No?”

“No.” Then she told him about Beth going up to Rittenauer's room. “Obviously, she figures Ben is going to win, so she wants to be there when he gets the ten thousand dollars.”

“Nice woman.”

“Ben says none of them are nice, him or Frank or her. He thinks you and I should get back together.”

“He does, huh?”

“You're blushing.”

“Thanks for pointing that out.”

“I guess I shouldn't have said that.”

“It's all right. There was a lot of years when I thought that would still be a good idea.”

“Us getting back together?”

“Yes.”

“It wouldn't work, Leo.”

“I know. But it's nice to think about sometimes.”

She hesitated. “Will you see him, Leo?”

“If you want me to.”

“I'd really appreciate it.”

“He up in his room?”

“He should be.”

“Guess I'll go over there then.”

She reached out a hand and touched his. There were calluses on her hands, and the flesh was tough from hard work. Which figured. She would have done all the chores, all the hardscrabble tasks. Frank Evans was only interested in glory.

Guild stood up. “You wait here.”

At the Adair ranch, two Mexican laborers were putting up the last of the bunting on the bandstand. One thought to himself that even on an ordinary day, a day with no festivities, the Adair ranch was a beautiful spread. The home itself was a vast Victorian, with gaslights out front and stable room for three surreys that were as smart as any you'd see in Juarez. Governors had many times stayed here, as had senators and even a stage star or two, including Miriam Reynolds herself.

Despite the endless hours it took to get ready for an occasion, the men felt a real pride in dressing the place up. With a hundred fancy guests and a ten-piece band playing Sousa marches in the early part of the evening and Stephen Foster later, the ranch became something more than a mere ranch. From trains, from stagecoaches, from surreys they came, men in top hats and brocaded vests and women in picture hats and sneers for the help. They would be waited on for the next twenty-four hours by black men and yellow men and red men “broken and tamed,” as Tom Adair always put it, by his power and his money.

Despite the work involved, despite the backbreaking labor, there was, too, the curious exhilaration of standing so close to such festivities—the glowing paper lanterns against the dark prairie sky, the spectacle of so many beautiful women being whirled around the makeshift dance floor. And then there were all the things one could steal, the food and liquor and tinkling coins dropped drunkenly by the swaggering male guests.

And this year there was one more thing: a gunfight. The men had never sensed such excitement on the ranch before. Two bona fide gunfighters in a bona fide gunfight. Right here on the ranch. Tonight.

The gringos were a strange and selfish and savage people, the Mexican thought. But one thing you had to say for them. They knew how to put on a party.

Who but a gringo would think of having two men try to kill each other for the pleasure and amusement of an audience?

Only a gringo, the Mexican thought, going back to finish off the bunting. Only a gringo.

Guild wanted to stand in the hallway sunlight, lazy as a cat. He wished he'd never heard of any of them so his mind could be free as his body lazed in the golden dusty warmth of the sunbeams. But he was getting old, and memory was a burden—all those regrets, all those foolishnesses, the good people seeming to recede more and more, the bad people remaining as vivid as ever. He wished there were some way to take a knife and just cut all memory away, like a cancer of some sort. But only the grave and the darkness beyond could do that. Anyway he'd made Sarah a promise, so now he raised his fist and slammed it against the door. When it finally opened it wasn't Frank Evans who answered, it was Beth.