Denver Draw (16 page)

“Ty?”

Butler stopped when he heard his name, turned his head. Standing in the hotel lobby was Jennifer Conway. He had walked right by her without seeing her.

“Jennifer.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look…odd.”

“Where were you going?” he asked.

“I’m not going,” she said. “I’m coming back. I went to dinner. Alone, I might add. I thought I’d hear from you before now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I needed some time…let’s go into the bar and talk.”

She grabbed his hand and said, “I have a better idea. Let’s go to my room.”

“Jennifer—” He resisted.

“If you’re worried about my reputation, don’t,” she told him. “We took care of that last night.” She tugged on his hand. “Come on.”

This time he didn’t resist, and allowed her to pull him up the stairs to the next floor.

After they made love Butler decided to tell Jennifer the truth.

“Somebody tried to kill you?”

“Yes.”

“But…why?” she asked “Was it because you’re trying to help Doc Holliday?”

“It’s possible,” he said, “but I don’t think so.”

“Well then…why would someone want to kill you, Butler? I don’t understand.”

“Let’s just say when I came west I didn’t leave all my troubles behind me,” he said delicately.

“You mean that someone from back East, from your home, wants to kill you?”

“It seems that way,” he said.

“Did the man have any identification on him? Something to give you an idea of where he was from? Who might have sent him?”

“No,” Butler said, “they never do.”

She sat up in bed, unmindful of her nudity.

“Always? You mean…this has happened before?”

Now Butler felt he had gone too far, said too much.

“It’s happened once or twice.”

“Why do I get the feeling your idea and my idea of ‘once or twice’ is not the same?”

“Let’s just say I’ve dealt with this problem before,” Butler said.

Jennifer pulled the sheet up to cover herself and said, “I think I need a drink.”

“Do you have anything?”

“A bottle of wine in that top drawer on the sidebar in the other room,” she told him.

Jennifer had a two-room suite while Butler had a single room. He stood up, donned his trousers, and padded
barefoot into the other room to return with the bottle of wine and two glasses. He poured and handed her one, then sat on the bed holding his own.

“I just have to absorb all of this,” she said. “On top of being friends with people like Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday, you also have a price on your head—”

“Not a legal price,” he said, interrupting her.

“But a price, nevertheless,” she said, “put there by someone from the East who you don’t know. Is that it?”

“Essentially,” he said, “yes, that’s it.”

She sipped her wine.

“Would you like me to go?” he asked. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re in danger.”

“Oh,” she said, looking at him, “I don’t feel like I’m in danger. I’m just wondering if I’m ready to step into your world. Not that I’m afraid to, just…am I ready to?”

“I guess you’ll have to find that answer for yourself.”

She thought a moment, sipped her wine, then asked, “Can I write about this?”

“No,” he said right away.

“Why not?”

“You have to understand,” he said. “I’m on the run, until I decide to go back and find out just who is behind…all of this.” He had not told her the part about some of his family members being killed. “These attempts take place randomly, when someone either recognizes me, or has actually been looking for me and finds me. But if you write about this, saying where we were when we spoke, it gives them more of a starting point. I mean, it’s bad enough I have a target on my back, we don’t have to make it bright red and flashing, like lightning.”

“I understand your concern,” she said, “but I assure you, I could write about this without mentioning your name.”

“Even a thinly veiled account of what I’ve told you would be dangerous,” he said, “to you as well as to me.”

“How so, to me?”

“Someone might come looking for you, figuring you can lead them to me,” he said. “And they wouldn’t ask nicely.”

“I see…”

“I hope you do,” Butler said. He stood up and started to get dressed.

“You don’t have to go,” she said.

“I think I’d better,” he said. “You need time to think and, frankly, so do I.”

He went back to his room thinking that he foolishly might have told her too much. That plus the attempt that already had been made might mean that it was time to leave town. He didn’t want to leave, however, until Bat arrived. He hoped that would be tomorrow.

Butler woke the next morning remembering his promise to Doc Holliday to get him a gun. Then he wondered, did he actually promise to get him one, or did he say he’d do what he could? He thought that Doc wanted the gun not to break out, but to take his own life if it looked like he was going to go to jail. How ironic that a man who was surely dying would want to take his own life, but Butler thought he knew how Doc felt. If you’re going to waste away you obviously want to do it on your own terms, not locked in a cell.

If he was going to try to slip Doc a gun, it was going to have to be a small one. This last time he and Oliver James had gone into Doc’s cell they had frisked James, but had taken Butler’s holstered sidearm away from him without searching him further. If he’d had a derringer in his boot he could have given it to Doc and no one would have been the wiser. That seemed to be the way to go.

He had no meeting scheduled with the lawyer that morning or afternoon, so he decided that after breakfast he’d go shopping for a derringer. A small, two-shot variety would be enough, he thought, for Doc Holliday’s purpose.

Butler found a gun shop near his hotel and purchased a two-shot derringer that would fit into his boot nicely. He decided, however, not to try to give it to Doc that same day. Why take the chance of getting caught and tossed into a cell the same day Bat Masterson was supposed to arrive? Besides, as a lawman Bat might be able to smuggle the gun in even easier than Butler. There was still a chance they might search him, but they might not search a badge toter at all.

Butler returned to his hotel with the derringer. In his room he secreted it several ways in his boot until he was comfortable with it. When he was done he looked around his room. As nice as it was, he wondered how Jennifer—who claimed to be a lowly writer—could have afforded a two-room suite. Sure, she said she had some money put away so she could travel, but even Butler—who traveled for a living—didn’t spend large wads of it at a time, unless he was particularly flush. The stay in this hotel must have been costing her a bundle.

Butler wondered if he could trust her? What could he do if she went ahead and wrote her story, anyway?
DATELINE DENVER: YOUNG GAMBLER FROM THE EAST RUNNING FROM ASSASSINS
. How many flags would that raise back in Philadelphia? Denver would be overrun by bounty hunters.

He hoped that she would honor his request and not write the story. Or, at least, let him know she was writing it so he could head out, get as far away from Denver as possible. He didn’t know her all that well, so there was no telling what she would do.

Butler decided to go and see Oliver James. He left a message at the front desk for Bat Masterson in case he
showed up while he was gone, giving him the lawyer’s address, and then left the hotel. He quickly got used to the feeling of the derringer in his boot.

As Butler approached James’s office the door opened and the lawyer came out, shaking hands with another man.

“I think I can handle this for you just fine, Mr. Lynch,” James said. “I’ll be in touch.”

As the man walked down the hall past Butler the gambler asked, “Are you taking on other clients?”

“A man’s got to eat, Mr. Butler,” the lawyer said.

“Yeah, but before this you weren’t taking clients,” Butler pointed out. “We had to talk you into it.”

“Come inside.”

James went back into the office and Butler followed him. They closed the door behind them.

“Look, you and your friend Doc Holliday have awakened my enthusiasm for my job, which lay dormant for a long time. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“That may be so, but I want you concentrating on Doc’s case, not taking other cases at the same time,” Butler said. “And I don’t think Bat Masterson’s going to like it, either, when he gets here.”

“Which will be when, do you think?”

“Probably this evening.”

“So we should be able to get this settled in the next few days,” James said. “That’s when I’ll start work on this other case.”

James turned and walked from the outer office into his own. Butler followed.

“What happened with you and the judge?” Butler asked.

“I have a feeling,” James said, “we may have to go to the governor with this.”

“Why’s that?”

“I just found out the Arizona lawmen are in town. A marshal and a sheriff. They’re here to take Holliday back.”

“And?”

“The judge says their paperwork looks good,” James said. “He’s not sure Masterson’s paperwork will trump theirs.”

“Now look—”

“Don’t worry,” James said. “I’m getting an audience with the governor. He loves the Wild West and all its legends.”

“That’s what you said about the judge.”

“Butler,” James said, “it’s gonna be all right…”

“I hope so,” the gambler said.

“…as long as Masterson gets here today.”

“It’s about time you agreed to see me,” Chief Coolidge said to the district attorney.

“Chief,” Daniel Trevor said, “unlike you, I’m an elected official. I’ve got a lot on my plate. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you until now.”

“Well, I’ve got one thing on my plate,” the chief said. “Doc Holliday.”

“What about him?” Trevor asked. “I thought you were shipping him out of town.”

“I’m trying to,” Coolidge said, “but he’s got friends who are trying to get in the way.”

“What friends?”

“A gambler named Butler,” Coolidge said, “and, as I understand it, Bat Masterson.”

“Masterson!” Trevor said. He sat back in his chair. Coolidge had not been invited to sit, but he did so now. Coolidge was old school, while Trevor was young and on the fast track to the Governor’s Mansion. At least, that’s what people were saying. Personally, Coolidge didn’t think the puissant would be able to handle the job. “It’s bad enough we’ve got Holliday in Denver, we don’t need Masterson.”

“You mean, you don’t,” the chief said. “It wouldn’t look good for you if Holliday got out, and Masterson was the one to get him out.”

“How can he do that?”

“I don’t know,” the chief said, “but he’s a lawman. When he gets here I’m gonna have to show him some courtesy.”

“I heard that there’s a marshal and a sheriff here from Arizona,” the D.A. said.

“You heard wrong,” Coolidge said. “There’s a sheriff and a deputy sheriff.”

“And they’re here to escort Holliday out of Denver and back to Tombstone?”

“That’s right.”

“So, let them.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Give them Holliday.”

“I can’t do that without a—”

“Look, Chief,” Trevor said, sitting forward, “getting Holliday out of Denver can only be good for you and me.”

“I don’t have an order to turn him over, yet,” the chief said. “And his friends—”

“I’ll give you an order,” Trevor said.

“In writing?”

“Signed, sealed, and delivered,” Trevor said. “But here’s what I want you to do. Wait until it gets dark…”

When Butler returned to the hotel he wasn’t sure what his next move was going to be until the desk clerk called him over.

“There’s a man waiting in the bar for you, sir.”

“What man?”

“He didn’t give his name,” the clerk said, “but he was wearing a badge.”

“A badge? He’s a Denver policeman?”

“I doubt it,” the clerk said.

“All right, thanks,” the gambler said. He tucked the envelope into his pocket and walked to the bar. It only took him a moment to pick out his man because Bat Masterson stood out among the businessmen who populated the bar. Butler smiled and approached his friend, who was standing at the bar.

They shook hands warmly and Butler said, “I wasn’t really expecting you until later this evening.”

“I rode my horse into the ground,” Bat said. “How’s Doc.”

“Not good. You got your warrant?”

“Right here.” He tapped his breast pocket. “I had to upgrade the charge to suspicion of murder.”

“Well, their charge is murder,” Butler said, “so we’ll have to see if that’s good enough.”

“My warrant is for Colorado,” Bat said, “theirs is for Arizona. I think ours will come first.”

Butler signaled to the bartender for two more beers, as Bat was almost done with his first.

“Let’s take these in the back and I’ll try to catch you up on what’s been going on,” Butler suggested.

“We might have time for me to get down to the jail with my warrant,” Bat argued.

“We’re going to have to go through the attorney, Bat,” Butler said as they left the bar and headed for a table. “And a judge is going to have to rule on the warrants.”

“We got a sympathetic judge?” Bat asked.

“Not from the way it sounds to me.”

They sat down, Bat with his back to the wall, Butler to the side, so he could keep an eye on the entire bar. He
was jumpy because there had already been an attempt on him. If the pattern stuck there wouldn’t be another, not in Denver, but he didn’t feel like putting his faith into that.

“Okay, then,” Bat said, “so what the hell has been goin’ on?”

Butler told him everything he knew, including the attempt on his life the night before. He figured the man deserved to know everything….

“These attempts, they happen a lot, don’t they?” Bat asked when Butler was done.

“Often enough to be annoying,” the gambler said.

“Anything I should know about?”

“Maybe sometime,” Butler said, “but not now.”

“Fair enough,” Bat said, “as long as you know they can happen any time without warning. Adds a little spice to life, doesn’t it?”

“Not exactly the way I would have put it,” Butler said, “but you’re probably right.”

“What about this lawyer?” Bat asked. “Any good?”

“Probably good enough for what we need,” Butler said. “I don’t know that I’d want to go to court with him.”

“Sounds like you done a lot for Doc already, Butler,” Bat said. “Gettin’ that lawyer, takin’ him some clean clothes…what else is goin’ on?”

“Something else you should know,” Butler said. “A couple of Arizona lawmen are already here.”

“They’ll try to take him,” Bat said. “We better act fast.”

“First thing in the morning,” Butler said.

“The lawyer ready?”

“I guaranteed you’d be here tonight, so he’s expecting us.”

“Guaranteed, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Glad I didn’t disappoint you.”

Butler lifted his mug and said, “Me, too.”