I’d made my first move against them in their attempted holdup of the stage. Pit Burnett left them after that; and word was likely getting around that to tie up with Heseltine and Reese meant trouble.
My meal was finished, but I didn’t want to move. Down the street I could now hear the faint sounds of a music box, and once a horse walked down the street, but Prescott seemed peaceful.
The relaxation had allowed time for me to consider myself. The brief contact with Con Judy and his friends had, I realized, given me a new viewpoint, some new standards of behavior, some new ideas.
This country wasn’t going to stay wild and free always. Folks would be moving in and cluttering it up, and although the wild, reckless men came first, they would soon be followed by people who wanted to be more settled, who wanted a peaceful community with churches, schools, and all of that.
There would be no place in such a world for men like Heseltine. Kid Reese might change, for he was a follower, a man who tried to fit himself in. He wasn’t big enough to be a leader, so he chose a leader who was the kind he wanted to be, and lived in his shadow. In this case, he’d chosen the wrong man to pattern himself after, and it was going to get him killed.…Or in prison, which was much the same thing. Why a man would risk years of his life for a few quick dollars was beyond me.
Those two men had probably made the move to Los Angeles as an attempt to get clear out of the country where I was, to leave me behind. If that failed they would likely try an ambush, and I could be sure they would be watching their back trail. Between here and the coast there was a lot of wide-open country where a lone rider could be watched.
A thought came to me. Suppose I outran them? Got ahead of them, and did some ambushing on my own?
Well, there was a way to do it. The stage. It would change horses often, and would make fast time, and I could be in Los Angeles before they arrived. So the stage it would be.
I stood up. Placing a quarter on the table to pay for my meal, I pushed open the door and stepped outside into the cool night.
“Tucker…?”
I turned.
The man stood in the half-light from the restaurant window. He was a stranger, but a gun was in his hand.
Flame stabbed from the muzzle, something struck me, and I half turned. I was already holding my own gun in my hand. I could feel the bucking as I fired it.
I saw the man spin around and slam hard against the wall of the building. He was lifting his gun again.
The moment was like an hour. His gun came up, I felt the coolness of the breeze on my face, heard a door slam down the street, heard men running. There was in me an icy coolness. I had no idea why he wanted to kill me, but I knew this time what I had to do. I had to stop him.
My feet were spread wide, my gun was steady. I fired, and he threw both hands to his head and screamed. It was the last sound he ever made.
A man who wore a star grabbed my arm. “Here! What’s going on here?”
The girl from the restaurant spoke. “Marshal, this man just finished his supper. He’s been sitting alone, bothering nobody. The other man was waiting for him in the dark outside.”
“He won’t wait for anybody else,” somebody said. “He’s done for.”
“This man’s hit, too, Marshal. I saw him stagger.”
I put my hand to my side. My watch—it had been pa’s—was a mess of jagged metal. The watch, in my vest pocket, had stopped the bullet.
“I don’t know the man,” I said. “I never saw him before.”
The girl from the restaurant spoke up again. “He’s been around town for two or three days. Just as if he was waiting for somebody.”
“Seems open and shut,” the marshal said. “He laid for you, made his try, and you nailed him. We don’t need to hold court to figure that out. What’s your name, mister?”
“Shell Tucker.”
“The man who’s chasin’ Heseltine? Looks to me like he figured to stop you, friend.
“Meanin’ no offense, Tucker, are you ridin’ on in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’d appreciate that. Too many shootings in town make folks nervous.”
A man who had been examining the dead man spoke. “Letter here, Marshal. This here is Al Cashion…you know, the one who was in that shootin’ over to Holbrook. He was a bad one.”
“He ain’t no more.” The marshal bent over and checked the dead man’s pockets. “Five hundred dollars here, Tucker. Looks to me like he was paid to kill you…Heseltine must be really scared.”
“He isn’t,” I said. “Reese must have paid this man. Or Ruby Shaw.”
“It was Ruby,” the marshal said. “Cashion used to hang out with her.” He handed me the money. “Heard you were tryin’ to get back what had been stole from you. This here’s a piece of it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
It wasn’t until I was in bed in the hotel that I started to shake. I lay there in the dark, wide awake, in a cold sweat.
That man had come at me right out of the dark, and I had killed him. I had drawn fast…but I’d been lucky, awfully lucky, I knew.
Chapter 12
T
HE BELLA UNION’S name had been changed to the St. Charles. As the other passengers got down from the coach I kept a watchout for Ruby Shaw. The last thing I needed was to be seen by her.
And if Bob Heseltine and Kid Reese had arrived before me, I wanted to see them at least as soon as they saw me.
There were four good hotels in Los Angeles, but I went to the best, the Pico House. My new black suit was dusty, but I looked very much the traveling gentleman when I signed the book and was shown to a room overlooking the Plaza.
One thing I had noticed was that nobody carried a gun in sight. So I took my Colt and shoved it down behind my waistband on the left side, butt to the right, but covered by my coat.
Once in my room, I had my clothes taken out to be brushed and sponged, and ordered bath water heated. Los Angeles was new to me, but on the stage there had been a drummer who knew the place well, and he was a talkative man, so I’d listened and learned a good deal about the place.
Even before that I’d heard it said that Los Angeles was one of the roughest towns in the West. In the twenty years from 1850 to 1870 there had been forty legal hangings, and thirty-seven lynchings by Vigilantes or the like. Many of the bad ones who had been run out of San Francisco by the Vigilantes there had come to Los Angeles, and the early lynchings took care of some of them.
It was a big town for me, almost sixteen thousand people, folks said. Alongside the Pico House they had built the Merced Theatre, an almighty impressive place, finished not long before.
The Plaza, with its fountain, was right below my windows, and it seemed to be the center of things. Keeping a lookout from there I would sooner or later see everybody in town. While I waited for my clothes to be returned I looked down from the window at the folks below.
Many were vaqueros, the Mexican cowboys who I’d heard were the greatest ropers and riders anywhere. Some of the Spanish men were regular dudes, with clothes the like of which I’d never seen, decorated with silver, and wide-bottomed pants slashed up the sides, with red, blue, or green showing in the slash. Most of their sombreros had fancy hatbands of snakeskin, woven beads or silver.
The streets were dusty, but the valley itself was green. The drummer had told me that the people of the town raised enough to feed themselves and ship a surplus to Mexico.
I saw no sign of Heseltine or Reese, and I thought it was likely I had arrived before them. But I did see Ruby Shaw.
A spanking new rig came into the Plaza suddenly, drawn by a matched pair of black geldings driven by a Mexican who sat up in front, whilst in the back seat was a handsome blonde all gussied up to look a lady of class. And it was Ruby, all right.
I had no idea what it cost to ride in a fine outfit like that, but it wouldn’t come cheap. It might be that Ruby had brought my money west and was living it up, but I couldn’t see myself facing a woman. The fact was that Ruby, although she looked handsome and could act the lady when she wanted to, was a tough one, a very tough article, indeed.
Maybe I wasn’t up to tackling Bob Heseltine, even though I planned on doing just that. But I knew I wanted no part of Ruby Shaw. A woman can always make a man look bad, and the best thing I could do was avoid any contact with her. That didn’t say I couldn’t keep an eye on her. In fact, that was what I had to do if I wanted to find the other two.
One thing I’d learned from Con Judy. A man should get himself in with folks, let them get to know him, so when a showdown came he wouldn’t be judged too harshly.
Buffum’s was the place. Of the town’s 110 saloons, Buffum’s was acknowledged to be the best, and the meeting place of folks from all over. If a man wanted to get acquainted, that was the place. But I knew enough not to accept too readily the first men I came in contact with. Often enough they were deadbeats cadging a free drink, or they were folks who didn’t set well with the local people.
So to Buffum’s I went, my suit now brushed and neat. From Con Judy I’d learned to dress better, and to conduct myself with some dignity.
At the bar I ordered a drink, meanwhile letting my eyes and ears take in the crowd. Almost as much Spanish was spoken as English, and with few exceptions the Mexicans were the most elegantly dressed.
All four of the town’s leading hotels, the Pico House, the St. Charles, the Lafayette, and the United States were close together, and none of them more than a few minutes from Buffum’s, so there were a good many out-of-towners aside from local residents and ranching people.
The bartender had a moment of quiet, and I said, “Quite a crowd.”
“The usual.” His eyes shifted to me. “You buying land?”
“Looking around. I’m interested in cattle. I might take a flyer in mining if there’s a chance.”
“That’s a big gamble. There’s gold out in San Gabriel canyon. A while back they were shipping twelve thousand dollars a month out of there.”
He served a drink, then dropped back beside me. “They all come in here. The bigwigs, I mean. This is where the big deals are made.”
“There are some beautiful girls around,” I commented, “some of the prettiest I’ve seen.”
“You betcha,” he said, with sudden enthusiasm. “These Mexican girls are mighty pretty!”
“I saw one today that wasn’t Mexican. At least, she didn’t look it to me. A blonde, driving a pair of black geld—”
“Elaine Ross,” he said. “She’s at the St. Charles. She’s a newcomer here, but she’s sure cutting a wide swath among the menfolks. Two or three of the young dons are trying to court her, and Hampton Todd as well.”
“Todd?”
“He’s eastern. At least his pa was. They come out here together when Hampton was a boy. Fact is, I went to school with him. His pa was a widower, married a Mexican girl and fell heir to one of the big land grants, but he did right by her family. He made money and he spread it around.
“Fact is,” the bartender added, “most of the Mexican families, the early ones, I mean, lost their land. Only those who had one of those New England boys marry into them, they kept theirs.
“There’d been no competition out here for years, and the Californios lived an easy, comfortable life. Money they took for granted sharing it around and spending it as if there was no end to it. Nobody was on the grab in those days, but when the Anglos began to come out, money-hungry and land-hungry, they grabbed everything in sight. It was a whole new way of thinking, and the Californios just weren’t ready for it.
“Old Man Todd and some of the others, they took care of their folks, hung onto their lands, and as a result a lot of the old Californio families survived the rush.
“Hampton, he’s a different cut from the old man. He’s a big spender and likes to live rich. Looks to me as if he’s got his eyes on Elaine Ross…and she’s got money of her own.”
“Well,” I said carefully, “if she’s only been here a short time, like that, maybe he should wait a bit and see what kind of a woman she is.”
The bartender drew back, his eyes level. “Mister,” he said, “I’ll hear no man speak slighting of a woman.”
Startled, I said, “I didn’t speak slighting of her. Only that that’s mighty short acquaintance, isn’t it?”
He walked away from me and stopped down the bar, talking with some other men. After a moment, feeling the fool, I finished my drink and walked out.
What would they have thought if I had told them what I knew? They might have shot me. They had decided to believe what they wanted to believe, and the worst thing a man can do is to try to change an idea like that. But what would happen when Heseltine came to town? How would he like seeing his girl running with another man?
Outside, I strolled around the Plaza, watching the couples out for walks, and seeing several rigs go by. There were a dozen or so riders, men riding slowly by on handsome horses, their saddles loaded down with silver. Finally I went back to the hotel, lit my light, and tried to read. After a while I went to bed, and there in the dark wondered how long I’d have to wait.
For some reason I was restless, and it took a long time for me to fall asleep. Then suddenly, I was awake.
There had been no unusual sound…I was somehow sure of that, yet there I was, wide awake and staring into the darkness. For a moment I lay quiet, listening.
There was no sound from outside, which meant it was long after midnight, for the saloons took time to quiet down, and men going home often stopped in the Plaza to talk. Carefully, I eased out of bed.
Looking at the crack of light beneath the door I could see that no one stood there. Dim light from outside showed my small room clearly enough to see I was alone. I crossed to the window and, keeping well to one side, looked out.
For a moment all I could see was the Plaza, the shadows under the awnings across the streets, the faintly silver finger of water from the fountain. And then I heard horses.
Two riders—no, there were three. Three riders.
Waiting beside the window I saw them walk their horses into the Plaza, pausing almost beneath my window as they considered the hotel and talked in low tones. I could make out no details, but one of them turned his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face.