He did so, and without a word, she threw her arms around him. It was the kind of farewell he had dreaded and had hoped to avoid, but there were no tears. Eulie backed away, and when she spoke, her voice was steady.
“Nathan, keep your temper, and don't shoot unless you have to.”
Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded and stepped out the door. When he set out for the barn, to saddle his horse, Cotton Blossom followed.
“Not this time, Cotton Blossom,” said Nathan. “Stay.”
Before riding out of sight beyond the McQueen house, Nathan looked back. Eulie stood before the cabin, Cotton Blossom beside her, and Nathan had a chilling premotion that he might be seeing them for the last time. But he swallowed hard, tugged his hat down over his eyes, and rode on. After the attempted ambush he rode warily, and reached town without incident. The St. Charles dining room served breakfast until half-past ten, so Nathan again had trouble finding room at one of the hitching rails for his horse. Entering the dining room and failing to find Silver there, he went on through the restaurant to the hotel lobby. The St. Charles was plush beyond belief, with banks of windows reaching from the floor almost to the high ceiling. Gold velvet drapes matched the thick carpet, which continued up the stairs and down the halls. Nathan looked around the lobby and then quickly mounted the stairs. Reaching the third floor, he looked down the hall, and finding it deserted, knocked on the door to 301.
“Identify yourself,” said a voice from within.
“Nathan Stone.”
There came the sound of a deadbolt being drawn, and the door opened just enough for Nathan to enter. He did so. Silver, fully dressed except for his hat and boots, held a cocked Colt in his right fist. He thumbed down the hammer before he spoke.
“I don't mean to seem inhospitable, but I don't have many visitors.”
“And among them,” Nathan said, “few friends.”
Silver's laugh was brittle, without humor. “Among them, no friends. Present company excepted, of course.”
“I'll come right to the point,” said Nathan. “As I rode back to McQueen's yesterday, somebody cut down on me with a rifle.”
“I don't see any holes in you,” Silver observed. “It must have been a warning shot. Hargis Gavin has officially invited you to either become the guest of honor at a funeral or leave New Orleans. Have you come to say goodbye?”
“One thing I don't like about you, Silver, is your damned untimely sense of humor. What do
you
think?”
“I think I'd better introduce you to French Stumberg. You have the kind of sand he likes in a man, and you don't run just because you're up against a skunk who has you outgunned and wants your head on a platter. Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes,” Nathan replied.
“I haven't,” said Silver. “You can drink coffee while I eat.”
Nathan said nothing, waiting while Silver tugged on his boots and found his hat. They stepped into the hall and Silver locked the door behind them. After making sure nobody observed him, Silver took from his coat pocket a spool of fine thread. He unwound and snapped off a length of it, tying one end to the knob of the door. The other end he looped over the head of a slightly protruding nail in the door frame, beneath the knob. In the dimness of the hall, the slender thread was invisible.
“I can't figure you,” Nathan said. “You have gunslingers after your hide, yet you're camped out on the third floor of the fanciest place in town.”
“I have my reasons,” said Silver. “They know where to find me, but as you pointed out yesterday, I'm not likely to be gunned down here in the hotel. At least not in a crowd. Gavin has the law in his pocket, but there's still some limits. Besides, Stumberg likes having me here. It's a slap in the face, a way to rankle Gavin. Stumberg picks up the tab for the room and grub.”
Silver said no more, for they were descending the stairs to the lobby. Most of the breakfast crowd had cleared out of the dining room. Silver, when a waiter approached, pointed to an isolated table from which the entire room could be seen. There were two chairs next to the wall. Silver took one and Nathan took the other. The waiter brought a tray with a fancy porcelain pot full of coffee and two fancy porcelain cups. Silver ordered breakfast and sipped his coffee.
“Well, damn it,” Nathan said impatiently, “tell me something about French Stumberg.”
“No,” Silver replied. “I prefer to wait and let you draw your own conclusions. I may have said too much already. He'll be in town sometime tonight.”
“Here at the hotel?”
“No,” said Silver. “He never comes here. He'll be coming in from St. Louis. The
Queen of Diamonds
will be docking just before sundown. There'll be a carriage arriving at the hotel at seven o'clock. It will take us to the Old Canal House, on Old Canal, north of here.”
Nathan said no more, drinking his coffee while Silver dug into his food. Not until he had finished his breakfast did Silver finally speak.
“You're welcome to spend the rest of the day in my room. I wouldn't recommend wandering about town, after that near miss yesterday afternoon.”
“I'll accept that invite,” Nathan said, “but first I have to find a livery and stable my horse.”
“There's one within sight of the hotel,” said Silver, “but it's not the cheapest in town.”
“I didn't reckon it would be,” Nathan said. “I have money.”
“I'll go with you,” said Silver. “If you hire on with Stumberg, you'll likely have to sell your horse and saddle.”
“I'll be damned if I do,” Nathan replied. “Nobody, Stumberg included, will ever own me that completely.”
The livery was but a short distance away, and Nathan made arrangements to leave his horse and store his saddle. His saddlebags and bedroll he took with him. On their way through the lobby, Silver stopped at the desk and bought two newspapers, something Nathan had neglected to do. One of them was an eight-page local weekly, while the other was a recent issue of the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Reaching the door to 301, Silver found the slender thread unbroken. He removed it, unlocked the door, and they entered. Silver shot the deadbolt, sat down on the bed, and removed his boots. Nathan was studying the newspapers.
“I don't know why I bother with those,” said Silver, “except they're a way to kill time.”
“With you in charge of security of the
Queen of Diamonds,”
Nathan said, “I'd reckon you'd be stayin' with it most of the time.”
“I spend all my time with it while it's docked here,” said Silver, “but when Stumberg goes to St. Louis, I have time on my hands.”
“That's kind of obvious,” said Nathan. “You ever wonder why he goes to St. Louis and you're always left here?”
“I try not to wonder out loud about anything that could get me shot dead,” Silver replied. “Unless you have some kind of death wish, let me give you some strong advice. If Stumberg takes to you, keep your mouth shut, your eyes open, and your pistol handy.”
His eyes met Nathan's and there wasn't a hint of a smile.
As the day dragged on, Nathan read both newspapers, starting with the
Globe-Democrat.
From it he learned that the James and Younger gangs were still robbing banks in Missouri, and that the crazed Cullen Baker was loose somewhere in Arkansas. Not until he began reading the local weekly did Nathan find anything of real interest.
“God,” Nathan said aloud, “what a crazy damn fool.”
Silver had been stretched out on the bed, half asleep. He opened one eye and spoke.
“Are you referring to me or to yourself?”
“Neither,” said Nathan, rising from his chair. “Ben Thompson.”
“The little varmint that's sudden death with a pistol,” Silver said. “Do you know him?”
“I met him in south Texas,” Nathan replied. “Last I saw of him, he was riding north toward San Antone.”
“He's the kind that wears out his welcome pretty quick,” Silver said. “I didn't know he was here. What's he done now?”
“Picked a fight with somebody in one of the saloons,” said Nathan, “and they settled in with knives. Had themselves locked in an icehouse, with no light. Thompson was cut pretty bad, but managed to walk away. The paper's a little shy on details. By the time they got word, it was too late to talk to Thompson. He found a doc, got himself patched up, and rode away.”
“I've heard that Ben's younger brother Billy is even worse than Ben,” Silver said. “Either of them is sidewinder-mean, but the two of 'em together, I hear, is a keg of powder with a short fuse.”
10
“Then I hope I never get involved with them both at the same time,” said Nathan. “I manage to scare up all the trouble I can handle, without help.”
Nathan and Silver took an early supper, going to the hotel dining room shortly past four oâclock. Again Silver tied the tiny thread after locking the door, and was careful to see that it was unbroken upon their return. They had whiled away a little more than an hour in the dining room and still had the better part of two hours until the seven o'clock departure for Stumberg's gambling house.
“I reckon,” Nathan said by way of conversation, “you're sure Stumberg will be at this gambling house. Me, I'd first be sure the boat's at the landing.”
“You don't know Stumberg,” said Silver. “If the Queen isn't there come sundown, then the damn thing's sunk somewhere between here and St. Louis.”
There seemed nothing more to say, and Nathan leaned his chair back against the wall, dozing. After what seemed only a few minutes. Silver spoke.
“Time to go. By the time we get down there, the coach will be waiting.”
Again, after locking the door, Silver tied the thread in place, and they made their way down the stairs. The stage was waiting, and it proved to be a red and green Concord, drawn by four matched bays. The stage itself bore no markings, nothing to indicate who it belonged to or where it was bound. Byron Silver confidently mounted the step and took one of the three remaining seats. Nathan followed. All the other passengers were men, well dressed, apparently affluent. They paid little attention to Silver, but eyed Nathan Stone with some interest, thanks to his pair of tied-down Colts. It was already dark, and Nathan knew only that they traveled west along St. Charles. When the coach finally slowed, it took a right on what Nathan guessed was Old Canal, for the lights of town faded quickly and the coach jounced over a not-too-well-kept dirt road. They rattled across a wooden bridge and drew up before a rambling two-story house. A long front porch stretched the length of it and carriage lamps flickered on either side of the wide double doors. The other passengers left the coach and Silver fell back so that he could speak to Nathan without being overheard.
“Everybody goes into the parlor,” he said. “Actually, there are two parlors. The others will go into the second. You'll wait in the first until I talk to Stumberg. Stay there. Don't go wandering around.”
Apparently having been there before, the other guests went immediately into the second of the two parlors. Nathan remained in the first, watching as Silver continued through the second and up an elegant spiral staircase. The two parlors seemed identical in furnishings, with elegant rose drapes matching a gray, rose-patterened carpet. Nathan had never seen anything like it, and he remained standing, reluctant to sit on the elegant mahogany furniture. He eyed the wide, white-railed spiral stairway at the end of the second parlor and so got his first look at one of Stumberg's “pretty girls.”
She didn't look a day over eighteen. She came down the spiral stairs, obviously to escort the newly arrived patrons. Her blonde hair was tied with a red ribbon, her slippers were a matching red, and her waist-length jacket was red, embroidered with gold. The jacket was open down the front, and she wore absolutely nothing else. Barnabas McQueen hadn't exaggerated.
11
The practically naked girl beckoned to the goggle-eyed men, and they all followed her eagerly up the stairs. Nathan suspected her motionsâand whatever might take place laterâhad been devised to take a man's mind off his gambling, along with the heavy losses he was likely to suffer. Nathan had grown tired of waiting when Silver returned.
“Come on,” said Silver. “I built you up as much as I could. He knows you're on Gavin's list for having sided me. It's up to you to convince him he needs you.”
Nathan followed Silver through the second parlor and up the long spiral stairs. Silver paused before a door and knocked.
“All right,” said a voice from within.
“You're on your own,” Silver said. “I'll be downstairs.”
Not knowing what to expect, Nathan turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped into the room. Its furnishings were as elegant as any of those in the downstairs parlors. Stumberg sat behind a mahogany desk the length of a Conestoga wagon, chewing an unlit cigar. He had lost some hair in the front, and what remained was graying. In the glow from hanging, brass-shaded lamps, diamonds glittered from rings on both his beefy hands. His frock coat was black, and beneath it he wore a boiled white shirt with ruffles at the front and at the cuffs. His black string tie lay on the desk. He had jowls that reminded Nathan of a hog, and his deep brown eyes were hard, unblinking. While both his hands were on the desktop, he looked like the kind who would have a derringer up his sleeve or a Colt in his lap. There were no chairs before the desk, but several to either side, along the walls. A visitor was not permitted to face Stumberg head-on.
“There's chairs,” Stumberg growled. “Set.”