Death Rides Alone (10 page)

If so, it didn't take him long to reach a decision. He closed and fastened the gate.

“All right, you can unsaddle all these horses now,” Luke told him. “Saddles go over there in the shed. Make sure there's grain in the feeder, too.”

“What are you gonna do while I'm working?” Tyler wanted to know.

Luke swung down from the gray, pulled his rifle from its sheath, and said, “I've got my own job. It's called standing here, keeping an eye on you, and hoping you don't give me any reason to shoot you.”

Luke kept the Winchester's barrel pointed generally toward the ground as they walked around the trading post to the entrance, so it didn't actually look like he was holding a gun on Tyler.

Both of them knew, however, that he could raise the rifle and fire in the blink of an eye.

The door had a latch much like the one on the corral gate. Tyler lifted it and pushed the door in. The smell that wafted out was a mixture of stale beer, tobacco smoke, animal hides, some sort of spicy food, and unwashed human flesh. It reminded Luke of scores of other frontier trading posts he had visited during his bounty-hunting career.

The floor was split logs fitted closely together. Thick, roughly square beams that had been hacked out of other logs were set in two rows, four to each row, and supported the exposed ceiling joists.

The rows of beams also served to divide the big room into thirds. Straight ahead when Luke and Tyler came in were several sets of shelves filled with supplies and trade goods. At the back was a long counter with more supplies behind it, including racks that held rifles and shotguns. A stack of hides was piled to one side, showing that Pettifer traded with some of the trappers who still worked far back in the mountains as if it were fifty years earlier and the fur trade was still at its height.

The section to the right served as a saloon and eatery. A bar made of thick planks laid across barrels ran along that wall. There were four tables, as well, where customers could eat, drink, or play cards. At the back was a big fireplace with a stewpot hanging on an iron stand, staying warm over a blaze that had burned down almost to embers.

Curtains had been hung between the beams on the left to close off that section. Back there would be small, squalid rooms where men could sleep or consort with whores, if Pettifer had any working for him.

The only lamp burning at the moment was on the saloon side, which meant the rest of the trading post was dim and shadowy. Luke didn't like that very much, but on the other hand, it might work to his advantage. If any of the men in here were holding a grudge against him, they'd be less likely to recognize him in the bad light. He planned to keep his head down and let the brim of his black hat obscure his face as much as he could without drawing attention to himself.

Two men stood at the bar. Two more were seated at one of the tables, shoveling stew into their mouths from the wooden bowls in front of them. That left two unaccounted for . . . assuming six men had ridden in on those half-dozen horses in the corral and they didn't have any extra mounts with them.

The faces of the men turned toward the newcomers. At first glance, Luke didn't see anybody he recognized. But if the light was bad for them, it was hard for him to see, too, so he couldn't make out their features all that well.

A fat man with a long white beard that hung far down his chest stood behind the bar. He wore a canvas apron tied around his neck and behind his back, but he didn't appear to have a shirt on underneath it. Luke wondered if the man was wearing any trousers but then decided that maybe he didn't want to know.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in,” the man greeted them in a booming voice. “All are welcome at Pettifer's.”

One of the men at the bar snickered and said, “Unless you're wearin' a damn lawdog's badge, ain't that right, Malachi?”

“It's perfectly fine for a peace officer to walk through that door,” Pettifer said. “Walking out again . . .” The thick, bare shoulders rose and fell. “That might be a different story.”

“No badges here,” Luke said, talking past Tyler who was still in front of him. “Never wore one and never will.”

“Step up and have a drink, then,” Pettifer invited with a wave of a pudgy hand.

Luke and Tyler walked over to the bar, swinging wide around the table where the two men sat so that Luke could watch them from the corner of his eye. They probably knew exactly what he was doing, but in a place like this, such cautious behavior was to be expected. A man riding the owlhoot never knew when he would run into an enemy. For that reason, Luke watched the two men standing at the bar, as well.

“Got beer and whiskey, both fine libations made right here in Pettifer City,” the fat, bearded man said.

Luke thought Pettifer City was a pretty grandiose title for a trading post in the middle of nowhere, but he didn't mention that, just asked, “What's the ratio of snake heads to gunpowder in the whiskey?”

“Eh?”

“Beer,” Luke said. “One each for my friend and me.”

“Comin' up.”

Pettifer set two big tin cups on the bar, reached down to the floor and picked up a bucket, and poured amber liquid from the bucket into the cups. Luke tried not to shudder.

“Four bits apiece, so that'll be a dollar,” Pettifer said.

Using his left hand, Luke took a coin from his pocket and slid it across the bar. He didn't like the fact that his back was turned to the curtained-off area on the other side of the trading post. There was no mirror hung behind the bar, either, so he couldn't watch for any signs of movement that way.

Once again, Tyler proved to be pretty quick-witted. As if he'd been reading Luke's mind, he picked up his cup of beer, half-turned so that he could lean on the bar with his other elbow, and took a drink. Positioned that way, he could watch Luke's back without being too obvious about it. He sighed in satisfaction and licked his lips after he downed the swallow of beer.

Luke tried his, found it at least palatable, and then let the cup sit on the bar while he said to Pettifer, “I saw what looked like a blacksmith shop out there.”

“Well, it's not much more than a forge and a bellows, but it'll do in a pinch. You got a pinch, friend?”

“I have a horse that's thrown a shoe. How much for the use of the forge?”

“Two dollars,” Pettifer answered without hesitation. “You stoke it and do all the work yourself. You're just payin' for the fact that I had the foresight to build it.”

“Fair enough,” Luke said. “I'll be using it first thing in the morning, if it's not already spoken for.”

Pettifer shook his head and said, “We've got a deal. Why don't you go ahead and pay now, so we don't have to worry about it in the morning?”

As a rule, Luke didn't like paying for things in advance, but he wasn't going to argue and draw attention to him and Tyler. Instead he took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket this time and said, “I assume this will buy us a couple of bowls of stew and a place to sleep tonight, along with the use of the forge?”

“As a matter of fact, I've got a special deal going on just that combination,” Pettifer said. With practiced ease, he caught the coin as Luke tossed it to him and dropped it into a pocket on the apron. He took a couple of bowls from a shelf, set them on the bar with a pair of spoons, and told Luke and Tyler, “Help yourselves from the pot over yonder.”

Luke nodded toward the bowls and spoons, indicating that Tyler should pick them up. Then, with the rifle in one hand and the cup of beer in the other, he went over to one of the empty tables.

He set the beer down and laid the rifle across the table. Tyler left his beer there, too, as they went over to the fireplace and the stewpot.

“I haven't seen anybody in here I know,” Tyler said, pitching his voice low enough that Pettifer and the other men in the room couldn't hear it.

“Neither have I,” Luke said, “and more importantly, none of them seem to recognize either of us.”

They filled their bowls using the dipper that hung from the stand, then carried them back over to the table. The beer might not have been very good, but the stew was surprisingly tasty, Luke found when he dug in. It was filled with chunks of venison, wild onions, carrots, and potatoes. He hadn't noticed it in the twilight, but somewhere around the trading post had to be a garden.

Pettifer didn't strike Luke as the type to tend a garden, so that argued for the presence of a woman around the place. That hunch was confirmed a few minutes later when one of the curtains was thrust back and a man in the bullhide chaps of a Texan swaggered through, followed by a woman in a plain shirt and long skirt. Her blond hair was roughly cropped so that it fell just above her shoulders.

The pug-nosed, sunburned Texan joined the two men standing at the bar, who greeted him with ribald comments and good-natured slaps on the back. He was young, probably not even twenty yet, and Luke supposed this might have been his first time with a woman. One of the other men called out to Pettifer to pour a drink for the youngster.

Pettifer did that, then went down to the other end of the bar where the blonde was standing. He nodded toward the far side of the trading post and asked her, “Spotted Fawn still back there with the other one?”

“That's right,” the blonde said as Pettifer filled a shot glass with whiskey for her.

“Didn't hear any sort of trouble going on, did you? It's been a while.”

She shook her head and picked up the glass. She threw back the drink and set the empty on the bar with a thump.

In a half-whisper, Tyler said to Luke, “Hard to believe a gal like her and one as sweet and innocent as Rachel are even the same species.”

Luke chewed and swallowed and said, “We're all human beings, subject to the same frailties and magnificences.”

“You quoting that Marcus fella again, or some other old Roman?”

“No. That one is my own.”

The two men with the young Texan either lacked the funds for a whore or had already taken their turn, because they didn't show any interest in the blonde. After a few minutes she motioned for Pettifer to pour her another drink, then picked up the glass and sauntered over to the table where Luke and Tyler sat. Luke could tell that she was trying to put a seductive sway in her walk, but she wasn't having much success at that.

“Hello, boys,” she said as she came up to the table. She put a well-worn smile on her face.

Luke didn't point out that he hadn't been a boy since before he had gone off to war, and that was a lot of years ago.

“My name's Millie,” the blonde continued. “What do they call you fellas?”

“Tired and hungry,” Luke said. He appreciated time spent with pleasant female company as much as any man, but this wasn't really the time or place.

“Which one are you?” she asked.

“Both.”

Millie gave up on him and turned to Tyler, saying, “And that would make you . . . ?”

“Flat broke, ma'am, and I surely do regret to say it.”

Millie sighed and said, “No more than I'm sorry to hear it.”

She was younger than Luke had thought at first and reasonably pretty in an already faded way. With a foot, he pushed back one of the empty chairs at the table and said, “You look a mite tired yourself. Why don't you sit down for a while?”

Millie frowned.

“Sittin's not really how I earn my keep.”

Luke took out another dollar and laid it on the table.

“Sit,” he told her again. “I've been on the trail now for several days with nothing nice to look at. You're a welcome change from that, Millie.”

She glanced at the bar, where Pettifer stood watching her. Making sure that he could see what she was doing, she picked up the coin and dropped it down the front of her shirt, then sat down between Luke and Tyler.

“You can tell me your names if you want,” she said. “I know better than to shoot my mouth off to any badge-toters who come sniffin' around.”

“I'm Judd, he's Luke,” Tyler said before Luke could respond. Luke would have preferred that Tyler hadn't admitted even that much, but he supposed it wouldn't hurt anything. After all, the men who were hunting Tyler already knew his name and what he looked like.

“I'm happy to meet both of you,” Millie said. “And happy to sit down and do nothin' for a few minutes. You wouldn't think whorin' would wear a body out so much, but it sure does.”

“Anything keeping you from going somewhere else and making a fresh start?” Luke asked.

“Everything in the world, mister,” she said with a weary sigh. “Everything in the world.”

“You should do like that old fella Emperor Marcus,” Tyler said. “Do the best you can with what you got and let the rest move on past you.”

She frowned at him and said, “What?”

Before they could continue this rather odd discussion of stoic philosophy, the young Texan in the bullhide chaps strode over to the table. The three sitting there turned their heads to look at him as he hooked his thumbs in his belt and announced, “I'm ready to go again, Millie.”

“Oh, I doubt that, kid,” she said. “I know you're young, but you best wait a little while longer.”

“I said I'm ready
now
.”

Over at the bar, his friends cackled. Luke figured they had prodded the youngster into approaching the table.

Luke had finished his stew. He pushed the empty bowl away and said, “The lady's time has been bought and paid for, friend, and I believe that dollar I laid down still has more time to run.”

“He's right—” Millie began.

The Texan glared at Luke and said, “I didn't ask you, old man. I'm talkin' to this here dirty whore.”

“Hey, there's no need for talk like that,” Tyler said. The legs of his chair scraped on the rough floor as he slid it back a little.

The Texan tensed, his right hand moving quickly to hover over the wooden grips of what appeared to be an old cap-and-ball revolver holstered on his hip.

“You just stay out of it,” he snapped. “I don't need no advice from the likes o' you. You ain't even packin' a gun. What's the matter? You a damn yellow-bellied coward? Too scared to carry a gun?”