Culver shook his head. “Nope. Just skip it. Some other time, perhaps.”
“Okay,” Peg-leg said cheerfully. He turned around and hobbled down the street.
Culver stared after him, scrubbing his chin thoughtfully with his hand. Then he picked up his bag and headed down the street toward the Antlers Hotel.
Gun Gulch was a seething brew of humanity turned mad by the gold-germ running in its veins. Its one main street was churned to a strip of paste-like, sucking mud by chugging wagon wheels, by the pounding, straining hoofs of horses bringing in the freight that built the false-front stores and stocked them with the needs of the frontier brood.
Back in Antelope town, Culver had been told in way of warning:
“Gun Gulch is a tough town. You walk in the middle of the street and you mind your business.”
And that, he thought, standing at the window of his room, was right. Walk in the middle of the street, unless you got pushed off. Deliberately, by a man with a black beard and pig-eyes that watched every move you made.
The name of the place had been the Crystal Bar. That would be Hamilton’s place. Hamilton might have heard of Farson, might be able to tell him something of him. Certainly, if Farson passed through Gun Gulch, Hamilton would have known it.
Culver frowned, thinking back on his past associations with Hamilton. A man that made a little shiver run up your shoulder-blades. A man whose handshake was like grabbing a flabby fish that was sweating just a little. And the worst of it was that if Hamilton had no word of Farson, he would have to ask the man for a job. That dollar he had given Peg-leg had been almost his last.
Maybe Peg-leg had Farson in his notebook. He had almost asked him and then had decided against it. Hamilton would keep his mouth shut and Peg-leg probably wouldn’t. Culver grinned, remembering the little man tapping along on his wooden peg.
The first lamps of evening were blooming out of the windows along the street, throwing splashes of orange and yellow light across the crowded sidewalks and out into the muddy road. A wagon went past, piled high with freight. From where he stood, Culver could hear the high, shrill profanity of the teamster above the babble of the street.
Letting himself out the door, he headed for the stairs, had almost reached them when a voice called from the hall behind him. He swung around and saw Nancy Atwood, standing in front of an open door almost opposite his own.
“Grant Culver,” she said, “will you come and say hello to me.”
He walked toward her, smiling. “I was wondering when I’d see you. A man with a wooden leg told me you had put up here.”
“I do declare,” she told him, “after you’d traveled all the way with us I’d thought you could have kept on until we got to Gun Gulch.”
He shook his head. “I had to stop at Antelope to ask about a man.”
“A friend of yours?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t rightly know. He used to be.”
Pretty, he thought, looking at her. Pretty as a picture with her raven hair piled atop her head. She was wearing a flame-colored dress that left her shoulders bare.
“You’re going out, Grant?” she asked.
“I thought I would. If—”
She silenced him with a gesture of her hand. “You might watch for Bob,” she said then. “I’m just a little—well, a little bit afraid.”
He laughed at her easily. “Gun Gulch may be tough, Nancy, but not as bad as that. Your brother can take care of himself.”
Her voice choked a little. “He’s been gambling,” she said. “He denies it, but I know he has. And he’s so poor at it and we have so little money.”
“And you want me to break up the game?”
“Well, not exactly that. You might see what you can do to get him out of it as tactfully as possible.”
He frowned. “Your brother has a job here?”
She nodded. “Yes, he has. But the man he has to see is out at some diggings somewhere and Bob has to wait until he comes back to town.”
“I’ll see if I can spot him,” he told her.
She smiled at him. “Thanks, Grant,” she said. “Good night.”
He watched until she shut the door, then moved on down the hall and out onto the street of Gun Gulch.
CHAPTER TWO
The Man Named Hamilton
The Crystal Bar was a smoke-blurred din, a place of lights and music, talk and tinkle, with the undertone of feet shuffling on sawdust. For a moment, Culver stood in the door, staring out over the milling crowd that filled the place. The lights blazed from the ceiling, their brilliance softened by the trails of cigar smoke that snaked up in bluish ribbons. Glassware flashed and scintillated on the back bar and the barkeepers moved about almost like dancing men.
Culver moved down the room, going slowly, shouldering his way through the press of humanity. Foot by foot he worked his way toward the bar.
A bartender growled at him: “What’s yours?”
“Nothing right now,” Culver told him. “Where can I find Hamilton?”
“What the hell!” The barkeep stopped in mid-sentence, stared at him. His manner changed and he almost fawned.
“The boss said you were to see him just as soon as you come in.”
“Thanks,” Culver said.
The bartender leaned across the bar. “Have one on the house before you go.” He grasped a bottle by the neck, seized a glass.
Culver shook his head.
“Mister,” said the barkeep, “you may not know it, but you’re the talk of the town.”
“How come?” Culver asked.
“Stover was the fastest gunslick this place had ever seen,” the barkeep told him.
Culver shook his head. “Slow,” he said. “Terrible, awful slow.”
He swung around, pushed his way toward the center of the room.
The shot came like a thunderclap that split across the talk, a burst of blasting noise that drowned out all sound and set the ceiling lamps to swaying on their chains.
The crowd surged back and left a cleared space in the center of the room, a place of scuffed-up sawdust and green tables and smoke-filtered light.
Culver stood stock still, staring at the figure on the floor.
Bob Atwood!
Bob Atwood, who had ridden in the stagecoach with him all the way from St. Louis. Nancy Atwood’s brother.
Culver lifted his eyes and stared at the man who stood behind the table, a man with his hat tilted on the back of his head, teeth showing in a firm, white line beneath the jaunty mustache, and with a smoking gun clutched tightly in his hand.
The man was looking at Culver and from where he stood Culver could see the crinkles deepen at the corners of his eyes.
“So,” said the man.
Culver felt his muscles tightening, fought to relax them.
The man across the table was Perkins, he who had waded out into the street to get his carpetbag.
The gun was coming up, slowly, surely, and there was no chance to beat it.
“Perkins,” Culver said, “you’re a lousy shot. You just winged your man.”
Perkins’ eyes flickered for a moment toward Bob Atwood on the floor and as they did Culver’s arm moved swiftly, arm and wrist and fingers a sudden chain of strength and speed that brought the six-gun spinning from its holster.
Perkins’ hand jerked nervously and his gun belched smoke and fire. Culver felt the whining bullet spin past his head, heard the crash of glass as it slammed into the back bar mirror.
“You had your shot,” Culver told him, bleakly. “Now, by God, it’s my turn.”