Perkins stood rigid before him, face a deadly white, gun grasped in his hand and tilted toward the ceiling. Slowly, deliberately, Culver’s thumb pulled back the hammer and the click of the six-gun’s mechanism was a harsh and startling sound. Perkins whimpered. His hand suddenly was shaking and the gun dropped from it.
Without a word, Culver holstered his own gun, turned to the man upon the floor. Atwood was sitting up, hand clutching his shoulder, staring at Culver.
Culver crossed to him. “Can you get up?” he asked.
Atwood nodded. “He dealt from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “I caught him at it.”
CHAPTER THREE
Wanted—A Spy!
Hamilton reached into the bottom drawer of the battered desk, came up with a box of cigars. “Light up, Culver.”
Chewing the end off the smoke, Culver studied the man. About the same as ever, he decided. A little harder, a bit more vicious, slightly older than he’d been back on the river. But he was the same Calvin Hamilton.
“Sorry about your friend,” Hamilton said. “Hope he will be all right.”
Culver struck a match. “Got him back to the hotel and put him to bed. Got a doctor for him right away.”
Culver ran the match back and forth across the tip of the cigar, eyes taking in the room. An old iron safe behind the desk, a couple of chairs, carpet on the floor, framed sporting prints scattered on the walls.
Hamilton leaned back in the creaking armchair, inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his vest.
“Surprised to see you here,” he said. “River dry up?”
Culver shook his head. “Out looking for a man. Supposed to have come here. Name of Mark Farson. Maybe you heard of him.”
Hamilton rocked slowly in the chair, brow furrowed. “Can’t say I did,” he declared. “But I might have missed him. There are so many people. Someone I should know?”
“Guess you wouldn’t,” Culver told him. “Came after you had left. Got to be pretty friendly with him.”
Culver snapped the match stick in two, flipped it from him with his thumb. “Figured he was about my best friend, I guess. Would have gone through hell barefooted for that kid.”
Back of the desk, Hamilton’s eyes squinted shrewdly. “Loan him some money?”
“Worse than that,” said Culver. “Heard of Gun Gulch, you see. Heard it was a good town. So we pooled our killings and he came out here ahead to sort of look it over. He was to let me know if it was worth investing.”
Culver blew smoke toward the ceiling, vaguely wished he had the money to buy cigars like the fine weed between his fingers.
“Didn’t hear a word of him,” he said. “Not a single word since he left. So I came along to check up. Figured something might have happened to the kid.”
“Run out on you,” Hamilton said, flatly.
Culver looked at him, but the face was a smooth, white mask. “Beginning to think that very thing myself.”
There was a long silence while Culver smoked and Hamilton teetered in the chair.
“Now what?” Hamilton finally asked.
“Nothing, I guess,” said Culver. “No trace of him. Can’t even be sure that he came here. I asked all along the line, but there was nothing doing. Doesn’t prove he didn’t come, of course, but I have no proof that he did.”
“Want to stick around for a few days before you go back,” Hamilton told him, easily. “Interesting town.”
Culver shook his head. “Can’t go back. I’m next door to dead broke.”
He waited but the man across the desk kept silent.
Finally Culver said, “Thought you might have a job for me. I still can handle a deck all right and I know my players.”
Hamilton eyes him closely, cunning in his face. “Figure you could do a trick or two?”
“Not a chance,” Culver told him, curtly. “I always played them straight. No funny business. I won because I was a better player than the other fellow. Stands to reason I would have been. It was my business, but just his way of having fun.”
“Can’t do it that way here,” Hamilton declared. “This is a short shot proposition. Mines may peter out any day. Got to clean up when you can. Got a lot of cash invested. Have to get it back.”
He tilted forward in the chair, took his thumbs out of the armholes of the vest. “How about a loan?” he asked.
Culver shook his head. “I’ll look around a bit.”
“Come to think of it,” said Hamilton, “I might be able to give you a job.”
“Swamping out, maybe,” Culver said, bitterly.
“Nope, a good job. There’s a place across the street, see. Goes by the name of Golden Slipper. Given me a lot of trouble. Hombre by the name of Brown runs it. Barney Brown. Things going on over there I’d like to know about.”
Culver hurled the half smoked cigar into the spittoon angrily. “I’m no spy,” he said, shortly.
“Let’s talk sense.” Hamilton spoke easily. “You’re the only man I can trust. Maybe we don’t like one another, but I can trust you and that’s more than I can say for anyone else around here. All you’ve got to do is go over and see Brown. He will grab you in a minute. Cripes, after you killing one of my men and all, he’ll—”
Culver sat bolt upright in the chair. “One of your men!”
Hamilton laughed at him shortly. “Sure, Stover. I thought you knew.”
“Hell, no,” said Culver. “He was just someone that got in my hair. Wouldn’t have nothing come of it if he hadn’t gone for his gun. Then, naturally, I had to. …”
“Certainly,” Hamilton told him. “Certainly. No need to make excuses.”
“Perkins one of your men, too, I suppose.”
Hamilton nodded.
“Lord, what a mangy lot.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Hamilton. “Hard to get good men. That’s why I need you.”
Culver rose. “The answer is no, Hamilton. I’m not doing any spying for you or any other man.”
Hamilton leaned back again and inserted his thumbs into his vest, rocked gently.
“If I were you, Culver, I’d walk sort of easy. Stover had some friends, you know.”
“I suppose that’s a threat,” said Culver.
“Frankly,” Hamilton told him, “that’s just exactly what it is.”
The street had quieted somewhat, but men still moved along the sidewalks and shrieks of drunken laughter came from the open windows. Across the street was the Golden Slipper and next to it a print shop. GUN GULCH GAZETTE said the uneven sign scrawled across the window in black paint. Behind the window a man perched on a stool at a type cabinet, shoulders bent above his work.
A hand tugged at Culver’s sleeve and he turned around. The man with the peg-leg stood beside him.
“Good evening,” said Peg-leg. He pulled the notebook from his pocket, took the pencil stub from behind his ear. “Wonder if you would tell me how to spell Atwood’s name. Afraid I got it wrong. Don’t mind about the other words, but I like to get the names right.”
“I thought you had his name once!”
“Did,” said Peg-leg. “But I got to put it down again. He got shot, you know.”
“You mean you put down all the shootings?”
“Most of them,” said Peg-leg, proudly. “Maybe I miss a few of the piddling ones, but I catch the main ones.”
Culver grinned. “You should be a newspaper reporter.”
Peg-leg scratched his ear. “Am, sort of. Jake, over there at the Gazette, gets lots of his stuff from me. Folks pay me to get things in the paper about them and Jake gives me a drink or buys me a dinner for bringing him the stuff, so it works out all right both ways.”