Charley suddenly realized he had yet to tell his friend about Ubel Gunther’s visit to the stable. He deemed it best to do so later, when they were alone. If Melissa found out Tony had killed those two men in the alley, she might rethink her decision to join the hunt for the Hoodoos. And Charley dearly wanted her along.
“What exactly is that all about anyway?” Melissa asked.
Charley knew Tony wouldn’t answer, which was bound to make her mad, so he declared, “Enough of this sittin’ around. I found out where Enos Howard lives. What say we go there and see if he’ll listen to our proposition?”
Tony was on his feet and heading for the door before Charley stopped speaking. He held it open for them, and once outside, he pulled his cap low and turned up his collar.
The address was on the western outskirts of the city. They had to ask a Mexican leading a donkey if they had the right street since there were no street signs and the streets weren’t so much streets as dirt tracks. The Mexican asked who they were looking for, and when they told him, he laughed and pointed.
Melissa said, “That can’t be it.”
But it was. In the center of an otherwise empty lot stood the sorriest excuse for a shack Charley had ever set eyes on. Whoever built it hadn’t been too particular about how. Some of the planks overlapped, while others had gaps between them. The roof was only half done, and a faded strip of canvas with holes in it had been draped over the rest. A door, half shut, hung on a rusty hinge.
“Someone lives in that hovel?” Tony was skeptical.
Charley walked to the door. As he raised his fist, a terrible odor nearly made him gag. It was like the stink of rancid sweat, only ten times worse. He knocked and called out, “Mr. Enos Howard? We’d like a word with you, if you please.”
There was no answer. Charley knocked again, louder, and when that still failed to elicit a reply, he pushed on the door. It scraped across an uneven floor until the bottom snagged on a warped plank half an inch higher than the rest. “Mr. Howard?” The smell was worse, compounded by the reek of alcohol. Covering his mouth and nose, Charley stepped inside. “Are you home?”
A hideous rumbling caused Charley to spin to the right. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the murk and to distinguish a bulky form sprawled on a cot. The noise was repeated, a snore so loud it seemed to shake the walls. Charley inched closer. His foot bumped something that skittered across the floor, and, glancing down, he discovered the floor was littered with empty liquor bottles. And with smears and stains better left unexamined.
“Mr. Howard? Sorry to bother you, but we need to talk.” Charley poked what he hoped was a shoulder. Howard mumbled something, then snored louder.
Tony filled the doorway. He, too, had a hand over his nose and mouth. “Forget it, mio amico. This is a waste of our time.”
“Is Mr. Howard in there?” Melissa wanted to know. She was trying to peer over Tony’s shoulder. “Should I come in?”
“No!” Charley didn’t want her amid such filth. Angry they had put their hopes in a hopeless drunk, he poked Howard’s shoulder again, a lot harder. “Mr. Howard! Wake up, damn you!”
Without warning, there was an explosion of movement. Charley abruptly found his neck in the grip of iron fingers and the razor edge of a Bowie pressed against his throat. Foul breath fanned his nose. A craggy face filled his vision, half of it hidden by an unkempt beard. Howard wore an old buffalo coat so worn and filthy no self-respecting moth would touch it.
“Who the hell are you, pup? And what in hell are you doin’ in my livin’ room?”
Charley figured the buffalo hunter had to be drunk. The shack only had one room, livable or otherwise. But he dared not try to answer with the knife pricking his skin. He was saved by a holler from outside.
“Mr. Howard? It’s me. Melissa Patterson. The girl who sells you sweet potatoes all the time.”
“Missy?” Howard lowered the Bowie and gave Charley a rough push. Like a great grizzly rousing from its den, he lumbered to the doorway. Tony stepped back, his right arm held at an odd angle from his body. Howard ignored him. “Missy! What in blazes are you doin’ here?”
Charley stepped outside just as the buffalo hunter embraced Melissa in a great hug. She giggled and returned it, apparently not minding his stink or how he rubbed his bushy beard against her cheek. An intense emotion welled up in Charley, an emotion he had never felt before, one that made him want to take a plank and beat Enos Howard over the head.
“Speak up, gal. Why the visit? And who are these two cubs you’ve brought along?”
“Acquaintances of mine,” Melissa said. “I’ve told them what a marvelous frontiersman you are, and how you’re just the man we need for a certain daring enterprise from which we all stand to benefit.”
“You don’t say?” Enos Howard opened his coat and slid the Bowie into a beaded sheath. His clothes were threadbare buckskins with most of the whangs missing or cut partway off. Knee-high boots completed his wardrobe. One had a hole in it, and the other was cracked at the heel. He fixed bloodshot eyes on Charley and Tony. “You two don’t look as if you amount to much, but sometimes mighty puny spools hold a heap of thread.”
“Wonderful,” Tony said. “Simply wonderful.”
Howard’s brows knit. “What’s that supposed to mean, hoss? Are you one of those city loons who go around talkin’ to himself all the time?” Reaching under his coat, he scratched an armpit. “If’n we’ve got us some palaverin’ to do, I need my throat muscles lubricated. Which of you wetnoses has a bottle?”
“I don’t drink,” Charley informed him.
“Never?” Howard cocked his head and squinted at Charley as if Charley were a six-legged jackrabbit. “Don’t tell me you’re a Bible-thumper? I knew a coon once who got religion and gave up all the earthly vices that make this world worth livin’ in. Liquor. Women. Gamblin’. You name it. Walked around all day like he had a ramrod shoved up his ass.”
“I don’t think that’s any way to talk with a lady present.” Charley didn’t like this buffalo hunter much.
“What? ’Cause I said ‘ass’?” Howard winked at Melissa. “How about you, little Missy? Does it frazzle you to hear a feller mention the one part of your body you use more than your feet?”
“I find it cute how you talk.”
“Cute?” Howard roared with laughter and clapped her on the back so hard she nearly pitched onto her face. “You sure can tickle my silly bone, gal. You’re almost as hilarious as those temperance ladies.”
“Thank you. I think.”
Howard smacked his lips and gazed longingly off toward the center of the city. “I must have overslept. What say we go to Kincaid’s for my nightly libations? Your treat. You can explain what this is all about along the way.” He held out his arm like a gallant gentleman, and, giggling, Melissa took it.
The new emotion bubbling in Charley bubbled more fiercely. He hastened to Melissa’s side. “Is it true you used to be one of the best buffalo hunters on the plains?’
“On the continent,” Howard amended, yawning. “Buffalo Bill himself told me I was as good as him any day of the week and twice as good on Sundays.”
“But you never broke his record,” Charley commented, pleased to take the frontiersman down a peg.
Howard’s face clouded. “Heard about that, did you, pup? Cody claims to have kilt over four thousand bufflers in a year and a half. Four thousand two hundred and eighty, to be exact. If’n you ask me, he’s exaggerated the tally more than a handful. He always did sling bullshit better than anyone who ever lived. To listen to him, he pisses champagne and craps gold ore.”
Now it was Charley who clouded over. “I won’t ask you again to watch your tongue around Miss Patterson.”