Matt Jensen stopped on a ridge just above the road leading into Choulic. He took a swallow from his canteen and watched an approaching stage as it started down from the pass into the town. Then, corking the canteen, he slapped his legs against the side of his horse and sloped down the long ridge. Although he was actually farther away from town than the coach, he would beat it there because the stage would have to stay on the road, working its way down a series of switchbacks, whereas Matt rode down the side of the hill, difficult, but a much more direct route.
No railroad served Choulic, so the only way to reach it was by horse or by stagecoach. And after a few hours on a bumping, rattling, jerking, and dusty stagecoach, the passengers’ first view of Choulic was often a bitter disappointment. Sometimes visitors from the East had to have the town pointed out to them, for from this perspective, and at this distance, the settlement looked little more inviting than another group of the brown hummocks and hills common to this country.
A small sign just on the edge of town read:
CHOULIC, population 294
A growing Community
The weathered board and faded letters of the sign indicated that it had been there for some time, erected when there might actually have been optimism for the town’s future. Choulic was like many towns Matt had encountered over the years, towns that bloomed on the prairies and in the deserts desperately hoping the railroad would come through, staking all on that uncertain future, only to see their futures dashed when the railroad passed them by. Despite the ambitious welcome sign, Matt doubted that there were as many as two hundred residents in the town today, and he was positive that it was no longer a growing community.
The town baked under a sun that was yellow and hot.
Finding the saloon, Matt saw what he was looking for. Tied to the hitching rail out front were nine or ten horses, and one of them he recognized as belonging to Bates.
While Matt was dismounting, the stagecoach he had seen earlier came rolling into town, its driver whistling and shouting at the team. As was often the case, the driver had urged the team into a trot when they approached the edge of town. That way, the coach would roll in rapidly, making a somewhat more dramatic arrival than it would have had the team been walking.
The coach stopped in front of the depot at the far end of the street, and half-a-dozen people crowded around it. Matt turned his attention back to the task at hand, and checking the pistol in his holster, he went into the saloon.
The shadows made the saloon seem cooler inside, but that was illusory. It was nearly as hot inside as out, and without the benefit of a breath of air, it was even more stifling. The customers were sweating in their drinks and wiping their faces with bandannas. Matt looked for Bates, but he didn’t see him.
The bartender was wearing an apron that might have been white at one time, but was now soiled and stained. On the bar in front of him were two abandoned glasses in which a little whiskey remained. One of the glasses had been used to extinguish the last dregs of a rolled cigarette. Picking out the little pieces of paper with his fingers, the bartender poured it, tobacco bits and all, into the other glass, then poured that back into a bottle. Corking the bottle, he put it on the shelf behind the bar. He wiped the glasses out with his stained apron, and set them back among the unused glasses. Seeing Matt step up to the bar, the bartender moved down toward him.
“Whiskey,” Matt said.
The barman reached for the bottle he had just poured the whiskey back into, but Matt pointed to an unopened bottle.
“That one,” he said.
Shrugging, the saloon keeper pulled the cork from the fresh bottle.
“I’m looking for a man named Odom,” Matt said. “Cletus Odom.”
“Mister, if you want whiskey or beer, I’m your man. If you want anything else, I can’t help you,” the bartender replied.
“How about a man named Bates? He’s a big man. He isn’t wearing a hat.”
The bartender poured the whiskey into a glass.
“Bates’ horse is tied up out front,” Matt continued.
“Is he wanted?”
“I know Odom is. Bates might be.”
“You the law?”
“No,” Matt said.
“You a bounty hunter?”
“No.”
“Then why are you lookin’ for him?”
“It’s personal,” Matt said.
“Mister, maybe you don’t know it but with the clientele I get in here, it ain’t a good idea to go around blabbing everything I know. Hell, I could wind up gettin’ myself kilt if I was to do somethin’ like that,” the bartender said.
Matt took out a ten-dollar bill and, though he wasn’t obvious about it, he made certain that the bartender saw it.
“You say Bates is a big man. We have a lot of big men who come in here, so that doesn’t tell me much. What about the other one you were talking about? What does he look like?”
“He’s uglier than a toad,” Matt said. “He has a purple scar on his face and a misshapen eyelid.”
Matt did notice a slight reaction to his description.
“He is here, isn’t he?” Matt asked.
The bartender said nothing, but looking around to make certain no one saw the transaction, he took the money, raised his eyes, and looked toward the stairs at the back of the room.
“Thanks,” Matt said.
At the back of the saloon, a flight of wooden stairs led up to an enclosed loft. Matt guessed that the two doors at the head of the stairs led to the rooms used by the prostitutes who worked in the saloon. Pulling his pistol, he started up the stairs.
The few men in the saloon had been talking and laughing among themselves. When they saw Matt pull his gun, their conversation died, and they watched him walk quietly up the steps.
From the rooms above him, Matt could hear muffled sounds that left little doubt as to what was going on behind the closed doors. He tried to open the first door, but it was locked. He knocked on it.
“Go ’way,” a voice called from the other side of the door.
Matt raised his foot and kicked the door hard. It flew open with a crash and the woman inside the room screamed.
“What the hell?” the man shouted. He stood up quickly, and Matt saw that it was the big man, Bates. He heard a crash of glass from the next room and he dashed to the window and looked down. He saw a naked Odom just getting to his feet from the leap to the alley below.
“Who the hell are you?” Bates shouted from behind him in the room.
Matt smiled at him. “Where’s your hat, Bates?”
“It’s you!” Bates yelled. Bates grabbed his knife from a bedside table. “You son of a bitch, I’m going to gut you like a hog!”
Bates lunged toward Matt, making a long, stomach-opening swipe. Matt barely managed to avoid the point of the knife. One inch closer and he would have been disemboweled.
Bates swung again and Matt jumped deftly to one side, then brought the barrel of his pistol down, sharply, on Bates’s knife hand. That caused Bates to drop his knife and when it hit the floor, Matt kicked it so that it slid across the floor and under the bed.
Inexplicably, Bates smiled.
“Well, I’d rather kill you with my bare hands anyway,” he said, lunging toward Matt.
Again, Matt stepped to one side, but this time he grabbed Bates and pushed him in the same direction that Bates had lunged, thus using Bates’s own momentum against him. Bates slammed headfirst through the window, breaking the glass. With a sharp, gurgling sound, he pulled away from the window, staggered back a few paces, then fell to his knees. A large shard of glass was protruding from his neck. The glass had severed his carotid artery, causing bright red blood to spill from the wound down onto his naked chest.
“Where are the others?” Matt asked, kneeling beside the wounded man. “The others who robbed the train. Where are they?”