“Let’s just leave it that he told you and save some spluttering,” Calamity suggested, dropping the room key on the desk’s top. “I don’t suppose that deputy’s been back to say he caught them two polecats?”
“No,” the clerk replied, throwing a glance toward the open front doors.
“I wasn’t expecting he would have,” Calamity admitted. “See you around, feller. Don’t let them two come back and wide-loop the desk from under you.”
Taking out a white handkerchief as the girl turned, the clerk shook it violently and mopped his brow. Calamity walked away from the desk, deciding that she would have been surprised if the deputy town marshal who had arrived to investigate the shooting had managed to locate and arrest the intruders.
On his arrival, the deputy had performed his duties efficiently enough; but there had been little he could do. After learning the cause of the commotion, he had requested the onlookers not directly concerned with the incident to return to their rooms. When all but Calamity, the big man in the nightcap—he had proved to be the senior cattle-buyer for a major Eastern meat-packing combine—and Philpotter had disappeared, the deputy had suggested that they should conclude their talk in the girl’s room. There he had listened to her story. Although acting as nervous as a hen with a chicken-hawk circling its brood, Philpotter had laughed along with the important guest and the peace officer when Calamity described her use of the chamber-pot as a weapon. The clerk had even joined in the complimentary remarks made on the subject of the girl’s courage and initiative. Those qualities, unfortunately, could not do anything further.
Regretfully Calamity had been forced to admit that she could not describe either intruder with any degree of certainty. The best she could manage was to state that the man at the window had been heavily built, probably tall and not wearing a hat. The other had been tallish, slim, with black hair, clad in cowhand clothes, carrying a knife and toting an Army Colt with Tiffany grips in what was known as a “half-breed” or “swivel” holster. His companion had called him what sounded like “Houghton” which hinted that he was of Anglo-Saxon birth.
The cattle-buyer and Philpotter had been able to add little more. They confirmed the girl’s description of the physical appearance of the man in the passage. While both had noticed that he sported a drooping black mustache, neither could say what kind of features he had.
Borrowing a lantern from the desk clerk, the deputy had led the way outside and to the rear of the building. Finding the hat, they had examined it but it did not prove to be informative. It was a Stetson such as could be purchased from any general store west of the Mississippi River. Being stepped on by its bulky owner had squashed out any features that might have served as pointers to its place of origin.
The ladder had proved to have been stolen from alongside one of the buildings to the rear of the hotel. It had offered no clue to the person who had stolen it and the lantern’s light had not been strong enough to illuminate the faint trace of blood where the splinter had spiked into the man’s palm.
So there had been nothing to give the deputy a start in his search. Even the name Calamity had heard spoken did not help. Like all such towns, Mulrooney had a large, ever-changing, transient population. Many of the visitors did not even stay in town, but bedded down on the open range. A fair proportion of the floating population used whatever name came handiest. So the best the deputy could offer was that he would check through the marshal’s reward posters and see if he could find a mention of a man called “Houghton” who matched the slimmer intruder’s description. He did not offer much hope of success. Hotel sneak-thieves rarely rated the offer of a reward for their capture.
Being aware of the difficulties facing trail-end town peace officers, Calamity and the cattle-buyer had been satisfied with the deputy’s offer. Philpotter had raised no objections, even if he thought them. It had always been his policy to pay lip-service to the desires of influential clients. If any of them had wondered why the intruders had selected Calamity’s room as the start of their depredations, the point was not raised. Calamity put it down to no more than a lucky, or real unlucky—depending upon how one regarded it—coincidence.
Pausing at the door of the hotel, Calamity turned her head to look first right and then left. Having visited Mulrooney twice, she knew something of its geography but needed to get her bearings. While doing so, her left arm pressed against the side of the buckskin jacket and she felt the bulk of the envelope that she carried in the inside pocket. According to the lawyer in Topeka, Counselor Talbot would require to see proof of her identity. So she was taking along the necessary papers for his examination.
Just as she was starting to turn to the right, Calamity noticed a man standing across the street and studying her with obvious interest. Tall, lean, sharp-featured, he wore range clothes but had the appearance of a trail-end town loafer, the kind that hung around accepting the hospitality of the visitors and avoiding doing any work. That he looked at her intently came as no surprise to Calamity. Men had been doing it for so long that it had ceased to be a novelty or an embarrassment.
Ignoring the man, for she knew his kind too well to want any truck with them, Calamity strolled off along the sidewalk. She debated to herself whether to call at the Fair Lady Saloon before visiting the lawyer, but decided against it. Maybe after she had heard Counselor Talbot’s news she would need advice. If so, Freddie Woods would be only too willing to give it.
Continuing along the street, Calamity paused to look at the display of firearms in the window of a gunsmith’s store. While doing so, she became aware that the loafer was still opposite. Watching his reflection in the store’s window, she saw him come to a halt, turn and stare along an alley. She stood for a moment before he looked over his shoulder in her direction. Then he swung his head around and resumed his scrutiny of the gap between the buildings.
“Now what’s he following me for?” Calamity thought. “He looks too all-fired sweet ’n’ noble to be figuring on interfering with a poor, defenseless gal like me. Especially in Mulrooney, in daylight, and with me packing a gun. Maybe it’s just that he ain’t never seed a gal’s fills her pants as well’s I do.”
Satisfied that, no matter what his intentions might be, the loafer posed no threat to her, Calamity walked on. She went by the newspaper office and turned down the street that flanked the stock-pens. Keeping to the sidewalk, she looked across the street at the pens and the longhorn steers they held awaiting shipment East. She thought admiringly of the grit and tenacity required to drive the half-wild animals all the way from Texas and remembered that the bell-hop had mentioned one particular outfit was coming. She hoped that her business would not take her out of town before the OD Connected trail drive arrived.
For some reason, all the work being done around the pens took place on the opposite side to where Calamity walked. The buildings flanking the sidewalk also appeared to be deserted. Looking ahead, she could see another street running at right angles to the one she followed. That would be Leicester Street and somewhere along it she would find Counselor Talbot’s office.
Two men stepped from an alley at the end of the building which Calamity was approaching. They looked in her direction, but she formed the impression that their attention was centered on something, or somebody, behind her. At first glance, they appeared to be an ordinary enough pair of trail-end town visitors, but not the kind one would expect to see together. One of them, by his dress, hailed from north of Kansas and the other clearly came from very far south of the State. Leaving the north-country man, the second of the pair crossed to hook his rump on the hitching mil in front of the next building.