"Aw, shit," Rooney said. Then he laughed—almost giggled, in fact, like a tyke who'd been caught stealing something from his old man's coin box. "I might as well admit it."
"Yeah. You might as well."
"I queered the rye."
"You prick. I knew that's what you done." Rooney pitched the bottle on the bed.
"You took my money, Tolan. What the hell else could I do?"
"I thought you said I was too smart to go for queering the drink."
The icy smile. "Well, you didn't go for it, did you? But I still thought I'd give it a try anyway."
Tolan was about to say something when they heard heavy footsteps in the hall. And then a heavy knock.
Tolan and Rooney glanced at each other.
"Who is it?" Tolan said, not moving from the bed.
"Sheriff's office. Deputy McBride."
This time when they glanced at each, there was tension in their eyes. Somebody from the sheriff's office wasn't what they needed with less than two hours to go until train time.
"What is it you need?" Rooney said.
"Sheriff wants me to ask you a couple questions. This won't take long."
Tolan started up from the bed, his gun aimed directly at the door. He holstered that and picked up a sawed-off.
Rooney half-leapt at Tolan, grabbing the man's gun wrist, pushing against the sawed-off.
Rooney whispered: "We sure as hell don't want a shootout. Let's just see what he wants. Maybe they just like to hassle strangers here."
With that, Rooney shrugged and tugged his suit into proper fitting position, slicked back his hair with the palms of both hands, and then wiped a heavy finger across his lips, in case he'd left some crumbs there.
He looked back at Tolan. Tolan was ready to reenact the Civil War right here and right now. That was all he knew how to do.
But this situation called for a civilized man of intelligence and self-control. One who could, through charm and subterfuge, make short order of a hick deputy sheriff.
He opened the door, and Richard Neville hit him in the face with the butt of a Sharps buffalo rifle.
Rooney—not a tough man, not a tough man at all—went wheeling backward, a womanly sound emitting from his lips.
Tolan tried to reach his sawed-off, but it was too late for that now, wasn't it?
Neville closed the door behind him and said, "You two were supposed to be on a steamboat two days ago. God knows I paid you two enough money to take care of my sister and then get away from here. What the hell happened?"
Chapter Twenty-one
There was a lot of disagreement from people in the hotel—staff and guests alike—as to which came first: the sound of the Colt or the sound of the sawed-off. Opinion seemed to divide right down the middle.
The sheriff's name was Walt Naismith. He was tall, sinewy, and carried a wad of chaw that made his cheek look eight months pregnant. He wore a dusty suit and a suspicious expression.
He checked it all out upstairs, where the killings had taken place, meanwhile keeping Neville in the temporary custody of a lone deputy in the lobby.
The gunfire hadn't been difficult to hear. Prine had been less than a block away when it came. He knew who was involved. What he didn't know then was who had survived.
Now he sat next to Neville in the hotel café, across the table from Naismith, who had dragged a spittoon over to his chair.
"These the men killed your sister?" Naismith said.
"Yes, sir, they are," Neville said.
"And you're sure of that?"
"Yes, I am, Sheriff. And the deputy here will vouch for me."
"Is that true, son? You'll vouch for him?"
"If you're asking me were these the men who killed his sister, yes. I believe they were."
"And you don't have any reason not to believe they were?"
"I guess I don't follow."
Naismith smiled around his chaw.
"Not fun when you're the one being asked the questions. You're too used to bein' the asker instead of the askee."
"That's probably right. Hadn't thought of it that way."
"What I'm getting at here, son, is do you have any major doubt about them bein' the killers?"
"None that I can think of."
"Good, son. Now back to you, Mr. Neville. And let me say that I'm well aware of who you are and who your pop was. But I treat all people fair and square—at least most of them—so I'm not gonna go too easy on you or too hard. You understand?"
"I do, sir. But it's actually pretty simple, you see—"
"One thing I learned in thirty years of bein' a lawman, nothin' is pretty simple. Not even the simple stuff is simple."
Neville sighed impatiently, sat back in his chair, and folded his arms like a man whose wife had dragged him to a ballet.
"I'm glad to answer any of your questions," he told Naismith.
"Very good. That's the way we need to handle this. That way we can speed things right along." He sipped his coffee. Then spat. "Now, did you ever see Tolan and Rooney before today?"
"No, I didn't."
"How did you know they were in those rooms?" Neville explained how he'd worked all the saloons and hotels.
"Did the deputy warn you about getting violent with them?"
"Yes, he did. He was very explicit about it. He said that just because they'd killed my sister didn't give me any right to kill them unless it was in self-defense."
"And you're saying that it was self-defense?"
"Oh, absolutely it was. Tolan—that's the dark one, that's the only way I can keep them apart in my head—Tolan let me in, but then he only gave me about a minute before he brought up the sawed-off and fired at me."
"Two bullets, from what I can see, Mr. Neville."
"That's right, he fired twice."
"Did Rooney shoot at you?"
"He certainly did. Twice also, I believe. It looked like an old Colt to me."
Naismith looked at Prine.
"You ever hear of that, son? A man with a six-shooter like Mr. Neville's here holding off a man with a sawed-off and another man with a six-shooter?"
Prine shrugged his shoulders.
"In my experience, you can never predict how a shootout like that is going to go. There're a lot things involved. Speed, accuracy, courage—you just can't predict."
Naismith turned back to Neville.
"So there you were and you were facing two armed men. And what did you do?"
"About the only thing I could. I threw myself in front of the bed and crouched down. There wasn't a lot of space."
"You fired from that position?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember who you fired at first?"
"I'm pretty sure it was Rooney. He was closest to me."
"Do you remember where you hit him?"
"It's all a blur. But I remember afterward—when he was down on the floor, I mean—I remember seeing this large dark hole in his forehead."
"How did you come to shoot Tolan?"
"He had to reload. And I heard him. I told him I wouldn't fire on him if he gave himself up."
"So you warned him?"
"Yes. I thought of what Prine here told me. About how I could fire only in self-defense."
"So there is he reloading, and you shot him?"
"He had a pistol underneath his blanket. He pulled it on me and . . ."
"And you shot him."
"Yes."
"Do you remember where you wounded him?"
"The chest, I believe."
"The chest and the face."
"Yes. Then I just got out of the room as soon as I could. I needed to get out in the hallway. Fresh air. I was getting sick to my stomach. Maybe I did hit him in the face, too."