“Yes, sir, certainly. Room Twelve should do you nicely.” The clerk took the key and handed it to Frank. “Do you need any help with your, ah, belongings?”
“No, thanks.” Frank picked up the Winchester. “I reckon I can manage.”
“All right then. Take the stairs to the balcony and go along it to a hallway. You’ll find Room Twelve down that corridor.”
“Much obliged.”
“We have an excellent dining room, if you haven’t eaten.”
Frank nodded. “I’ve heard about that. But I was thinking maybe I’d try the Chinaman’s hash house instead.”
He ought to be ashamed of himself, he thought as he turned toward the stairs, hoorawing the poor, pasty-faced gent like that.
He had just started up the stairs when the clerk stopped him by calling, “Mr. Morgan?”
Frank turned. “Yeah?”
“Frank Morgan?” From the sound of it, the man hadn’t really paid much attention to his name until now.
“That’s right.”
The man reached down to a shelf under the desk. Frank tensed. His right hand never strayed far from the butt of his Colt. Now he was ready to hook and draw if the clerk brought a gun out from under the desk.
Instead of a gun, the man waved a small, thin book with a gaudy yellow cover in the air. “This Frank Morgan?”
“Oh, Lord,” Frank muttered. “Are they still putting those things out?”
“Yes, sir. This is the new one. The Drifter and the Battle of Tonto Basin—”
“Those stories are all made up,” Frank broke in. “I’ve been to the Tonto Basin, but I don’t recall any battle while I was there.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but he was sure whoever had written that dime novel had done a heap of exaggerating and embellishing.
“But you are Frank Morgan, the famous gunfighter. I knew you were in the area. I heard some men talking about you earlier this evening.” The clerk could barely contain his excitement now. “You’ve come to hunt down and kill the Terror of the Redwoods!”
He had told Rutherford Chamberlain to spread the word, Frank thought wryly. Obviously, the timber magnate had done so. Maybe that would put a stop to a bunch of trigger-happy monster hunters blundering around the woods, shooting at each other and anything else that moved.
“I’m here on business,” he said to the clerk. “My business. Understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
Frank just shook his head and went on up the stairs. He had been dealing with fame—or rather, notoriety—for a long time now, and he didn’t like it any better than he had when he first started getting a reputation as a fast gun.
He found his room, which appeared to be very comfortably furnished with a four-poster bed, dressing table, mahogany wardrobe, and a couple of armchairs. After washing up with the water in the basin on the dressing table, he left his saddlebags and rifle in the wardrobe and started back downstairs. He didn’t think he would need the Winchester just to eat at the Chinaman’s place.
When he reached the lobby, the clerk he had talked to only a few minutes earlier wasn’t there anymore. He’d been replaced by an older man with thinning black hair and a mustache. Frank didn’t ask where the other clerk had gone. The fella was probably out telling anybody who would listen to him how the infamous Frank Morgan was staying at the hotel.
Frank stepped out onto the porch and turned toward the Bull o’ the Woods Saloon, the location of which he had noted earlier as he rode in. The proprietor over at the livery stable had said that the hash house was next to the saloon. Frank hadn’t gone very far, though, when a man who’d been crossing the street stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
“Hold it right there, Morgan,” the man snapped as his hand hovered over the butt of his gun. “You and me got some business to take care of.”
Chapter 9
The man’s aggressive stance made Frank instinctively want to reach for his own revolver, but the sight of the badge pinned to the stranger’s vest prompted him to control the impulse. Despite what many star packers thought of him because of his reputation, he went out of his way to avoid trouble with the law.
“Marshal,” Frank said with a nod. “What can I do for you?”
The lawman frowned. He was middle-aged, with a rugged face, slicked-back gray hair under his hat, and the beginnings of a gut under his vest and brown tweed suit.
“You know who I am?”
“I can read,” Frank said. “Your badge says Marshal. U.S. or town?”
“Town,” the man replied curtly. “Name’s Gene Price. I’m the law here in Eureka.”
“Pleased to meet you, Marshal. I reckon I don’t have to introduce myself.”
Price snorted. “You sure as hell don’t. It’s all over town how the famous gunslinger Frank Morgan’s come here to hunt down that critter folks say is out in the woods.”
“You don’t believe in the Terror?” Frank asked, hearing the skepticism in Price’s voice.
“I believe somebody has killed over a dozen men lately. I saw the bodies with my own eyes, down at the undertaker’s. That’s all I know for a fact. That, and it happened outside of my jurisdiction.”
“So what do you want with me?” Frank was hungry, and he was starting to get a little impatient. “There’s no law against getting some supper, is there? Because that’s what I was on my way to do.”
Price shook his head. “No, and I don’t care what you do out in the woods. But I don’t want you starting any gunfights here in my town, Morgan.”
“Marshal…I never start gunfights.”
Price’s face flushed angrily, evidence that he understood the implication in Frank’s words. “You know what I mean. You got a heap of blood on your hands. I don’t want you getting any more on them while you’re in Eureka.”
“I never go looking for trouble. You have my word on that.”
Price gave Frank a grudging nod. “We understand each other then.” He started to turn away.
Frank stopped him. “Marshal, what can you tell me about Rutherford Chamberlain?”
A frown creased the lawman’s forehead. “What do you want to know? He’s the biggest businessman in these parts. I’m not saying that Eureka would dry up and blow away if it weren’t for his logging operation, but I reckon he’s mighty important around here.”
“And Emmett Bosworth?”
Price looked even more suspicious. “Bosworth would like to be where Chamberlain is now. He’s made a good start on it, too.”
“Any trouble between their crews while they were here in town?”
“Some,” Price admitted. “Not lately, though.”
“Since the Terror showed up.”
It wasn’t a question, but Price treated it like one anyway. “That’s right. Everybody who works in the woods is so nervous about whatever it is, they don’t have the time or energy to squabble with each other.”
That was interesting, thought Frank, and it agreed with what Rockwell had told him. But it didn’t have any connection with the task he had taken on, at least as far as he could see. He had asked the question out of sheer curiosity. The next one was more pertinent.
“Do you know Ben Chamberlain?”
“Ben?” The lawman appeared to be more puzzled than ever. “Sure, I know Ben. Used to see him here in town every now and then, but he was never much of one for socializing. Kept to himself mostly. And I haven’t seen him at all in…oh, hell, a couple of years now, I reckon. I’ve heard that he had some sort of falling-out with his pa and went off to live in San Francisco. That’s just gossip, though. I can’t say how true it is.”
Frank suspected it wasn’t true at all, but he didn’t say that to Price. It might be better if folks around here continued thinking that Ben Chamberlain had gone to San Francisco after the argument with his father.