These soiled doves had rooms upstairs, where they lived and worked. Two others were already up there working, not living.
Hollis was having mescal; the other two, beer in warm bottles. Trammel was staring at a pleasantly plump strumpet who was working a table over by the washed-out mural of a bullfighter, a guitarist occupying a nearby corner. Laughing, she sat sideways on the lap of a black cowboy, facing him, arms around his neck, but also displaying her legs to other potential clients, in case this didn’t work out.
Trammel’s pop eyes were half closed, which was no one’s idea of a pleasant sight, and his upper lip was curled back over the smile whose missing two front teeth made a window onto his throbbing tongue.
“That ain’t right,” the lanky saddle tramp began muttering. “That ain’t right nohow, no way.”
Hollis, who had relieved the bartender of the bottle, poured another shot of mescal. He had no interest in what Trammel was talking about.
But the pig-faced Landrum did. “What ain’t right, Lafe?”
Trammel shook his head. “Piece of calico makin’ eyes at a black bastard such as that, and him lappin’ it up like cream. You see that, don’t you, Wilbur?”
Landrum, who clearly hadn’t given it a bit of thought, now frowned in outrage. “Oughta be a law. Oughta be a damn law!”
Both of the Preacherman’s altar boys had been drunk before they got here, making any meaningful business conversation with them a “filling an inside straight” long shot. But he would try.
After savoring a smoky sip of mescal, Hollis said, “I met today with that old friend of yours, Lafe.”
Trammel removed his awful eyes from the Mexican girl and the black cowboy and applied them to his boss. The gap-toothed frown became a grin. “How is the old buzzard? Does he get why I best not be seen with him?”
Hollis nodded. “He appears fine, but the question is, do you ‘get’ why you can’t be seen with him?”
“Well... because you said I oughtn’t.”
“But... the reason?”
Trammel sucked air in through his grin. “Might start people to talkin’ or such like.”
“Good. Yes, it might. And I won’t be meeting with him myself again until the job is done.”
Trammel leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner that fairly shouted secrecy. “Did he say who he brung us here to do in?”
“He did. Did indeed.”
Now Landrum sat forward, like a baby bird wanting its portion of worm. “Ain’t you gonna fill us in, Preacherman?”
Hollis shook his head, his expression somber. “No. I think it best I keep to myself the object of our attentions until we’re closer to the actual carrying out of the task.”
Trammel frowned, not angry — more like hurt. “Don’t you trust us, boss?”
Hollis raised a benedictory hand. “I trust you, but not your discretion. ‘Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,’ Ephesians four, twenty-nine.”
His two helpers thought about that, as they often did when he quoted scripture.
Then Landrum said, “Well, I sure as hell hope we get to stay around town till after that poker match. Might be some easy pickin’s.”
Hollis, knowing Landrum was a miserable poker player, nonetheless nodded. “You’ll have that opportunity. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves, my friends. This, by the way, is the only house of ill fame available in Trinidad.”
Big eyes rolling, Trammel said, “I learned that the hard way. That woman what runs the Victory says her girls ain’t harlots no more. What’s the good of a dance hall in such case?”
Hollis took another smoky sip. “Civilization is coming to the West, my friends. No getting around it. We must adapt or go the way of the buffalo.”
Forehead creased, Landrum said, “The buffalo got shot.”
“Yes, and that’s because they were dumb beasts. We are God’s children, blessed with the gift of thought. Of reason. We will fit in as times change.”
Trammel wasn’t listening now. He was again frowning over at the Mexican girl and the black cowboy. They were four tables away and apparently hadn’t noticed his gaze, though that particular gaze would seem hard not to notice.
But Landrum was interested in what his boss was saying. “If times is changing, how does gunfighters fit in?”
“Eventually,” Hollis admitted, “they won’t. Not as we know them. But guns aren’t going anywhere. And there will always be people eager to hire their use. And other people ready, willing, and able to fill such requests. ‘For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,’ Mark seven-twenty-one.”
Trammel, this time ignoring the word of God, held his hand out to his porky compadre without looking at him. “Gimme your gun, Wilbur.”
Landrum blinked at him. “What?”
“Your gun! Gimme your gun. That damn deputy at the Victory took mine!”
“What you want it for?”
Hollis sighed and put a hand on Trammel’s arm. “There are plenty of choices here among the señoritas. Be content with one who does not already have a customer.”
Trammel didn’t appear to hear. He thrust his open palm more forcefully at his porcine companion. “Wilbur! Your goddamn gun.”
The gun was handed over, and Trammel stood, sliding the weapon — a nasty-looking Remington — into his low-riding holster. A decent fit.
“I implore you, my friend,” Hollis said, “not to cause yourself, not to cause us, any needless trouble. ‘The hotheaded do things they’ll later regret,’ Proverbs fourteen, seventeen.”
But Trammel still didn’t seem much in the mood for theological counsel.
He strode across the room, long arms swinging, just as the unwitting cowboy and the girl got to their feet and headed, smiling, arm in arm, for the door. They were apparently on their way to a room upstairs, accessed by an outside flight of stairs.
Trammel, spurs singing a discordant tune, stalked over and put himself between the couple and the exit.
“Some things just ain’t right under the sight of God,” Trammel said.
At that moment, Hollis — still seated with Landrum at their table — wished he hadn’t filled Trammel’s skull with so much scripture. He considered interceding and trying to stop what otherwise would be an inevitable tragedy, but putting himself in the middle of this might risk what they’d come to Trinidad to do.
Trammel would either survive or not. With a shrug, Hollis poured himself another glass of mescal.
The coffee-skinned cowboy wore a yellow bandana, a broad-brimmed felt hat, a blue cavalry jacket over a lighter blue shirt, and light gray “California”-style wool pants with loose-fitting legs. He was big and tall and as good looking as Trammel wasn’t, the harlot hanging on to his arm like a bosomy appendage.
A Peacemaker rode his right hip, high.
The cowboy’s voice had a low, rich timbre. “You have a problem, mister?”
“I got a problem called niggers putting their hands on their betters.”
The harlot’s eyes and nostrils flared. “I am mexicano, you crazy-eye fool!”
The cowboy knew what was coming and pushed the girl aside, and she went clattering into the table they’d just vacated.
But that gave Trammel all the time he needed to draw and fire, while his opponent’s hand was barely over his holstered .45. The bullet punched its way through the cowboy’s chest, blood and general gore splattering the bullfight mural.
Damned good shot for a drunken fool, Hollis thought.