“Am I? What topic would that be?”
“Whether you’re a brave man or a fool.”
“What’s your preference?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll buy either one a drink.”
He grinned at her. “Everybody is just so darn friendly around here. Bartender already set me up, thanks. Anyway, I don’t consider it gentlemanly to allow a lady to buy me a drink. But I’d gladly buy you one.”
Shaking her head a little, still smirking, she said, “Maybe you’re a brave man and a fool.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time in history.”
She tilted her head, as if trying to get a different, better angle on him. “How about you buy the first round? Then the second is on me.”
“I don’t know...”
“Come on! Lady’s prerogative. Shall we sit?”
Tulley looked back over his shoulder at her.
“Not you, Tulley,” she said in a scolding tone.
“Well, now,” the stranger said, “that’s not very friendly.”
She frowned. “That barfly would drink the juice out of a thermometer. Why waste anything on him?”
“He’s my friend.”
She sighed. “All right, Mr. Tulley. Would you do us the honor of joining us?”
The desert rat chugged down his beer, then turned to them and raised his hands, as if in the process of being held up. “No, Miss Lola, thank you kindly, but I was just shoving off, anyway. Gettin’ a little too old for all this excitement.”
And he went out, leaving the stranger to his own devices.
After all, hadn’t the dude said he already knew about the birds and the bees?
Lola went to the nearest table, but the stranger nodded toward the corner one, where the two Gauge gunmen sat, nursing their beers.
“How about over there?” he asked.
She smiled at him. There were half-a-dozen empty tables around. But she clearly liked his choice. She went over, tossed her parasol on the table and the beer mugs jumped. So did the two hard cases.
“Find somewhere else to sit,” she said.
The bigger of the two said, “Now, look here, Lola...”
“Sorry. I meant, find somewhere else to drink.”
The other one said, “There is no other place in town to drink.”
“I don’t believe that’s my problem.”
They looked at her. She looked at them. They got up, shot her dirty glances that were kind of pathetic, and headed back out the batwing doors.
The stranger came to her side and said, “Brave woman or fool?”
“Neither,” she said, and gave him a sideways smile. “I own the place.” She gestured to the nearest chair. “Have a seat.”
He did, but taking the chair that put the corner walls to his back.
“So that’s why you wanted this table,” she said, sitting.
“That was one reason,” the stranger said.
“Always this careful?”
“Why learn the hard way?”
“That’s what I like,” she said with a chuckle. “A man who knows his mind. Now, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
He’d brought his beer along and he sipped it. “Not much to tell. Just drifting my way to California.”
A bartender delivered her a mixed drink that she hadn’t needed to request.
She asked the stranger, “What’s a hard man like you doin’ wearing such soft threads?”
He shrugged. “I like to look good.”
And he did look good to her, but the clothes had little if anything to do with it. Such a big rock-jawed man with those hard Indian angles in his face, but such beautiful eyes peering from those cautious slits, a blue the color of faded denim. This was a man. But she somehow knew that this was not a man who would raise a hand to a woman, like some she knew.
“Anyway,” he said, “if I look like a mail-order cowboy, I figure nobody will see me as a threat.”
“And just leave you alone.”
“That’s right.”
“How’s that workin’ out for ya?”
Her deadpan expression finally made him burst out laughing.
He seemed genuine as he said: “I like you, Lola.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
He waved that gently away. “Not worth knowing. Just passing through. Why make attachments?” He yawned. “Sorry.”
“Am I boring you, cowboy?”
“Anything but. I just been up a long, long time.”
“And killing dunderheads wears you out?”
He chuckled deep. “Something like that. But there’s not a room available in the hotel, I’m told.”
“Probably not. Payday hangovers gettin’ slept off.” She lifted a satin shoulder and set it down. “But I can arrange a room for you upstairs.”
He half-grinned. “Well, uh... aren’t those usually used for other than sleeping?”
“There’s neither sleeping nor the other in most of them right now. I can fix you up so you can nap awhile. And come wake you up around supper.”
“That would be very kind.”
She walked him to the rear of the saloon and up the stairs to the landing along which half-a-dozen doors waited. She unlocked one at the end and showed him into the small functional area where there wasn’t much but a brass bed and porcelain basin, though the red-and-black San Francisco-style wallpaper lent a certain mood.
“Thank you for this,” the stranger said. He sat on a chair and started taking off his boots.
She got the kerosene hurricane lamp on a small bedside table going. “I’d sleep on top of those covers, if I were you.”
“I already made that deduction, thanks.” He was in his stockinged feet now. He stood.
She came over to him. “I just want to make sure you knew you were right in what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“That this is a friendly town.”
Which called for a friendly kiss, which she got on her tiptoes and gave him.
Then he put his arm around her waist and drew her close and returned the kiss with interest.
Her breathing was heavy and halting when he finally let go of her.
He gave her a boyish grin that lit up the raw-boned face. “Just my way of saying ‘you’re welcome,’ ma’am.”
Her upper lip curled back over her teeth in an insolent smile. “My name isn’t ‘ma’am.’ It’s Lola.”
And she kissed him again, the way he had her.
Then the kerosene lamp got turned down, and in the darkness came a rustle of satin and the clunk of a belt buckle hitting the floor.
Later, at the door, she stopped to look back and asked, “Your name wouldn’t be Banion, would it?”
“Sounds like maybe you already know the answer to that.” He climbed back onto the bed and the mattress springs sang. “You mind leavin’ that key, ma’am?”
She grinned and threw it at him and left.
Chapter seven
At her father’s request, Willa put on a navy-and-white calico dress and played hostess for the meeting of the Trinidad Citizen’s Committee at the Cullen ranch. Dutifully, she delivered smiles, gathered hats, and guided each man into the dining room, where Papa waited.
This impromptu gathering, on the afternoon after the morning of the gunfight outside the sheriff’s office, was not being held in the usual space at the rear of Harris Mercantile. That was too public — anybody might wander in and overhear the discussion.
Including the sheriff. Or any of his men, for that matter.
And what the Citizens Committee had to discuss was about as private as town business got.
Before leaving Trinidad this morning, Cullen had told Thomas Carter, the president of Trinidad Bank and Trust, to spread the word for a two o’clock get-together. And now the six men, including her father and foreman Whit Murphy, were seated around the big dining-room table, a heavy dark-wood, decoratively carved Spanish piece with matching chairs that her late mother had brought back from one of her buying trips across the border.