'I don't understand,' she says, pausing at the top of the steps.
'Neither do I. You and I aren't so very different are we?'
Still she can't think. She just knows that she can't bear to look at him any more. She steps through the door of the store and the bell on the door protests as she slams it.
'Is everything alright?' Mannion looks concerned.
'That was Sanchez's daughter. I thought she might know where he is. Do you know where he is?'
Mannion shakes his head.
'This is just a disaster. Sanchez is all I have left.'
Logan pushes the door open.
'I'm going to the hotel to get my things, then I'm getting out of here. That horse out front is yours. Keep it.' He turns to go.
'Wait,' she says 'was it Sanchez that put that hole in your arm.'
Logan looks at the blood-stained bandage as though he'd forgotten it was there.
'No,' he says.
'Do you know where he is?'
There is a long pause. He looks her hard in the eyes.
'No.'
She watches him walk across the street to the hotel and tries to take in what has just happened. So the new man in town was the man she hired to dynamite the cabin. Why hadn't she realized that sooner? It seems so obvious now that she knows it.
She remembers how she felt when she was around him, before she knew that he was her hired gun. He was confident and calm and he genuinely seemed to like her. He didn't know he was working for her. He didn't just like her because she was paying him. And he didn't seem like the sort to betray her secrets and get her hanged. They got on too well for that. Hadn't he said that he thought they'd make a good partnership?
It all seems wrong. Wrong that he would have told the sheriff about her, because he didn't know that it was her. Whatever he told the sheriff can't have been that detailed, he didn't even know Sanchez's name. Had she tried to get him killed on the basis of a lie that an old deputy told just to scare her? Is she really angry with him again because he didn't die when she sent Sanchez to kill him?
It isn't a logical thread. It's a sudden realization that strikes her from nothing. She knows that Sanchez is dead. She doesn't know why but it is there and she can't shake it. Sanchez is dead and Logan killed him. He had to kill him to survive and even now, after all that he has been through and what she has done to him, even now he wants to protect her from that.
She runs across to the hotel. She has to find him. She doesn't care if he wants to go without her. She still has unfinished business in this town anyway. No, she doesn't care if he goes, but she doesn't want him to go without her getting a chance to apologize.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He walks across the street turning over the events of the last few days in his mind. He is struggling to believe that she paid to have McLaren's house blown up. Maybe it makes some sense. Maybe he should have realized sooner.
He remembers the figure silhouetted on the ridge, watching the sheriff and his men inspecting the remains of the cabin. That must have been Emily. Checking to see that her orders had been completed to her satisfaction.
There are moments that he can see that she can be so brutal, and moments of tenderness when she would seem incapable of such behavior. He can't decide which he was drawn to most. Perhaps it is the combination of the two that makes her so attractive.
He passes through the hotel in a daze, not really paying attention to anything, lost in a world of thoughts. He walked out on Emily and is immediately regretting it. He liked the idea of the two of them together. Now he is facing riding back into the country on his own, no better off and no worse than when he arrived. No, he may not have less money but he is definitely worse off. His arm will never be the same again. Knowing that Emily tried to cheat him, tried to have him killed, hurts worse than the physical pain from the wound. This town has not been good for him. He plans to leave as soon as he can.
The door of his room is ajar. He stops in the corridor and looks at it.
He has just walked through the hotel lobby and up the stairs and has no idea how many people are downstairs and who they are. There could be a man stood behind him with a gun pointing at his back and he'd be completely unaware of it. He chides himself for being so sloppy. Falling asleep on sentry duty and then walking love-sick into danger. He smiles at the thought that he is 'love-sick'. He hasn't thought of himself as in love. That thought surprises him. He wants to see Emily again before he leaves.
He unholsters his gun and cocks it. Creeping forward toward the door, he keeps close to the wall and checks behind him.
There is a murmuring noise in the room. Someone talking?
No, that's not talking, that's someone singing. A man, singing quietly to himself. Not loud enough to hear the words and not tuneful enough to make out the song, but definitely singing.
Curious, he pushes open the door with the barrel of the gun.
Renault, the hotel owner, is rummaging through his bags. Happily singing to himself as he is going through Logan's personal belongings. What does this ridiculous little man think he is doing?
Logan coughs loudly to attract his attention.
'Ah, Mr. Tanner! So good to see you sir. We hadn't seen you for a few days and thought perhaps you weren't coming back.'
'So you thought you'd go through my things?'
'Well, sir, you see, now, I'm sure you'll understand, but there's the small matter of the room fee you see, and we'd need to recoup that somehow if you weren't coming back.'
'You were going to sell my stuff?'
Renault nods, looking embarrassed.
'Well, there's no need for that now.' He puts the gun back in the holster. 'If you can help me pack away these things and get my horses then I'll settle up right now.'
'Help you?' Renault seems keen to get out of the room and edges toward the door.
'I have a problem with my arm.'
'Perhaps you should see a doctor?'
'I need your help to pack my bags. I have an injury that makes it difficult to do it myself. I don't know how to make it any clearer for you. Would it help if I said I have a problem with my arm that will make it difficult for me to get my money out? You do want paying don't you?'
'Your money?'
Logan is losing patience. Repacking the bags and getting the horses saddled is far more than he can manage with only one arm. He draws the gun again.
'Now, sir, there's no need for that, I was, well, only I'm not perhaps the best to, you know, the bags, perhaps I can get a porter for you.'
'You didn't seem to think you needed a porter to help you steal from my bags, so you can pack them and carry them for me or so help me I'll stick a bullet in your butt to hurry you along.'
Renault returns to the bags and fiddles with the things laid out on the bed without making any progress at packing them, stealing a glance from time to time at the gun pointing at him.
'I really think, sir,' he summons up the courage to say, 'that you really shouldn't treat me like this. The sheriff is a regular customer here and he wouldn't be very happy at all, no sir, not one bit, if he knew you were pointing that there gun at me like this.'
Logan holsters the gun and thrusts his hand into his pocket.
'You won't need to bother waiting for the sheriff,' he says, showing the deputy badge to the hotelier, 'You already have a deputy in the room with you and he seems to think that your stealing from customer's luggage is the biggest crime that's happened here. Should I be telling the sheriff about that?'
The little man shakes his head and starts stuffing things into the saddlebags with speed.
When Renault leads the way down the back stairs to the stable the horses nuzzle Logan, pleased to see him. He is pleased not to have left them behind. It would have been tough to find a pair of horses as good as these.