Wheaton’s jailhouse. They were very interested, but, also, they were very careful. Parker Travis had none of the look of a killer or a gunfighter, but mostly those loafers were not very young men, and therefore they had survived in a perilous land because they could make correct appraisals with their mouths closed. They did this now. They also saw at once how Toby, the hostler, flinched when he came up out of the dark runway to take Travis’s horse.
Parker held out his reins. He looked thoughtfully at Toby, then he said: “The next time you send someone out after me, I’m going to come for you.”
He turned, walked out of the barn, through that deep silence, across the dusty roadway, and on into the hotel. There, he removed his shirt in the privacy of the upstairs room he’d rented, beat dust out of it, washed his entire upper body, dried off by standing at the window looking solemnly down where Ace McElhaney was being carted off by several men, got into the same shirt again, and went downstairs, on into the dining room, put his hat aside, and flagged a waiter. The man came with an alacrity he had not shown before when he’d served Travis.
He ordered a midday meal, a pitcher of water, then sat tanking up, waiting for the food. The first glass of water brought forth a veritable flood of perspiration. The second one winnowed away some of the rawness from his gullet, his mouth, and lips, and the third one soothed his spirit.
His table faced forward toward the outside door and the roadway beyond. He was idly looking out there when he saw a horseman go loping past northward. It was Sheriff Wheaton. He was riding too fast for this kind of weather. Parker inwardly smiled. It wouldn’t take Wheaton long at that gait to reach Lincoln Ranch. He wished he had known Wheaton was going to do this. He’d have asked him to be sure and tell Morgan’s niece her plot failed and that her assassin had himself been killed.
His lunch came. He began slowly to eat. From the edge of his vision he saw men pass quietly into the dining room and pass out again. Others, lacking this boldness, came only as far as the doorway to gaze at the man who had killed Ace McElhaney, then they also moved on. One man only seemed as though he wished to speak. In the end, though, this man, too, faded beyond Parker’s sight. When the loitering waiter saw this man, he made a little gasp. Parker looked up at him, caught the waiter’s eye, and crooked a finger.
“Who was he?” he asked.
“Who was who, sir?”
Parker leaned back, pushed his plate away, and put a sardonic look upward. “I’m waiting,” he said very quietly. “Who was that man?”
“Uh…foreman for one of the ranches hereabouts, Mister Travis.”
“I see. He wouldn’t be foreman of Lincoln Ranch, would he, friend?”
The waiter’s face turned white. “Please don’t put me in this spot, Mister Travis.”
“What spot?”
“Everyone in town knows who you are, sir. Word travels fast after a shootin’.”
“I can see that it does. That was Charley Swindin, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter whispered, looking anguished. “Can I go now?”
Parker nodded. The waiter scuttled rapidly away, and those prying-eyed men disappeared from the doorways.
Toby, the aging hostler, was limply parked upon a horseshoe keg just inside the door where coolness lay. Upon both sides of the runway inside the barn were box stalls and tie stalls; from these gloomy slots came sounds of horses munching, stamping at flies, or rubbing.
Parker halted near Toby and considered him from a blank face. The hostler spoke up huskily at once, saying: “Hones’ t’gawd, Mister Travis, I had no hand in Ace McElhaney goin’ after you this morning. I can’t make you believe that, but it’s gospel truth.”
“That’s interesting,” said Travis mildly. “You knew who I was when I came in here this morning.”
“I wasn’t the only one, Mister Travis. Hub Wheaton figured it out, too. So did Lew Morgan of Lincoln Ranch.”
“Morgan wasn’t in Laramie this morning before sunup, was he, Toby?”
The hostler heard skepticism in Travis’s voice. “No, sir,” he answered right back. “But Hub was, an’ so was McElhaney. I don’t know this, mind you, an’ Sheriff Wheaton probably wouldn’t like it if he heard me say it, but him and Lew Morgan saw your thoroughbred last night an’ they talked about it.”
“What of that?” asked Parker.
“Well, there’s only one other thoroughbred in the country, and they suspicioned who you was from that. An’ the first thing fellers do under circumstances like them is warn everybody else, ain’t it?”
Parker thought on this, and after a moment he nodded. “It’s possible, all right. Now tell me when you saw McElhaney the last time and who he was with?”
“I seen him last night over at Johnny Fleharty’s saloon. Him and Johnny was talkin’.”
“No one else, Toby?”
“On my honor, Mister Travis, just them two.”
Without another word Parker strode out of the barn, across the hot roadway, and into Fleharty’s Great Northern Saloon.
Fleharty was standing listlessly behind his bar, picking his teeth and gazing drowsily over at a poker game, the only source of interest in his place at this suppertime hour of the day. He saw Parker Travis come in and became at once alert and apprehensive. When Parker crossed to the bar and leaned there, looking over at him, Johnny said quickly, with a false smile: “Ale? I recollect you as an ale man.”
“Who told McElhaney who I was?” Parker softly asked, cutting out the preliminaries.
The poker game had suddenly gone flat; those quiet-faced men over at the table were all looking straight up where Fleharty and Parker Travis stood. The saloon was quiet enough to hear each outside sound throughout its big barn-like room. Johnny Fleharty killed time drawing a glass of ale. He shot a look over at the poker players and turned red under their blank stares. He put the glass in front of Parker, made a mechanical sweep of his bar top with a rag, and lifted his eyes. Parker was watching him still; he was obviously awaiting his answer.
“Sheriff Wheaton knew who you were,” he said at last, his voice scratchy. “I reckon a lot of folks knew, for that matter.”
Parker pushed the ale aside. He shook his head at Fleharty. “Until last night they didn’t. Who did McElhaney talk to last night?”
“How would I know, mister? Ace didn’t spend all his…”
“I want a straight answer from you,” said Parker, drawing back a little from the bar as he interrupted. “Make it easy on yourself, Fleharty, or make it hard. It’s up to you.”
Johnny, who was a little man in many ways, screwed up his face in pure agony. If he answered, those listening poker players would hear him surrender. If he didn’t answer, the killer of Ace McElhaney probably would do something about that. Johnny was at that crossroad many men face in a lifetime—he had either to sacrifice self- esteem and local respect, or perhaps his life. He wasn’t sure this was so but he had to make his choice now, and the wrong decision could be dangerous. But Johnny was a small man so he made the safe decision by saying: “Sheriff Wheaton and Lew Morgan talked to Ace.” He left off speaking, his breathing hurried, as though he was out of breath now.
Parker nodded. “One more question. Charley Swindin was in town a little while back. Did he come in here?”
“He usually does when he’s in town,” Johnny said, groping for some way to salvage some of that respect by seeking to evade another question. “Charley’s been comin’…”
“Was he in here this afternoon?”
There it was again, the blunt question from that unreadable, strong, and weather-darkened face. Johnny made another prolonging swipe with his bar rag. This time, though, like all men who have once given in, he had less difficulty answering.
