expect that you are a cattle rancher. Am I right?”
“Nope.” Longarm picked up his baggage and started for the door.
“How about a cattle buyer?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I’ll guess it! I most always do by the third try!”
Longarm kept walking out the door. It was to his advantage to keep his true identity a secret—or at least not to advertise himself a federal lawman, because he might just get lucky, step off the stage in Prescott, and accidently bump into Hank Bass. In that case, he’d get the drop on the murderer and arrest him on the spot.
Ash Fork’s Majestic Hotel wasn’t at all majestic. Instead, the run-down hotel was old and dilapidated with several of the windows boarded over and in desperate need of fresh paint. Longarm took one good look at the place and kept walking. That guy at the stage office was probably getting some kind of payoff for referrals or else one of his relatives owned the Majestic. Either way, Longarm wasn’t interested. A half block down the street, he came to a little hotel more to his liking. It was called the Aztec and a sign on the front door advertised: CLEAN ROOMS-FRESH LINEN-NO BODY CRYTTERS-ONE DOLLAR A DAY.
“Howdy!” he called, stepping into the hotel and gazing around. It was modest but indeed clean and tidy. The floors were polished and the lobby furniture dusted. Longarm was an expert at sizing up people, weapons, horses, and western hotel rooms. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this was a well-run establishment.
“Hello there,” a respectable-looking woman in her early sixties said, coming out from a back room behind the registration desk. “My name is Ruby and I own this place. Do you need a clean, quiet room for the night?”
“Sure do.”
“Be a dollar. Fifty cents more will get you a hot bath, soap, and a clean towel.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You a cattle rancher in town on business?”
“No.”
“Railroad executive?”
“Nope.” Longarm frowned. “Why is it that everyone keeps trying to guess my line of work?”
Ruby shrugged. “It’s mostly because we are bored and there isn’t a lot else to do in Ash Fork. We used to have a newspaper, but the editor went broke and left town. So now the only way we can keep track of things hereabouts is to gossip and be nosy. Sorry if it offends you.”
“Oh,” Longarm said, realizing he was being kind of prickly, “I’m not offended, And I’m not anywhere near as successful as a rancher or railroad executive.”
“But you’re still not going to tell me what brings you to Ash Fork, are you?”
“Nope. And anyway, I’m leaving for Prescott on tomorrow’s stage.”
“You packing a shooting iron?”
“I am.”
“Good! You look like the kind of fella that could handle himself Might need to, because Hank Bass held up a stagecoach only last week. He gunned down a passenger who was a little slow reaching for his money belt.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes, it is. So, if you’re carrying a bunch of money, you had better be well armed. We’ve no law in these parts anymore. Never has been any law much to brag about.”
“Why not?”
“Hank Bass gunned ‘em all down and we can’t afford to hire anyone tough enough to stand up to him. Unless someone bushwhacks him or he dies of natural causes, I think we’re in for a long, tough time of it.”
“Where does Bass mostly hang out?”
The woman chuckled. “Just about anywhere he damn well pleases!
Sometimes here, sometimes in Prescott or even Wickenburg. And a lot of the time, he’s just gone. That’s when everyone in this part of the country is happiest. I think he and his boys steal a bunch of money and ride down to Old Mexico where they whoop it up for a couple of months in the cantinas with the pretty young senoritas.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because they always return to Arizona wearing sombreros, serapes, and all kinds of Mexican clothes. They’ll gallop in here singing Mexican songs and drinking bottles of tequila.”
“That sounds like Old Mexico, all right,” Longarm agreed as he paid for his room and bath, then accepted his key. “Number four, huh?”
“Yeah, anything wrong with that?” Ruby asked.
“Nope. In fact, four is one of my lucky numbers.”
“Well,” the woman said with a smile, “let’s just hope that tomorrow is your lucky day and you don’t get robbed on your way down to Prescott.”
“I could use a rifle, maybe a shotgun.”
“Two doors down on your right is a gun shop. It’s owned by an old reprobate named Sherman. He’s hard to deal with, but he’s fair and he doesn’t handle anything but straight shooters. He’ll fix you up right.”
“Thanks,” Longarm said, not telling the woman that he meant to be more than ready for Hank Bass, if the man
