Longarm put a match to Dan’s bedside lamp and sighed with relief. Dan had apparently drunk a good deal of his own bottle of whiskey and had fallen back into a very profound slumber. Fact was, he’d slept through the entire fray and was still asleep. Longarm made sure of that after taking Dan’s pulse and finding it both slow and steady. The lid of the treasure box was open and there were gold coins spilled across the floor and over to the shattered window.
Bass could not have taken more than a handful of the Spanish coins but, dammit, the outlaw had escaped again. His human shield was riddled with Longarm’s slugs, and the other man that Longarm had dropped was barely alive. Knowing that the dying outlaw might be able to give him a few important clues as to where Bass might go, Longarm tried to plug up a hole in his chest and revive him with a few gulps of whiskey.
“Who are you?!” Longarm demanded when the dying outlaw’s eyes fluttered open. “Where did Bass go?”
In reply, the outlaw tried to spit in Longarm’s face. Dropping the man’s head back to the floor with a loud thunk, Longarm watched as the outlaw’s body began to convulse and his boot heels pounded the wooden floor. There would be no answers from this man. None at all.
Longarm collected the scattered gold coins and returned them to the metal box. He grabbed up the whiskey and took a deep drink, then heard many footsteps pounding up the hallway.
“It’s over!” Longarm said, pushing the treasure box under Dan’s bed. “I’m a United States marshal and I want everyone to go back to bed!”
There was some disgruntled talk in the hallway, but things quickly quieted down. Longarm regarded the two dead men and, because he knew it would be hopeless to try to catch Bass, he went back to bed himself.
Chapter 16
When Longarm awoke late the next morning, there was a small crowd down in the street near his horses. Longarm yawned and peered at them through his window. When the crowd noticed him, one of its members pointed and shouted.
“There he is! It’s the marshal!”
Longarm pulled the curtain shut and went next door into Dan’s room. The preacher was snoring away and his color was quite good. Longarm checked Dan’s whiskey and discovered that the level of the bottle had dropped several inches. In fact, the better part of it had been consumed, telling Longarm that, preacher or not, Dan had a strong appetite for liquor.
The outlaws were still lying on the floor, and Longarm determined that his first order of business should be to remove them to the hallway where an undertaker could take care of that unpleasant business.
Opening Dan’s door, he dragged the two men out to the hallway where he immediately confronted the hotel clerk and an older man who identified himself as the owner of the Trevor House.
“My name is Tidwell,” the man said. “And, Marshal, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you and your friend to leave this establishment at once.”
“Oh? And why should I do that?”
Tidwell was a large, heavy man with a red bulbous nose and gray hair. He had probably once been quite an imposing figure, but now he just looked old and bloated. Even so, he was not a man who was afraid of expressing his thoughts.
“My hotel is my livelihood, sir. You come here and, in one night, destroy the reputation that I have created for this hotel over the past twenty years! We have never had so much as a brawl, let alone two killings!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tidwell, but I had no choice. These dead men broke into our room in the middle of the night and would have killed both of us except-“
“Except that you killed them first.”
“That’s right.” Longarm’s own tone of voice took on a hard edge. “It was self-defense, Mr. Tidwell, and I acted in the line of duty.”
“Fine! But do your line of duty somewhere else,” Tidwell snapped. “Marshal, you and your wounded friend are no longer welcome in this hotel. Please find other accommodations.”
Longarm had a very powerful urge to tell this overstuffed and self-important man to go to hell. On the other hand, he knew that his presence was a magnet for trouble. Tidwell obviously wanted to attract a high caliber of guests, and the fact that two men had just died in this hotel was not likely to help him achieve his aims.
“All right,” Longarm said. “We’ll leave as soon as we can find another couple of rooms.”
“No,” Tidwell insisted, “you’ll leave now.”
Longarm almost grabbed Tidwell by the shirtfront but somehow managed to control his anger enough to repeat, “When we find another place to stay, we’ll leave. But not until then, Mr. Tidwell. I hope you understand.”
“I don’t, and I doubt very much if you can find any hotel in Wickenburg that will take you in, given what occurred here last night.”
“That would be unfortunate … for all of us,” Longarm said, spinning on his boot heels and going back into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Longarm repacked his gear and made ready to go in search of a hotel where Dan and he could recuperate. He shaved and dug out the last clean shirt in his bag, then listened to his belly growl with hunger. Going next door, he roused Dan from his sleep and said, “I have to go out and find us someplace else to stay.”
Preacher Dan’s eyes were a little bloodshot from the whiskey, but his color really was quite good. He yawned and asked, “Where are we?”
“This is the Trevor House. Three men came in here last night through your window. Two of them are dead and the third was Hank Bass.”
“He got away?”
“Yeah,” Longarm admitted. “I’m afraid he did. And maybe worst of all, he found our treasure box and got a
