more than a lucky, or real unlucky—depending upon how one regarded it—coincidence.
Pausing at the door of the hotel, Calamity turned her head to look first right and then left. Having visited Mulrooney twice, she knew something of its geography but needed to get her bearings. While doing so, her left arm pressed against the side of the buckskin jacket and she felt the bulk of the envelope that she carried in the inside pocket. According to the lawyer in Topeka, Counselor Talbot would require to see proof of her identity. So she was taking along the necessary papers for his examination.
Just as she was starting to turn to the right, Calamity noticed a man standing across the street and studying her with obvious interest. Tall, lean, sharp-featured, he wore range clothes but had the appearance of a trail-end town loafer, the kind that hung around accepting the hospitality of the visitors and avoiding doing any work. That he looked at her intently came as no surprise to Calamity. Men had been doing it for so long that it had ceased to be a novelty or an embarrassment.
Ignoring the man, for she knew his kind too well to want any truck with them, Calamity strolled off along the sidewalk. She debated to herself whether to call at the Fair Lady Saloon before visiting the lawyer, but decided against it. Maybe after she had heard Counselor Talbot’s news she would need advice. If so, Freddie Woods would be only too willing to give it.
Continuing along the street, Calamity paused to look at the display of firearms in the window of a gunsmith’s store. While doing so, she became aware that the loafer was still opposite. Watching his reflection in the store’s window, she saw him come to a halt, turn and stare along an alley. She stood for a moment before he looked over his shoulder in her direction. Then he swung his head around and resumed his scrutiny of the gap between the buildings.
“Now what’s he following me for?” Calamity thought. “He looks too all-fired sweet ’n’ noble to be figuring on interfering with a poor, defenseless gal like me. Especially in Mulrooney, in daylight, and with me packing a gun. Maybe it’s just that he ain’t never seed a gal’s fills her pants as well’s I do.”
Satisfied that, no matter what his intentions might be, the loafer posed no threat to her, Calamity walked on. She went by the newspaper office and turned down the street that flanked the stock-pens. Keeping to the sidewalk, she looked across the street at the pens and the longhorn steers they held awaiting shipment East. She thought admiringly of the grit and tenacity required to drive the half-wild animals all the way from Texas and remembered that the bell-hop had mentioned one particular outfit was coming. She hoped that her business would not take her out of town before the OD Connected trail drive arrived.
For some reason, all the work being done around the pens took place on the opposite side to where Calamity walked. The buildings flanking the sidewalk also appeared to be deserted. Looking ahead, she could see another street running at right angles to the one she followed. That would be Leicester Street and somewhere along it she would find Counselor Talbot’s office.
Two men stepped from an alley at the end of the building which Calamity was approaching. They looked in her direction, but she formed the impression that their attention was centered on something, or somebody, behind her. At first glance, they appeared to be an ordinary enough pair of trail-end town visitors, but not the kind one would expect to see together. One of them, by his dress, hailed from north of Kansas and the other clearly came from very far south of the State. Leaving the north-country man, the second of the pair crossed to hook his rump on the hitching mil in front of the next building.
Their behavior struck the girl as just a mite peculiar. While not vain, she knew that she had a good figure and dressed in a manner to show it off. Yet, after their first glance, neither man turned his eyes toward Calamity. In fact they seemed to be avoiding meeting her gaze just a mite too carefully.
Partly because one saw so few of his kind in Kansas, Calamity gave the seated man a close scrutiny before looking at his companion who leaned against the building’s wall. Tall, slender yet wiry, he had a clean-shaven Latin face that a thin, cruel mouth prevented from being handsome. The hat he wore was no Stetson. Its pointed crown, silver concha-decorated band and wide, circular brim had their origin south of the Rio Grande. So did the waist-long black jacket with silver filigree patterning, white, frilly-fronted shirt, string bow-tie, tight-legged, wide-bottomed trousers and high-heeled boots with large-rowelled spurs attached to them. As might be expected from such a man, he carried a fighting knife sheathed on the left side of his gunbelt. The position in which he sat prevented Calamity from seeing either his gun or its holster.
From the Mexican, Calamity turned her gaze to his white companion. She had walked closer and began to notice some disturbingly significant details about him.
Taller and heavier than the Mexican, the second man also lacked the other’s finery. Nothing about his wolfskin coat, tartan shirt, dark trousers tucked into flat-heeled boots or gunbelt was new. The same did not apply to his hat; that was brand-new. Although he had a fast-draw holster tied down on his right thigh, it did not hold a gun. Instead, an Army Colt was thrust into his waistband, its butt pointed to the front for a cross-hand draw. The reason for the empty holster and gun’s position probably stemmed from the fact that he had a dirty piece of rag wrapped around his right hand. Surly-featured and unshaven, his eyes had a redrimmed, bloodshot appearance that could have been the result of drinking hard the previous night—or having the contents of a chamber-pot thrown into his face.
Taken with the state of the man’s eyes, the brand-new hat and the bandaged hand suggested certain unpleasant possibilities to Calamity. A feller who slid hurriedly down a ladder, especially one in the process of breaking, might easily tear open his palm on a splinter. That jasper from her window had left his hat behind and would need to replace it if he hoped to avoid drawing attention to himself.
Of course the facts might amount to no more than a coincidence; but Calamity felt disinclined to take bets on it.
As if wanting to sweep any lingering doubts from the girl’s mind, the Mexican stood up and faced her. Calamity’s eyes dropped swiftly to his right thigh. Before raising them again, she schooled her features into lines of indifference and hid her concern. The Colt at his side had the distinctively shaped Tiffany grips and the end of its barrel protruded from the open toe of the holster.
Still continuing to walk toward the pair, Calamity rapidly marshaled her facts. She did not like the answers she came up with. The assailant inside the hotel had worn ordinary range clothes and, according to the cattle- buyer, had sported a drooping black mustache. Clothes could be changed and a mustache shaved off. The Mexican’s hair was black and he might have removed the facial growth to prevent himself being recognized during his stay in Mulrooney.
Which raised another interesting, maybe even vital point. Why had the two men remained in town and what brought them to stand on the sidewalk ahead of her? The attempted robbery at the hotel did not rate as such a serious crime that they needed to remove a witness who might be able to identify them. Nor had Calamity’s treatment of them been sufficiently drastic for the pair to risk arrest by hunting her up in search of revenge.
And that thought brought up another. If the pair should be vindictive enough to be looking for evens, how did they know where to find her? How did they recognize her, come to that? Unless they had seen her entering the Railroad House, her clothes would not identify her. Female guests at
One thing was plain to Calamity. She must not let the pair suspect that she had recognized them. Maybe if she could get up close enough, with them figuring that she did not know them, she could escape from the position they had her in.
“You boys fixing on making a gal take to the street to get by?” Calamity asked, hoping that her voice did not sound as tensed-up as she felt.
Instead of moving aside, the two men looked her over with cold eyes. Then the Mexican seemed to glance at something behind her, but Calamity figured that she had been around too long to fall for
“Is your name ‘Canary,’ gal?” demanded the big man.
“Do I
“It’s her for certain, Job,” the Mexican stated.
“You’d know, Oton,” the big man growled. “Way you telled it, you saw her real good last night.”
“I don’t get it,” Calamity began, right hand turning palm-outward and moving surreptitiously in the direction
