CHAPTER 42
Denny got a hotel room to herself, of course. Everybody else bunked two to a room. Still not fair, she thought, but better than the cowboys’ accommodations on the train.
“You’re in with me, Markham,” Cal told the redheaded puncher that evening.
Except for a couple of hands who’d been left to watch the horses, they all gathered in the hotel dining room for supper. Someone would relieve them later.
Denny knew Cal wasn’t really expecting trouble, just being cautious, as was his habit. She would have volunteered to take a turn guarding the horses, but it wouldn’t do any good. He’d just say that was all taken care of already.
“All right, boss,” Markham responded. “You don’t snore over-much, do you?”
“Just worry about the racket you’re making,” advised Cal.
One of the other men said, “I noticed a saloon down the street, Cal. Think we could pay a visit to it?”
Cal frowned. “We’ve come this far. I’m not sure it would be a good idea to cut loose your wolf when we’re this close to where we’re going.”
“You let us have a drink in Big Rock before we started,” another man pointed out.
Hack Sherman was eating supper with the Sugarloaf crew. Cal looked at him and asked, “Is that saloon the sort of place where a man finds it easy to get in trouble?”
Sherman cocked a bushy eyebrow and said, “A feller can get in trouble just about anywhere if he’s bound and determined to do it. But no, the Red Top is a square joint. The poker and faro games are honest, the drinks ain’t watered and won’t give a man the blind staggers, and Ben Hubbell, who owns the place, don’t allow no sportin’ ladies on the premises. For that, you got to go on down the street to Mamie’s.” A flush suddenly came over the cowboy’s weathered face. “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Jensen. I didn’t mean to talk quite so plain. I just plumb forgot there was a lady amongst us.”
“That’s all right, Hack,” Denny assured him. “I know what goes on in saloons. And I’m flattered that you’d think of me as just one of the hands.”
“Hard to do if anybody catches more than a glimpse of you, I reckon,” Sherman muttered.
“What about the saloon, Cal?” the cowboy who had brought it up pressed.
Cal thought about it for a moment longer and then nodded. “All right. But if anybody gets the urge to break loose, you’d better hold it in, just like I told you back in Big Rock. Anybody who shows up hungover enough for me to notice it in the morning won’t be working for the Sugarloaf anymore.”
The men nodded their agreement and continued shoveling in food.
When the meal was over, most of the hands stood up and headed for the saloon. A few who didn’t drink went up to their rooms to make an early night of it, since morning would come quickly and the day would feature a lot of long hours in the saddle. Two of the men went to relieve the pair of guards at the horse herd.
Steve Markham lingered in his chair, sipping from a cup of coffee.
Denny leaned back in her chair and asked him, “Aren’t you going to the saloon with your friends?”
“Maybe. But I wanted to ask you first if you’d like to go for a walk. It’s a nice evenin’ outside.”
Denny glanced at the other end of the table, where Cal was deep in conversation with Hack Sherman. Quietly, she said, “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
“I’ll conduct myself like a plumb gentleman,” Markham promised.
“If you didn’t, I’d punch you in the belly. Or use a knee on you somewhere else.”
Markham grinned at her over his coffee cup and tut-tutted. “Such scandalous language, Miss Jensen.”
“I believe in plain speaking, too.”
“Then how about that walk?”
Denny thought about it and shook her head. “Not tonight. This has been a good trip so far, without any melodrama. I’d just as soon keep it that way.”
“Suit yourself,” he told her. “In that case, I reckon maybe I will go have a beer after all. Might sit in on a poker game for a few hands.”
“Just don’t get mixed up in any trouble.”
“Don’t worry about that. Any time I see trouble on the horizon, I turn around and gallop the other way!”
* * *
A florid-faced bartender with muttonchop whiskers set a foaming mug of beer on the hardwood in front of Markham. Markham slid a dime across the bar and picked up the mug. As he sipped the sudsy brew, he turned and let his eyes play across the main room of the Red Top Saloon. His fellow punchers from the Sugarloaf were lined up at the bar, except for a couple who had headed straight for the faro layout in the back of the room.
Markham’s attention was focused more on the poker game going on at one of the tables. Four men were playing, all of them dressed in range clothes. One man, the oldest of the quartet, sported somewhat more expensive duds than the other three. Curly dark hair, lightly touched with gray, spilled out from under his pushed-back black hat. A prominent nose overhung a thick dark mustache.
One of the other players threw down his cards disgustedly and announced in a voice that carried to Markham’s ears, “That’s enough for me, damn it. I can’t buck this bad luck that’s got hold of me tonight.”
“Sometimes you’ve just got to walk away from it, all right,” said the older man. The other two players had folded as well, and he raked in the small pot.
The one who had complained scraped back his chair and stood up. He snorted, shook his head, and turned to stalk out of the saloon.
The older man caught Markham’s gaze, cocked an eyebrow, and gestured at the empty chair. Still holding his mug, Markham sauntered over to the table.
“Care to join us?” the older man asked. “I never did cotton to playing three-handed poker.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Markham. “As long as the stakes ain’t too high.”
“They’re only as high as you want them to be, friend.”
Markham nodded, said, “Fair enough,” and sat down to nurse the beer and play cards.
“Name’s Bert Rome,” the older man said. “That’s Harry Castle and Joe Foster.”
The other two men grunted and nodded in turn as Rome introduced them.
“Steve Markham.”
“Glad to meet you, Markham. I noticed you came in with those other punchers.”
“Yeah, we’re all from a spread called the Sugarloaf, down in Colorado. Delivering a herd of horses to the Circle C, north of here.”
Rome had been shuffling the deck while they were talking. He slid it over to Markham to cut, then commenced dealing.
For the next half-hour, the four men played poker in a desultory fashion. None of the hands got too long and drawn out, and none of the pots were huge. Markham broke even, within a dollar or two. If any of the others could be said to be the big winner, it was Bert Rome, and he was only up about twenty dollars.
None of them had much to say, and Markham himself was unusually subdued. No one in the Red Top paid any attention to what was going on at the table.
Finally, Markham folded rather than pursue another small pot. “I reckon that’ll do it for me, boys. Got to be up early in the mornin’.”
“Headed for the Circle C, was it?” Rome asked.
“That’s right.”
“Well, good luck, Markham.” Rome placed the deck in the center of the table. “I think I’ll call it a night, too.”
Foster and Castle just grunted again. They really weren’t talkative sorts.
Markham stood up and carried his empty mug back to the bar. He paused long enough to chat idly with some of the other Sugarloaf cowboys for a few minutes. When he looked around, Rome, Castle, and Foster were gone. He said his good nights and left the saloon as well.
He had walked two blocks when a dark shape stepped out of an alley mouth in front of him. Markham slowed his pace as his hand drifted toward the gun holstered on his right hip, but then he relaxed as a familiar voice said, “Back here.”
The man retreated into the darkness, and Markham stepped into the alley. The shadows were so thick he had to rely on sound more than sight to follow. After a moment, the other man stopped. Markham heard a match rasp, and the sudden flare of light revealed the rugged face of Bert Rome as the man held the flame to the tip of a thin black cheroot.
“About time you got here,” Rome said quietly. “But where the hell is Smoke Jensen?”