The blonde’s name was Swallow—all the girls in Madame Silver’s House had ‘bird’ names; she alone knew their real names—and she didn’t want to see Cato when he came back to the sporting house, grim from his hangover and the knowledge that he had maybe loused-up an assignment for the first time ever.
The bouncer was a beefy jasper with a cauliflower ear and his nose spread all over his battered face. He stood a foot taller than Cato and was as broad across the shoulders as a barn door. When Swallow put him onto the small Enforcer, the others in the plush waiting room shook their heads slowly: they figured they were about to see murder done. But Cato ducked under the bouncer’s swiping arm, stepped in close as he came up inside the man’s guard and stomped down on an instep. The man grunted as Cato twisted and ground the high heel of his riding boot into the foot. He started to clamp his arms around the smaller man to get him in a bear hug that Cato knew would be fatal. As he ducked, the arms caught the top of his head and his face was momentarily squashed against the bouncer’s heavy brass belt buckle. Blood flowed from his cheek and temple as he wrenched himself free, losing his hat.
Cato figured he couldn’t pull his punches with this hombre: he was a fighting machine and wouldn’t stop until he was put down for the count. Cato back-pedaled and the bouncer lumbered after him. Then the Enforcer abruptly stopped, lowered his head and charged back. He butted the man in the belly with the top of his head, bounced back, measured the distance and swung his right leg in a savage kick at his groin. The bouncer hollered and his pockmarked face turned gray. His legs wobbled and he swayed drunkenly. Johnny Cato pulled his Manstopper, a gun that weighed over five pounds, and clubbed the man senseless to the carpet. The room was silent. All the yelling and cheering and urging had ceased as if someone had drowned the room under tons of water. Cato turned away from the downed man, moving the twin, over-and-under barrels of the Manstopper around the room. Swallow, pale and frightened now, was hurrying towards a velvet-curtained door.
“Come back here!”
She froze at the sound of Cato’s voice and, shaking visibly, turned back to face him. Madame Silver herself appeared in the curtained doorway, with the pale faces of several of her girls behind her.
“Come on in, Silver, and bring your flock,” Cato ordered.
The Amazon-like Madame Silver looked at Cato’s smallish form and then at the bloodied bouncer stretched out on the carpet. She pursed her painted lips and slowly came into the waiting room, followed by scantily-clad girls. The men who had been waiting stood watching Cato and that strange-looking gun.
“I’m in no mood for games,” Cato gritted. “Thanks to your lousy rotgut whisky, Silver, and a few other things ...” He looked at the blonde. “Last night you didn’t want me to go. This mornin’ you don’t even want to know me.”
He ran his eyes along the line of girls and stopped at the redhead who had gone with Jonas Locke. “She told me you weren’t even in town, then set the bouncer on me when I figured to take a look for myself. You know why I’m here.”
“Of course we don’t, cowboy,” Madame Silver said smoothly, smiling with her lips, but her eyes cold and hard. “If you’ve got a complaint, figure you didn’t get your money’s worth last night, why, then we might be able to come to some sort of arrangement. But there’s no need to go on like this ... Put up that gun, huh? And just what sort of gun is it? I’ve never seen one like it before ...” She winked at the tensed customers around the walls. “And I’m a lady who usually knows her—weapons!”
That got a nervous laugh from everyone but Cato. He held up the gun so that they could see there was a small metal toggle on the hammer.
“This is my personal gun.”
Cato had made it himself, based on the frame of the old Colt Dragoon .44, the cap-and-ball model they used to call the Monster. The cylinder was fatter than normal, because it held eight .45 cartridges instead of the usual six. There was a larger barrel slung under the normal one.
Cato flicked the toggle on the hammer. There was a faint, well-oiled ‘click’. Cato looked around the room at the gilt and marble ornamentation and finally lifted his gaze to the large crystal chandelier slung on its gilt chains from the plaster ceiling with its smiling cherubs and cavorting nymphs. Cato glanced at Madame Silver and saw the smile vanish from her face and the coldness in her eyes was replaced by alarm. She started forward.
Cato’s lips moved slightly and he tilted the barrel upwards, stepped back, and dropped the hammer. The room shook to the thunderous explosion of the gun, as the twelve-gauge shot shell contained in its special breech built into the center of the fat cylinder roared. The chandelier flew apart in a thousand shards, rocked and swayed dangerously on the jerking chains, spilling remnants of glass and brass fittings and warm oil into the room. Men shouted and scattered. The women screamed and surged towards the curtained doorway. Cato let them go: all except Madame Silver. He stepped directly into her path and she reared back as he shoved the smoking, reeking gun barrel under her nose.
“I’m just gettin’ started, Silver,” Cato told her.
Her eyes were wide with fear. Her nostrils flared and her breast heaved.
“What—what is it you want?”
“Jonas Locke.”
She frowned. “That senator who opened the new railroad?” She shook her head. “He wouldn’t come here.”
“Quit stallin’, Silver. I got a pocketful of shot shells.” He ejected the used twelve gauge shell and took another from his pocket, loading swiftly and expertly. He saw her pale even more. “I came in with him last night. He went off with that redhead I spoke to. I was with Swallow. Thought I was makin’ an impression, she was so reluctant to let me go. Got to thinkin’ about it later. It was only after there was a knock on the door some time durin’ the night and she answered it. Like someone had given her instructions to keep me there.”
Silver looked away from his chill stare. “I—I dunno what you’re gettin’ at ...”
“What’s the redhead’s name?”
“Robin, but I ...”
“Get her back in here. Pronto.”
The woman needed no urging when she looked at the cocked gun. She hurried to the curtained doorway and Cato grabbed the back of her gown, holding her there.
“Call out.”
In a cracked voice, Madame Silver called for the redhead and the frightened girl came slowly down the stairs and into the room, her green eyes glittering with fear as she looked at the massive gun in Cato’s hand. The Enforcer pushed Madame Silver against the wall, turned his attention to Robin. She cringed.
“Jonas Locke. He was here last night. What happened after you knocked on Swallow’s door and told her to keep me with her?”
Robin’s mouth opened and her lower lip trembled. “I—I didn’t. Madame Silver told me ”
Cato rounded on the older woman swiftly and intercepted the angry look she threw the redhead. He pressed the gun barrel between her ample breasts.
“Might have guessed it was you. All right, tell me what happened or this gun could go off again. I could blow you apart like that chandelier but that wouldn’t get me any answers. But if I turn the barrel to the side, like this ... left, or right ... Let’s say left ... Well, you can see what’d happen. Wouldn’t do a woman in your trade much good, Silver.”
Silver was shaking worse than the redhead now and was far too scared to speak. The redhead began to talk rapidly, her words punctuated by her crying.
“She came to my door, too ... said I was to slip some chloral hydrate—knock-out drops ...”
“I know what it is!” Cato snapped impatiently.
Robin swallowed. “Well, I was to slip some into his drink and, as soon as he was asleep I had to call her and go to my sleeping quarters and stay there ... I—I only did what I was told, mister! I dunno what they did with him ...” Cato nodded, set his bleak gaze onto Silver again. She was a little more composed now, ran a tongue over her lips, clasped her hands together as if to steady herself.
“All right,” she said. “I don’t aim to get killed for that big bastard. Or have my place shot-up ... A man came to me, I dunno his name, but he was called ‘Wolf’ by one of the men with him. It might mean something, or nothing. Like my gals are called after birds ...”
“Get on with it!” Cato snapped.
“He slipped me a hundred dollars. Said he knew the man he’d seen going into Robin’s room. He owed him something. He made it sound like it was more a joke than anything. He told me to put knockout drops in his liquor and then he and his men would take the man out. He told me they aimed to strip him buck-naked and set him up down at the railroad depot in time for all the crowds that are aiming to see off the first train down to Texas on the direct link ...” She shrugged. “Didn’t sound like there was much harm in it and a hundred dollars was cheap.”
“So you agreed and he told you to keep me here?” Silver shook her head. “He hadn’t seen you, far as I know. But you looked a tough little ranny to me and I didn’t want any trouble here so I told Swallow to keep you busy until they’d gotten him moved out.”
Cato snapped, “And you just happened to have knockout drops handy!”
Silver flushed. “We-ell ... In this business, sometimes a gal has to use them to protect herself, if you know what I mean.”
Cato looked at her coldly. “Or sometimes a gal figures to get her hands on a cowpoke’s payroll the easy way ... Relax, I’m not interested in that side of things. I want to know more about this Wolf.”
“Never seen him before. Must’ve been in town specially for the big celebrations.”
Cato pushed the gun barrel against her left breast. She sucked in a sharp breath, her face gray.
“Try again,” he said.
“I—I think he has been here before, now I think about it ... Brings in cattle or lumber or something.” She turned to the redhead abruptly. “You had him in your room once, didn’t you?”
Robin stared bug-eyed at the snapped question, nodded slowly. “I—I think so ... Cattleman. I—I only ever heard him called ‘Wolf’.”
“Where from, damn it?” snapped Cato.
Robin shook her head swiftly. Silver frowned thoughtfully. “I think it was somewheres south, in Colorado ... Kind of an animal name it sounded like.”
“Like Wild Horse Canyon, or somethin’? That what you mean?”
“Yes. That ‘Wild’ sort of rings a bell some place ...” Silver appeared to be really trying to remember.
“Wildcat Falls!” Robin exclaimed in a thin, excited voice and they both looked at her. “I remember once, he was drunk and he said if I was ever in Wildcat Falls to look him up.”
“He say where?”
“He passed out right after that. Never even remembered my name when he woke up ...”
Cato gave her a hard look. “This better be right.” He turned to stare at Madame Silver. “It sure had. You just keep thinkin’ about how this place will look if it’s a pile of ashes and burnt timbers.” He flicked his gaze to the redhead. “And you ... You figure what it’ll be like to look in a mirror and be sick at what you see.”
The women cringed from this small man with the big gun, knowing he was the most dangerous ranny they were ever likely to encounter.
Cato slowly lowered the hammer on the massive gun, holstered it, and walked casually out of the big room.
~*~
The secretary, Baxter, wanted to make all kinds of trouble. He was near-hysterical, accused Cato of laxity in his assignment, wanted to wait for the law officers to arrive back in Cheyenne. But Cato, in no mood for the man’s hysteria, shut him up with a stinging slap across the mouth. Baxter reeled, stared in horror at the hard eyed Cato.
“Just grab a hold of yourself, Baxter!” the Enforcer snapped. “I don’t need you to tell me I didn’t do my job properly. I don’t need your panic. And I sure as hell don’t need the Cheyenne law! If they can be bought off to stay out of town and leave the place wide-open for the Railroad Celebrations just so’s the businessmen can make big profits, they ain’t gonna be any use to me. Or you. So forget the law in this burg. Savvy?”
Baxter, dabbing at his cut lip, nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Cato ... I—I failed in my job, too. I should have stuck with the senator no matter what he said. That’s why he gave me that chore to do at the hotel, knowing he would have a chance to slip out and whoop it up without any restraint from me.”
Cato frowned. “He’s done it before?”
“Frequently! But, I hasten to add, only after he has seen to his official obligations.”
Cato nodded. “Okay. Next question: who’s Wolf? Ever heard him speak of him?”
“Never. What does the man look like?”
“Big. About mid-forties. Cattleman, I guess. In any case a mighty rugged type. The doorman at Madame Silver’s told me he carried Locke out over his shoulder. Dunno much else about him, except he’s s’posed to come from this Wildcat Falls place in Colorado. Which I’ve never even heard of.”
“Can’t say I have, either. Look, Cato, what are we going to do? We can hardly return to Austin and tell the governor we’ve lost the senator!”
“You go back on the train as planned,” Cato said. “Trip takes a week. If I haven’t found the senator in that time, I guess I’ll never find him. Leastways, not alive. You tell the story to the governor.”
“But—what are you going to do?”
“First off I’m gonna send a telegraph to a friend of mine to meet me in Wildcat Falls.”
“But—you don’t even know where it is!”
“I’ll find it. So will Yancey, my sidekick. I’ll likely be there before him and have some of the groundwork done by the time he gets there. We’ll track down the senator. And this Wolf ranny.”
Baxter looked worried. “But, Cato ... I—I couldn't face the governor! Not after I had been so lax in my duties!”
“The governor’s not dumb, Baxter. He’ll know what the senator’s habits were. Your job was to obey the senator’s orders and that’s just what you did. You’ve got nothin’ to worry about. Do like I say and leave the rest to me.”
Baxter sighed and nodded slowly. “Very well ... But I certainly hope you find him safe and sound.”
“You and me both. Now where’s the telegraph office in this burg? And you’d better get a move on or you’ll miss that train to Texas.”
Baxter hesitated only a moment longer and then started to bustle around the senator’s suite, checking for anything that might have been left behind, giving Cato directions how to find the Cheyenne telegraph office.
Cato made his telegraph message brief. It was addressed to Yancey Bannerman, in care of Alamo Hotel, Austin, Texas. The message simply read: Meet me Wildcat Falls, Colorado, soonest. Cato.
Yancey would know from that word ‘soonest’ that there was trouble of some kind and, knowing Cato’s assignment, he would figure it had something to do with Senator Jonas Locke.
And the fact that the wire was addressed to Yancey at the hotel where he kept a small suite of rooms would tell him that it was to be kept between themselves. Governor Lester Dukes did not need to be told about the message at this stage.
Walking back to the Cheyenne Land Commission, after leaving the telegraph office, Cato hoped it wouldn’t be necessary for the governor to know anything at all about the deal, unless the Senator himself chose to tell him, long after he was safely back in Austin.
Providing he found the Senator. Alive.
~*~
It took Johnny Cato three days’ ride south of Cheyenne to reach Wildcat Falls in rugged Sierra country in Colorado. It was a timberline town and the snow-peaks towered above the bright yellow log buildings. Cato hadn’t been prepared for this kind of cold even though it was fall, but then he had been figuring on spending his time on the plains, not up in the thin air of this neck of the woods. So his first stop in the town had to be the general store where he bought some longjohn flannel underwear and a heavy woolen jacket. The survey map had given him no indication at all that the town was perched so high. In fact, there had only been some sort of vague cross marked and it had looked like the town wasn’t even in the foothills, let alone high up at timberline.
It hadn’t been such a long trail from Cheyenne, but it had sure been a hard one. Wildcat Falls, it seemed, wasn’t a popular place. No stage line ran to it, no railroad came any closer than Denver, far to the south on the Platte River. There was a cattle trail to the Cheyenne market but it was crowded with herds moving north and he had chosen a trail through the mountain ranges, again figuring he could rely on the survey map when it said ‘Easy access to Wildcat Falls.’ Maybe it was for a mountain goat, Cato reckoned, but not for some poor dumb Enforcer on horseback with a bad conscience for letting this happen in the first place.
The length of time it took to work his way through the sparsely-settled Great Divide was time enough, almost, for Yancey to arrive in Wildcat Falls ahead of him. Yancey would jump the first train out of Austin for Denver once he had located Wildcat Falls’ corner of Colorado, and the big Enforcer would waste no time in hiring a horse and packhorse and heading out for the Lavaca Sierras. It would be great to find Yancey waiting for him ...
But Yancey hadn’t yet arrived in Wildcat Falls when Cato rode in, shivering, that afternoon.
He bought his warm clothing and changed into it in a room behind the store. The woolen jacket made him look very broad and, with his shortness, he might have looked a little ridiculous to some people. But the wise ones, the ones who took the trouble to look into those chill eyes, would refrain from saying so.
A gun hung man, obviously a local used to the thin air and the cold, judging by the fact he was only wearing a denim jerkin, didn’t take the trouble to read the danger signs in Cato’s eyes. He was on the porch when the Enforcer came out of the store and stood on the edge of the boardwalk looking down the single street. The town was scattered all over the slopes of the mountain-face, the pine and cedar standing out sharply in the sunlight. The air smelt of piney resins and was pleasant after the stench of cow towns.
“First time I ever seen a man carry his bedroll stuffed under his jacket,” the lounger remarked with a sly grin to his companion, a bigger cowboy with a cast in one eye. The big one chuckled and swigged from the neck of the whisky bottle he held: he wore only a shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows and buttons off all the way down the front.
“Does look kinda cold,” he remarked as Cato looked bleakly at the pair. “Maybe we should light him up so’s he can get warm.”
He fumbled out some vestas and the man in the jerkin grabbed the whisky bottle and splashed some of the liquid onto Cato’s jacket sleeve. The small man jumped back as the big ranny struck a vesta and flicked it at him. The raw spirits roared and his whole sleeve was alight from cuff to shoulder in a split-second. The guffaws of the two men as Cato struggled to wrench off his blazing jacket brought men from the store and the ramshackle saloon across the street. They all seemed to think it was a good joke as Cato frantically tore off the jacket and stomped on it to put out the flames.
“Aw, hell,” the big man in shirtsleeves said in disappointment. “He’ll freeze to death. Better warm him up some more, Ty.”
The man in the jerkin lifted the whisky bottle to splash more liquid onto Cato but jerked back as Cato’s Manstopper appeared in his hand and blasted, smashing the whisky bottle out of his hand. The man yelled in pain and grimaced at his bleeding hand. The bigger man swore loudly.
“You goddamn little runt! Can’t you take a joke?”
“Sure,” Cato told him. “Can you?”
He triggered again and the big man howled and hopped around on one foot as the bullet slammed into the toe of his boot. He fell, blood spurting through the ragged hole in the leather. Cato stood over him, reloading expertly and unhurriedly.
“See if you find it funny hoppin’ around without your big toe,” he said easily. “Next time, I’ll blow your head out from under your hat. Now you owe me thirty dollars for a new jacket. You gonna pay?”
The big man was too busy with the pain of his wound.
Cato slugged him with the gun barrel, went through his pockets and came up with ten dollars. He moved to the ranny with the cut hand, held out his left hand, palm up. The man swallowed, used his good hand to bring out some coins and dropped them onto Cato’s palm.
“Seven’s all I’ve got,” he bleated.
Cato looked at him coldly, walked to the silent men gathered at the store door. “You fellers seemed to think I was good entertainment a minute ago. Now you got to pay for the show. I want thirteen dollars from you. You got till I count to ten. After that, a lot of you are gonna be limpin’ around like that big galoot in the street.”
He had the full thirty dollars by the time he had reached six. The storekeeper had a new jacket out and ready for him when he walked back to the counter. Then, wearing the new jacket, Cato walked past the staring men and out into the street. They watched him lead his horse down towards the hotel.
“Wolf ain’t gonna like a couple of his men bein’ shot up thataway,” one man opined to no one in particular.
“They asked for it,” someone else said. “But I wouldn’t want to be in that tough little ranny’s boots, anyways.”
The hotel was a lot better inside than it looked outside. The walls were unpainted timber but they had been varnished and glowed with a warm mellow hue that seemed to give the clerk a ruddy complexion as he languidly stood up and walked over to the pine desk. He pasted a mechanical smile onto his young, rakehell face.
“Yessir?”
“Want a room,” Cato said. “And some information.”
“Room’s easy,” the clerk said, turning to take down a key from some hooks on a board behind him. “Number eleven, straight up.” He gestured to the stairs. “Dollar and a quarter a night, and that includes your supper and breakfast. Find your own lunch. Hot water extra. Want any more blankets, tell the Indian gal who does the rooms ... Deal?”
He dangled the keys from his index finger, looking smugly at Cato. Then he added:
“We’re the only hotel in town.”
“Guess you’re my first choice then,” Cato replied, digging some money out of his pocket, counting it and giving the man two dollars fifty. “Couple of nights in advance,” he said, taking the keys. He didn’t put the rest of his money away, saw the clerk’s eyes holding to it greedily. “The information I want is simple. You reckon you’re the only hotel in town, so I guess you’re the man to ask if a friend of mine is stayin’ here.”
“I’m your man, right enough,” the clerk said, looking at the money.
“Bannerman. Yancey Bannerman. From Texas ... Gonna meet me here. My name’s Cato.”
The clerk looked disappointed and shook his head slowly. “I hate to say it, but he ain’t checked in yet. Not under that name.”
“Okay. It was an outside chance, anyways. Don’t worry, mister, you might still stand a chance of pickin’ up an extra buck. Know anyone hereabouts named ‘Wolf’?”
The clerk’s face went blank and he stood all the way up, pushing off the counter. He looked worried, flicking his gaze towards the door. “Wolf? First name or last?”
“Either,” Cato said flatly, eyes boring into the young man.
The clerk drummed fingers against the counter top, teeth tugging gently at his bottom lip. He glanced at the money again. “Aw, hell, anyone can tell you, I reckon. Fact is, you tangled with two of his men outside the store there. Wolf Duane’s the hombre you want. Big cattleman hereabouts. Fights with everyone. Right now he ain’t gettin’ along so well with a lumber company that’s workin’ range he uses for winter graze.”
“He drive his steers to Cheyenne?”
“Sure. Closest market. Easier trail than down to Denver.”
“He been there recent? Cheyenne, I mean?”
“Said he was goin’ in for the openin’ of that new railroad. I dunno if he went or not. Some of his men’ve been hangin’ around town for a spell, so it’s likely he’s been away.”
“Sounds like the man I want. Where’s he hang out?”
“His spread’s way back in the hills, called the Diamond-D, and he runs a bunch of hardcases. I dunno just where it is, though. They might tell you over at the saloon. They get more custom from him than I do.”
Cato nodded, peeled off some bills and dropped them into the clerk’s hand. He hefted his warbag, jiggled the keys in his hand and started up the stairs towards room eleven.
He turned and called back over his shoulder, “Send up some hot water, amigo.” He smiled wryly. “You can take it out of that little bonus I just paid you.”
The clerk waved acknowledgement and went through a doorway behind the counter, calling for someone named ‘Cindy’. Cato continued on up to his room and the Indian girl came shortly with a tin hip bath and followed it with two wooden pails of steaming water. She was slim and sloe-eyed and sober-faced, dressed in a long buckskin dress, her raven hair spilling halfway down to her waist, held in place by a beaded headband. She didn’t answer any of Cato’s mildly curious questions. He told her to bring him another pail of water and a bigger cake of lye soap. She went out silently and he stripped down and stepped into the tub and sighed as the warm water crept up his limbs as he lowered himself slowly. He grabbed the small piece of soap the girl had left him and proceeded to lather up. The suds and bubbles were more profuse than usual and he figured it must be the ‘softness’ of the snow fed water up here. He washed his hair and winced when soap ran down into his eyes. While he groped for a towel to wipe it out, he heard the room door open.
“Hey, if that water ain’t too hot, pour it over my head, will you?” he called urgently. “Damn soap’s burnin’ my eyeballs.”
Icy water was sluiced over him and, gasping, he opened his eyes, and saw the heavy wooden pail swing up again and next instant there was a bone-jarring crash against his skull and the world seemed to explode around him.