Less than a half hour after Slocum sat down in Room 6, there was a loud, insistent knock on his door.
A sardonic smile flickered on his lips as he rose to open his door.
“Constable Hellinger,” he said as the door widened.
Hellinger’s hand was raised to knock again. Beside him stood another man, rotund, with a cherubic face and a rosy-tipped nose, who sported a tin badge on his vest and baggy sharkskin trousers.
Behind them, across the hall, men were removing the bodies. They grumbled and grunted as they laid out canvas stretchers and hefted the bodies onto them.
And Stacey stood beside the constable, tangled auburn hair, lipstick all but worn off, and swollen red-rimmed eyes. Her blouse was askew and her skirt slightly wrinkled. She smiled wanly at Slocum, but he could see that her heart wasn’t in it.
Slocum stepped to one side and the trio swept past him. Hellinger was all eyes as he glanced around the room.
“This is my deputy, Elmer Craig,” Hellinger said, “and you already know the young lady.”
“Have a chair, Constable, Elmer. Stacey, maybe you want to lie down.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, a sobbing catch in her voice.
“So far she’s cleared you, Slocum. I’m taking her to my office to write out and sign a statement of the events here.”
Stacey lay facedown on Slocum’s bed, burying her head in the pillow.
“There were three of them. Wolf Steiner’s men. I let one go. The father of the two women.”
“You know, Slocum, you’re filling up the undertaker’s shop all by yourself. You’re a one-man army.”
Slocum shrugged.
Elmer Craig stood by and kept gazing over at the bed, like a watchdog.
“How many more are you going to provide for the funeral parlor?”
“Wolf Steiner is jumping claims all over the place,” Slocum said. “He’s killed at least two miners that I know of. And he’s in cahoots with Abel Fogarty and his secretary, Clara, who’s the mother of those twin gals.”
“I know, I know. But the law requires proof. And I haven’t had the chance to check Fogarty’s files to see if he’s dirty.”
“Oh, he’s dirty all right.”
“But you ain’t the law.” Hellinger threw up his hands in exasperation. One of his hands struck the brim of his hat and tilted it off center. He didn’t bother to straighten it.
“Justice runs slow sometimes,” Slocum said.
“Looks to me like you’re takin’ some of the law into your own hands.”
“Just defending myself.”
“Not at Lou Darvin’s you weren’t,” Hellinger snapped.
“One of them cold-cocked Lou and the others shot young Jasper. I call it Citizen Justice. Kind of like a citizen’s arrest.”
“We got law here,” Abner argued. “And I’m it.”
“You’ve got civilization here, Constable. And with civilization, you get both law and lawlessness. When the law’s not handy, a man has to become the law.”
“That’s what you think, Slocum?” Abner was on the border of belligerence.
“That’s what I know, Mr. Hellinger. There was no law at Lou’s. There was no law across the hall when those men busted in with guns cocked and ready to shoot me.”
“That’s so, maybe. But Durango’s a town, or almost a town, and they hired me to keep the peace and defend its laws.”
“If you want to take credit, go ahead,” Slocum said. “If you want me to stop defending myself, I won’t.”
“I don’t want you takin’ the law into your own hands,” Abner said.
“Then you either deputize me, or speed up your investigation of Steiner and Fogarty.”
“I got me one deputy, Craig here, and maybe one more I can count on in a pinch, so I go with what I got.”
“And you don’t need another deputy,” Slocum said.
Abner squared his hat and glared at Slocum.
“I don’t want a gunslinger wearin’ a badge in Durango,” he said. “And that’s what you are, Slocum, a damned gunslinger, plain as day.”
“I’m a horse trader, Constable. But I know right from wrong.”
“I ain’t goin’ to argue with you no more,” Abner said. “Next time you’re by my office, step in and give me a written account about killin’ those men at Lou’s and the ones across the hall. Seems to me you knew they were comin’ after you, and you just ambushed them before they ambushed you.”
Hellinger stood up.
“That the way it looks?” Slocum asked.
“Yep. That’s the way it looks at this point. You rented a room across from the one you had and you waited for them men to come after you.”
“I knew they were coming for me. I just didn’t want a mess in my room.”
“Haw,” Abner snorted as he got up from his chair. “In the eyes of the law, that’s entrapment, Slocum.”
“In my eyes, it was a little old ace in the hole, Constable.”
“Craig, get the gal. We’re goin’,” Abner said.
Elmer walked back to the bed and touched Stacey on the shoulder. She turned over.
“Time to go, miss,” he said.
Stacey got up and walked with Elmer to where Hellinger stood.
“That little old ace in the hole is goin’ to get you killed yet, Slocum. You’ll die a cardsharp with a busted flush.”
“Good evening, Constable. Mr. Craig.” Slocum stood up and then looked at Stacey. “Good luck to you, Stacey,” he said. “Again, I’m sorry about Lacey.”
“Oh, you . . .” she snarled and turned her back on Slocum.
He closed and locked his door after the three of them had left his room. Across the hall, the last stretcher borne by two men in work clothes left the room with their cargo. One of them carried a sack with pistols that clanked together. They left the door open, and Slocum could see dried blood on the floor.
Slocum waited until there was silence in the hall.
He was in no hurry, but he still wanted to hunt Wolf down and call him out. He knew where he lived now and he went over what he would do in his mind. Wolf would not be easy. But he was running out of guns for protection. No doubt Clemson had given him Slocum’s message and he would be ready for whatever came his way.
Well, there was more than one way to skin a cat. Or a snake.
Slocum checked his pistol once again. The cylinder was fully loaded.
He was about to leave when there was another knock on his door. Light taps, such as a woman might make.
His eyebrows arched.
Well, he thought, it was still early. Maybe that was a woman tapping on his door.
He could not imagine who it might be as he walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it.
There, in the dim light of the hall, stood a woman, all right. But it was the last person he would have expected at that early hour of the evening.
He smiled.
“Come on in,” he said.
A thousand thoughts roiled in his mind.
Some of the thoughts were downright lewd.