There was no one in the lobby of the hotel when Slocum and Clara stopped to leave his key at the clerk’s counter. A sign on the counter said the clerk was out for thirty minutes, with no explanation.
Slocum’s saddlebags were slung over his left shoulder, along with a wooden canteen. Before he left the room, he had hidden his belly gun at his waist behind his belt buckle, and he carried his Winchester in his left hand. He felt weighted down on one side, and the only counterbalance was his hotel key.
There was a slot where room keys could be dropped so that they would not lie on the counter for anyone to take. Slocum dropped his key through the slot. He heard it strike other keys.
“This is one of the hotels where you should sleep with a gun close by your bed,” Slocum said.
“It’s not the Ritz,” Clara said.
They walked outside and looked up at the stars, the satin black sky with the Milky Way a sprawl of sparkling jewels, the moon not yet risen.
Slocum sniffed. He reeked of Clara’s musk and it was a satisfying aroma. She was some woman, he thought. Wasted for all those years. Deprived of affection and loving. It was a dirty shame.
“You keep your horse at the livery, Clara?” Slocum asked.
She nodded. “I try to see her almost every day. A bay mare I call Rose, only because the name seems to fit her. She’s a dark bay with three white stockings.”
“Let’s saddle up and ride over to Wolf’s. See if he wants some company.”
“If he’s there, he’ll have a man or two watching for you,” she said.
“Are you a good shot with that two-dollar pistol?” Slocum asked.
“It cost more than two dollars, John. And yes, I’m a good shot. With either pistol or rifle.”
“Ever kill a man? Or a woman?” he asked.
Clara shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Big game?”
“I’ve shot deer and elk. I’ve got good eyes.”
“Who taught you to shoot?” he asked.
“Wolf,” she said with a wry smile on her lips. “But he doesn’t know I have this pistol. And he never gave me a gun of my own.”
“Do you know why?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want me to use a gun on him,” she said. “I bought the pistol from a passing drummer we ran into when we were outrunning a posse in Kansas. Wolf was off shooting at rattlesnakes and prairie chickens, and I had saved money from my allowance. I paid the drummer five dollars and fifty cents for that pistol, and I practiced shooting it every time Wolf wasn’t around. When I bought groceries for the gang, I bought cartridges for my Smith & Wesson.”
“Smart woman,” he said. Then he hitched his belt and straightened his holster. “Let’s go saddle up and pay Wolf a visit,” he said.
Just then, they both heard a resounding explosion. A gunshot that rattled the windows of the hotel.
It came from the saloon.
Both Slocum and Clara turned at the sound of the shot and stared down the street where the saloon’s windows sprayed a dull yellow light onto the dirt street.
Slocum saw a man on horseback and another horse, saddled, sidling back and forth at the end of the reins in the mounted man’s hands.
Seconds later, a man dashed out of the shadows and hauled himself up into the saddle of the unmanned horse. They turned and trotted up the street toward them. The horses broke into a gallop and the two men passed by.
“That’s Wolf,” Clara gasped.
“Who’s with him?” Slocum asked.
“Looked like Hobart. Yes, it was Hobart, I’m sure.”
They both ran toward the saloon. They saw the people emerging from it and huddle up at one corner. They reached the edge of the crowd.
“Wait here,” Slocum said, and elbowed his way through the small mob. They were all looking downward.
Then Slocum broke through the bar patrons and saw what they were looking at on the ground. He recognized the distinctive dress first. Then he saw her face, which was starting to sag and change shape.
He saw Amy Sullivan lying dead, a bullet hole in her forehead. He pushed the people away and stooped over to look at her. There was brain matter in her hair at the back of her head. A dark pool was beneath her head. Her eyes were open and glazed. He saw that much, even in the hazy light from the saloon.
He cursed under his breath and made his way back through the pushing crowd of gawkers.
Clara’s face was drawn when he took her by the arm and led her away from the saloon.
“Somebody dead?” she asked.
“Yes,” Slocum said. “The woman who was in charge of the girls in the saloon.”
“Amy?”
“Yes, Amy. You knew her?”
“I spoke to her a few times. She was nice. Is—is she dead, really?”
“Really. Shot in the forehead.”
Clara stifled a sob.
“Wolf,” she breathed, and then she was running with Slocum toward the livery stable. They had to cut between buildings for several blocks.
By the time they reached the livery stable, she was out of breath. And she was stunned that a pretty woman like Amy Sullivan had been shot dead. Even if Wolf had done it.
“Why would he shoot that woman?” Clara asked as they entered the lantern-lit stables with its musky smell and the sounds of horses moving and eating in their stalls.
Benito emerged from a stall and turned over a shovel to spill horse feces into a wheelbarrow. He looked toward them.
“Ah, you have come to see your horse, Mr. Slocum,” Benito said as Slocum strode into the cone of yellowish lantern light. “And you bring Miss Morgan with you.”
“Fetch our horses, Benito, and we’re in a hurry,” he said.
“The tack room is still open and you can see to get your saddles, bridles, and blankets,” he said. “Your horses are right here. I will get them.”
As Slocum and Clara walked to the tack room, Slocum leaned toward her and whispered an answer to her question.
“Amy died because she helped me,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”
Slocum tried to quell the grief he felt for Amy. To see such a vibrant, giving woman lying dead on a dirty street infused him with an overwhelming sadness. And now, with Clara’s scent all over his body, he felt Amy’s tragic death even more acutely. She died, he knew, with his own scent on her, and perhaps his seed still inside her. In the shadow of his grief was a boiling anger, a hatred so deep and so strong it threatened to cloud his judgment.
He wanted to kill Wolf now. Which went against his grain. For his warning to Wolf had been that if he left town, he would live.
But he would break that promise.
Wolf did not deserve to live another day. He had brutally murdered a fine young woman, a beautiful woman, and that was a sin none could forgive.
As he waited for Ferro to be brought to him, Slocum felt as if he were in some kind of limbo, a place between heaven and hell, a no-man’s-land where all was desolate and barren, a wasteland on which only he stood, alone with his black thoughts and his growing hatred for a man he had never met, an evil that was like a cancer on the earth.
This, he knew, was a dangerous place to be. For in his anger, there was a blindness, too, a wall against reality. Wolf was a dangerous man, and to hunt him down and kill him would take all of his concentration, all of his will, and all of his clarity of mind and thinking.
His anger could dull his senses, slow his gun hand down, block his acute and accurate vision so that he could not beat Wolf, but would likely be defeated by him.
Clara tugged on his arm as if he had fallen asleep while standing up.
“Our horses, John,” she said. “Benny has our horses.”
He turned toward her as if he had just been jolted out of a deep slumber.
But he knew where he had been. He had been at Wolf’s throat, ripping it out with his bare hands and cursing the man, damning him to an eternal hell where fires lapped at his flesh and consumed him for all eternity.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was just thinking.”
“About Wolf,” she said.
“Partly,” he replied, and saw Ferro bob his head and stamp the ground with his right hoof.
And there was Clara’s bay mare, alongside his tall black horse, looking at her with wide brown eyes and nickering softly.
They saddled the horses as Benito watched.
“Did Wolf say where he was going?” Slocum asked Aguilar.
“No. He just asked for grain. I gave him two quarts.”
Slocum thought about that. A hatful for each horse, Wolf’s and Hobart’s. No more than a day’s ride from town.
Slocum and Clara got grain from Benito and walked the horses outside the stables.
Slocum waved to Benito as he mounted Ferro, checked his rifle to see that it was securely seated in its scabbard.
“I’ve got jerky and hardtack in my saddlebags if you get hungry,” he said to Clara.
“Right now, I’m on fire inside,” she said. “I couldn’t think about eating anything.”
“Just to let you know I won’t let you starve, Clara.”
She laughed.
“Do you know where Wolf is going?” she asked. “Maybe up in the mountains where he can lie in wait and bushwhack us?”
“I don’t think he’s going to do that,” Slocum said.
“Where, then?”
“My guess is that he’s headed for Pagosa Springs. So we ride east on the road and keep our eyes peeled in case he’s waiting to jump anybody who’s chasing him.”
“Good guess,” she said. “Wolf might want to hole up in a town. A small town like Pagosa Springs.”
“We won’t hurry this,” Slocum said. “He and Hobart will run their horses until they’re winded and then slow down. They’ll watch their back trail. The more time we give him, the more sure of himself he’ll get. He’ll let his guard down some maybe, and won’t be expecting me or a posse.”
“He’s very good at outrunning posses,” she said.
“We’ll see how good he is,” Slocum said.
They rode through the nearly empty spaces between houses and cabins and up the main street into the maw of a canyon that was as dark as pitch.
Every so often, Slocum halted his horse and held out an arm to stop Clara. Then he sat his horse and listened for any alien sound.
Clara grew more confident that Slocum knew what he was doing as she watched his behavior on the trail of Wolf and Hobart.
She felt safe with him, as she had never felt with Wolf or any of his men. And she was still glowing from the lovemaking that had renewed her vigor and rejuvenated her womanhood. Slocum had made her feel like a real person again, a dead flower that had suddenly sprung to life under the warming waters of love.
They rode up the dark canyon above and to the east of Durango. They heard the wolves howl from various locations, and when they stopped, they could hear deer and elk up in the timber, the hundreds of sounds from small animals foraging for food in the night. And they saw a silent owl float across the road, its wings spread wide and softly beating the dark air.
Somewhere, ahead of them, was the man they both hated.
The man they both wanted to kill.
Wolf Steiner.
A plague upon the earth, a monster, a murderer.
And both of them wanted him dead for different reasons.