Travis met her in the lobby of the hotel. Her room was on the first floor and his on the second. The owner had seemed to be happier with them separated by that much space. Travis had wanted them on the same floor, in neighboring rooms, but she hadn’t cared about the arrangement, so he let it stand. Now Crockett sat on one of the ornate couches with a high back and intricately carved feet. She glanced up, almost shyly, as Travis approached her.
“Now what?” she asked.
“I’m going to circulate and see what I can learn. Maybe hit a saloon or two and listen to the talk. See if there is anyone interested in Spanish gold or in Apaches. Especially in the Apaches.”
“And war news,” she said.
Travis shot her a glance. “Why the war news?”
“My brother is fighting in the war. He’s with Robert E. Lee and the Army of Virginia.”
Travis had heard that he had faced the Army of Virginia at Gettysburg. He thought of all the young men in gray uniforms killed as they tried to take Cemetery Ridge from the Federal forces. He thought of the dead men and the wounded men and young blood staining the sun-dried fields.
“I’ll see if I can buy a paper,” he said.
“Hurry back,” she said, smiling.
Travis turned and walked out the door. El Paso was a busy town in the middle of the day. The sidewalks were crowded with people—men, women, and children. The streets were filled with horses and wagons. Men stood in knots outside the marshal’s office, the newspaper office, and the saloons, talking. A few women stood close to the general store or the dry goods company. Kids, as always, were running around chasing one another or a stray dog or anything else they could find.
Travis stood there for a moment and then stepped into the street. He walked across to the newspaper office where the latest war news was tacked to a board near the door. It was the story of a battle, drawn in the broad strokes of a headline writer that told him nothing but were designed only to attract interest. For the details, a newspaper was needed.
And there was news from the territories all around them. Word of an Indian attack in New Mexico. A stage station burned and three people killed “most horribly.”
But there was no talk of gold. No talk of the Spanish leaving their mark on Texas or the string of missions they built throughout the Southwest. Travis moved closer to the men and eavesdropped. They were more concerned with the way the war was going. The tides seemed to be turning with Lee’s retreat from Pennsylvania. Some were afraid of an invasion from the North while others said that no Yankees would live to cross the border into Texas.
Travis turned and walked toward one of the saloons. Two men sat in chairs outside, watching the people walk by them. Another man sat at the edge of the boardwalk whittling. He was sharpening a stick, the shavings falling around his feet.
Travis walked into the saloon and saw half a dozen men standing at the bar drinking. There was a table pushed into a corner where another five men were playing cards. A single woman with light-colored hair stood behind one of the men, watching the game carefully.
He dropped a couple of coins on the bar and said, “Whiskey.”
The bartender put a shot glass in front of him, filled it, and then backed off. Travis downed the drink in one swallow and slammed the glass back to the bar. “Again.”
He took the drink and drifted toward the cardplayers. Travis knew that he had to be careful about where he stood. If any of the players thought that he could see their cards and was signaling to someone else, things could get ugly. He took a position near the stairs where he could listen to the bets and watch the players but where it would be nearly impossible for him to see any of the cards.
“You get me a beer, dear,” said one of the players, turning to the lone woman. He reached out and ran a hand up the outside of her leg.
As she moved away, two men entered the saloon. Travis glanced at them, then away, and suddenly back at them. He recognized them immediately.
“Damn,” he said. He drained the whiskey, looked around, and then set the glass on the stairs, pushing it over so that it was under the railing. Then, without looking, he ran up the steps, taking them two at a time.
He reached the top and walked down the hallway. One side was lined with doors but the other was open so that he looked down into the saloon. The two men had pushed their way to the bar and had both ordered whiskey. The bartender was standing close, a bottle in his hand.
They drank for a moment and then turned, looking around. Their eyes fell on the card game and they drifted toward it, watching as another hand was dealt.
“Hello,” said a voice.
Travis turned and saw a woman standing in an open door. She wore very little. Her hair was tangled. She grinned broadly and touched herself between the breasts, drawing his attention to them. Travis tried not to look.
“You interested in some fun?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then what you doing up here?”
Travis tried to look beyond her, into the interior of the room. He could see a bed that hadn’t been made. There was a chest with a cloth on top of it and a china bowl with a pitcher inside it.
“Can I get out through there?”
“Now why would you want to do that?” she asked, grinning broadly.
“That’s all I want right now,” said Travis. “Can I get out that way?”
“You don’t mind dropping off the top of the porch, you can get out that way.”
Travis started to push past her but she grabbed his arm. “You go into my room it’s going to cost you four bits.”
“I just want to get out.”
“Doesn’t matter. You enter my room and it costs you four bits.” She held out a hand, still grinning. “It’s four bits if you walk right through and four bits if you stop for a few minutes for a little fun.”
Travis looked into her eyes. Hard eyes. Unfeeling eyes. She didn’t care what happened as long as she got her money. He dug in his pocket, found a coin and gave it to her. He held up another so that she could see it and said, “I was never here. You never saw me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen anyone in the last hour.”
Travis nodded and dropped the coin into her palm. He closed the door behind him and moved to the window. As he reached it, he was aware of the odors in the room. It smelled like the inside of a lion’s den after someone had sprayed it with perfume. It was dark in the room with the shades drawn. There were clothes on the floor. Shoes near the clothes. And there was a playbill hanging on the wall announcing a performance in the opera house in Denver.
Travis pushed the shades aside and opened the window. The air from outside seemed to be so fresh. He took a deep breath and then looked at the top of the porch. He climbed out, stood for a moment making sure that it wouldn’t collapse under his weight. He moved to the edge, climbed over the waist-high railing, and dropped down to the back alley. There was rotting garbage piled in it. The odor of it, and from the outhouse off to the side, overpowered the stench from the stables close by.
Travis hesitated there, and then moved around the corner where he could look out onto the street. No one was paying him any attention. He slipped along the side of the building and then joined into the circulating crowds.
Looking back, he could see that no one had left the saloon. Another couple of men entered it, but no one came out. He didn’t think the two men had spotted him. They had just wandered in for a drink. They hadn’t looked up at him.
Travis hurried back to the hotel. He found Crockett sitting where he’d left her. She was staring out the window, not seeing much of anything out there. She was fanning herself with a piece of folded paper.
Approaching her, he said, “We’ve got a problem.”
“Yes?”
“I saw two men I recognized. I saw them in Sweetwater.”
“The ones who killed my father?”
Travis studied her for a moment. He knew what she was thinking. She’d want to turn them into the marshal, and then they’d be stuck in El Paso for weeks as they waited to testify against them. There was a chance that they’d be acquitted if their friends lived in El Paso. Back in Sweetwater, they might hang. In El Paso, they might be freed to walk the street looking for revenge. There was no percentage to accusing them in El Paso. Not since he was alone against two.
“No,” he lied, feeling as if he were betraying a friend. A real friend. “They’re not the ones, but they were around to hear the story of Spanish gold.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re here?”
Travis shook his head. “No. Your father spent an afternoon and evening spinning his stories of Spanish gold. A lot of men heard the stories.”
“You think they followed us?”
“I don’t know.” Travis sat down next to her. He kept his eyes on the floor. “The marshal in Sweetwater told me where to find you but only because I said I’d take you father’s possessions to you. No one else knew that. They’d have had to be on the trail to follow me and I didn’t see anyone back there.” His mind was racing as he tried to figure it all out.
But as he thought about it, he knew that it wasn’t quite true. Someone had taken a shot at him almost in sight of Sweetwater. As he’d ridden toward Hammetsville, and then on to El Paso, he hadn’t been looking for anyone following him. He’d done nothing to disguise the trail. Someone could have been following him and he might not have seen them, especially if they were trying to keep out of sight.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence that they’re here in El Paso,” said Crockett.
“I’m not sure I believe in coincidence,” said Travis. “At least not ones like this.”
“There’s not many places to go from Sweetwater.”
“Northeast to Dallas or southeast to New Orleans,” said Travis. “Lots more of interest in those two towns.”
“Unless you’ve heard a story of Spanish gold,” said Crockett.
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Travis. “El Paso is the perfect place to begin the search.”
She looked at him, still fanning herself. “My father, if he could get someone to buy the whiskey, would keep talking. Hesitate with the money and he’d tell a little more so that the whiskey would continue to flow. He’d tell everything he knew in an evening if someone kept buying.”
“So those men could easily know the general location and they’d know that El Paso was the starting point.”
“I think so.”
Travis rubbed a hand over his face. “Then what we need to do is get out of here now. Before they learn that you’re here, too.”
“No,” said Travis, “but they might recognize me, and they know that I heard the story of the gold. We’ve got to lay low and get out tonight.”
“There are things we need to buy.”
Travis nodded. They’d planned on re-supplying in El Paso. But he hadn’t counted on seeing others from Sweetwater. He knew that those two men were in the saloon drinking. If they hurried, they could get the supplies bought, have dinner in the hotel, and then ride out under the cover of darkness.
“No more than an hour,” said Travis. “We get everything arranged in an hour and then meet back here.”
She looked at him carefully and asked, “Are you sure those aren’t the men who killed my father?”
Feeling like a jerk, he looked her right in the eye and lied to her. “They’re not the same ones.”
“One hour then,” she said, standing.