ELEVEN
Clint decided to stay at a hotel for one night, see what he could find out in town. He started by putting Eclipse in a livery, then asking the liveryman about anyone with an Irish accent.
“Irish,” the old man said. “I got no use for Irish. Yeah, there was one here last week.”
“And you haven’t seen any others?”
“No,” the man said, “if there was another one, he musta put his horse someplace else.”
“Did the man say where he was going, or which way he was heading, when he left?”
“He didn’t talk to me,” the old man said. “He just came, got his horse, and left.”
“You didn’t see which way he went?”
“I just went back to work, mister,” the liveryman said. “I don’t go and check to see which way my customers go when they leave here. Far as I’m concerned, that’s their business, ain’t it?”
“Yep,” Clint said, “it sure is.”
Clint turned to leave and the man called, “Wait a minute.”
“What is it?”
The old man came closer.
“The Irishman, he had me re-shoe his horse while he was here.”
“And?”
“The shoes I used were ones I had taken from another horse that died,” the man said. “They were new, so when the animal . . . well, anyway, I sold them to the Irishman and reused them.”
“And?” Clint said again.
The old man walked away, came back with a plain shoe.
“The ones I gave him have a small triangle—here.” He showed Clint the spot, at the very bottom of the U-shape. “Anybody wanting to track this man would have no problem, I think.”
If McBeth had been the one being tracked instead of the man doing the tracking himself, Clint might have thought the old liveryman had marked him deliberately.
“Why would someone make shoes that were marked like that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the man said. “It might have been the duplicate of a brand.”
Clint looked down at the ground. If there were any of McBeth’s tracks there, they had long since been trampled, but outside of town it would be a different story.
“Okay, Pop,” Clint said. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Clint left the livery.
He found a poker game that night, played quietly, and listened to the men at the table talk to one another. Clint also eavesdropped on conversations going on around him. Nobody mentioned an Irishman.
Toward the end of the night, though, he was standing at the bar after having won fifty dollars in the small poker game when a girl standing near him mentioned an Irishman.
“. . . big, and mean,” she said, talking to another girl. “And he liked hurtin’ me. I was sore for days.”
“Excuse me,” Clint said.
The girl speaking was a short blonde. When she turned, Clint saw that she was very buxom. The girl she was talking to was tall and dark-haired, with a nose that was a little too big for an otherwise lovely face.
“Want some company, honey?” the dark-haired girl asked.
“No, thanks,” Clint said, “I couldn’t help overhearing what your friend, here, was saying.”
“I got work to do,” the dark-haired girl said, and left.
“The Irishman you were talking about,” Clint said to the blonde. “When was he here?”
“I don’t know. A couple, maybe three weeks ago.”
“Not last week?”
“No,” she said, “definitely not last week.” She laughed. “If it was, I’d still be sore.”
“Can you tell me what he did to you?”
She looked around, almost shyly, and then said, “Well . . . not here.”
“Look,” he said, “it’s important. Where can we talk?”
“Where are you staying?”
“At the hotel right across the street.”
“A-all right,” she said. “I’ll come to your room when I’m finished here. It’ll be later, though.”
“That’s okay,” Clint said. “I’ll be awake. What’s your name?”
“Eve.”
“My name’s Clint,” he said.
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours, Clint.”
“Thanks, Eve.”
He left the saloon and went to his room to wait.