After a moment there was a light tap on the door and, stepping across to the door's side, my hand on my gun, I asked, "Who is it?"
"A letter for you, sir. It arrived yesterday, but I expected to see you at the desk."
"Slip it under the door."
There was a moment's hesitation, and then the letter appeared. It was addressed in a flowing masculine hand, one I had never seen before.
Ripping open the brown envelope, I found a sealed letter within, and with it a short note. I read the note first.
Mr. Sackett, Dear Sir:
When the mail from the stage you saw wrecked in the canyon was brought to us it was found to contain this letter to you, addressed in care of me. As it may be of importance, I am sending it forward.
Hardy.
Then I opened the letter, and when I unfolded the closely written pages, I saw that it was from Ange.
Dropping upon the bed, I read it through, which I could do with a bit of work, for I'd little enough time at school in my boyhood, and read but slowly.
She had been ill. ... She was well. ...
Did I wish her to come back? And then almost in the next sentence ... she was coming back. She would take the first stage. She would meet me in Prescott.
I folded up the letter and thrust it into my pants pocket. Then I pulled the pants off and got into bed. Drawing the blankets up, I stretched out carefully, for the bed was made for a shorter sleeper than I, and slowly I let my long body relax against the comfort of the mattress.
Ange ... my own Ange ... Ange was coming west. She would meet me in Prescott.
Then I sat bolt upright.
Ange would meet me in Prescott, where I would be arriving with another woman!
Presently I lay back on the bed and tried to relax once more, but no matter how I tried ...
Suddenly, I was wide awake. Somehow I had fallen asleep, but something, some faint noise, had awakened me in spite of my exhaustion. Starting to move, I caught myself in time. Somebody was in the room.
The door was closed. The window was open the merest crack, yet somebody was inside the room.
A faint creak told me that whoever it was stood right beside the bed. Through the slit of a scarcely opened eye I saw the loom of a dark figure, the faint gleam of light on a knife blade, and I threw myself against him, knocking him back to the floor.
Choking with fear and fury, I rolled on top of him and grabbed at his knife wrist, bending it sharply back toward the floor. I grabbed him by the belt with the other hand and heaved myself up, lifting him with me, and swung him bodily at the window.
With a tremendous crash of glass he went through it and I heard a wild, despairing yell, then the thud as he struck in the street below.
The door, I then noticed, was ever so slightly ajar. Pushing it shut, I shot the bolt and went back to bed. Cold night air blew through the broken window. Vaguely I heard excited talk in the street below ... but I decided I wasn't interested.
Presently heavy boots rushed up the hall and there was a frenzied knocking at my door.
Lifting my head, I said, "Damn it, go away! Can't a man sleep around here?"
Somebody started to reply, and I added, "If I have to get out of bed again, somebody else goes into the street. Now you goin' to leave me be?"
There was a subdued murmur, then quiet footsteps going off down the hall. I pulled the blankets around me, and in a few minutes I was asleep.
It was broad daylight when I woke up.
Sunlight was streaming in through the broken window, and I got out of bed. Still a mite foggy from the heavy sleep, I went to the basin, washed, and dressed.
When I had pulled on my shirt I looked out of the window, but there was nothing in the street to show where anybody had fallen.
Now one thought and one only was in my mind. Today I was going to see Sandeman Dyer.
When I came down the steps it looked like everybody was waiting for me. The manager of the hotel--leastways I figured it to be him-- came up and told me I'd have to pay for breaking the window.
"Breaking the window? Mister, I broke no window. I didn't even touch it. If you want to get paid, you find the man who went through it. You collect from him."
He started to argue, and I said, "Look, mister, I don't like to get mad. Last night was once, and far's I can see, that's enough. Maybe I should point out that you got bigger windows down here."
Well, he kind of drew back, but I stepped right after him. "Also, you might spend some of the time you seem to have to waste after me and find out how that thief had a key ... and he had one. You in the habit of givin' keys to thieves?"
I'd spoken loud, and several of the folks standing about moved closer to listen. That man began to worry.
"Ssh!" he said. He was all of a flutter to get shut of me now. "Forget it. I am afraid I was mistaken." And he hurried off.
I turned then to look at those people around me and I said, "Anybody here know where I can find a man named Dyer? Sandeman Dyer?"
Nobody seemed to know a thing. You never saw such vague folks in your born days. Everybody had been interested up to that point, and then nobody was. In less than two minutes after I spoke that name the lobby was empty.
I went outside, where sunlight lay on the dusty street and upon the walks. Pausing on the corner, I looked across the Plaza in the direction of Sonora town ... an unlikely place to look for Dyer.
Closer to me was the Calle de los Negros, better known as Nigger Alley, and Tao's gambling house.
Taking my time, I strolled here and there about the town, looking into store windows and watching the horse cars. Most of them seemed to be going out Spring Street to a place called Washington Gardens.
On the streets the folks themselves were a sight to behold, and when it came to the Californios themselves, you never saw such a dressed-up lot of folks. Many wore short jackets of silk, figured calico, or beaded buckskin, white linen shirts open at the neck, black silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely around the neck, and pants of velveteen or broadcloth, or sometimes of beautifully tanned white buckskin, and nearly every one wore a silk sash, usually bright red. The serapes ranged from Indian blankets to fine broadcloth.
The handsome outfits these men had, made me look a poor mountain boy, even in my new twelve-dollar suit. Why, I fancy it must have taken a thousand dollars or more to get some of them dressed. And their saddles and bridles! You never saw so much silver. And two-thirds of them, I was sure, with dirt floors in their houses.
Here and there you still saw men with long hair, and some of them with it not just to their shoulders. In some cases it was braided. The younger ones had taken to trimming their hair, Anglo fashion, but not all of them.
Everywhere a body looked there were black-eyed se@noritas, flirting with you with quick, teasing glances that made the red climb right up a man's neck. Me, I already had two women on my hands, when I wasn't fairly used to one, and more trouble shaping up than you could shake a stick at.
As I went about the town, everybody I asked about Sandeman Dyer was warning me about him. But I was more fearful of what would happen when I rode into Prescott with that black-eyed witch girl and found Ange a-waiting for me than I was of what was ahead of me right now. Ange was a red-haired girl, and she was one with a mind of her own, and she'd had will enough to survive in the high-up mountains of Colorado before I found her there.
[Sackett, Bantam Books, 1961.]
Suddenly a rider turned into Main Street from Spring, and I saw it was that black-eyed gunman who had been at Old Ben's ranch. He rode past, not noticing me, heading for the Calle de los Negros. He would be going to Dyer, I could lay a bet on it.
But just as I turned to follow, a voice spoke behind me. "You take my advice and you'll leave Dyer alone."
It was Nolan Sackett.