No one responded.
“Anyone know these two boys?”
“I never saw either one of them before today,” Greer said. “Do you know them?”
“No, I don’t,” the sheriff replied.
“Can we take them now, Sheriff?” Gene asked.
The sheriff nodded. “Yeah, go ahead.” He looked out over the saloon. “Anybody see what happened?”
Nobody responded.
“Come on, there are what—ten of you here? Ten of you in a room no bigger than this, but not one of you saw anything?”
“I saw it,” Cole said, speaking up.
Cole glanced over toward Cates, and saw that the gunman had interrupted his game of solitaire and was now staring at him with his small, dark, obsidian eyes.
“Well, finally I get someone who isn’t blind,” the sheriff said. “All right, mister, tell me. What did you see?”
“It looked to me like the two men Mr. Cates killed had something they wanted to prove,” Cole said.
“Something to prove? What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to prove that they weren’t scared of Mr. Cates or something. I mean, I can’t think of any other reason why they would have wanted to goad him into a gunfight.”
“Wait a minute,” the sheriff said. “Are you telling me that these two men goaded Cates?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“How did they do that?”
“Well, first, they sat at his table, and when they were asked, real friendly like by the bartender here, to change tables, they didn’t do it.”
“That’s right, Sheriff, I asked them, real nice, if they would please change tables,” Greer said.
“Go on,” the sheriff said to Cole.
“And then, when Mr. Cates asked them if they would mind changin’ tables, and he asked them just as friendly as the bartender did, well, they challenged him to a fight.”
“The two men challenged Cates?”
“That’s right. I reckon they thought that, bein’ as there was two of ’em, they could beat him,” Cole said.
“Anyone in here see it any different than that?” the sheriff asked.
“No, Sheriff, if you ask me, I’d say that’s just the way it happened,” Greer said.
“Looked that way to me, too,” one of the other patrons said.
The sheriff shook his head. “If that’s so, how come none of you spoke up when I asked you?”
“I was just fixin’ to speak up when this feller did,” the saloon patron said.
“Yeah, me, too,” Greer added. “I was fixin’ to tell you the same thing that this here fella said.”
The sheriff looked at Cates. “Mr. Cates, I don’t know how much longer you’re planning on staying in La Vita, but I’ll be one happy fella when you leave.”
Cates took a drink of his beer and stared at the sheriff, but he said nothing.
The sheriff left then, and the moment he left, the others in the saloon started talking, nearly every one of them at once, replaying the exciting event they had witnessed.
“Boom, boom,” one of the patrons said, making a pistol with his hand as he demonstrated. “They were that fast that I thought he’d only shot one time.”
“And he hit both of them, right square in the heart,” one of the others said.
“I wonder what them two boys was doin’, challengin’ Cates like they done?”
Cole did not join in any of the conversations, but waited for a few minutes before he walked over to Cates’s table. He stood there for a moment, expecting Cates to look up, but Cates didn’t look up.
“If you’re thinkin’ I owe you somethin’ for what you said to the sheriff, you are wrong,” Cates said. “I don’t owe you nothin’.” Cates continued to study the cards.
“Red eight on the black nine,” Cole suggested.
Cates made the move. “I don’t owe you nothin’ for that either,” he said.
Cole put a one-hundred-dollar bill on the table in front of him.
Cates picked the bill up, examined it for a moment, then, for the first time since Cole approached the table, looked up at him.
“What is this for?” he asked.
“To get your attention,” Cole replied.
Cates took a swallow of his beer, then wiped the foam from his moustache.
“All right,” he replied. “You got my attention. What do you want?”
“The man I work for would like to hire you,” Cole replied.
“For one hundred dollars? I don’t do much for one hundred dollars.”
“No, sir. Like I said, the one hundred dollars is just to get your attention. Mr. Quentin guarantees that the two of you will come to an agreement that you will find satisfactory.”
“How satisfactory?”
Cole shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m only telllin’ you what Mr. Quentin told me to tell you.”
“Is Quentin rich? Because I don’t come cheap.”
“Mr. Quentin is very rich.”
With his leg under the table, Cates pushed one of the chairs out. “Have a seat,” he said. “Tell me about this man Quentin.”
Chapter Eighteen
Smoke, Sally, Cal, and Lenny had a one-hour layover in Denver where they were to change trains. As they waited in the depot, Smoke walked over to a window under a sign that read WESTERN UNION. Not seeing anyone when he looked through the vertical bars, he slapped the palm of his hand on the little desk bell. The ring reverberated through the room.
At the back of the room the door opened, and someone stuck his head in. He was wearing a billed cap with the words WESTERN UNION written on the front, and looking toward the window, he saw Smoke.
“Yes, sir,” he called to Smoke. “Do you wish to send a telegram?”
“No. I hope I have one here waiting for me,” Smoke replied. “Would you check your ‘will call’ box?”
“I’ll do that. And you would be?”
“Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”
The telegrapher smiled. “Ah, yes, indeed, Mr. Jensen, you do have a telegram waiting for you,” he said. “I recall getting it last night.”
Walking back over to the table on which the telegraph instrument sat, the Western Union clerk rifled through a pile of papers and envelopes before coming up with one. He checked the name on the outside, then brought the envelope back up to the front window and passed it through the opening it to Smoke.
“What do I owe you?” Smoke asked.
“Not a thing, sir. It has already been paid for,” the telegrapher replied.
“For your trouble,” Smoke said, handing the telegrapher a quarter.
“Why, thank you, sir,” the telegrapher replied.
This was a response to the telegram Sally had sent before they left Big Rock. In the telegram, he had not only asked Murchison to represent Pearlie, he had also asked Murchison to respond by telegram to the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad depot in Denver, with instructions to the telegraph office to hold the telegram in the “will call” box.
Smoke took the envelope back over to where Sally and the others were waiting.
“What does he say?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.”
“Smoke, what if he won’t do it? What will we do?”
“If Murchison can’t, or won’t, we’ll just have to find a lawyer who will do it,” Smoke replied.
Smoke opened the envelope, removed the telegram, read it, smiled, then handed it to Sally.
FOR WHATEVER VALUE YOU PLACE UPON
MY ABILITY TO HELP I HEREBY PLACE MY
HUMBLE SKILLS IN YOUR SERVICE STOP
I WILL MEET YOU AT THE DEPOT IN
COLORADO SPRINGS STOP
It was eight o’clock in the morning when the train approached the outer environs of Colorado Springs. Sally was looking through the window as they passed through a residential area, and she smiled when she saw a young boy and girl who had come down from their house to stand beside the track and wave at the passengers on the arriving train.
Sally waved back.
The train passed through the residential section, then a section of warehouses and businesses, then the rail yard itself, before finally coming to a stop at the depot.