“How much?”
“A d-dollar,” the man said, “uh, in advance.”
“In advance,” McCall said, and started to shift his saddle-bags from his right hand to his left so he could dig into his pocket for the money.
The liveryman, an old timer named Jesse Dean, misread the move and thought that Sam McCall was going for his gun.
“Or not in advance!” he said, quickly. “W-whatever you want, Mr. McCall.”
McCall frowned and said, “Hey, old-timer, if you want your money in advance, that’s what you’ll get.”
He dug the dollar out and handed it to the man, who accepted it with a shaking hand.
“What the hell is wrong with this town?” Sam McCall asked.
“Huh? Oh, nothin’,” the man said, “Nothin’. It’s a nice town.”
“Well, it sure hasn’t shown me that yet. Where’s the nearest hotel?”
“Three blocks, back the way you come. Only hotel we got.”
“Thanks.”
“S-sure, Mr. McCall, sure thing.”
McCall carried his bedroll and saddlebags in his left hand, and shifted the rifle to his right. If every-damn-body in town knew who he was, he’d better have a gun in his right hand and be ready for trouble.
“He’s here,” Del Butler said.
Simon Weeks looked up from his table in the White Horse Saloon. In front of him was a drink, and he picked it up and downed it.
“Where is he?”
“He just left the livery and went to the hotel.”
Weeks stood up. He was tall and rangy, dark-haired, in his late thirties. He and Butler had arrived in Corozon sixdays ago, and had found it a sleepy little town. They had intended to leave until they heard the news that Sam McCall was on his way there, so they decided to wait.
It was the longest two days in Simon Weeks’ life, but now the wait was over.
“Let’s go.”
McCall had seen the deputy as soon as he left the livery, and he was aware that the man followed him to the hotel. He had no problem with that.
The desk clerk, a foppish man in his early thirties with a carefully tended mustache, exhibited the same nervousness that the liveryman had.
“A room, please.”
“C-certainly, Mr. McCall.”
The man reached for the key to a room, dropped it, picked it up, and then dropped it again. He looked up at McCall from his position crouched behind the desk, laughed nervously, then grabbed the key and held it tightly, standing up.
“Here you go, sir.”
“How much?”
“Uh, th-three dollars a day…if that’s not too much.”
“No, that’s fine,” McCall said. “You want that in advance?”
“Uh, well, it is hotel policy…but if you’d rather pay when you leave—”
“Never mind,” McCall said, “I’ll pay now—here.” He dropped the money on the desk.
“Will you be staying just the one day?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s, uh…too, uh…bad…”
“Yeah, ain’t it!”
McCall took his key and gear and climbed the steps to the second floor. The whole damned town was sojumpy he probably should have ridden out right then and there to avoid trouble, but he was too drag-ass tired to do that.
He stopped halfway up the steps and called out to the clerk.
“Hey!”
The clerk jumped and said, “Yes, sir.”
“There’s a deputy outside, he followed me from the livery.”
“Yes, sir, that would be B-Bob Collins.”
“Yeah, well you ask Mr. Deputy Collins to come up to my room for a minute. Tell him I’d like to talk to him.”
“Up to your, uh, room?”
“That’s right, my room.”
“I’ll tell him, sir.”
“Thank you.”
McCall continued up the steps, found his room, opened the door, set his gear down and sat on the bed. While waiting for the deputy to arrive he yanked off his boots.
“Wait,” Weeks said.
“What?”
“There, across the street.”
Butler looked across the street from the hotel and saw what Weeks was talking about.
“The deputy,” Butler said. “What’s he want?”
“Probably just keepin’ an eye on McCall,” Weeks said.
“What do we do?”
“We wait,” Weeks said. “We just wait.”
“Deputy?”
Collins looked up at the sound of the voice and saw Anson Delacroix, the hotel clerk, crossing the street toward him.
“What is it, Anson?”
“Uh, Mr. McCall said he’d like to see you in his room…now.”
“In his room?”
“That’s what he said.”
“How did you know I was out here?” Collins asked, frowning.
“He told me.”
“McCall?”
Delacroix nodded.
“He said you followed him from the livery.”
“Shit.”
“You better get up there.”
Collins stared at Delacroix for a few seconds, then hitched up his gunbelt and said, “Yeah, I guess I’d better. What room is he in?”
Delacroix frowned and said, “I was so nervous I forgot to look at what key I was giving him.”
“Well, let’s go back into the hotel and find out, then.”
“He’s goin’ inside,” Butler said. “What’s he goin’ inside for?”
“Relax,” Weeks said. “We got plenty of time.”
“How can I relax?” Butler asked. “That’s Sam McCall we’re goin’ after.”
“I know that, Butler, but we ain’t just goin’ after him,”
Weeks said, smiling. “We’re gonna kill him.”
Butler’s stomach churned. He wished he were as confident as Simon Weeks.
McCall was standing by the window, watching two men across the street who were watching the hotel, when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in!”
The door opened and a man stepped in. He was tall, slender, not yet out of his twenties. He was wearing a deputy’s star.
“What’s your name, Deputy?”
McCall was barefoot, and his gunbelt was hanging on the bedpost across the room. The deputy had to swallow hard before answering.
“Collins, B-Bob Collins.” He’d almost called McCall sir, but he stopped himself.
“Your boss tell you to bird-dog me?”
“Yes, sir.” Damn! “Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Keller,” the man said, “Sheriff Walt Keller.”
“Well, you go back and tell your sheriff that I’ll only be in his town overnight, and I’m not lookin’ for trouble. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“Well, go on then…git!”
The deputy turned to leave, but McCall thought of something else.
“Deputy!”
“Yes?” The deputy turned away from the door real quick, his shoulders tensed.
“How many deputies in this town?”
“Just me, si—uh, just me.”
“How’d everyone know I was comin’?”
“You, uh, would have to ask the sheriff that, si’mr.
McCall,” the deputy stammered. “I don’t rightly know. All I know is I was told you was coming, and then I was told to follow you.”
McCall frowned. He couldn’t figure out right at that moment who knew he was going to Corozon. He himself hadn’t known it until he saw the road sign proclaiming Corozon five miles away.
“When were you told I was comin’?”
“Uh…two days ago.”
“Two days, eh?”
“Yessss…” The “sir” almost slipped out again.
“All right,” McCall said, “go and give your boss my message.”
“Sure,” Collins said, opening the door, “sure.”
After the deputy left, McCall looked out the window again, standing to one side, not directly in front of it. He’d learned that long ago. The two men were still across the street. Now that he knew they weren’t deputies, it wasn’t hard to figure out what they wanted.