Perrine drew himself up. “Oh, I ain’t good enough for you high-tone gents. That it?”

  “You might say,” Craycroft answered frankly.

  “And I suppose you figure to toss me out in the snow too, hey?” Perrine’s voice had become a whine.

  “No,” Craycroft said. “Just behave yourself and you can wait out the storm here.”

  The stagecoach division manager made a face. “But do it downwind, will you?”

  Craycroft jerked a thumb toward the stove. “Over there, Perrine, unless you’ve got money to buy into this game.”

  “I just told you I’s broke.”

  “Then leave the table, if you don’t mind.”

  Perrine shrugged and moved indolently out of his chair, over to the stove. He dragged a chair with him and sat down, folding his arms and dropping his chin toward his chest. But his eyes were slitted open and his cunning glance shifted back and forth from the storage room door to the card table. A few minutes later, Keene picked up his revolver and went over to the storage room, unlocked the door and looked inside. Not speaking, Keene locked the door again and came back to the table, and laid his gun down. “Sound asleep,” Keene said disgustedly. “Filthy animals. They haven’t even got consciences to keep them awake.”

  “Let them sleep,” Jeremy Six said. “They’re less trouble that way.” He got up, leaving his chips stacked on the table at his seat. “Wind’s gone down considerably. I’ll make my rounds. Save my place, gents.” He went to get his coat.

  Perrine watched him leave, and a slow secret smile grew on Perrine’s mouth.

  Jeremy Six went outside and blinked. The storm had died away to a simple heavy snowfall. Between the slanted streaks of falling flakes, he could vaguely make out the shimmering cracks in occasional shutters where slivers of lamplight came through. He could make out the heavy, dark mass of the hotel across the street, and he headed that way. By the time he reached the porch his shoulders and hat carried mounds of snow. But it was much to be preferred to the driving brutal wind that had battered the town earlier. There were still cool dangerous currents in the night, but the deadly force of it was shrunken.

  A gust almost knocked off his hat just as he reached for the hotel door. He clamped his left hand over his hat and swung inside. The passing gust tore the door from his grip and slammed it behind him as he stepped into the lobby.

  A big lumpy shape sagged in an overstuffed chair near the front stove. Smiling with recognition, Six went that way and picked up the coat that had fallen on the floor. Chill drafts sliced across the room from tiny chinks in the walls. Six laid the coat like a blanket over Fat Annie, drawing it up to her slumped chins. She was asleep, but he awakened her. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared around momentarily without recognition. “Well,” she murmured drowsily. “What the hell time is it?”

  “About twelve-thirty.”

  She cocked an ear. “Wind’s died some, hasn’t it?” She stirred. “Time for me to be getting home.”

  “You brought Sammy over here?”

  “I did.”

  “Is January here?”

  “Upstairs. Amy, too. All in their own rooms, I ’spect. No noises loud enough to wake me up, anyhow. I guess it’s peaceful enough.”

  “And I hope it stays that way,” Six said.

  Fat Annie yawned. “Kind of comfy here,” she murmured sleepily. Her eyelids drooped. “Maybe I’ll finish out the night right here. My girls can live without me one night in the year, I reckon.”

  “All right,” he said gently. He cast a speculative look up the stairs, but he did not go up; he turned and went out of the hotel on his rounds.

  Chapter Nine

  Footsteps on the stairs awakened Fat Annie for the second time that night. She was always a light sleeper. She opened her eyes without stirring and glanced toward the staircase, and saw Will January coming down. He was in shirtsleeves and vest; he looked as though he had not been out of his clothes. He was wearing his guns. Fat Annie wondered drowsily what time it was. Half asleep, she was aware of January moving around the room. Once the door opened briefly and she thought he had left, but evidently he had just taken a look outside and then come back into the room. When she looked up again between fitful dozes, January was sitting at a little table, playing solitaire. His face, unguarded, looked old and fragile and very tired.

  She went to sleep again. In her dreams she was a slim girl with fresh beauty, carrying a bucket of beer home through the Bowery for her father. It was not so much a dream as a memory. There was the smooth-haired young man in the ruffled shirt and mauve suit, the glisten of his teeth when he smiled, the fast, delicate caresses of his hands. She dreamed of herself weeping in a cheap Abilene hotel room, waiting for him to come back to her.

  Some sound startled her out of her semi-conscious reverie. She opened her eyes and saw Will January pacing the floor like a caged tiger, his head down and his jaw muscles standing out like cables. Fat Annie stirred in her chair and said gently, “Couldn’t sleep?”

  He frowned at her, but said nothing. He went on pacing, his hands hooked over his guns. Fat Annie said, “What time’s it getting to be?”

  “Around two.”

  “Long night,” she said.

  “They get longer and longer.”

  She said softly, “You’re in pretty bad shape, aren’t you?”

  He wheeled on her. “For God’s sake, don’t you start on me too.”

  “Too?”

  “Never mind,” he growled. He put his back to her and tramped across the room, about-faced and came back past her. He prowled the room like that for ten minutes before Fat Annie spoke again. “In your line of work it’s kind of dangerous to get rattled.”

  “Tell me something else I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to snap at me.”

  “Then leave me alone,” he said.

  She sat up in the chair and folded the coat which Jeremy Six had tucked around her. She said, “What’s the matter?”

  Her voice held genuine warm concern and that seemed to impress him; he answered more reasonably than before: “Every machine gets worn out sooner or later, Annie. Only they don’t make spare parts for gunfighters.”

  “Then take up a new line of work.”

  He raised both hands before his face, as though they were unfamiliar objects. He had stopped pacing; he stood still, staring at his palms. Presently he shook his head. “That’s no good,” he said, half to himself.

  “Why not?” Fat Annie demanded.

  “I just can’t do it.”

  “Would you rather go down like your cousin Chris—gut shot.”

  It was blunt enough to whip his glance around toward her. He said, “Maybe—maybe. You can’t buy anything in this life without paying the price for it.”

  She wondered what the devil he meant by that. She said, “I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed like a nice kid. It was a rotten way to go. Whatever’s on your conscience, that’s too high a price to pay.”

  “Is it?” His voice was hollow.

  “For God’s sake, quit acting as if you were already dead!”

  He smiled crookedly. “Well, I’m not,” he admitted. “I’m not dead. Not yet.”

  “But you’re pretty close to it, aren’t you?—if you keep on driving yourself around like a locomotive.”

  January turned away. “Nobody asked you to buy chips in this. It’s my own private game of cards. Just stay out of it, all right?”

  “I hate to see a good man saw himself off at the knees,” she answered. “You’d be pretty tall if you’d stand up straight.”

  “I’m too tired for any more of that,” he said quietly. “Now damn it, leave me alone, will you?”

  “I didn’t think you ever asked for favors.”

  “I’m asking you for one.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll shut up. Look, do you want to play cards to pass the time? I’m a fair hand at poker.”

  “If you want.”

  In the Drover’s Rest, Jeremy Six glanced up at the clock. After two o’clock. He got up from the card table. “Time to do the rounds again,” he said, and left.

  When Six was gone, Vince Perrine got out of his chair near the stove and drifted closer to the poker table. “Don’t suppose I could buy a cup of coffee on the cuff?”

  Craycroft glanced up at him and considered it. Finally he shrugged. “All right. Help yourself.”

  “Obliged,” Perrine said drily. He went back to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee. By this hour the coffee was strong and half as thick as molasses. He took the cup over to the bar and took a stub of pencil and a dirty tally pad out of his pockets. He leaned on the bar, making it look as though he were idly doodling. Actually, he was writing a note in his crabbed hand:

  If you want to git out of ther free and git sum money also, I wil git you out and show you how we can git the money, but you got to cut me in. If you agree, jest bang on the door and meke a lot of noise.

  Vince Perrine

  He put the pencil away and folded the note into a small flat square. He put it in his hip pocket, on top of his wadded handkerchief, and idly picked up his coffee cup to finish it. When he had emptied the cup he swung away from the bar with the nonchalant air of a man with nothing whatever on his mind. He drifted around the room, pausing by the front door and making a point of cocking his ear, listening to the diminished whisper of the wind. Then he went around the perimeter of the room with his hands in his hip pockets, elbows splayed, craning his neck around to give interested inspections to the various lamps, paintings, and humorous clippings hung on the walls.

  The course of his idle journey eventually brought him around to the storage room door, and he stopped here to look at the door. It was a natural enough thing for a curious man to do. Perrine finally turned, putting his back to the door. He still had his hands in his hip pockets. He put his bland, mild glance on the card table. Keene was looking at him. Perrine did not change his expression. After a while Keene looked down and Hal Craycroft droned, “Your bet, Larry. It’s six bits to you.”

  The players were concentrating on their game. Keeping watch on them, Perrine lifted the handkerchief from his hip pocket and lifted it toward his face. When he pulled it out, the little folded square of paper fell out of his pocket and landed lightly on the floor near his boot. Perrine pretended not to see it. He blew his nose and stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. The stagecoach division manager glanced at him without interest and then looked at Craycroft. “I’ll make it a dollar even, to you.”

  “Gettin’ into real big money there,” said one of the ranchers, and everyone laughed softly.

  Perrine reached his foot and caught the folded note under his boot toe. He slid it back until his heel gently touched the wood. Then he faked a loud sneeze and pulled out his handkerchief again.

  He bent over and half-turned around, blowing his nose loudly. A sidelong glance told him when the players quit looking at him. Then he prodded the folded note under the edge of the door with his boot. He held his breath, then, but no one spoke. He turned around again, wiping his nose, and gently struck the door with the back of his boot. Then, moving quickly but without obvious hurry, he walked away from the storage room door. He went directly to the stove, refilled his coffee cup, and stood with one hand idly draped over the handle of his six-gun while he waited. It shouldn’t be too long.

  Making his rounds, Jeremy Six stopped in the normal course of events at the Tres Candelas, and after giving the place a look around he approached the bartender. Wince Perrine was in here tonight, wasn’t he?”

  “Si.”

  “Did you throw him out?”

  “Si.”

  One of the tired customers looked around. “Talky bastard, that barkeep.”

  The bartender glanced at him blankly. Six said, “What happened?”

  The bartender’s only answer was to elevate his shoulders and turn his palms up. But the customer, a Chainlink cowboy, said, “Perrine knocked over somebody’s bottle. They got into a row over who was going to pay for it.”

  Six said, “Who started the row?”

  The cowhand thought about it. “Hard to say.” He turned to one of his companions. “Whose bottle was that, Chet? Ortega’s, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  The cowhand turned back and said to Six, “Ortega. Spur man. You know him?”

  “Yes. He’s not the type to start a fight.”

  “Wasn’t no fight,” the cow hand said. “Ortega just said he wasn’t payin’ for no bottle he hadn’t drunk, and Perrine said just because he’d had an accident didn’t mean he had to pay for the bottle, because he hadn’t drunk it either. I reckon the barkeep finally decided to chalk it up to wear and tear. That right, barkeep?”

  “Si.”

  Six swung toward the bartender. “But you threw him out of here?”

  “Si—si.” The bartender looked a little irritated.

  “Did Perrine put up a squawk about being thrown out?”

  “He made noises,” said the cow hand. “But he went without any fuss.”

  “What time was that?”

  The cow hand looked up at the clock above the bartender’s head. “Maybe midnight.”

  Six frowned. “That would hardly give him time to go around to the stable and get all bedded down and then decide it was too cold.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Six said. “Sorry to bother you boys. Take it easy.” He left the saloon, puzzling it over.

  He was still frowning when he reached the Glad Hand. The place was virtually deserted. Probably the shooting of Orozco had put a damper on the customers: as soon as the storm had abated, they had all gone home. Nimble-Finger was still there, half asleep, playing notes in high keys with one hand. The office door was open. Six said to the piano player, “What happened to Orozco’s body?”

  “Couple of the boys took it with them when they left. Said they were going by the undertaker’s.”

  Six nodded. It was probably a relief to Clarissa to have the dead man out of her place. He paused long enough to say, “Getting along all right?”

  “Sure,” Nimble-Finger said. He coughed once and turned back to the keyboard. “Think it’ll be warming up, Marshal?”

  “Pretty soon, now.”

  “Still snowing?”

  “Yes.” Six went back to the office and looked in. Clarissa was curled up on the divan, sleeping. He didn’t disturb her; he turned and left the saloon.

  Will January shuffled the cards and dealt them, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Fat Annie sat across from him, not talking. He was remembering the day in Durango, the day it had all started to go sour. He had been unable to forget a second of it; for four years he had carried it around in his head, an image burned in too deep to rub away. The tinhorn cardshark, who had killed January’s cousin Chris, standing in the dim cantina with his hands raised, shaking his head, refusing to draw his gun; January pulling his own revolver and cocking it and shouting at the man, and then feeling the savage rock and buck of the gun against his palm as he pumped bullets into the man.

  Fat Annie said, “Looks like I win again.” She gathered up the cards and shuffled them clumsily.

  January leaned back in his chair and brought out a tailor-made, lighted it and drew on it with long drags that sucked in his cheeks. His veins stood out and his hands were not altogether steady. Annie suddenly stopped fumbling with the cards and frowned at him. “Listen, have you had anything to eat today?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said absently. “I’m not hungry.”

  “For Pete’s sake,” she said, and sighed. She put the cards down. “There’s a kitchen out back somewhere. I’ll see if I can whip something up.”

  “Never mind.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, and added, “I’m a little hungry myself.” She patted her ample stomach and smiled amiably, and waddled toward the back of the lobby.

  January smoked for a few minutes and then leaned forward, laying out a board of solitaire. The cigarette drooped from his mouth corner, sending up a spiral of smoke that made him squint his left eye. He moved a red queen onto a black king.

  He heard footfalls upstairs in the corridor, moving toward the head of the stairs. Habit made him rip the cigarette out of his mouth and crush it underfoot. He batted smoke away from his face with his left hand and moved his hips around in the chair to bring one gun within easy reach. His eyes steadied on the top of the staircase.

  The first things to come in sight were fancy tooled boots. Trousers and torso followed. Sammy Preston came down the stairs, holding onto the banister with one hand, grinding knuckles into his eye sockets one at a time. Sammy’s elaborate clothes were creased and rumpled. He didn’t have a gun. January’s stiff pose relaxed but he kept his attention fully on the descending youth.

  Sammy reached the floor and stood blinking. He looked around with bloodshot eyes and presently recognized January. Sammy stiffened, but then he looked down, saw he was unarmed, and grimaced. His mouth sounded fuzzy when he talked: “Seen any whisky around here?”

  “No.”

  “I need a Goddamn drink.”

  “You need sleep. Go on back upstairs.”

  “Shut up,” Sammy said. He swept the room with an impatient glance, went over behind the registry desk and began pawing around beneath it. “Clerk keeps a bottle around here someplace,” he muttered. January put a jack on the queen and turned up a trey. Sammy grunted triumphantly and stood up holding a half-full bottle of rye. “Knew it was here,” he said, and struggled to uncork the bottle.

  January said mildly, “That’s not your bottle, kid.”

  “Hell, I’m leaving money on the desk. I ain’t no thief.”

  “Only at cards,” January said, very quietly.

  Sammy said, “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did you say?”