Читать книгу Moonshine Massacre - William W. Johnstone - Страница 9

The blood brothers looked at him in surprise. Matt said, “I was just funnin’ with you, old-timer. We know about the new law in Kansas.”

“Yeah, well, just ’cause somethin’s a law don’t mean that everybody follows it.” The liveryman frowned suddenly. “You boys ain’t some o’ them special marshals, are you?”

“Us? Not hardly,” Matt said.

“We’re just passing through Cottonwood,” Sam added. “And we’re really not interested in having a drink.”

“Speak for yourself,” Matt said. He turned to the liveryman. “Just what were you gettin’ at, amigo?”

“There’s an old barn at the other end o’ town. It used to be Cottonwood’s other livery stable, but there weren’t enough business to support two of ’em. Fella who owned it closed up shop and went back wherever he came from. Barn’s been sittin’ there empty for nigh on to a year.”

“So what happened?” Sam asked. “Someone came along and converted it into a secret saloon once that new law went into effect?”

The liveryman looked around nervously again, then said, “You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Wait a minute. You’re serious? There really is a saloon down there?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” Matt said.

“Just go ’round back and tell ’em that Ike sent you. That’s me, Ike Loomis.”

Matt grinned. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Loomis. Under the circumstances, mighty pleased.”

“I suppose you get a little payment for sending customers down there,” Sam said with a note of disapproval in his voice.

Loomis shook his head. “No, sir, I sure don’t.” He hooked his thumbs in the suspenders that held up his overalls and added proudly, “I own the place. Well, not the barn itself, I reckon, but nobody was usin’ it. I brought everything in and set it up, though.”

“Where do you get your booze?” Matt asked.

Loomis shook his head. “That’s a secret. I’m already takin’ a chance just tellin’ you about the place, but you boys look trustworthy to me.”

“We just helped Marshal Coleman arrest some men who were disturbing the peace,” Sam said. “He’s the one who told us to bring our horses down here.”

Loomis started to look worried again. “Oh, shoot. You’re friends of Marsh Coleman, are you?”

“We just met him,” Matt said. “Don’t worry, Mr. Loomis, we’re not gonna run back to the marshal’s office and tell him about your saloon.”

“I expect he’ll find out sooner or later, though,” Sam said. “He seems like a pretty smart man.”

Loomis nodded. “Oh, he is. Marsh is sharp as a tack, and a damn fine lawman, to boot. Reckon when the time comes, he’ll close me down. But I plan on makin’ a nice tidy sum before that day dawns.”

“That’s your business.”

“That’s right, sonny, it is.”

“Can you take care of our horses?” Sam asked.

“Oh, sure, sure. That’s my business, too, takin’ care o’ horses. They’ll be took good care of, too. You got my word on that, Mr….”

“I’m Bodine,” Matt said. “He’s Two Wolves.”

Loomis scratched at his graying red beard and frowned. “Bodine and Two Wolves…seems to me I’ve heard them names before.”

“Must’ve been two other fellas,” Sam said. He held out the reins. “Here you go.”

Loomis took the reins of Matt’s mount, too, and said, “That’ll be a dollar a day for each, plenty o’ grain and water included. I’ll make sure they get rubbed down good, too.”

“We’re obliged,” Matt said with a nod.

“Now don’t tell anybody what I told you about that barn,” Loomis warned.

“Don’t worry. We’ll keep it to ourselves,” Matt promised.

As they left the livery stable, carrying their saddlebags and rifles, Sam muttered, “I can’t believe you’d do that.”

“Do what?”

“Tell that old-timer we’d keep his secret, when we’re going to Marshal Coleman’s house for dinner this evening.”

“Coleman offered to feed us because we rounded up those troublemakers for him,” Matt said. “The way I see it, one thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

“He’s sworn to uphold the law here in Cottonwood, and you just agreed to help someone break it.”

“Loomis is gonna be runnin’ that illegal saloon whether I say anything about it or not,” Matt pointed out. “He was runnin’ it before we got here, and I figure he’ll be runnin’ it when we leave.”

“Unless we tell the marshal about it and help him close it down.”

Matt stopped in his tracks. “Oh, now, wait just a minute. It’s a far piece from tellin’ Coleman about it to helpin’ him put the place out of business.”

Sam shrugged. “You heard Hannah. He doesn’t have any deputies.”

“Well, don’t go volunteerin’ me for the job. We didn’t even wear badges when we helped out ol’ Seymour Standish down there in Sweet Apple, Texas. We were unofficial deputies, at most.”

“All I’m saying is that the deck is stacked against Marshal Coleman the way it is.”

“And we don’t have cards in that game,” Matt said. “I’d just as soon keep it that way.”

Sam grunted and shook his head. “Now you’re saying we should avoid trouble. Never thought I’d see the day when Matt Bodine did that.”

They glared narrowly at each other as they reached the Cottonwood Hotel, a nice-looking, two-story establishment. While the blood brothers got along quite well most of the time and had for many years, it wasn’t unheard of for the two of them to clash. A time or two, they had gotten so mad at each other that they split up and rode separate trails for a while. They had always come back together eventually, but who was to say whether or not one day their trails might fork for good?

Not today, though, not over something as minor as this. They went into the hotel and got a couple of rooms, Sam paying for both of them since he usually kept their cash.

Matt looked through an arched entrance that led into a smaller room off the lobby and saw several men sitting around a table playing poker. “You’ve got a card room,” he said to the clerk.

That slick-haired, bespectacled gent nodded. “That’s right. When all the saloons closed, folks still needed a place to play, so Mr. Winston, the owner of the hotel, made a card room out of that storage room.”

“High-stakes games?”

“Well, more friendly, I’d say,” the clerk replied. “But from what I hear, the pots sometimes get pretty big. Two or three hundred dollars, even.”

Those weren’t huge pots as far as Matt was concerned, but they weren’t penny-ante, either. If a man spent a few hours in a game like that, he might walk away with enough cash to buy quite a few supplies.

He inclined his head toward the card room and said to Sam, “I think I’ll have a look.”

“Give me your gear,” Sam said. “I’ll put it in your room.”

“Thanks.” Matt handed over the saddlebags and Winchester. The momentary friction of a few minutes earlier was forgotten.

He strolled over to the door and stepped into the card room. Since it was a converted storage room, it didn’t have any windows, but paintings had been hung on the walls. Three of them sported scenes of the English countryside, while the fourth painting was of a well-upholstered gal with bright red hair and absolutely no clothes. One hand and a long, flowing strand of hair covered up the essentials.

Five men sat at a table covered with green felt. Matt eyed the lone empty chair. To the players who glanced up at him, he gave a friendly nod, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to distract anybody from their cards.

A handsome, brown-haired man in a gray suit with fancy vest, white shirt, and a cravat with a diamond stickpin in it was handling the deck, as well as playing his own hand. The bet went around the table as the players discarded and drew, then went around a couple more times until the only ones left in were the dealer and a bald-headed man with a big belly and a second chin. Matt tipped his hat back, leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched the play. He didn’t know what either man had, so he tried to decide by studying their faces if they were bluffing or not.

When there was about eighty dollars in the pot, Double-Chin called the bet and put down his cards. He had a good hand, three nines, but the other man beat him with a straight.

As the brown-haired man raked in his winnings, he smiled up at Matt and said, “Interested in sitting in on the game, friend?”

“You’ve got an empty chair,” Matt pointed out.

“Indeed we do. Pull it up.” The man glanced around the table. “That is, if no one else has any objections.”

A couple of the men shook their heads, one grunted in assent, and another said, “Fine by me.” The only one who didn’t respond was the fat man, who was still frowning at the table as if he couldn’t believe that he had lost the last hand.

Matt sat down at the table and took out a twenty-dollar gold piece. He had been saving the double eagle for a moment like this. As he tossed it onto the green felt, he said, “Is that enough for me to buy in?”

“More than enough,” the brown-haired man said. “Like me to change that for you?”

“I’d be obliged.”

The man counted out some greenbacks from the pile in front of him and pushed them over to Matt, who handed him the double eagle. “I’m Linus Grady, by the way,” the man introduced himself. “That’s Ted Barnes, Seward Stone, Walt Phillips, and Gus Blauner.”

“Matt Bodine.” Judging by the lack of reactions around the table, none of the men had heard of him, which was just fine with Matt. Sometimes having a reputation as a fast gun was just an annoyance, and sometimes it was a downright danger. None of these men looked like the sort who’d be interested in challenging him just to get a reputation of their own, though. They were more interested in playing cards.

“The game is straight draw poker,” Linus Grady said. “Two-dollar ante. Sound all right to you, Matt?”

“Sounds fine. Deal ’em.”

Grady began flicking the pasteboards around the table with a practiced ease that said he was a professional. As Grady dealt, the fat man, who had been introduced as Seward Stone, continued to glare at him.

Matt told himself to keep an eye on that one. If there was going to be trouble, it was likely to come from Stone.