Dark Trail Read Online Free PDF Page B

to hold her and feel her and taste her. He wanted her to be the way she’d been back in the days when he’d been the peacekeeper in the infamous Kansas City saloon where everybody from the Earp brothers to Wild Bill took time to get drunk.
    Being a gunfighter wasn’t in itself lucrative, but when you were a gunfighter of some repute, rich and powerful people always wanted to hire you for something or other. Rich and powerful people seemed to like gunfighters as much as young kids did. You could sit with a rich man and he’d buy you steaks and drinks all night, and maybe even get you a woman or two. Just as long as you kept playing hard at being the tough and fearless gunfighter he wanted you to be. You never told him about the night before a gun-fight, how you paced and prayed and sweated, or about the aftermath sometimes, how you couldn’t quit shaking till way into the next day. They wanted to believe that you were brave and fearless, and so that’s how you played it for them.
    â€œYou hear me?” the policeman said. “About moving on?”
    Rittenauer, moving his gaze from the window to the policeman’s doughy, middle-aged face said, “I hear you.”
    And then Rittenauer, too, was just invisible footsteps on the board sidewalk in the silver floating fog.
    He didn’t even really look at the place or anybody in it while he downed three shots of whiskey and two glasses of beer. When he saw that one drunk was in the process of recognizing him, he turned his face away. He was in no mood to amuse hayseeds with tales of gun battles.
    Rittenauer was in the place an hour. He didn’t feel any better when he left but he did have an idea anyway. Tonight, this very moment, he was going to speak his piece, and if Beth didn’t like it or Frank Evans didn’t like it, he didn’t give a damn.
    He walked straight over to the hotel.
    Except for an old man sleeping in a chair, the lobby was empty. The young desk clerk was reading a magazine when Rittenauer walked past.
    The desk clerk looked up. “Hey.”
    â€œPardon me?”
    â€œYou got business upstairs?”
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œWhat sort of business?”
    â€œSeeing a friend.”
    â€œWhat friend?”
    Rittenauer walked over to the desk. “Son, do you know who I am?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œGood?”
    â€œYes. Because if you did know who I was, you wouldn’t be taking that tone with me.”
    â€œOh, I wouldn’t, huh?”
    â€œNo, you wouldn’t. I’m Ben Rittenauer.”
    And it worked. Just like that it worked. Rittenauer didn’t even have to drop his hand to the .44 strapped around his waist. He just spoke his name and watched the reaction.
    â€œYou really are?” The desk clerk now sounded as young as he looked.
    â€œI really am.”
    â€œI’ll be dogged.”
    â€œNow I’d like to go upstairs if you don’t mind.”
    â€œAll I ask is you don’t get me in trouble. Don’t shoot anybody or anything.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œI’m really glad to meet you, Mr. Rittenauer.”
    â€œRight.”
    Rittenauer went upstairs.
    Beyond the doors were the sounds of coughing, of nightmares, of snoring. Beyond the doors drummers lay lonely, long-married couples lay sleeping with a familiar hand planted fondly on a familiar hip, and young married couples lay making love. He felt separate from all this. He had his anger now, his need to tell her everything that was constantly exploding in his head and heart.
    He found their door and put his head to it and listened. And heard nothing. They were sleeping.
    He wanted to ease open the door, go in there and slap the hell out of Evans, and then take her by the arm and drag her down the stairs and out of this place forever.
    His hand touched the doorknob. Started to turn it. His heart hammered. He was eager to get inside.
    And then he heard the