a lot of whiskey for us. They keep a lot of customers coming back here, instead of going down the street to the Golden Rail.”
Both women looked at the imposing man who was their new boss, wondering if they were to be at his call whenever he needed company, and if it would be without compensation. “Pleased to meetcha, Ben,” Clarice managed.
“Me, too,” Ruby seconded.
“Ladies,” Ben returned the greetings. “Just to set things straight, I’m the new half-owner. Rachel’s now an equal partner.” Back to her, he said, “I reckon I might as well move in. Did Jim have a room here?”
“Yes,” she answered. “He had a room here behind the kitchen. He also kept a room at the hotel he’d sleep in. It was a little too noisy here in the saloon sometimes, so he would go to the hotel some nights. I think he liked to eat breakfast in the dining room there, too. Come on and I’ll show you his room. I guess it’s about time I showed you around the whole place, isn’t it?”
She led him through the kitchen, where Annie had finally gotten back to her cleanup. From the kitchen, Rachel led him through a door back to a long hallway that led to several rooms. The first two were storerooms for the kitchen. The last two were bedrooms. “Jim’s room is the last one before the outside door.”
“What’s the other one?” Ben asked.
“That’s my room,” she answered, waiting for a typical male remark, but there was none.
“That’ll be handy,” he said, causing her to change her mind back to her original thought. “I can bring the stuff off my packhorse right in the back door, there.” She hoped he didn’t notice her little flush of embarrassment. He walked past her room and tried the doorknob on his, but found it locked.
“Here, let me,” she said and stepped up to the door to unlock it. “When we go back to the office, I’ll get your key to the room and the key to the outside door. We usually keep that outside door locked.” When the door was unlocked, she pushed it wide and stepped back to let him enter. “Probably need to open a window and let it air out a little,” she suggested.
He walked in and went straight to the window to open it. “It’ll be all right in a little while. It’ll beat where I was plannin’ to sleep tonight, in the stable with my horses.” He looked around for a moment at the bare furnishings, primarily a bed and a dresser. “This’ll do,” he said. “What’s upstairs?”
“Bedrooms,” she answered. “Four of ’em, Clarice and Ruby have rooms up there, and Tiny lives in the last one.”
“Might as well have a look,” he decided, so they went upstairs and he took a quick look at the rooms, just so he would know the whole building. “What happened to the side of the porch out front?” he asked when they were back downstairs.
“Freighter let his mules get away from him when a couple of drunk cowboys started shooting up the town. The sheriff put ’em in jail, but not till after one of the mules killed itself when it tried to jump up on the porch.”
“Anybody in town do carpentry work?” Ben asked.
“Ham Greeley,” Rachel said. “That was him playing cards with Tuck and the two cowhands.”
“Maybe we oughta talk to him about fixin’ that porch. We don’t want strangers comin’ through town and goin’ to the Golden Rail for a drink ’cause they think the Lost Coyote looks run-down.”
She laughed. “I guess you’re right. We’ll talk to Ham.”
“Why do you call him Ham?” Ben wondered, thinking it to be a nickname and probably had a story behind it.
“’Cause that’s his name. He says his mama named him Hammer, hopin’ it would encourage him to wanna be a carpenter when he grew up, like his daddy.” She paused to let him think about that for a few seconds. “Well, you’ve seen the whole place, except the outhouses.”
He nodded and said, “I reckon I’ll wait on seein’ that till my insides tell me to go see it.” He started to walk toward the stairs but paused to ask one more question. “How’d Jim come to name this place the Lost Coyote?”
She smiled as she recalled. “When he started building the place, one morning a coyote came up from the creek. Just one coyote, and Jim said it was the mangiest coyote he’d ever seen. And it would just stand off about fifty yards and watch. It came back the second day and one of the men helping him build the saloon said it looked like it was lost. Jim hadn’t been able to decide on what to call the saloon, so he said that coyote was a sign and he called this the Lost Coyote.” She laughed when she remembered. “I asked him if he was sure he wasn’t supposed to call this place the Mangy Coyote, but he said Lost was the sign. He said that coyote came back every morning for the next four days and then they never saw it again.”
CHAPTER 5
He left the saloon and walked up to the stable at the end of the street. He found Henry Barnes cleaning out some stalls in the back of the stable. “You decide you ain’t gonna stay in town tonight?” he asked when Ben walked in. Everybody in town knew about the shooting at the saloon, so Henry thought Ben might be thinking about getting out of town, in case some of the cowhand’s friends came looking for him.
“No,” Ben answered. “I decided I’d stay awhile. I’ll bunk in the Lost Coyote. Right now, I’ll need my packhorse to carry my possibles down to the saloon. Then I’ll bring him back and I’ll want the monthly rate for boardin’ both of ’em. I’ll expect the same rate you gave Jim Vickers. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.” Henry answered, then shook his head as if astonished. “It’s true then. Tuck Tucker said you came into town and bought the saloon after you shot that man down.”
“Well, that ain’t exactly right. I already owned the saloon before I rode into town. I shot the man after that.” He loaded the sorrel up rather loosely for the short trip back to the saloon, leaving Henry standing in the door of the stable shaking his head.
After he unloaded his belongings into his room in the saloon, he returned his packhorse to Henry’s care. Before he left for the night, he spent some time with Cousin while Henry stood talking to him. When he decided it was time to go to the hotel dining room for supper, since Annie didn’t cook supper at the saloon, he gave Cousin’s face a good scratching and asked, “Is Henry treatin’ you all right? You just let me know if he ain’t.” He looked at Henry then and said, “He’ll tell me if you ain’t.”
Henry chuckled. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. But I ain’t likely to do anything that might rile you up, he thought, recalling Tiny’s description of the stranger in action.
* * *
He walked in the outside entrance to the River House Hotel dining room and was met at the door by Lacy James, who was serving as hostess. She gave him a good looking over before asking, “Welcome to the River House, stranger. Are you by any chance the new owner of the Lost Coyote?”
An attractive woman, he had to admit, but with a bit of smugness in her tone. “That’s a fact,” he answered her. “I’m hopin’ you permit saloon owners to eat in your dinin’ room.”
“You’re in luck,” she joked. “Today’s Tuesday and we let all manner of riffraff in
