Hard Road to Vengeance by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2022-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

As Tish’s eyes adjusted to the dim interior, her nose wrinkled at the stink of the place. She detected the pungent, sourness of stale beer, of too many unwashed men in too small a place, and smoke from too many cigars, cigarettes, and pipes. Over all hovered the sickly stink from last night’s oil lamps, blazing away until likely just a few hours ago.

She stepped into the room and gently closed the big door behind her. The floor was sticky and crunchy—sticky, she guessed, from spilled beer and poorly aimed spurts of tobacco spittle and blood and the Good Lord only knew what else. The crunchiness, from what she could gather without kneeling and inspecting—something she had no intention of ever doing—looked like wood chips, though she could not be certain.

Why was it that men enjoyed spending so much time in such disgusting places? She suspected during the business’s open hours, the smells leveled off and mingled with the raucous din emanating from all the yammering drunken mouths.

Contributing, too, would be the piano she was certain the place possessed, the clatter and cacophony at the games tables, the shouts and shrieks of the women getting pinched and fondled while serving the men. And there were sure to be shouts at the bar, yelling to be heard over the din.

She finally felt as if she understood what Rollie had meant when he said he was in business to mine the miners. To him it hadn’t seemed rapacious or unkind, merely business. But she understood it was precisely because there are people with money and business people want that money. Simple commerce.

“Hey.”

Tish looked up.

“Who are you?”

The voice drifted toward her from far to her right, somewhere behind the long, dark-wood bar. A brass rail shone in the dull light, scuffed and worn dull.

Footsteps, slow and measured sounded. “I said”—the voice was slowly moving closer to her, though in no hurry—“who are you?”

Tish cleared her throat. “I am . . . looking for Mr. Albert Swearengen.”

“Oh you are, are you?”

The walking stopped. She could just see the faint glow of a white-ish shirt twenty or so feet to her right, behind the bar. A sleeve moved and she heard a cup being set down in a saucer.

“And what, may I ask, do you want of him?”

“That is my business and his, sir. Now, would you be so kind as to fetch him for me?”

“Fetch him? Hmm, I suppose I could, but—”

“But?” she said, tiring of the endless parade of fools. She needed to get the subterfuge underway, else she might lose heart and the entire affair would somehow become obvious somehow. Desperate to turn and run, she concentrated on the fact that Pops’ daughter was likely hidden away in the place somewhere, for what purposes, she knew not, though she could guess. First she had to find her. That was the job, the reason, in short, the key to both their futures.

“But?” The man behind the bar sighed. “It is rather early,

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