Page 5 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
“Then I’ll go ask him for it.”
Julia Masterson laughed, not pleasantly. “He won’t give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because then he’d have to give all the rest of us our money back too. It’s all locked up in his safe, every bit of gold and silver and cash money. Even most of the jewelry. Anytime someone got sick, he offered to lock up their valuables until they got better. Gave them a paper receipt, even. It wasn’t until folks started taking those papers to him and asking for their money that we realized what he’d done. He took over the whole town in the middle of our misery, and we let him.”
The irritation Hansen had harbored earlier flared up again, mixing potently with his grief to form an anger that blazed so high it left him breathless. “We’ll see about this.”
This time when he entered the saloon, Hansen let the door bang against the wall and drift half closed while he stalked straight up to the bar, O’Rourke’s saddlebags over one shoulder. Most of the same men lingered, still looking like they’d gotten whupped for asking for another bowl of gruel. He understood the meaning behind their appearances now.
“Welcome back,” Carter said from behind the bar. He raised one eyebrow and waited.
“You have something of mine,” Hansen said. “My friend asked you to hold it for me until I could come claim it. I’m here now.” The short walk from Doc Masterson’s had cooled his temper enough to remind him that requesting the gold reasonably might work. He had only an unknown woman’s word that Carter wouldn’t simply give him O’Rourke’s legacy when he asked for it. Sure, Julia Masterson talked what sounded like good sense, but she could have some reason for wanting to set a powerful-looking stranger against the bartender. People had been known to trick others into settling grudges for them before this.
“Is that so? Was it this man you mentioned earlier?”
“O’Rourke. Seamus O’Rourke.”
“What makes you think he left something here for you?”
“This.” Hansen pulled his letter out again and held it up for Carter to read.
Carter glanced at it. “And what does that prove?”
“That O’Rourke left something for me here.”
“But it doesn’t say anything about me.”
“No, Mrs. Masterson filled in that detail. She was with my friend when he died.”
“Ahh.” Carter shrugged. “We’ve had a lot of deaths here, stranger. I’m sorry I can’t remember them all.”
From the corner, a man said, “Come down off your fine horse, Carter. Seamus O’Rourke was that trapper who drifted in about the time we was finally getting better.”
Hansen turned a little so he could see the speaker, but still see Carter too. “You met him?”
“I helped carry him to Doc’s from the livery when he took sick,” answered the man.
“Thank you.” He wished he knew better, stronger words to show his gratitude.
“Only decent thing to do. Most of us do remember what that means. Most of us.”
Hansen faced the bartender. “How about it? Does that jog your memory any?” He stood tall, trusting his height and build to lend his words weight.
Carter nodded slowly. “A fur trapper, yes. Yes, I do remember him.” He offered his mustache-lifting grimace of a smile again. “I’m sorry, but I have no proof that anything he may have entrusted to me was meant for you.”
“What about this letter?”
“Anyone could have intercepted it. You say you’re the man mentioned, but can you prove it? I can’t hand over valuables on your say-so alone.”
“McDonald over at Fort Connah knows me. Would you believe him?”
“Well, yes, I suppose if you can’t trust the word of a Hudson’s Bay man, who can you trust?” Carter folded his arms. “Of course, you have no proof that O’Rourke wrote that letter. You could have written it yourself.”
Hansen tucked away his letter slowly, making a great effort not to seize Carter by the shirt front and shake him until his mustache wilted and his eyes rolled. He didn’t even trust himselfnot to cuss the man out if he spoke, so he left the saloon without another word.
Behind him, he heard the same dry cough that thinly disguised a laugh.
