The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 7

A slamming door woke Cage Clayton. Benny Hinton stood over him, grinning.

“Figured that would wake you up.”

“You always slam doors so loud?”

“Only when I want to wake fellers I don’t like to see sleeping in my barn.”

Clayton rose to his feet and stretched, working the kinks out of his back. He took time to build and light a smoke, then said, “Is there a place where I can get breakfast?”

“Sure. Mom’s Kitchen and Pie Shop, just down the street a ways.”

“Is that all she sells, damned pies?” Clayton was in a sour mood and his back and hips ached.

“No, Mom will cook you up a good breakfast, steak and taters, if you can pay for it.”

“I’m buying Mr. Clayton breakfast this morning.”

Nook Kelly stood at the barn door. He was freshly shaved, his dragoon mustache trimmed, his clothes clean and pressed.

To Clayton’s disgust the lawman looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as though he’d spent the last ten hours sound asleep in a feather bed.

“You ready?” Kelly said, smiling.

“Give me a minute,” Clayton said. “I ain’t hardly awake yet.”

He washed his face and hands in the horse trough and used his bandanna to dry off. He settled his new hat on his head, then ran a forefinger under his mustache. “Now I’m ready,” he said.

“And you’re surely a joy to behold,” Kelly said.

“Kelly, I’m surprised nobody ever shot you for being so damned cheerful in the morning,” Clayton said.

“Just my sunshiny good nature coming up with the dawn.”

“Go to hell,” Clayton said.

“Hinton said Mom’s Kitchen is the best place for breakfast,” Clayton said.

“Yeah, he would, since he’s sparking the old gal.”

Kelly neatly avoided a pile of horse dung on the street, then said, “The Windy Hall serves a good breakfast and the coffee is the best in the Oklahoma Territory.”

Kelly constantly touched his hat brim to the respectable ladies of Bighorn Point, and prosperous businessmen called out to him by name.

“No whores in this town, huh?” Clayton said.

“Who told you that?”

“A ferryman back a ways.”

“Ferrymen talk, but they don’t know squat,” Kelly said. “The Windy Hall has what it calls hostesses. As to whether they’re in the business or not, you’d have to ask when you run up on one.”

“I’m just curious, is all.”

“Or looking for trouble.”

“No, just curious.”

Clayton stopped at the door to the saloon.

“Kelly, why are you doing this, buying me breakfast like we were kissin’ kin?”

The marshal smiled. “Because you’re where the action’s at, Mr. Clayton. Bighorn Point had lost its snap before you arrived. I think that’s all about to change.”

“Can’t you call me Cage?”

“No, I can’t.”

“I’m a big eater,” Clayton said. “Your bill will run high.”

“Then let’s eat, shall we?”

The Windy Hall was narrow, dark, and dingy, cringing in on itself as though apologizing for being in such a God-fearing town in the first place. The reason for its name became quickly apparent to anyone entering—owing to some peculiarity in its construction, the prairie wind sighed around its roof constantly, a low, soft moaning, like a widow mourning a husband.

As Kelly had promised, the food was good, the coffee better. When he finished eating, Clayton pushed himself back from the table, burped, and built a cigarette.

“That was good,” he said to Kelly.

“Figured that. You ate enough for three grown men.”

“You’re paying, so I figured, what the hell?”

“Did you like the waitress?”

“Yeah. She’s right pretty.”

“Then don’t like her. Her boyfriend is sitting over yonder and the look he’s giving you ain’t exactly social.”

Clayton let his eyes drift to a table set against the far wall of the saloon. Two men sat there, one picking his teeth with a fork.

“The one on the left,” Kelly said, “giving you the hard eye.”

“I see him.”

“Name’s Charlie Mitchell. He claims he killed a man in El Paso and another in Wichita. Fancies himself a fast gun and wants to be known as a hard case.”

“He’s too young to be the feller I’m looking for,” Clayton said, dismissing the man.

“Yeah, but he’s not too young to kill you,” Kelly said.