A Coffin for Santa Rosa Read Online Free

skinning knife hanging from his belt. The clerk stumbled back, tripped over his feet and had to grasp the desk to steady himself. Eyes bugged with fear, he quickly grabbed a key from one of the pigeon holes and handed it to Gabriel.
    ‘T-Two eighteen, sir. Top of the stairs and to your right.’
    ‘’Bliged,’ said Gabriel, signing the register.
    Raven, who had never heard Gabriel utter more than a few words at one time, recovered from her surprise and glared at the desk clerk.
    ‘I’ll need hot water for a bath,’ she said gruffly. ‘Lots of hot water. An’ soap too. Par-fumed kind. That clear, mister?’
    ‘V-Very clear, miss. I’ll have it brought straight up.’ Badly shaken, he watched as Gabriel, carpetbag in hand, guided Raven toward the stairs.
    ‘Neck to gizzard?’ she giggled as they climbed up to the second floor. ‘Good-God-awmighty, when’d you start talking like Jim Bridger?’
    ‘’Bout the same time you started takin’ baths,’ Gabriel said. ‘Now move along smartly, scout. I once wintered with an ol’ griz’ sow didn’t smell as ripe as you.’

CHAPTER THREE
    Later, while Raven was taking her bath, Gabriel lit a cigar, left the hotel, crossed the dirt, lamp-lit street and entered Los Gatos, a small cantina.
    Inside, it was dark, dingy and reeked of chili and refried beans. Gabriel checked out the two cattlemen drinking at the bar, sensed they’d be no trouble and surveyed the rest of the dimly lit room. His gaze settled on a man playing solitaire at a rear table. The only light back there was what filtered out of the kitchen. It wasn’t enough to read by and Gabriel was surprised that the man could see his cards. Suspicious, he tried to make out the man’s face but it was hidden beneath the wide brim ofhis gray felt hat. It was not the everyday Stetson but like the hats worn by plantation owners in the Deep South. The rest of the man was in shadow.
    Feeling a twinge of uneasiness, Gabriel decided to keep an eye on him. Ordering a bottle of rye, he took it and a glass to a corner table. As he sat with his back to the wall, he looked toward the rear and realized the man had left. Guessing he must have ducked out through the kitchen, Gabriel rose and went to the table. The cards lay as the man had left them; the game still in progress. Gabriel absently put an eight of spades on a nine of hearts and then stuck his head in the kitchen.
    A lumpy, middle-aged Mexican woman in a grease-stained white dress was stirring a kettle of chili on the stove. Behind her, the back door was open. Gabriel hurried to it and looked out. The alley was quiet, dark and empty.
    Returning to the woman, Gabriel asked her in Spanish if she knew the man who had just run out. Wiping the sweat from her brow with her beefy forearm, she shrugged fatly and shook her head.
    ‘Ever seen him before, señora ?’
    Again the woman shook her head.
    Thanking her, Gabriel returned to the bar and asked the balding, fat-faced Mexican barkeep if he knew who the card player was. The barkeep didn’t. Nor did he remember what the man looked like. But he did remember that he was a gringo , a very small gringo , who smiled with his mouth but not with his eyes and wore a strange looking hat.
    ‘A gambler, maybe?’
    ‘It is possible, señor .’
    One of the cattlemen at the bar turned to Gabriel. ‘Don’t mean to stick my nose in, mister, but the fella you’re talkin’ about was no gambler.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Me’n my partner Cal, here, went over an’ asked him if he’dlike to play a few hands of stud. Fella didn’t even have the courtesy to look up. Just went on playin’ Klondike like we weren’t standin’ there. Made me plenty sore, I can tell you. But before I could call him on it, Cal pulled me away.’
    ‘Lucky for you I did,’ said the other cattleman, ‘or you’d be full of holes.’ He turned to Gabriel, adding: ‘This hombre had two guns, tied low like a shootist. Real fancy jobs. Nickel-plated with shiny