Free Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

don’t look like a gunslinger.”
    They stepped down off the walk, and started across the street. They had taken but three steps when they heard the sharp rap of a shot. Clear, and ringing in the dark street. A shot, and then another.
    “The Trail House!” Gates yelled, and broke into a run.
    Kilkenny made the door two steps ahead of him, shoved it open, and stepped in. A cowpuncher lay on his face on the floor, a red stain growing on the back of his shirt. A drawn gun lay near his hand. He was dead.
    Slowly Kilkenny looked up. Bert Polti stood across the man’s body, a smoking gun in his fist. He looked at Kilkenny and his eyes narrowed. Kilkenny could see the calculation in his eyes, could see the careful estimate of the situation. He had a gun out, and Kilkenny had not drawn. But there was Gates, and in his own mind, reading what the man thought, Kilkenny saw the momentary impulse die.
    “Personal fight, Kilkenny,” Polti said. “This wasn’t no cattle war scrap. He knocked a drink out of my hand. I asked him to apologize. He told me to go to thunder and I beat him to it.”
    Kilkenny’s eyes went past Polti to a cowpuncher from the Lord ranch.
    “That right?” he demanded.
    “Yeah,” the cowpuncher said slowly, his expression unchanging, “that’s about what happened.”
    Polti hesitated, then holstered his weapon and walked outside.

Chapter IX
    Several men started to remove the body, and Kilkenny walked to the bar. Looking at the liquor in his glass, he heard Rusty speaking to him softly.
    “The hombre that got hisself killed,” Rusty said, “he was the one lookin’ for you.”
    Kilkenny’s eyes caught the eyes of the cowpuncher who had corroborated Polti and, with an almost imperceptible movement of the head, brought the man to the bar.
    “You tell me,” Kilkenny said. “What happened?”
    The cowpuncher hesitated. “Ain’t healthy to talk around here,” he said doubtfully. “See what happened to one hombre? Well, he’s only one.”
    “You don’t look like you’d scare easy,” Kilkenny said dryly. “You afraid of Polti?”
    “No.” The cowpuncher faced Kilkenny. “I ain’t afraid of him, or of you, either, for that matter. Just ain’t healthy to talk. Howsoever, while what Poltisaid was the truth, it looked powerful like to me that Polti deliberately bumped the cowboy’s elbow, that he deliberately drew him into a fight.”
    “What was the ’puncher sayin’? Anythin’ to rile Polti?”
    “Not that I know of. He just said he had him a story to tell that would bust this country wide open. He did him a lot of talkin’, I’d say.”
    So! Bert Polti had picked a quarrel with the man who had a message for Kilkenny, a man who said he could bust this country wide open. Kilkenny thought rapidly. What had the man known? And why from El Paso? Suddenly a thought occurred to him.
    Finishing his drink, he said out of the corner of his mouth: “Stick around and keep your eyes open, Rusty. If you can, pick up Polti and stay close to him.”
    Stepping from the Trail House, Kilkenny walked slowly down the street, keeping to the shadows. Then he crossed the alley to the hardware store, and walked down its wall, then along the corral, and around it. He moved carefully, keeping out of sight until he reached the hotel.
    There was no one in sight on the porch, and the street was empty. Kilkenny stepped up on the porch and through the door. His action seemed leisurely, to attract no attention, but he wasted no time. The old man who served as clerk was dozing behind the desk, and the proprietor, old Sam Duval, was stretched out on a leather settee in the wide, empty lobby. Kilkenny turned the worn account book that served as register, and glanced down the list of names. It was a gamble, and only a gamble.
    It was the fifth name down:
Jack B. Tyson, El Paso, Texas.
    The room was number 22. Kilkenny went up the stairs swiftly and silently. There was no sound in the hall above. Those who wanted to