The Smoking Iron by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online

stage?” Ezra pursued. “We ain’t gonna ride it, are we?”
    â€œI just wondered,” Pat hesitated while the waiter came and dropped some knives and forks in front of them and slopped down two glasses of water. “Bartender over to the Topaz told me that the dance-hall gal named Rosa is the sheriff’s sweetie.”
    Ezra frowned at him in bewilderment. “That so? What of it?”
    â€œRosa,” Pat reminded him, “is the name of the gal that Dusty Morgan was lookin’ for.”
    â€œShore. But what of it?”
    â€œThe sherriff,” Pat said patiently, “don’t take good to the idee of his sweetie honeying up to another man. I figger Dusty’s stickin’ his neck into trouble … an’ I wanted to judge how bad the trouble might be.”
    â€œYou mean that’s why you went an’ talked to the sheriff … to find out what Dusty’ll be up against a-courtin’ Rosa?”
    â€œMostly. Dusty did us a good turn at the stable,” Pat went on slowly. “I’d hate to see him in trouble without tryin’ to help. He seems like a nice young feller.”
    â€œYeh. In a crazy sort of way,” Ezra agreed. “Feelin’ his oats, that’s what he is. Jest honin’ fer a chance to use that hawg-laig he’s got strapped on him.” Ezra paused to chuckle heavily. “Reminds me of you before you learned some sense. The way Sam an’ me usta pull you outta scrapes you’d got into because you was so danged hard-headed.”
    The waiter came with their steaks and fried potatoes and interrupted Ezra’s reminiscences. The steaks were hefty hunks of meat hot on the outside and raw in the middle. The potatoes were thick and soggy. Both men attacked the food voraciously.
    Ezra topped his meal off with three slabs of apple pie and two cups of coffee, while Pat was satisfied with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
    The big man sighed gustily and patted his stomach when he was done. “Now that was real man’s food,” he beamed. “Sticks to the linin’ of a feller’s belly. Different from what Kitty dishes out. Not that she don’t try hard,” he went on hastily, “but she jest don’t know what sorta vittles a man craves. Plenty good fer a little shrimp like Sam, but I stay hongry all the time no matter how much I eat.”
    Pat nodded sympathetically. “Now that you got yore belly well lined, what say we mosey down to the hotel an’ see can we line up a bed to sleep in?”
    Ezra paused outside the restaurant and stared across at the Topaz Saloon. “A couple more of them bar glasses of whisky would mix mighty good with that pie.”
    Pat started to dissent but changed his mind as he saw a bulky figure going through the swinging doors of the saloon. It looked like the sheriff. He said, “Let’s go,” and surprised Ezra by his hurry in getting across the street.
    The Topaz was crowded by this time. A solid line of men stood at the bar and the tables in the back were all occupied. There was a Mexican string quartet at the rear, and a girl stood in front of them on a low table singing a Mexican song. She wore a crimson gown that left her shoulders and most of her bosom bare but had a full skirt that swirled about her lithe calves and thighs. She wore a red rose hi her black hair, and her lips were redder than the rose. With her hands planted on her hips, she swayed and stamped with the rhythm of the music, and there was a barbaric exotic appeal hi the husky voice that spoke pleadingly of love to the roomful of men.
    Pat spied the sheriff standing at the end of the bar, and he shouldered up and made room for himself beside the county official.
    The sheriff held a glass of whisky in his right hand and his gaze was fixed on the figure of the singer. His hand shook a little, and some of the whisky slopped over the edge of the glass and dripped from his