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CHAPTER 6

      WHEN NUGENT came into the funeral parlor, Euclid Hopper was leaning over a corpse in a wood coffin.

      He crossed the dead man's arms on his chest, just so. A pillowcase filled with dry grass holding his head at a comfortable angle. "My, he's a sight," Nugent said, looking down at the corpse, "Who was he?"

      "Name of Sanders," Hopper said. "Came to town last week, decided that possession was nine-tenths of the law, and started working another man's claim."

      "Well, that is a way of acquiring metal," Nugent said, staring at the bullethole Hopper had patched with wax in the dead man's forehead.

      Hopper gave the man's suit a last tug, and adjusted the black cloth that concealed the sawhorses that held the coffin. If somebody wanted to see Mr. Sanders, he had until tomorrow afternoon to visit him, but Hopper figured the show was for only one person, Mr. Sanders' ladyfriend who put up the money for the funeral. She had won Hopper's admiration instantly when he came around to pick up the body. She had tossed a small sack of gold dust toward him and said, "Give the old bastard a decent funeral, will you. Dress him up nice and put him in your front parlor for everybody to see him." Then she chuckled. "I guess I owe him that, seeing that I've inherited everything he owns."

      At four o'clock tomorrow the nice suit Mr. Sanders wore, and the fine cravat would be taken off and saved for the next male customer, and the coffin lid would be nailed shut and dumped into a grave. Hopper thought that the dead man was lucky. Had be been plugged a couple of weeks later, he'd have to spend the winter frozen in his box, stacked up with other bodies in the shed, waiting until it got warm enough for the ground to thaw enough for digging.

      Hopper poured water into the washbowl and washed his hands. Then he gave his full attention to Nugent. "What did he want you for?"

      "Weitnaur?"

      "No, President James A. Garfield, who came down from heaven to meet you. Of course Weitnaur."

      When Nugent was feeling peaceful nothing to ruffle his temper. He rather enjoyed Hopper's sarcasm.

      "Well, our Alex had himself a little problem," Nugent grinned benignly. "Said he was robbed again."

      Hopper shrugged. "The man just can't seem to defend himself from robbers."

      "More to it than that, Euc. Get the others and tell 'em to be at my place at 5 o'clock. And plan to come for supper, all of you. We're having a guest I'll tell you about at the meeting."

      "I'll let Ellie know," Hopper nodded. He squinted down at the dead man and stepped back and admired his handiwork.

      Nugent wasn't used to staying up so late at night, and the ride from Central City back home had tired him. Now he was eager to get home and take a nap. He had broken his routine, and ever since he passed on to the shady side of forty-five, he liked routine.

      As he rode slowly up the hill to his house, he smiled at the thought of Purdy. He couldn't very well let a good prospect like Purdy slip away. Why it was like a turkey walking up to you on Thanksgiving and shedding his feathers. It was providential. It made a man actually want to go ahead and actually build a damn railroad.

      Still, there was something about Purdy that just didn't sit quite right. The man looked too smart, rode too well, handled himself too well to be the spoiled rich boy he claimed to be.

      When Nugent got to the house he turned his horse over to Clay, the young man with no last name that Luna had found along the road and brought home. Since then Clay, whose mind was slow, had gained at least thirty pounds. Nugent joshed him about it. "You're damn near as fat as me, Clay."

      And Clay, who worshiped Luna and Nugent, nodded and smiled his empty childlike smile.

      Nugent's log house was big, with five rooms, all of them good sized. The logs were well matched and carefully chinked, and he thought it was as comfortable as any of the Denver mansions, even if it was made of logs instead of bricks. He got a good feeling every time he looked at it.

      He walked from the horsebarn to the house and went up the side stairs to the porch. From there he could see clear across Tres Marias until the cliff cut off his view on one side, and the bald top of Long's Peak, more than 20 miles away interrupted the view on the other. Nugent loved the view and liked to sit in the comfortable wooden chairs on the porch on summer evenings and count his blessings. But just now the porch was sheeted with ice, and he only spent a minute or so on the view before stepping indoors smartly, glad to be out of the cold.

      He walked through the sitting room with its imported rug on the floor, and the horsehair sofa and matching chairs. A fire burned in the big stone fireplace to take the chill off the room. He went through the dining room to the kitchen where Che'en Po was tying up hams for the smokehouse.

      When the Chinese saw Nugent, he said, "You have a good ride back, boss?"

      "Passable," Nugent said. He watched while Che'en Po got some roast beef from the cold box on the back porch and made him a sandwich. Che'en knew a man who rode up from Central City in cold weather was going to be hungry.

      Nugent moved through the house eating the sandwich. Nobody was in his office, and the papers that covered his desk were undisturbed. He walked upstairs, onto the loft, which he had decorated himself with several antlers, and a stuffed elk head with a gigantic rack, and a grizzly head, teeth bared and glass eyes glaring. Here's where his books were; hundreds of them racked neatly in wooden bookcases. During the day the loft, which Nugent call his library, got light from a large window edged with stained glass. His reading table and a couple of comfortable chairs and good lamps made this his favorite room. In a glass-fronted case were his four shotguns and three rifles, including his favorite hunting rifle, a Winchester 44-40 with a smooth lever action and a rear sight for greater accuracy. He had several handguns in the case, hanging from pegs through the trigger guards, but they weren't any good for hunting.

      He walked past the loft to the short hallway that opened on his bedroom and paused outside the door. He opened the door sharply, surprising Luna, who looked up from her book with her dark Mexican eyes. The room was pleasantly warm from the woodstove.

      "I'm back."

      "I thought maybe you'd get back last night," she said.

      "Wanted to, but I had to stay up drinking and gabbing." He bent down and kissed her on the mouth. Her name meant "Moon" in Spanish, and often she seemed to him to be as beautiful, distant and cold as the moon. She was that way this afternoon, her lips cold and passionless.

      "I was hoping we could have a little romp, before I take a nap." he said.

      "If you want."

      He began getting out of his clothes and she stepped out of hers, and lay down on her back. He got on top of her. But it wasn't much good, and after it was over, he rolled off her and pretended to fall asleep while she lay passively beside him, her eyes staring at the ceiling.

      At times like this he wished she wasn't such a cold fish. But she was a beauty, he thought. She had come from a good family down in Chihuahua where her father lived in an elegant hacienda on a dying ranch. Her family had sent her to El Paso to go to school at the Sisters of Loretto and she had learned well. Nugent had seen her in San Jacinto Plaza dressed in a school uniform, and she was so pretty he got her name and found out where she was from. He wanted her so bad he went down to Chihuahua with a couple of men and convinced her parents to encourage her to marry him. It had taken a few hours, and a lot of money changed hands heading south, but they finally agreed. And the two men he'd brought with him hadn't had to do anything except smile and drink tequila. They had been married for more than ten years now, and she'd never been home, although she got letters from her mother sometimes.

      Somehow they had grown comfortable together, and on some nights he could ignite a spark of passion in her that turned them both into a bonfire. Times like tonight were worth putting up with for those bonfire nights.

      Suddenly he rose up. "I forgot to tell you, we're having the committee for supper tonight, and I've invited a man I met in Central City. Nice feller. You'll like him."

      "Did you tell Che'en?" she asked.

      "I forget."

      Luna got up and put on a brocade robe and went down stairs in her bare feet to tell Che'en, who took the news as he always took any news that affected him, with a smile that concealed his real feelings.

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