Smoke of the .45

by Harry Sinclair Drago

From the edge of the big freight cars he could reach out and touch the wall of the hotel. Grasping the steel hook with which he had provided himself, he began to move toward the lighted windows.

Seconds slipped by as he came abreast the first window before he satisfied himself that the room was unoccupied. On hands and knees, drawing himself forward noiselessly, he crept on. An even longer time did he pause before passing the second window. He began to wonder if the man he sought had gone downstairs. He knew he had been in his room twenty minutes ago. Rather, he had believed as much, inasmuch as the man had not been in the bar.

Subconsciously he became aware of the approaching engine. It drove him forward. With half the caution he had used in surveying the other rooms, he stared into the third one. Something stuck in his throat as he beheld Crosbie Traynor sound asleep on the narrow bed, his head within a foot of the window.

Black hatred leaped in the man’s soul as he stared at the sleeping Traynor. This was going to be almost too easy! There had been moments in his approach to this spot in which his determination to go through with his mission had wavered; his hands had shaken.

That was gone now. He not only wanted to kill, but he found himself able to restrain his desire—to snuggle it to his heart, to wait for the propitious second, to do the deed cleverly. It was a revelation to the man. He had never suspected himself of such metal.

He had drawn his gun, but he put it back. Wisdom was guiding him. The long steel wool hook became his weapon. Reaching into the room with it, he picked Traynor’s belt and loaded holster from its perch on the chair beside the bed. Next he secured the hat the sleeping man had worn.

The feel of it infuriated him. Savagely he ripped away the band and the gold charm snapped into it. He threw the hat back into the room. It would have pleased him to have hurled the little gold snake into the blackness, but that was the very sort of thing he had told himself a minute ago he had mastered. So the little charm went into his pocket.

With the steel hook, he replaced Traynor’s gun belt, minus the gun. The engine, with its string of cattle cars, bumped into the line of cars on which he lay as he drew back from depositing the holster. For a second he wavered, fighting to regain his balance. He could hear the air shooting through the brakes. This car would be moving in another moment. A brakeman ran down alongside the train. Thanks to the rain he had not come across the tops!

Some one shouted, a lantern waved, the train tensed as if to spring forward. A grinding, tearing sound, the lurching of the big car, and then the long-drawn, piercing whistle.

It was for this he had waited. Reaching in through the window, he fired!