"Yes." She gave a curious little shrug. "Put it out of my mind. There's nothing else to do."
They sat in silence for a time. Then she said, "Sam, if we went away from here, where would we go?"
[IV]
The main street was an empty, lonely place in spite of the humming bright tunnels of the town's saloons. Tesno stepped off the boardwalk into the dark river of the street, angling toward a dim white globe with HOTEL lettered on it. The pasty-faced night clerk looked up from a game of solitaire as he entered the cluttered lobby. The air was heavy with stale smoke and the smell of unpainted wood.
"I had your saddlebags and blanket roll brought down from the livery," the clerk said, slapping Tesno's key on the desk. "And, oh, a Mr. Warren wanted to see you. He said to tell you he'd be at the Pink Lady. That's a saloon."
"Warren? Did he say what he wanted?"
"He said Mr. Vickers' sent him."
Tesno muttered thanks. He stood toying with his key, then dropped it on the desk and wheeled back into the night. He quickly walked the short block to the Pink Lady, passing no one, not liking the darkness of the town.
The saloon was full, the jangle of the piano half-smothered by the roar of voices, the clink of glasses and faro checks, the whir and clatter of a wheel of fortune. But as he paused inside the batwings, squinting against the stale brightness, the noise ebbed. Heads turned toward him, then cautiously away. And he knew at once something was in the air.