The Violent Peace by George G. Gilman

over his shoulder and grinned. The girl he had bought for the night was standing on the bed, legs splayed and hands cupping her large breasts. She was completely naked and smiling invitingly with her generous mouth. The glint in her eyes could have been lust or avariciousness as she surveyed another paying customer.
    “Not yet, but breathing hard I guess,” Clancy said with a leer as he stood aside to allow Blake to enter the room.
    The door closed.
    “Don't you want any company mister?” the madam called.
    Steele nodded. “The girl who's been here the longest. I already paid at the desk for her.”
    “She hasn't been to see you yet?” the madam asked, puzzled.
    “She'll be here at seven in the morning,” Steele replied, retreating into the room and closing the door. “You like to get up early,” the madam called, and laughed before withdrawing into her own room.
    Steele crossed to the window and looked out over the plaza towards the facade of the drapery store. It was still as dark as the other buildings of the town. He wondered momentarily about the woman who had come in on the buckboard with the trooper. And about the four bodies and the blood on Blake's limp right arm.
    Then he stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. He made his mind go as blank as his eyes, then closed his eyes. Sleep came easily to his weary body.
     
     

CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    HARRY Binns was fat, forty and a practicing Christian. He had a tidy mind and liked his life to run on well-ordered lines. Thus, when he opened the rear door of his premises to take out the ashes of yesterday's cooking fire, the shock at seeing Mona stretched out among the cartons was a very strong one indeed. For not only was it a traumatic departure from his daily routine, which was upsetting enough in itself. But the sight of the woman was an explicit reminder of the only two events in his life of which he was ashamed - being the brother of the no-good Edward and allowing himself to make free with the willing body of Edward's wife.
    After glancing hurriedly at the windows overlooking the store's yard, he roused the sleeping woman and implored her to stay silent until he had ushered her into the stockroom. Nobody saw what happened, because the only person watching the store was doing so from a window with no view of the rear. Adam Steele, his stubble thicker and his clothes even more crumpled after a night's sleep, kept a careful surveillance on the store's frontage, waiting for a sign that it was open for business. He was seated on the room's only chair, the presentation Colt Hartford resting across his knees. Behind him, the room was spartanly furnished - a bed, a bureau and a wardrobe in rough painted walls on one of which hung a crucifix.
    There was a gentle, tentative knock on the door. He did not turn around, but craned forward and glanced towards the east. He judged the sun to be in its seven o'clock position.
    “Come in,” he called.
    A girl of about twenty entered and halted in the doorway. She was slim and pretty, with shoulder length black hair and brown eyes filled with fear as she regarded the back of the man seated at the window. Her white dress was cut on simple lines, closefitting enough to show she wore little or nothing beneath it.
    “You wanted me, Mr. Steele,” she said nervously. “My name's Jennie.”
    Steele glanced quickly over his shoulder, his eyes showing nothing of what he felt upon seeing the girl. “If you're the one who's been here the longest, I do.”
    Jennie closed the door. “Is a year long enough for you?” she asked.
    “I reckon,” Steele replied, concentrating upon the store across the plaza. The girl's dress was buttoned from its high neck to its low hem. She inserted the index finger of her left hand beside the top button and ran her hand down. The buttons popped open in rapid succession, all the way to the bottom. When she straightened up, the dress gapedwide. She wore nothing beneath it.