Comanche Gold Read Free

Turning back into the room, he found Mrs. Murry staring at
him quizzically.
    “I like to know what's going on around me,”
he explained with a grin.
    She nodded then held the room key out to him.
“I'll leave you now,” she said. “I'm in the middle of preparing
supper. Remember,” she held up a finger, “it's served at 6
o'clock.”
    Tucson pulled a gold watch from his pocket
and snapped open the case. “That gives me about an hour,” he
commented. “Do you have a washroom here?”
    “There's a tub in the room at the end of the
hall.”
    “Do you have someone who can put some hot
water in it for me?” he asked. “I'd like to take a bath.”
    “I'll see to it,” Mrs. Murry said. “Mirah,
that's my helper, will knock on your door when it’s ready.”
    “That should do it,” Tucson replied. “By the
way,” he added. “Would you mind having her fill the tub each day
about this time? I like to take daily baths when I can.”
    Mrs. Murry’s brows arched in surprise. “I've
never heard of anyone washing that often before. Most of the people
around here bathe once a week at the most.”
    Tucson shrugged. “When I have no choice, I
can go for as long as I need to. But when I can, I like to stay
clean. So if you'll take care of it, I'd appreciate it.”
    Mrs. Murry nodded, then turned and left the
room.
    After leaning his Winchester against the wall
next to the bed, Tucson busied himself taking his few belongings
from the saddlebags and transferring them to the drawers in the
dresser. He had just finished when a knock sounded on the door.
When he opened it he found a pretty mulatto girl about eighteen or
nineteen standing in the hall. Dressed in a simple cotton blouse
and a full skirt, she was long-legged and lithe, with high,
up-tilted breasts and laughing brown eyes. Her black curly hair was
covered with a blue scarf.
    “Your bath's ready, Mistah Tucson,” she said
in a deep, lilting voice, as she boldly looked him up and down.
Spinning around so that her skirt flared out from her slim ankles,
she walked back down the hallway, swinging her rounded hips
suggestively.
    Tucson watched her appreciatively until she
reached the end of the hall, turned at the landing and glanced back
at him with a broad smile, then disappeared down the stairs.
Grinning to himself, Tucson went on to his bath.
    * * * *
    It was a quarter past six when Tucson stepped
into the dining room. His black hair was washed and combed straight
back, and his cheeks were freshly shaved. A clean white shirt
gleamed beneath his jacket, and his trousers and boots had been
brushed. Holding his gun-belt and sombrero in his left hand, he
stopped inside the doorway and glanced at the people sitting around
the table.
    There were a few bachelor merchants and
laborers hunched over their plates; a couple of women who looked
like someone's maiden aunts picked at their food; and then there
was an elderly, distinguished looking gentleman sitting on the
other side of the table to the left of Mrs. Murry, who sat at the
far end.
    The only jarring note was the young man
sitting on the right side of Mrs. Murry. Dressed like a cowboy, he
wore an open-at-the collar shirt and a bandanna, a leather vest
with silver conchos, and faded Levi's stuffed into a pair of fancy,
high-heeled boots. His blonde hair curled over a broad forehead,
and his open, good-natured face had a spray of freckles spread over
the bridge of his nose.
    But it was the Colt .45 cinched around his
waist that set alarm bells off in Tucson's head.
    The group had been talking and laughing, but
when he entered they stopped and stared at him curiously.
    Mirah called out to him in her lilting voice
as she put a heaping plate of potatoes on the table. “Come on in
and set yourself down, Mistah Tucson...the food's gittin'
cold.”
    Tucson hung his gun-belt and sombrero on a
rack standing in the corner then took the vacant chair next to the
young cowboy that allowed him to keep his back against