The big gundown by J.A. Johnstone

under his coat. He had a hunch that the saloonkeeper’s fingers had been wrapped around the butt of a pistol in a shoulder rig. No man was as successful in a mining boomtown as Augustine appeared to be without making a considerable number of enemies along the way.
    Augustine smiled as he got to his feet. He didn’t comment on Morgan’s changed appearance. He just said, “Are you ready to meet Edward Sheffield?”
    “That’s why I’m here.” Morgan looked around the room. “I don’t see him.”
    “Oh, he’s not here. We’ll have to go see him. That’s the way it works.”
    Morgan wasn’t surprised. Rich men were accustomed to people coming to them, rather than the other way around.
    Augustine took a soft felt hat from a hat tree. “We’ll go out the back. You didn’t have any trouble when you came in, did you?”
    “Not a bit.”
    “How do you like the Bisbee House?”
    “It’s fine. Looks comfortable, and the food in the dining room was good.”
    Augustine chuckled. “I’m glad you liked it.” He led the way into the corridor, where he opened another door that let them into an alley. Morgan stayed close to him, not expecting any sort of a double cross but knowing at the same time that it would be more difficult to ambush him if there wasn’t much distance between him and Augustine.
    He realized after a few minutes that they were walking toward the train station. Recalling what Augustine had said about Edward Sheffield building a spur line into the Dragoon Mountains to serve the company town near his mine, Morgan wondered if he would have to go all the way to Titusville to meet with Sheffield. Surely Augustine would have told him if that were the case, so that he could have brought his gear along with him.
    That wasn’t how it turned out, however. When they reached the depot, Augustine gestured toward a couple of railroad cars parked on a siding. “There it is,” he said. “Edward Sheffield’s home away from home.”

Chapter 13

    Morgan wasn’t particularly surprised. He knew that a lot of tycoons had their own private railroad cars. When he was still Conrad Browning, he might have enjoyed such a thing himself.
    The two of them went up a set of iron steps to the platform at the rear of the closest car, which was a thing of beauty, all polished brass and dark wood. Augustine knocked on the vestibule door, which was opened a moment later by a stout woman in a maid’s uniform. “ Herr Augustine,” she said in a German accent, “please come in. Herr Sheffield is waiting for you.”
    “He hasn’t been waiting long, I hope,” Augustine said with a smile.
    “ Ach , no. He and Frau Sheffield just finished their dinner a few minutes ago.”
    Morgan thought back, trying to remember what, if anything, he had ever heard about Sheffield’s wife. He didn’t recall much, only that she was in bad health. He wondered if she had come to Arizona Territory with her husband because of the warm, dry climate. Sheffield’s home was in Chicago, Morgan remembered. The winters there would be hard on someone who was sick.
    The maid took their hats and led them through the vestibule into an elegantly appointed sitting room. Morgan had seen plenty of hotel rooms that weren’t as elegantly and comfortably furnished as this railroad car. A slender man rose from a divan to greet them. He held a drink in one hand, a long, thick cigar in the other. His gray hair was parted in the center and thinning on top. He had a mustache and rather bushy muttonchop whiskers.
    “Augustine,” he said with a curt nod, then gestured with the cigar toward Morgan. “This is the man you mentioned in the note you had delivered to me?”
    “That’s right, Mr. Sheffield,” Augustine replied. “This is Mr. Morgan.”
    “No first name?” He looked at Morgan with a challenge in his eyes.
    “Morgan will do.”
    Sheffield nodded again. “All right, then.” He stuck the cigar in his mouth, clamped down on it with his teeth, and