"Well, for one thing, he seems so--well, _cold_. Like he was a
side-winder or a rattlesnake waitin' for a packrat to come by. He
always seems to be figurin'--calculatin'. He don't smile much, and when
he does, it don't look right on him."
"That funny accent of his don't help none," the sheriff chimed in. "It
ain't that he can't speak good English, but it sounds funny, the way he
says it."
"Been here very long?" Brek asked casually.
"'Bout three years, is all. Done right well by himself, considerin' he
didn't have much when he came."
Chuck said: "After bein' robbed and all, it's a caution how he done so
well." Then he laughed. "That was downright funny, when you come to
think of it."
"Yeah," the sheriff said, grinning. "Him and his sister showed up one
night, naked as jaybirds. A couple of owlhoots had robbed 'em and
stripped 'em of everything they had. No horse, no clothes, no nothin'.
He was lucky, in a way, though. He had a money-belt on him that he
managed to hide in a mesquite bush while the bandits wasn't lookin'.
"I was sittin' in my office that night, when I heard a knock at the
back door. I opened it, and there was John Sager, all dressed up in his
birthday suit and nothin' more. Course, I didn't know who he was--"
Brek listened closely to the sheriff's story. It all fits in. Sagginer
hadn't had time to prepare himself for this era; his speech was
strange, and his clothes even stranger. So he'd taken off his clothes
and pretended to have been robbed. And his sister?
"What's his sister like?" he asked.
"Pretty," Chuck said, "but she's not too bright. Goes around in a daze
most of the time."
_Hypnotized!_ Brek thought. That settled it.
* * * * *
Twenty-four hours later, Brek had all the information he needed.
Sagginer had a double plot in mind--one which would both set him up
permanently and at the same time eliminate any danger from the Time
Patrol. Sagginer knew, of course, where the Great Silver Vein was
at Chloride Flats. It wasn't due to be discovered until 1973, but if
"Sager" found it, he'd not only be a rich man--he would so change
history that the Time Patrol would be unable to reach him. He would
divert the time-stream radically by the discovery of such a vast amount
of silver.
Brek had presumably spent the night at the Murray Hotel, but he had
actually slipped out of his room unseen and made an excursion on foot
up Palo Alto Mountain to the big house Sager had erected there.
It was tightly guarded. There would be no chance of getting in there
without creating a major disturbance. Cautiously, he crept completely
around the house, looking for a break in the guard network. There
wasn't any.
In order to get inside, he'd have to get himself invited in. But how?
He returned to the Hotel, headed from there to the Casa Loma, and was
sitting in the bar drinking a beer, mulling the problem over, when
Chuck came in.
"Ed," the slim man said softly, "it really ain't none of my business,
but I thought you ought to know that Cactus is gunnin' for you."
"Thanks, Chuck," Brek said, as Chuck walked over to the other end of
the bar, as if not wanting to be seen with Brek.
It was easy to see what had happened. Cactus had told Sager-Sagginer
what had happened in the bar yesterday, including, no doubt, the story
about the blinding draw from the hip. Sager probably suspected that
Brek was a Time Patrolman and had sent Cactus to shoot him.
Brek moistened his lips, got up, and dropped a coin on the bar. Then
he tipped his hat to Chuck and pushed his way through the batwings,
heading for Sager's bank.
He knew the game. Sager didn't care whether Cactus got killed or not;
what he wanted to do was watch Brek's gunwork, which would give him
away as a Patrolman if he depended on the robot pistols.
Brek would have to take a chance.
He reached down and turned off the robot armament. All he had now was
a pair of ordinary pistols. Overhead, the noonday sun was coming down
strong and hard, and he began to sweat.
Casually, he sauntered down the wide, unpaved street toward the bank.
There were a few people strolling idly in the other direction. He moved
up against the row of shops, looking in all directions.
No sign of Cactus. He frowned. Brek knew of Cactus' fear of his
lightning draw, and suspected that Cactus would try an ambush. Brek
glanced uneasily across the street, over at Bishop's Livery, where a
cowpoke was hitching his reins to the rail. It wasn't Cactus.
Then, suddenly, a gun spoke. Brek felt a hot bolt of lead blast its way
into his arm, and he staggered dizzily. He glanced up as he struggled
to regain his balance, and saw gunsmoke drifting out an open window in
the second floor of Sager's Bank. _Cactus_, he thought. He leaped back
as another bullet raked the dirt near him. His left arm was warm with
his own blood.
The street was silent. Brek leaned against the cool glass of a shop
window, waiting, holding his breath.
In a few minutes, a head peered cautiously out the second-story window.
Brek tugged at his gun--it seemed to take forever to get it out with
the robot armament shut off--and fired once.
A man tumbled out the window, bounced off the awning in front of the
building, and dropped heavily to the ground. He lay still.
Brek mopped the blood from his arm. His head was starting to swim with
pain, and new worries assailed him. He had killed a man, now. Would it
change the past? Would he ever reach Dori again? He didn't know. All he
knew was the blinding pain in his arm.
* * * * *
He was in fairly good repair an hour later, though the arm still
throbbed a bit. He'd taken it to a local doctor; Sagginer would
be suspicious if he'd used Quik-Heal on it. He stood in front of
the Murray Hotel, methodically packing his few belongings into his
saddlebags.