“I was. I’ve disowned him.”
“Or he disowned you,” Stannic said.
Steve tensed. It was a deliberate move, aimed at getting the point across that he was a revolver fighter and a man to be reckoned with.
But Stannic, a man who’d seen the kid’s like many times, ignored him.
“I got a wife and young ’uns, Reid,” he said. “Look around and you’ll see how it is with me. We ain’t exactly living high on the hog here.”
Stannic’s three black-haired children clung to the skirts of their Osage mother’s skirts, wary of strangers. The woman was tall and stately, and when she looked at Reid her eyes burned with resentment. The cabin was untidy and somewhat dirty, more akin to a poor white laborer’s abode than the home of a famous outlaw.
Stannic was a bull-necked, bearded brute of a man, his head shaven but for a scalp lock at the crown, no doubt his wife’s influence. But his brown eyes revealed a quick intelligence and the creases at the corners a willingness to smile.
“Big money, Hank,” Reid said. “Just one quick job.”
“Sounds like a go to me,” McCord said. Stannic ignored that and said to his wife, “We need the money, Misae.”
The Osage said, “I need my husband and my children need their father.”
“One quick job,” Stannic said.
“Maybe one job too many,” the woman said.
“Aw, don’t listen to the Indian, Hank,” Steve McCord said, grinning.
“Misae is my wife,” Stannic said, whisper quiet, but edged with menace.
Reid read the warning sign and said, “The kid’s just joshing, Hank.” Then, “At least come back with me and talk with Mr. Tweddle.”
McCord wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t josh,” he said. “I don’t like Indians.”
“Steve, shut your damned trap,” Reid said. “You got nothing to prove in a man’s home.”
Stannic said, “Kid, you’re on the prod. Best you calm down a little. No one will hurt you while you’re under my roof.”
McCord didn’t want to back up in front of Reid and Stannic’s woman, but then, from under the table he heard a triple click and something hard pushed into his groin.
“What do you say, huh?” Stannic said.
Reid’s smile was sick and forced. “You always were such a joker, Hank,” he said.
Steve McCord felt the gun muzzle push harder.
“What do you say?” Stannic said.
This wasn’t the glamorous world of the draw fighter as the young man had imagined it. This was down and dirty and without honor. An outlaw’s trick. But he knew if he talked sass to Stannic the man would, without a moment’s hesitation, blow his balls off.
“I say I’m just excited about meeting you, Hank, is all.”
“See, we’re all perfect friends here,” Reid said.
The pressure left Steve’s groin and Stannic placed his revolver on the table. It was a scarred blue Colt with a worn rubber handle, a working gun. The outlaw rose to his feet then shoved the Colt into the pocket of his frayed canvas coat.
“I will talk with Tweddle,” he said. His big Mexican spurs ringing, Stannic opened the cabin door and yelled, “Herm! Slick!”
“Yeah, boss?” a man’s voice answered.
“We’re riding. Saddle my horse.”
Pike Reid sat his horse beside a sullen Steve McCord. Behind them, probably by design, Herm Holloway and Slick Trent watched Stannic’s wife step out of the cabin door, her young children clinging to her.
Holloway was a tall angular man, a steel Cheyenne war ax stuck into his belt. He also wore a Colt and had a Winchester under his right knee. Slick Trent was much younger, a towhead with crazy eyes and a constant grin. He wore two guns high on his waist and he stared at Steve McCord in open amusement. Trent had killed six men and was fast and accurate on the draw and shoot. He was also a savage and determined rapist and not to be trusted around women.
Hank Stannic swung into the saddle.
In silence, he and his wife gazed at each other for long moments, then Stannic nodded and swung his horse away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sam Flintlock carefully locked the door of Frank Constable’s cabin then mounted his horse. After a last look around at the devastation he and Jamie McPhee had wrought, he said, “Let’s go.”
As McPhee kicked his horse into motion, he said, “Sam, do you think the folks in Open Sky have forgotten about me?”
O’Hara answered the question.
“If it wasn’t for Flintlock’s gun, they’d string you up quicker’n scat.”
McPhee turned his head and glared at Flintlock. “Sam, I don’t think this is such a good idea,” he said.
“It ain’t,” Flintlock said. “We’re riding into the lion’s den.”
“Why?”
“Because it sure as hell beats hanging out here twiddling our thumbs and burning stuff.”
O’Hara said, “Whoever killed the Pinkerton and Frank Constable will come after you, Flintlock. You’re the last link to McPhee.”
“I’m counting on that. My being in Open Sky will bring the killer out into the open.”
“You like to live dangerously, Flintlock.”
“And you, O’Hara, whose side are you on, huh?”
“My own.”
“A man can’t say fairer than that, I guess.” Flintlock noticed a slight change in the gait of his buckskin. “Damn, he’s cast a shoe,” he said.
“There’s a blacksmith close by,” O’Hara said. “Or you can wait until you reach town.”
“I better do it now,” Flintlock said. “When I get to Open Sky I might need the hoss in a hurry.” He threw a puzzled look at O’Hara. “What’s a blacksmith doing in this wilderness?”
“He’s set up at a settlement to the west of Buzzard Gap, if you can call a general store that doubles as a saloon and a pole corral a settlement.”
“What do they call it?”
“They don’t call it anything.”
“I call it right handy,” Flintlock said.
The blacksmith, a taciturn blond Swede with a surly attitude, hammered at some red-hot iron thing as Sam Flintlock led the buckskin into the forge.
“He’s lost a shoe,” he said.
“Leave the horse, wait your turn,” the Swede said. He plunged the scarlet, hissing iron into a water tank.
“How long?” Flintlock said.
“Depends,” the smith said.
“On what?”
“On how long you stand there pestering me with damned fool questions.”
O’Hara left without saying where he was going, and Flintlock and Jamie McPhee figured to visit the saloon in search of coffee and maybe some grub. Flintlock left his Winchester on the saddle, but took the Hawken.
Three horses stood in the corral next to the two-story building and above the door a weathered wooden sign proclaimed: FINEST WINES & SPIRITS.
The proprietor, a gray-haired man, stepped from behind the store part of the building, wiping off his hands on a white apron. “What can I do for you gents?” he said.
“Coffee,” Flintlock said.
“Pot’s on top of the stove over there. Cups on the hooks.”
“Grub?” Flintlock said.
“Beans in the pot beside the coffee. Plates on the shelf.”
“We’ll stick to coffee,” Flintlock said.
“Suit yourself. Cost you two bits.”
“Expensive.”
“It’s the going rate.”
“Ain’t too many real sociable folks around here, huh?” Flintlock said.
“If you lived here, mister, would you be sociable?”
The gray-haired man stepped away and went back behind the store counter.
Flintlock and McPhee poured coffee and McPhee said, “Watch out for that, Sam.” He nodded to a black puddle on the floor that had leaked from a molasses barrel.
“Sticky that,” Flintlock said.
“Hey you, mountain man.”<
br />
Flintlock earlier noticed the two young men who sat at a table eating crackers and blue-veined cheese. A bottle of whiskey stood between them.
He’d seen their like before, all duded up like dance-hall cowboys but too lazy for that kind of work. Or any kind of work. But they were hunting trouble, eager to stack up against a buckskinned man who carried an ancient rifle that might explode when he fired it and an unarmed ranny who had the meek, bullied look of a countinghouse clerk.
“What can I do for you boys?” Flintlock said. He stood with his back to the rough timber bar and carefully placed the unloaded Hawken upright beside him.
“You too good to eat beans?” one of the men said. He had insolent blue eyes and a week’s growth of beard. Flintlock thought he looked a little like Billy Bonney, but without Billy’s dazzling smile and significant presence.
“I don’t see you eating them,” he said.
“That’s sass, Ben,” the other man said. “I’d sure call that sass.”
“I know it is, Lou.” The man called Ben smiled. “Question is, what am I gonna do about it?”
“Nothing,” Flintlock said. “You’re not going to do anything about it because I don’t need any more trouble than I already have.”
“I reckon Ben will decide that,” Lou said.
The man looked mean, on the prod, and he should have been old enough to know better.
But the proprietor recognized exactly what Flintlock was and the sudden danger he represented. “Let the man drink his coffee in peace, boys,” he said.
“You shut your trap, Slaton,” Ben said.
Flintlock drained his cup. “Good coffee,” he said to Slaton. “I reckon I’ll see if the smith has started on my hoss yet.”
“Hey, you don’t think you’re just walking out of here after the way you back-talked Ben,” Lou said around a smirk.
“Yeah,” Flintlock said. “That’s what I’m going to do, walk on out of here.”
“Sam . . .” McPhee said.
“I see him.”
Lou was on his feet, smiling, his hand close to the Colt on his hip.
“Boy, are you really so anxious to get another notch on the handle of that hogleg?” Flintlock said. He glanced at the revolver. “Seems to me you already got enough.”
Lou grinned. “Enough is never enough.”
“Cutting a notch on your gun for every man you killed is a tinhorn trick and low-down,” Flintlock said. “How many do you have?”
“Six and pretty soon seven.”
“Hell, are you sure I can’t talk you out of this? I mean, it just ain’t civilized.”
“Nope. I’m primed up to kill me a big ol’ mountain man.”
“You tell him, Lou,” Ben said.
“You want to do the honors, Ben?” Lou said, his amused eyes never leaving Flintlock.
“Nah. You can take him. I’ll watch.”
Then Flintlock got good and angry and, as was his habit, moved quickly from mad to damned mad. “You lowdown scum,” he said, “pickin’ on a peaceful man who just drank his coffee.” His hands hung by his sides. “All right, shuck your iron, Lou. Open the ball.”
For a moment a glimmer of doubt showed in Lou’s eyes. Flintlock looked too confident, like he’d been there before. But he drew.
In a life full of mistakes and wrong choices, pulling his Colt was Lou’s worst. He realized that a half second before Flintlock’s bullet crashed into his chest, splintered breastbone and tore through his heart.
Flintlock took a step to his left and swung his gun on Ben. For a moment he thought he’d be too late on the shoot. But he was wrong.
“Noooo!” Ben yelled. “For God sakes, no.”
He tossed his gun away from him and it clattered into a corner.
“Damn you!” Flintlock roared, his rage consuming him like a red flame. “Pick up the iron you piece of filth and get to your work.”
Ben, his face frightened, shook his head.
“Pick it up, damn you!” Flintlock yelled.
“Sam! No! It’s over!” McPhee said. “He’s out of it.”
Like a man falling from a great height, it took Flintlock a while before he hit the flat. He shoved his Colt back into his waistband and in a calm voice said, “Yeah, it’s over. Almost.”
Slaton looked up from where he kneeled beside Lou.
“He’s dead,” he said.
Flintlock nodded. Then, “Slaton, that there spilled molasses is a mess. Sticky, you know what I mean?”
“I’ll mop it up,” Slaton said. “Right now I’ve got other things on my mind, mister.”
“It shouldn’t go to waste,” Flintlock said. “Molasses is expensive.”
He stared hard at Ben. The man read Flintlock’s eyes and said, “I ain’t gonna mop it up.”
“Yeah, that’s right, you’re not. You’re going to lick it up like the mangy dog you are.”
“The hell I will,” Ben said.
Flintlock pulled his gun. His words iced over. “Get on your hands and knees, make like a cur and lick it up, or I’ll drop you right where you stand.”
“Here, that won’t do,” Slaton said.
“It does for me,” Flintlock said.
Ben’s eyes darted to the corner where he’d tossed his gun. Too far. He’d never make it.
“Lick it up,” Flintlock said.
“Go to hell,” Ben said.
Flintlock fired.
At a distance of just twelve feet, his aim was true. The big .45 bullet hit the base of Ben’s right thumb and left him with a bloody stump.
The man screamed, held up his hand and stared at the horror that had just befallen him.
“You picked on a poor mountain man for no other reason than you thought he would be easy to kill,” Flintlock said. “It seems you were wrong.”
“You shot off my thumb, you son of a bitch!” Ben shrieked.
“That I am,” Flintlock said. Then, “McPhee, pick up Ben’s gun and stick it in your pants. He’s got no further need for it.” He nodded in the direction of the dead man. “Slaton, I’m sure he’s got money in his pocket enough to bury him. Maybe Ben will help you dig the hole.”
“Who the hell are you, mister?” Slaton said.
“Name’s Sam Flintlock.”
“You’re a hard, unforgiving man, Mr. Flintlock,” Slaton said.
“I won’t be bullied or railroaded,” Flintlock said. “They should have known that and extended me some common courtesy.” He glared at Ben. “Never pick on a stranger who carries a gun, boy, often as not you’re going to let loose a hundred different kinds of hell.”
“Well, I guess he knows that now,” Slaton said.
“Cost him a thumb, but the lesson was worth the price. Let’s get my hoss, McPhee,” Flintlock said.
A man wearing a plug hat stuck his head inside and summed up what had happened in a single glance. His face gray, he vanished again.
Ben glared and grimaced and held up his right arm with his left. “Damn you,” he said. “You’ve crippled me.”
“You right handed, boy?” Flintlock said.
“The hell with you. What do you think?”
“Ah well, too bad. Get that mitt bandaged and practice with your left and in a few years you’ll be just fine,” Flintlock said as he walked to the door, McPhee ahead of him.
McPhee opened the door and stepped into a bullet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“War, Mr. Stannic, that’s the name of the game,” Lucian Tweddle said, reclining in an easy chair, a brandy snifter in one chubby hand, a cigar in the other.
“And you want me to start it?” Hank Stannic said.
“In a word: Yes.” Tweddle shrugged. “The death toll doesn’t need to be too high, a few here, a few there, that’s all.”
“You can count on me, Mr. Tweddle,” Steve McCord said, his young face eager.
“I know I can. But right now my business is with Mr. Stannic.”
“Masked?” Stannic said.
“No. Brendan O’Rourke or one of his hands must see and later identify young Mr. McCord here.”
“What about the old man himself? Does he get a bullet?”
“Not yet. He must live to retaliate.”
Stannic nodded in a tall man’s direction. “What about him?”
“Mr. Hunt won’t join the raid. I want him here with me. The same thing goes for Deputy Reid.”
“You object to that, Hank?” Beau Hunt said.
Stannic shook his head, a quick, spare movement. “No objections, Beau. Ain’t your style to ride with ruffians, is it?”
Hunt smiled. “I don’t mind.” His eyes flicked to Holloway and Trent. “If they take a bath once in a while.”
Holloway glared and fingered the head of his ax. Slick Trent grinned.
“Nancy, fill the gentlemen’s glasses and pass around the cigars,” Tweddle said. “We must take care of our guests.”
The woman’s yellow silk gown rustled as she passed him, and Trent’s hot eyes followed her every movement.
“Poor Miss Pocket recently had a most unsettling experience,” Tweddle said. “A man was shot and killed on her very doorstep. I’ve taken her into my home and under my wing until she’s quite recovered from the shock.”
“Handy, ain’t it?” Trent said, his permanent grin in place.
Tweddle ignored that and said, “Mr. Stannic, all I’m asking you to do is ride in, shoot up the place, then ride out.”
He smiled and squeezed his cigar. “Now if in the confusion dear Mrs. O’Rourke was mortally wounded by a stray shot, that would be a most fortunate happenstance.”
“That’s easy,” Steve McCord said. “Hell, I’ll put a bullet into the fat old cow.”
“Very commendable of you, Mr. McCord,” Tweddle said. He looked across the parlor at Stannic. “Will you take on the job, Mr. Stannic?”
“Maybe. If the money is right.”
“You’ll be on a retainer initially,” Tweddle said. “Five thousand now, a further five thousand when the task is completed. In addition, six hundred dollars a kill, if such kill is in the line of... ah . . . duty.”
Stannic mulled that, then said, “How many on the raid?”
“You and your two colleagues and our young Mr. McCord,” Tweddle said. The brandy had given him dyspepsia and he let a series of little burps escape his pursed lips.
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