The saloon floor was dirt and the fighting the night before had produced several sticky patches of blood so that the extra stains produced by the gunfight didn’t appear anomalous. Even so, several buckets of water from the river cleaned away all signs of what had happened here. When Trip left the saloon, Grace was standing on the back of the wagon with the bodies lined up at her feet.
“Look what I’ve found,” she said, holding open Ryan’s jacket.
Trip hurried over and, with Chester, rolled onto the back of the wagon to hunker down beside Ryan’s body. An envelope was in her hand with bills poking out.
“How much is there?” Chester asked, his eyes gleaming.
Grace fingered through the bills and waggled her eyebrows.
“At least fifty dollars, and that isn’t all.” She withdrew a silver watch from Ryan’s pocket. “This has to be worth plenty, too.”
“Yeah, to the person he stole if off,” Chester grumbled.
Grace grinned. “I don’t see that person here now.”
“That may be your way, but it isn’t mine. If these men stole property, we will return it.”
Grace sighed as she hefted the watch. “There’s no way of knowing where the money came from, though.”
Chester sighed. “All right, we’ll keep the money, but not anything we can trace back to someone.”
“Then we’re fine here.” Grace dangled the watch on the end of its chain and swung it back and forth, the sun reflecting a bead of light across Chester’s face. “There’s no inscription and no way of knowing where it came from. What do you think of that?”
Chester closed his eyes and murmured to himself.
“Have you searched the other bodies?” he asked.
Grace whooped and shuffled down the line of bodies to carry out a thorough search while Trip headed off to riffle through the saddlebags that Baxter had discarded before he led the horses away. Fifteen minutes later, they congregated in the saloon.
On the bar was the heap of their findings, and it represented a fine haul with Trip’s initial totting up of the windfall being more than two hundred dollars. Every body had money on it, although not as much as the fifty dollars that Ryan had on him. Even if they were to hide the stolen trinkets for a prudent amount of time and then sell them cheaply, Trip estimated that they could pay off Baxter and clear thirty dollars apiece.
“Now, who says I was wrong to support Trip’s idea?” Isaac said.
Chester gesture at the pile of dollars and shook his head.
“I do,” he said. “No matter what the result, it was wrong to get those men killed. Never forget that.”
“And?”
Chester sighed. “And I guess I’m glad they’re dead and I’m not disappointed that this didn’t go worse than it could have done.”
As Isaac waited, presumably hoping for more words of encouragement, Trip raised a hand.
“That’s enough talk,” he said. “We have to make sure nobody can ever work out what happened here.”
Everybody gave somber nods and, without further word, Isaac and Chester hurried outside to complete the cleaning up, while Trip and Grace went to the wagon. At a steady pace, they headed out of town and into the wood that started a mile downriver.
Grace pulled up at a secluded spot and when they’d unloaded the bodies, Trip reckoned they should bury them, but she overruled him. So they dragged the bodies into a dense patch of undergrowth and arranged them so that it looked like they’d been ambushed and met their fate there.
Grace reckoned scavengers would find them soon. If anyone were to happen across whatever they left behind, the scene would present a less suspicious discovery than if anyone were to find shallow graves.
When they returned to Calloway’s Crossing, Chester had liberally dosed the area between the buildings with water, removing any sign that anyone had ever visited the settlement. Isaac had scrubbed the bar and table in the saloon and was making a bonfire of the broken furniture outside.
Trip had hoped to repair some of that furniture, but he kept his irritation to himself and, with Grace, headed into the saloon. They put aside two hundred dollars to pay Baxter and divided up the remaining money and possessions.
Then Chester and Isaac joined them and sitting around the table they concocted an alternate story of Ryan’s visit to Calloway’s Crossing, which they’d relate if anyone ever found the bodies or came looking for Ryan. As they were finalizing the details, a rider pulled up outside.
Trip ran behind the bar and swept the windfall to the floor, and then faced the door while sporting an innocent smile, but the door opened to reveal Baxter, standing with his blanket thrown over a shoulder. Trip breathed a sigh of relief and beckoned him to come to the bar.
“The horses have gone,” Baxter confirmed. He rubbed a boot over the wet floor, nodding.
“We’ve all agreed that nothing happened here, if you know what I mean,” Trip said.
“I do.”
“So now you’ll be leaving?”
When Baxter gave a slow nod, Trip rummaged beneath the bar. He placed a pile of bills on the bar and pushed them toward him. Baxter joined Trip, counted the bills and raised his blanket to slot the wad into a pocket.
“As I’m not heading back this way, I’d be obliged if you’d pay me in full.”
“We agreed on two hundred,” Trip intoned. He gave a pronounced gulp, the action not helping to moisten his dry throat as Chester jumped up from the table.
Baxter sneered. “We did, but I didn’t just run Ryan out of town. I killed him.”
“But. . . .”
Chester joined them. “Quit leading us on and tell us what you want.”
“For killing five men I don’t want two hundred dollars.” Baxter turned and headed back across the saloon. “I want two thousand dollars.”
“You can’t be serious,” Trip blurted after him.
Baxter stopped for a moment and then continued walking across the room. He lay down and unfurled his blanket. Then he pulled it up to his chin and drew his hat down over his eyes, the bulge under the blanket showing that his gun rested on his chest. Baxter raised the hat and opened an eye.
“You’ll want to talk about this outside,” he said and drew the hat back down.
Trip did as suggested and led everyone outside. They headed around the side of the saloon to stand beside the dry gully. The mound of earth the burrowing animal was creating had grown again and more fresh earth was strewn down the bank.
Trip sat on the top of the mound, with Isaac and Chester flanking him. Grace stayed back against the wall.
“Didn’t you agree terms with him?” Chester said.
“Yeah.” Trip kicked at the loose earth at his feet. “It was two hundred dollars for getting rid of Ryan.”
“Did you agree he’d have to kill him?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Grace said. “We have to stop arguing and decide what we do now.”
“We do nothing,” Chester said. “You saw the way he shoots. He’s a lightning-fast draw and none of us can take him on.”
Trip shook his head. “No matter how fast a man is, he can’t do nothing when he’s surrounded. There’s four of us and if we—”
“We won’t do that.” Chester waved in a dismissive manner at him and turned to Isaac. “See what happens, boy, when you listen to men like Trip?”
“I guess I do,” Isaac said, lowering his head.
Chester waggled a finger. “Then let that be a valuable lesson for you, and here comes another one. We’re in deep trouble, but there’s no need for us to go any deeper.”
Chester beckoned for Isaac to join him and then headed to the barn with Grace and Trip trailing behind.
“You can’t ignore this,” Trip said. “We have to work together.”
Chester snorted but didn’t stop his determined pacing.
“You’re suggesting we take this gunslinger on, are you? Presumably you’ll get help from an even faster gunslinger who’ll demand even m
ore money?”
“No. It seems I agreed to pay Baxter two thousand dollars and as we haven’t got that sort of money, we have to face him down.”
Grace murmured her support, but neither Isaac nor Chester slowed their pace.
“No we don’t, and you just provided the answer. You agreed to pay him that money.” Chester stopped beside his wagon. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”
Chester slapped his son’s shoulder and jumped up on to his wagon.
“You can’t walk away from this,” Trip said.
“We are and we will,” Chester said, rolling into the seat. “I said I’d make you suffer for threatening to blow up my dam. I reckon I’m doing that.”
“I agree with Pa,” Isaac said, flopping onto the seat beside Chester. “If Baxter wants two thousand dollars, he’ll have to find us first.”
“My son speaks plenty of sense. I reckon you’ve got yourself a choice. Sort out your problem, or do the same as we’re doing.” Chester raised the reins. “Run and hide.”
“You can’t really intend to—” Trip swung away, throwing an arm to his face to avoid the grit flying up from the wheels.
When Trip swung back, the wagon was trundling down the trail. Within two minutes, the cloud of dust from Chester’s wagon had blown away, and Chester and Isaac were just distant and shrinking blots on the horizon. Ten minutes later, Trip headed back into the saloon.
“We haven’t got two thousand dollars,” he said. “So we either deal with this in here or outside.”
“There’s no need to get yourself killed now that Chester’s gone,” Baxter said. He raised his hat with a finger and gave a sly smile.
“The only person in danger here is you.”
Baxter noted Trip’s holstered gun and the hand dangling beside it.
“Men who talk like that don’t talk again.” Baxter shrugged. “The same goes for womenfolk.”
“It’s just between us two.”
Baxter snorted a laugh. “Grace has a rifle aimed at the back of my head. You reckon that’s enough to take me. You’re wrong.”
“You’ve got a cocked gun under that blanket. You might take me, but one way or the other you will die unless you take the two hundred dollars we agreed on and leave town.”
Baxter gave a slow nod. “You’ve got the guts to go for your gun, but Grace hasn’t. She’ll hesitate and that’ll give me the time to take you both.”
Trip firmed his jaw, but couldn’t help but glance at the wall where Grace had slipped a rifle through a tear in the canvas from outside. Baxter smiled, confirming that his mistake had revealed Grace’s exact location.
“You may be right, but do you want to take the risk when there’s no way we can ever pay you two thousand dollars?” Trip raised his hands, signifying that Baxter should check out the saloon. “Look at this place. Would it be in this state if we had that much money?”
“You’re right, but you see, the thing about being asleep is you hear things people wouldn’t say when you’re awake.” Baxter raised his eyebrows. “I know how you can pay me off.”
Trip shook his head and inched his hand toward his holster, but as Baxter narrowed his eyes, Grace stepped through the long tear in the wall and headed across the saloon. When she’d walked into Baxter’s line of sight, she stopped and raised the rifle.
“What do you want us to do?” she asked.
Chapter Nine
“ARE YOU SURE ABOUT this?” Trip asked.
Grace drew her horse to a halt by the side of the river. Towering ahead were the struts of the bridge across Calloway’s Gulch, the framework now nearing completion. The workers were building the top layer and several lengths of wood had stretched all the way across.
“Nope, but have you had a better idea yet?” she said.
“I haven’t, but ever since you got us into this—”
“Trip Kincaid, I thought you were man enough not to mention it was my idea to hire Baxter, and you thought it was a good idea right up until the moment—”
“Until the moment Baxter made us become outlaws.”
“He hasn’t made us do that exactly and besides, your idea of taking him on would have gotten us both killed, wouldn’t it?” Grace waited until Trip nodded. “So keep your opinions to yourself and let me do the thinking from now on.”
Trip opened his mouth to offer an opinion about what her thinking had led them to, but then thought better of it. He was still shaking his head as they headed into Calloway’s Gulch where several men broke off from working to greet their arrival with friendly waves, most directed at Grace.
They returned the waves and joined them to exchange pleasantries while Trip searched for an excuse that would let them stay without raising suspicions. In truth, they had no good reason for being here, but just as Trip was feeling that his animated talk was appearing false, Frank Moore came out of a shack that overlooked the bridge and hailed them.
“Howdy, Trip, I was hoping I’d see you,” he said. “Have you seen Ryan Trimble? He headed off to your saloon and nobody has seen him since.”
“He left,” Trip said, gritting his teeth to avoid showing surprise. “He didn’t say where he was going.”
Frank sighed. “I know he’s caused you trouble and you don’t care what he does, but I need him.” He lowered his voice. “The money’s due at first light tomorrow.”
Trip noted Grace’s blank expression that suggested she was letting him carry on pumping Frank for information. Their instructions were to learn as much as possible about the delivery tomorrow and report their findings to Baxter.
Trip had brought a bottle of whiskey as an excuse to stay, and Grace had planned to talk Frank around to revealing that information when he was suitably relaxed, but Frank had revealed the most crucial detail without prompting. Trip offered to open the bottle.
Frank didn’t want a drink, but neither did he send them away, seemingly enjoying having someone around with whom he could unburden his woes. So Grace and Trip sat outside the shack and encouraged him to talk, while facing down the trail as if they were also awaiting Ryan’s arrival.
Periodically, workers whom Frank had sent off to search for him returned, shaking their heads, and each time Grace and Trip provided woeful expressions. Curiously, the man who had headed off to find out whether Adam Calloway had seen him reported that Adam was nowhere to be found either, but amid the woe, piece by piece, Frank revealed the details of tomorrow’s schedule.
At first light, ten blue coats – the guards who delivered the railroad payroll – would arrive. They’d leave twenty thousand dollars in a compact strongbox. Two thousand was to pay the workers and the rest was for Adam Calloway.
Adam would take the money as soon as it arrived, but the workers wouldn’t get their wages until they’d finished work for the day. Frank had no contingency plans to guard the money if Ryan didn’t return.
The sun was casting long shadows of the bridge across the gulch when he ran out of problems to complain about and returned to a sullen consideration of the trail. As staying to await a man who wouldn’t return ran the danger of appearing suspicious, Trip and Grace bade Frank farewell and left him.
They rode off, but when they were out of view from the bridge, they circled back and headed up the side of the bluff to Adam’s shack. Adam still hadn’t returned, so they leaned back against the front of his building in a position where most of the activity that was taking place below was visible.
Trip shuffled from side to side as the distant form of Frank paced back and forth. Periodically, Frank broke off to speak to his men when they returned, and then resumed pacing, that pacing becoming more fevered as the sun closed on the horizon. At sundown, the bridge workers filed away from their work and settled down to eat, but still Frank didn’t join them and paced on.
“What’s so worrying?” Grace asked.
“He must be real worried that someone will steal the money,” Trip said.
“Perhaps he is, but I didn’t mean him. You’
re pacing around as much as Frank is. Relax. All this will be over soon.”
“I know, but I can’t wait to get back to running a saloon and not having to deal with Chester and outlaws and gunslingers.”
Trip walked back and forth once more before taking Grace’s suggestion and joining her. He leaned back against the wall beside her.
“Then our real worries start,” she mused. “What I said to Ryan in the barn was right. The railroad will change everything. Calloway’s Crossing will make money for the next month, but when the railroad moves on, there’ll be no need for such a place outside Wagon Creek. Why else would Chester so readily abandon his business?”
Trip sighed. “I guess it wasn’t worth fighting for.”
“It wasn’t.” Grace raised her eyebrows. “With a small investment, we could open a proper saloon in Wagon Creek that would make real money.”
Trip nodded. “That’s a good idea, but we have to pay off Baxter first.”
“You have,” a voice intoned from beside the building.
Trip flinched and turned as Baxter emerged from the gloom.
“How long have you been there?” Trip asked.
“Long enough to also wonder why Frank’s so nervous.” Baxter joined them and leaned back against the wall with a foot raised and the sole of his boot pressed flat to the wall. “What did you learn?”
Trip relayed the information they’d gathered. Throughout, Baxter remained silent, speaking only at the end to check through the details using his usual terse tone. Then he pushed himself from the wall and headed to the corner of the building.
“Keep watch tonight,” he said. “If anything happens, tell me.”
“How will we find you?” Trip called after him.
Baxter stopped for a moment and then headed past the corner of the building.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he melted into the gathering gloom. “I’ll find you.”
Chapter Ten
NIGHT GATHERED LEAVING the only light source as the half-moon that scudded in and out of high cloud. As neither Trip nor Grace had thought they’d be keeping vigil all night, they hadn’t brought along anything to eat, and they only had the whiskey to drink.
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