“Let me have a beer, Sammy.”
The bartender drew him a beer and set it in front of him.
“You payin’ for that?” he asked.
“Sure.” Clint dropped the money on the bar, then picked up the beer. He held the beer up to the town council. “Gents, I can’t wait to put this town behind me.”
“I don’t see why,” Lawson said. “You got all our money.”
“For the amount of money I made at your town council meeting,” Clint said, “I don’t think it was worth the aggravation of being suspected of murdering someone I never even met.”
Clint drank down half the beer, set it back on the bar, turned, and went out the front door. The town council rose, en masse, and hurried to the front windows to watch the action.
Clint came out the batwings and saw Parker Stark standing in the street. He wondered where Sheriff Yatesman had gone to.
“Stark,” he said.
“Adams.”
“Any particular reason for this?”
Stark shrugged.
“Money, a woman, a reputation,” Stark said. “Take your pick.”
“I’m thinking all three. It helps that the woman has money.”
“Ain’t just the woman,” Stark said. “My boss is payin’ me for this.”
“Why does Rivers want me dead?” Clint asked.
“Beats me,” Stark said. “I’m just doin’ what I’m paid to.”
“Just answer me one question before we do this?” Clint asked.
“Go ahead.”
“Why kill Ed Kennedy?”
“What? I didn’t kill Kennedy.”
“Then who did?”
“I thought everybody was sayin’ you did.”
Clint frowned.
“Okay, then, we’ve established neither one of us did it.”
“What does it matter?” Stark asked. “Only one of us is walkin’ away from here. If it’s you, then you can go and find out who did it.”
For a moment Clint wondered if he was wrong about Coleman. Could the foreman have killed his boss?
No, he still didn’t think so.
Charlie Hicks stood and took aim with his rifle. Should he wait until after, or do it now? What if Stark killed Adams?
He decided to do it now.
“Charlie.”
The kid turned, saw Arnie Coleman standing behind him.
“Arnie, I was just getting’ ready to—”
“Time to go home, kid,” Coleman said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“You sure?”
Coleman nodded. “Positive.”
Hicks looked down at the two men in the street, then lowered his rifle and followed his boss off the roof.
“Okay,” Stark said. When was the kid on the roof going to take his shot? he wondered. Was he waiting to see who was going to come out on top?
“Don’t worry about the rifle on the roof, Stark,” Clint said, as if reading the other man’s mind.
Stark stole a look.
“He’s gone.”
Stark looked at Clint.
“Don’t matter. I didn’t put him there, anyway.”
“But you were going to take advantage of him being there, weren’t you?”
Stark shrugged.
“Everybody needs an edge.”
Clint stepped down into the street.
“I don’t,” he said. “I just need my gun. See, if you’re going to do this, you should be able to depend on your own gun and nothing else.”
“Fine,” Stark said, “let’s do it, then.”
“She’s not worth it, you know,” Clint said. “No woman is worth dying for.”
Clint hadn’t even said it to gain an edge, but that was how it worked out. The remark incensed Stark.
“You son of a—” he said, telegraphing his move badly.
But if he ever had a move he’d lost it since leaving south Texas. Clint took his time, drew, still showed first, putting a bullet in Stark’s chest.
Out of nowhere, Sheriff Yatesman appeared. His gun holstered, he walked to Stark to check him.
“He’s dead.”
“Where were you?” Clint asked, ejecting his spent shell and replacing it before holstering his gun.
“I was watching.”
“From a safe place?”
Yatesman shrugged.
The town council came out of the saloon.
“Yatesman,” the judge said, “turn in your badge. You’re fired.”
Yatesman stared at each member of the board, then took off his badge and tossed it into the ground.
“Tell your deputies the same goes for them,” the mayor said.
“You tell ‘em,” Yatesman said. “They ain’t my deputies anymore.”
He walked away.
“You better let at least one of those deputies hold on to his badge, Judge,” Clint said. “You’re going to need someone to make an arrest.”
“Arrest? Who?”
“I’ll let you know.”
FORTY-TWO
Clint rode up to the ranch house and dismounted. The ranch hands eyed him from a safe distance, none of them willing to approach him. Clint looked around, then approached the front door and knocked. The door opened and they stared at each other.
“I figured you’d been cleared when all my men came back,” she said. “Come in.”
He entered, then followed her to the living room, where she sat down on the sofa. He chose a separate chair.
“You’re angry with me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Because I ran out on you?”
“You didn’t run out on me,” he said. “You ran to Parker Stark. Then you let me tail you to Andy Rivers’s ranch, to make me think you had a relationship with him.”
“I could have a relationship with him,” she said. “All I’d have to do is say the word.”
“You lied to me about Coleman, trying to make me think he killed your husband.”
She didn’t reply.
“That means that either you killed him yourself or you know who did and are protecting him.”
“Stark—” she said.
“Stark’s dead.”
“You killed him?”
“Yes. He didn’t give me a choice.”
“Foolish,” she said. “You men are foolish.” She shook her head. “To face each other in the street.”
“Some men face each other in the street,” he said. “The ones with honor. Others will shoot men from hiding, shoot them in the back. Those are the cowards.”
“You’re all fools.”
“You mean, we’re fools for you, like I was? Like Stark was? And Coleman? Is Rivers one of your fools?”
She smiled.
“Not yet. Maybe never. I don’t need his money. I have my own.”
“You mean your husband’s.”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him, Barbara?” Clint asked. “Just between you and me. Did you kill your husband?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t have to.”
“Because you knew one of the men who wanted you would do it.”
She didn’t answer.
“So it was Stark, or Coleman, or Rivers, except that I believe Coleman that he didn’t do it.”
“Good,” she said, “then I’ll let him keep his job.”
“And then there’s Stark, but he’s dead.”
“So you’ll never know if he did it.”
“But I know something else,” Clint said. “According to Stark, Rivers paid him to kill me.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes,” he said, “I don’t think he had any reason to lie to me.”
“What about Matt Holmes?” she asked.
“He’s the joker in the deck, I guess,” Clint said. “But he doesn’t have a gunman working for him, he’s not after you . . . is he?”
“God, no,” she said. “He’s older than my husband was.”
“And older than Rivers?”
&
nbsp; “Yes.” She went on.
“My husband was alone at home the day he was killed,” she said. “The hands were all out working, and I . . .”
“You were with Parker Stark,” Clint said. “You alibi him?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody broke in?”
“No.”
“Would your husband let someone like Holmes or Rivers in if they came to the door?”
“Sure he would,” she said. “He’d never think either of them wanted to kill him. They were business rivals, but not enemies.”
“As far as he knew.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Barbara,” Clint said. “I’m done here.”
“Are you . . . sure you won’t stay?” she asked, seductively.
“Positive,” he said. “I won’t play the fool for you again.”
“Tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”
“I did enjoy it,” he said, “I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I won’t do it again, not after all the lies.” He waved. “You have Coleman, or you have your pick out there. Now you enjoy.”
“Clint—”
“Good-bye, Barbara.”
Clint went out the front door, mounted Eclipse, and rode away.
FORTY-THREE
Clint made two more stops. The second, and last, was the Triple R ranch.
“Adams,” Andy Rivers said, when he opened his door. “What are you doing here?”
“Expecting me to be dead, Rivers?” Clint asked. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s your man Stark who’s dead.”
Rivers had the good grace to look disappointed.
“Yeah, he told me you hired him to kill me. What I want to know is why?”
Rivers stepped outside on the porch, looked out at his ranch.
“I was getting ready to lose all this, did you know that?”
“I had no idea,” Clint said, and then thought, how would I?
“Big Ed Kennedy finally figured out a way to get it away from me,” Rivers said.
“And he got Matt Holmes to go along, didn’t he?”
“How did you know that?”
“I stopped to see Holmes before I came here,” Clint said. “He told me he was getting ready throw in with Kennedy against you. Do you know why he’d do that?”
“Sure. Matt and I have been working a long time at getting rid of Kennedy, and we couldn’t do it. So they decided to go in together to get rid of me.”
“So why would you kill Kennedy and not Holmes? He’s the one who betrayed you.”
“He didn’t betray me,” Rivers said. “We’re not brothers. But Kennedy . . . he’s the one who came here when Matt and I had the area split in two. With him gone we could go back to the way we were.”
“So you just walked up to his door, knocked, caught him off guard, and shot him?”
“Easy as that,” Rivers said. “Surprisingly easy. I’d never . . . killed anyone before. You believe that? Built all this without killing a soul.”
“Until now.”
Rivers nodded, looking old and tired. “Until now.”
“What made you pin it on me?” Clint asked.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said. “I heard you were in town, just thought I’d pass the word that Ed was going to hire you.”
“And let nature take its course, huh?”
“That was the general idea . . . I guess.”
“Okay,” Clint said, “let’s get your horse.”
“Taking me in?”
“It’s the last thing I’m going to do before I leave this town behind me.”
“You don’t have to, you know.”
“I know, but I want to make sure my name is cleared.”
“I’ll send word to town,” Rivers said. “I’ll clear it all up, but I’m asking one thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t take me in,” he said. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Take care of it?”
“Here,” Rivers said. “In my home. I’ll write it all out and then . . .” He shrugged.
Clint knew what the look on his face and the shrug meant.
“Please?” Rivers said. “I know you don’t owe me anything.”
“No,” Clint said, “I don’t.”
He went down the porch steps, mounted up, and rode away—away from the Triple R and away from Cannon City.
When the single shot came from the house, he was too far to hear it.
Watch for
VIRGIL EARP, PRIVATE DETECTIVE
333rd novel in the exciting GUNSMITH series
from Jove
Coming in September!
The Town Council Meeting Page 11
