The Clint Adams Special

by J. R. Roberts

  “How much did you tell him?”

  “Not much more than what George already did,” Danny replied.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t make Clint feel much better.

  “I didn’t mention your name,” Danny added. “I swear that much. George is one thing but you . . . I know you’re not the sort of man I’d want to cross.”

  Glaring at the barkeep until he was certain Danny was speaking the truth, Clint said, “Smart decision. What about her?” he asked while nodding toward the table where Felicia sat.

  “She’s awfully pretty,” Danny said.

  “Do you know her?”

  “No. First time I laid eyes on her was today when she came in and sat there. She’s been sitting there ever since.”

  Clint didn’t have any trouble believing that. Felicia already knew plenty about him, and there wasn’t any reason to think a bartender could tell her any more.

  “But she’s not the woman you should be concerned about,” Danny continued.

  Shifting his focus back to Danny, Clint asked, “What do you mean?”

  “There’s another pretty lady who’s usually around here that’s turned up missing lately.”

  “Drina?”

  Danny nodded, obviously pleased that he’d finally produced a nugget of information that Clint didn’t already have. “You know that fella I told you about before? That one with the long hair and sour face?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I wasn’t the only one he spoke to.”

  Clint wiped the smug look from Danny’s face when he reached across the bar to grab him by the collar and pull him partway over. Danny had a man there to cover him in case a rowdy drunk stepped out of line, and he stood up from where he was sitting in a corner of the saloon.

  “I’ve already asked you about who came around looking for me,” Clint snarled. “I even paid you to tell me what you knew in that regard. In fact, I paid you twice. I’m through being so civilized. Now it’s time for you to tell me the rest.”

  When Danny motioned for his hired muscle to stay put, the man in the corner of the saloon was all too grateful to take his seat instead of challenging the Gunsmith.

  “You’re right, Clint,” Danny said. “Truth be told, this last part slipped my mind until now. I’ll be glad to tell you. I wouldn’t want a friend to be caught unaware by some angry woman.”

  Clint didn’t even realize he’d taken Danny off his feet until he let him go and the barkeep dropped back down to the floor behind the bar. While Danny regained his footing, Clint asked, “Drina was angry?”

  Danny nodded while straightening the front of his shirt. Now that everyone was back in their proper places, the customers inside the saloon who’d turned to watch what Clint might do turned back around to their drinks. “The last time you were here,” Danny said, “after you left, that is, she worked herself up into a fit that she didn’t see any of that gold you and George found.”

  “Why would she think she’d be entitled to any of it?”

  “You know how some women are. They let you up under their skirts and they figure you owe them something in return. Or sometimes they think they can talk a man out of anything they like, and if they find out they can’t . . . well . . . they tend to get their pretty little noses bent out of shape. It’s always the pretty ones, too,” the barkeep added thoughtfully. “They’re always the ones who act like the world owes ’em something.”

  Clint wasn’t sure what aggravated him more: Drina’s thinking she could help herself to his money, or his getting a lesson on women from the likes of Danny.

  Feeling comfortable again now that he was the one doing the talking, Danny grabbed a rag and started wiping the top of the bar. “Of course, it didn’t help that some of the folks hereabouts fanned the flames by agreeing with everything she said. That’s something else that pretty ladies get used to.”

  Clint turned to look around at the other customers. Judging by the nervousness etched into some of their faces, it wasn’t difficult to figure out which of them had been stoking Drina’s fire.

  “She stormed out of here and came back a little later,” Danny said. “Her mood hadn’t improved. A while after that, the fella I was telling you about came along.”

  “She heard you two talking?” Clint asked.

  Whispering as if she was right there with them, Danny said, “She hears damn near everything around here.”

  “Do you know where she went?” Clint asked.

  “Not really. I wasn’t about to follow her.”

  “I think I have a good idea. What did she and that other fellow talk about?”

  “Can’t say for certain,” Danny replied. “They went to a table and spoke real quiet. I can tell you one thing. She was in much better spirits after they were through. So . . . that’s all I know, Clint. No hard feelings?”

  “Keep your ears open for anything else that may be a help,” he said. “There’ll be more in it for you if you come up with something that proves useful.”

  “Sure thing.” Nodding toward Felicia’s table, the barkeep said, “You probably shouldn’t keep that one waiting. You want a drink to steel yourself?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. I’ll take a whiskey.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Clint approached Felicia’s table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. The two of them looked at each other without a word as Clint tipped back his whiskey, drained it, and set the glass down. Finally, he broke the silence by saying, “Hello, Felicia. It’s been a while.”

  “Yes it has, Clint. From what I hear, the years have been kind to you.”

  “Have you been keeping track of me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said with half a laugh. She sipped her wine and made a face. “I should have known better than to ask for wine in a town like this.”

  “And you really should have known better than to drink it.”

  “It’s not so bad after a few sips. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.”

  “So,” Clint said. “Other than sampling the local vintages, what brings you to Trujillo?”

  “You know damn well what brings us here.”

  Clint sat back in his chair and drank his beer without saying a word. He wasn’t about to give her an inch in the conversation. Now that he knew what he was dealing with, any bit of information he could get from her could prove to be more valuable than the gold they’d pulled from the backs of all those caves.

  Realizing what he was doing, Felicia sighed and said, “You’re really going to make me say it.”

  “Yep.”

  “All right.” She squared her shoulders and sat up straight as if she were a little girl preparing to address her class. “We’re here to claim what was stored away in those caves.”

  “Which brings me to my first question,” Clint replied. “Why couldn’t you or Allan just get it yourselves?”

  “Who says we couldn’t?”

  Clint smirked. “If you could have gotten it yourselves so easily, you wouldn’t need to wait for me and George to find it first. For that matter, you wouldn’t have needed the map at all.”

  “Could be there’s only one map.”

  “See, that’s the problem when you toy with someone instead of talking straight to them,” Clint said. “One way may be cute coming from someone like you, but it shows weakness. The other would have told me you knew the answer one way or another.”

  Felicia’s expression soured. When she took another sip of wine, it soured even more. “There’s only one map. I knew I should have gone with my first instinct.”

  “Which was . . .”

  “Which was to invite you to bed, ride you like a bronco, and talk to you afterwards. This conversation would have been much more pleasant that way.”

  “There’s still time for that.” Upon seeing the sly grin on her fa
ce, Clint added, “Later. Right now, let’s talk business.”

  Felicia didn’t even try to sway him with a frown. “Business,” she said. “That is why I’m here.”

  “Why isn’t Allan here with you?”

  “Come now, Clint. After what’s been going on lately, do you mean to tell me a meeting with him would be well received?”

  “Good point.”

  “As for all of that shooting, I want you to know that I don’t agree with any of that. I tried to tell him to approach you in a more civil manner, but with all that’s happening, he hasn’t been in much of a mood for talking.”

  “What’s been happening?” Clint asked.

  “A falling-out between Allan and his uncle.”

  “Jeb—” Before saying the name out loud, Clint lowered his voice to keep from drawing any attention his way. “Jebediah Preston?”

  “That’s right. Actually, it started out as a falling-out between them, and it’s since turned into something closer to a war. Jeb and his kin owned a sizable piece of land in Texas, but a good deal of it was annexed by the Federals or the railroads or . . . I don’t know which.”

  “Could be both,” Clint said. “And it could be other ranchers as well. I was there a few years ago and saw how much the Prestons controlled.”

  “That was only one ranch.”

  “Which was as big as a town.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Allan thinks that if they’d stuck to ranching and owning property, there wouldn’t have been a problem. But Jeb wanted more. He wanted a cut from merchants and anyone else who set up shop on his land. He even set up his own men to keep the peace.”

  “I imagine his problems got worse from there.”

  “You’d be right about that. Allan confronted his uncle to try and get him to negotiate a deal with . . . whoever was after their land. Jeb’s answer was to tighten his grip even further, which only made things worse.”

  “You’ve got to know who is trying to get that land,” Clint pointed out.

  “Allan won’t tell me,” she replied with no small amount of aggravation. “He says it’s family business.”

  Actually, that made plenty of sense to Clint. It didn’t seem to set well with Felicia, however, so he decided not to mention that to her.

  “Jeb and his uncle were making one last effort to work something out,” she continued, “when some more of the property was taken away. That was the last straw as far as Jeb was concerned, and he decided to tighten his grip on what he had left. There was a shooting near San Antonio and then . . .”

  “Wait,” Clint said sharply. “Back up. What shooting?”

  “There were some horses stolen and some of Jeb’s boys tracked down the thieves. A lawman and his posse from a town on some of the annexed property were already hunting them down and everyone collided in a gulley somewhere. There were words exchanged, nobody would budge in deciding who got claim to the robbers or the horses, then someone fired a shot and it all went to hell from there.”

  Although Clint was getting a vague idea of what had happened, he was also becoming aware of how much information Felicia hadn’t been given. Some of the details weren’t as important as others, but he had no way of knowing which details could make a world of difference.

  Felicia must have seen some of the frustration on Clint’s face because she said, “This is why I wanted Allan to speak to you directly.”

  “Let’s just cut through the fat and get to what you know for certain. How does any of this link up to those caves?”

  Happy to return to more familiar ground, Felicia told him, “Jeb stashed money in places like that all across Texas.”

  “Makes sense that a man like him doesn’t exactly believe in trusting his money to a bank.”

  “Exactly. He always told his family that if things got bad, they could head to any of those spots, regroup, rearm, and ride again. Allan told that very thing to me several times. Regroup, rearm, and ride. After Jeb’s men locked horns with the law that first time, things got real bad. At one point, his kin and anyone close to them were rounded up and scattered in all directions. I was in a small group that was brought south into Old Mexico.

  “There were half a dozen men escorting me, a few other women, and some children. By the time we got away from those that were hunting us down, all but one of the men were killed. We even lost two of the women and a little boy named . . .” Tears started to form in her eyes, which Felicia quickly swiped away. “It was terrible,” she said in an unsteady voice. “We couldn’t fight anymore, so we divvied up what we had and we stored it away.”

  She sipped her wine, and Clint gave her a moment to compose herself.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “You helped stash it?” Clint asked after a moment.

  “Yes, but I only had a few coins and some blankets.”

  “What’s the story with those coins? It must have been a lot more trouble to melt gold down and cast them into those things than to just keep it in nuggets or bars.”

  Felicia let out a slow breath. “Jeb’s crazy,” she said. “That’s the story. I always thought he was, but since things took a turn for the worse, he’s gotten worse as well. It used to be that he was just another rich Texan with a whole lot of land. Now he thinks he’s the lord of his own country. He’s the law, he makes the rules, he thinks the currency should have his design. Like all of that makes it official somehow.”

  “I’d heard something along those lines,” Clint mused. “It’s just hard to believe.”

  “Well, believe it. Jeb and his men have squirreled away plenty more throughout these parts. Somehow Allan caught wind of what was up here. I guess those folks in that group I was in already knew of a few hiding spots because we sure weren’t carrying enough to bring on all of this fuss.”

  “The Preston clan must be pretty big to start something as widespread as all of this.”

  “Between the family, the workers, and the hired guns, there’s enough to make plenty of noise,” she said. “This whole feud started right around the time when you left a few years ago, and both sides have added to their ranks. Gunmen and killers were hired on and paid in gold. After that, more of that filth came swarming in to claim their share.”

  “Another good reason for that gold to be marked,” Clint said. “Better than posting an advertisement in a few newspapers.”

  “Good God,” Felicia said as she took another long drink from her wine. “If I’d known how this would have ended up, I never would have associated with anyone named Preston.”

  “How were you drawn into this family?” Clint asked.

  She blinked a few times and squinted as though his face had suddenly become covered in fog. “What?”

  “I was told you’re Martin Stone’s granddaughter . . .”

  Shaking her head, Felicia told him, “Jeb is my grandfather.”

  Now it was Clint’s turn to seem confused.

  “My last name has always been Preston,” she explained. “When certain members of the family started staking their claim and trading shots with the locals, we took a different name to have some measure of peace. Stone is just the last part of Preston. Not much of a stretch, really.”

  Clint leaned back. “So that makes things different.”

  “Not really. Our family has never seen eye to eye with one another. Parts of it break off from the rest, they never speak again, and when they come back, it’s like they’re from opposite sides of the world. My part of the family came back just to live off a plot of Texas land to do some farming. Maybe raise a few head of cattle. Now . . . there’s this calamity.”

  “This feud may be convoluted, but it doesn’t sound so bad,” Clint told her.

  “It doesn’t? Are you sure you heard everything I just told you?”

  Reaching across the table, he placed a hand upon hers and looked her straight in t
he eyes. “It sounds like a terrible situation that’s gotten way out of hand, but it all boils down to one simple thing. A man wants more power than he can rightfully grab. Fact is, that’s what most blood feuds boil down to.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t seem to help matters very much.”

  “Maybe not, but it helps to look at something’s essence.” Clint took a moment to think and then nodded as he reached his conclusion. “I need to have a word with Allan. He’s your . . . what? Cousin? Doesn’t matter. I want to talk with him.”

  “Just so long as you promise not to shoot him.”

  “I’m not the one that fired the first shots,” Clint reminded her. “His men, on the other hand . . . they’re a different story. If I’m to talk with Allan, it’ll have to be just me and him.”

  “Actually, he mentioned something along those lines as well. About speaking with just you, I mean.”

  “See? There’s hope for . . .” Clint felt optimistic for all of two seconds before it passed. The way Felicia was looking at him didn’t leave much room for anything resembling hope. “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong? You look like you just swallowed a worm.”

  “What I just said . . . it wasn’t exactly true.” Squirming in her seat, she looked at Clint with a hopeful smile.

  He didn’t return it. If he wasn’t allowed any hope, she damn well wasn’t getting any for herself.

  Reluctantly, Felicia continued, “He said he wanted to speak with your partner. You know . . . George Oswalt?”

  “Yes,” Clint growled. “I know George Oswalt. He can speak to me instead.”

  “Allan . . . he thinks . . . well . . .”

  “Just spit it out, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He thinks you’re just a gunman,” Felicia said. “He wants to speak to the boss of your outfit.”

  “It’s just me and George,” Clint said. “That’s hardly an outfit.”