Slowly backing up, Phil raised both hands. “I’m unarmed. You wouldn’t shoot a defenseless man, would you?”
The stupid questions I get asked. I followed and closed the front door behind me. “Where are the servants?”
“Gone. They usually leave an hour before sunset.”
“So it’s just you and me?” I can’t say how happy that made me. It must have shown.
“Now hold on. I don’t like that look. It wasn’t me who double-crossed you, it was Mom. Hell, man, I didn’t know she had hired you.”
Could it be? I wondered. I wagged the Remington. “Into the parlor.” He obeyed, moving to the settee to sit. I leaned against the jamb. “Do you honestly expect me to believe your mother kept it a secret?”
“You’ve seen how she is. She’s the one who runs things, not me. She even bossed Pa around.”
He was good. This would take a little doing. “Why did she want the Butchers out of the way?”
“The silver, why else?”
“All she had to do was file a claim and it was hers. The Butchers didn’t own the Dark Sister.” All they had a legal right to was their homestead. Which made their slaughter that much more meaningless.
“There was a hitch,” Phil said. “My mother didn’t discover the vein. Someone else did.”
“Who? One of your hands? Did some of your cows stray up into the canyon and a puncher spotted the silver?”
“No, it was Everett Butcher.”
A hole in the quilt had been filled. I confess I was somewhat taken aback. “Did he file?”
“He was going to. He came into Whiskey Flats, into the saloon, smiling and treating everyone to drinks. He had a good deal to drink himself. Then he headed east and ran into my mother on her way into town.” Phil paused. “Mother and him never did get along. He always thought we looked down our noses at his family, but that’s not entirely true.”
“Save your lies for someone who will be taken in by them.”
“All right. Maybe Mother despised them. But I never had anything against the Butchers and neither did my father until the rustling started.”
“Which your mother conveniently blamed on the Butchers,” I observed. “But tell me more about your ma and Everett.”
“Everett was drunk. He told her about the silver. Gloated how his family would soon have as much money as ours, and how they would build a fancy house and wear fancy clothes and show everyone the Tanners no longer ruled the roost.”
“Your mother must have liked that.”
“She was furious. She struck him with her whip. It made Everett mad, and he grabbed it. She ordered him to let go, but he laughed at her. So she did the only thing, in her estimation, she could. She pulled the derringer she keeps in a special pocket in her dress, and shot him.”
I had no trouble imagining Gertrude Tanner doing it. Nor would anyone who knew her. “What did she do then?”
“Somehow she got him into the buggy and brought the body back to the ranch,” Phil related. “She had Brennan and Wilson take Everett and bury him. Then she sat down with my father and me to decide what to do about the silver.”
“Go on,” I said when he stopped.
“Mother wanted it for herself, but she was afraid Everett might have told Hannah and the rest of his family about the vein. If he went missing, and Mother filed a claim, the Butchers would put two and two together.”
“And figure out your mother had a part in his disappearance.”
Phil nodded. “Exactly. So she came up with the idea of getting all the Butchers out of the way by accusing them of being rustlers.”
“Only they never stole a single head.”
Again he nodded. “But it gave Mother the perfect excuse to wipe them out. Then she could file safely. She never counted on Calista sending for the Texas Rangers.”
There it was. The whole mess in a walnut shell. “How are you in the kitchen?” I asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m hungry enough to eat a buffalo. Lead the way.”
Uncertainty lining his features, Phil Tanner rose and practically tiptoed past me into the hall. As I fell into step, he glanced over his shoulder. “Be honest. What do you intend to do with me?”
“It depends on how well you cook.”
Chapter 21
Phil Tanner kindled the stove at my request. I was being polite as could be, and it puzzled him. But there was no need to rush. Thanks to his mother’s greed, we had the place to ourselves.
While he got the stove going, I made a circuit of the kitchen. I took a butcher knife off a counter and placed it in a drawer. I also peered into the pantry. Then I sat in a chair with my back to a wall and my boots propped on the table. My spurs scraped the wood, but I didn’t care. I had the Remington in my lap.
“There,” Phil said, rising. He was nervous. He kept glancing at me as if he expected me to riddle him with lead. “What would you have me do now?”
“Bacon and eggs strike my fancy.” I had seen both in the pantry. “Reckon you can handle that?”
“I don’t do much of my own cooking, but yes, I think I can manage.” He stepped to the pantry door.
“No tricks,” I warned.
“No tricks,” Phil repeated. He was not in there long. When he came out, he had the bacon and a bowl of eggs. He walked stiffly to the counter and set them down. “How do you want your eggs?”
“I’ve always been partial to scrambled.”
“How many?”
“Eight should do me. With six strips of bacon. Toast. And coffee.”
He resented having to do it, but he set about preparing my meal with studied care. I sensed he was afraid to make a mistake. I did not tell him that killing, or the prospect of killing, sometimes made me hungry.
“I’ve heard of you, you know,” he said as he laid the bacon strips in a pan. “You’re downright famous.”
I allowed as how there was some gossip about me in saloons and such, but I wouldn’t go that far. “Wild Bill was famous. Billy the Kid was famous. Jesse James was famous. Compared to them I’m nobody.”
“They say you’ve killed upwards of fifty people. Is that true?”
“Folks exaggerate.” I set the Remington on the table with a loud thunk and he jumped and glanced around. “I’d like some soup, too. How about if you put on a big pot of water to boil.”
“Soup with bacon and eggs?”
“I like to eat soup with every meal,” I said, ladling it on.
The pot he selected was not nearly large enough.
“Bigger than that,” I said. “The biggest damn pot in this whole damn kitchen.”
After some clanging and clinking, he brought over the largest pot I had ever seen. “Will this do?”
“Nicely,” I said.
When people are nervous, they talk a lot. He was no exception. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’m surprised the law hasn’t caught up with you yet.”
“I’ll share a secret,” I responded. “The law in one state can’t do much if you make it across the border into another state before they can catch you.”
“But how about when you return to states where warrants have been issued for your arrest?”
“You sneak in and sneak out.” I made a show of stretching. “So long as you’re not wanted where you live, you’re safe enough.”
“But what if the other states find out where that is?” Phil brought up. “Can’t they have you arrested and brought back?”
“Sometimes. It helps if you have a judge or two in your pocket.” I considered it a necessary expense.
Phil had avoided the subject he really wanted to bring up for as long as he could. Now he coughed and said, “It was my mother who shot you, not me.”
“I was there, remember?”
“All I’m saying is that she hired you and she shot you, so if you should be mad at anyone, it should be her.”