“I was nineteen,” Ollie said. “And I fell in with the wrong crowd. I served two years, and I’ve been straight ever since.”
“Does Wells Fargo know about this?” Frakes asked.
“They know.” Ollie smiled. “That’s why they let me handle their money, just as you men are doing in this card game.”
The others laughed.
“I would like to ask you something, Ollie,” Smoke said. “When you say you fell in with the wrong crowd, would that be Bill Dinkins?”
“I don’t have anything to do with Dinkins anymore,” Ollie said.
“What?” Saddler said. “Ollie, are you telling me that you were not only a road agent, but that you actually rode with Bill Dinkins?”
Ollie folded his cards and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “If you gentlemen would rather I not play cards with you anymore, I will understand. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“We aren’t saying that, Ollie. We aren’t saying that at all, are we, Jim?” Frakes asked the question pointedly, challenging Saddler.
“No, I, uh, didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”
“Mr. Lynch, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything, but I have a personal interest in locating Bill Dinkins and the men who are riding with him,” Smoke said.
“I know you do, Mr. Jensen. I doubt there is anyone in Colorado who doesn’t know that Dinkins shot your wife. It’s been in all the papers. How is she, by the way?”
“She has had a hard time of it. But she’s doing quite well now.”
“I figured she must be, or you wouldn’t be huntin’ for him. You would be back home with your wife.”
“You think he might be in Risco, do you?”
“I can’t be for sure, because I haven’t seen him in over five years. But when I was ridin’ with him, we used to spend quite a bit of time there.”
“May I ask what was the attraction of such a place?” Frakes asked.
“Well, think about it, Al. What is the good of holding up a stagecoach, or robbing a bank, if you can’t spend your money? And if you are a wanted man, you can’t spend it in a town like a normal person would—you can’t even go into a regular town without fear of bein’ recognized.
“So, ever’one winds up in Risco at one time or another. Risco has restaurants, hotels, drugstores, general stores, saloons, gambling halls, and whore houses. In short, ever’thing a man might need. Only thing is, ever’thing costs ’bout three or four times more there than it does anywhere else.”
“Mr. Lynch, I thank you kindly for the information,” Smoke said. “I just don’t know why I hadn’t thought of Risco myself.”
“You’ll be goin’ there, will you, Mr. Jensen?” Lynch asked.
“Yes.”
“Maybe you’re goin’ after Bill Dinkins, and I know why you are. But he ain’t the one you got to worry about. The one you got to worry about is Wes Harley. I reckon you’ve heard of him.”
“Yes, I have heard of him. Cole Parnell told me about him, before he was hanged. Parnell said he was Dinkins’ brother.”
“Yes sir, he is. They got the same ma, but their pa is different.”
“I’m not looking for Harley. He isn’t the one who shot Sally.”
“That don’t matter none. Like as not, he knows you are after them, so he’ll be lookin’ for you now. And here’s the thing. He’s like Dinkins, in that he would just as soon kill you, as look at you. What makes him different from Dinkins is that he is good at it.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Smoke said.
“It’s not goin’ to stop you from lookin’ for him though, is it?” Ollie asked.
“Not for a minute.” Smoke said.
“I didn’t think so.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Risco
In the three days since the train robbery, Dinkins and his men had been living lavishly on the money they had taken from the bank in Crystal and from the stagecoach.
With the increased prices of everything in town, they were paying a dollar for a glass of beer and twenty-five dollars for a bottle of whiskey. The women were charging them fifty dollars, but as long as the men had the money, they spent it, unaware the high prices had been fixed for them alone.
They had gotten very little money from the train robbery, and the money they had taken from the bank and the stagecoach was diminishing rapidly as they spent it foolishly and gambled unwisely. As they saw the money going, their attitude toward the citizens of Risco became more and more belligerent.
Thus it was that James Webb had a talk with Bill Dinkins.
Risco had neither mayor nor sheriff, but even a city without law had to have some sort of leader, and James Webb had assumed that role. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Webb had studied for the law and had been a circuit judge in Missouri when he was caught taking bribe money to affect the outcome of a major case.
The date for the trial was set and Webb, because he was an important and influential figure, was given bail. There was no doubt in his mind that he would be sent to prison, where he’d face many of the hardened criminals he’d sent there. He was convinced that he would not live a year in prison, so he jumped bail. Abandoning his wife and two children, he headed west, winding up in the lawless town of Risco.
“What do you want to talk about?” Dinkins asked.
“You, and the men with you,” Webb replied. “You, Harley, and the Slater brothers are, well, to put it as delicately as I can, upsetting the equilibrium of our little town.”
“I tell you the truth, Webb, I don’t have an idea in hell what you just said,” Dinkins said.
“All right, let me reword it. Our little community is unique. We have neither law nor governing structure, and we ask no questions about anyone’s past. But, just because we have no law, does not mean you can behave any way you want while you are staying with us. No doubt, you noticed the corpse of the recently deceased Frank Marlow when you rode into town?”
“Yeah, it was kind of hard to miss.”
“That’s good. Mr. Marlow, you see, is an object lesson. We left him there as a reminder to others that there is a limit to our tolerance. He carved up and killed one of our whores. The rest of the town took umbrage with that.”
“Yeah, well, what are you talking to me for? We ain’t done nothin’ like that.”
“You have been, however, rather brutal with the ladies. And you have been belligerent to the ones who serve us here, the bartenders, the cooks, the clerks in our stores.”
“They have been charging us too much,” Dinkins said.
“I am sure you can understand there must be added costs to living here, and enjoying the freedom that we enjoy.”
“So, what you’re saying is you want us to be nicer to the hired help.”
“I’m just giving you a few words of advice,” Webb said. “You know, there are some people who don’t want you here at all. You have a string of murders behind you that might attract enough lawmen here that we won’t be able to discourage them.”
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that among the horse thieves, cattle rustlers, bank, coach, and train robbers here, there ain’t none of them ever kilt anyone?”
“I am sure that quite a few of our citizens have killed,” Webb replied. “But generally they have killed because they were forced to. With you and your men, it is almost as if you have killed for no other reason than the pleasure it gives you.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It is, indeed. Oh, and one final thing, Mr. Dinkins. As a result of the string of killings you and your men have left behind, the reward money being offered now is fifteen hundred dollars for you, dead or alive. It is one thousand dollars for Mr. Harley, dead or alive, and five hundred dollars each for Frank and Travis Slater. That makes the four of you worth a total of thirty-five hundred dollars, and I must warn you, that sum is enough to tempt some of our citizens.”