“There ya go,” he said.
Lancaster looked and saw the names Cardiff and Adderly on the wooden crosses.
“She said they weren’t here anymore,” Lancaster said. “I guess this is what she meant.”
“They killed Cardiff when Hermione was through with him,” Dan said. “Then they killed Adderly when he came lookin’ for Cardiff.”
Lancaster remembered the beating they had administered to him along with Sweet.
“These were hard boys,” he said. “I can’t believe the brothers took them both.”
“Separately,” Dan reminded him, “and did you think they were dangerous when you got here?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“They act—acted—like four idiots who were run by their sister,” Dan said. “Well, they were run by her and they were idiots, but they were dangerous when they worked together. They were just no match for you. You presented them with a situation they had never seen before, and they panicked.”
“So everybody’s dead but me and you.”
“And I’m okay with that,” Dan said. “But I got somethin’ else to tell you. Come back inside.”
Once they were back at the bar, Dan offered Lancaster another beer, which he turned down.
“What’s this other thing you’ve got to tell me?” he demanded.
“I heard Cardiff tell Hermione about Flagstaff.”
“What?”
“I overheard them. She was playin’ like she wanted him to stay, but he told her he had to meet somebody in Flagstaff.”
“And he said the name?” “He did,” Dan said.
“He said Sweet.”
“And how about Adderly, when he got here? Any word about Sweet?”
“No,” Dan said, “he didn’t last very long.”
Lancaster gave Dan a long look. “You wouldn’t be as big a liar as your cousin Hermione, would you?”
“Nobody was as big a liar as her, but look. You just did me a huge favor. I got no reason to lie to you. Besides, I got one more favor to ask.”
“What’s that?”
“Would you help me bury my family before you leave?”
Lancaster found Dan’s desire to bury his “family” odd. However, once they had dug all the graves, rolled the bodies in, and covered them up, Dan’s final words over the graves sort of clarified things.
“Good riddance,” he said.
Still not convinced that the last family member wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster was alert while he saddled Crow Bait to leave town. When he rode the animal out of the livery, he raked the rooftops and windows of the hotel and saloon with his eyes, looking for a rifle barrel. Satisfied that Dan was true to his word and wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster turned Crow Bait south and headed for Flagstaff, Arizona.
Forty-five
Flagstaff, Arizona
Lancaster rode into Flagstaff a week later, after a short stop in Seligman to outfit himself again.
That Flagstaff was a lively, busy town was obvious as he rode down the main street. He doubted that Sweet would still be there, but he hoped that he’d be able to get a lead on him. Also, he had to be very careful in his search, now that the other two men were dead. Sweet was his only connection to whoever had hired the three of them to strand him in the Mojave Desert.
The other good thing about Flagstaff was that it took him in the right direction, toward the Texas panhandle, where he hoped to get a line on Gerry Beck. After all, he had to earn the thousand dollars he’d already been paid, and the four thousand that had been promised to him.
There was no way he’d be able to go through Flagstaff in one day, so he rode directly to the livery to get Crow Bait taken care of.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said to the liveryman. “I’ve heard it all before. Just take good care of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left the livery and checked into the first hotel he came to, not paying any attention to its name. It didn’t matter, and neither did the quality, he just needed a room. These days the only time he considered quality was when he was looking to eat.
Lancaster decided to play this straight. He left the hotel and went right to the sheriff’s office. He decided that if Sweet heard he was looking for him he wouldn’t run. No, he’d come after him. Judging from the beating in the desert, he’d bring help, but this time Lancaster would be ready.
He realized that much of his anger over what had happened in the Mojave Desert was directed at himself. He should have been more alert. It was how he had stayed alive all those years of living by the gun. Now that he was just drifting, taking it a day at a time and not hiring out, he’d lost his edge. Taking a beating from two men who’d managed to get themselves killed by a woman and her four idiot brothers was ample indication of that fact.
When he got to the sheriff’s office, the door opened and a man rushed out, barreling into him.
“Oh, sorry,” the man said. “Gotta watch where I’m walkin’. You lookin’ fer me?”
“If you’re the sheriff, I am,” Lancaster said.
“That’s me, Sheriff Manning. I’m on my way to City Hall for a meetin’. You wanna walk with me or wait to see me later?”
“I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind,” Lancaster said.
“Good. Let’s go.”
The sheriff was as tall as Lancaster, but took shorter strides when he walked. Might have had something to do with the fact that he carried about fifty pounds more, mostly around his middle and in his ass. Lancaster had no trouble keeping pace.
“What can I do for you?”
“I just got to town, and I’m lookin’ for a man,” Lancaster said.
“Bounty hunter?”
There was no indication in the lawman’s voice how he would have felt if Lancaster had said yes. Lancaster had to decide if he wanted to make this a personal matter, or tell the man he was working for Wells Fargo.
“I’m working for Wells Fargo,” he said.
“That a fact?”
“Yes.”
“You got any paper that says that?”
“No, but—”
“So if we go over to the Wells Fargo office and I ask, they’ll say yes?”
“Their man might have to send a telegram,” Lancaster said, “but in the end, yeah, they’d confirm it.”
They walked in silence for a few strides, and then the sheriff said, “I’m gonna believe you. What’s your name?”
“Lancaster.”
“Who you lookin’ for, Lancaster?”
“Actually, two men,” Lancaster said. “A man named Sweet, and another man named Beck, Gerry Beck.”
“You got a first name on Sweet?”
“No,” Lancaster said. “Apparently nobody knows.”
“What about you?” the lawman asked. “You got a first name?”
“I don’t use it.”
“Fine,” the man said with a shrug. “Man’s got a right to call himself what he wants.”
The sheriff turned to cross the street so abruptly that Lancaster had to stop to let a buckboard go by before he joined the man.
“So, Sweet and Beck?”
“That’s right,” Lancaster said.
“Can’t say I know Beck, although I’ve heard of him,” Manning said.
“What about Sweet?”
“That’s not a common name,” Manning said. “Yeah, we had a man named Sweet here a couple of weeks ago.”
“When did he leave?”
“He was here about a week, so I’d say a week ago.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“I don’t, no,” Manning said. “All I know is that I ran him out.”
“Ran him out? Why?”
“Because he’s a troublemaker, that’s why.” The lawman stopped walking. “This is City Hall.”