Again Trask stroked the stick, and again a ball shot down a hole. “First things first. I don’t take just any work. If it’s not legal, find someone else.”
“You have scruples?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Because I’m half-and-half?” Trask unfurled and placed his hand on the tomahawk. “I should have known you would be one of those.”
Ubel was unfazed by the slur. “I am not a bigot, Mr. Trask. The truth be known, the circumstances of your birth could not matter less to me. I simply meant that most of the men I have talked to so far have not shown your aversion to lawbreaking. They do not care what the job is.”
“I’m not them. What are the particulars?”
“A young man whose name would be of no interest to you stole a considerable sum of money from my employer. This young man and several friends left Denver three days ago, traveling east. Naturally, my employer would like to have him tracked down. That is all there is to it. Are you interested?”
Trask wasn’t one to bandy words. “It’ll cost you two hundred dollars. In advance. I’ll find them for you, you can bank on that. But once I do, my work is over, and I go my own way. Agreed?”
“Your terms are more than agreeable.” Ubel offered his hand, and Blue Raven Trask shook.
“A few more things,” the tracker said. “I don’t take to being bossed around. You don’t tell me what to do, ever. You ride when I say to ride, you stop when I say to stop. If we run into Injuns, you let me handle the palaverin’.”
“When can we depart?”
“That depends on how many are going and how soon you can get your hands on what we’ll need.”
Walking side by side, they moved toward the street. Ubel saw Hans gesture at a cluster of men near the front. A broomstick in a vest and high boots had a knife in his hand, low down against his leg. The man was staring hard at Trask, but Trask did not appear to have noticed. “There will be four in my party, including myself.” Ubel changed his grip on his cane so he could swing it like a club, then leaned to the side to whisper, “Mr. Trask, I think I should warn you—”
“No need,” Trask said. He looked at the pool tables, at the window, at the portly proprietor, at everyone and everything except the men in the corner and the man holding the knife. “When he makes his move, get out of my way. This isn’t your fight.”
“Does it have something to do with the stage robbers your wife mentioned?”
Trask nodded. “Some folks just never learn.” He was almost to the door, only a few yards from the men in the corner. Inexplicably, he turned his back to them, but as he did, his right hand drifted to his tomahawk.
The man in the vest didn’t shout a threat or swear at Trask or give any other sign of his intentions. He simply raised his knife and sprang.
To Ubel, Trask’s death seemed certain. The tracker had been a fool to turn his back like that. But then Trask spun with incredible swiftness, and the tomahawk met the descending stroke of his attacker’s blade. Other patrons scrambled to make room as the man in the vest crouched and circled.
Trask stood as still as a statue. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking but not to tell that here was a man possessed of no fear whatsoever. He was as calm and as self-assured as a mountain lion.
“You were warned not to go after my cousins.” The man in the vest broke his silence. “They’ll spend eleven years in prison, thanks to you.”
“I hope they remember to send flowers for your grave, Roarch,” Trask said. Me, I plan to piss on it.”
“You damned breed.” Roarch attacked anew, weaving his knife in a savage series of arcs and slashes. He was skilled, very skilled, but every swing was countered by the tomahawk.
It wasn’t often Ubel Gunther was impressed, but he was impressed now. The half-breed was unbelievably quick and undeniably deadly. It occurred to him that here was a potential valuable ally. Trask had said he would go his separate way once their quarry was located, but Ubel wondered if more money might induce him to change his mind. Not that Fabrizio or Pickett or the girl posed much of a threat. Ubel was thinking of the buffalo hunter. Enos Howard was known to be a marksman, able to drop an animal or a man from a great distance. Getting close enough to dispose of them might be difficult, and Ubel was a firm believer in eliminating difficulties before they became a problem.
Roarch was swearing up a storm. With good reason. Trask was slowly but inexorably forcing him toward one of the pool tables. Soon he would have his back to it and be hemmed in. “You stinkin’ breed!” he screamed and redoubled his efforts to kill Trask. He was no slouch with a knife, but he just wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t long before he realized it and worry replaced the fury contorting his face.
The end came with stunning rapidity.
Trask feinted to the left, and when Roarch parried, he sidestepped, shifted, and buried the tomahawk in Roarch’s temple. Roarch died on his feet, his mouth opening and closing like that of a goldfish out of water. He melted beside the table. No one else moved. No one else spoke.
Trask wasn’t even breathing heavily. “This will delay us,” he said to Ubel. “The police will want to question me.”
“Leave them to me,” Ubel said. “My employer has considerable influence.” More than considerable. Radtke often invited the mayor and the chief of police to his best boarding house at no cost to them. Ubel smiled and put a hand on Trask’s shoulder. “While we are waiting, I have another proposition for you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Northeastern Colorado
Charley Pickett wouldn’t care if it took forever to find the Hoodoos. Over two weeks in Melissa Patterson’s company had increased his feelings for her to the point where he never wanted the search to end. During the day, he rode by her side as much as possible. At night, they stayed up late, staring at the stars and talking.
Tony left them pretty much to themselves. He had grown unusually quiet. When Charley asked why, Tony blamed it on the heat and the flies. Charley had a hunch there was more involved, but he did not badger Tony about it.
Charley was more concerned about Enos Howard. The buffalo hunter had fallen into a sulk. He wouldn’t speak unless spoken to, and he guzzled whiskey from the moment he woke up until the moment he passed out at night.
“What the dickens is the matter with you?” Charley had asked the evening before. “Why are you actin’ like you sat on a corncob?”
“You have eyes, pup, but you don’t see. You have ears, but they’re stuffed with wax.” Enos wet his throat, lowered the bottle, and sighed. “My big plan has unraveled. I’m not the man I used to be.”
“So you can’t shoot the moon’s eyes out. Your life isn’t over.”
“It might as well be,” Enos said forlornly. “My eyes should have cleared up by now, but they haven’t. I’m good out to about a hundred yards, but any farther than that and I couldn’t hit the ass end of a buff if my life depended on it.” He swilled more rotgut. “If it ain’t chickens, it’s feathers.”
“We change our plan,” Charley proposed. “Instead of you pickin’ the Hoodoos off from a mile away, we’ll sneak in close.”
Enos arched an eyebrow. “Get in close to Kid Falon? To hombres like Brock Alvord and Curly Means? Land o’ Goshen, boy, they’d splatter your brains without half tryin’.”
“Not if we take them by surprise. And that’s where you come in. You can see well enough to track. Once we find them, we wait until they least expect any trouble. With a little luck, we can take them without havin’ to fire a shot.”