“I tell you what,” Brent said, buttoning his shirt. “If you don’t want half, you don’t have to take it.”
“I don’t want it,” Brian said, standing up. He used water from his canteen to clean his brother’s blood from his hands. He wished he could wash away the responsibility he felt as easily. He’d turned his brother into a bank robber, and now he’d come to this.
Well, he thought, maybe I made him a bank robber, but he made himself a fool. All he had to do was listen once in a while!
“Fine, then I’ll keep it all.”
Brent reached into the sack and pulled out a handful of bills.
“What the hell—”
“What’s the matter?” Brian asked.
Brent was frantically pulling another handful of money out.
“That little son of a bitch!”
Brian walked over to where his brother was sitting and immediately saw what the problem was.
He started laughing.
“What the fuck are you laughing at!”
“You,” Brian said. “You hold up a bank and take one in the side from a woman, and you end up with a bag of one-dollar bills.”
“Son of a bitch!” Brent said, throwing the sack as far as he could.
“You’re lucky if you’ve got five hundred dollars there. That sure as hell isn’t worth getting shot for.”
The Foxx brothers traveled another two or three hours, but then Brian noticed a waxy look coming over Brent’s face and saw that his brother’s side was covered with fresh blood.
“Hold up,” he said, grabbing the reins of Brent’s horse.
“What is it?” Brent asked. It came out as almost a gasp.
“That bleeding’s not stopping. We’ve got to get that bullet out.”
“It’s a tiny little bullet, Brian,” Brent complained, but Brian knew how much discomfort and pain the “tiny little bullet” was causing his brother.
“We’ve got to get you to a doctor in the next town.”
“What if there ain’t a doctor in the next town?”
“Then we’ll let a vet do it.”
“Brian—”
“Don’t argue with me on this, Brent. I’m not gonna haul your ass all over the countryside because you’re too stubborn to have a bullet removed—even a tiny little one.”
Brent shrugged and said, “You’re the boss.”
“Now that,” Brian said, “is the biggest joke I’ve heard all day.”
Chapter XXIV
“Where do you figure they’re heading?” Rebecca asked.
“I figure that since there was trouble with the Doverville robbery they’ve decided to change the location of their operation,” Decker said.
They were riding three abreast, with Decker in the center, Rebecca on his right, and Felicia on his left.
“Colorado?” she asked. “Kansas?”
Decker shook his head.
“I’d head farther east than that. I’d want to put as much space between myself and…what happened in Arizona that there wouldn’t even be a hint of it in the air.”
“And that goes for what happened in Bell’s Crossing, too,” Felicia chimed in.
“So then they’ll just relocate and start over again,” Rebecca said.
Decker nodded.
“We’ve got to stop them, Decker,” she said. “I don’t want what happened Tomy brother and those other people to happen to anyone else.”
“We’ll catch up with them,” Decker said. “Even a small bullet has to be giving whichever one of them is hit some problems. They’ll need a doctor unless one brother wants to take the bullet out of the other brother himself.”
“That means they’ll have to stop in a town,” Rebecca said.
“Right.”
“But which one?”
“We’ll have to find out.”
“That means we have to stop in every town.”
“Pass through, anyway.”
“But that’ll put us farther behind!”
“We’ll only pass through the towns that aren’t out of the way. It shouldn’t hold us up that much.”
“Why don’t I go on while you stop?”
“And when you catch up to them, what will you do?”
“I—I’ll—”
“We’ll ride together, Rebecca.”
“Why don’t you go ahead while Felicia and I stop in the towns?” Rebecca suggested.
“Again,” Decker said, “what happens if you ride into a town and they’re there?”
Rebecca didn’t answer.
“I know you’re anxious, but you’ve got to be patient.”
“I’m not a bounty hunter. I haven’t learned your kind of patience.”
He wasn’t sure if that had been meant as an insult or not.
“And you never will make a bounty hunter unless you learn.”
“I have no intention of being a bounty hunter.”
“Why? Don’t you have a bounty on Foxx’s head? And aren’t you after it?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how.”
“You’re after him for the money, and that’s all.”
Felicia started to speak in Decker’s defense, but he waved her to silence.
“People have to eat, Rebecca, and to do that they have to work, and most people work at what they’re good at.”
“And you’re good at hunting people down?”
“Yes.”
“And killing them?”
“What makes you think I kill them?”
“Isn’t that what bounty hunters do?”
“It’s not what this bounty hunter does,” Decker said, “and I don’t think it’s what most bounty hunters do.”
“Haven’t you ever killed a man after you caught up to him?”
“Yes.”
“Because it was easier to bring him back that way? Facedown over a saddle?”
“Because he was trying to kill me—and you should be the one to judge? You’re planning to kill Foxx when you catch up to him.”
“It’s different, I told you.”
“Revenge is a nobler cause than survival?”
She turned to look at him and said, “He killed my brother!”
“That’s fine. He killed your brother, so you kill him. See what that gets you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“You started the conversation.”
“And now I’m ending it.”
“Have it your way.”
“I’m only riding with you—”
“Because you need me.”
“I do not! We happen to be going in the same direction. I do not care to have my motives analyzed by you.”
“Let me ask you one more question.”
“What?”
“What did you do back in Doverville—for a living, I mean.”
“I…was a schoolteacher— but I can ride and handle a gun as well as any man.”
“You were a tomboy as a child, right?”
“What’s wrong with being a tomboy?” Felicia asked. She just wanted to get into the conversation.
“I don’t care to pursue this any further,” Rebecca said. “Could we ride in silence for a while, please?”
“That’s fine with me,” Decker said. “I’m not used to all this company on the trail, and I’m getting a headache anyway.”
Chapter XXV
The next town Brian and Brent Foxx came to was called Stillwell, and Brian decided that they’d wait and ride into town after dark.
“We want to attract as little attention as possible.”
“Why don’t you let me go in myself, get patched up, and then meet you here?”
Brian gave his brother a glare and said, “Because I can’t trust you not to try and rob the bank before you leave.”
Brent didn’t have an answer to that, and a low moan escaped his lips just at that moment. Brian wondered if he was really in pain or just looking for sympathy.