“Vere is everybody?” Hans broke the silence.
“I ain’t got no idea,” Dooley told him, slurping on a mug of coffee. “I ain’t been to the ranch in two-three days.” Really, he had no idea how long he’d been gone. Two days or a week. Time meant nothing to him anymore. He had only a few thoughts burning in his brain: to kill Cord McCorkle and then turn his guns on his traitor sons and watch them die in the muddy street. And if he didn’t soak up too much lead doing that, and he could find her, he wanted to shoot his wife.
That was the sum total of all that was in Dooley Hanks’s brain. He paid for his meal and took a mug of coffee with him, sitting in a chair on the boardwalk in front of the cafe. He would wait.
He sat in his chair, watching the town wake up and the people start moving around. He drank coffee and rolled cigarettes, smoking them slowly, his eyes missing nothing.
He watched as two very muddy and tired-looking riders rode slowly up the street, coming in from the north. Dooley set his coffee mug on the boards and stood up, staying in the morning shadows, only a dark blur to those still in the sunlight. He slipped the thongs from the hammers of his guns. The two riders reined up and dismounted, looping the reins around the hitchrail and starting up the steps to Hans. They stopped and stared in disbelief at the man.
Hector and Rod, two punk gunslicks Dooley had hired, stood with their mouths open.
“You ’pposed to be dead!” Hector finally managed to gasp.
“Well, I ain’t,” Dooley told them. “And I want some answers from you.”
“We ain’t got no quarrel with you,” Rod told him. “All we want is some hot coffee and food.”
“You’ll get hot lead, boy,” Dooley warned him. “Where the hell is my no’count sons?”
“I ...” Hector opened his mouth. A warning glance from Rod closed it.
“You’d better talk to me, pup!” Dooley barked. “‘Fore I box your ears with lead.”
Hector laughed at the man. “You ain’t seen the day you could match my draw, old man.” Hector was all of nineteen. He would not live to see another day.
Dooley drew and fired. He was no fast gunslinger, but he was quick and very, very accurate. The slug struck Hector in the heart and the young man died standing up. He fell on his face in the mud.
Dooley turned his gun toward Rod, the hammer jacked back. “My boys, punk. Where is they?”
“They teamed up with Jason and Lanny and Cat Jennings,” he admitted. “I don’t know where they is,” he lied.
Dooley bought it. He sat down in the chair, his gun still in his hand. He would wait. They would show up. Then he’d kill them. He’d kill them all.
Rod backed up and led his horse across the street, to a little tent-covered cafe. Horace Mulroony had stood on the boardwalk across the street and witnessed the shooting. He motioned for his cameraman to bring the equipment. They had another body to record for posterity.
“Mister Hanks,” he said, strolling up. “I would like to talk to you.”
“Git away from me!” Dooley snarled, spittle leaking out of one corner of his mouth.
Horace got.
Twenty-Eight
In the middle of the afternoon, in order to keep suspicion down, Smoke risked a run to the barn and began saddling all the horses himself. He laid four gunnybags or pieces of ripped-up blankets in front of each stall, to be used to muffle the horses’ hooves when they first pulled out. Smoke went over each saddle, either taping down or removing anything that might jingle or rattle.
That done, he climbed up into the warm loft to speak to the men. Lujan was reclining on some hay. He opened his eyes and smiled at Smoke.
“At full dark, amigo?”
“At full dark. If you know any prayers, you best be saying them.”
The gunfighter grinned. “Oh, I have!”
The other men in the loft laughed softly, but in their eyes, Smoke could see that they, too, had been calling—in their own way—for some heavenly guidance.
He climbed back down and decided to stay in the barn until nightfall. No point in drawing unnecessary gunfire from the ridges. He lay down on a pile of hay and closed his eyes. Might as well rest, too. It was going to be a long night.
Gage and Del had led the party safely past the gunmen on the ridges. An hour later they were deep in the timber and feeling better. It was tough going, carrying Beans on the stretcher, but by switching up bearers every fifteen minutes, they made good time.
Dawn found them miles from the Circle Double C. But instead of following Cord’s orders, Del had changed directions and was heading toward Gibson. He had not done it autocratically, but had called for a vote during a rest period. The vote had been unanimous: head for town.
By midafternoon they were only a few miles from town, a very tired and foot-sore group.
Late in the afternoon, they came staggering up the main street of Gibson. People rushed out of stores and saloons and houses to stand and stare at the muddy group.
“Them wimmin’s wearin’ men’s britches!” a man called from a saloon. “Lord have mercy. Would you look at that.”
Gage quickly explained what had taken place and why they were here, Dooley listening carefully.
Rod stood on the boardwalk and stared at the group, his eyes bugged out. Parnell felt the eyes on him and turned, his hot gaze locking with Rod’s disbelieving eyes. Parnell slipped the thongs from his blasters and walked toward the young man.
“I ain’t skirred of you!” Rod shouted.
“Good,” Parnell said, still walking. “A man should face death with no fear.”
“Huh! It ain’t me that’s gonna die.”
“Then make your play,” Parnell said, and with that he became a western man.
Rod’s hands grabbed for iron.
Parnell’s blaster roared, and Rod was very nearly cut in two by the heavy charge. It turned him around and tossed him through the window and into the cafe, landing him on a table, completely ruining the appetite of those having an early supper.
Beans had been keeping a good eye on Dooley ; a good eye and his gun. Crazy as Dooley might be, he wasn t about to do anything with Beans holding a bead on him.
Dooley stood up slowly and held out his hand as he walked up to Gage. With a look of amazement on his face, Gage took the offered hand.
“You got a good woman, Gage. I hope you treat her better than I did.” He turned to Liz and handed her the receipt from the stage agent. “Money from the sale of the cattle is over yonder in the safe. I’m thinkin’ straight now, Liz. But I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. So I’ll keep this short. Them boys of ourn took after me. They’re crazy. And they got to be stopped. I sired them, so it’s on my shoulders to stop them.” Then, unexpectedly, and totally out of character for him, he took off his hat and kissed Liz on the cheek.
“Thank you for some good years, Liz.” He turned around, walked to his horse, and swung into the saddle, pointing the nose of the horse toward the Circle Double C.
“Well, I’ll just be damned!” Gage said. “I’d have bet ever’ dollar I owned—which ain’t that many—that he was gonna start shootin.’”
Liz handed him the receipt. “Here, darling. You’ll be handling the money matters from now on. You might as well become accustomed to it.”
“Yes, dear,” the grizzled foreman said meekly. Then he squared his shoulders. “All right, boys, we got unfinished business to take care of. Let’s find some cayuses and get to it.”
Their aches and pains and sore feet forgotten, the men checked their guns and turned toward the hitchrails, lined with horses. “We’re takin’ these,” Del said. “Anybody got any objections, state ’em now.”
No one had any objections.
Hans rode up on a huge horse at least twenty hands high. He had belted on a pistol and carried a rifle in one big paw. “I ride vit you,” he rumbled. “Friends of mine dey are, too.”