“Ye-yes, but—” Sonny stammered.
“Shut up,” Rochenbach said in a firm tone. “Next time you pull that shotgun, have it loaded.”
“My—my wife,” Sonny said, trying to struggle up onto his feet.
Rochenbach didn’t answer. Instead he walked over to where Spiller held the sobbing woman by her arm.
“Turn her loose, Spiller,” Rock said again. He held the money up. “We came here for money. We got it.”
“Huh-uh,” said Spiller, “I’m taking a little taste for my trouble. Don’t even think about trying to stop me.”
Rochenbach looked away and let out a breath as if in submission. But then he turned back in a flash; his stiff new boot came up hard and fast and buried itself in Spiller’s crotch. The gunman jackknifed at the waist with a terrible sound and seemed to freeze there, both hands grasping himself.
Rochenbach’s Remington streaked out of his belly holster and made a hard swipe across the side of Spiller’s forehead. Spiller’s hat flew away.
“My God, Rock, you’ve ruined him!” said Casings as Spiller fell to his side on the cold, hard ground.
The woman stood staring wide-eyed, her mouth agape.
“Go to your husband,” Rochenbach said to her, making her snap back to her senses. “Both of you get inside.”
Turning the Remington toward Casings, Rock asked him, “Anything you need to add?”
“Huh-uh, not a thing,” said Casings, instinctively taking a step back, fighting the urge to cup his hands and protect his crotch.
On the ground, Spiller let out a strained, pain-filled groan. Blood poured from a long welt running down the side of head, along his jawline.
“Throw some water on him. Let’s get him in his saddle and get out of here,” Rock said calmly. “We’ve interrupted these folks’ supper long enough.”
Chapter 4
Two pairs of gleaming red eyes flashed in the darkness above the three riders as they rounded a sunken boulder on the trail back toward Denver City. In the pale light of a rising half-moon, Rochenbach and Casings rode along, Spiller slumped and silent in his saddle a few feet ahead of them. As the brush of padded paws swept down the side of the boulder and sprinted away into the greater darkness, Casings took his hand off his rifle stock and dropped it to his side.
“Coyotes…,” he said sidelong to Rochenbach.
Rochenbach didn’t answer. The horses plodded on at a walk.
A few yards farther along, Casings said quietly to Rochenbach, “We had no idea Edmund Bell was dead. Our job was to collect something from him, that’s all.”
Rochenbach didn’t answer, knowing that the less he spoke, the more Casings felt he had to.
“I mean, I wasn’t going to do anything to that girl,” he said. He nodded at Spiller riding ahead of them. “That was all his idea.”
“You didn’t try to stop him,” Rochenbach said quietly.
Casings stared at him.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “Why did you?”
“Because I was told we came here to collect money. So that’s what I did,” said Rock. “Sure, I had to rough the fellow up a little, but just enough to get the job done. What Spiller was about to do to the woman was stupid.”
“Yeah, I have to admit, you got what we came for,” said Casings, looking him up and down. “I call getting money from that ragged-ass kid nothing short of a miracle.”
Rock cut him a sidelong glance.
“What are you saying, Casings?” Rock asked.
Casings shrugged and said, “Nothing, just that it was a miracle.”
“A miracle?” said Rock. “So you’re expressing a religious view?”
“No,” Casings said, sounding embarrassed. “I’m just saying it’s not likely that Sonny Bell or his pa, either one, would have any money. That’s all.”
“Then why did we waste our time riding out here?” Rock asked, sounding irritated. “Is this some kind of kid’s game?”
“Whoa,” said Casings. “I’m just saying we’ve had a hard time shaking any money out of Edmund Bell.”
“Really?” Rochenbach stopped his horse and stared at Casings. “You’re the one who said ‘Put a scare into these beefers and miners, they come up with some money.’ I put a scare into him and he came up with some money.” He turned his horse back to the trail, seeing Spiller get farther ahead of them. “Maybe you two haven’t been trying hard enough.”
Casings stayed beside him.
“We tried hard,” he said, “damned hard. Spiller has been at this business his whole life.”
“I’m no shylock,” Rock said, “but it didn’t seem too hard to me—a smack in the mouth. I reached in his pocket and there it was.”
Casings let go of a breath and considered the matter. Ahead of them Spiller swayed in his saddle. His left arm, which had been holding a wadded bandanna against his bloody forehead, fell limp to his side.
“Uh-oh, there he goes,” said Casings, seeing the half-conscious gunman topple over out of his saddle and land in the cold, rocky dirt.
Rochenbach rode up slowly, grabbed the loose reins to Spiller’s horse and drew it to his side. He watched Casings help Spiller onto his knees and steady him.
“Here’s your horse, Dent,” Rock said quietly, pitching the reins down to the bloody, addled gunman. “Try to stay on it.”
“You’ve broken something… inside my head,” Spiller gasped, struggling to stand with Casings’ help.
“Wonder what that could be,” Rock said in a dry, calloused tone.
“We’re going to have to stop for a while,” Casings said to Rochenbach, “let him get his senses back.” He looked around in the pale moonlit night. “To tell the truth, my horse could use a little rest. I could use some hot coffee myself.”
Without a word, Rochenbach stepped down from his saddle and walked his horse off the trail into the scrub. He found a knee-high rock and sat down on it, holding his rifle across his lap.
Casings helped Spiller to his feet and walked him off the trail with his arm looped across his shoulders. He led both horses behind him. When he’d helped the wobbling outlaw seat himself in the dirt, he looked at the bloody, swollen side of his head.
“Man!” he remarked to Rochenbach. “I’ve never seen a man struck this hard by a pistol barrel before.”
Rochenbach looked out across the purple night and relaxed.
“How’s that coffee coming?” he asked.
Casings stopped looking at Spiller’s injured head and turned to Rochenbach.
“Who the hell put you in charge?” he asked. “I’m not the damned cook.”
Rochenbach shrugged and said, “No offense. You said you wanted to rest your horse and have a hot cup of coffee. I figured you wanted to talk some more about how you’re going to explain all this to Grolin.”
“Talk some more?” Casings said. “I didn’t say anything about explaining all this to Grolin.”
“No, but you were leading up to it when your pal here fell from his saddle,” said Rock. “I thought you might want to pursue the matter further before we get back to the Lucky Nut.”
Spiller and Casings stared at each other.
After a tense pause, Casings turned to his horse, flipped open his saddlebags, took out a small cloth bag of coffee beans and walked toward Rochenbach.
“You don’t know what it’s like sometimes, working for Andy Grolin,” he said.
Looking past Casings, Rochenbach saw Spiller wobble to his feet and begin searching the ground for firewood.
Rock smiled to himself. “Oh?” he said. “Then maybe you should tell me.”