“What? You killed Hawke?”
“No, I told you, I killed Dorchester’s foreman. His name was Rob Dealey.”
“You ignorant baboon, Dealey isn’t Dorchester’s foreman. Hawke is.”
“I’m getting tired of you calling me a baboon,” Dancer said, his eyes snapping angrily.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Bailey said, backing down. She knew she couldn’t afford to get crosswise with him now. “It doesn’t make any difference anyway. None of it does.”
Dancer looked around the room and saw that the safe was open. In addition, he saw that she had been putting bound stacks of money into a carpetbag.
“What are you doing?” Dancer asked. “Why are you going to California?”
“If you heard me say that I’m going to California, then you also know why. Our scheme has been found out. The government has taken back the land.”
“How did they find out?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t plan to stay around long enough to find out.” Bailey took a packet of money from the carpetbag and handed it to him. “I won’t be needing your services any longer. I don’t owe this to you, but you can consider it a tip for a job well done.”
“That’s it?” Dancer said, his voice dripping with venom. “You are just going to give me one single stack of money and think that squares us?”
Bailey looked up at Dancer, surprised by his reaction. “That’s one thousand dollars.”
“And I’m supposed to be satisfied with one thousand dollars?”
“Mr. Dancer, what did you think, that you were my partner?”
Dancer nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
Bailey began laughing hysterically.
“You actually expected that I could be partners with someone like you? Why, you are barely human, you grotesque creature. Now, get out of here, take the money I offered you while it is still on the table. And don’t come back.”
Addison laughed.
“Why, look at you,” he said. “She practically has you quaking in your boots. I can’t believe that I have been frightened of you all this time.”
To the degree that Dancer’s distorted face could even show expression, it registered shock and confusion, then cold, calculated anger. But neither Bailey nor Addison were astute enough observers to notice the subtle change in Dancer’s demeanor. And that was too bad for them, because if they had noticed, it might have saved their lives.
“It’s time,” Dancer said.
“Time for what?” Bailey said.
“It’s time for you to dance with the demon.”
“Dance with the demon?” Ford said. He laughed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Still laughing, he looked over at Bailey, but the expression on her face was one of horror, and that, he could recognize.
“No,” Bailey said quietly, pleadingly. She held her hands out in front of her. “Ethan, no, listen, I was just frustrated by events. I wasn’t really going to cut you out. I didn’t mean—”
Dancer drew and fired, his bullet punching through Bailey’s left breast. Ford watched the black hole appear then pump blood as she fell. He was so mesmerized by it that he never even saw the shot that killed him.
“The sheriff isn’t here, Jake,” Aaron Peabody said, coming back in to the saloon. “So I brought the deputy.”
Deputy Wells came in behind Peabody. A young man, until Hagen was killed he’d been one of the wagon drivers for the Gold Nugget Haulers.
Deputy Wells looked down at Rob Dealy’s body, covered now by a sheet.
“Who done it?” he asked.
“Ethan Dancer.”
Wells nodded, and licked his lips. He continued to stare down at the body, but had not yet removed the sheet.
“Was it a fair fight?” he asked.
“What do you mean was it fair?”
“Who drew first?”
“Take the sheet off and look at him, then ask that question,” Jake said.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Take the sheet off and look at him,” Jake said again.
Looking around nervously, Wells squatted down beside the body and pulled the sheet back. He saw the bullet hole in Rob’s chest.
“He was shot dead center from the front. That looks fair to me,” Wells said.
“Look at his ears,” Jake ordered.
Wells looked at the ears and noticed, for the first time, Rob’s shredded earlobes.
“What the hell?” he said. “How did that happen?”
“Dancer shot both of his earlobes off, forcing him to draw.”
“So, uh…this fella did draw first?” Wells asked.
“You dumb shit! Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Dancer forced him to draw.”
“I see. Where is Dancer now?”
“I seen him when he left,” one of the patrons said. “He went into Bailey McPherson’s office.”
“Is he still there?” Wells asked.
“I ain’t seen him leave.”
Wells stood there for a moment, then took the star off his shirt and lay it on the bar.
“What are you doing?” Jake asked.
“Look, I’m a wagon driver,” Wells said. “I just took this job after Hagen got hisself killed ’cause, what with there bein’ no gold, they didn’t need wagon drivers no more.”
“Yes, but you did take the job. You are the deputy.”
“Not no more I ain’t,” he said. “I ain’t goin’ up against Dancer. If any of you boys want to do it, well, there’s the badge.”
Nobody moved toward it.
“I didn’t think so,” Wells said. He sighed. “I need a drink.”
“I think somebody needs to ride out to Northumbria and get Hawke,” Jake said.
When Luke Rawlings and Percy Sheridan went into the Sweetwater Railroad office, they saw Dancer standing over the bodies of Bailey McPherson and Addison Ford.
“Holy shit!” Luke said.
“Did you do this?” Perry asked.
“What are you doing here?” Dancer asked.
“Uh, we was just down to the saloon,” Luke said. “They’re all up in the air ’bout Dealy gettin’ kilt, and they’ve sent someone out to Northumbria to get Hawke.”
“Yeah, on account of the sheriff ain’t in town, and the deputy don’t want nothin’ to do with you,” Percy added.
“Only he ain’t the deputy no more. He quit.”
Dancer reached down into the carpetbag and took out two packets of paper currency.
“There’s one thousand dollars in each of these packets,” Dancer said.
“A thousand dollars?” Perry said. “I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my life.”
“U. S. Marshals are coming into town tomorrow,” Dancer said. “We need to get out of town.”
“Why we?” Luke asked. “After all this, you’ll be the one they’ll be looking for.”
“You want this money or not?”
Luke hesitated.
“Damn, Luke, a thousand dollars,” Percy said, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth.
“What good is a thousand dollars if you’re dead?” Luke asked.
“Have it your way,” Dancer said. He started to return the money to the carpetbag.
“No, wait,” Luke said. “All right, I’ll go.”
“My horse is in the stable,” Dancer said. “Get him saddled and meet me down behind the Chinese laundry.”
Luke lay on top of a flat rock, looking back along the trail over which they had just come. He saw the single rider following them.
“Is he still there?” Dancer asked.
“Yeah,” Luke growled. “I believe that son of a bitch could track a fish through water.”
“I’ll say this for that son of a bitch,” Percy said. “Once he gets his teeth into you, he don’t give up easy, does he? We’ve tried ever’ trick in the book to shake him off our tail and he’s still there.”
“We’ll lose him,” Dancer said. “Or kill him, one or the other.”