“Looks like a big day for visitors,” a man in his late forties said from behind the bar. “You with the others?”

  Clint glanced to where the barkeep waved to and spotted Ben Jarrett standing with one other man at a post with a shelf nailed to it. Both men leaned against the post and watched Clint as if they were thinking of new ways to gut him.

  “Yeah,” Clint replied with a smile. “We’re old friends.”

  Not knowing any better, the bartender slapped the top of the rickety bar and asked, “What can I get you to drink, sir?”

  “I’ll take a beer.”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  True to his word, the barkeep ran to fill a mug with beer as Clint stood his ground and waited.

  There were a few others in the saloon, but none of them seemed too interested in Clint, Ben or the other stranger once Clint’s entrance was done. They got back to their own discussions and turned their backs to the unfamiliar faces.

  “Here ya go,” the bartender said as he set the full mug down.

  Clint took the beer, paid the barkeep and started walking toward Ben’s table without once taking his eyes off of the two outlaws. He didn’t bother looking for holsters around the other two men’s waists and subtly shifted his beer to his left hand so his right could remain empty and within easy reach of his Colt.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Clint said as he approached what passed for a table, but was actually more of a tray nailed to a post. Putting his back to a wall and keeping the front door in sight, he asked, “Where are the others?”

  “Why, Adams?” Ben asked. “Were you hoping for a party?”

  “Of a sort.”

  “Then you’re bound to get your wish if you keep within ten paces of Matt Fraley.”

  “You’re going to an awful lot of trouble for one man,” Clint said. “Besides that, Matt seems more interested in doing a few good deeds and settling down.”

  “Maybe, but he stole from me before settling.”

  “So steal some more.”

  The corner of Ben’s eye twitched as he fought to put on a convincing smile. “That ain’t the point, Adams, and you know it. I can’t let it pass when someone steals from me. Not even if it’s one goddamn penny.”

  Clint shrugged and sipped his beer. “Then it looks like we’ve got a problem.”

  When the saloon door swung open, the smile on Ben’s face became genuine. “Not for much longer, we don’t.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Clint’s gun hand flashed down to his holster quicker than anyone else in that saloon could see. When he brought up the modified Colt to aim it at Ben’s chest, Clint didn’t even spill a drop from the mug he held in his other hand.

  “So,” Clint said, “did you mention something about a party?”

  Ben blinked and looked down at the Colt as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The man beside him looked just as surprised, but started moving for his own pistol anyway.

  “Don’t be a damn fool,” Ben hissed as he slapped at his partner’s gun arm.

  The man took his hand away from his holster and did his best to look tough as he shifted his eyes back to Clint. So far, nobody else in the saloon had seen or heard enough to pull their uninterested glances away from the man still standing in the front doorway.

  “Wait for us outside,” Ben said to the man in the doorway. When he saw the confused look on the man’s face, Ben added, “Now, I tell ya!”

  That brought from the others inside the saloon a few more glances aimed at Ben’s table. Watching as the locals looked away again and got right back to their conversations,Ben was even more surprised to find that Clint had already holstered his Colt and was drinking his beer without a care in the world.

  “All right,” Ben said. “Fine. I still don’t see why you’d go out of your way to help a no-good asshole like Fraley.”

  Clint held his beer rather than try to set it on the already crowded little table nailed to the post. “He hasn’t done much of anything wrong while I’ve been around.”

  “He’s a thief. A killer. From what I’ve heard, he’s just the sort of man you’re known for hunting down or even killing.”

  “I don’t kill without a reason,” Clint said plainly. “And Matt hasn’t given me a reason.”

  “And what happens when he does?” Ben asked smugly.

  Without missing a beat, Clint replied, “Then I’ll kill him, just like I’ll kill you if you try to push this any further than it needs to go.”

  Gritting his teeth, Ben started to pick up a glass of whiskey and then slammed it down hard enough to crack the little table halfway from the nails holding it to the post. “What the hell did Matt do? Did he pay you? I’ll pay you double if you just get on that horse of yours and find somewhere else to be that ain’t here.”

  Seeing the man in the doorway start to walk forward, Ben stabbed a finger toward him and snapped, “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Those words echoed through the little saloon and brought every conversation in the place to a halt. Ben pulled in a breath and grinned at the bartender. “Next round’s on me,” he said. “Sorry for the ruckus.”

  The few others inside the saloon raised their glasses and voiced a quick round of thanks as the bartender hurried to refill their glasses.

  “You’re making a big mistake siding with a man like Matt Fraley,” Ben said. “Unless everything I’ve ever heard about you is wrong, you know that just as well as I do, Adams.”

  “Matt Fraley served his time in jail,” Clint said. “He’s gone out of his way to set some folks back up on their feet and he’s not shying away from the sins in his past. Whatever he did before, he’s going a long way to try and make up for it.”

  “Ain’t no man can make up for killing.”

  Clint’s eyes bored straight through Ben when he replied, “You don’t have to tell that to me. All a man can do is try his damndest to set things straight, and that’s what Matt’s doing.”

  Ben squinted at Clint as his face slowly twisted back into a questioning scowl. “You said Matt served his time in jail?”

  “As far as I know,” Clint said.

  “Then you don’t know much, because Matt broke out of jail so he could set out on this little string of errands he gave himself.”

  Now it was Clint’s turn to study the other man. He even looked to the gunman standing beside Ben and couldn’t find a definite hint of a bluff among them.

  Ben nodded as he felt his words sink in deeper and deeper. “You didn’t know that, did you? What did Matt say? Did he tell you he stood up and pleaded his case in front of a judge who proclaimed him an innocent man?”

  Clint thought back to the conversations he’d had with Matt. Sometimes, he thought he recalled Matt mentioning serving time in prison. Other times, Clint wondered if he’d just put those pieces together in his own head. Either way, Clint got the sneaking suspicion that Matt had danced around the subject so perfectly that Clint assumed it was resolved.

  “Not such a good fellow now, is he?” Ben asked. “Just wait until he shoots you in the back or steals from you. Then you’ll be chomping at the bit to ride along with me and string that son of a bitch up by his guts.”

  “Whether he served his time in jail, broke out of it or sprouted wings and flew out doesn’t matter to me,” Clint said. “Matt will pay his dues and it won’t be by your hand.”

  “It’ll be by your hand, then?” Ben sneered. “What the hell makes you so goddamned high and mighty? Why shouldn’t he be judged by those he wronged?”

  Clint only leaned forward a little, but that was enough to make it so that Ben saw him and nobody else in the entire saloon. “Because,” Clint said, “something tells me you’ve done enough in your life that you earned whatever Matt did to you.”

  The corner of Ben’s mouth jumped, making it look as if he’d been caught on a fisherman’s line. “Yeah?” he grumbled. “Well you had plenty of chances to walk away from this. Next time I see you, I’ll be sending your brains out the back of your damn head.”

  Clint nodded slowly and took his time finishing his beer.

  Ben gathered up his men and headed for the door.

  FORTY-TWO

  When Matt stepped out of Faith’s house, he saw Clint leaning against a tree not too far away. Since most of Saddlewood was situated in open ground, the tree seemed as if it had been dropped there by a twister and just happened to take root.

  “Watching over me, huh?” Matt asked.

  Clint stayed where he was, so Ben was forced to walk all the way over to him. By the time Ben got to the tree, Clint was grinning from ear to ear.

  “What’s so funny, Adams?”

  “You look like you got a bit more than you bargained for in there.”

  “Jesus, were you looking through the window?”

  “Nope,” Clint replied. “I just need to look at that grin on your face. Was she worth the ride into town?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Good. Was she worth breaking out of jail?”

  Matt thought that over for a second and nodded. “Yeah. She was.”

  “So where does this reckoning of yours end?” Clint asked. “After you hand out that money, were you planning on stealing some more from someone else?”

  “What would be so wrong with that plan?”

  “Should I say like starting a bigger fire than you’re putting out or just point out that you’re not exactly making up for being a thief by stealing?”

  Matt chuckled and nodded. “You got me there, Adams. I was just interested in hearing how you’d answer that.”

  “You’ve got my answer,” Clint said without so much as cracking a smile. “I’d like to hear yours because I’m not about to stand by and watch you start another war with some other outlaw.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the Army, but this is far from a war.”

  “Not according to Ben Jarrett. He intends on taking you out no matter how bloody it gets or how many others have to get hurt along the way.”

  “He’s here?” Matt asked.

  “He sure is.”

  “And he told you all of that?”

  “Not in so many words, but he’s not about to let you off easy now that you’re so close. I’ve seen his intentions in his eyes. When he mentions you or that money you took, he looks more like a wolf than a man. He’s out to kill you,” Clint told him. “And he won’t settle for anything else.”

  Matt’s eyes drifted back toward Faith’s house. He was walking away from that little house before he even managed to look back at Clint. Still walking through an open stretch between the house and Saddlewood’s only street, Matt said, “I knew Ben would be following us here.”

  “So did I,” Clint said with a short laugh. “I watched them follow us the whole way here, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. You must think I’m crazy for leading them here, though.”

  “Not if Ben already knows about this woman.”

  “Faith.”

  Clint nodded and took note of the subtle change in Matt’s face when he said her name. “Right. Faith. If Ben knows about Faith, this is probably the best place for us to be.”

  Matt nodded and let out a relieved breath.

  “Still,” Clint continued, “no matter how good your intentionsare for this money you stole, I can’t just let you keep on robbing from the bad and giving to the good. You’re not Robin Hood, you know.”

  Squinting at Clint’s reference, Matt shook his head and replied, “I can’t stay here, either. After breaking out of jail, there’s men after me.”

  “I doubt it’s too bad. That is, unless someone’s renewed the price on your head.”

  “That should happen as soon as someone in that jail realizes I’m gone, and Lord only knows when that’ll be.”

  “It shouldn’t be too much longer after I take you back there so you can serve out the rest of your time.”

  When Clint said that, he shifted his hand a bit closer to the Colt at his side. His eyes remained locked on Matt, waiting to catch any sign that the man might not like what he’d just heard.

  But all Matt did was nod. He looked more tired than anything else. The most emotion he showed was when he shot a backward glance at Faith’s house. “Say what you want, Adams, but you gotta admit I’m doing more good out here than swinging from the end of a noose.”

  “That depends on how this turns out. You may just get an innocent woman killed.”

  “Nobody’s gonna lay a hand on Faith,” Matt snarled.

  “And nobody would have much reason to if you were still locked up in your cell.”

  Slowly, the fire faded from Matt’s eyes and he nodded once more. “I guess you’ve got a point there.”

  “You know I do.”

  “And what do you intend to do about it?”

  “I haven’t quite decided yet,” Clint replied. The truth of the matter was that Clint had been hoping to make a decision when he saw how Matt reacted to this very conversation. Unfortunately, Matt hadn’t done anything to push Clint away from his original path.

  “Tell you what, Adams,” Matt said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to wash your hands of this, so we can part ways and call it a day.”

  Slowly, Clint shook his head. “I can’t do that. I came along this far to see to it that you didn’t get anyone else hurt or try to pick up where you left off as far as what you were doing before going to jail.”

  “I’m not that man anymore, Adams. You may not have known me back then, but you’ve got to know I ain’t a killer no more.”

  “I know, but you’re a thief and you’re a fugitive from the law. I may not wear a badge, but I can’t just turn my back on something like this. Besides, Faith is still in danger of getting caught in a cross fire.”

  “Not if I take her away from this place, go somewhere quiet and never look back,” Matt said hopefully.

  Clint nodded toward the gunmen that were walking straight toward them. “Too late for that.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Ben Jarrett was flanked on each side by another man. All three of them walked toward Clint and Matt with their hands resting on their holstered guns. Stopping just over ten paces away from them, Ben planted his feet and waited for his two partners to get situated on either side of him.

  Matt did his best to keep from looking at Faith’s house, but he did manage to position himself between her and the three gunmen.

  Clint stepped away from Matt so the three gunmen wouldn’t be able to watch him and Matt so easily. Also, Clint wasn’t anxious to give Ben only one large target to fire at instead of two smaller ones.

  “You had your chance to steer clear of this, Adams,” Ben announced. “But there ain’t no backing out now.”

  “I wasn’t going anywhere,” Clint replied.

  “Good. That means you can bear witness to Matt handing back my money.” As he said those words, Ben straightened up and puffed out his chest like an artist admiring his own masterpiece. His smugness only grew when the men on either side of him leaned forward in preparation of the moment they were told to draw their guns.

  Matt watched Ben’s display with interest. In fact, he watched as though he were sitting in a comfortable chair as a play unfolded before him. After a few quiet moments, Matt finally spoke up. “Fuck you,” he said.

  “What did you just say to me?” Ben asked.

  “You heard me. The money’s gone, and even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t hand over a single dime.”

  Ben glanced back and forth at the two men beside him. Until now, Clint was content to watch the two men posture in front of one another and spew out their tough words. He only got worried when he saw Ben give his two partners a subtle nod and then tighten his grip on the handle of his gun.

  If Clint had had any hope that Ben could be talked out of making a wrong move, he would have started talking. If Clint had thought there was any way of changing Ben’s mind, he would have given it a try. Since he’d already tried his hand at those things, he figured the best he could do was stand by and try to keep the approaching storm from doing too much damage.

  Apparently, Matt was a bit more hopeful than even Clint would have given him credit for.

  “Money comes and goes, Ben,” Matt said. “We both know that. I know I took away a whole lot of it from you, but no money’s worth your life.”

  “It ain’t my life on the line right now, asshole,” Ben replied. “Besides that, I can’t let it be known that someone can steal from me and keep breathing. Not even if it’s you.”

  Matt might have gone on to try and keep Ben talking. He might have even tried to bargain his way out of the fight that he’d known was coming all this time. But it was too late for that. It was one time that Clint hated being right.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Ben Jarrett and the two men with him went for their guns at the same time.

  Clint pulled the modified Colt from its holster before any of the three men made a move, but only got a shot off at one of them. That shot was slightly off its mark since all three of the gunmen were firing at him.

  Spotting the motion of the men’s eyes as they focused in on him, Clint threw himself to one side while pulling his trigger. Even though he’d been expecting to be fired upon, being the target of all three was enough to make him nervous. Pulling his trigger while diving to the left, Clint saw his bullet clip the closest of the three gunmen.

  Another shot blasted through the air when Matt’s pistol sent a round of hot lead screaming toward the gunman on Ben’s left. Since Matt wasn’t the target of the outlaws’ first salvo, he kept his hand steady, held his ground and dropped the gunman with one shot.

  Clint landed solidly on the ground and was able to break his fall with his free arm before knocking all the wind from his own lungs. His gun arm raised as if he was pointing at his target with his finger and then he pulled the trigger. The modified Colt bucked against Clint’s palm and sent a shot through the closest gunman.