“Yes, I am, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “Good. Because so am I.”

  She cocked her head. “The S Bar J?”

  “I know it’s a little late to come callin’,” Cassidy replied, “but I’ve got to talk to somebody out there.”

  “Mr. Slocum?”

  Cassidy said, “Yup.”

  She reined her buggy around the corner. “Then, Mr. Cassidy, we shall go together.”

  Slocum rode Becky like there was no tomorrow.

  He pounded into her as deeply as he could, and she gave out a satisfied little “oof” with every impact. Her long, sleek legs were pulled up and at his sides, her dimpled knees were at his shoulders, and her arms were outstretched like swan’s wings, her hands gripping and knotting the bedding as if it were a life preserver.

  Her lush breasts quivered like aspic with each of his thrusts, and the hard, swollen, pink nubs of her swollen nipples stiffly rode the creamy, soft, trembling mounds.

  He felt the yearning and burning between his legs increase like a fire fanned by bellows, bellows he had no inclination to stop, and just as he burst into his own climax, he felt her arch beneath him, heard her make a sound somewhere between a groan and a strangled scream.

  He thrust into her once, twice, three times more, and then collapsed upon her, still buried within her, his head pillowed on her heaving breasts.

  He felt her fingers lazily entwining in his hair, felt her legs, slick with their sweat, slip down his sides.

  She kissed his brow.

  He lifted his head, smiling, and kissed her on the lips, slow and sweet.

  “That was mighty fine, honey,” he whispered at last.

  “Mighty fine,” she echoed softly.

  “I’m sure glad ol’ Pete moved back to the bunkhouse,” he added.

  She grinned lazily. “Me, too. But you know why I had to keep him up here last night, baby.”

  “Yeah,” said Slocum, rolling off her at last.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, and she cuddled closer and snuggled the bedclothes around her, throwing them over him, too. It was cold in the bedroom, even with all the heat they’d created.

  He asked, “Want another blanket?”

  “No,” she said with a smile. “You’re keeping me warm enough.”

  “Always glad to be of service to a lady,” he said, and she gave him a playful swat.

  “What?” he said, feigning indignation.

  “ ‘Always’,” she said, her lips pursed. “You said ‘always. ’ You rogue. How many women have you said that to, I wonder?”

  Slocum ignored her last question, which would have been impossible to answer without an abacus and a memory like an elephant’s.

  Instead, he nodded, straight-faced. “Ain’t been called a rogue in a coon’s age. Gotta admit I like it a lot better than some of the things I’ve been called. Makes me feel sort’a rakish.”

  She laughed. She had been laughing quite a bit lately. It was a good sound to hear.

  He just hoped that after this Crowfoot hombre pulled into town from San Francisco, she’d still have a reason to laugh.

  He hoped that he would, too.

  Now, he’d never heard of Jeb Crowfoot.

  He could see how McMahon had heard of Cassidy, who had quite a reputation. He supposed he could even figure how he’d heard of that flashy trash, LeGrande, who was now taking a dirt nap a couple of miles west of the ranch house.

  But Crowfoot?

  Was he somebody that McMahon had just stumbled over? Maybe he was one of those boys who talked big, but had never done much of anything.

  McMahon struck him as the type to fall for that kind of line.

  Hell, maybe he’d just heard of this Crowfoot from some traveling drummer. Maybe Crowfoot didn’t even exist.

  But McMahon had hired somebody who knew what he was doing when he had Jack Jamison killed, hadn’t he?

  The thought gave Slocum pause.

  How he’d love to get his hands on the mysterious bastard with the cats marked on his casings. Didn’t even bother to pick them up, the lousy prick. It was like he wanted to claim the kill or something, to say, “I was here.”

  But if McMahon had known enough to hire somebody that good, a real sniper, to shoot Jack Jamison from a great distance, then it was doubtful that he’d fall for some braggart, or listen to some gabby salesman going through town.

  But still, it seemed right odd that McMahon had called in LeGrande and Cassidy when he’d already used a proven man. Proven to him, anyhow.

  “Someone’s coming,” Becky said, pulling him from his thoughts.

  He heard it, too; the rattle of a rig pulling up toward the house. It stopped, then he heard the murmur of voices and a groan and creak of buggy springs complaining.

  “Who the hell?” Slocum muttered as he leapt from the bed and yanked on his britches.

  Strapping on his gunbelt, he signaled Becky to be quiet, then tiptoed from the room, toward the front of the house.

  18

  The five of them—Slocum, Becky, Cassidy, Evie Siddons, and the ever-present Tia Juanita—sat around the dining room table. Besides a big pot of coffee, Tia Juanita had brought out half a dried-apple pie, half of the pecan they’d pillaged earlier, and a platter of cookies. But Slocum, Becky, and Evie Siddons were the only three partaking.

  Slocum was on his second piece of pie.

  “Tomorrow?” Becky asked again, as if she hadn’t believed Cassidy the first time.

  He nodded. “That’s what McMahon said. He said he was only keepin’ me around for a back-up gun. The sonofabitch. Sorry, ladies.”

  “I might as well not have come,” Evie said around a cookie. “It seems to me that you already know most everything, Mr. Cassidy. And considerably more of it than I do.”

  “Not quite, Miss Siddons,” said Slocum, giving his fork a last lick. This time, he picked up a cookie. They were sugar cookies, and Tia Juanita made them precisely the way he liked them, real thin and crispy, and all golden around the edges.

  “This Crowfoot, Miss Siddons,” he went on. “Would he by any chance be the same man McMahon called in to shoot Jack Jamison?”

  Evie Siddons sat there for a moment, staring at her napkin, before she looked up and softly said, “Yes, I believe that is the case.”

  Becky leaned forward, her fingers clamping the table’s edge, her face suddenly dark. “You knew? You knew and you didn’t do anything to stop him?”

  Evie looked like she’d been slapped. She sat back in her chair, looked down at her hands, and after a short pause, said, “I assure you, Mrs. Jamison, I didn’t know until well after the fact. And I couldn’t go to the law. Our town sheriff is a joke. He’s owned by Tate McMahon, anyway. As is just about everything and everyone else in town.”

  She looked up again, directly at Becky. “Tell me, what good would it have done to say anything? If I’d told you, Mrs. Jamison, it would have been the same as signing your death warrant.” She sighed. “Mine as well. Mr. McMahon doesn’t like anyone knowing his business.”

  “And he especially doesn’t want anyone to know the real reason why he’s grabbin’ all this land up, does he, Miss Siddons?” Slocum asked softly.

  Evie just stared at him, but Becky leaned forward, her eyes suddenly seeming twice as big as they had before.

  “You know, don’t you?” he asked Evie.

  Again, silence.

  Whether it was a bit of held-over, misplaced loyalty—or whether she simply didn’t know—was a moot point. He answered for her.

  “It’s silver, ain’t it?” he said. “Or gold. Or oil, maybe. There’s nothing special about this land. No offense, Becky. But you could find just as good or better grazing land about anywhere. And he’s makin’ sure to snatch up all the mineral rights along with everything else.”

  Becky’s brow furrowed. “And just how do you know that?”

  “Oh, the other day I rode around and asked a few of your neighbors,” Slocum said as he bit into a cookie. “Chatty bunch, once I told ’em I was stayin’ with you. Also, a couple of ’em remembered me from the last time I was in town.”

  “You never told me,” Becky said.

  “You were off gettin’ cheese or playin’ in the flowers,” he said with a grin.

  “Oil?” Cassidy piped up. “There any money in that stuff?”

  Slocum nodded. “Startin’ to be. ’Course, it could be a fad. My bet’s on bright metal. Evie?”

  She sighed. “All right. Silver. He found a vein that starts east of town. He’d had three different geologists in—secretly, of course—and they believe that the vein widens by quite a bit, then branches off. It runs, they think, clear through town and as far west as the middle of your land, Mrs. Jamison. And as far south as the old McKelleps place, with several other branches in between, of course. So you see, Mrs. Jamison, he stands to become a very wealthy man, especially if he can control the whole thing.”

  “Call me Becky, Miss Siddons.”

  “Thank you, Becky. Call me Evie.”

  Cassidy, who had all but ignored the last exchange, stared at Slocum. “You knew all the time, didn’t you, you big ox?”

  Slocum shrugged. “Had a pretty fair idea. Branches north, too, doesn’t it, Miss Siddons?”

  The fat woman nodded. “Clear into the old Lightner spread, I believe.” And then she sighed. “But what could I do about it? I was just one woman, alone, and McMahon was my only way of supporting myself. Indian Springs already has a schoolteacher, and Mr. Cleve at the newspaper only hires male typesetters and reporters. And please, everybody call me Evie.”

  “Evie?” said Slocum, and she smiled at the first name. “This Jeb Crowfoot that McMahon’s got workin’ for him now?”

  Evie looked around the table, and her gaze stopped on Becky’s face. Sorrowfully, she bowed her head and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Becky. Crowfoot’s supposed to be a crack shot at a distance. I forget what they call them.”

  “Snipers,” Becky said in disgust.

  “Yes,” said Evie quietly. “Snipers.”

  Slocum nodded, and Cassidy let out a sigh. Becky said nothing at all, but her mouth set into a hard line. Tia Juanita crossed herself, and her lips moved in a silent prayer.

  Slocum turned to Cassidy. “And now you’re telling me that he’s here.” He tipped his head. “Out there somewhere.”

  “He’d never sleep in a hotel,” Evie said softly. “He’s crazy. Thinks he’ll catch some sort of disease, sleeping where other people have slept or touching what other people have touched. He wears gloves all the time, too. I didn’t see him long, but it was long enough to find out that much.”

  She paused. “And he wanted his money in gold coins, in a pouch. The last time he was here, Mr. McMahon had to borrow the one from my purse mirror to put his money into. And Crowfoot chided him because he hadn’t boiled it first.”

  “He’s loco, all right,” said Tia Juanita, as if there were absolutely no question that Evie was correct.

  Not a single person at that table disagreed with her.

  While Tia Juanita, Evie, and Becky were in the house, doing whatever three sleepy but keyed-up women did at three o’clock in the morning, Slocum and Cassidy shrugged into their coats and repaired to the front porch.

  Slocum leaned against a porch post and rolled himself a quirlie while Cassidy sat down on the porch swing and lit a cigar he’d swiped from the humidor in the parlor. It was a good one. He didn’t see many like it, these days.

  Puffing, enjoying the flavor, Cassidy said, “So, what’s the plan, ol’ buddy? Kind’a like to know if I should put those horses up for the night or not.” He tipped his cigar toward Evie’s buggy and his saddle horse, tied farther down the rail.

  “Put ’em up,” Slocum said, cupping his hands around a sulphurtip, which he briefly held to the tip of his smoke. He shook out the match and took a long drag. “But later. Wanna talk to you first.”

  Cassidy slung both arms over the back of the swing. “Ask away,” he said, the cigar clamped between his teeth.

  “Your eyes ain’t what they used to be, are they?”

  Cassidy was taken aback by the question, but he didn’t believe that he showed it, other than the cigar dipping a tad.

  With a smile he didn’t feel, he said, “What did you expect, Slocum? I’m gettin’ old. Gonna be fifty-seven next spring. Hell, everything fades with time.”

  Slocum sighed. He pointed over his shoulder, toward the corral. “How many rails on that corral fence, Cassidy?”

  “Three,” Cassidy said right out. He couldn’t see it, of course. He could only see a grayish blur. But he was pretty damned sure he remembered three rails.

  “There’s four,” said Slocum, more kindly than Cassidy would have expected. “Your eyes are goin’, ain’t they, Drug?”

  Cassidy didn’t say anything.

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “You seen a doc?” Slocum asked at last, breaking the silence. “Nothin’ wrong with wearin’ glasses, you know.”

  Cassidy brought his arms down from the swing’s back and put his elbows on his knees. “Glasses ain’t gonna help none,” he said. “I’m goin’ blind. Some kind’a deal I inherited from my ma or my pa. Don’t know which one since they both died young, before they had a chance for it to happen to them. They was lucky.”

  Now it was Slocum’s turn to be speechless. After a moment, he looked away, cleared his throat, and murmured, “I’m awful damn sorry, Drug. How long you got?”

  Cassidy removed his cigar and studied the ember on the tip. “Four, maybe five years till I’ve gotta get me a cane and a pair of dark glasses, and have to ask people to help me across the street,” he replied.

  “But I can still be a help to you,” he went on. “Just ain’t got my distance vision no more. Night vision’s kind of shot, too. But in the day, I can still hit a nickel at fifty feet.”

  Slocum arched a brow, and Cassidy added, “Well, thirty-five feet, give or take.”

  He propped his head in one of his hands. “Y’know, this was gonna be my last job. That five hundred McMahon offered me for pickin’ you off would’a put my little nest egg over the top. I mean, I wouldn’t have lived fancy or nothin’, but I would’a been all right.” He sighed. “Now it looks like I’m gonna have to take on another job, goddamn it.”

  Slocum stubbed out his smoke on the sole of his boot, then tossed the butt out into the yard. “Well, maybe we can just get that five hundred bucks for you after all, Drug.”

  Cassidy’s features scrunched. “Just how the hell you figure we’re gonna pull that off?” Slocum was a goddamn enigma, that’s what he was.

  “Tell you when I get it all thought out,” Slocum said, and stood up straight. “Can you see well enough to help me get these horses put up and haul that buggy out back of the barn?”

  Annoyed, Cassidy stood up, too, and jabbed his cigar back into the corner of his mouth, between his teeth. “Bet your boots,” he said around it. “I ain’t helpless yet, y’know. Nothin’ like it. And I don’t need no goddamn nursemaid.”

  Slocum grinned. “Fine. Do it all by yourself, then. Then you’d best get your butt back up to the house. We’ve got a lot of planning to do for tomorrow. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to catch me a couple hours of sleep.”

  19

  After a couple hours of putting their heads together, and finally being satisfied with their plan, everyone, with the exception of Tia Juanita and Evie Siddons toddled off to bed. Tia Juanita had excused herself an hour into the proceedings, and yawned her way back to her quarters. Evie, too, had pleaded exhaustion, and was currently ensconced in the second guest bedroom.

  Becky could hear the bedsprings creaking as Cassidy climbed into bed in the spare room previously occupied by Pete. Becky, herself, was alone in the master bedroom.

  Slocum had ridden off somewhere.

  He’d kissed her and said not to worry, he’d be all right.

  She hadn’t believed him, not for a second.

  Fitfully, she tried to go to sleep, to make morning come that much sooner, but her eyes kept fluttering open, and she couldn’t stop the wheels in her mind from turning, turning.

  What had she gotten them into?

  There was Slocum, of course, who was after all her hero, who was so kind and fair, and the best lover she had ever known; Mr. Cassidy, who seemed quite nice for a hired gun, and who she found herself liking very much; and poor chubby Evie Siddons, who, despite working for that blistering rat McMahon, seemed a nice enough person. At least, she had come all the way out here in the middle of the night to warn them.

  She stared out the window, snugged up in her quilt and feeling lower than a well-digger’s boot heel, to quote one of Slocum’s more colorful sayings.

  What if it didn’t work, this thing he had planned? What if he got killed, murdered just as surely as Jack had been murdered, just as surely as she suspected Cassidy and Evie would be when McMahon discovered their duplicity.

  She should have talked Jack into leaving, somehow. Let McMahon have his blasted silver! Jack would have still been alive, at least. He was a kind man, a good man, and he was wonderful to her, even though she hadn’t truly loved him. She’d liked and admired him, though. And that counted for quite a bit.

  But then, how many couples had she met who were truly, deeply in love?

  She could count them on the fingers of one hand, and still have fingers left over.

  And after Jack had been killed, she should have pushed her stubborn streak and her pride aside and just sold to McMahon. He’d offered her a fair price. But no, she’d been too blasted proud to sell out to the man she was sure had murdered her husband.

  Too proud! And now, because of that pride, all these people, these brave, wonderful people, were going to die, too.

  She reached beside her, under the quilt, and once again touched the double-barreled shotgun Slocum had left her. She knew how to use it, and what she was supposed to do with it.

  But that all depended on whether Slocum made it through the night.