He cut up to the north a mite before he closed in, his handgun drawn and ready. He moved slowly, quietly, and with his heart thumping a mile a minute.

  He finally found the body, down in the brush, by nearly falling over it. But he caught himself and, holding his breath, toed the man’s shoulder.

  No response.

  Letting out a relieved sigh that rose up in a foggy plume, Pete relaxed. He stuck his boot out again, and this time rolled the body over. Just as he was thinking that this fellow moved awful easy for a big, dead man, he saw the man’s hand move, heard the blast of a gun, and felt searing heat in his shoulder.

  He fired even as his body was shoved back by the impact, and the body on the ground convulsed once, then lay still.

  Pete managed not to fall down, but he cussed up a storm as he stumbled. Catching himself, he fired into the body again, just to make certain the bastard was dead.

  “Sonofabitch!” he spat as he slowly walked up to the road to snag the fellow’s mount.

  “Now I gotta load you clear up on that big yaller horse, and me with a stove-up shoulder!”

  13

  Cassidy swore under his breath.

  Snuck out! That goddamn LeGrande had snuck out on him! He’d snuck clear out of town, too, insofar as Cassidy could tell. At least, his horse wasn’t here, in the livery.

  Oh, LeGrande’d had him going, all right. Or more like, he’d had himself going. Cassidy had thought that maybe he’d seen a glimmer of something in there, behind those eyes. That maybe LeGrande did have something on the ball, and that nobody could be that dumb on purpose. But he’d been wrong.

  Anything crafty that dwelt inside LeGrande’s brain was just more stupidity.

  Sonofabitch!

  “When’d he leave?” he snapped at the perplexed hostler, who, by the looks of him, was just getting ready for bed. At least, he was halfway into his nightclothes, and through the door to what Cassidy had thought was a feed room sat a cot with the bedding turned down. A glowing lantern was perched on the overturned barrel beside it.

  “Who?” asked the hostler angrily. He was a little man, shorter than Cassidy by half a head, no bigger around than a coiled lariat, and balding on top. “I don’t keep track of everybody what comes and goes, y’ know.”

  “The man who left a big palomino gelding in here today,” Cassidy snapped back. LeGrande had told him about the horse while they were in the bar and LeGrande was trying to impress him.

  It figured he’d ride a palomino. Probably a goddamn parade horse.

  “Oh, him,” the hostler said, scratching the stubble on his chin. “He come in ’bout an hour, hour and a quarter ago, I reckon. Big galoot in one’a them white, fringified jackets, right?”

  Cassidy nodded.

  “Thought they made them things up for the dime novels,” the hostler mused. “Never see’d one in real life afore.”

  Cassidy had a short, silent debate with himself. Should he follow LeGrande? Cassidy knew exactly where he was going. On the other hand, Slocum would be prepared. There was nothing Cassidy could do out at the S Bar J except turn up unexpectedly and get himself shot.

  Accidentally, of course, but he’d still be shot.

  The proposition didn’t hold much appeal.

  At last, he reluctantly decided that he’d do the most good where he and Slocum had agreed—in town, with his eye firmly on Tate McMahon.

  The hostler was staring at him impatiently with beady little blue eyes. “Well?” he demanded. “That all you want, Mister?”

  “Yeah,” said Cassidy, heading for the door. “That’s all.”

  It was getting nippy, he thought as he walked back toward the hotel, and he snugged his jacket tighter and buttoned it up. He didn’t care for the cold.

  And then he felt sorry—very briefly—for Teddy LeGrande.

  It was a bad night to die.

  Tate McMahon lived at the McMahon Hotel, which he also happened to own. A year back, he had knocked out several walls and made himself a suite of what had formerly been the biggest room in the place, and two smaller ones. He ended up with a bedroom, a sitting room, and a big parlor with a fireplace. He liked them just fine.

  Right at the moment, he was slouched in one of the large, wingback chairs that faced his fireplace, staring into the flames. And thinking.

  He supposed he’d need to call LeGrande and Cassidy into the office tomorrow. He’d ask them what they were going to do, if anything. Frankly, he was surprised they hadn’t ridden out to the S Bar J directly after their meeting.

  And frankly, he was disappointed.

  “I should have just gone to the source,” he muttered aloud. But bringing Jeb Crowfoot back to Indian Springs was just about the last thing he wanted to do.

  For one thing, he was fairly sure that Crowfoot would be just as likely to shoot him—or anybody unlucky enough to pass him on the street and cough at an inopportune moment—as shoot somebody else on the S Bar J.

  Oh, Crowfoot was good all right. The best! And he was an unknown face, a little-mentioned name. He was as expensive as hell, though, and hard to track down, let alone convince to travel for a job. He headquartered in San Francisco, but he was apt to be anywhere—except where he’d previously done a job.

  Crowfoot thought it was bad luck. Of course, he was one crazy bastard, about two steps away from the looney bin. McMahon had only seen him for five minutes before—and two minutes after—he’d shot Jack Jamison. Crowfoot always wore gloves, and McMahon would bet good money that he had checked his watch and folded and refolded his handkerchief ten times in those seven minutes.

  He’d straightened McMahon’s desktop, too, and threatened him with a sleeve gun when he handed over money that wasn’t in a cloth pouch. Well, how was he to know the bastard didn’t touch things that he hadn’t boiled first?

  He’d had to borrow a little bag from Siddons, who then spent the rest of the day complaining that her mirror—which had been the former occupant of said pouch—was going to get scratched in her handbag.

  McMahon snorted. As if looking in a mirror would help her face any.

  Besides having a quick temper—and the talent with both gun and rifle to do something about it—Crowfoot just plain gave him the heebie-geebies.

  He leaned forward, tipped the fireplace poker into his hand, and stabbed at the logs, turning over the topmost one. The fire blazed up momentarily.

  He stared deep into the flames. And then he smiled.

  So what if they hadn’t got going yet, if they were a little hesitant? He supposed he would be, too, if he were called to a strange town to kill someone he’d never met, someone whose status was unknown. He supposed he’d been a little unfair, too, expecting them to just charge on out there.

  After all, they didn’t know Slocum on sight. As far as they were concerned, he was a wild card. They couldn’t be certain that he wasn’t out there raising a goddamn army.

  McMahon snickered under his breath. “An army? Oh, that’s good!”

  The S Bar J had only about a dozen hands. Plus, if Slocum was too much of a coward to come into town and seek him out, he’d probably already fled the damned county.

  Laughing again, this time more jovially, he put away the poker and leaned back, slumping in his chair. He unbuttoned his vest and sighed deeply with satisfaction.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d talk to Cassidy and LeGrande. Maybe he’d start a little competition between the two of them. He’d tell them that the man who actually killed Slocum got a two-hundred-dollar bonus or something—and the man who came up empty-handed? He left empty-handed. Zilch, nada, nothing. It would light a fire under their lazy asses, give them an incentive.

  Yes, he thought, picking up his bourbon. That would be perfect.

  Slocum and Becky lay panting in each other’s arms, tangled in a sea of legs and arms and soft green quilt. Becky snuggled closer to his chest, gave the quilt a tug to cover her shoulder, and whispered, “I wish you could stay.”

  The sentence addled Slocum a little, since he wasn’t expecting her to say it—or at least, say it out loud. But he recovered in a split second and gave her a hug. “Becky,” he began, “I—”

  He never got to finish, because suddenly Becky bolted upright and stared past him, out the window. “What in heaven’s name?” she muttered.

  Pulling the quilt off him and wrapping it around herself, she rose and stepped over him, then down off the bed.

  Suddenly freezing, Slocum grabbed a sheet while she opened the window.

  “Pete?” she called out into the darkness. “Pete? Is that you?”

  Slocum swung his legs over the side of the bed and yanked the sheet along. Damn it anyway! He was just getting in the mood for a second go around.

  As Slocum stumbled of the sheet, then caught himself, he heard Pete call, “Yes’m.” Joining Becky, he saw murky figures in the yard, which came closer, then crystalized into two horses. And one slouching rider.

  A second later, he realized there was a body slung over the second horse.

  “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, reaching for his britches.

  “What happened?” Becky called.

  Thinly, he heard Pete reply, “Tell Slocum I shot that feller. Sorry.”

  His pants and gunbelt on, Slocum tugged on his boots.

  “Is Pete all right?” he asked.

  But at the same moment, Pete said, “Miss Becky? I’m kind’a bleedin’, here.”

  Slocum didn’t bother to button his shirt. His shirt tails flapping, he moved Becky aside and swung himself right out the window.

  Becky didn’t say a word. The last thing he saw before he went out to Pete was Becky, dropping that quilt and grabbing for her robe.

  Pete wasn’t in any condition to spy on her, even if he’d been at the right angle. He sat weaving on his horse, as if, having used the last of his strength to get back to the ranch, he figured it was now safe to die.

  “Fat chance of that, old buddy,” Slocum muttered, practically reading Pete’s mind as the hand blacked out and fell off his horse, straight into Slocum’s arms. For the moment, Slocum let him slide gently to the ground. Then he rounded Pete’s horse to check on the body.

  It was LeGrande, all right. Somehow, he’d got past Cassidy at the hotel. He’d likely decided to ride out and kill Slocum himself.

  Well, guess what? Slocum thought as he lifted LeGrande’s head by his yellow hair and took another look at his face. “You got yourself a little surprise, didn’t you, bounty hunter?”

  Slocum used the phrase loosely, but then he didn’t like to speak ill of the dead, even if the deceased was a lame-brained showoff of a killer.

  He let LeGrande’s head drop, pulled down his horse’s reins, then bent to Pete. There was a lot of blood, but it looked like it had all come from a shoulder wound. It was patchable, Slocum decided with a grunt.

  “Pete?” he said, lightly slapping the foreman’s cheek. “Dammit, wake up!”

  Pete groaned.

  “Atta boy,” Slocum said. “On your feet and into the house.”

  He got Pete up and on his feet, even though Pete was only semiconscious. The horses and LeGrande’s body trailing behind, Slocum helped him slowly toward the front of the house.

  Becky—in a pale blue robe, her hair pulled back with a simple ribbon and her cheeks pink with the cold—met them at the corner of the porch and propped up Pete’s other side.

  “Is it bad?” she asked Slocum, and her voice was full of worry.

  “He’ll live,” Slocum replied as they rounded the corner.

  “Who’s that?” With her head, Becky motioned toward the body.

  “Teddy LeGrande,” Slocum said. “Big surprise, ain’t it?”

  Becky snorted, then stopped. Slocum stopped, too. She said, “This really messes up your plans, doesn’t it? I mean, yours and Mr. Cassidy’s.”

  “Yeah,” was all he said.

  As they mounted the porch steps, Tia Juanita came out the front door, yawning and tugging her robe closer about her.

  “What are you people doing out here?” she asked, and then she saw Pete. Crossing herself swiftly, she rushed across the porch, pushed Becky aside, and practically hefted Pete into her arms. “Dios mio!” she cried, and dragged Pete into the house singlehandedly.

  Which left Becky and Slocum alone on the porch.

  They looked at each other for moment, not saying anything, not having to say anything.

  “Becky!” called Tia Juanita from inside the house.

  “Coming,” Becky said. She tore her eyes away from Slocum’s, turned, and went through the door.

  Slocum walked slowly down the steps and toward the waiting horses. He led them, with LeGrande’s body, down to the barn.

  14

  Slocum laid Teddy LeGrande out in an empty stall, then stripped and rubbed down the horses. Pete’s bay went into the corral, but LeGrande’s flashy palomino stayed in the barn, where he couldn’t be seen by curious eyes.

  Pete had killed Teddy LeGrande, all right, but he’d sure taken his own sweet time about it. LeGrande had been shot once in his left lung and once through his upper arm. Judging by the amount of blood that had come from those two wounds—and decorated LeGrande’s white leather jacket—they hadn’t killed him.

  The other two wounds were straight through the heart. One had bled a little; the other one, not at all.

  Slocum had constructed a pretty fair scenario of what had happened before, he once again climbed the porch steps to the house.

  Pete was half-lying, half-sitting on the smaller leather couch. His jacket and shirt were off, exposing his pasty-white chest, and both women were buzzing around him—and fussing over him—like bees at a bed of spring flowers.

  “Get the slug out?” Slocum asked as he closed the door behind him. His shirt was still flapping and he was colder than all get out. Directly, he went to the fire and threw another log atop it.

  “No need,” said Tia Juanita.

  “It went through,” added Becky, busy with bandages. “We found it just inside his coat, halfway through the wool. Darnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Pete, who was sipping on what looked like a bourbon, smiled lopsidedly, and held up a slightly misshapen slug.

  “Souvenir,” Pete said, then yelped when Becky tried to move him forward just a tad.

  “Honestly, you big baby,” Becky scolded, although her voice was full of relief. “Hold still.”

  “You mind her, Pete,” Tia Juanita said as she gathered up the pan of water and bloody rags. She carried them to the kitchen.

  “You want a report, Slocum?” Pete asked, still wincing. He took another big sip of his whiskey.

  Slocum slouched into a chair and put his boots up on the ottoman. “You shot LeGrande. Shot him twice.” He dug into the humidor by his chair and pulled out a cigar. “You waited awhile, then snuck up to make sure he wasn’t playin’ possum. Which he was.”

  Slocum flicked a lucifer into flame and lit his cigar. “You fired point-blank, and a few seconds later, you fired point-blank again,” he continued. “I’m guessin’ that he clipped you between the first two and the last two shots. How’m I doin’?”

  “Hell, I don’t know why I bothered to come back,” Pete growled as Becky stood back and surveyed her work. “Can I get somethin’ to cover me?” he asked Becky. “I feel naked as a jaybird.”

  “Surely, Pete,” she replied. “I’ll fetch you a blanket.” Throwing a look backward that Slocum couldn’t read, she went down the hall.

  “I take that means I’m right,” Slocum said. He got up and crossed the room, found the whiskey amid the other decanters, and poured himself a shot. “Damn, it’s cold out there!”

  “Not cold enough to snow,” mused Pete absently. The whiskey was beginning to take hold. “But darn near.” He studied the bottom of his empty glass, then held it out.

  Slocum rolled his eyes, but took it. After pouring out a generous refill—Pete was still white as a ghost—he handed it back.

  “Thanks,” said Pete, and downed half of it.

  “Go slow on that,” Slocum warned as he sat down again.

  “Soon as I get my innards warmed up decent,” the foreman replied. “You put up my horse?”

  “Yeah,” Slocum said just as Becky bustled back into the parlor, carrying a worn but soft-looking Navajo blanket.

  She draped it gently over Pete’s shoulders and tucked it in a bit, then said, “You’re not going back out to the bunkhouse, Pete. You’re staying here, in the spare room, until you’re better.”

  With a pained expression, Pete whined, “Do I gotta?”

  Slocum was about to say the same thing. Pete was going to be all right, and the last thing Slocum needed—or wanted—was a big pair of ears on the other side of Becky’s bedroom wall.

  They sometimes disturbed Tia Juanita, and her room was on the other end of the house!

  But in a firm voice, Becky said, “You’re staying up at the house, Pete. For at least tonight.” When Pete opened his mouth to protest, she said, “I mean it. No arguments!”

  Pete let out a weary sigh.

  Slocum did, as well, although his was more in frustration. He guessed that put the cap on any more loving tonight. Damn it.

  Tia Juanita came back in from the kitchen. Having obviously overheard the preceding conversation, she went to Pete and said, “Can you stand up?”

  Pete allowed that he could, although the actuality of it was accompanied by a great deal of help from the housekeeper, and a lot of whines, whimpers, and groans on his part.

  Pete made a grab for his whiskey glass at the last minute, but Tia Juanita said, “You touch that again, I will poke your shoulder on purpose. You have had enough.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pete said sheepishly. She led him from the room.

  In silence, Becky poured herself a whiskey and took a long, thoughtful sip. Sighing, she looked across the room at Slocum, and locked eyes with him. She said, “We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”