Flintlock reached for the gun but Cornelius executed an expert road agent’s spin and he found himself looking into the muzzle. “Way too trusting, Mr. Flintlock,” the little man said. “That can get you killed in the swamp.”

  Irritated, Flintlock grabbed the Colt from Cornelius’s hand, spun it faster than he had and a split second later the muzzle jammed into the space between Cornelius’s eyebrows. “Old Barnabas taught me the road agent’s spin when I was a younker,” he said. “I let you fool me was all.”

  “Yes, because you underestimated me. Another mistake you must never make in the swamp. Do you like the Colt’s balance?”

  Despite his touchiness Flintlock admitted that the Colt’s balance was damn near perfect. “A beautiful revolver,” he said.

  “Then it’s yours and use it wisely and well,” Cornelius said.

  “I can’t—”

  “Yes. you can. I have no more need for it.”

  Flintlock carefully placed the Colt in its case and reverently tucked it under his arm, as though Sam Colt’s finest creation was a holy object.

  “If you two gunslingers are quite finished showing off, I’d like to ask you a question, Cornelius,” O’Hara said.

  “That is why the museum is here, to answer questions, Mr. O’Hara.”

  “What is the mystery of the swamp?” O’Hara said.

  “Good question,” Cornelius said. “The mystery of the swamp is that there is no mystery. That is why we must find it.”

  “Oh,” O’Hara said.

  And Flintlock, his mood warmed by the gun case under his arm, said, “Sounds logical to me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Brewster Ritter’s anger verged on madness.

  He stood beside his horse and said to Bonifaunt Toohy, “Search the swamp. Find him. I want the man who murdered Harry Stake dead, dead, dead.”

  “I’ll find him, boss,” Toohy said.

  “If you can’t, kill a swamp rat every hour until they give him up, understand? Show mercy to no one.”

  “I’ll see that it’s done, boss,” Toohy said.

  “And from now on I want guards posted around the clock,” Ritter said. “By God, if there’s a repeat of this outrage heads will roll.”

  “Where are you headed, boss?” Toohy said. “Maybe you should take one of the boys along.”

  “No, I’m headed for Budville, and Mathias Cobb has guns enough. He said to only contact him if there’s a crisis. Well, this is a crisis. The damned swampers are fighting back and that may call for a change of plans.”

  Ritter swung into the saddle. “See that my orders are carried out, Mr. Toohy,” he said before he set spurs to his horse and galloped away.

  “I’ve told you to never come here, Ritter,” Mathias Cobb said. He sat forward in his chair and his great belly hung between his knees like a sack of grain. “My association with your enterprise must be a secret. If the ranchers got wind of it . . . well, it could be a disaster.”

  “This is important,” Ritter said. “One of my men was murdered in my camp, his throat cut. That can only mean one thing, that the swamp rats plan to fight back and bring the war to me.”

  “Handle it, Ritter,” Cobb said. “I pay you enough to hire gunmen. Start shooting people and the swamp dwellers will soon lose their will to fight.” The fat man opened a tiny pillbox. He selected a white tablet, popped it into his mouth and swallowed it with a glass of water Sebastian Lilly poured for him. “My heart is acting up,” Cobb said. “You upset me coming here, Ritter.”

  Ritter mentioned the orders he’d given Bonifaunt Toohy and said, “The killing will start today.”

  “That is a practical solution to the problem,” Cobb said. “You will also forget any plan you might have for draining the swamp. Even confining that effort to the Texas side of the Sabine would cost a fortune. Even the United States government would not consider such an undertaking.”

  “My chief engineer assures me that his steam pumps can handle it,” Ritter said.

  “Balderdash,” Cobb said. “The man is a fool. A pistol cartridge costs ten cents. If you must kill an ’undred swamp dwellers it will cost you, or should I say me, just ten dollars. Bullets, not steam pumps, are the solution to your problem. It’s good business, Ritter.”

  Ritter opened his mouth to speak, but Cobb cut him off. “Can the cypress be harvested easily if the swamp is not drained?”

  “Yes, of course, But—”

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” Cobb said. He scratched a blue jowl. “Now go about your business and don’t come back here unless I send for you. Mr. Lilly, show Mr. Ritter to the door.”

  Ritter knew further talk of draining the swamp was useless. He got to his feet and stepped to the door, but Cobb’s voice stopped him. “Pile up the skulls like the Mongols did in the days of yore, Ritter. You’ll soon force out the vermin. I guarantee it. Mr. Lilly, tell Miss Rhonda La Page that she can come in now.”

  Lilly grinned. “Sure thing, Mr. Cobb,” he said.

  Brewster Ritter’s anger was a volcano ready to erupt. Mathias Cobb had made him feel small and now he wanted to kill, smash, destroy—he was a finger looking for a trigger. The late summer day was radiant, the birds sang and the smell of pines, borne on a north wind, scented the air. But Ritter cared nothing about those things. The swamp people stood in his way and he wanted them dead, all of them, to the last man, woman or child.

  He rode east toward the Sabine, then looped southeast, planning to cross at the rocky shallows near a burned-out Butterfield stage stop. His route took him close to the southern edge of the swamp and set up the killing Ritter so badly wanted.

  It had been a good fishing day for Zedock Briscoe and as the trout moved so did he. By the time he reached the southern edge of the swamp he reckoned he’d three dozen fish in his pirogue, plenty for his family, plenty to give away. The day was just beginning its shade into evening when he pulled up his lines and began to think fondly of fried fish and cornbread and maybe hotcakes if his wife was in the mood to make them.

  Brewster Ritter heard a splash in the swamp to his left and drew rein. His eyes scanned into the distance and he saw a black man punting his canoe out of the shallows and into deeper water.

  Ritter didn’t know the man nor did he care. He was a swamp dweller and that was all the information he needed . . . an invitation to a killing. He slid the. 44-40 Winchester out of the boot under his left knee and racked a round into the chamber. The black man’s head turned in his direction as though the sound had startled him. Ritter put the rifle to his shoulder, sighted and fired. Zedock fell backward out of the canoe and Ritter waited to see if he needed a second shot. Facedown in the water, the man’s motionless body drifted away from the pirogue and snagged on a cypress knee. Even in the fading light Ritter saw a crimson stain in the water around the corpse.

  Ritter smiled and sighed his satisfaction, like a man does after sex. But the killing of the swamp rat was better than sex, at that moment better than anything. He slid the rifle back in the boot and rode on . . . his anger gone as though it had never been.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You got something on your mind, honey?” Dixie Haley said.

  Bonifaunt Toohy sat at the end of his cot in his undershirt and pants. He poured black rum into a jigger and knocked it back. “Why would a whore care about anything?” he said.

  The afternoon sun had trapped itself within the canvas and the tent was hot. Dixie had undone her lace corset and rolled her black stockings down to her ankles. She still wore her high-heeled ankle boots.

  “I care about you, honey,” Dixie said. “The other girls say you slap them around but you never do that to me.”

  “Not yet anyway,” Toohy said. Coarse black hair grew over his shoulders and down his back. “So far you’ve given me no cause.”

  Dixie felt a little tremble inside and she said, “Maybe I should go and leave you to your bottle.”

  “Man takes only what he needs out of a bottle and then he puts the cork in it. You stay.”

  “I’ll stay as long as you need me, Bonifaunt.”

  “Call me Bon, just that. I hate my goddamn name.” Then, “You slept in Travis Kershaw’s tent last night. How do you explain that?”

  Dixie hesitated before she answered. “Honey, that was business. It’s what I do for money.”

  “Don’t I give you enough?”

  “Sometimes a girl wants more.”

  Toohy kneaded the knuckles of his right hand. For Dixie it was a bad sign. The other girls said he did that before he slapped them. She also heard he did it before he killed a man.

  Dixie’s tremble was back. “For clothes and stuff. Girly stuff,” she said.

  “What did you tell him about me?”

  “Nothing, honey, honest. Like I said, it was strictly business.”

  “You tell him how I feel about Ritter? You tell him I ain’t never killed a woman or hurt a child. Did you tell him that?”

  “I didn’t even know those things, Bonny. I swear. Maybe I should leave. Mr. Ritter will be back soon.”

  “He won’t be here for a spell yet. It’s a ways to Budville. You’re a whore, Dixie, with a heart like a rock. Could you put a bullet into a child?”

  The woman was horrified. “No. I could never do a thing like that.”

  “A little boy and a little girl, scatter their brains with a Colt? Could you do that?”

  “No. That’s a horrible question to ask. You’re scaring me.” Dixie sat up and grabbed the laces of her corset. “I think I should go.”

  “I couldn’t either. I couldn’t kill a child,” Toohy said.

  “Then why do you even mention such a thing?” Dixie said.

  “Because that’s what Ritter wants us to do, kill women and children in the swamp. He says we’ve got to kill all of them.”

  Dixie folded her arms across her naked breasts. “Maybe we should leave, all five of us girls. Get far away from here.”

  “You’ll stay here. This is where the money is.” Toohy’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. “And where would you go? What would you do? Become a two-dollar-a-bang whore at a hog ranch, maybe?”

  “And what will you do?” Dixie said, some of her courage returning.

  “I don’t know,” Toohy said.

  “I’ll leave with you, Bonny. We can go anywhere together. Texas is a big place.”

  Toohy poured himself another drink. “There’s ten dollars in my vest pocket, Dixie,” he said. “Take it and then get the hell out of here.”

  The woman laced up and took the money from Toohy’s vest, then said, “Should I ask Travis?”

  “Ask him what?”

  “If he can kill women and children.”

  “No need to ask him. Kershaw is a low-down, murdering snake. He’ll cut any man, woman or child in half with a shotgun for fifty dollars.”

  Dixie rolled up her stocking, put her scarlet garters in place and at the tent flap said, “I won’t come back here until you’re in a better mood.”

  “And when will that be?” Toohy said.

  “Probably never,” the woman said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At dawn, a man called Ashe Kent, having no room in his small canoe, towed Zedock Briscoe’s body to Evangeline’s cabin and Sam Flintlock watched him come.

  Flintlock and O’Hara manhandled Zedock onto the deck and Evangeline, wearing only a changing robe, kneeled by the body.

  “Can you do anything for him, Miss Evangeline?” Kent said, a tall, lanky man who trapped all over the swamp.

  Tears misting her eyes, Evangeline said, “I can’t raise the dead, Ashe.”

  “He was shot,” Kent said. “He didn’t drown.”

  Evangeline nodded. “Yes. Yes, I can see that.”

  “Where did you find him?” Flintlock said.

  “At the edge of the swamp south a ways. I reckon he was shot by someone on the bank.” Kent reached into his pocket and produced an empty cartridge case. “Found this. It’s a forty-four-forty and still shiny.”

  Flintlock took the case and said, “You see anybody, Ashe?”

  The man shook his head. “Nobody. Saw some horse tracks on the banks headed east. I reckon the killer crossed the Sabine into Louisiana already.”

  “One of Brewster Ritter’s men most likely,” Flintlock said.

  “That would be my thinking,” Kent said. “Zedock now, he didn’t have any enemies and the only things that feared him were the fish.”

  Evangeline was very pale. “Ashe, will you tell Mrs. Briscoe what happened?”

  “I sure will, Miss Evangeline, but it’s a hell of a thing to do.”

  “I know, Ashe, but it has to be done,” Evangeline said. “I’ll make Zedock’s body decent. Mrs. Briscoe can come here or I’ll bring Zedock to her. Tell her that.”

  Kent nodded, grim-faced as a hanging judge, and left to do what had to be done.

  “I’ll wash Zedock’s body right here on the dock and wrap him in a sheet,” Evangeline said. “I can’t let Mrs. Briscoe see him like this.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and said, “You gentlemen may not want to be here for a while.”

  “No, we don’t,” Flintlock said. “We’ll go scout the bank where Zedock was murdered. Can we take your pirogue?”

  Evangeline didn’t raise her head. “Of course you can.”

  O’Hara removed his strange top hat, kneeled beside the body and placed his hand on Zedock’s cold forehead. He bowed his head and closed his eyes and stayed like that for long moments. When he finally rose he said, “The Great Spirit has welcomed him.”

  “It could not be otherwise,” Evangeline said.

  O’Hara nodded. “That is true, swamp witch. It could not be otherwise.”

  Sam Flintlock stood in the bright morning sun, the new day coming in clean, and chopped his bladed hand to the east. “That’s the way he headed, all right. What do you say, Injun?”

  “You read sign as well as I do, Sammy,” O’Hara said.

  “Then we’ll follow the tracks,” Flintlock said. “See where they lead.”

  “They’ll lead right to Brewster Ritter’s camp,” O’Hara said.

  “Uh-huh,” Flintlock said. President Grant’s Colt was tucked into his waistband.

  The tracks ended at a ruined stage station on the west bank of the Sabine. “He crossed here,” O’Hara said. “Rode down through the willows there and across the shallows.”

  “Then the murderer was definitely one of Ritter’s men,” Flintlock said.

  “That’s a fair guess,” O’Hara said. His eyes held on Flintlock for a long time, then he said, “Well, what do we do?”

  “What we don’t do is walk into Ritter’s camp with wet feet and ask him nicely to hand over the murderer of Zedock Briscoe,” Flintlock said. “Man could get himself killed that way. There’s a sunny patch by the ruin. I say we sit for a spell. My feet are killing me in these boots.”

  They propped their backs against the stage stop’s only standing wall, then O’Hara stretched out and tipped his hat over his eyes.

  Five minutes went by and as the morning melted into a drowsy afternoon, wicked old Barnabas, his pants rolled up to his knees, stood in the shallows, a fishing pole in his hands. He looked up at Flintlock and said, “I got news for you, Sam.”

  “Spill it, you old reprobate,” Flintlock said.

  Barnabas yawned. “I made a mistake, boy. Your ma ain’t in this swamp. She’s in the Arizona Territory waiting tables at a saloon they call The Swamp.” The old man grinned. “See, that’s how come the mix-up. You-know-who played a trick on me. He does that all the time.”

  “Damn you, Barnabas—”

  “I’m already that, Sam.”

  “You know the trouble I’m in following the wild goose chase you sent me on? I ought to put a bullet in you.”

  “Wouldn’t do you any good, boy, on account of how I’m dead already.”

  Flintlock jumped to his feet. “What’s my ma’s name, you evil old coot? And where is she in Arizona?”

  “You know I never give out my daughter’s name. I refuse to say it.”

  “Say it now, you old scoundrel. Say my ma’s name.”

  “Elsie. It’s Elsie. That’s the name I give her.”

  “Where is she in Arizona?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

  “Go to hell, Barnabas,” Flintlock said.

  The old mountain man threw away his fishing pole. And vanished. The river water bubbled and steamed where he’d stood.

  O’Hara stepped beside Flintlock. “Riders coming,” he said.

  “Did you hear that? Did you hear what the old sinner told me?”

  O’Hara’s face was empty. “Riders coming,” he said.

  The two riders were still a ways off as Flintlock and O’Hara stepped away from the abandoned stage stop and stood at the edge of the swamp. The men could be a couple of Ritter’s hired guns, but they might as well be a pair of out-of-work punchers riding the grub line or even circuit preachers come to that.

  It was only when they got closer that Flintlock recognized Lem, the Ritter gunman who’d left him to the tender mercies of the alligator. He didn’t know the other man but he was a hard-faced feller who was cut from the same cloth as his companion.

  When the two were just a few yards away, Flintlock stepped out of cover and said, “Howdy, Lem. You remember me?”

  The man drew rein, startled. “You!” he said.

  “Cut the throats of any raccoons recently, Lem?” Flintlock said.

  “How did—”

  “I escape the alligator? It’s a long story, Lem, but you don’t have long enough to live to hear it.”

  Flintlock was conscious of O’Hara on his left. The breed’s hand was close to his Colt and he was good with it, a steady gun hand in a pinch.

  “Give us the road,” Lem said. “I don’t deal with low persons.”