“I do and there’s none lower than you, Lem,” Flintlock said.

  “You killed Al Plume and I owed you payback,” Lem said. “Now clear the way there.”

  Flintlock smiled. “Lem, are you going to talk all day or draw? I have a feeling you’re scared, Lem. You’re trembling like a hound dog passin’ a peach pit.”

  The man called Lem roared his anger and went for his gun.

  Flintlock shot him out of the saddle with time to spare.

  The other man threw up his hands. “Hell, don’t shoot. I’m out of it.”

  “Do you work for Brewster Ritter?” Flintlock said. Grant’s Colt trailed smoke in his hand.

  “Yeah I do, but—”

  “Then you ain’t out of it.” Flintlock fired. Hit hard, the man swayed in the saddle and Flintlock shot him again. This time the gunman pitched to his right and landed with a thud, dead when he hit the ground.

  “Ain’t one to hold a grudge, are you, Sammy?” O’Hara said.

  “A while back, I took to liking raccoons,” Flintlock said.

  “Ah, then that explains it,” O’Hara said.

  “I hate to pass on two good horses, but we have to send Ritter a message,” Flintlock said. “I want to scare the hell out of him.” He watched O’Hara’s face as he said, “Does the Injun half of you know how to scalp a man?”

  “Yes, it does,” O’Hara said, his own features revealing nothing.

  “Then scalp them two,” Flintlock said.

  “You would have made a good Comanche, Sammy,” O’Hara said, pulling his knife.

  “Damn right,” Flintlock said.

  Their gory heads dripping blood, the two dead men were tied across their horses with Lem’s rope, a relic of his cowboy past. Flintlock and O’Hara led the mounts to the crossing and onto the east side of the Sabine. Flintlock slapped the horses into motion and they trotted away, their stirrups bouncing.

  “I’d like to see Ritter’s face when he gets a load of them two,” Flintlock said. “He’ll know he’s in a fight.”

  O’Hara said, “Your mother isn’t here, Sam.”

  “So you heard him?”

  “I always hear him. See him from time to time. Now you don’t have to stay here. You can walk away from it.”

  “Is that what you want to do, O’Hara, walk away from it?”

  “No. I’ll stick.”

  “Me too,” Flintlock

  “Then we’re fools,” O’Hara said.

  Flintlock smiled. “You’ll get no argument from me on that score.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Evangeline stood on her deck in the waning light and watched the lights draw closer. The canoes, lit fore and aft with lanterns, carried two dozen black folk, men, women and children, all of them singing the plaintive Negro spiritual, “I’m Going Up.”

  Oh, saints and sinners will you go

  And see the heavenly land?

  I’m going up to heaven for to see my robe,

  See the heavenly land.

  Mrs. Briscoe, a plump, motherly woman with a round face, caught sight of the long white bundle on the deck and wailed, beating her wrists against the sides of her head.

  Going to see my robe and try it on,

  See the heavenly robe.

  ’Tis brighter than the glittering sun,

  See the heavenly land.

  Canoes bumped against the deck and a couple of young men, Zedock’s sons, got out and reverently lifted the body. A canoe, fitted out with a lining of white muslin and strewn with swamp blossoms, was pushed closer and the body was laid out inside. Without a glance in Evangeline’s direction, the canoes turned and one by one drifted away. The singing grew fainter and then Evangeline was left alone in the silent, gathering dark.

  She turned to go back into the cabin but noticed an object shining at the corner of the deck. She picked it up, a small silver cross on a chain. Smiling through her tears, Evangeline fastened the cross around her slender neck and stepped into the cabin.

  Flintlock and O’Hara forgot where they’d left the canoe and it took an hour of searching and cussing in darkness before they found it.

  Flintlock was scathing. “I thought Indians always knew where they left stuff,” he said to O’Hara. “The Injun part of you ought to apologize to the white part.”

  “And you were raised by mountain men,” O’Hara said. “I bet a mountain man would know where he left his damned canoe.”

  “You made me nervous yelling at me to find it and that’s why I couldn’t find it,” Flintlock said.

  “All I said was, ‘Can you remember a tree or any other landmark?’ That was hardly yelling, Sammy.”

  “Yeah, well, it sounded like yelling,” Flintlock said. “Hey, you don’t suppose somebody moved it? Maybe an alligator.”

  “Nobody moved it,” O’Hara said, looking over his shoulder as he paddled. “And it wasn’t an alligator.”

  “How can you say that? How come you’re so all-fired certain?”

  “Because you tied up the canoe and an alligator can’t undo knots.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe so, but the whole thing was mighty strange all the same,” Flintlock said. He slowed his paddling. “Listen. What’s that?”

  “A mighty big alligator bellowing close by,” O’Hara said. “Maybe he’s mad because he heard you say he tried to steal the canoe.”

  “It sounds loud enough to be Basilisk,” Flintlock said, his hand straying to his gun and his eyes searching the murky, shadowed swamp.

  “Hell, paddle faster,” O’Hara said.

  “Hell, that’s just what I’m doing,” Flintlock said.

  “Over there!” O’Hara said, stabbing into darkness with his forefinger.

  Flintlock looked . . . and saw . . . eyes.

  “It’s the swamp monster,” O’Hara said. “And it’s coming our way.”

  A huge shape loomed less than a hundred yards away across open water, a pair of glowing eyes lighting its way. Flintlock heard the chunk, chunk, chunk of its passing and he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.

  O’Hara turned his head. “We’ll get into the water and let it have the canoe,” he said.

  “The hell we will,” Flintlock said. “This pirogue is Evangeline’s property. Lose it and she’ll turn us into toads for sure.”

  “Then come up with an idea, white man,” O’Hara said. “I’m all out of mine.”

  A rifle shot slammed through the swamp. A bullet hit a foot in front of the canoe and kicked up a startled exclamation point of water.

  “It’s trying to kill us,” O’Hara said.

  “Swamp monsters don’t shoot rifles,” Flintlock said. He’d laid aside his paddle and had his Colt in his hand. “Get us closer,” he said.

  “Closer! Are you crazy? It’s shooting at us,” O’Hara said. As though to emphasize his point a bullet split the air between them and another made a dull thunk! as it hit the side of the canoe.

  “Do as I say, O’Hara,” Flintlock said.

  “Damn you, Sammy, if you get me killed I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life,” O’Hara said.

  “Closer,” Flintlock said. “What kind of Indian are you?”

  “Right now the scared kind.”

  “It’s going to be just fine. I’m going to shoot the monster’s eyes out.”

  “Oh my God!” O’Hara said, but whether it was a prayer or cry of approval Flintlock couldn’t tell.

  As it was, he got lucky.

  Rather than head straight toward the monster O’Hara angled the pirogue to his right away from the probing yellow beams from the monster’s eyes and vanished into the gloom.

  A man’s voice drifted across the water. “Where the hell is the canoe?”

  Then another, “Did it get away?”

  “No, you sons of bitches, it’s right here!” Flintlock yelled.

  Sighted fire is impossible in darkness, but Flintlock was schooled in the ways of the draw fighter and the point and shoot. At a distance of twenty yards he scored two hits with five shots . . . and put out both the monster’s eyes.

  Now angry yells echoed across the water and as Flintlock reloaded, filling all six chambers of the Colt, he heard a difference in the sound as the blinded monster started to back away.

  Flintlock yelled to O’Hara, “Paddle!”

  “Which way?”

  “Damn it, any way so long so as it’s not toward the monster.”

  O’Hara swung the pirogue to his left and paddled quickly. Flintlock could make out the darker bulk of the monster against the backdrop of the swamp. Aware that he was looking at a steam-powered boat of some kind, Flintlock fired as he went, hammering shot after shot into the churning craft, and was rewarded with a loud cry as somebody took a hit. Finally, his Colt shot dry and feeling nautical, Flintlock said, “Proceed with all possible speed, Mr. O’Hara.”

  O’Hara snorted in outrage and said, “You’re a madman, Sammy. You should be locked away in an institution someplace. You just ain’t right.”

  “Put the crawl on them, though, didn’t I?”

  O’Hara grinned. “You sure did, crazy man.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “My ma’s not in the swamp,” Sam Flintlock said.

  “How do you know that?” Evangeline said.

  “He knows,” O’Hara said.

  Evangeline’s eyes moved from O’Hara to Flintlock. “You two are keeping a secret from me,” she said.

  “She’s not here,” Flintlock said. “Let it go at that. We talked about calling it quits, me and O’Hara, going after her to the Arizona Territory.”

  “What did you decide?” the woman said, her beautiful face betraying no emotion.

  “We decided to stick,” O’Hara said.

  Flintlock said, “I reckon we’re all that stands between the swamp people and Brewster Ritter. Unless there are pistol fighters among them.”

  “Only Cornelius, but he’s done with that,” Evangeline said. “You were lucky tonight, Sam.”

  “Uh-huh. But your pirogue’s got a bullet hole in it.”

  “I can repair it,” Evangeline said. “Ritter has lost three men, Sam. What does he do next?”

  “I wish I knew,” Flintlock said. “The swamp monster is a boat of some kind.”

  “Yes. I know that,” Evangeline said. “I hope you’ve put it out of commission for a long time.”

  She wore a long, ankle-length black coat with a hood that lay over the back of her shoulders. Her boots were also black, buttoned up one side.

  “You’re dressed for going out,” Flintlock said.

  “Yes, and I’m already late,” Evangeline said. “I thought you would have the pirogue back earlier.” She held up a silencing hand. “No need to apologize, Sam. It couldn’t be helped.”

  “Evangeline, it’s after midnight,” Flintlock said.

  “I know, but Isaac Murren’s wife’s baby is due and I must be there for the delivery.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Flintlock said.

  Evangeline smiled. “Sam, I don’t think you’d be much good at birthing a baby. I think I can manage.”

  “I’ll wait up for you,” Flintlock said.

  “I could be gone for hours.”

  “I know, but I’ll still wait up,” Flintlock said.

  “You’re sure sweet on that woman, Sammy,” O’Hara said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You going to do something about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “How come that?”

  A lost, lonely look came into Flintlock’s eyes. “Evangeline wouldn’t want to share my life, O’Hara. I’m a rough-living man and I keep company with even rougher companions. I step lightly from one side of the law to the other and I sell my gun to the highest bidder, but most of the time I find myself riding the grub line. If times come down real hard on me, I’m inclined to rob a bank or hold up a stage and I never lie awake o’ nights regretting either.”

  O’Hara said, “I’ve observed you as I would a wolf who comes too near my camp, Sammy. There’s good in you, if a person digs deep enough. You don’t abuse women, whores or horses and you’re kind to children and old folks. You got sand and you’re a first-rate fighting man who lets no one put the crawl on you.” O’Hara smiled. “Of course, you’re none too bright, Sammy, and you’re no woman’s idea of what handsome is.”

  “O’Hara, you were doing all right until that last bit, which incidentally was enough to get you shot,” Flintlock said, irritated.

  “Well,” O’Hara said, “if it makes you feel any better, Evangeline has a mighty strange taste in men. I mean she’s keen on Cornelius, so there’s hope for you yet, slight though it may be.”

  Flintlock said, “O’Hara, I’m going to pour myself a drink and then sit out on the deck in Evangeline’s rocking chair. If you come out before an hour is past I’ll shoot you.”

  “You’re a mighty hard, unfeeling man, Sammy,” O’Hara said.

  “Ain’t I though,” Flintlock said.

  Evangeline returned at four in the morning, paddling though a mist that lay among the roots of the cypress. Falling strands of Spanish moss garlanded their branches and looked like a widow’s tears.

  Flintlock helped Evangeline from her pirogue. The woman looked strained, as though the birthing had been difficult. He tried to be cheerful. “Well, so we have a new little swamp person?” he said.

  Evangeline turned her head and looked at the mist made opalescent by the lowering moon. “No, we don’t,” she said.

  Flintlock let the shocked expression on his face ask the question.

  “A beautiful baby girl,” Evangeline said. “She was stillborn. It seems that the swamp, once so full of life, is now full of death.”

  In that moment Evangeline looked frail, vulnerable and Flintlock, never a demonstrative man, reached out and took her in his arms. Evangeline was as rigid as a board and did not respond. “I’ll be all right, Sam,” she said, moving away from him. “I think I’ll go inside now.

  O’Hara, who had defied Flintlock’s dire warning, had stepped onto the deck. He said, “Can I get you anything, Evangeline?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, nothing, thank you. Nothing at all.”

  Flintlock sat in the rocker and stared at the sky. He was still there when the first rays of dawn set the morning sky on fire.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Brewster Ritter cut the ropes that bound Lem Claxton’s feet and wrists and dragged him to the ground. He rolled the dead man onto his back and then ripped his shirt open, the buttons popping one after another.

  Ritter stared at the corpse’s bloody chest and nodded. “Bonifaunt, bring the other one over here,” he said. Toohy did as he was told and Ritter treated the body as he had Claxton’s.

  “Look at this,” Ritter said, nudging Claxton with his toe. “What does it tell you?”

  “That he was shot twice,” Toohy said.

  “Look at the damned bullet holes. You could cover them both with a playing card. And this one”—a kick in the ribs this time—“shot in the center of the chest. He must have been as dead as a rotten stump when he hit the ground.”

  “Hired gun?” Toohy said.

  “It has to be,” Ritter said. “The damned swamper trash have got together and hired themselves a draw fighter.”

  Toohy considered that for a few moments and said, “I heard that Doc Holliday is in Fort Worth. Lafe Croucher is up El Paso way and Vic Moylan was in Crystal City last I heard. Moylan is always looking for work, supports a crippled brother.”

  “Hell, it could be anybody,” Ritter said. “Texas is full of guns for hire. Whoever he is, he’s here in the swamp and he’s good. You heard what happened last night, huh?”

  “Yeah, the monster machine shot up and Travis Kershaw burned across the side of his head.”

  “An inch to the left and he’d be a dead man,” Ritter said. “The hired gun knows how to shoot and he was in a damned canoe.”

  “I’ll find him,” Toohy said.

  “You’d better,” Ritter said. “Or I’ll be looking for a new boy.” Toohy let that go, and Ritter said, “Tell that damned useless engineer I want to see him. Cobb is right, the hell with draining the swamp, let’s start cutting trees.”

  “We don’t have the sawmill built yet, boss,” Toohy said.

  “That’s why I want to talk to the engineer. We can pile the trunks high until he builds the sawmill and gets the steam saws in operation.”

  “I’ll find the engineer,” Toohy said.

  “And Bonifaunt, I want you to ride over to Budville and tell Mathias Cobb what’s happening,” Ritter said. “Tell him to alert the railroad that I’ll be delivering sawn lumber within a month.” He read the doubt in Toohy’s face and said, “I don’t care if the sawmill doesn’t have four walls and a roof, I want the saws running and those hundred and fifty idle loggers working. Hell, that’s fifty crews. We can have every cypress in the swamp cut down within a year. Tell Cobb that too.”

  Toohy nodded. “You got it, boss.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, beat it,” Ritter said.

  Bonifaunt Toohy rode past the bank and up the middle of Budville’s main street before he looped his horse to the saloon hitching rail and stepped inside. As he knew it would, his presence became known and within a couple of minutes Sebastian Lilly joined him at the bar.

  “You got news, Bon?” Lilly said.

  “Yeah. It’s for Cobb, directly from Ritter.”

  “He knows you’re here but he won’t talk to you.”

  “I reckon. That’s why I’ll tell it to you.”

  “Then tell it,” Lilly said. He raised two fingers to the bartender and the man laid shot glasses in front of him and Toohy and poured whiskey to the brims. “Cheers,” Lilly said. He and Toohy downed their drinks and Toohy signaled for two more.

  “The swampers have hired themselves a gun,” he said. “He’s already killed Lem Claxton and Jim O’Connor and gave Travis Kershaw a headache, came damn near to scattering his brains.”