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  Vance looked for Rosaleen Malone but didn’t see her. He supposed she had ducked out, too, while Coolidge was distracted and she had the chance.

  He was the only neutral party on his side of the bar. He gave some thought to slipping out, too, but he wanted to finish his beer first.

  He had just picked up the mug when one of the Rafter M crew, reeling from a punch, crashed into him. Vance caught him, but the beer that was still in the mug flew into the man’s face. Sputtering, he pushed loose from Vance’s arms and yelled, “Try to drown me, will you, you Three Rivers skunk!”

  His fist came up and smacked into Vance’s jaw, knocking the young man’s head back.

  Vance reacted instinctively. With the empty mug still in his hand, he lifted it and brought it down on the man’s head. The mug shattered, and the cowboy dropped like a stone.

  Another Rafter M man saw that and howled, “That fella just killed Pete!”

  Vance looked at the mug’s handle, which was all he still had in his hand, and then tossed it aside to meet the attack of the three men who charged at him.

  He knew he couldn’t hope to defeat all three of them, but he planned to give a good account of himself.

  Before the Rafter M men could reach him, two figures appeared, one on each side of him.

  The man to his right said, “We’ll back your play, son.”

  It was the tall, lanky, mustachioed cowboy Vance had noticed looking at him earlier. The other unexpected ally was the short redhead. Their arrival made the odds even.

  Fists lashed out. Flesh and bone thudded together. Men grunted with effort as the combatants stood toe-to-toe, slugging it out. It wasn’t the first fight Vance had ever been in, and he did a good job of blocking his opponent’s blows and delivering punches of his own.

  His two newfound friends were veritable devils when it came to fisticuffs. The tall cowboy looked too scrawny to pack much heft into his punches, but they landed with devastating power. A right and a left drove into the belly of a Rafter M rider and doubled him over, putting him in perfect position for a sizzling uppercut that lifted him off his feet and deposited him on his back in a limp sprawl.

  The man fighting with the redhead had an advantage in reach, but the redhead just lowered his head, hunched his shoulders, and absorbed the punishment the other man dished out as he bored in, arms working like pistons and fists pounding into the man’s midsection.

  That left Vance to handle the man in the middle. Leaning his head to the side so a blow grazed off the side of his skull, he landed a quick left-right combination to sternum and jaw. Another combination consisting of a left hook to the stomach and a second hard right to the jaw made the Rafter M man’s knees fold up. He tried to tackle Vance around the thighs as he collapsed, but Vance shoved him away.

  Putting his back against the bar, Vance looked at the tall cowboy and the redhead and grinned. “Pretty good fight while it lasted.”

  “It ain’t over!” the tall cowboy said. “Duck!”

  Vance ducked as part of a broken chair sailed over his head and crashed into the back bar, breaking several bottles. Cy Hartung wailed in dismay.

  “At least there hasn’t been any gunplay,” the redhead said.

  “Yet,” his friend said.

  Dax Coolidge had a reputation as a gunman, Vance recalled. He looked around and spotted Coolidge sitting on the floor, his back propped against an overturned table. He was shaking his head groggily.

  Rosaleen Malone stood nearby, holding an empty whiskey bottle by the neck.

  She hadn’t fled when the fight started after all. Vance couldn’t help but wonder if she had walloped Coolidge over the head with it. He figured that could be why the gunman looked stunned.

  Cowboys were still pounding away at each other as they stomped around in a litter of broken chairs and tables. Hartung would be collecting damages from Mort Cabot and Keenan Malone, that was for sure.

  “By God, that’s enough!” a man roared from the entrance. When that didn’t do any good, he raised the shotgun in his hands and emptied one of its twin barrels into the ceiling.

  Cy Hartung whimpered a little in the echoing silence that followed the blast.

  The man lowered the Greener and strode into the saloon, followed by two men who were armed the same way. The battle was forgotten as cowboys from both spreads eyed the newcomers warily. The menacing presence of those double-barreled scatterguns was enough to make anybody nervous.

  The shot had had been fired by a man with a badge pinned to the shirt stretched over his barrel chest. He had a rugged, rough-hewn face with a bristled slab of a jaw. “Sorry about putting buckshot holes in your ceiling, Cy,” the lawman said. “Seemed like the quickest way to get these loco mavericks to settle down.”

  “It’s all right, Sheriff,” Hartung said. “You’ve got to keep the peace.”

  The lawman chuckled. “That’s what they pay me to do, all right. What started this ruckus?” Before Hartung could answer, the sheriff went on. “It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I see Rafter M and Three Rivers are both here, so that’s really all it takes, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you boys to drink in different saloons from now on?”

  Still holding the empty bottle, Rosaleen stepped forward and set it on a table that was still upright. “I’ll tell you what started it, Sheriff, or rather who. It was Dax Coolidge.”

  One of the Three Rivers punchers said, “That’s right, Sheriff. He was molestin’ Miss Malone, and when we stepped in to put a stop to it, the rest of those Rafter M polecats jumped us.”

  “That’s a lie,” Coolidge said as he pushed through the crowd. He had gotten his wits back about him. “All I did was ask Miss Malone to dance with me, and she slapped me. Even after that, I didn’t do anything until the whole bunch from the Three Rivers attacked me.”

  “Now you’re lying.” The words came out of Vance’s mouth before he could stop them. “You had your hands on Miss Malone. The only reason she struck you was to protect herself.”

  Everyone in the room looked at him in surprise.

  Coolidge’s lips curled in a sneer. “What business is it of yours? You’re a stranger here.”

  “I may be a stranger,” Vance said, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll put up with a woman being manhandled. Where I come from, we just don’t allow things like that.”

  “And where’s that?”

  Vance shrugged. “Last place was Colorado. Before that, all over, I reckon you’d say.”

  With the heavily armed deputies flanking him, the sheriff broke open his shotgun, took out the shell he’d fired, and replaced it with a fresh one. As he snapped the weapon closed, he said, “You’ve been warned about causing trouble, Coolidge. You’re going down to the jail to cool your heels overnight.”

  Coolidge stiffened. “Blast it, Jerrico—”

  “I didn’t ask for an argument. Hand over your gun.”

  For a second, Vance thought Coolidge was going to draw and start shooting rather than surrender the weapon. But then his shoulders rose and fell in a little shrug, and he took the gun carefully out of its holster, reversing it and handing it to one of the deputies.

  “Things are liable to be different one of these days, Sheriff. You might not always have the odds on your side.”

  “I’ve always got the odds on my side against the likes of you.” Sheriff Jerrico jerked his head toward the batwinged entrance and told his deputies, “Get him out of here and lock him up.”

  When the deputies were gone with their prisoner, Jerrico looked at the bartender. “You want me to have these fellas empty their pockets, Cy, or would you rather send bills to Cabot and Malone?”

  “I’ll just take it up with the cowboys, Sheriff,” Hartung said. “It’s not the first time this has happened.”

  “Yeah, but it better be the last,” Jerrico said with a warning glare directed at both ranch crews. “If there’s a next time, I might just lock up all of you for a month!” He stepped aside and nodded toward the entrance.
“All of you get out of here and go back to your spreads. Rafter M first. I don’t want the fight spreading into the street. You boys get out of town and then Three Rivers can go.”

  “That ain’t fair,” a Rafter M man said. “What’s to stop them from gettin’ an extra drink before they go?”

  “I am,” Hartung declared. “Bar’s closed for now.”

  Jerrico nodded. “That’s what I was just about to say. Get moving.”

  With sullen expressions on their bruised and somewhat bloody faces, the Rafter M riders filed out of the Silver Star.

  The sheriff followed, pausing in the entrance to tell the Three Rivers bunch, “I want you men out of here in ten minutes. I’ll be keeping an eye out to make sure you leave.” The batwings flapped closed behind him as he went out.

  The tall, mustachioed cowboy grinned at Vance. “Looks like you’re the only one who don’t have to hightail it, since you don’t belong to either bunch.”

  “I was wondering if maybe I could change that,” Vance said.

  “Lookin’ for work, are you?”

  “I could use a riding job. My pockets are so empty they’re starting to echo. You reckon the Three Rivers could use another good hand?”

  “I don’t rightly know. Wilbur and me just signed on not long ago our own selves. You’d have to talk to Mr. Malone about that, I reckon. But it can’t hurt anything that you jumped in to give us a hand against those Rafter M varmints. My name’s Stewart, by the way. They call me Stovepipe.”

  “On account of he’s so tall and skinny,” the redhead said.

  Stovepipe chuckled and pointed a thumb at his friend. “That short-growed runt is one Wilbur Coleman. We been ridin’ together for a spell.”

  “Yeah, ever since we were trying to duck posses at the same time,” Wilbur said. “But I don’t reckon we need to talk about that, do we?”

  “I disremember what you’re talkin’ about,” Stovepipe said with a smile on his deeply tanned face. “I’ve always rode the straight and narrow trail.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we’ll call it.”

  Vance said, “Since you fellas are already riding for the Three Rivers, maybe you could put in a good word for me with the boss.”

  “Sure, I reckon we could do that,” Stovepipe said. “Can’t guarantee it’ll do any good, though.”

  “Neither can I,” a voice behind Vance said, “but it might help if I spoke to the boss, too.”

  He turned to find Rosaleen Malone smiling at him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Vance snatched his hat off his head. “Uh, Miss Malone . . . It’s an honor—”

  “Don’t go falling all over yourself, son,” she told him. “I grew up around cowboys, so I know you’re all rough as a cob even though you try to pretend to be polite around us female types. But there’s no need in my case.”

  “It’s a hard habit to break,” Vance said. “And it truly is an honor and a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  She frowned slightly. “Didn’t you just ride into town today? I don’t recall seeing you around before.”

  “Less than an hour ago, in fact.”

  “And you’ve been gossiping about me already.”

  Quickly, Vance said, “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it gossiping—”

  She stopped him with a grin. “Don’t worry. I’m just joshing you, son.”

  Vance wasn’t sure how he felt about being called son by a woman who was probably a year or two younger than him, and a mighty pretty one, to boot.

  Stovepipe stepped into the conversation by saying, “Miss Malone, this here is Vance Brewster. He took our side in the fight. Coldcocked Pete Decker with an empty beer mug.”

  Rosaleen’s green eyes widened. “Did that kill him?”

  “No, I saw him get up and walk off under his own power,” Stovepipe said. “Reckon he’s got a skull as thick as the door of a bank vault.”

  “And Stovepipe would know about bank vaults and how hard it is to get into ’em,” Wilbur said.

  “You hush,” Stovepipe said with a quick glare at his friend. “You’ll have these folks thinkin’ I used to be some sorta owlhoot, when I’ve always been the most law-abidin’, peaceable hombre you’d ever hope to find.”

  “Uh-huh,” Wilbur said.

  “Anyway,” Vance went on, “I am looking for a riding job, Miss Malone, so anything you say to your father that might help would sure be appreciated.”

  Rosaleen nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, but like I told you, no promises.”

  Cy Hartung rested his hands on the bar and said from the other side of it, “Uh, I hate to bother you, Miss Malone . . .”

  She turned toward him. “That’s all right, Mr. Hartung. Don’t worry. The Three Rivers will pay its share of the damages. Would you like me to tell my father how much?”

  “I haven’t figured it up yet. Would it be all right if I just sent word to him tomorrow?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll tell him he can expect to be hearing from you.”

  “I’m much obliged to you, miss.”

  Rosaleen shook her head. “The fight was sort of my fault. I’m the one who came in here looking for the boys so I could tell them we were ready to head back to the ranch.”

  Vance spoke up right away. “It’s not your fault at all. Coolidge was to blame. He’s the one who acted like a complete boor.”

  “He’s that, sure enough. But I saw the Rafter M brands on some of the horses tied up outside. I should have known things would be pretty tense in here.”

  Stovepipe said, “I reckon if you comin’ in hadn’t popped the cork on that fracas, something else would’ve. Those fellas from the Rafter M were spoilin’ for a fight.”

  “Of course, all the Three Rivers crew wanted was a peaceful drink,” Rosaleen said with a smile.

  “That’s right. Just a little tonsil lubrication ’fore we all headed over to the weekly meetin’ of the Ladies Quiltin’ Society.”

  Rosaleen laughed at Stovepipe’s words, then grew more serious. “It’s been ten minutes since Cabot’s bunch left. Three Rivers, let’s go.”

  “Me, too?” Vance asked.

  “Of course,” Rosaleen answered without hesitation. “You fought on our side. Even if my father decides not to hire you, you’re getting a good supper and a bunk for the night in return for your trouble.”

  “It was no trouble at all, Miss Malone.”

  “It made you some enemies . . . including Dax Coolidge.”

  Vance offered, “I’ve heard it said a man can be judged by his enemies.”

  “In that case,” Stovepipe said, “you rate pretty high, amigo, ’cause Coolidge is a bad man to have against you.”

  * * *

  The Three Rivers crew emerged from the Silver Star and saw no sign of any Rafter M riders, but Sheriff Jerrico stood across the street in front of a hardware store, leaning on one of the posts that held up the awning over the boardwalk. The lawman still had that Greener tucked under his arm. He gave the group a curt nod.

  The men went to the hitch rack to untie their horses. Rosaleen angled across the street toward a wagon parked in front of Hampton’s General Mercantile. A middle-aged woman as round as a ball, wearing a dress and a sunbonnet, was perched on the wagon seat.

  As Vance loosened his reins from the rail, he heard the older woman say, “I take it there was trouble in the saloon, dear?”

  “A little, Aunt Sinead. Nothing I shouldn’t have expected, though, when I saw Cabot’s men were in there.”

  “I saw Charlie Jerrico’s deputies hauling that terrible Dax Coolidge out of there and knew something must have happened. Thank goodness you’re all right, girl. Keenan would never forgive me if anything ever happened to you.”

  Rosaleen jerked the reins of a good-looking sorrel loose from the rail in front of the mercantile and replied with a note of annoyance in her voice, “I can take care of myself just fine. It’s not your responsibility.”

  “I doubt if your fa
ther would see it that way.”

  Vance watched and listened to that exchange as he swung up into the saddle and settled into the leather

  Stovepipe eased a rangy paint up next to Vance’s horse and said quietly, “The lady on the wagon is Rosaleen’s Aunt Sinead O’Hara. Older sister of Malone’s late missus. Aunt Sinead handles the cookin’ and the housekeepin’ and is the general factotum around the place. You don’t want her for an enemy, neither.”

  “I don’t go around looking for enemies, you know.”

  “Most folks don’t. They make ’em anyway, sorta in the natural course o’ things.”

  “And Stovepipe would know,” Wilbur added as he brought a sturdy roan up on Vance’s other side. “He’s made a heap.”

  “There you go again, makin’ me sound like a wild desperado.”

  “Just making sure Vance understands how trouble seems to gravitate to you, Stovepipe.”

  “So I can keep my distance?” Vance chuckled. “I think I’ll take my chances. You two seem like good fellas to have for friends.”

  “Don’t say nobody warned you,” Wilbur said.

  When Rosaleen was mounted on the sorrel, Aunt Sinead slapped the reins against the backs of the team hitched to the wagon and got them moving. The two women led the way out of the settlement, heading northwest toward a range of low hills.

  As they rode with the other cowboys, Stovepipe nodded toward the distant hills and told Vance, “Three Rivers lies amongst those. Spread got its name from the three streams that meander through the hills. They ain’t hardly big enough to be called rivers, but they do a good job of waterin’ the range land. Plenty of grass in the valleys all year ’round, and there’s good graze in the higher pastures durin’ the summer, too.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the place for somebody who just signed on not long ago,” Vance said.

  Wilbur said, “Those jug handles on the sides of his head have a purpose. Stovepipe’s a good listener. Picks up on all sorts of things an hombre without such big ears might not.”

  “I’ve never thought my ears were that much bigger than most fellas’. I just know how to use ’em, and my eyes, too. It’s called payin’ attention. Some folks seem to forget how to do that.”