The Wicked Die Twice Page 8

  To the north, two other rifles spoke. One was Slash’s, for that one’s report came from dead ahead, on the other side of the fire. The other report came from the east.

  Slash fired two more times and then started cursing in typical Slash fashion, bellowing a string of nastiness that would have made the devil blush. A few seconds later, Pecos knew what had caused his partner’s tantrum. Hooves thudded away to the east, dwindling quickly.

  Slash’s bushwhacker had gotten away.

  Pecos’s, however, had not. Pecos had heard a clipped grunt just after he’d fired his last shot. He’d also heard the crunching thud of a body hitting the turf.

  Pecos pushed ahead and stopped at the edge of the firelight.

  “Slash, you all right?”

  Slashed stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the fire. He was punching fresh cartridges into his Winchester’s load gate and glowering angrily. “Yeah, I’m fine. That son of a buck got away. I think there were two. Did you get the other one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pecos moved up to the fire. It had burned way down. Nothing lay around it except boot tracks from the man or men who had built it. Pecos lifted a burning branch from the fire, held it aloft.

  “I think he’s over here.”

  “Well, be careful. He might be playing possum.”

  “I don’t think so.” Pecos leaned his rifle against a tree and drew his Russian .44. He turned away from the fire and, holding the burning branch above his head, walked slowly through the brush, the branch in his left hand, the Russian in his right hand. He clicked the big gun’s hammer back.

  It took him a while, but the light from his branch finally landed on the body of the man he’d shot. The bushwhacker had scrambled several yards away from where Pecos had dropped him. Pecos saw the crimson glow of bloodstained brush in the man’s wake.

  “You got him?” Slash called behind his partner.

  “Yeah.” Pecos waved the branch.

  Slash moved up to stand beside him, staring down at the dead man lying belly down atop the small cedar he’d bent over when he’d finally given up the ghost. Pecos kicked him over. The man was of average height, maybe forty. He’d lost his hat and his head was nearly bald. Long, thin sideburns ran down both sides of his long, craggy face. His open eyes stared up at Slash and Pecos, glowing eerily in the light of the burning branch. The light also glinted off of one silver front tooth.

  He wore dusty trail garb, including a denim jacket against the night’s chill.

  He wore a pistol in a holster on his right hip. His rifle, a Sharps carbine, lay where the man had first fallen.

  Pecos glanced at Slash. “You recognize him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither.”

  A horse whinnied to the east. The whinny was followed by a nervous whicker.

  “That would be his mount,” Slash said.

  Pecos dropped to a knee and went through the dead man’s pockets, finding a wallet filled with ninety-seven dollars in crisp bank bills. He found a comb and a receipt for two boxes of .45-70 cartridges from a gunsmith shop in: “Camp Collins,” Pecos said, glancing up at Slash staring down at him.

  “What’s the date on it?” Slash asked.

  Pecos studied the receipt. “The twenty-first. Same day we left town.”

  “You suppose this fella and his partner followed us all the way from Camp Collins . . . to kill us?”

  “Must’ve.”

  “Could be a coincidence.”

  “You don’t believe in coincidences any more than I do, Slash.”

  “Anything on him identify him?”

  “Nothing. There’s no ID in his wallet. Just them fresh bills. I’m betting there were a hundred in there before he bought those cartridges and maybe trail supplies.”

  “Let’s check his horse.”

  It took them a few minutes to run down the dead man’s horse. The mount—a dapple gray gelding—was understandably nervous. It had heard gunfire, probably smelled blood, and the two men moving toward it were strangers.

  When Slash finally grabbed the reins, Pecos unsaddled the beast, then went through the gear. All he found were two burlap sacks filled with trail supplies and saddlebags with some cooking gear and an extra change of clothes. Nothing to identify the owner. The horse, however, had a brand low on its left wither.

  “Tumbling Box H,” Slash said, running a gloved finger over the blaze.

  “That’s a spread near Camp Collins,” Pecos said. “Up the canyon toward Horsetooth Rock.”

  “Yep.”

  “What the hell?”

  “That’s a puzzle. Why would Tumbling Box H riders want to trim our wicks?”

  “You haven’t insulted any Tumbling Box H riders lately—have you, partner?”

  “Not that I remember.” Slash took a step back and stared at the horse. “I’ve seen this mount before.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I know I have. See that dark ring around its left eye? I’ve seen that before, made note of it. It’s a peculiar mark. I just can’t remember where exactly I’ve seen it before, but I’ve seen this horse before, all right.”

  “Well, think about it. Where did you see it, Slash?”

  “I’m tryin’, an’ I can’t remember.”

  “Try harder.”

  Slash gave an angry chuff. “I’m doin’ the best with the gifts God gave me.”

  “Not encouraging!”

  “It’ll come to me. Just give me some time. You know how you remember things as soon as you stop trying to remember ’em?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s true. Just shut up an’ leave me alone, and it will come to me.”

  Pecos glanced back toward where they’d left the dead man. “In the meantime, what are we gonna do with the dead fella?”

  “Hell, leave him.”

  “Not bury him?”

  “You think he would have buried you if he’d killed you?”

  “Fair point.”

  Slash turned to gaze off toward the north. “What I’m wonderin’ about is the other fella. If they wanted us dead bad enough, he might come back.”

  “One of us is gonna have to keep watch for the rest of the night, I reckon,” Pecos said with a sigh.

  They both thought for a time.

  Pecos said, “That other fella might circle back for the dead man’s money. Maybe we’ll catch him then.”

  “Where’s the dead man’s money?”

  “On his carcass.”

  Slash stared at his big partner incredulously.

  “What? You think I’m low enough to rob a dead man?” Pecos said in exasperation.

  Slash laughed. “He was probably paid that money to kill us. So, I say it’s rightly ours. Besides, even if it wasn’t, what the hell is he gonna do with it now? Feed it to the coyotes that’ll likely be chewin’ on him by sunrise?”

  Slash gave a frustrated groan and stomped off in the direction of the dead man. “Sometimes, Pecos, I really wonder about you. I really do!”

  Suddenly, Slash stopped and turned back. “See—I told you I’d remember as soon as I stopped trying.”

  Pecos scowled. “Huh?”

  “I just remembered where I’ve seen that horse before.” Slash paused as if to build suspense.

  “Well?” Pecos said. “You going to make me guess, or . . . ?”

  “I’ve seen it tied to the hitchrack in front of Jay’s saloon, the Thousand Delights!”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Hello there, pretty lady. Would you mind if this old border rascal bought you a drink?”

  Jaycee Breckenridge lurched with a slight start.

  “I’m sorry,” said the tall, handsome, slim-hipped man coming up behind her to stand beside her at the long, horseshoe-shaped bar in the main drinking hall of the House of a Thousand Delights in Camp Collins. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Oh, not all,” Jay
said, feeling a warm blush rising in her cheeks as she usually did when the handsome town marshal came calling on her, which he usually did sometime during the long night in the saloon/gambling parlor/brothel. “I was just . . .”

  “Staring down into your coffee with a downright pensive expression on your ravishing features,” the charming, bearded marshal finished for her, giving her a toothily appealing smile as he leaned on an elbow and turned his large body to face her. He was standing very close. So close that Jay could feel the heat of his long, tall body—the body of a rugged horseman, though Jay had only known the man as a lawman, first in Dodge City some years ago, before she’d been lovestruck by the old, unheeled catamount Pistol Pete Johnson.

  “Was I?” Jay said with a self-conscious chuckle. “I hadn’t realized.”

  “What were you thinking about, pray tell, lovely lady?”

  The heat of her blush growing, Jay smiled into her half-empty coffee mug again, tucked a stray lock of her copper hair behind her left ear, and said, “Oh, I don’t know . . . I was just I was just . . .”

  “Thinking about that old outlaw you’ve gone and promised yourself to, no doubt,” Walsh finished for her, clucking his disapproval. “And leaving all of us bachelors here in town all the sadder.”

  “Oh, please, Cisco. That’s laying it on a little thick even for you—don’t you think?”

  Walsh blinked once, slowly. He stood so that his polished, silver, five-point town marshal’s star, pinned to his brocade vest behind his black frock coat, lay about six inches from Jay’s right breast. Jay noticed this and silently chastised herself for feeling a ripple of pleasure waltz its way up her back. “No,” Walsh said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I was laying it on thick at all. Please, let me buy you a real drink. Here, it’s almost midnight, business is extremely slow, it being a weeknight, and you’re still drinking coffee for heaven sakes.”

  Jay laughed. “I guess you’re right. Bill, add a little brandy to my coffee, will you?”

  “And I’ll have two fingers of Four Oaks,” Walsh said.

  “Comin’ right up, Miss Breckenridge . . . Marshal Walsh.” Bill Tolliver was the only bartender working at this hour. Jay had kept two serving girls on in case business picked up when The Imperial, just down the street, closed its doors at twelve thirty. Both girls, however, were idly chatting with the thin crowd of customers sitting at tables around the large, well-appointed saloon.

  As Tolliver poured a jigger of brandy into Jay’s coffee, then set a glass of bourbon in front of Walsh, the marshal said, “I hear that old brigand has gone and left you here all alone. One of my deputies saw him and Pecos . . . uh, excuse me—Melvin Baker,” the marshal corrected himself with a smile, knowing that the two ex-cutthroats were no longer using their nicknames, “leaving town a couple of days ago. On horseback as opposed to freight wagon.”

  Jay sipped her coffee and brandy. “Your boys don’t miss a thing—do they, Cisco?”

  “No, ma’am. I remind them to keep their eyes peeled. Never know what they’re going to run into. Everything matters.” Again, Walsh offered Jay an agreeable, vaguely flirtatious smile, then frowned as he asked with subtle probing, “Unexpected business?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “What called them out of town. Not that it’s any of my business, you understand. I’m just curious what could possibly have pulled Sla—er, James Braddock away from his lovely betrothed. Especially when he knows full good and well I’m waiting in the wings.”

  “Oh . . .” Jay hesitated, sipping her coffee and brandy again as she tried to come up with a believable lie. “Just, um . . . personal business. They wouldn’t want me to bore you with it, Cisco.”

  “All right, all right. None of my business. Understood.” The marshal sipped his bourbon again, then leaned forward over his glass but kept his brown-eyed gaze on Jay. “So, tell me, Jay . . . what were you thinking about when I walked up? You looked concerned. Worried. At the very least, you appeared perplexed. It can’t be the business. While it’s a mite slow tonight, I know you make most of your money on the weekend. And even on slow nights, your girls upstairs—as polite and lovely as they are—are always busy with gentlemen callers.”

  “My, we’re curious this evening, Marshal!” Jay intoned with friendly mockery.

  “Not curious as much as, um . . . I’d call it attentive.”

  “Attentive? Oh, I see. All right . . . well, if you must know, I was thinking about Sla—er, James Braddock.” Jay laughed at her own inability to call Slash by his given name. She shook her head, sipped her coffee, then set the cup back down on the counter. “He asked me to marry him, and I truly do believe he loves me . . . as I do him . . . but . . . I sense . . . I don’t know, I sense . . .”

  “A certain reluctance in taking that final step?” Walsh asked. Jay nodded. She been frowning down at the bar, but now she looked up at the tall lawman again. “Yes, a certain reluctance.”

  “Well, I reckon that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

  Jay frowned. “How so?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that you’re not a great catch. No, ma’am. Not at all. I don’t think I’ve exactly hidden how I feel about you, Jay.”

  “Now . . . well, I’m flattered, Cisco.”

  “I just meant that the man’s seeming reluctance to settle down is probably purely out of habit. I mean, he’s never really settled down before, has he? Heck, he and Pec—doggone it, I mean, Mr. Baker,” he laughed, “were running off their leashes for a good many years. The idea is probably so foreign to him as to be quite frightening. He wouldn’t want to admit as much. He’d be afraid he’d risk hurting your feelings.”

  “I think you’re right, Cisco.” That did make her feel better. The reluctance she’d sensed in Slash—or Jimmy or Jim or James or whatever in hell she was supposed to call him these days!—was probably just as the marshal had said. He felt anxious about settling down after so many years on the run. It probably had nothing to do with her, personally, at all.

  “He’ll come around.” Cisco reached over and placed his hand on one of hers, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “If for some reason, he doesn’t, however . . .” He arched a brow and gave her a vaguely sheepish, insinuating gaze.

  Jay found herself tittering, flattered. “Oh, well, if you say so, Cisco.”

  “I do, indeed.”

  Just then Walsh swung his head around to the front door as four men entered the saloon. He turned back to Jay and, pushing back away from the bar, asked, “Jay, is there a room upstairs I could hold a private meeting?”

  “Oh. Well, uh . . . upstairs?” She frowned curiously between the lawman and the four men who had just entered, recognizing one of them as Jason Hall, owner of the Tumbling Box H ranch outside of Camp Collins. She believed the three other men with Hall were Hall’s foreman, Keldon Reed, and two Tumbling Box H ranch hands who came into the Thousand Delights from time to time when they could afford an hour or two upstairs with Jay’s pleasure girls. “Of course,” Jay said to Walsh. “I don’t think anyone’s in the billiard room. Help yourselves. You know where it is.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll bring brandy and cigars if you like. ”

  “That would be wonderful. Please, put it on my tab, will you?” Walsh smiled his winning smile, then leaned forward to plant a warm kiss on her cheek. “Thank you, Jay. And please don’t worry about that old outlaw of yours. The man may be many things, but he’s not fool enough to pull out of marriage to a woman like you.”

  “Thank you, Cisco. I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I am.”

  Walsh looked at Hall and the other men, then beckoned them with a toss of his head. Giving Jay one more parting smile, he swung around and started for the broad, carpeted staircase at the room’s rear. Hall led his foremen and other two men after Walsh, all of them giving Jay a smile and a nod in greeting as they strode past her.

  Jay smiled and nodded in return, then looked at the barman, who was readin
g a newspaper spread atop the bar before him. “Bill, give me a bottle of our best brandy and a handful of cigars, will you? How ’bout those rum-soaked Cubans I got in last week?”

  “You got it, Miss Breckenridge. Why the frown?”

  “What’s that?”

  Tolliver, a big, swarthy man with a boyish face and close-cropped, straight blond hair, smiled at her as he plucked a bottle of Spanish brandy off a backbar shelf. “You seem puzzled.”

  “Oh . . .” Jay had only vaguely realized her befuddlement. “I don’t know—I guess I was just wondering why anyone would be holding a business meeting at nearly twelve thirty at night.”

  Tolliver shrugged as he set the open brandy bottle on a tray. Reaching for five goblets, he said, “Busy men meet at odd hours, I reckon, Miss Breckenridge.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  When Tolliver had set five red-banded Cubans onto the tray with the bottle and the glasses, Jay lifted the tray from the bar and headed for the stairs. She climbed the stairs, careful not to trip on the hem of her long gown. When she gained the second-floor landing, she heard loud male voices thundering from somewhere down the hall. As she approached the door to the billiard room, which was the second door on the hall’s left side, under the head of a snarling grizzly bear, she realized the commotion was occurring inside that very room.

  Jay paused outside the closed door. The door wasn’t latched, making it possible for her to hear voices more clearly now. Specifically, the rancher, Hall’s voice, saying:

  “That team will be hauling eighty thousand dollars in bullion, Walsh, and—”

  “I know how much it will be carrying, Hall. I just don’t want your men to—”

  “Like I said, we’ll all be there to make sure everything goes off without a—”

  “At Horsetooth Station?”

  “Yes, that’s where I said we’d meet. We’ll get back to you on the exact night. Now, look, Marshal, if you’re getting cold feet, let me remind you of a little problem in your past. One that likely would not—”

  Hall’s voice stopped abruptly. It was as though someone had waved him to silence. Too late, Jay heard furtive footsteps moving toward the door. She stood frozen in shock a moment too long. In the next moment, someone drew the door open wide, and Jay found herself staring up at one of Hall’s ranch hands—a tall man in his late twenties and with one wandering blue eye. His good eye stared down in silent recrimination at Jay, while the wandering eye glared at the tip of his nose.