by Jake Henry
Savage looked at her hesitantly before saying, ‘I need to talk to you about your brother, Connie.’
The two of them stood beside an open grave in the late afternoon much as Craig Vandal had done only two days before. Only this time it wasn’t raining. Connie wept silently as Savage stood beside her, holding his hat in his right hand.
When the preacher was finished, they remained for a while before turning and walking back towards Dead Man’s Gulch.
‘What do you aim to do now?’ Connie asked him, as they ambled along.
‘I’ll be leavin’ tomorrow,’ Savage told her.
‘And go where?’
‘Albuquerque, then further north,’ he told her.
‘Would you take me with you?’ Connie asked, grasping his arm.
Savage patted her on the hand. ‘You can’t come with me, Connie. I’m not a good man to be around.’
‘You seem fine to me,’ she protested.
‘You don’t understand,’ he told her. ‘Things happen when I’m around. When I was finished with the war, I thought that all the killin’ was over. Done with. But ever since, killin’ is all I seem to be doin’. No, you are safer away from me.’
There was genuine sadness in her eyes at his refusal, but after a moment she composed herself and said, ‘OK then, how about we have dinner tonight before you leave?’
‘I’d like that,’ he said.
‘Good, ‘cause you’re buyin’. I ain’t got squat.’
‘I think I can manage that,’ Savage laughed.
Connie smiled. The first time since the news of her brother’s death. She hooked her arm through his and said, ‘C’mon, you can buy me a drink too.’
The following morning, as Savage was riding the pinto out of Dead Man’s Gulch, Connie stretched out her naked form in a large double bed. Her hands went up under her pillow and bumped something hard. She frowned, still half asleep, rolled over and moved the pillow to see what was there.
When Connie saw it, she had to blink a couple of times to clear her sleep blurred vision. She rolled onto her back and sat up, the sheet falling away to reveal her lithe form. In her hand, was a bundle of paper money. When she counted it later, the amount would come to almost three hundred dollars.
Connie stared at the rumpled sheet beside her and over at the hotel room window, a distant look in her eyes. Then she sighed and said, ‘Goodbye, Jeff Savage.’
DRIFTER 3
KILL THE TIN STAR!
By Jake Henry
Copyright © 2017 by Jake Henry
First Smashwords Edition: May 2017
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Cover figure painted by Ed Martin.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
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