“Thank you, kind sir.”
Tyrell went around and sat. He saw her looking at him and snatched off his hat and hung it over the chair. “It’s been a spell since I ate this elegant.” Actually, he couldn’t recollect ever being served so fine a meal.
“I’m happy to do it,” Bessie said.
“I didn’t mean to put you to all this bother. I got in so late, I figured I’d missed supper and would get by until mornin’.”
“Nonsense. It’s the least I can do.”
Tyrell glanced at the six empty chairs. “It’ll just be the two of us?”
“The other boarders have already ate. Most are abed, I’d imagine.” Bessie picked up a bowl. “Care for some collard greens?”
“I surely would.” Tyrell had to stretch to reach it. He spooned out a helping and did the same with the hominy and speared a slab of deer meat.
“I pay a local hunter to bring me fresh venison,” Bessie mentioned. “It’s less costly than buying beef from the butcher and my boarders don’t seem to mind.”
“Venison is fine,” Tyrell said. “We used to eat it to home, too.”
“In Georgia.”
“Yes, ma—” Tyrell caught himself. “Yes, Bessie Mae. Down Atlanta way.”
“I’m from South Carolina, myself.”
“A Southern gal, by God,” Tyrell blurted, and coughed to cover his embarrassment.
“And you’re a Southern gentleman,” Bessie said. “That we should meet is quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“If you say it is,” Tyrell responded. He wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
“So tell me,” Bessie said. “How was your stay at the Sethers’?”
Tyrell usually didn’t like to talk about his work but with her he couldn’t talk enough. He expressed his disappointment that the assassins hadn’t showed and concluded with, “It’s just as well, though. The Sethers might have been hurt and they’re good people. And Rondo James has been through enough.”
“You sound as if you like him,” Bessie observed.
“I reckon I do. He’s not at all as he’s painted to be.” Thinking that she might not approve of him being fond of a notorious shootist, Tyrell mentioned, “He’s from the South, too.”
“So I’ve heard.” Bessie stared at him as if she were thinking and finally she said, “You take your job very seriously, don’t you, Tyrell?”
Tyrell’s ears burned again. “How else would I take it? It’s serious work.”
“I like that in a man. It shows he has a sense of responsibility. He’s not frivolous.”
For the life of him, Tyrell couldn’t recall ever hearing that word before. Her vocabulary scared him sometimes. “I took an oath and I live by it.”
“To uphold the law.”
“Yes, ma—”
Bessie laughed. “That’s all right. If you call me ma’am now and again I won’t throw a fit.”
“Thank you,” Tyrell said. He forked some greens and remarked, “I can’t tell you the last time I had hominy and collard greens.”
“You could have them every day if you had a wife.”
Tyrell nearly choked. He coughed and swallowed and clutched the glass of water. After he drank, he said quietly, “I hardly ever think of marryin’.”
“Why not, a fine figure of a man like you?”
Tyrell was too stupefied to respond.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“No, ma’am,” Tyrell said. “I mean, well, law work is dangerous, and I have to do a lot of travelin’, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave a woman at home worryin’ over whether she’d see me again.”
“That should be for the woman to decide.”
“I suppose.” Tyrell concentrated on his meal. The talk was disturbing him.
After a while Bessie said, “I’m almost past marrying age, myself.”
“That’s not true,” Tyrell said. “You can’t be much over twenty-five.”
“Why, Marshall Gibson, you fibber,” Bessie said. “I’m thirty-three, Tyrell. How old are you?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“There you go.”
Tyrell tried to figure out what that meant and couldn’t. “There I go what?”
“We are both of us almost past our prime. We don’t find someone soon, I’m liable to end up a spinster and you’ll be a grumpy old man.”
“I’m hardly ever grumpy,” Tyrell said.
“I know. It’s another thing I like about—”
Tyrell looked up to see why she had stopped and saw that she was gazing past him at the hall. Shifting in his chair, he was startled to discover a man standing in the shadowed doorway.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
The man came into the light. He was dressed in typical puncher clothes. “Howdy.” He smiled and took off his hat. “Sorry to disturb your meal.”
“I’m Miss Cyrus,” Bessie said. “I run the boardinghouse. Are you looking to take a room, Mr. … ?”
“Axel,” the cowboy said. “Axel Jones. And, no, ma’am. I’m here on account of Ritlin. He already has a room. He got a job with the Buchanan spread, and he asked me to stop by and make sure he didn’t leave anything here.”
“Oh. So he won’t be back?” Bessie rose. “I’ll show you which one it is.”
“I’m obliged, ma’am,” the cowboy said in his pronounced drawl.
Tyrell said, “Hold on. Why didn’t he come for his things himself?”
“Like I said,” Axel replied, “he just got a job at the Buchanan ranch and can’t come into town for a spell. I was on my way in and he asked me if I’d do it for him.”
“Nice of you,” Tyrell said.
Axel chuckled. “He paid me a dollar.”
Bessie moved to the hall and the cowboy stepped out of her way. “Follow me.”
Tyrell watched them walk off. It was an ordinary enough request, and the puncher seemed harmless enough, but something about the man bothered him. He couldn’t say what. He almost got up to follow them but figured Bessie might not like him acting as if he was her nursemaid. Besides, he had that marriage talk to consider. It had sounded to him as if she was about to suggest that he and she should be man and wife.
“Surely not,” Tyrell said to himself. A fine lady like Bessie could have most any man she set her sights on. “Or could she?” he reflected. A lot of whites wouldn’t want anything to do with her because her skin wasn’t. And now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen another black man anywhere in Teton.
Tyrell ate, and after a while he wondered what was taking them so long. He was about to get up and go find her when he heard her laugh and they came back down the hall, the puncher’s spurs jangling. He wondered how it was that the spurs hadn’t made a sound when the cowboy first appeared.
Bessie was saying, “—too bad he had you go to all this trouble for nothing.”
“It was no trouble, ma’am,” Axel said. “And I could use the dollar.”
Bessie came to her chair, remarking as she passed Tyrell, “Mr. Ritlin had cleaned his room out. He must have forgot.”
“He was probably just bein’ sure, ma’am,” Axel said. He looked at Tyrell. “She tells me you’re a federal lawdog.”
Tyrell moved his cost and showed his badge. “I am.”
“Are you passin’ through? Or are you here after some outlaw?”
“I’m lookin’ for a man called One Eye Smith,” Tyrell revealed. “Short fella. Wears an eye patch. Could be you’ve seen him around?”
“No, sir,” Axel said. “I haven’t seen a man wearin’ an eye patch since I can’t recollect when.” He paused. “Is he the only one you’re after?”
“Smith rides with three others,” Tyrell said. “Or so I was told.”
“Know who they are?”
Tyrell shook his head. “I don’t even know what they look like. But when I find him, I’ll find them.”
“I take it you don’t even know their names?”
“Wish I did,” Tyrell
said.
“Good luck with your hunt.” Axel put his hat on. “Well, I’d best be goin’. Pleasure meetin’ you folks.” He turned and jingled away.
“What a nice man,” Bessie said.
“If you say so.” Tyrell was still bothered and couldn’t account for it.
“Now, then. Where were we.” Bessie smiled. “Oh yes. We were talking about being compatible.”
“We were?”
“It would be worth finding out if we are,” Bessie said. “We’re not getting any younger.”
“That’s for sure.” Tyrell was trying to remember what compatible meant. “You must read a lot.”
“Why, as a matter of fact, I do. Why did you bring that up?”
“You talk like a book,” Tyrell said.
Bessie laughed. “And you? Do you do much reading?”
“I can wrestle with a menu and a circular,” Tyrell said. “But generally, ma’am, no.”
“There you go again. Try my name. It’s not hard to pronounce.”
“You are a tease, Bessie,” Tyrell said.
“I have my playful moments.”
Their eyes met, and it wasn’t just Tyrell’s ears that burned. He drank some water.
“How long will you be around?” she asked.
“I wasn’t plannin’ to stay much longer,” Tyrell said. There was no sign of One Eye, and he had done his good deed for the month and warned Rondo James about the assassins.
“But now?”
“I reckon I might,” Tyrell said.
“You can have Mr. Ritlin’s room. At no charge.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Do you have another woman somewhere?”
“I don’t have a woman anywhere,” Tyrell said.
“You do now.”
“Oh my,” Tyrell said.
38
Charlton Rank arrived in Teton shortly after eight in the morning. He went straight to the Timberland and took the same suite as before. Bisby, his secretary, was with him. So was Floyd, his manservant. As well as Bannister and Tate and eight other Enforcers.
No sooner had Rank made himself comfortable than there was a knock at the door. Rank nodded at Tate and the former Texas Ranger went over and opened it.
To say Rank was surprised was an understatement. His visitor was one of the four incompetents he had come to kill.
“If it isn’t Mr. Axel,” he said coldly.
Axel didn’t seem to notice. He entered and crossed to the divan. “I saw you ride in.”
“Did you, now?” Rank responded. “And where are your friends?”
“Dead.”
“What?”
“I killed them.”
Rank and everyone else stared. “What are you saying?”
“I just said it,” Axel said. “You told us how you wanted the job done and they weren’t doing it the way you wanted. Ritlin went kill-crazy. And the others went along with him.”
“So you killed them?”
“When I take money to do a job,” Axel drawled, “I do it the way the man who is payin’ me wants me to do it.”
“Well, now,” Rank said. “This is a most welcome turn of events.”
“You’re not mad?”
“On the contrary.” Rank smiled. “You’ve spared me from having to eliminate them. I am, as the saying goes, pleased as punch.”
“Pleased enough to pay me their shares?”
Rank blinked, and laughed. “Why, Mr. Axel. I do believe you’re a man after my own heart. You are one greedy son of a bitch.”
“I’m worth it,” Axel said. “I know how you can make the rest of the homesteaders stampede out of Thunder Valley.”
“I’m listening,” Rank said.
“There’s a farmer by the name of Roy Sether. The rest all look up to him. He’s the closest thing they have to a leader. Take care of him and the rest will skedaddle.”
“And by take care you mean kill.”
“What else?”
“And you want to do it?”
“Who else?”
Rank sat back and spread his arms along the back of the divan. “I like how you think. But it won’t be just you.”
Axel frowned. “Why not?”
“Let’s just say that while I’m pleased you took the initiative and disposed of your friends, you should have eliminated them before the Daily Leader got wind of the situation.” Rank leaned toward Axel, his face twisted with barely contained rage. “Thanks to their stupidity and you taking your goddamn sweet time about stopping them, I have to take a direct hand. And I don’t like that. I don’t like it even a little bit.”
“I’d rather work alone,” Axel said.
“Be my guest. Go off and find work somewhere else. Alone.” Rank smiled an icy smile. “But if you hope to receive more money from me, you’ll do things my way, and my way is this.” He paused. “Mr. Bannister and Mr. Tate and the rest of my Enforcers are going with you. They’ll change into ordinary clothes and you’ll lead them to the Sether place. Once you’re there, you will wait until dark and then follow your own suggestion and eliminate the entire family.”
“You like that word, don’t you?”
“Don’t be petty,” Rank said. “Now, do we have an agreement or not?”
“I get the five thousand you were goin’ to pay Ritlin, Brule and One Eye, plus my cut?”
Rank snorted. “Twenty thousand dollars for botching the job? I don’t think so.”
“How much, then? It should be more than five. I did you a favor.”
“I’ll concede that much,” Rank said. “So I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If this Sether business goes smoothly, I’ll pay you another five. Which will bring your total to ten thousand dollars. More than most people earn in ten years.”
“That’s not bad. That’s not bad at all. We have a new deal.”
Rank grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Now that that’s settled, how about a bite to eat? I’ll have Floyd prepare a meal and we’ll eat while the others get ready.”
“It doesn’t spoil your appetite, talkin’ about wipin’ out an innocent family?”
“Does it spoil yours?”
“No, but I’ve been killin’ for a livin’ for a good long while. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m a cold-hearted bastard,” Rank said, and laughed.
Marshal Tyrell Gibson was whistling to himself as he walked down Main Street toward Bessie’s boardinghouse.
Tyrell was having a wonderful day. It had started with breakfast with Bessie. Just the two of them. He’d looked at her across the table and wanted to pinch himself to be sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Tyrell had had all night to think about her proposition and he’d come to a decision. Bessie Mae Cyrus was the best thing that ever happened to him. A woman like her, interested in a man like him. It was a miracle. He’d be all kinds of a fool to turn her down, and he liked to think he wasn’t a fool.
He’d lost all track of time talking to her. Her voice, her face, he was lost in her charm and beauty. At one point she said something and he realized she was waiting for an answer, and he blurted, “What was that?”
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?”
“Every word,” he had assured her.
“Then what did I just say?”
“I don’t know,” he’d admitted. “I was looking in your eyes.”
Bessie had bowed her head and said quietly, “That was about the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me.”
“I’ll try not to look in them so much so I hear you better.”
She’d glanced up and said huskily, “You may look in them as often as you like.”
Tyrell thought his body would explode.
It was the middle of the morning before he could tear himself away to pay the Daily Leader correspondent a visit. He figured that if anyone had heard about any more goings-on in Thunder Valley, it would be Filbert.
To his relief, Filbert hadn’t heard a thing. So now he was free to s
pend more time with Bessie and become better acquainted.
Tyrell had gone a block from Filbert’s small office and was nearing the Timberland hotel when who should come out the front door but the cowboy called Axel. Tyrell stopped. As he watched, Axel went up to a porch post and leaned against the post and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt, apparently waiting for someone.
Tyrell retreated into the shadows. He was curious what the man was up to. He still couldn’t get over how the puncher had snuck up on him at Bessie’s without making a sound.
Men were coming out of the hotel. Five, six, seven, Tyrell counted. Eight, nine, ten. All of them were dressed in new store-bought clothes. Even their hats were new. Axel said something and led them down the steps to the hitch rails. Every last man had a revolver strapped to his waist and some carried bundles.
Long guns, Tyrell suspected, wrapped in blankets. “Now, why would they hide them?” he asked himself.
Axel motioned, and the whole group rode to the next junction and reined to the east, toward Thunder Valley.
An awful premonition came over Tyrell. He broke into a sprint. People stared as he raced down Main Street to the hitch rail in front of the boardinghouse. Within moments he was in the saddle and heading east.
Tyrell tried to tell himself that he must be mistaken. There could be a perfectly ordinary explanation for what Axel and the others were up to. But it was suspicious as hell, them hiding their long guns.
Tyrell had been a lawman for too long to take anything for granted. He would find out what they were up to and if there was an explanation, no harm done.
They raised enough dust that he was able to stay well back and not lose them.
The day was warm, the sun bright, the birds were singing. It was the kind of day made for going for a stroll with Bessie. He hoped she would forgive him for disappearing on her.
Teton fell far behind. So did the last of the forest.
The grassland of Thunder Valley spread ahead, and the dust changed direction.
Tyrell used his spurs. Soon he saw the riders, bunched close together. They were no longer on the road. Instead they’d swung to the south and were cutting across the tilled fields.
Tyrell drew rein. It was more and more obvious that Axel and the other men were up to something, but what? He stayed put until they were out of sight, then followed their tracks at a walk.
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