“He got hauled in by this sheriff a few months ago for trying to rob an opium den. Since Texans and Chinese don’t mix too well, he’s been rotting in that cell waiting for a court date while the judges keep finding better things to do. While he was in there, ol’ Cal heard the sheriff bragging about how he may just retire after making this ride up to Kansas. Cal got word to me by sending a letter to his brother, and there you go.”
“Won’t it be rough going up against a sheriff to take away his own herd?” Liddell asked.
Brewer merely shrugged and replied, “Sure, but that’s the fun of it. My money’s on this sheriff getting too big for his britches and riding out thinkin’ nothing in the world can touch him. He’ll have some guns along for the ride, but that ain’t nothin’ new. Hell, I shot my way through a few posses just this summer.
“What’s even better than the money we stand to make is the name we’ll make for ourselves,” Brewer added with a murderous glint in his eyes. “We’ll be better known than the James Gang if we make a sheriff look like a fool while losing his own cows.”
“Do the rest of the men know about this?” “Not the new ones. No need to scare them off. Besides, once they pull through this, they’ll be like soldiers that lived through a fucking war.”
“The ones that live, you mean.”
“Wheat from the chaff, my friend. What do you say?”
Liddell smiled and nodded slowly. “I’m in.”
FORTY-ONE
Liddell rode with both hands tightly gripping the reins and both eyes constantly darting back and forth. Even though his horse seemed to want to run faster, he held the animal back by tugging on the reins. That seemed particularly odd since the look on his face made it clear that, wherever he was going, he was in a rush to get there.
A sharp, crisp whistle cut through the air and caught Liddell’s attention. His head snapped in that direction so fast that he nearly made himself dizzy.
Clint stood up a bit straighter so he could be seen and waved at Liddell. As soon as Liddell was close enough, Clint practically hauled him straight out of his saddle.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Clint snarled. “Are you trying to send up smoke signals that I’m here?”
“Nobody’s following me,” Liddell said while regaining his balance and dusting himself off.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah. Brewer’s busy with Patricia, and the rest of the men think I went to the village.”
“Why would you go to the village?” Clint asked.
“Apparently, there’s some pretty ladies there who keep reasonable prices.”
“So you just left Brewer alone with Patricia?”
Liddell looked around as if there were still other gunmen nearby studying him. “Wasn’t that the plan?”
Rather than agree with Liddell, Clint took a long look at the land Liddell had covered on his way to him. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anyone else following Liddell. That didn’t mean Clint was exactly happy with the former prisoner.
“Where’s Ed?” Liddell asked.
“He’s keeping an eye on Patricia.”
“So what the hell are you so mad at me for?”
“Because I was watching you too,” Clint replied. “From what I could see, you were too busy squirming in Brewer’s footsteps to keep your mind on what you needed to do.”
“She was fine.” Liddell sighed. “Believe me, that woman’s probably already got the run of that place by now. I don’t exactly have them sort of charms, so I had to make sure Brewer wanted to keep me around.”
“And how’d you manage that?”
“By telling him just what we said I would. That I was there to start working for him again.”
“It doesn’t look like there are very many men there with Brewer,” Clint pointed out. “How long before he’s heading out again?”
“It might not be as long as you think,” Liddell replied. “Brewer never was the sort who would lay low for too long. Fact is, he’s got a job planned already.”
“Let’s hear about it.”
“I don’t have enough time to sit around and talk. I gotta get going.”
With that, Liddell turned and started reaching to pull himself back into his saddle. He was stopped by a firm grasp that locked around his arm and kept him from moving another inch.
Clint held on to Liddell’s arm almost as hard as he’d held on to the guard who’d found him in the bushes. “Where do you think you’re going?” Clint asked.
“Just because Brewer knows me don’t mean he trusts me. I need to prove myself again, and disappearing when I’m supposed to be going somewhere don’t go too far in that direction.”
“I know you’d like to have some time with one of those señoritas, but you don’t just have to prove yourself to Brewer. Right now, I’m the one you need to worry about.”
“I’m doing the best I can. You brought me along because I can get close to Brewer, didn’t you?”
“I brought you along to get us here without being ambushed, and that’s what you did.”
“Then shouldn’t you be thanking me instead of treating me like a goddamn criminal?” Liddell asked indignantly.
Clint met his gaze, but didn’t loosen his grip. “Before you get too full of yourself, you need to remember that you are a goddamn criminal. Without me, you’d be a goddamn criminal rotting away in a cage in the middle of a swamp.”
Liddell lowered his head and nodded.
“You’re also a pain in the ass,” Clint added. “But you’ve held up your end of this deal so far. Thanks.”
Since he didn’t quite know how to respond just then, Liddell kept nodding.
“Now tell me why you need to hurry up and keep an appointment that was just an excuse to get away from those assholes at that old farm.”
“Because it’s not those assholes I’m worried about,” Liddell said while stabbing a finger in the direction of the farm Brewer now called home. “It’s the assholes in that village who’re waiting for me to arrive.”
“They know you’re coming?”
“Maybe. Do you think I should take that chance?”
Clint thought back to when he and Ed had passed through that village. Even though he was fairly certain there hadn’t been any telegraph wires going through there, he had no way of knowing if anyone had ridden there to pass the word along.
“I guess you should go and see about those señoritas,” Clint said.
Liddell’s face lit up like a bonfire.
“Just don’t stay too long,” Clint added. “Remember, we’ve still got a job to do.”
“I won’t be long” was all Liddell said as he jumped onto his horse and rode away.
Clint watched the man hurry off and chuckled to himself. Liddell was absolutely right. He wouldn’t be long.
FORTY-TWO
“I really did miss you, you know,” Brewer said as he walked slowly along the tree line.
Patricia had to struggle to pay attention because she was busy looking around at the odd touches Brewer had made to the old farm. “Is that a man perched up in that tree?” she asked.
“Yeah. He’s one of the lookouts.” While saying that, Brewer waved to the lookout and got a quick wave in return. “Did you hear what I just told you? I said I missed you.”
“I heard.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Patricia’s first impulse was to lie to him just to keep Brewer happy. Then again, she knew that he wouldn’t believe her no matter how much he may have wanted to. “It’s hard to believe that, considering how you left.”
“You were torturing me, Patricia. I had to leave before I did something I regretted.”
“Like what? Hit me?”
The way Brewer turned away from her, someone might have thought he was the one who’d been hit. “I’ve never been more ashamed about anything than what I did to you. I won’t tell you I never hit a woman before, but I never should have laid a hand
on you. At least,” he added while running his fingers along her arm, “not in an unkind way.”
Brewer leaned in closer to her for a kiss. She could feel it coming as clearly as if he’d announced his intentions the day before. Still, there was a part of her that didn’t want to stop him. Even as she thought back to the things he’d done and the things he’d said, Patricia was also reminded at that moment of why she’d put up with those things in the first place.
When he kissed her, she knew she shouldn’t have let him.
When she kissed him back, she knew she was doing the worst possible thing she could do.
And the more she thought along those lines, the more she wanted to keep doing what she was doing.
Patricia parted her lips a bit and let the tip of her tongue brush against Brewer’s mouth. He responded instantly and with even more passion than she’d expected. When they moved away from each other, they stared into each other’s eyes for a couple of quiet seconds.
“I’ve been waiting for that for a long time,” he said. “I’d given up hope that I’d ever get it.”
“Don’t give me that. You left and you never looked back.”
“I left because I had to leave. I wasn’t just in that town to visit Rand. I was there to see about breaking him outta there. I poked around and nearly got caught one too many times. I might’ve been able to crack that prison open if I didn’t have more law dogs chomping at my heels. It got too hot, so I had to go. It had nothing to do with you.”
Patricia started to turn away, but found herself looking back at him. “That’s a pretty good excuse.”
“It ain’t an excuse. It’s the God’s honest truth,” Brewer said while raising a hand. “Why the hell would I leave a woman like you unless I had no other choice?”
“I always thought you left because you weren’t getting what you wanted from me.”
Brewer put his hands on her shoulders and moved them down along her sides. “You were frustrating as hell, sometimes, but I never wanted to give up on you. You’re here now, so that tells me something.”
“Really?” she asked. “What’s it tell you?”
“That you never really gave up on me.” Smiling as he leaned in for another kiss, Brewer stopped within a hair’s breadth of her lips and added, “And that you couldn’t go another day without seeing me.”
Patricia didn’t let him kiss her. She kissed him. In fact, she closed the distance between them so quickly that she could feel him pull in a quick breath. Although he reflexively backed away a little, Brewer was soon wrapping his arms around her and kissing her passionately.
Leaning back a little, but keeping her arms around him, she said, “It’s good to know I can still surprise you.”
“I’d like you to stay with me so you can keep on surprising me. What do you think about that?”
She nodded and gave him a smile that would curl any man’s toes in his boots. “I’ve got some big surprises in store for you.”
FORTY-THREE
The sun was on its way down to meet up with the western horizon when Liddell rode back into the old farm now occupied by Brewer and his rustlers. Liddell waved to the lookouts and didn’t pull back on his reins until he was about to stampede over one of the new men. Ignoring the warning glare on that man’s face, Liddell brought his horse to a stop and jumped from his saddle.
“Where’s Brewer?” Liddell asked.
“Over there,” the man said as he nodded toward the house.
“Put my horse in the barn, will ya?”
“Do it your own damn self,” the man grunted.
With his sights set on the house, Liddell waved over his shoulder and ran to the door. “Thanks,” he said to the new man.
Liddell pushed open the door and looked around the cluttered room to find Brewer sitting on an old chair with his feet propped up on a stack of dresser drawers.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” Brewer said.
“We need to get the hell out of here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where’s Patricia?”
Brewer got up and walked over to a crate of whiskey bottles. “She’s off somewhere making herself pretty.”
“Is someone watching her?”
“What in God’s name is wrong with you?”
Liddell finally caught his breath and forced himself to speak a little slower. “I decided to go along with you on this job.”
“I know. You already said that.”
“This time I mean it. There’s only one problem. You’re being set up, and this place ain’t safe no more.”
Brewer’s hand reflexively went to his holster. “You’d best start making sense real quick.”
“I was broke outta jail by a man who wanted to get to you.”
“And you brought him here?” Brewer snarled while drawing his pistol.
“You left me in that goddamn swamp and I wanted you dead. I changed my mind while we were riding here, but there wasn’t no way for me to get away.”
Brewer extended his arm and placed the pistol’s barrel up underneath Liddell’s chin. “You could’ve led him anywhere but here. You could’ve signaled the lookouts.”
“He would’a killed me!”
“I could kill you right now.”
Beads of sweat sprang from Liddell’s forehead and rolled down his face. As he struggled to think of something to say that might save his life, a shot cracked in the distance outside the window.
Keeping his gun pointed at Liddell, Brewer put his shoulder to the wall beside the window and carefully peeked outside. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, he heard another distant shot. A second later, he saw one of the lookouts topple from his tree.
“God damn it,” Brewer snarled. “You fucked me over, you piece of shit!”
“I swear, I didn’t! I came here to warn you!”
But Brewer’s attention was once again drawn to the window. The instant he saw Patricia running toward the house, he knocked out the glass and started firing wildly in the direction of the rifle shots. He then ran to the door to make sure she got inside.
“You all right?” he asked.
Patricia nodded. “They’re shooting at us!”
“I know, darlin’. This asshole set it up.” Brewer’s eyes narrowed and he added, “You were riding with him too. Were there other men threatening him?”
She looked at Liddell and stared him in the eyes for a second. She then started shaking her head. “He didn’t set you up. There were others, and I had to say whatever I could to get to you, but now I can be honest.”
“What happened?” Brewer demanded.
More rifle shots cracked through the air. This time, they were followed up by return fire from the second lookout as well as a few of the newly hired gunmen.
“There’s not enough time to talk about it,” she said. “There’s not a lot of men coming after you, but I know where they’ll be coming. We need to get away right now before it’s too late.”
As Brewer looked out the window again, he saw two of his men running and firing over their shoulders to try and provide some cover for themselves.
“One of ’em’s a real good shot with that rifle,” Liddell said. “The other’s the goddamn Gunsmith.”
“Are you joking?” Brewer asked.
Liddell shook his head.
“Maybe we should get the hell out of here.”
Patricia stepped in between Brewer and Liddell. She took Brewer’s arm in both of her hands and dragged him toward the door. “They’ll be coming and you won’t have a chance. They’ve got it all worked out and they’re just waiting for Clint to get here.”
“It’s really Clint Adams?” Brewer asked. “He came all the way into Mexico after me?”
“Yes, but if you don’t leave this house now, you won’t even see him coming,” Patricia insisted.
“I ain’t running away.”
“All you have to do is get away from this spot and you can come right a
fter him. Just don’t get trapped in this house or we’ll all die in here!”
Gritting his teeth, Brewer nodded and pulled her toward the back door. He stopped short so he could reload his pistol and then fired a few rounds as he kicked the door open. All of the rifle fire was still coming from the other side of the farm.
“Come on,” Patricia said as she took hold of Brewer’s arm again. “I know just where to go.”
FORTY-FOUR
Patricia ran from the farm as if she was merely in a race and not potentially dodging bullets. Brewer was right behind her, signaling to his men. The rifle shots had stopped coming, but that didn’t make him feel any better, since the second lookout had also been knocked from his tree.
“This is good,” she said as she came to a stop next to a trickling stream.
Liddell had caught up to them by now. He wheezed and panted for breath, which kept him from saying anything right away.
“Both of you knew about this,” Brewer snarled. “And nobody said a damn thing. I wanna hear an explanation and I want it right now.”
“You want an explanation?” Clint asked as he stepped out from behind one of the nearby trees. “Then I’m the man you should talk to.”
“He’s over here!” Brewer shouted. “Anyone who can hear me can surround this asshole and gun him down!”
After waiting for a few very quiet seconds, Clint shook his head. “Nobody else is going to hear you.”
Just then, two men ran toward the stream with their guns drawn. Clint snatched his Colt from its holster, aimed and fired in one smooth motion. A split second before he pulled his trigger again, another rifle shot cracked through the air and sent a bullet straight through the second gunman’s head.
“I wouldn’t worry about those others who rode up from the village,” Clint added as he shifted his Colt back toward Brewer. “We already took care of them.”
Brewer had his gun in his hand and a confused expression on his face. He bared his teeth like a hungry animal and started to lunge toward Liddell. “You son of a bitch!”
Liddell flinched and covered his head with both arms. “I swear, I don’t know what the hell is happening!”
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