“Why?”
“Because he didn’t try to lie about what he is. He said that everything you told me about him was true. Tell me, Brand, if he has no need to lie about himself, why would he have to lie about you?”
Brand was about to protest when he saw that it would do no good. Josephine finally knew who he was, and what he was.
“Josephine—”
“He also said you killed the sheriff in this room, broke his neck. Is that true?”
Jesus! Brand thought. Had Decker seen that? How was that possible?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t deserve to live. He was trying to blackmail me. He tried to shoot Decker in the back, and he killed a whore to try and blame Decker for it.”
“Then he was no different from you or Decker. You’re all killers.”
“Yes.”
“My God—” she moaned. She started to sit at the kitchen table and then suddenly stiffened and jumped away. “God! I can’t even live here anymore.”
“Josephine,” he said. He moved to touch her but she flinched. “We can go somewhere else—”
“How can we?” she asked. “How can I forget what happened here? How can I forget the lies?”
“I never lied to you,” he said. “I never told you what I did when I was away, and you never asked.”
“No, you’re right,” she said. “I never asked. I’m just as much to blame for all of this as you are.”
“Nobody’s to blame—”
“He doesn’t want to kill you,” she said, “he just wants to take you back.”
“So they can kill me,” he replied bitterly. “Make me dance at the end of a rope.”
“Please!” she said, clapping her hands to her ears.
“That’s what they’ll do to me, Jo. They’ll hang me.”
She removed her hands from her ears and said, “Only if you deserve it.”
He stared at her then, knowing that he had finally lost her, as he’d always known he would someday.
“All right,” he said dejectedly.
“You’ll turn yourself over to him?”
“Where is he?”
“At the Broadus House.”
“I’ll go and see him.”
“I’ll go and tell him you’re coming,” she said.
“There’s no need,” he assured her. “He knows I’m coming.”
“How?”
“Believe me,” Brand said, “he knows.”
When Brand left the house without his gun Jose phine assumed that he was going to turn himself over to Decker.
She was wrong.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Decker was surprised when the Baron walked into the saloon, which was empty except for him and the bartender. Potts had consented to open it, once Decker told him why.
Decker was surprised not only that the Baron walked boldly into the saloon, but also by the fact that he was unarmed.
The Baron—who, he now knew, was called Brand in Broadus, and, hell, maybe that was even his real name—walked right up to Decker’s table.
“Decker?” he asked, his voice devoid of all emotion.
“That’s right.”
“I am Brand—or, as you know me, the Baron.”
“Have a seat.”
“You see that I am unarmed.”
“I noticed.”
Brand sat directly across from the bounty hunter.
“You realize what that means?”
“You’re here to talk.”
“Yes, but lest you think you can hold me because I am unarmed—”
“You’d make me kill you.”
“Exactly. You would have to be willing to shoot down an unarmed man in front of a witness,” he said, inclining his head toward Potts, who was still behind the bar.
“You want me to leave?” Potts asked Decker.
“No need,” Decker said. “All right, Brand, let’s talk.”
“I will not go back with you,” Brand said quickly, “not alive.”
“That doesn’t leave a whole hell of a lot for me to say, does it?”
“I am asking you to leave Broadus and forget about me. I do not want to kill you.”
“Nor I you, but there doesn’t seem to be any other way—unless you want to change your mind and come with me willingly.”
“I cannot do that. I would be submitting myself to a hangman’s noose.”
Decker knew what that was like and unconsciously touched his own neck where a noose had once rested.
Brand seemed to notice the move and narrowed his eyes as an idea struck him.
“That’s why you carry that noose with you, isn’t it?” he said suddenly. “You’ve had it around your neck, haven’t you? Maybe you’ve even had that one around your neck.”
Decker was surprised at the man’s perception and was thrown off balance by it.
“I don’t think we’re here to discuss my past,” he said lamely.
“Still, if that is your past, how can you justify bringing men in and subjecting them to the same—”
“I don’t have to justify myself to anyone,” Decker stated forcefully, “least of all to you.”
Their eyes met, and for a few seconds, neither man said anything.
“Are you prepared to come with me willingly?” Decker finally asked, breaking the silence.
“No.”
“Then you’d better get up and leave while you can. I’ll be coming for you today—unless you run.”
The man called the Baron laughed then.
“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Decker said, “just as I am afraid of you. You’d be a fool not to be.”
“Josephine was right about you,” he said and rose. Decker did not ask him to explain the remark.
The bounty hunter watched the Baron leave the saloon, wondering if he shouldn’t have tried to hold him while he had him. He might have been able to do it without killing him if he had played his cards just right.
Or maybe he wanted to kill him. Maybe what Brand had been saying about the noose and all was too close to being right on the money.
“You just let him walk out!” Potts said in amazement. “What if he runs?”
“He won’t run.” Decker looked at Potts and said, “Too early for a drink?”
“For me to serve or for you to drink?” Potts asked, but he poured it without waiting for an answer and took it to Decker’s table.
When Brand got back to the house Josephine was not there. He assumed that she had gone back to the store. That was just as well, he thought. There was no point in trying to talk to her now. Might as well wait for this thing to be over before trying to patch things up with her.
He went up to the bedroom and pulled out his gun again. He had put it back after Josephine caught him with it. Now he pulled the big Colt .44 from his holster and began to clean it.
Decker sat in the saloon and worked on his drink. It was all over now but the shooting, and the when and where of that seemed to be up to him—that is, unless Brand chose to hole up in that house. Then Decker would have to go in and get him. Somehow, though, he didn’t think that would be the Baron’s style. If he died, he’d want to die on his feet, in the street, and if he killed Decker, he’d want it to be face to face.
As would Decker.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Almost afraid to breathe, Josephine had stood in a doorway waiting for something to happen in the Broadus House across the street. When Brand finally came out and started down the street she realized that she had been holding her breath.
Her first thought was to run after Brand and go home with him, but he wasn’t the same man she had known and loved for so long and home wasn’t home anymore, either.
Once Brand was out of sight, she hurried across the street and into the saloon. Seeing Decker sitting alone at a table, she approached him.
Decker saw Josephine enter the saloon. Somehow her presence didn’t
surprise him.
When she sat across from him, he asked, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please,” she said in a whisper. He noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Potts!” Decker called. “Can we get some coffee?”
“Sure.”
When Decker looked back at Josephine she was clasping her hands tightly together, as if she too had noticed that they were trembling and was trying to stop them.
“I saw him leave,” she said. “Was—was anything resolved?”
“Yes,” Decker said. “He said I won’t take him alive.”
She closed her eyes and bit her lip.
“I knew it,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“Josephine—”
“No,” she said, holding up her hand. “It’s all right. It surprises me, but I think I understand.”
Potts came over with a pot of coffee and two cups. Decker poured the coffee and pushed a cup across the table to her.
She looked at the cup but did not touch it.
“I—don’t know where to go,” she said finally. “I can’t go back to—to that house. I can’t go back to him…and yet I still love him.”
“Of course you do,” Decker said. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“But he has,” she moaned. “He’s ruined everything between us.”
“I ruined everything between you.”
“No,” she said. “If it hadn’t been you who came after him, it would have been someone else. You can’t take any blame for something he brought on himself.”
Decker didn’t reply to that. He sipped his coffee and waited for her to continue talking.
“I can’t go back to work,” she said. “I just can’t face anyone—” She looked at him and said, “This will be resolved today, won’t it?”
“Yes,” he assured her. “One way or another, it will.”
“When will you go after him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you, uh, agree…”
“You mean didn’t we agree to meet in the street at a certain time?”
She nodded.
“It’s not done that way, Josephine. No doubt he’s gone back to your house to get his gun. He may wait for me there or he may come out. I might sit here for a while or I might go out into the streets. Sooner or later we’ll be facing each other, and that’s when it will happen.”
“How—how can you stand—to wait?” she asked. “Either of you?”
He smiled.
“A man can always wait to die, Josephine.”
“Are you prepared to die?”
He thought back to that day he’d stood on the gallows with a rope around his neck.
“I’ve been prepared to die for a long time.”
“You amaze me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Do you think I could stay here…until it’s all over? I couldn’t stand to see…”
“Potts!” Decker said.
Potts had been listening, and he said, “Sure. I could use the company.”
Decker wished she would get up and leave, because if she stayed he would have to leave. He couldn’t possibly sit there with her watching him.
“I don’t know…what to do…” she said lamely.
“Just sit here,” he told her, “and wait.”
He stood up, pushing his chair back. As he started past her to the door, she grabbed his arm with both hands, a desperate look in her eyes.
“Don’t—” she started, then her voice broke. Abruptly she turned away from him and said, “Be careful.”
Decker was sure that was not what she had intended to say.
After Decker left, Potts walked over to the table and asked Josephine, “Would you like me to heat this coffee up?”
For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard him, and then she looked at him and said, “May I have a glass of whiskey, please?”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Decker sat in a straight—backed wooden chair in front of his hotel and cleaned his gun. When that was done he picked up his rifle and cleaned that as well. He had a clear view of the street and, with his back to the wall, there was no chance of anyone getting behind him.
It was the thought of Josephine sitting in the saloon that finally prompted him to rise, pick up his rifle, and start down the street toward her house.
Might as well get it over with and not make the poor woman wait, he thought. Brand wondered where Josephine was, then pushed all thoughts of the woman from his mind. He couldn’t very well concentrate on Decker if he was thinking about her.
He strapped on his gun and checked his rifle one more time. He looked out the parlor window just in time to see Decker walking toward the house.
So this was it.
“Brand!” Decker called out when he stood directly in front of Josephine Hale’s house. He couldn’t even be sure if Brand was inside anymore.
“Brand! It’s time to leave, Brand!”
Decker waited, wondering if he should go to the back door and try to get in. He doubted that Brand was going to come out and just face him in the street.
He was about to move when he heard glass breaking and saw the barrel of a rifle poke out the window.
“Decker!”
“I’m here.”
“Come on in and get me, Decker. You don’t think I’m coming out there, do you?”
“It would be a lot easier.”
“Forget it,” Brand said. There was a shot, and some dirt was kicked up at Decker’s feet.
Decker knew that Brand had missed on purpose. He had simply fired to signify that this was it.
“I’m coming in,” Decker said.
“Come ahead!”
Before Brand could fire again Decker ran to his right, out of sight behind a nearby building. From there he worked his way around behind the building, and then to the back of Josephine’s house. He flattened himself against the wall and carefully made his way to the back door, first peering into the kitchen window.
Next to the back door was a wooden bin which was probably used for wood. Ducking low and moving as quickly as he could, Decker got to the bin and opened it.
As he suspected, the body of Kyle Roman had been squeezed inside. Brand must have had to break the corpse’s legs to fit him in there, another testament to the man’s strength.
Decker closed the bin, took a step back, and, holding his rifle chest-high, kicked the door with all his strength. Wood splintered, and the door crashed open. Decker went in quickly, holding the rifle out ahead of him. The kitchen was empty, and he flattened himself against a wall, listening intently, watching the door to the rest of the house.
For all he knew, Brand could have gone out the front door. Before he could verify that, he was going to have to check the whole house. If Brand wanted to run, he had plenty of time to go to the livery, saddle a horse, and get out.
Decker was counting on Brand’s readiness to finish this here and now. He was certain the Baron was not the sort of man who’d run.
Sliding along the wall, he worked his way to the doorway and slowly peered around the corner. He found himself looking into the parlor. From his vantage point he could see the window that Brand had broken. The front door was still closed, so if Brand had left the house, he had closed the door behind him. If not, then he had most likely gone upstairs.
Decker eased into the parlor, his rifle ready, and checked behind the sofa. Confident that the room was empty—and, in fact, that the first floor was empty—he moved to the stairway. He listened intently, trying to hear some indication that Brand was upstairs. The scrape of a boot, the creak of a floorboard would have been welcome, but there was nothing.
Slowly, he started up the stairs, taking them one at a time, alert in case any of them creaked, giving him away.
Finally he reached the top step, sweat dripping from his chin. The inside of the house had become oppressively hot. His hands were slick on the metal of his rifle, and he wiped
them on his pants one at a time.
At the top of the stairs he had to step around a corner in order to get a look at the second-floor corridor. Knowing that Brand would never fall for such a trick, he took off his hat anyway, hung it on the end of the rifle, and dangled it around the corner.
Nothing.
He put his hat back on, steeled himself, and then leaped into the corridor, staying low.
The corridor was empty.
There were apparently two rooms on this floor, one behind him and one in front of him. The room in the front would overlook the street.
Decker backed down the corridor to the room behind him, stopped just past the door and then repeated the technique he used to open the kitchen door. He hoped Josephine wouldn’t be too upset about all the broken doors.
This room was empty. Not only was there no one in it, there was no furniture in it, either. There were some cartons on the floor, but none large enough to hide a man. It was obviously used as a storeroom.
That left the front room, which must be the bedroom.
He moved down the corridor to the door, listened for a few seconds, then kicked it open and ducked inside. He swiftly covered the room with his rifle, first left, then right, but there was no sign of anyone there. Quickly, feeling foolish, he checked under the bed and in the closet, then stood up straight. Brand had obviously left the room, but where had he gone?
Decker was about to leave when he saw something on the window. Moving closer, he realized that it was a piece of paper hanging from the window lock. He walked over to it, saw that it was a note, reached for it—then cursed and threw himself to the floor just as a shot shattered the window.
“Shit!” he said between his teeth.
He had almost allowed himself to be suckered into standing in front of the window.
Cautiously he moved to the window on his knees, avoiding the broken glass, and peered up over the window ledge. He was in time to see Brand retreating toward town.
Decker grabbed the note off the window and sat with his back to the wall to read it.
DECKER,
MEET ME IN TOWN FOR A HOT TIME
THE BARON
It was an invitation he couldn’t refuse.
Bounty on a Baron Page 11