Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
Teaser chapter
No Match
Dave’s hand snapped to one side as Clint’s bullet sparked against his gun . . .
Even after the shooting had started, Clint hoped to frighten the men away with a minimum of spilled blood. Now that one of those men was dead, the chance for an easy resolution was gone. Clint wasn’t about to take time to grieve the loss of a man who’d tried to shoot him, so he climbed into his saddle and looked around for the other two gunmen.
“Leave well enough alone,” Clint said in a voice loud enough to be heard by anyone in the vicinity. “You made a mistake in coming after me once. Don’t make that mistake again.”
With his warning still drifting through the air, Clint left Acklund and Mose behind. Their kind of stupidity was its own punishment.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
BALL AND CHAIN
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / December 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Robert J. Randisi.
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ONE
It was an easy job. Clint knew that much the moment he’d been asked to do it. Normally, he would have passed on such an easy job simply because it wasn’t interesting enough to hold his attention and didn’t pay enough to make it worth his while. After all, if someone wanted a parcel delivered, there were services to do such things and plenty of young riders looking to make a few quick dollars.
But when he was asked about the job, Clint couldn’t shake his head because there was a piece of sharpened steel being held to his throat.
“I don’t know about that, Ned,” Clint said carefully. “It’s really not the sort of job I do.”
Ned Smith let out a sigh and took the razor away from Clint’s throat. After cleaning it off on the towel draped over his shoulder, he pushed Clint’s chin up and scraped a few more times. “I know you’re not a scout or a courier, but there ain’t anyone else around to do the job. I asked all the young bucks around town, but they’re either more interested in drinking their time away or they’d rather ride south instead of north.”
“What about the post office?” Clint asked. “I hear they’re real good at delivering things like the parcel you’ve got. Well . . . pretty good anyway.”
“The post office is closed up and my parcel is real fragile. If it gets broken along the way, I might as well have tossed out the money I used to ship it. Besides, I may not even hear for a few weeks if it does get there or gets lost or whatever. Besides that, there’s a balance that needs to be paid upon delivery. That’s why I thought I’d hire someone to run it on up into Hinterland for me. You can keep the balance as your fee for the job.”
Clint started to sigh again, but felt Ned’s razor scraping a few more times along his neck. “Hinterland, you say?”
“Yep.”>
“Where is that?”
“Right across the border into Oregon,” Ned rep
lied as he fell back into the tone of voice he used to strike up a conversation with anyone who sat in his chair and paid for a shave. “Beautiful place, it is! Ever been up that way?”
“Yeah,” Clint replied. “I have some business in Oregon.”
“Perfect! Wherever you’re goin’ in Oregon, Hinterland’s got to be on the way.”
“Is it on the way to Beaver Falls?”
After folding his razor and setting it down, Ned wiped away the remaining lather on Clint’s face. “Beaver Falls?”
“It’s due west, about ten miles past the California border and within eyeshot of the Pacific.”
“Oh,” Ned grumbled. “Maybe it’s not on the way there, but it can’t be too far out of the—”
“I’ll pass,” Clint interrupted. “How much do I owe you for the shave?”
“You’ve still got a trim coming up. You did say you wanted the daily special, right?”
Clint looked toward the door to Ned’s barbershop as if he were hoping to see a rescue party coming for him. All he saw was a few empty chairs and a crooked rack that held his coat and hat. Sunlight came in through a large front window, throwing a shadow of the lettering Ned had painted upon the glass. That lettering advertised the daily special of a shave and haircut, which Clint had asked for the moment he stepped through the door. Apparently, it was too late to change his mind now.
“I did ask for the special, but—”
“Good!” Ned said as he spun Clint’s chair around and reached for his scissors. “I’ll give you your trim and you can think over my proposition. You’ll stand to make a decent profit for an easy ride.”
“What’s the parcel?” Clint asked.
Settling onto the stool next to the barber chair, Ned asked, “Does it matter?”
“Of course it—”
“Sit still,” Ned scolded. “I’ve got scissors in my hand.”
Settling into his chair as Ned clipped away, Clint said, “Of course it matters. For all I know, that parcel could be more trouble than your fee is worth. It could be illegal.”
“It’s not illegal.”
“Then what is it?”
Ned pulled in a breath and held it as he evened out one side of Clint’s hair. Moving his stool so he could get to the top of Clint’s head, he mumbled, “It’s a piece of art.”
That caught Clint by surprise. He blinked a few times and tried to think of something else he might have heard. Deciding his ears were just fine, Clint asked, “You mean, like a painting?”
“Sort of.”
Clint did his best to get a look at Ned without moving too much. The large mirror hanging from the wall in front of him made that task a whole lot easier. Watching Ned in that mirror, Clint said, “Well, now you’ve appealed to my curiosity.”
“How about I appeal to your greed? I’ll add another ten dollars on top of the balance that’s due upon delivery. That’ll give you close to a hundred dollars when it’s all said and done. Well . . . thereabouts anyway.”
“That just makes me more curious. What kind of art are you talking about? And why do you look like you’d rather crawl into a shell than talk about it?”
Glancing up nervously into the mirror, Ned didn’t seem any happier with meeting Clint’s gaze that way than looking into his eyes directly. “It ain’t illegal and it ain’t any trouble for you to carry, other than it’s fragile.”
“You’re the one that got me to stay here and listen to you,” Clint pointed out. “I was about to leave after the shave, but now you started cutting my hair so you might as well finish. You don’t strike me as the sort that would be so rude to not talk to your customer while you’re working. I mean, isn’t that part of your job?”
“No need to tell me what my job is or isn’t.”
Despite Ned’s cross tone of voice, Clint kept his friendly smile in place and his eyes locked upon the barber’s reflection. When he saw the embarrassed way Ned kept glancing at the mirror, Clint had to fight to keep from laughing.
“Come on, Ned,” Clint said. “You’re squirming worse than a boy at his first visit to a cathouse. What could be so bad?”
Ned looked around at the rest of his shop. Even though Clint was the only customer in the place, Ned glanced over at his window to make sure nobody was about to walk in. No one other than Clint was interested in the daily special, which grated against the barber for a reason other than the lack of business.
“It’s flowers,” Ned grumbled.
“What?”
Speaking in a sharp growl, Ned said, “The art is flowers. I . . . cut the petals and leaves, arrange them into pictures, and fix them onto a board. Some lady up in Hinterland saw my work when her pa was riding through town and she put in an order. I finished it and she offered to pay triple what I was expecting to get and now I need to deliver it.”
Clint furrowed his brow as he tried to imagine what sort of picture the barber was describing. “That sounds . . . pretty.”
“Go on and laugh, but it ain’t easy to make.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. Why don’t you deliver it yourself? I’m sure this lady and her pa would like to meet the artist.”
Snapping at Clint’s hair with the scissors, Ned replied, “I got a business to run and I don’t have time to—”
“Ow!” Clint yelped as the scissors snipped off a little chunk of his earlobe.
“Dammit. Sorry about that.” Reaching for a towel and dipping it in some water, Ned swiped at the little patch of blood. “It ain’t too bad. If you want to go, you can leave. No charge for the trim.”
Clint touched his finger to his ear and only found a bloody nick. “Finish the haircut, but slow down some, all right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’d rather be known as a barber than an artist?”
“Folks around here consider painting as something that’s just done to walls and fences. If word gets out that I do . . . well . . . what I do with flowers, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Another ten dollars on top of the original offer, huh?”
“And I’ll pay for your expense, including one night in a hotel once you get to Hinterland,” Ned quickly added.
Clint had meant to accept the job without trying to squeeze the barber for any more of his money. But since Ned offered it up so easily, Clint was certain that Ned’s artwork was more than valuable enough to make up for the difference. In the end, Ned seemed like a nice enough fellow and Clint was basically headed in that direction anyway. A bit of extra money in his pockets couldn’t hurt.
TWO
There wasn’t much to iron out about the details of Ned’s delivery. It was a straightforward job that involved riding from one place to another. Ned rattled off plenty of details about his artwork, but most of that seemed to come out in a rush once he realized Clint was one of the few people he could talk to about the flower pieces. All Clint needed to concern himself with was that the art was delicate and not to be dropped. It was also going to be delivered to the stable where he’d rented a stall for Eclipse.
The back of Clint’s head was still itching from his haircut when he finished his early supper. Running his hand along the fresh cut on his ear, Clint hoped Ned was a better artist than he was a barber. Otherwise, the man might be out of business real soon.
With only one saloon in town, there wasn’t much to keep Clint occupied. He’d only been there for three days and the locals already knew to steer clear of him when he sat at a poker table. The beer served at that saloon tasted more like the barrel it was stored in, which didn’t leave many other reasons for him to dawdle. Clint was thankful when he got to the stable and found something waiting there for him.
“This was delivered here,” a little blonde wearing jeans and a checkered shirt said as she walked toward Clint. Her boots were just as worn through as any cowboy’s, but the curves beneath her shirt made her stand apart from a typical stable worker. Dot had always shown a smile to Clint since he’d first arrived. She’d also kept her s
hort blond hair tied into pigtails, even when she’d stayed with Clint after the stables had been locked up for the night.
The package in Dot’s hands was the size of a framed painting and wrapped in brown paper as well as several lengths of twine. “That’s from Ned?”
“Sure is. What is it?”
Although Ned hadn’t spelled it out as such, Clint knew well enough that the barber wasn’t anxious for anyone to know that he put together frilly designs made out of flower scraps. Keeping his poker face intact, Clint shrugged and said, “Just a picture of his shop he wants delivered to Oregon.”
“A picture of his shop? Who does he know in Oregon?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s comparing notes with some other barber.”
It wasn’t a perfect explanation, but it was enough for Dot. She shrugged her shoulders and handed the package over to him. “Well, here you go. Are you fixing to leave soon?”
Clint accepted the package that was all but tossed his way. Doing his best to put it under his arm without looking like he was cradling a baby, he nodded. “I’ve got business of my own in Oregon. There are some old friends of mine who need someone to watch their backs for a while.”
Dot sidled up to him and ran her hands down along Clint’s chest. “Sounds exciting.”
“Not as such. They’re trappers looking to strike out into uncharted territory. I’m a little more familiar with the area, so I offered to go along as a guide.”
“More than just a guide, I’d wager,” she said as she reached down to touch the modified Colt holstered at Clint’s side.
“Things could get rough,” he told her. “That’s why they want me to go along instead of just anyone with a sense of direction.”
Dot’s face was smooth and her rounded cheeks made her look at least five years younger than she was. Now that she was close enough, Clint could even smell the fresh scent of her hair. “Still sounds exciting to me. But I’d prefer it if you stayed around for a while to watch my back.”
Ball and Chain Page 1