Torrence met her gaze. “Maybe you’re too curious. You’ve heard how that worked out for a certain cat.”
“I’m no cat. I’m a woman.”
Torrence took a final drag on his cigarette, flipped away the butt. Then he chuckled again. “Very well, my curious kitten. It may amuse you to know that I’m thinking about a little place called Buffalo Peak.”
Leticia arched a brow. “Buffalo Peak? Isn’t that . . . ?”
“Yes. It’s where those two drifters who passed through here the other night are headed. As a matter of fact, their babbling is what got me to thinking about it as a possible spot for us to pay a visit.”
“Is that a proposal? We’re not going there to get married, are we?”
“I was thinking of something more along the lines of eloping with all the money they have in their bank.”
She smiled. “For that, I would be honored to serve as a bridesmaid.”
Torrence stood up and began to pace. “Everything those simpletons said about the place—except for the nonsense about getting married—sounded quite accurate. I was telling the truth when I told them I’d heard of the area before. The quiet little town in the valley below the Vieja Mountains, well isolated from any other town close by, surrounded by a growing number of cattle ranches and farms. You add all that up and what else do you get? A plump little bank somewhere smack in the middle, that’s what. There’s got to be, in order to handle the money for the merchants and ranchers and the like. It may not be the richest haul we could go after, but it’s like a ripe, juicy peach on a low-hanging branch . . . it’s too damn good to pass up.”
“What kind of law do they have protecting it?”
“That’s another thing that makes it attractive. Actually, overhearing somebody talk about the law in Buffalo Peak is what first piqued my interest. They put badges on a couple mossy old mountain men who also run a string of horses outside of town. Part-timers. Fresh from trapping beavers or skunks or whatever. And now they split their time between wrangling hayburners and keeping the peace. Does that sound too fearsome for us to dare go up against?”
“What it sounds like is more and more inviting all the time,” said Leticia, eagerness evident in her voice.
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Torrence nodded as if in response to his own question. “In fact, hearing myself say those things out loud pretty much made up my mind.”
“What about those two drifters, though? If we’re going to be heading that way soon, is there any chance of them queering our play in case we run into them when we get there?”
Torrence shrugged. “I don’t see how. In the first place, we’re not going to be lollygagging around for very long once we arrive. You know our style—smash and grab, in and out quick. If we should happen to run into Charlie and Josh, we could merely say that hearing them carry on about Buffalo Peak made it sound so inviting we decided to pay a visit for ourselves. Simple as that.”
“That works.” Leticia gave an abrupt little laugh. “Besides, if they follow your advice about picking out their future brides, then they should have already been there and gone by the time we show up—gone with the lucky women of their choice slung over their shoulders.”
“We should only be so lucky.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? If Charlie and Josh took my advice seriously—along with some very sincere-sounding input from you, I might add—and they really did proceed to haul off a couple fair maidens the way we suggested, can you imagine the turmoil such a thing would put the town in? That’s why I said it would be lucky for us. It would be a distraction that would make plucking the bank even easier.”
Leticia’s brow furrowed. “But it’s not possible for somebody—especially two somebodies—to be gullible enough to truly swallow that line of bunk you fed them . . . is it?”
“When I started out,” Torrence said, his expression sobering as he replayed the scene in his mind, “I certainly never thought so. I could see right off they were a pretty dull-minded pair, so I set out to have a little fun. You know, stringing them along a little. But thinking back, the more we carried on the more they seemed to be gulping it down. Damn, now I’m not so sure! I think they may have actually believed us.”
“Jesus,” Leticia murmured. “I hate the thought of them maybe dragging off a couple innocent girls all on account of . . .”
“Never mind that! Charlie and Josh aren’t the kind to hurt anybody, even if they did go through with . . .” Torrence let his words trail off. Then, abruptly, he smacked his right fist into his left palm. “But if they end up doing something we can take advantage of, then by God we’re not going to pass it up. Come on, I think it’s time to go inside and let Romo and Black Hills know we’ll be riding out in the morning.”
CHAPTER 7
“It troubles me to see you like this,” Kate Mallory was saying. “You’ve had to shoot and kill men in the line of duty before. And before that, up in the mountains, you killed to survive. Animals, Indians, other trappers looking to rob you of your pelts . . . I don’t mean to imply you ever took it lightly or that killing was easy for you. But always in the past, when it was necessary, you were able to come to grips with it for that reason. Because it was necessary. I realize it’s easier to say from my position—the outside looking in—but I’m not sure I understand why this is so different, especially since you’re not even the one who pulled the trigger on Orval Retlock.”
As he sat listening to these words, Firestick hung his head morosely over the glass of bourbon Kate had poured for him. The two of them were in Kate’s private office at the Mallory House, the hotel Kate had taken over following the death of her parents. It was late. The building around them and the street outside were quiet. An oil lamp affixed to the wall had its wick set low, casting Kate’s smoldering dark beauty in a soft glow.
After settling in the area, starting up the horse ranch with his partners, and taking on the job of town marshal, Firestick had thought his move down out of the mountains was working out about as good as it could get—until he met Kate. Not only met her and felt a stirring for female companionship like he’d thought he was long past, but in time discovered she harbored similar feelings toward him.
Their relationship of well over a year now remained rather private, not exactly a secret to many people around town but also not something they overtly displayed. As two people who’d gone a long time without a romantic interest in their lives, they were willing to take a little longer and let things develop at a comfortable pace.
Rolling the glass of bourbon slowly back and forth between his palms, Firestick replied to Kate’s comments, “I think maybe that’s the part that’s botherin’ me the most, the fact that I left it to Moosejaw to pull the final trigger on Orval, yet I was the one who killed him. By shootin’ him in the hand to begin with, just cripplin’ him, I killed his spirit just as sure as if I’d put that first bullet in his brain. He even said as much himself. I let him live with that crippled spirit until somebody else had to come along and finish the job for me.”
“But he was trying to kill you. Moosejaw had no choice but to do what he did.”
“No, Moosejaw didn’t. But I did. The first time I tangled with Orval in the Lone Star Palace, I shouldn’t have wounded him the way I did.”
Kate looked confused, on the brink of incredulity. “Are you saying it would have been better to kill him on the spot?”
“The way he looked at it, it would have been. For some men, takin’ away their right hand is like takin’ away everything they are, a part of ’em they can’t stand to be without. You’ve seen fellas who came back from the war missin’ a limb, an arm or a leg, maybe both. Lord knows how many of ’em might better have been killed outright in battle, the way they saw it. Some adapt, some never do. They either end up blowin’ their brains out or turn into useless puddles of misery. Lookin’ back, I figure Orval’s time in that cell gave him too much time to think and he panicked over seein�
�� himself maybe goin’ that route.”
“So what happened to him was unfortunate. Maybe even tragic. But there’s still no call for you to heap so much of it on yourself.”
Firestick threw back his bourbon and then brought the emptied glass back down heavily on the desktop that separated them. “Damn it, Kate, you don’t even shoot an animal out in the wild and leave it to run off just wounded. You either do the job right to begin with or you follow up and finish it quick and clean. You don’t leave the poor dumb beast to suffer.”
“But you weren’t out to kill Retlock in the first place,” Kate pointed out. “You were there to tame down the trouble that he was a big part of causing. You tried to give him a break by disarming him before somebody did get killed.”
“I could have just clubbed him across the back of the head like I ended up doing anyway,” Firestick argued, “or maybe put my bullet in the meaty part of his arm instead of bustin’ his hand all to hell.”
“Yes. And since he was armed with two guns from what you yourself told me—one of them being a sawed-off shotgun—he could have found a way to cut loose and harmed a whole lot of people, one of them possibly Beartooth or maybe even you, if you would have wasted time sorting through all your options instead of taking fast and effective action.”
“Orval Retlock, if he was still around, might have something to say about that ‘effective’ part.”
Kate had picked up the bourbon bottle to pour some more. She stopped abruptly with the bottle raised partway. “Alright, that’s about enough. This second-guessing, self-pitying person sitting across from me is not the man I know and fell in love with. I’m proud it was me you chose to open up to, and I wish I had more to say that might be helpful. But I don’t . . . except I wish that other fella would come back around now.”
Firestick regarded her for several seconds, his expression hardening some, his mouth tightening. Then, slowly, his features relaxed. He managed a lopsided smile.
“Tell you what,” he said. “You finish pourin’ some more of that bourbon instead of just wavin’ the bottle around, I think that other fella might be ready to have himself a slug.”
Kate poured. “But before you drink that, maybe I do have one more thing to add,” she said.
Firestick wrapped his hand around the glass but didn’t raise it.
“I think a part of what’s bothering you about Retlock is a . . . I want to say fear, though that’s not a word very applicable to anything about you . . . a fear that if anything ever happened that left you physically impaired the way he saw himself, you might have the same kind of outlook toward it as he did.”
Firestick’s response was very calm, almost matter-of-fact. “I think you’re right. If I lost my right hand, or an arm or a leg, I believe it’d really knock me low. I don’t know if I could handle it.”
“I think you could. You’re the strongest man I know. And I don’t mean just physically, but mentally and spiritually, too.”
“That’s for others to say, not me.” Firestick shrugged. “But as far as endin’ up in the kind of sorry condition we’re talkin’ about, it ain’t something I fear. If it came to that, if I was strugglin’ with it hard, my way out is already set.”
“What do you mean? I don’t see you as the suicidal type.”
“Wouldn’t have to be. Beartooth or Moosejaw would take care of it for me, same as I would for either of them if the situation was reversed. It’s a kind of pact we made with one another many moons ago.”
Kate’s eyebrows lifted. “Well. I guess I can’t top that.”
Firestick took a pull of his bourbon. “It’s not a contest, Kate. What you mean to me . . . us bein’ able to talk like this . . . Well, men are kinda funny. Even after all the years me and Beartooth and Moosejaw have stuck together, I don’t think I ever could’ve had this particular conversation with either of them.”
Kate reached across the desk and put her hand on his. She smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I never want to come between you three—not that anybody ever could—but at the same time I’m glad to know I hold a special place with you.”
“Don’t ever doubt that, gal.”
Kate withdrew her hand and sat back in her chair. The corners of her mouth curved up in a different way, her smile turning impish. “On second thought, when I said I couldn’t top that old pact of yours, maybe I was selling myself short. A couple things occur to me that I bet could at least make a pretty darn good run for the money. It’s been a while since you’ve been up to my apartment, in case I’m not speaking plain enough.”
On the nights when Firestick was the one who made the late rounds in town, he invariably finished up with a stop at the Mallory House to spend some time with Kate. Usually she would be waiting for him in her office where they would visit and share a couple of drinks, like tonight. When the mood moved them, they would sometimes retire to Kate’s apartment at the rear of the hotel where they would pass the time a bit more intimately.
So when Kate extended her invitation tonight, there was certainly no hesitation to the response.
Rising and coming around the end of her desk, she said coyly, “Since it has been a while, you remember the way okay, don’t you?”
“With my eyes closed,” Firestick assured her as he, too, stood up. “And having you in the lead, I can always feel my way.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” said Kate, brushing by him and letting one hand trail lightly across his cheek.
CHAPTER 8
“There now, sir,” announced Eb Squires as he removed the protective striped cloth that had been draped over the front of the man in his barber’s chair. “All trimmed and shaved from the neck up and ready for the freshly drawn, steaming hot bath waiting for you in the back room.”
The man in the chair sat up straight and leaned forward a bit, though without making a move to rise right away. First he took the time to carefully study his reflection in the wall mirror, lifting his chin and then turning his head slowly to either side.
“I hope everything looks satisfactory, Mr. Shaw,” said Eb. “I didn’t apply any hair tonic or bay rum, since you’ll be bathing right away. But there are bottles of each back there for you to use when you get out of the tub, along with some body talc and a brush and comb. Oh, and a mirror, too, of course.”
Rupert Shaw uncoiled from the chair and smiled. He was a moderately tall, trim, classically handsome man in his middle thirties. He had pale brown hair and equally pale brows above clear green eyes. When he aimed his smile at the barber, he displayed even, white teeth. A small mole just above the left corner of his mouth appeared to be the only flaw in his features.
“Very adequate, my good fellow. Very satisfactory indeed,” he told Eb. He then turned to a third man also present in the barbershop, an individual who had been seated, waiting patiently, but who’d come to his feet as soon as Shaw did. “Pay Mr. Squires, Oberon. Be sure to give him a generous tip.”
“I appreciate that,” Eb was quick to say. “It’s really not necessary, but I do appreciate it.”
“Nonsense. Good service, especially provided on short notice, deserves proper recompense.”
The man Shaw had addressed as “Oberon”—one Oberon Hadley in full—counted out some crisp bills from a thick wallet and handed them to Eb. In sharp contrast to Shaw, Hadley towered four inches over six feet tall, was massive through his trunk and shoulders, and had a rough-hewn, gloriously battered face that no one had likely ever referred to as handsome and certainly not in the past dozen of his near-forty years after it began to accumulate the marks of many a conflict. He was dressed in a well-cut suit of top-quality material, much as Shaw, but on Hadley the outfit looked about as ill suited as boots on a buffalo.
To Eb’s eyes, however, the wad of bills the big man held out made him look just fine.
Gesturing toward a curtained doorway at the back of the room, Shaw said, “I gather my bath is through there?”
“That’s right,” Eb repli
ed. “My boy Harley is back there, too, heating some more water in case you want it. If you need anything else, let him know. If he doesn’t respond quick enough, raise a holler to me and I’ll see that he hops to it.”
“I laid out your fresh clothes back there as well, Captain,” said Hadley, addressing Shaw. “I’ll be after gettin’ me own trim and shave from Mr. Squires here, then I’ll be back to check on you.”
“Sounds like I’m being cared for almost to the point of being pampered.” Shaw smiled again. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
At that moment, the front door of the shop burst open rather recklessly and a large man sauntered in. He was of a height and girth equivalent to Hadley, clad in rumpled, dusty range clothes, and sporting a chinful of bristly black whiskers. Milling behind him, part of them still out on the boardwalk that ran in front of Squires’s barbershop and extended to other businesses lining the east side of Sierra Blanca’s main street, were three more men of a similar stamp, though not as large. The dust from their clothing and wide-brimmed hats lifted in a gust of wind off the street and swirled into the shop.
“Hey, close the damn door,” Eb barked irritably from where he was placing the money he’d just been paid into a cash register. Then, turning, when he saw who the new arrival was, his chin sagged noticeably and his face turned a shade whiter.
Black Whiskers peeled back his lips to form a sneer. “What’s your bitch, Squires? How the hell do you expect customers to get in if they don’t use the damn door?”
Eb’s head bobbed agreeably. “Of course, Ollie. That only makes good sense. I . . . I was reacting to the dust, that’s all. Customers expect a barbershop to be clean and free of dust.”
“That’s what brooms are for, ain’t it?” Ollie Tamrack countered. “Hombres like me and my boys come in here to get whisker-scraped and scrubbed down, then it falls to you to clean up afterwards. That’s the way it goes. Besides, it gives that half-wit boy of yours something to do. What else would he be good for?”
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