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  “We’re doing this fool a favor, killing him,” Mason whispered in turn.

  Without a word, Thronton eased over to the stall door and unhooked it. Standing to the side of the stall, the speckled barb tossed him a glance and chuffed under its breath. “Easy, now . . . ,” Thornton whispered, Shaw’s bottle of whiskey in his left hand, his Remington cocked and poised in his right. To the two men behind him, he said in a hushed voice, “He’s not in here.”

  “What the hell . . . ?” said Stobble, moving closer to Thornton’s side and peeping over at the drooping hammock hanging along the stall wall. Mason moved in and stood beside him.

  “This fool must think he’s a sailor,” Mason said, eying the empty hammock.

  Thornton straightened from a tense crouch, unhooked the stall door and stepped inside. “He’s no sailor,” he said, lifting Shaw’s dusty swallow-tailed coat on the tip of his gun barrel and inspecting it closely.

  “Maybe he thinks he’s one of them British chimney sweepers,” said Mason.

  The three eyed the hat and coat in the glow of the lantern. “Whatever he thinks he is, he must’ve heard us coming and had sense enough to cut out before we got here,” said Thornton.

  “He left without his horse?” said Stobble.

  “Naw, I don’t think so,” said Mason, looking the speckled barb up and down. “Maybe he went out back to the jake.”

  “I’ll go see,” said Thornton.

  “Hold on, Thurman, damn it,” said Stobble. “We’ll all go together.”

  But Thornton only shook his head and walked away. “I think I can handle this saddle tramp by myself,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Let him go,” Mason said to Stobble. He wagged the bottle in his hand and pulled the cork. “We’ll have ourselves a little drink while he’s—”

  Mason’s words stopped short at the sound of loud metallic twanging as Thornton stepped through the rear door into the morning gloom.

  “What the hell was that?” Stobble said, ignoring the bottle and clasping his hand tighter around his gun butt. He moved to the open rear door in a crouch and called out in a whisper, “Thornton? Are you all right—?” His words were cut short beneath the same twanging sound as he flew back onto the dirt floor, his nose flattened and pumping a stream of blood.

  At the sight of Stobble lying knocked cold, Mason tensed like a coiled rattler. But he remained back away from the open door, the bottle of whiskey in hand, his gun cocked and ready. “All right, you son of a bitch!” he called out through the whir of wind. “Your game’s over! Step into sight with your hands high and I won’t kill you!”

  When no reply came from the open door, he took a step backward and called out, “If this is the way you want to play, it’s straight-up fine with me! You won’t be the first two-bit saddle tramp I ever had to—” His words also stopped short as the wind gusted and slammed the rear door shut.

  The suddenness of the slamming door caused him to drop the bottle on the dirt floor with a loud yelp and run backward, firing shot after shot into the thick plank door. When his gun hammer fell on an empty chamber, he turned and bolted out the front door into the glooming morning light. But his flight stopped when he tripped across Shaw’s outthrust boot and lunged face forward into the dirt.

  Shaw swung a long-handled shovel low and sidelong, smacking the gunman full in the back of his head just as he raised himself from the ground. The loud twang resounded again, sending another strong vibration up Shaw’s arms into his already throbbing head. Damn. . . .

  He pitched the shovel aside and walked into the barn, cupping a hand to the side of his head. He picked up his hat and the bottle of rye and walked out the rear door. He walked toward the dimly lit saloon, staying off the main street, which had begun to come alive with voices and raised lantern light.

  In front of the hotel, Dexter Lowe stood shirtless, hastily strapping on his gun belt and shoving his hair back out of his face. Three of his men ran up beside him, buttoning their trousers and checking their guns. “The shots came from the livery barn,” said a young wild-haired gunman named Sonny Lloyd Sheer. He held his Colt poised in his right hand; his gun belt hung from his shoulder.

  “Who’d you leave on guard tonight?” Lowe asked in a demanding tone, his voice gruff from sleep, alcohol and cocaine.

  “Mason, Thornton and Stobble,” Sonny Lloyd said, the whole group moving forward as one along the dirt street toward the barn.

  “Damn . . . ,” Lowe said under his breath, “that could be the whole problem right there.”

  As they drew closer to the barn, a fleshy young whore named Tuesday Bonhart came running from the hotel wearing nothing but Lowe’s long wool shirt and battered broad-brimmed Stetson. “Wait up, Dexter!” she called out loud enough to get the men’s attention.

  “What the hell?” said Lowe, looking back over his shoulder. “Get the hell out of here, Tuesday, before you get your ass shot off.”

  “I brought you your hat and shirt,” said the young whore. Running up and hurrying along barefoot at his side, she pulled the Stetson from atop her head and offered it to Lowe.

  “Yeah . . . ?” Lowe looked her up and down, snatched the hat and shoved it down onto his head. “And what does that leave you wearing back to the hotel?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” said the young woman with a giggle. She jerked the shirt closed across her large breasts, but she didn’t bother trying to button it.

  “Dumb whore,” Lowe whispered to himself. In a louder voice he said to her, “Stay back out of the way!”

  “You said I could ride with you and your boys to Mexico,” Tuesday said, pouting.

  “Does this look like us riding to Mexico to you?” asked Lowe.

  Before she could reply, a figure came staggering toward them from the direction of the livery barn. “Dex, it’s Thornton!” said Sonny Lloyd.

  Thornton staggered in place, then slumped and sank to his knees in the street as the men ran to him. Lowe propped the bloody gunman’s head onto his knee. Seeing the gaping wound in Thornton’s chest, Lowe asked quickly, “Who did this to you, Thurman?”

  “Is it lawmen, detectives?” Sonny Lloyd asked, leaning in close, his gun still poised for action. He cut a guarded glance toward the livery barn.

  Thornton choked on his blood and only managed to raise a trembling bloody finger toward the livery barn. “Mason . . . and Stobble . . . dead.”

  “Who shot them, Thornton?” Lowe demanded of the dying man.

  Lowe pointed toward the dimly lit saloon. But when he struggled to speak, Lowe realized that no more words were going to come from his lips. “Damn it.” Lowe dropped his head to the dirt and said to the men who stood staring toward the saloon in grave anticipation, “All right, spread out. We don’t know how many there might be in there!” To a short, stocky gunman named Earl Hardine he said, “Earl, find Mason and Stobble, and see if they’re still alive. The rest of yas follow me.”

  Chapter 3

  At the saloon, Shaw stood with his head bowed, his hat off and lying atop the bar. A full shot glass and the bottle of whiskey stood before him. The old liveryman stood looking out the dusty window toward the livery barn where the gunmen had gathered in the silvery-gray morning light.

  A few townsfolk looked on through cracks in ragged curtains and from partly opened doors. Behind the bar the bartender said to Shaw in a quiet voice, “I expect that must hurt something fierce.”

  “That’s what everybody says,” Shaw replied. He sipped the whiskey without raising his head.

  A moment of tense silence passed, and then the bartender ventured, “Well . . . does it?”

  Shaw just looked at him without raising his head. He sipped more whiskey.

  The bartender asked, “Do you mind saying who it was shot you?”

  “I have no idea,” Shaw said, not wanting to get into the particulars of the incident. He had, in fact, a real good idea who had shot him, but it wasn’t the sort of information he wanted to shar
e with anyone, especially a bartender.

  “An ambush, huh?” the bartender pressed.

  “Let it go, Mister . . . ,” Shaw said in a low menacing tone.

  “Damn, J.W.,” said Radler, turning from the dusty window and looking over at the bar. “Can’t you see my friend here is in pain, and doesn’t want to jaw about how it happened, who done it or nothing else?”

  “I was only trying to make conversation,” said the bartender.

  “Well, you’re going to have plenty of time to make conversation soon as Dexter Lowe and his gun-monkeys get here,” said the liveryman. He looked at Shaw as he walked over and stood beside him at the bar. “I except you will too, pard,” he said in a softer tone, realizing Shaw’s pain. “Is there anything I can do for you before they come barging in?”

  “Naw,” Shaw said, his head still lowered. “You might want to get out of here. Things could get dangerous here any minute.”

  The bartender rolled his eyes upward a bit, as if realizing that Lowe and his men were going to make short work of this wounded stranger.

  “I ain’t worried about it,” said Radler. He gave a short devilish grin. “This town has been bullied around by these gunmen long enough. It’s time somebody stood up to them.”

  Shaw gave him a pointed look.

  “What I mean is, somebody who’s as tough as they are, which I’m betting you are, Mister . . . ?” He let his words trail, hoping for an introduction. But none came.

  “One man against Lowe and his killers?” said the bartender. Again he rolled his eyes slightly at the improbably of it.

  Raising his head enough to look across the bar at the bartender, Shaw asked, “Do you have a clean bar towel I can cut a couple strips out of?”

  “You mean for a fresh bandage?” the bartender asked, eyeing the dirt- and bloodstained wrapping on Shaw’s head. Even as he asked he reached under the bar and produced a clean, neatly folded bar towel.

  “No,” Shaw said grudgingly, not wanting to talk and further encourage the pain inside his wounded head. He bit down on an edge of the towel and ripped a strip off as the two men watched.

  “I get it,” said Radler, watching Shaw rip the strips in half, then into the two smaller strips that he rolled into tight little balls. “Loud noise makes your head hurt worse, does it?”

  “That’s right, Radler,” said Shaw. He stuck one cloth ball into his right ear and laid the other on the bar near his left hand. He slid the bar towel back to the bartender. “Obliged,” he said.

  “Obliged . . . ?” The bartender just looked at the ragged-edged towel. “Hell, you’ve ruined it.”

  “Dang it, J.W.,” said Radler, “Why do I have to keep reminding you how bad my pard here is hurting?”

  “Yeah, but still,” said the bartender, fingering the now worthless towel, “towels don’t come free to me.”

  “I’ll pay you for it,” Shaw said quietly. He reached into his vest pocket for a coin.

  But J.W., who had been studying Shaw’s face, finally found a spark of recognition. “Did I ever see you in Somos Santos, Texas, Mister?”

  “It’s possible,” said Shaw, laying a coin on the bar top. “I’m from there.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” said the bartender, realizing who he’d been talking to these past few minutes. He backed away, snatched a derby hat from a wall peg and jammed it down onto his head on his way out from behind the bar.

  “Here’s for the towel,” said Shaw, gesturing toward the coin.

  “Never mind, it’s on the house!” said the bartender, sounding shaken by his recognition of Shaw. “So’s everything else right now. I’m closing!” He hurried toward the rear door, snatching his coat from a wall peg on his way.

  “Closing . . . ?” Radler called out. “What the hell’s got into you, J.W.? There’s fixing to be a gunfight here.”

  “Nothing’s got into me,” said J.W. “I’m skedaddling out of here before the trouble starts! If you’ve got any sense, Radler, so will you!” he added. Without slowing down to wait for the old liveryman, he swung open the rear door, stepped out and slammed the door behind himself.

  “What the hell got him so rattled?” Radler asked, dumbfounded. “I know he’s seen his share of fighting in here, guns, knives or bare knuckles.”

  Shaw nodded toward the rear door. “Why don’t you go too?” he said softly but with finality.

  “Huh?” Radler looked surprised. “What if you need some help? J.W. keeps a short-barreled twelve under the bar. I can get it and see to it everything—”

  Shaw raised a hand, cutting him off. “You want to help? There’ll be a couple of lawmen coming before long. Tell them you saw me.” He didn’t want to reveal any more than he had to to get a message to Dawson and Caldwell.

  “You mean you want me to sic the law on you?” Radler asked, looking puzzled. “I mean, that is, if you still, you know . . .”

  “Alive?” Shaw said, finishing his words for him. “Yeah, sic them on me.”

  “I’d rather you let me get that scattergun and tar the walls with their—”

  “Obliged, but I’ll be all right,” Shaw said with quiet confidence, cutting him off again. He gave a stiff gesture toward the rear door. “Go on, get out of here.”

  When Dexter Lowe and his men reached the street in front of the saloon, the morning gray had begun to lift beneath the first rays of sunlight. The wind from the desert had died down to a lower whir as it moved off across the dusty sand basin like some large retreating beast. Earl Hardine stayed at the livery barn, looking around.

  “Hey, in the saloon, lawdogs, bounty hunters, whatever you are!” Lowe shouted, flanked by Sonny Lloyd and New York Joe Toledo. “Are you going to come out or are we going to come in and get you?” Off to their right a serious-looking gunman named Dan Sax stood with a rifle poised and ready. Behind Lowe stood the half-naked young whore.

  “There’s only one of me in here,” Shaw called out from inside the otherwise empty saloon. “I’m not coming out. If you want me, come on in.”

  “By hell we will come in there,” said Lowe. “It makes us no difference. You don’t shoot three of my men and expect not to pay the reaper for it.”

  “I didn’t shoot any of your men,” Shaw called out, his own voice accelerating his pain. “I only swatted their lights out with a shovel.”

  “Swatted them . . . ?” Lowe said to Sonny Lloyd standing beside him.

  On his other side, New York Joe Toledo said in his deep, growling voice, “We all heard the shots, Dex. Besides, I’ve never seen a swat from a shovel leave a man spitting up his busted lungs.” He raised his voice toward the saloon. “This man is a lying no-good sonsabitch. He shot these three! Now you’ve got to answer for it. You hear me in there?”

  “I hear you,” said Shaw, “but you’re dead wrong. I didn’t shoot those men.”

  Lowe shouted, “Then who the hell did?”

  Shaw didn’t answer. Instead he grimaced in pain and kneaded his temples with both hands. “What the hell do I care?” he said under his breath.

  “All right, let’s get ready to rush him,” Lowe said to the others.

  Back in the direction of the livery barn, Earl Hardine called out, “Dex, wait! I’ve got Mason here! He ain’t shot. He’s just been knocked cold!”

  “What the hell’s this?” Lowe said to no one in particular. He watched Hardine help Mason stagger along the middle of the street toward him.

  When the two stopped in front of him, Earl Hardine said, “He’s got a knot the size of a melon the back of his head. His gun was lying in the dirt empty. It was still smoking some when I got there.”

  “What about Stobble? Did you see him anywhere?” Lowe asked.

  “Yeah, I saw him. He’s dead,” said Hardine. “Shot all to hell . . . got a chest full of splinters too. His gun was fully loaded.”

  “Splinters?” Lowe asked.

  “Yep,” said Hardine. “It looked like he was shot through the rear barn door. It’s full of bullet holes
too.”

  “You’re saying Mason here was the one doing the shooting?” Lowe asked pointedly, looking Mason up and down curiously.

  “It sure looks that way,” said Hardine, Mason standing half knocked out, his arm looped around his shoulder. “I haven’t gotten much sense out of this knocked-out sonsabitch yet.” He shook the dazed gunman a little as he spoke. “See what I mean?”

  Mason’s head wagged limply; he mumbled incoherently at Hardine’s side.

  “Yeah, I see,” Lowe said skeptically. “Hey, Mason, wake up!” he shouted, roughly slapping the groggy gunman’s face back and forth. A long string of drool swung down from his lips to his chin. “Tell us what the hell happened back there. Did you get spooked and shoot Thornton and Stobble?”

  Mason’s lowered head bobbed a little. “He can’t hear you, Dex,” said Hardine with sarcasm.

  “I can fix that,” said Lowe. He jammed his pistol barrel up under Mason’s chin and cocked the hammer. “Here’s how it goes, Bell. You either straighten up right now, or I’m sending you on the longest journey of your worthless life.”

  “Don’t shoot him, Dex, please!” said the half-naked young whore. She stood cringing behind him with her hands over her ears.

  “Wait—wait a minute, Dex,” said Mason as if through a foggy veil. “I’m coming around some. I’m just having trouble staying awake and talking.”

  Hearing the grogginess in Mason’s voice, Dex gritted his teeth and said, “Adios, Bell, I’ve got no time for the weak and afflicted.” He jammed the barrel tighter as if to pull the trigger.

  “No, please, Dex!” Mason said in a frightened but more coherent voice. “I’m all right, look!” He opened his eyes wide above his swollen crooked nose. “I was just knocked out for a while is all!”

  “Look, Earl, we’re seeing a miracle here,” said Lowe with a bitter twist to his voice. He gave Mason a rough shake. “You better tell me what the hell happened back there and make it quick.”

  “It all went crazy, Dex, I swear to God,” said Mason in a frightened whimper. “This man had already done something to Stopple and Thornton, I just didn’t know what! For all I knew he’d slit their throats. I was alone. He slammed the door! I started shooting. But I never shot Thornton or Stobble, I’m damned positive!”