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  “I can kick the door in if’n you want, Mr. Mather,” an arrogant, slightly nasal voice remarked.

  “That’s a good way for a man to get his head blown off,” the Gunsmith said sharply as he climbed out of bed and pulled on his trousers.

  The snide voice chuckled in response. “Feller must figure he’s pretty tough, Mr. Mather.”

  “That’s why I want to talk to him, Lloyd,” the first voice declared.

  “Then let’s talk,” Clint said, turning the key in the lock. “But make it brief and keep it friendly.”

  The door swung open. A coal-oil lamp in the hallway formed the silhouettes of the two figures, one tall and heavily built with a white stetson on top. The other man was short and wiry with a sombrero de corta flat-crowned hat on his head. Neither had a weapon in hand. Clint kept his Colt ready nonetheless as he crossed the room and lit the lamp on his table.

  Yellow light illuminated the features of his visitors. The large man’s face was tanned and deeply lined, suggesting constant exposure to weather. His features were Nordic—a straight nose, lantern jaw and pale blue eyes. He wore a checkered shirt with a string tie, clean denim trousers and boots in good condition. Even the white stetson on his gray-haired head was unstained by sweat or dirt.

  His companion’s face resembled an inverted triangle. The man’s features were sharp—a needle nose, pointed chin and small white teeth between thin, colorless lips. Dark blond hair, like dirty straw, extended from his black Mexican rancher’s hat to the collar of a soiled white shirt. He wore black leather pants and a matching vest. A low-hung holster on his left hip contained a .44 Remington with a modified backsight for additional accuracy and an extra-wide hammer for greater speed in cocking the single-action pistol.

  A gunhawk, Clint thought. He might as well wear a sign around his neck announcing it to the world.

  “Perhaps we should start with an introduction,” the first man began, wasting no time on apologizing for waking Clint. “My name is Jacob Mather. I own one of the largest ranches in this county. Basically, I raise cattle, but I also breed horses. Both have proven quite profitable.”

  “Maybe you’ve got the wrong room,” Clint sighed. “I’m not a writer for an Eastern newspaper, so I’m really not all that excited about hearing your success story.”

  “Got a big mouth, don’t he?” the wiry man snorted. He glared at Clint. “Maybe I oughtta learn you some manners.”

  “We didn’t come here so you two could see who’s faster with a gun,” Mather snapped.

  “Why are you here?” Clint demanded. Neither of the two men had done anything to make him welcome their visit and his normally even temper was rapidly reaching a boiling point.

  “Why, I’ve come to hire the Gunsmith, of course,” Mather smiled.

  “You want a gun repaired”—Clint shrugged—“see me tomorrow.”

  “Everybody knows you’re more famous for using a gun than tinkering with them,” Mather snorted. “Your heroics this afternoon prove that you haven’t lost your touch. Why, you and Stansfield Lloyd here are probably the best gunmen in the West.”

  “Stansfield Lloyd?” Clint raised his eyebrows.

  The wiry man in black smiled. “Heard of me, eh?”

  “Yeah,” the Gunsmith admitted. He hadn’t cared much for what he’d heard. Lloyd was a mercenary: Anybody could hire him if they had enough money, and he wasn’t particular if he drew on a dirt farmer or a professional pistolman. However, he’d beaten enough of the latter in fair face-to-face confrontations to prove he was fast and deadly with a gun.

  “If you’ve got him”—Clint tilted his head toward Lloyd—“what do you need me for?”

  “My daughter is engaged to a fine young man in Yuma,” Mather began, removing a stogie from his shirt pocket. “The train Linda will be on will travel through Texas and New Mexico to the Arizona Territory. As I’m sure you realize, that’s probably the wildest, most dangerous territory in the Southwest. Most of it is Apache country. Have you ever had any run-ins with the Apache, Adams?”

  “Enough not to want to have another one,” Clint confessed.

  “You afraid of the Apache, Adams?” Lloyd snickered.

  “You’d better be if you’re going into their territory,” the Gunsmith replied.

  “If you don’t have the guts for the job ...” Lloyd began.

  “I’ll decide who I hire,” Mather said sternly.

  “And I’ll decide if I’ll accept or not,” Clint added.

  “Here’s my offer, Adams,” the rancher said, striking a match on the side of the door to light his cigar. “I’ll pay you three thousand dollars to serve on the escort team to protect my daughter during the trip.”

  “Three thousand dollars?” the Gunsmith couldn’t help finding the offer attractive when he only had fifty dollars left in his bankroll.

  “Half now and half when my daughter arrives in Yuma.”

  “Who’ll be in charge of the team?” Clint inquired.

  “Me,” Lloyd smiled.

  The Gunsmith shrugged. “I’ll take the job anyway.”

  “Good,” Mather said, extracting a gold-plated pocket watch from his trousers. “It’s three twenty. Get your gear together. We’ve arranged for a boxcar to transport your horses and wagon. The train leaves at dawn.”

  Chapter Six

  Excited shouts of encouragement and groans of disgust mingled with the sound of fists striking flesh. Clint Adams, Jacob Mather and Stansfield Lloyd heard the commotion as they approached the train. Mather shook his head with despair.

  “Bruno is showing off again,” he muttered.

  “He’s a good man, Mr. Mather,” Lloyd remarked. “Just a little high-spirited at times.”

  “Bruno?” the Gunsmith inquired, leading Duke by his reins. A group of railroad personnel would see to getting his wagon and team into a boxcar, but Clint insisted on taking care of his prize black gelding himself.

  “He’ll be one of your traveling companions,” Mather explained. “Vargas and Markham are probably watching the show. You may as well meet everyone now.”

  They walked around the wide cowcatcher of the locomotive engine to the other side of the train. A group of men had gathered along the boxcars to watch as three combatants fought by torchlight. Most of the spectators wore dungarees and caps. None of the railroad personnel seemed pleased by the bare-knuckled contest. However, two onlookers laughed heartily as the battle neared its climax.

  All three men involved in the brawl were large and well muscled, but Clint assumed Bruno was the hulking brute with a shaven head who grinned as he sent one of the dungaree-clad opponents to the ground with a right cross. He was stripped to the waist, his big biceps and triceps bulging under his skin like the coils of a great serpent. Bruno’s chest was as big as a keg of nails and his shoulders were almost a yard wide.

  The third combatant was taller than the bald man, although not as thickly muscled. He seized Bruno from behind, but the brute simply shook him off and swung the back of his fist into the taller man’s face, knocking him to the ground.

  The first adversary rose and slammed a solid punch to Bruno’s jaw. His bald head hardly moved from the blow and he immediately drove a fist into the other man’s stomach. The railroad worker doubled up with a groan and Bruno sent him sprawling with a left hook to the side of the head.

  Snarling with rage, the second fighter launched himself at Bruno. The bald man still smiled. He caught the hurtling form in his massive hands and raised the startled man overhead as though he were a bag of grain. The unfortunate fellow screamed as Bruno savagely dashed him to the ground. The man’s back hit the earth hard. He moaned once, then lay still.

  Slowly, the first man rose to his hands and knees. “I give up,” he rasped breathlessly.

  “You sure?” Bruno inquired, stepping closer.

  He viciously kicked the man in the face. The vanquished opponent collapsed and lay unconscious, his jaw broken.

  “There weren’t no need
for him to do that!” one of the railroad men snapped.

  “That so?” This from a husky individual with a dark complexion and oily black hair that flowed from a straw sombrero to his shoulders; Clint correctly guessed he was Vargas. The man pointed at Bruno with the blade of a fancy ivory-handled dagger. “Maybe you like to teach him some manners, no?”

  The protester shook his head.

  “Shit,” a skinny young man who Clint assumed to be Markham snorted. He was dressed in a flashy red and yellow shirt, denim trousers, and boots with big silver spurs. The gunbelt around his narrow waist held twin Army Colts holstered to each hip. “Bruno took on both your men at the same time and whupped ’em. Don’t bitch about how he done it.” The youth’s hands draped the butts of his pistols to accent the warning.

  “You hombres bet on your boys and they lost,” the swarthy man remarked, tossing the knife in his hand to deftly catch it by the tip of the blade. “Now pay up!”

  Without further warning, Vargas threw the dagger. It whistled between the heads of two spectators and slammed, point first, into the side of a wooden boxcar. The railroad workers gasped in alarm. The knife thrower, his young companion and Bruno laughed at their startled expressions.

  “Well, Adams,” Mather commented with a grin. “Meet the rest of the team.”

  “Wonderful,” Clint replied dryly.

  Every instinct told him to quit and walk away from the job, but the fifteen hundred dollars in his pocket and the promise of another fat payment when they reached Yuma were powerful incentives to stay.

  Oh, well, the Gunsmith thought. Just how bad can the trip be?

  Chapter Seven

  The Gunsmith, Jacob Mather and Stansfield Lloyd climbed onto the train. Entering a passenger car, the rancher led them through the corridors. Coal-oil lanterns mounted on the walls illuminated the narrow hallway. Clint Adams glanced about the interior with admiration. The car was first class all the way. Flowery wallpaper and a blue carpet created a hotel atmosphere. The tinplated ceiling reflected the lamplight effectively dispelling the darkness.

  “You’ll get to know your . . . colleagues better during the trip,” Mather declared.

  “Yeah,” Clint replied without enthusiasm. He’d already seen enough to know Lloyd, Vargas, Bruno and Markham weren’t the kind of people he wanted to form friendships with, but this was business and the Gunsmith had worked with men he didn’t like in the past—and often for a lot less than three thousand dollars.

  “However,” the rancher continued, “I feel I should introduce you to Linda personally.”

  They approached a door marked 12. Mather lightly rapped his knuckles on it. “Linda?”

  “Daddy?” a feminine voice replied.

  “Yes, dear,” he confirmed. “I’d like you to meet a new member of the team who will be traveling with you to Yuma.”

  The door opened and a young woman appeared. Her blue cotton dress didn’t conceal the intriguing curves of her tall, lovely figure. Clint subtly examined the girl with an appreciative eye. Linda’s oval face was smooth and without blemish, framed by long locks of auburn hair. Her eyes were more green than blue with long curved lashes.

  “Linda,” Mather began, placing a hand on her shoulder. “This is Clint Adams, better known as the Gunsmith.”

  “Oh?” she cocked a frail eyebrow with interest. “The same Gunsmith we’ve heard so many stories about?”

  “When I hire protection for my only daughter,” the rancher said, “I hire the best.”

  “Well, I’m impressed, Daddy,” Linda’s wide, sensuous mouth smiled, but her tone was somewhat sarcastic. She turned to face Clint. “I certainly never expected to meet the Gunsmith. What an unexpected surprise.”

  “Please call me Clint,” he replied. “And the pleasure is all mine, ma’am. May I say you’re the best-looking company I’ve met on this train.”

  “Why, thank you, Clint,” the girl smiled and nodded.

  Mather frowned. Stansfield Lloyd glared at the Gunsmith, but Clint was more interested in the girl’s reaction than their opinion. She assessed his appearance with obvious approval and gazed intently into his dark brown eyes with bold interest.

  The rancher gripped Linda’s shoulder firmly, almost roughly. “Go and rest now, dear,” he said, a trace of gruffness in his tone. “We men have business to discuss.”

  “Whatever you say, Daddy,” she answered lightly, in a manner just short of mocking her parent.

  The girl returned to her room and closed the door. A dark emotional cloud seemed to cover Jacob Mather’s features as he turned to Clint.

  “You’ve got something of a reputation for being as handy with the ladies as you are with a gun, Adams,” he began. “So let me impress upon you that you’re here to guard my daughter on this trip and that’s all you’d better do!”

  “Flattering a pretty woman is sort of a habit of mine,” Clint shrugged.

  “That might not be such a healthy habit to have, Adams,” Lloyd hissed.

  “Linda is engaged to be married,” Mather said. “She’s spoken for. Don’t forget that.”

  “So I won’t say anything nice to her,” Clint sighed.

  “Just what am I supposed to do?”

  “Lloyd will tell you your duties,” the rancher answered. “And remember: He’s in charge.”

  “I reckon I can remind him if’n he forgets,” the pistolman smiled.

  “I bet,” Clint muttered.

  “Any questions, Adams?” Mather demanded.

  “Only one,” the Gunsmith replied. “I’ll get the rest of my money in Yuma, right?”

  “That’s what we agreed on,” the rancher nodded.

  “Who will pay me?”

  “Linda has the money,” Mather told him. “Don’t get any ideas about that either.”

  Clint clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth with disgust. “If you don’t trust me, Mather, why’d you hire me?” he inquired.

  “For your ability with a gun,” the rancher replied flatly. “Not your honesty. Although, from what I’ve heard about you and judging from what happened yesterday, I’d say you’re not a thief, just a killer.”

  “Every man is a lot of things,” the Gunsmith stated, “depending on the circumstances he finds himself in.”

  Chapter Eight

  Stansfield Lloyd addressed Clint Adams and the other three members of the escort team in a passenger car after Jacob Mather left the train. The Gunsmith noticed the majority of the seats were empty. Obviously, train travel in the Southwest wasn’t popular. Not surprising since bands of Apache, Comanche, Kiowa and other hostile Indian tribes had recently been raiding settlers and small units of cavalry from Texas to the Arizona Territory.

  The Gunsmith observed some of his fellow passengers. A portly man in a three-piece Eastern suit, totally out of place for the climate, sat opposite a gaunt minister. A tall raw-boned Texan and a plump woman were seated across from three sleepy-eyed children. All of them seemed to be purposely avoiding contact with Linda Mather’s escort team.

  Others were no doubt in their quarters, either sleeping or unpacking for the trip. Clint wondered why these people had decided to take such a damn fool journey through dangerous Indian territory. They probably have their reasons and they’d probably feel theirs are better than mine for being here, he thought. And maybe they’d be right.

  “Listen up,” Lloyd began. “You fellers know why you’re here. We got a job to do and we’re gonna do it right.”

  “Sure,” Markham grinned as he twirled one of his Colt revolvers on his trigger finger. “If’n any of those red niggers are stupid enough to attack this train, we kill ’em. Simple enough.”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Jimmy,” Lloyd growled.

  “Jimmy,” Clint said in a hard voice. “That gun isn’t a toy. Put it away before you have an accident with it.”

  Markham grinned without humor and tapped his chin with the barrel of his Colt. “And what do you reckon to do if’n I don’t, Guns
mith?”

  Clint sighed. The youngster needed somebody to teach him a lesson in manners as well as common sense. Sooner or later somebody would and the kid would probably die in the process, but Clint guessed there’d be enough opportunities for trouble on the trip without encouraging any with Markham or the others.

  “I’m talkin’, damn it!” Lloyd snapped. “But Adams is right, Jimmy. Shut up and quit playin’ with that gun like you was a baby with a rattle, for crissake.”

  “Sure, Stan,” the kid nodded and sullenly holstered his revolver. “Just you tell this Gunsmith feller not to try ‘n’ ride herd on me.”

  “I’m right here, Jim,” Clint informed him. “You don’t need any messengers. I just don’t like seeing somebody mishandle a firearm. Keep it in the holster until you intend to use it. Fair enough?”

  “All right,” Lloyd continued. “You fellers are all aware of the fact this train is goin’ through some mighty mean country.”

  “Hell, Stan,” Bruno muttered. The burly man now wore a checkered shirt and a gunbelt with a .44 Smith & Wesson in a belly holster. “None of those injuns are gonna be crazy enough to attack a big ol’ iron horse like this rig.”

  “Apache are loco enough to attack anything,” Vargas commented, lighting a black cheroot.

  “The redskins ain’t the only thing we have to worry about,” Lloyd added. “This train will be travelin’ close to the border and a big enough gang of Mex bandits might figure we’d be an easy target.”

  “That’s possible,” Clint allowed. “But I think any bandidos would figure we might be full of troops being transferred to cavalry posts. I don’t imagine they’d run the risk of tangling with us for that reason.”

  “You willing to bet your life on that, Adams?” Lloyd challenged.

  “I said it’s possible,” the Gunsmith explained. “I just don’t think it’s very likely.”

  “Unlikely things happen, feller,” Markham sneered. His hands were draped over the grips of his Colts as he glared at Clint.