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  “Believe me, Marshal,” Clint laughed. “Those men in Dallas will make things a whole lot hotter than we could have managed. The richer cattle barons have a knack for making an example of people who steal from them.”

  Reluctantly, Graham nodded. “I suppose you’re right. What about Brewer himself? Has anyone heard from him?”

  “Actually, I had a friend of mine working on that.”

  “Would that be the same friend who nearly burned down his room at Jennie’s house of ill repute?”

  Blinking a few times in surprise, Clint said, “That’s the one.”

  “Don’t be so amazed, Adams. I still do a good job of keeping an eye on things. I was rather hoping to hear you’d put that man behind bars.”

  “And I was rather surprised to know an upstanding fellow like yourself hadn’t shut down Jennie’s place a long time ago.”

  “Jennie has always minded her manners,” Graham said with a shrug. “Therefore, I don’t mind allowing her to run her business. Shutting her down would only cause less reputable places to spring up in its place.”

  “You sound very knowledgeable on the subject,” Clint pointed out.

  “We do have whores in Britain, you know.” For the first time since Clint had known him, Graham actually laughed. Unfortunately, that seemed to cause him more than a little discomfort. When he was able to catch his breath, Graham said, “I honestly do thank you for working in my stead.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m just glad to see you up and around.”

  “But don’t think I forgot about my original query,” Graham added. “That friend of yours isn’t the sort I’d like to have in my town.”

  “What if he was able to track down Chuck Brewer?”

  Graham paused so he could keep measuring his breaths while holding on tightly to the engraved head of his cane. “I don’t believe in vengeance.”

  “Brewer’s wanted for a lot more than stealing cows. Let’s just say you’re one of the few who’s gotten out of a fight with him alive.”

  “You don’t need to remind me of that. I was the one responsible for getting some of those men killed.”

  Clint leaned forward with his elbows on his knees so he could be sure to catch all of Graham’s attention. “Those men didn’t deserve what they got, but they knew the risks when they signed on to that posse. You all did a hell of a lot better than all the other posses that set out after Chuck Brewer.”

  “Maybe, but he’s still out there.” After reflecting on that for a while, Graham gripped his cane and struggled to his feet. From there, he started working his way into the office. “I’m going to sift through whatever mess you left on my desk and don’t try to stop me.”

  “I wouldn’t dare try to stop you. That mess looks like a tornado hit it.”

  Graham stopped in the doorway and turned around just enough to look at Clint again. “I truly appreciate you keeping your word. That kind of honor is a rare thing anymore.”

  “Here,” Clint said as he took the badge from his chest and handed it over. “This belongs to you. If you need any help, you know where to find me.”

  Tightening his fist around the badge, Graham walked inside and took his rightful place behind his desk. He soon let out an exasperated sigh when he saw the mess Clint had been talking about.

  TWELVE

  Clint walked down the street, which led him straight into the heart of Sailsby’s entertainment district. Since the town was small and relatively quiet, that district consisted of the other major saloon, a gambling parlor and Jennie’s Fine Wines.

  Although the scantily clad women lounging on Jennie’s front porch weren’t fooling anyone regarding their profession, they at least all carried glasses of wine in their hands. Clint stepped right up to them and received plenty of interested glances from the girls. One of them, a dark-skinned woman with generous curves, strutted right up to him and placed her hand on the spot where his badge used to be.

  “You on your own time, Marshal?” she asked with a slight Southern accent.

  “You could say that.”

  “I know a real good way to spend that time. You won’t even have to spend much of anything else. At least, not as much as most folks.”

  Clint allowed himself to be stopped by the working girl and even allowed her to place his hand upon her well-rounded hip. “What about Ed Beene?” he asked. “Did he have to pay full price too?”

  Snapping her head back suddenly, she asked, “You mean that crazy fool who almost burnt this place down last night?”

  “That’d be the one.”

  “He’s damn lucky I didn’t drag ... well ... you over here to kick him out.” She leaned in and whispered, “If you make sure he pays all of what he owes, I’ll bet there’s a few ladies who’ll be real grateful.”

  “I need to find him first.”

  “Step right inside,” she told him. “If the boss lady wants you to know where he is, she’ll be the one to tell you.”

  Clint stepped around her and patted her backside as he passed. “I’ll see what I can do about Ed’s bill.”

  The inside of Jennie’s did a real good job of maintaining the illusion of a winery. The floorboards were polished to a dark shine. Bottles were stacked in racks and shelves throughout the entire bottom floor, and every curtain, pillow or cushion was colored a deep burgundy. The dark-skinned woman outside had kept Clint busy long enough for the girls inside to throw on some clothes and instruct the piano player to switch to Chopin.

  “Well hello there, Marshal,” a woman in her late forties said as she walked up to greet Clint. “What brings you here?”

  “I heard there was a little fire here the other night.”

  “Just a small one. It looked worse than it was. Those things happen.”

  “You’re not fooling anyone, you know.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Clint had to grin at the effort the madam put into looking truly perplexed by his statement. “This isn’t an official visit. I’m here to look in on a guest of yours.”

  Deciding to take Clint at his word, the madam relaxed and said, “I thought you were missing that pretty piece of tin you’ve been wearing.”

  “Graham’s wearing it again.”

  “Oh really?” she asked, raising her eyebrows to the juicy bit of gossip. “He’s up and about?”

  “For the most part. He’s also got plenty of men willing to lend a hand with his duties, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Where’s Ed Beene?”

  The madam’s normal instinct to protect her clients’ interests was quickly set aside since Clint had already proven himself to be more than friendly. Besides that, she also seemed genuinely relieved when she asked, “Are you taking him out of here?”

  “If that’s what you’d prefer.”

  “Upstairs and to the right,” she said. “Room number three.”

  Clint followed the directions, knocked on the door and waited for it to crack open. A pretty, young face peeked outside at him. Before Clint could say a word, the madam hollered from downstairs, “It’s all right, sweetie. Open up and let Mr. Adams in.”

  Following the madam’s request, the young lady stepped aside and let Clint walk in. Ed was laying asleep on the bed, twisted up in a sheet that looked uncomfortable as hell.

  Clint tugged on the sheet until Ed was balancing on the edge of the mattress. “Wake up, Sunshine,” he said.

  “Huh? What the hell? Goddamn, Clint, your timing is for shit.”

  “If we’re going on that trip you were talking about, we’d better get moving.”

  THIRTEEN

  Clint and Ed rode south at a steady pace. Sailsby was behind them, and already Clint was feeling like he was ready to run ahead of Eclipse to get even farther into the open terrain. Although he was more than willing to go along, Ed wasn’t quite so anxious.

  “Yer timing couldn’t have been better,” Ed chuckled.

  “That’s not wh
at you said before.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well ... that’s when I thought I might be able to get another round or two out of that lady. Turns out, she’s a shrewd businesswoman.”

  “Either that, or she didn’t appreciate almost going up in flames.”

  Ed laughed and shook his head. Removing his hat, he ran his fingers through his hair and asked, “You heard about that, huh?”

  “The whole town knew about it. Word tends to spread awfully fast when a place nearly burns down and takes God knows how many other places along with it.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as all that.”

  “Then how bad was it?”

  “Me and that lady were havin’ our fun,” Ed replied. “Things got a little wild and I knocked over a lantern.”

  Clint looked over to the other man with narrowed, distrustful eyes.

  “Fine,” Ed grunted. “The lantern was on the wall.” When he saw the look still on Clint’s face, he added, “All right! Things got a lot wild. And I was drunk. I didn’t even know there was a fire till that old lady kicked in my door and threw water all over the place. I damn near lost the steam in my pecker if you know what I mean.”

  As much as he’d tried to keep a straight face, Clint was only human. He busted out laughing and couldn’t stop for over a minute. “You kept going?”

  “Sure! That little lady I bought was pretty, and all I had was some water on me. Come to think of it, I might pay extra to do that again sometime.”

  “You’re a piece of work, Ed.” “Shit, Adams, don’t tell me you never got into some predicaments while you was compromised with a lady.”

  “I hardly even know what that means.”

  Ed shook his head and scratched himself as if he was sitting alone on his porch on a summer day. “With all the ladies you been with, you know damn well what I mean.”

  Clint’s first reaction was to let that subject drop like something to be trampled beneath the horses’ hooves. Then he found himself saying, “Well, there was this Italian woman in Sacramento.”

  “There you go! That’s the Clint Adams I remember! Let’s hear all about her.” Suddenly, Ed looked around and pointed to the east. “First we need to get onto the right trail. We can catch a route to Louisiana a few miles in that direction.”

  “We’re not going to Louisiana.”

  Ed pulled back on his reins and brought his gray gelding to a stop. Seeing that Clint wasn’t stopping only fanned the flames that were burning in his eyes. “What the hell did you say?”

  Clint wanted to keep moving. If he thought there was any way of sidetracking Ed long enough to get a little farther, he would have done it. Unfortunately, one of Ed’s greatest strengths was sinking his teeth into something and not letting go.

  Pulling back on his own reins, Clint steered Eclipse around so the horses were facing each other. “I said we’re not going to Louisiana.”

  “You told me we were taking that trip I talked about. The only trip I talked about was going to Callahan State Prison, and Callahan’s still in Louisiana.”

  “You talked about Old Mexico before mentioning Callahan.”

  “Yeah, and I believe I said Old Mex was a death trap unless we knew how to get in there.”

  “It might have been a death trap when you were on your own,” Clint pointed out. “Now you have a partner.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t put much into what folks said about you. It sounds to me like you think you’re mean enough to walk in there without getting a scratch.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “Then why the hell even try when I know for a fact it can’t be done?” Ed snarled.

  “First of all, I don’t like hearing that something can’t be done. All that tells me is that nobody’s been able to do it right. It also tells me that someone sitting behind a reputation like that might just be getting lazy enough for someone to walk right up to him and put him in his place.”

  Clint leaned forward with one elbow resting upon his saddle. “Brewer killed some good men right under my nose,” he said. “He almost killed a marshal, not to mention all the others that he’s gunned down over the years. The men who came in from Dallas to collect those other prisoners told me about dozens of others who are dead because of that bastard, and I’m not about to let him get away.”

  “Then maybe you should go on your own.”

  “You’re the one who knows how to get to wherever Brewer is holed up.”

  That didn’t have much of an impact on Ed. He simply grumbled under his breath and started riding back toward Sailsby.

  “You also must know the price that’s on Brewer’s head,” Clint pointed out.

  That did have an effect on Ed.

  “I already put in plenty of work on finding this asshole,” Ed said without turning his horse back around.

  “Which is why you’d be entitled to more than half of the reward.”

  “Eighty percent?”

  Clint laughed once, which sounded more like he was coughing on some dust. “If you’d already done eighty percent of the work, you would’ve caught Brewer by now.”

  “Fine. What about seventy-five percent?”

  “I can live with that.”

  Ed grinned for a second and then narrowed his eyes as if he were looking straight through Clint’s mind. “You said that awfully quick. What if I asked for eighty?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  After a few seconds, Ed slowly nodded. The longer he thought about it, the faster his head moved. “Yeah. I’m askin’.”

  “I thought we were friends, Ed. Now you’re raking me over the coals for an extra five percent?”

  “Five percent of a fortune is still a lot of money.” Smiling like a cat with canary feathers stuck in its teeth, Ed added, “Twenty percent is a good-sized chunk too.”

  “You’re a conniving prick sometimes, you know that?” Clint asked.

  “Yeah. I know that. Do we have a deal?”

  Grudgingly, Clint extended his hand. “We’ve got a deal, but if you think I’m doing all the dirty work ...”

  “Dirty work’s my specialty!”

  Clint shook Ed’s hand and both of them rode south.

  “So,” Ed said as if nothing had happened, “tell me about that Italian lady.”

  FOURTEEN

  It was a hard ride to Old Mexico.

  Even though it wasn’t very far from where they’d started, Clint and Ed were forced to stay on their toes well before they got within sight of the border. Ed was jumpy because of all the scouts and spies that he claimed might send word back to Brewer. While Clint might not have believed all those stories, he didn’t like it when a man like Ed got jumpy.

  The trail had turned to packed sand beneath the horses’ hooves and was only broken up by the occasional bed of rock. They hadn’t been forced to go through a desert, but the summer sun had been hot enough all year to make this part of Texas feel almost as bad.

  “We should stop,” Ed said.

  “If we keep going, we’ll be able to get to that village just after sundown. At least that way the dark will give us some advantage.”

  “There won’t be no goddamn advantage! How many times do I gotta tell you that?”

  “Then let’s just go around the village,” Clint offered.

  Ed was already shaking his head. “There ain’t anything around that place for miles. Anyone riding around it would just draw more attention.”

  “Fine. We’ll just stop in for some supplies and have a drink. That way, we’ll just look like a couple riders stopping for some shut-eye.” When he saw that Ed was still uncomfortable, Clint added, “I’ll let you bum down a cathouse. Would that make you feel more at home?”

  “Bump my percentage up to ninety. That’s the least I should get for putting up with the likes of you.”

  They made it into the village right on Clint’s schedule. The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving only a reddish-purple smear across the sky. Heat still hung
in the air, but it was fading along with the sunlight. A sign marked the edge of the village, but it had been so chewed up by the elements as well as stray bullets that it was unreadable. Since Clint could only see less than half a dozen buildings anyway, he figured the name of the place didn’t make much difference.

  A few people were scattered here and there, sitting on porches or leaning against a building that looked like it might fall over under their weight. Clint nodded to the first few locals he saw, but only got blank stares in return. Ed didn’t even bother making eye contact.

  “You know a good place to eat around here?” Clint asked.

  “Sure,” Ed replied. “About fifty miles north.”

  Nodding to a small shack that had its doors propped open by a large rock, Clint said, “That’ll do.”

  The shack was about the size of a small house. Most of the space inside was taken up by a stove and three tables. As soon as Clint and Ed walked inside, a pair of Mexican women got to their feet and put on their best smiles.

  “The sign outside says you serve food,” Clint said. “Are we too late for supper?”

  “No, señor.”

  Clint took a seat against the wall, and Ed dropped himself into a chair at the same table. When the first Mexican woman came back, she set down a pair of tin cups filled with cloudy water.

  “What’s on the menu?” Ed asked.

  “Beans and rice. Maybe chicken.”

  “If there’s chicken, I’ll have it,” Clint said.

  “Me too, I guess.” Once the woman walked away, Ed leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to make an appearance and go?”

  “Yep.”

  “So let’s get a bucket of something and move along. I feel like I’m being fitted for a coffin just sitting here.”

  “I don’t know about that, but someone’s taken an interest in you.”

  Forsaking any attempt at subtlety, Ed shifted around in his chair to look at what Clint was talking about. He quickly spotted the short man leaning in to get a look through the doorway. A second after meeting Ed’s stare, the man stepped away from the door and disappeared outside.