Bounty on a Baron (9 page)

About a half an hour after the sheriff left, Decker decided he’d had enough of the nonstop activity in the Dice Box. He went outside, crossing the street to go to the Broadus House.

The shot creased him on the top of the left shoulder, leaving him with a stinging pain. Throwing himself forward, he rolled for cover and came up with his gun out. As he checked the rooftops across the street, straining to see any sign of movement, he guessed he had the darkness to thank for his life. Before whoever was after him could get off another shot, he was up and running back toward the Dice Box.

He moved along the sidewalk, alert in case whoever had shot at him had an accomplice on the other side of the street. Finally, he came to an alley and ran down it, trying to get behind the saloon. If he was lucky, he might catch his assailant coming down off the roof.

When he got to the back he stopped short. It was pitch-black. He flattened against the wall, waiting and listening.

When he heard something, it was from farther along behind the buildings. Cursing to himself, he took off running, realizing that his assailant had already made it down from the roof. He must have taken the one shot and decided not to risk any more.

Decker ran along behind the buildings until he
came to another alley. He flattened against the wall again and eased into the alley, expecting to hear a shot. When he heard nothing he began to move forward with more purpose until finally he was out in the street again.

He heard somebody running toward him and spun around, his gun ready to fire.

“Whoa! Easy!” Sheriff Roman shouted, holding his empty hands out in front of him.

“Sheriff!” Decker said. He lowered his gun and took a deep breath. “Did you see anybody run out of this alley?”

“Nobody but you.”

“He couldn’t have been that far ahead of me,” Decker said, complaining. “I heard him—”

“I heard the shot and came running, but since there was only one I couldn’t be sure where it had come from.” He squinted through the darkness and asked suddenly, “Hey, are you hit?”

Decker put his hand on his shoulder and it came away covered with blood.

“Just a nick.”

“Better get the doc to take a look at it. Come on, I’ll take you over.”

Decker looked up and down the street, then holstered his gun and reluctantly agreed. Whoever had taken the shot at him was gone.

“Did you see him at all?” Roman asked as they began walking.

“I didn’t see a thing,” Decker said bitterly. “Not a blessed thing.”

In the doctor’s office, which was above the general store, Decker went over his story again for the sheriff while his shoulder was being patched.

“Dug a nice furrow,” the doctor said, “but all in all I’d say you were damn lucky.”

“I agree,” Roman said. “Tell me again what happened,” and Decker went into his story.

“Sounds like whoever it was was waiting for you to come and expected to hit you with the one shot, otherwise you might have caught them coming down from the roof.”

“That’s what I figure,” Decker said. “They took the shot and immediately left the roof. If I had been a little quicker in reacting—”

“Can’t blame yourself for that,” Roman said. “How were you to know they weren’t waiting to take another shot?”

“I guess you’re right.”

The doctor cleaned the wound, bandaged it, and then told Decker to put his shirt back on.

“What do I owe you, Doc?” Decker said.

The doctor named a figure, and the bounty hunter paid him.

“Going back to your hotel?” Roman asked.

“I think I’ll go over to the Broadus House and see if their whiskey is as good as their beer.”

“If I were you I’d hole up in my room for a while. Whoever it was might decide to make another try to night.”

“I hope they do,” Decker said. “This time I’ll be a little quicker.”

The Broadus House wasn’t even half full, and there was a lone poker game going on in one corner. There was one girl working, and although she was as pretty—or prettier—than the ones across the street, her dress was not as fancy. It was low-cut, but it was plain.

Decker went to the bar, and the bartender smiled, remembering him.

“Beer?” he asked.

“Whiskey first, then a beer.”

The bartender poured him a shot.

“Been across the street?”

“Yep.”

“Like it?”

Decker made a face and said, “It’s too damn noisy.”

“Got some good-looking women over there, though, don’t they?”

Decker glanced at the woman at the end of the bar, who looked back.

“You don’t seem to be doing so bad here,” he said.

“Ah, that’s Martha. They’ve tried to hire her at the Dice Box, but she’s loyal.”

“Really?”

“She doesn’t like the owners. They treat the women who work for them like slaves.”

“And you don’t?”

“I treat a woman like a woman,” the bartender said. He saw the look on Decker’s face and said,
“Don’t get me wrong. That ain’t what I mean. I don’t tell Martha she’s got to get ten guys a night into her room or anything like that. She wants to take a guy upstairs, that’s her business. All I want her for down here is to have guys buy her drinks.”

“Sounds like a nice arrangement. What does she drink?”

“Anything.”

“Give her what she wants, on me,” Decker said.

“Sure.”

Decker eyed Martha, who was young and blonde…and alive, just like he was—only he was
lucky
to be alive.

The bartender poured Martha a shot of whiskey. She raised the glass to Decker in thanks. Decker raised his in return, downed it, then called for his beer.

He took the beer over to the poker game and watched for a while. It was low stakes and slow—paced, and he had no desire to sit in.

“See that feller sitting on the porch at Jo’s today?” one of them asked.

“Oh, yeah. Imagine living off a woman like that, jest sitting around her house while she works,” another man said.

“What about the time he spends away?” someone asked. “Where do you suppose he goes?”

“Who knows?”

“Maybe he’s got hisself a woman in another town,” one of them said. “You know, like living two lives?”

Decker was listening intently.

“Unfriendly cuss, that one. You’d think since he’s been in and out of this town nigh onto a year he’d say hello or something. He ever talk to you boys?”

“He’s been in the store once or twice,” one of them said. “Talks real slow and careful, like. Can’t figure it out. Maybe he’s simple-minded.”

The others laughed at the prospect, although one of them said it was unlikely that a pretty woman like Josephine would take up with a simpleton.

Suddenly they looked up at Decker, as if just real izing that he was watching.

“You wanna play, mister? We got an empty seat.”

Decker turned and looked at Martha, who was standing at the bar. She smiled invitingly at him.

“Maybe just a little while,” he said, taking the seat.

Or at least until he found out where this Josephine lived.

Josephine was nervous, but she understood why Brand couldn’t go to the livery stable himself and look at all the horses. If the man who was after him was in town, then he couldn’t afford to be seen.

It was late, but the stable was still open. The liveryman, however, must have gone to have dinner. Josephine wondered why the man didn’t lock up when he left the stable. It would be very easy for someone to steal a horse.

She entered the stable and found it shrouded in darkness. She looked around for a storm lamp, found one, and lit it. Carrying it with her, she went from stall to stall, hoping that she wouldn’t find what she was looking for.

She found it, in a stall all the way in the back. The stall contained a good-looking gelding, and the saddle that went with the horse. Hanging from the saddlehorn was a hangman’s noose.

She shivered when she saw it. She would have hugged herself except that she had the storm lamp in her hand. The gelding gave her a baleful stare, as if wondering who she was and what she was doing there. Then he looked away.

Josephine backed out of the stall hurriedly, then turned to run. As she did, her feet got tangled, and then the heel snapped off one of her shoes, causing her to fall. The storm lamp was jarred from her hand. It landed on a patch of hay, and she saw the
flicker of flame as the hay started to catch fire. Moving quickly, she grabbed a nearby blanket and smothered the flame. Luckily, the oil had not leaked from the lantern or there would have been a blaze that she couldn’t have put out with a blanket.

Moving as quickly as she could, Josephine put the lantern back on the wall hook where she had found it and ran out of the stable.

Brand waited at the house. He knew he should have gone to the stable himself, but he couldn’t take the chance of being seen there. If Decker was in town, he was going to have to kill him, and it wouldn’t do to be seen snooping around the man’s horse.

Once he killed Decker, his only problem would be the sheriff. He would be the only one who knew who Brand really was. He could pay the man for his silence, he thought. But once that started it would never stop.

No, he’d have to kill Roman, also, but in such a way that no one would suspect he had done it.

If he could kill both men quickly and without anyone finding out about it, there was a chance he could save his life here in Broadus.

He’d killed for less in the past.

No sooner had he started playing than Decker noticed something. One of the men at the table was a professional gambler. It struck him odd that such a man would be in a low-stakes game instead of across the street for much more money.

There was one glaring reason why he was over here.

He was cheating.

In the Broadus House, no one noticed, but across
the street at the Dice Box he would have been caught almost immediately. So here he sat, stealing hardearned money penny by penny instead of dollar by dollar—so to speak.

Decker was seated directly across from the man, so he knew how the man was cheating.

The man—whom the others called “Cal”—was dealing now. He paused to cough, covering his mouth with a handkerchief from his jacket pocket.

“Excuse me,” he said, replacing the handkerchief. “Cards are coming out, gentlemen. Draw poker.”

He dealt each man five cards. Decker picked his up and spread them; he had three tens and thought this was as good a time as any to call the man for cheating. If the man seated to his left hadn’t opened, he would have. Now, he raised.

“A dollar,” he said, which was a large raise for this game. The others were losing, but they stayed in, possibly seeing the hand as a quick way to get some money back.

When the bet went around to Cal, he said, “I raise a dollar as well.”

Since they all were in for the first dollar, they stayed for the second.

“Cards?”

“Two,” said Decker when it was his turn.

When everyone had his cards, the opener timidly bet fifty cents.

“I raise,” Decker said. “Two dollars.”

The two players to his left folded, and Cal gave him a long look.

“Seems like you think you’ve got something, fella.”

“Cost you money to find out.”

“Oh, it’ll cost one of us money,” Cal said, “that’s for sure. I raise ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars?” the opener said. “That’s…that’s too high.”

“Then fold,” Cal said without looking at the man. “Leave this here game to me and mister…”

Decker didn’t bother supplying his name. He looked at the man who had opened, and the man quickly folded.

“I raise twenty,” Decker said.

“Twenty?” Cal said. “This game is starting to sound like it belongs across the street.”

At that point, Cal began coughing and took out his handkerchief. When he paused in his coughing he placed the handkerchief on the table, obstructing the view of his hand for a moment. He started coughing again, brought the cloth to his lips, and then replaced it in his pocket.

“I’ll see you and raise you the same,” he said to Decker.

Decker studied his cards for a moment, then said, “All right, I’ll call. I’ve got three tens.” He spread his cards on the table.

“Oh, too bad,” Cal said. He put his cards down, revealing an ace-high flush.

As he started to reach for the pot, Decker drew his gun and placed it on the table.

“If you touch that pot, I’ll kill you.”

Cal froze. He stared at Decker’s face, then the shotgun, then his face again.

“I don’t understand.”

Everyone else in the place did, though. They crowded around to see who would get shot. They didn’t much care which, as long as it was one of them. It would give them something to talk about.

“That isn’t the hand I called,” Decker said, indicating the cards on the table.

“What?”

“The hand I called is in your pocket,” Decker said, “with your handkerchief.”

“Are—are you accusing me of cheating?” Cal asked.

“Yes.”

“For a small pot like this?”

“Yes.”

Cal laughed nervously.

“If I was going to cheat, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to work the Dice Box across the street? The games are bigger there.”

“They’d also spot you in a minute there,” Decker said, “like I did. You’re not very good at it. Tell me, why is it your cough has suddenly cleared up?”

“My…cough?”

“Take out the handkerchief,” Decker said.

Slowly, Cal sat back and reached into his pocket.

“If you come out with a gun, I’ll kill you. If you come out with the handkerchief, and not the cards, I’ll kill you. Have I made myself clear?”

Sweating, Cal nodded. He took the handkerchief out and placed it on the table. Decker leaned over and unfolded the cloth, revealing five playing cards, face down. He turned them over, showing everyone how they read.

“A pair of threes,” Decker said. “That’s the hand I called, and you lose.”

Cal’s hands were on the table, and he was nervously drumming his fingers.

Decker raked in his pot.

“Are—are you gonna—kill me?” Cal asked.

“For such a small pot?” Decker asked. “Certainly not—providing you’re out of here in five minutes.”

“I’m gone, mister.” Cal pushed his chair back so
quickly that it toppled over when he stood up. “I’m gone.”

Decker watched the man run for the door, and the spectators went back to their drinking, disappointed that no one had been shot.

“We owe you, mister,” one of the men at the table said.

“Just be careful who you play with in the future,” Decker said, standing up.

“You ain’t playing no more?” one of them asked.

Decker looked at the end of the bar, where Martha was still standing. “No, I have another appointment.”