“I’ll take care of it, sir.”
Burkett sat back in his leather chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“Yes,” Burkett said, sitting forward again. “That storekeeper, Miller?”
“Dude Miller.”
“He’s starting to get on my nerves,” Burkett said. “Every time I pass his store he’s staring out that damned window.”
“Why is that annoying, sir?”
Burkett slammed his hand down on the desk. The noise it made was so loud it made Conners flinch.
“He’s watching for that damned Sam McCall.”
“Sir,” Conners said, “if McCall does show up, me and the boys can handle him.”
“I wouldn’t bet my life on that, Chuck,” Burkett said. “We all know McCall’s reputation—and if he does show up, he’s likely to have his brothers with him. No, I think maybe we’d better import some talent.”
“Who?”
“I’ll let you know in the morning,” Burkett said. “Meanwhile, I don’t want that storekeeper looking out his window for a while.”
“What would you like—”
“Just handle it, Chuck,” Burkett said, clearly dismissing the man, “tonight.”
When the front door of his house slammed open Dude Miller was sitting in the living room reading a book. He turned his head and saw the three men burst through the door, their faces masked. The nearest gun was in his desk in the den and he knew he’d never get to it, but he rose anyway.
As he turned to face them the first man hit him flush in the face with a massive fist. Miller went down, smashing against a coffee table.
“Pa!”
The three masked men looked up toward the voice and saw Serena Miller on the staircase. When she saw them she started to pull the front of her housecoat tightly closed, but when she saw her father on the floor she forgot about that.
“Pa!”
As she hurried down the steps two of the men hauled Dude Miller to his feet and one of them stepped into Serena’s path.
“Let me by!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Just teachin’ the old gent a lesson,” one of the men said.
“Let me by!”
She tried to shoulder past him but he grabbed her by the upper arms, squeezing them hard. The smell of his sweat made her wrinkle her nose in disgust.
“You wanna watch?” he asked. “Be my guest.”
He turned and walked to the door, pulling her with him.
When they stepped out onto the porch she saw what the other two men were doing to her father. One of them was holding him with his arms pinned behind him, and the other man was hitting him, methodically, first a left, then a right, with no passion whatsoever. It was then that she knew they were doing a job, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who for.
“That’s enough,” she shouted. “You’ll kill him.”
The man doing the hitting had been alternating his punches between the body and the head, and Dude Miller’s face was livid with bruises and blood.
“She’s right,” the man holding her said. “We weren’t told to kill him.”
The man doing the hitting looked at the man on the porch, then gave Dude Miller one more punch in the face. The man who was holding Miller released him, and he sprawled into the dirt face first, lying as still as death.
“What about her?” the other man asked.
“We weren’t told anything about her,” his friend said.
“Why, you wanna punch her?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “I wanna punch her with this.” He grabbed his crotch.
Suddenly the pit of Serena’s stomach went icy cold and she started to shiver in fear. As the man advanced on her she realized that she had never felt terror like this before.
“No…” she said, and she was dismayed to hear that it came out as a whimper.
“Forget it,” the man holding her said. Abruptly he released her arms. “We wasn’t told to touch the girl. Let’s go. We’re finished here.”
The man who had grabbed his crotch stared at Serena for a few moments and then said, “That’s too bad, Missy. You woulda liked what I got for you. Maybe another time, huh?”
The other two men were walking away and now the third one turned and followed.
Serena stood there for a few moments, struck motionless by the fear she’d experienced, and then suddenly she leaped from the porch to her father’s side, feeling ashamed.
The intensity of her anger was as foreign to her as had been the intensity of the fear she’d felt a moment ago.
Chapter Six
“Well, there it is,” Evan McCall said. “Vengeance Creek.”
They were on a steep hill from which they could look down at the town. Vengeance Creek had a wide radius because it had been laid out in such a sprawling fashion. There were two main streets which contained the bank, the general store, the hotel, the saloon, other shops, and the sheriff’s office, but the livery, the feed and grain, the undertaker’s, and the whorehouse were all spread about with a decent amount of elbow room between them.
Sam, Evan, and Jubal McCall sat atop the hill, with black chaparral spread about them, and a single Joshua tree, taking their first look at the town of their birth in a long time.
Sam McCall was riding a seven-year-old black coyote dun, a dun with a black stripe running down its back, and distinctive markings on its legs.
True to the McCall predilection for individuality, Evan’s horse was a four-year-old claybank, a yellowish breed achieved by breeding a sorrel and a dun.
Jubal, as if it were a symbol of his lifelong efforts to be like one or both of his brothers, was riding a sorrel.
“Yep,” Jubal said, “there it is.”
“Looks the same, don’t it?” Evan asked.
“When was the last time you were here?” Jubal asked his brothers.
“Jeez,” Evan said, “I don’t—probably seven, eight years, something like that. What about you?”
“Less,” Jubal said, “about five.”
“Did you ever write?” Evan asked.
“Some,” the younger brother answered.
Evan and Jubal looked over at Sam, who had remained silent throughout their exchange.
“Sam?” Evan said.
Sam McCall looked at them.
“I don’t like being here.”
“Why not?” Jubal asked.
“Didn’t I ever tell you?” Sam asked. “I hate this place.”
McCall kicked his horse’s ribs and sent him jogging down the hill.
“When was the last time he was here?” Jubal asked.
Evan looked at Jubal, said, “When did he leave?” and sent his horse down the hill after Sam. Jubal thought a
