call both of you my brothers.”
“Well, we feel the same, Jube,” Sam said, slapping his brother on the back.
“Maybe we should stay in closer touch after this is over,” Jubal said.
“Maybe we should” Sam agreed.
But they both knew that wouldn’t likely happen. When this was over the three of them would go their own ways—at least Sam and Evan would. Sam was over forty, Evan closing in on it, they were set in their ways. Jubal might very well leave Vengeance Creek with one of them, but Sam would make damned sure it wasn’t him. He didn’t need Jubal around when the lead started flying his way. He didn’t want his brother around when that last piece of lead found its way to his heart. He’d be much better off with Evan, maybe even learning to play cards.
There was more money in gambling than there was in gunplay, that was for damned sure.
When they finally reached the part of the ranch Sam wanted he reined in.
“We used to hunt this section here, for a few miles around.”
Jubal looked around. It was mostly flat land, rocks, and clay, some Joshua trees, and black chaparral.
“If he wanted to leave us a note, where would he leave it?” he asked. “We can’t be turning over every rock and looking under every bush.”
“It would be someplace where the sun and the rain couldn’t get at it,” Sam said.
“Also somewhere an animal wouldn’t get at it.”
“A hole, maybe,” Sam said.
“A chuck hole? Nah…” Jubal said.
“Let’s ride,” Sam said. “Maybe somethin’ll come to us.”
So they rode.
After a couple of hours they reined in and dismounted near a water hole. While the horses drank their fill they each took a drink and topped off their canteens, doused their heads, and wet their bandanas, tying them around their necks.
“We likely to run into anybody around here?” Jubal asked.
“No,” Sam said. “Most of this clay is buckshot land, not good for much of anything. Might not even be that many jackrabbits around here any more.”
“What about cougars?”
“Maybe,” Sam said. “The big cats know how to survive.
There’s water, and there’s rattlers, and an occasional rabbit, I guess…”
Sam’s voice trailed off suddenly, and Jubal noticed a funny look in his eyes.
“What is it?” Jubal asked. “You just thought of something, didn’t you?”
“Cougars,” Sam said.
“What about them?”
“A cougar’s lair is usually a sort of cave, the inside of a rock formation.”
“Ain’t no mountains around here, Sam.”
“No, but there’s that lair Pa and I tracked that cat to,” Sam said. “Pa would know that I’d remember that.”
“You think that’s where he left us a message? In a cougar’s lair?”
“It’s as good an idea as any,” Sam said.
“Do you remember where it was?”
“Gimme a minute,” Sam said, looking around. He wasn’t really looking around, though, as much as he was looking inside himself.
“I think I’ve got an idea,” Sam said. “Let’s mount up and try it.”
“I’m game,” Jubal said, “but what do we do if that cat is there when we get there?”
Sam grinned and mounted up.
“We’ll do just what Pa did,” Sam said. “I just hope I’m almost as good a shot as he was.”
Chapter Nineteen
John Burkett found Coffin drinking a beer, sitting alone at a table in the saloon.
Actually, Burkett wasn’t looking for Coffin, but he recognized him as soon as he entered the saloon. He bought himself a beer and carried it over to Coffin’s table.
“Mind if I sit?”
Coffin looked up.
“Burkett, right?”
“That’s right.”
Coffin didn’t say anything after that, which John Burkett took as no objection to him sitting.
“I understand my old man gave you the go-ahead.”
“What go-ahead is that?”
“To kill Sam McCall.”
Coffin smiled a humorless smile.
“Just like that, huh?” he asked. “Kill Sam McCall.”
“Well, you can, can’t you?”
“Sure I can,” Coffins said, “and he can kill me just as easily.”
“You saying you can’t take McCall?”
“I’ll tell you what I told your father, boy,” Coffin said, “that’s what we’re going to find out.”
“What about his brothers?”
“Secondary concern.”
“Huh?”
“They are only a concern of mine if I kill McCall. If he kills me…” Coffin’s voice trailed off and he shrugged.
“What happens if Sam McCall won’t fight you?”
“He will.”
“But what if you won’t? Will you shoot him in cold blood?”
“I have never shot a man in cold blood in my life, kid.”
“I didn’t say you did,” Burkett said, “but if McCall won’t draw, that’s what it will be. If that happens you’ll go to jail.”
“I thought your old man owned the law in this town,”
Coffin said.
“Hah!” Burkett said. “My old man will be the one to insist that the sheriff arrest you. He won’t be able to let you go free after you’ve shot Sam McCall down like a dog.”
Coffin frowned at John Burkett. He knew the kid was playing a game, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“What’s your angle, kid?”
“I know how to make sure Sam McCall fights you.”
“How?”
“Kill one of his brothers,” John Burkett said, “preferably the gambler, Evan.”
“Why him?”
“Because I want the other one.”
“Why?”
“That’s between him and me,” Jubal said. “Meanwhile, if you kill the other one Sam McCall will come after you.
Then when you kill him you can claim self-defense, for sure.”
Coffin stared at his beer. He knew McCall would fight him if he called him out, but there was a chance that he wouldn’t, especially since McCall knew he was working for Burkett. Refusing to fight him would be a way for the man to give Lincoln Burkett another headache.
