Texas Iron

spoke them.

“Ma and Pa are dead.”

“What?”

Sam took the telegram from his shirt pocket and handed it through the bars. He studied his brother while Evan read it.

He hadn’t seen Evan in a couple of years, not since their paths had last crossed in New Orleans. Evan was five years younger, but Sam was still struck by how muchyounger than that he looked. He seemed closer to Jubal’s twenty-four years than his own forty-three. At thirty-eight Evan McCall had none of the gray that streaked Sam’s own dark hair. He was clean shaven, whereas Sam wore a heavy mustache that completely obscured his upper lip. Sam had always thought that while Evan and Jubal actually looked like brothers, he did not share very many of their attributes. He was larger and heavier, and his facial bone structure was that of their father rather than their mother. Sam had a strong, squared jaw and high cheekbones, while Evan and Jubal had their mother’s finer features. Evan and Jubal also had their mother’s blue eyes, while Sam’s were a muddy brown.

After Evan had read the telegram several times he turned those blue eyes on Sam and said, “It doesn’t say how it happened.”

“I know.”

“Have you sent a telegram to find out?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, brother,” Sam said, taking the telegram back, “you and I and Jubal are going to Vengeance Creek to find out for ourselves.”

“Jubal?” There was no argument from Evan. He had already decided that he was going to go find out what happened. It pleased him that he wouldn’t be going alone.

“Do you know where he is?”

“All we got to do is find trouble,” Sam said, “and we’ll find brother Jubal.”

Chapter Four

All his life Jubal McCall had known that he was different from his brothers.

Sam and Evan, they had things they were good at. With a gun Sam McCall was the best Jubal had ever seen, and he was proud of his big brother for that.

Evan, he could do things with cards that nobody else could. Whenever Jubal thought of his two brothers he thought of them with pride.

When he thought about himself, it was with great disappointment, because he knew that Jubal McCall was good at only one thing—getting himself into trouble.

Ever since he’d left home five years ago Jubal had drifted from place to place, taking jobs where he could find them, doing whatever he had to do to survive, but always there was a black cloud following him around, ready to rain on whatever good thing he managed to find.

This time, the black cloud had really done a job on him.

He stood up, climbed up on the metal bunk that was bolted to the stone wall, and looked out through the barred window. He could see the scaffold from there, the one the people of Prosper, Wyoming, were building for him.

The one from which they intended to hang him without even benefit of a trial. He was surprised that they were even going to the bother to build a scaffold. Having been sentenced without benefit of a trial, he’d assumed that they would take him to the highest tree they could findand stretch his neck from there, but apparently they wanted to do the job “right and proper,” as he’d heard someone say.

The men who were working on the scaffold had stopped to eat lunch, and now the hammering started up again. He turned away, stepped down, and sat on the bunk, his chin in his hands.

He knew that both of his brothers had been in similar situations at some time in their lives, and they had both managed to survive. A man couldn’t live without being blamed at one time or another for something he didn’t do.

Jubal McCall had not killed Ed Flanagan. He had slept with Flanagan’s wife, however, and that made him the prime suspect for Ed’s murder. When Flanagan’s body was found with its skull bashed in, the sheriff and his men had gone directly to Jubal’s hotel room to get him. It was unfortunate for Jubal that Erin Flanagan had been in his bed at the time. When the sheriff kicked in the door, Erin sat up without the benefit of a sheet, her proud, peach- sized breasts there for all to see. Jubal had used that moment to try and make the window, but his legs had gotten tangled in the bedclothes and he had fallen painfully to the floor. Moments later he was standing between two deputies, who held his arms tightly behind him while the sheriff helped Erin on with her clothes.

Of course, the fact that he was with Erin when her husband was killed should have been a perfect alibi, except for one thing—Erin Flanagan told the sheriff that Jubal had killed her husband.

It was only then that Jubal realized that Erin’ten years his senior, but absolutely beautiful beyond words—had used her red hair, firm breasts, and warm mouth to set him up but good.

So here he sat, waiting for the scaffold to be finished, waiting for them to come and get him and string him up for a murder he didn’t commit.

Still, he had been stupid enough to get himself into this predicament.

Sam and Evan McCall had been released from jail the very next day. Dick Stark had gotten enough men together to back their story that the police had to let them out without charging them.

They were, however, asked to leave San Francisco as soon as possible.

Fortunately, that was not a problem.

While still in jail Evan had told Sam that he’d received a letter from Jubal just a couple of months ago, while he himself was in Sacramento. Apparently Jubal and Evan had stayed in touch much more than Sam had with either of them.

The next morning, as they bought two horses and provisions and set out for Wyoming, Sam had said, “Tell me again what the letter said.”

“Jubal said that he was going to Wyoming to try and stay out of trouble.”

“Well then,” Sam said, “All we have to do is find the hottest spot in Wyoming, and our little brother will be there.”

Of course, the hottest spot in Wyoming was definitely the town of Prosper, in the controlled Folk County. The word had gone out for miles around that a hanging was going to take place. In fact, there was so much interest that Jubal was told they were postponing the necktie party for a couple of days to accommodate certain people— highly placed people in the running of Folk County. The hanging certainly couldn’t go on without them there.

And so Jubal’s waiting was prolonged. Later, he’d realize what good the postponement of the hanging had done him.

The day was here, though, and Jubal was just hours from the rope. He tried to pass the night by thinking of the most pleasant thing he could. Unfortunately, the most pleasant thing he could think of was being in bed with Erin Flanagan, buried in her loving, but that just brought him full circle to being hanged again.

He wondered who was nestled between Erin’s sweet thighs while he was waiting out his last night on earth.

The McCall brothers had been in Folk County only a day when they heard about the hanging, in a saloon. Apparently, some young fool had been caught in bed with the wife of Dan Flanagan, son of Darby Flanagan, who, with Seth Folk, ran Folk county. As confusing as it sounded to them, the important element was “young fool.”

They looked at each other and said, “Jubal.”

They asked a few pertinent questions, then left the saloon and rode to Prosper.

“Let’s go, McCall,” the deputy said, opening the cell door. “We kept you waitin’ long enough.”

“Don’t rush on my account.” Jubal spoke without rising from his bunk.

“Come on.” The deputy entered the cell and kicked the underside of the bunk. “There are a lot of people