“How?”
“We’ll start by finding the man who actually did kill the express messenger,” Smoke said.
“That would be Frank Dodd,” Nabors said.
“Yes.”
“That’s quite an order,” Doc Baker said. “There is a rather significant reward out for him, and people have been after him for at least three years now.”
“And they say he got over five thousand dollars from that last robbery. With that much money, there’s no tellin’ where he is by now.”
“We’ll find him,” Smoke said.
“You said you were going to get Bobby Lee out of jail,” Doc Baker said.
“That’s right.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Smoke shook his head. “If you know beforehand how I’m going to do it, then you would be a co-conspirator. It’s better that you don’t know. All I can say is, when it happens, you’ll know.”
Back in Desolation, everyone was still talking and laughing about the bluff Emmett Clark had run on Jules Stillwater. There was some concern as to how Stillwater would handle it, but most thought he would do nothing more than sulk around for a few days.
But Stillwater had something else in mind, and the first indication Emmett Clark had of Stillwater’s sudden intrusion into the saloon was when a bullet from Stillwater’s gun smashed the glass that was sitting on the table between Clark and Cindy. Glass and whiskey flew from the impact of the bullet. Even before the second bullet plowed into the table, Clark leaped up from his chair, but to his shocked surprise, the back of the chair caught the handle of his pistol and jerked it out of his holster. He was now unarmed!
“You son of a bitch!” Stillwater shouted. “Cindy is my woman! You stay the hell away from her!”
“Jules! Have you gone crazy?” Cindy shouted. “I’m anyone’s woman who will buy me a drink! You know that!”
Stillwater fired again as Clark dashed across the saloon toward the bar. The bullet crashed into the mirror behind the bar, bringing it crashing down in great jagged shards of glass.
With angry shouts and screams of terror, every customer in the saloon, men and women alike, hurried to get out of the way of the mad gunman’s wild shooting.
Stillwater’s third shot was fired as Clark rolled across the bar and onto the floor behind. Clark lay on the floor for a moment, breathing a sigh of relief that Stillwater had missed. Then, even as he spied the double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun the bartender kept behind the bar, he heard a low, evil laughter. Clark reached over and pulled the shotgun toward him, cocking both barrels.
“You think you can hide behind the bar? “ Stillwater said.
Looking toward the sound of the voice, Clark saw that Stillwater had come to the open end of the bar and was now looking down at Clark, an evil smile displaying his pleasure at now having the advantage. “You took the wrong man’s woman, you snot-nosed kid.”
Stillwater was holding a smoking pistol, which Clark knew held three more shots. Stillwater smiled triumphantly. Then he saw the shotgun in Clark’s hands and the smile of triumph changed quickly to an expression of horror. He tried to pull back the hammer of his pistol, but it was too late. Clark pulled both triggers.
The roar of the two shells discharging at the same time sounded like a cannon, compared to the pop of the pistol shots. The twin loads of ten-gauge double-aught buckshot opened up Stillwater’s chest and he fell back through the window, crashing onto the porch in front of the saloon.
Clark put the gun down, then lay still on his back for a long moment, relieved that he was still alive. Gun smoke was swirling about, now permeating the room with its nostril-burning, acrid smell. Finally, he stood up, and walked over to the window to look through the smashed glass of the front window.
“What happened?” someone shouted from the street.
“What was that?” another called.
The shouts were all coming from outside, as nobody in the saloon had yet recovered from the shock of what they had just witnessed.
Stillwater had one foot up on the windowsill, the other had somehow folded up underneath him in a way that would have been impossible if he were still alive. His chest had been carved open by the heavy load of buckshot.
“Damn, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that,” someone said, and looking around, Clark saw that the others were beginning to reemerge. Walking back over to the table, Clark picked up his pistol, which was still lying on the floor.
“Cindy?” Clark called out as he put the pistol back in his holster. “Cindy, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” a woman’s voice replied. Like the others, Cindy had regained her feet and was now walking toward Clark.
“What was this all about?” Clark said. “Why did he come after me like that?”
Cindy shook her head. “I don’t know why,” she answered. “I mean, he always hung around me anytime him and his friends were here, but there was never no words spoke or nothin’ to make him think we was anything but just friends. I mean, he know’d what I done for a livin'.”
“Who the hell just killed Stillwater?” a gruff voice asked, and looking toward the door, Clark saw Frank Dodd coming in. Almost imperceptibly, Clark moved his hand closer to his pistol, not knowing how Dodd was going to react to losing one of his men.
