much more.
He shouldn’t have worried about Stovepipe, Sam realized a second later. A lazy grin spread over the range detective’s face as he said, “Shoot, we figured there might be a reward, and we’re gettin’ a little short on funds. Thought you might be more inclined to give us some ridin’ jobs, at the very least, if we found them cows for you.”
Boyd glared at them.
“That’s what you thought, is it? What I’m inclined to do is run the three of you off my land. Either that, or string you up.”
“That’s what I’d do, boss,” Lowry said as he gave Sam a baleful look.
“I don’t want to waste the time on either of those things, though,” Boyd went on. “In fact, we’ve lolly-gagged around here enough.”
Without warning, he shucked his Colt from its holster and pointed it at Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur.
“Drop your guns,” he ordered. “You’re coming with us.”
Lowry looked as surprised as anybody.
“John Henry, what’re you doin’? You can’t trust these varmints!”
“I never said I trusted ’em. Why do you think I told them to drop their guns?” Boyd’s voice hardened. “I won’t tell you
“Reckon we’d better do what the man says,” Stovepipe drawled. He gave Sam and Wilbur a look that meant
He had seen the muscles in Boyd’s arm and shoulder tense before the rancher went for his gun. Sam was confident he could have beaten Boyd to the draw if he had tried to. He might have been able to get the drop on the rancher and use him as a hostage to get past the other fifteen men in the Devil’s Pitchfork crew.
But that wouldn’t have gotten him any closer to the answers he was looking for, Sam thought as he carefully used his left hand to slide his Colt from its holster. He pitched the revolver to the ground, where it was joined by those belonging to Stovepipe and Wilbur as well.
“Now the rifles,” Boyd commanded. “And I want that knife of yours, too, redskin.”
Again Sam swallowed the anger he felt. He leaned toward the opinion that Boyd and his men weren’t the ones who had bushwhacked him and Matt. Since that bunch obviously wanted him dead, they would have gone ahead and opened fire as soon as they rode up. Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur would have put up a fight, but they couldn’t have stopped the bunch from the Devil’s Pitchfork from wiping them out.
That didn’t mean Boyd wasn’t an arrogant, unpleasant son of a bitch anyway.
But maybe cooperating with the rancher would make it easier for Sam and his companions to find out what they wanted to know.
For that reason, Sam drew his bowie knife and tossed it to the ground as well.
“Now back off some,” Boyd ordered. When Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur had done that, Boyd jerked his head at a couple of his men, who dismounted and hurried forward to collect all the discarded hardware.
“Come on,” Boyd said. “You want to find out what happened to those rustled cows, you said. Well, so do I. We’ll follow the trail together.”
Lowry said, “I still think this is a bad idea, boss. They’re part of that bunch, I tell you.”
“Well, if they are,” Boyd said, “we’ve got us some hostages, don’t we?”
He led the pack toward the northwestern corner of the valley. Following the commanding gestures Pete Lowry made with his gun, Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur fell in just behind Boyd. The other hard-bitten gunmen of the Devil’s Pitchfork crew kept them mostly surrounded as they followed the rancher.
“This is what we want,” Stovepipe said to Sam from the corner of his mouth. “We get to find out where those stolen cows went, and Boyd sees that we ain’t rustlers.”
Sam nodded and said, “That’s what I thought.”
Lowry snapped, “Shut up, you two. I don’t want you back here plottin’ behind the boss’s back.”
“You know, you’re a mighty touchy sort, mister,” Wilbur said. “What happened, your ma take your favorite play-pretty away from you when you were little?”
“Why, you ...” Lowry growled as he moved his horse closer to Wilbur’s paint. He lifted the revolver he still held. “I oughta bust your skull open!”
“Pete!” Boyd’s sharp tone rang out. “That’s enough.” The white-haired rancher looked back over his shoulder. “But I warn you, mister, don’t try my patience any more than it already is. If you do, I’m liable to turn Pete loose on you.”
“Sure, Wilbur here understands,” Stovepipe said quickly. “Don’t you, Wilbur?”
“I reckon,” Wilbur said with obvious reluctance.
Sam hoped that Wilbur would behave himself and not get them killed by potential allies.
They already had more than enough enemies who would be happy to take care of that.
Chapter 26
Zack Jardine was on his way back to the Buckingham Palace Saloon when he saw Angus Braverman and Doyle Hilliard gallop into town.
For the past half-hour, Jardine had been talking to his partner in this enterprise and the discussion hadn’t gone very well, so he was in a bad mood to start with.
His anger flared up even more at the sight of Braverman and Hilliard. He had told the two men to keep an eye
