“Right now, you are keeping all the money you get from selling the horses you steal, right?”
“That was the deal. You said you didn’t want anything out of it,” Poke said.
Kincaid held up his finger. “Wrong, I do want something out of it. I want Kitty to default on her loan. I expect you to live up to our agreement. You see to it that Kitty Wellington is unable to make enough money to pay off her mortgage. That’s all you have to do.”
“Suppose she does go broke and can’t pay off the bank. The bank will just put the ranch up for sale and it will go to the highest bidder. What if somebody outbids you?”
“You let me worry about that,” Kincaid said. “You just keep up the pressure.”
“Yeah, well, that’s another thing. With them watchin’ the horses as close as they are now, I’m not sure I can steal any more horses.”
“You don’t have to steal any more horses, all you have to do is keep her from getting any of them to market.”
“That’s not good for me. I’ve been taking my cut from the money I get from selling the horses.”
“I’ve given you seven hundred and fifty dollars. How much have you made from the horses?” Kincaid asked.
“So far I’ve took a hunnert and fifty horses, I lost twenty-two of ’em during the drive down into Utah, and I only got twenty dollars a head for what was left. That mean’s I’ve got just a little over twenty-four hunnert dollars.”
“I’ll give you twenty five hundred dollars in addition to what we’ve already agreed upon,” Kincaid said. “All I need you to do is keep the pressure on.”
“I’m going to have to hire some more men,” Poke said. “So I’ll need a little extra for that.”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars, plus what you have already made, should be more than enough to take care of that. At least for now.”
“All right. For now,” Poke said.
“Don’t come to my house anymore.”
“How am I going to get the twenty-five hundred dollars you just promised?”
“I’ll have the money delivered to you by special courier,” Kincaid said.
Poke nodded, then turned and walked away.
After breakfast, Kincaid went back into his office and took a paper from his desk. The paper was the mortgage agreement that now made him the holder of Kitty Wellington’s loan. If she defaulted on the loan to the bank, the bank would put the ranch up for sale, take its money, plus interest, from the proceeds, and give the rest to Kitty.
But there was no legal requirement for him to do that. The terms of the loan were very specific. If Kitty couldn’t make the payment, the ranch would become the property of Marcus Kincaid. There would be no extension of the loan, and there would be no auction.
Chapter Fourteen
When Matt went into town that evening, he had dinner at a restaurant called the Railroad Cafe. It was dark by the time he finished dinner and walked down the street to the Sand Spur. This was his first visit to the most popular of the local watering places. Inside the saloon, the bartender was standing at the end of the bar, wiping the used glasses with his stained apron, then setting them among the unused glasses. When he saw Matt step up to the bar, he moved down toward him.
“I’ll have a beer,” Matt said.
The bartender set the beer in front of him with shaking hands, and even though this was Matt’s first time in the Sand Spur, he knew he had been recognized.
Clutching the beer in his left hand—he always left his right hand free when he went in to a new place—Matt turned his back to the bar and looked out over the room. A bar girl sidled up to him. She was heavily painted and showed the dissipation of her profession. There was no humor or life left in her eyes.
“Mister, are you looking for good time?” she asked.
Matt wasn’t interested, but he felt a sense of compassion for the girl, perhaps heightened by hearing the story Kitty told of her own experiences.
“How much?” he asked.
The girl smiled at the prospect. “Two dollars,” she said.
Matt pulled two dollars from his pocket and gave it to her. “Suppose I give you two dollars and you let me buy you a drinki?” he asked. “Would you be interested in that?”
“Gee, Mister, thanks,” the girl said, sticking the money down into the top of her dress. “Charley, I’ll have a sarsaparilla.”
“Coming right up,” Charley said.
“Is that all you want?” Matt asked.
“I can’t drink whiskey all day long, I’d be a helpless drunk,” the girl said.
Matt chuckled. “I see your point,” he said.
The bartender put the glass in front of the girl and for the next few minutes, Matt and the girl had a pleasant conversation. As she relaxed, her features softened, and Matt realized that, at one time, she was probably a very
