Bosworth to do so. “Yeah,” he said. “It went just like you wanted it. Better get ready for a real uproar. I expect the news will be all over town before the day’s over.”
“I hope it is. Once the rest of Chamberlain’s men hear about it, they’ll be quitting him in droves.”
“Maybe,” Grimshaw said. “The Terror’s been around for a while, though, and not many of them have quit so far.”
Bosworth shook his head. “The Terror has never gone on a rampage like this before. And in a few days, the monster will strike again.” He sipped his drink again. “I was thinking that perhaps next time, the Terror will burn down Chamberlain’s sawmill.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Grimshaw asked with a frown. “That seems like something a mite too intelligent for that varmint to do.”
“You’ll make it look like an accident,” Bosworth assured him. “The fire will start while the Terror is ripping apart some of Chamberlain’s men.”
Grimshaw considered the idea for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Might work,” he conceded. “Let me mull it over some more.”
“Take your time…just not
Grimshaw downed the rest of his second drink and set the empty glass on the sideboard. “The fellas will want their money.”
“Of course. Wait here.”
Bosworth left the room, going through a door into the adjacent bedroom. He closed the door behind him. Clearly, he didn’t want Grimshaw to see where his cash was hidden.
That was all right with the gunman. He had no interest in robbing Emmett Bosworth. He would make a lot more
Bosworth came back with a handful of greenbacks. “Four thousand dollars, as we agreed. I won’t ask you how you plan to split it with the others.”
“And I won’t tell you,” Grimshaw replied with a faint smile as he took the money. He would keep twelve hundred for himself, since he was the ramrod of this bunch, and give two hundred apiece to the rest of the men.
Wait a minute, he thought. Nichols was dead. That left an extra two hundred.
Well, the others could divvy that up however they wanted, he decided. They’d feel good about getting a little extra.
While he was waiting for Bosworth to come back with the money, he had smelled a faint, sweet fragrance in the room. He knew it had been left behind by the woman who’d been here. The scent had a subtle quality that wasn’t like the flowery lilac water whores tended to splash on in abundance. It was a lot more ladylike than that.
Now, against his better judgment, he gave in to his curiosity and asked, “Who was the gal?”
Instantly, Bosworth’s rugged face hardened. Grimshaw knew he had pushed the man too far. Bosworth was tall and broad-shouldered, and his frame still retained some of the muscular power that swinging an ax as a young man had given him. Grimshaw hoped that Bosworth wouldn’t lose his temper and throw a punch at him. He’d hate to have to shoot the man.
“Never you mind about who the lady was,” Bosworth snapped. “Suffice it to say, she has a husband who wouldn’t be happy if he knew what had happened here this morning.”
Grimshaw shrugged. “Sure, Boss. Sorry I brought it up.”
He wasn’t surprised by Bosworth’s answer. He knew what effect wealth and power in a man had on some women. He held up the roll of bills. “I’ll go give the boys their share. Much obliged.”
“Just keep doing your job,” Bosworth said. “There’ll be a lot more where that come from.”
That was exactly what Grimshaw was counting on.
He tucked the roll away inside his shirt as he left the suite. He wasn’t going to walk through a hotel lobby, even a hotel as high-class as the Eureka House, carrying that much money in the open.
When he reached the porch, he paused and looked both ways along the street. A man on horseback caught his attention. The hombre was riding a big, gold-colored horse and had a shaggy dog that looked more like a wolf padding along beside him. The man had rigged a crude travois, and he was dragging it along behind the horse with something loaded on it…
Grimshaw stiffened as he looked closer at the thing on the travois. Then he nodded slowly as if realizing that what he was looking at was inevitable. He had known this man was in Eureka. He had heard the talk. And sooner or later, they were bound to run into each other.
Grimshaw gave his hat brim a tug, stepped down off the porch, and walked out in the street to intercept the man. As the fella reined in, Grimshaw lifted his left hand in greeting, smiled, and said, “Howdy, Frank. Long time no see.”
Chapter 14
Frank didn’t recognize the man who had hailed him right away, although he knew he should remember the hombre. The stranger was almost as old as Frank, and while Frank couldn’t put a name with the face right offhand, he recognized the casual stance, the alertness in the eyes, the way the man’s right hand never strayed far from the butt of his gun. He was ready to hook and draw in case this fella had an old grudge against him that needed settling.
Then the stranger said, “Remember that time we decided to go fishin’ in the Brazos River while it was flooding?
