Like to washed us both away.”
“Jack!” Frank exclaimed as the name came back to him. “Jack Grimshaw!”
“That’s right.” Grimshaw stepped closer and reached up, extending his hand. “How are you, Frank?”
Frank clasped the man’s hand. “I’m all right. A little stiffer than I used to be when I get up in the morning.”
Grimshaw chuckled. “Ain’t we all?” He let go of Frank’s hand and gestured toward the body on the travois. “Somebody run into some trouble?”
“Bad trouble,” Frank agreed. He frowned slightly. “You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?”
“Let me take a look.”
Grimshaw moved closer to the corpse and studied its face. Frank swung down from the saddle and stood beside him, holding Goldy’s reins.
“What do you think?”
Grimshaw shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. I don’t see any wounds either. What did he die of? Looks like it was pretty bad, judging by the expression on his face.”
“You don’t see any wounds because he’s lying on his back. The Terror got him. Clawed him wide open.”
“The Terror?” Grimshaw sounded surprised. “You mean that monster folks say is out in the woods? You really believe in a thing like that, Frank?”
Grimshaw’s tone implied that he might think a little less of his old friend if Frank replied in the affirmative.
“I wasn’t sure at first,” Frank said, “but I’ve seen its handiwork now, several times. It’s real, all right. I just don’t know exactly what it is.”
That was true. He knew that Nancy Chamberlain was sincere in her belief that her brother Ben was the Terror, and while Frank hadn’t found any real evidence supporting that theory, he hadn’t come across anything to invalidate it either. The jury was still out as far as he was concerned.
“Well, whatever got him, I’m sorry this hombre had to die the way he did,” Grimshaw commented. “Looks like it was a bad way to go.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you takin’ him? The undertaker’s parlor?”
Frank shook his head. “I thought I’d stop at the marshal’s office first, see if maybe he recognized the gent.”
Grimshaw chuckled and nodded down the street. “I don’t think you’ll have to go all the way to the marshal’s office. Judgin’ by the badge on that hombre’s vest, the law’s comin’ to you.”
It was true. The body on the travois had drawn quite a bit of attention as Frank rode into town. One of the townies must have run down to Marshal Gene Price’s office to tell him about it.
Grimshaw reached up and ticked the tip of his index finger against the brim of his Stetson. “I’ll be moseyin’ on, Frank. Mighty good to see you again. Maybe we can get together later and have a drink, catch up on old times.”
“Still don’t care much for badge toters, eh?”
Grimshaw shook his head. “They make me antsy, even when I ain’t done anything.”
Frank slapped a hand on Grimshaw’s shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you.”
As Grimshaw strolled away and Marshal Price continued hurrying toward Frank, The Drifter’s thoughts went back to the last time he had seen Jack Grimshaw.
“They’ll be comin’ soon,” Grimshaw said as he crouched next to the window in the ramshackle old cabin. “You ready, Frank?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Frank replied with a nod. He was next to the window on the other side of the cabin’s only door. Whenever he risked a glance out that window, he could see a magnificent vista of Wyoming mountains spread out before him.
Unfortunately, hidden out there in the trees and the brush were nearly a dozen hardened gunmen who wanted to kill Frank and Jack Grimshaw because Frank and Grimshaw rode for one side in the deadly war that had spread across this part of the territory and they rode for the other.
It was as simple as that. A fella took money from one man, and he became mortal enemies with the hombres who took money from another man. That was crazy, Frank had been known to think, but it was the way of the West and had been ever since the great cattle barons had begun clashing over the rich rangeland.
Of course, for some men, things were a little more complicated. Frank himself had never sold his gun strictly for cash, despite the reputation that had attached itself to him over the years. The only causes he fought for were the ones he believed in.
In this case, he had allied himself with a rancher named Maynard Pollinger, an Englishman who had come to this country to make a new life for himself because he’d had the misfortune to be born the second son in an aristocratic British family. Pollinger wasn’t looking for trouble, but his MP spread had grown to be successful enough that it attracted the attention of Pete Dwyer, the boss of the Diamond D. Dwyer regarded Pollinger as a threat, and so he had started trying to run him out of the territory, sending hired guns to ambush Pollinger’s cowboys, poison his water holes, and stampede his stock.
Pollinger had had no choice but to fight back using the same methods. Jack Grimshaw was one of the men he had hired. Frank was another. They had been riding Pollinger’s range today when they’d been ambushed by a group of Dwyer’s gun-wolves. Forced to flee, they had taken shelter in this old line shack.
But even as they forted up inside the shack, both men had known that it would be only a matter of time before their enemies rushed them. The numbers were on the side of Dwyer’s men. They would lose a few, without any
