bar to pay for the drink. The others knew what to do. After making sure that no one on the street was paying any attention to him, he stepped into the narrow passage beside the building and made his way to the alley in back. He unlocked the door, stepped into the private room. It had one window, but the shade was tightly drawn.
Within minutes, the first of the other men showed up, seeking entrance with a discreet knock. One by one, they filtered into the meeting place until all thirteen remaining members of the gang were there.
“You got it?” Hooley asked eagerly. “You got the money?”
Grimshaw took the roll of bills from inside his shirt. He had already discreetly peeled off his share and stashed it in one of his pockets. As he tossed the money on the table, he said, “What do you think? There it is, boys. Twenty- eight hundred dollars, as promised.”
“Wait a minute,” Radburn said. “There’s only thirteen of us here, not countin’ you, Jack. What about Nichols?”
Grimshaw shook his head. “Nichols won’t be collecting his share.” They would hear about it sooner or later anyway, so he thought he might as well go ahead and tell them the news. “The Terror got him. Frank Morgan brought his body in from the woods.”
“Morgan!” one of the men said. “I heard he was in these parts. How do you know Morgan didn’t kill Nichols?”
“Because he wasn’t shot,” Grimshaw replied flatly. “His back was clawed so wide open that most of his blood spilled out.”
“Son of a bitch,” Radburn said in a soft, awed voice. He turned his head to look at Hooley. So did several of the other men.
“What?” Hooley demanded. “You think I should have stayed there and got ripped open, too?” He started to cough, and had to cover his mouth with his hand.
“What’s done is done,” Grimshaw said in a hard, emotionless voice. “What it amounts to is that there’s an extra two hundred bucks in that roll. You fellas can split it up any way you want to.”
“I don’t really care,” one man said, “as long as Hooley don’t get any of the extra.”
Another man jerked his head in a curt nod. “Yeah, that sounds good to me, too.” Mutters of agreement came from several of the others.
For a moment, Hooley looked like he was going to fly into a rage. But then he controlled himself with a visible effort and his lip curled in a snarl.
“Take it,” he snapped. “I don’t want any of the damned money except my share.”
“Fine,” Radburn said. He scooped up the roll from the table and began passing out the bills. One of the men was pretty good at ciphering, so he figured out that if they split the extra money evenly, everybody would get an extra $16.66.
“How the hell are we gonna do that?” one man demanded. “These are twenty-dollar bills.”
Grimshaw took a couple of double eagles from his pocket and slapped the gold pieces down on the table. “There you go, boys,” he said. “That’ll make it come out even, an extra twenty apiece.”
“We’re obliged, Jack,” Radburn said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“We’re all in this together, ain’t we?”
Radburn gave Hooley a significant look. “Most of us are anyway.”
Grimshaw laughed and clapped a hand on Radburn’s shoulder. “You were playin’ peacemaker earlier, so don’t go stirrin’ up trouble now,” he advised. Then he addressed the whole group. “The boss said he’d have some more work for us in a while. Until then, just lie low. You can have a good time, but stay out of trouble. And whatever you do, watch what you say. No talking about anything that happened today.”
Radburn shook his head. “I don’t reckon any of us would much want to talk about that anyway, Jack.”
Grimshaw knew exactly what his fellow gunman meant. Bushwhacking was one thing, but mutilating a bunch of corpses was something else entirely. There was a time in his life when he would have said no to such a job and ridden away.
But that time was gone. Grimshaw didn’t have any family left, no home to return to, damn few friends. He had his job, and by God, he was going to do it, no matter how unpleasant it got sometimes.
At least Frank Morgan was in town. It would be nice to sit and talk about old times with good ol’ Frank.
After leaving the undertaking parlor with Marshal Price, Frank said good-bye to the lawman and led Goldy toward the livery stable, with Dog padding along behind them. Patterson greeted the three of them with a friendly grin and set aside a wagon wheel hub he was greasing.
The liveryman grew more serious as he said, “Heard you found another fella in the woods who’d been unlucky enough to run into the Terror.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. His body’s down at the undertaker’s. I’d be obliged if you’d go down there and take a look at it if you get a chance.”
“Me?” Patterson asked with a surprised frown. “Why me?”
“Because you have the best livery stable in town, from what I’ve seen, and probably a lot of strangers come here first when they get to Eureka. I’d like to know if you’ve seen this fella around, and more importantly, if you’ve seen him with anybody else.”
Patterson scratched at his close-cropped beard. “Well, I reckon that makes sense. Sure, I’ll mosey down there after a while and have a look. Can’t say as I’m real eager to take a gander at a corpse, though.”
“I don’t blame you for that,” Frank said.
He led Goldy into the stall where the horse had spent the night and started unsaddling him. When he returned to the forest this afternoon, he would take Stormy. Having two superb mounts enabled him to switch out between
