The Last Gunfighter

Bosworth waved that away. “So the odds are fourteen to one, and yet you hesitate to go after Morgan?”

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t do it,” Grimshaw snapped.

“Ah!” Understanding appeared on Bosworth’s face. “You want more than your usual pay.”

“What I want is to know why. What’s so important about Morgan that you have to send us after him?”

Bosworth snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? Chamberlain has given him the job of tracking down the Terror and killing it. If this man Morgan is actually as dangerous as you claim he is, he might succeed. We can’t allow that.”

“Because you need the Terror to stay out there in the woods, so he’ll get blamed for anything me and the rest of the men do for you.”

“Exactly!” Bosworth puffed on the cheroot. “Perhaps your mother really didn’t raise any fools, although I’d say that the jury is still out on that question.”

Grimshaw allowed himself a second’s luxury to wonder how it was that an arrogant son of a bitch like Bosworth had managed to live this long without anybody shooting him or beating him to death with a two-by-four. Then he said, “It didn’t bother you when Chamberlain had that ten-grand bounty on the critter and there were men all over the woods looking for it.”

“The chances of any of those men actually finding and killing the Terror, or even of surviving the encounter, were so slim that I wasn’t worried. But as you yourself say, Morgan is different.”

Even though Grimshaw didn’t want to admit it, Bosworth had a point. If there was anybody who might actually corral the Terror, it was Frank. And if that happened, Bosworth’s long-range plans would indeed be ruined.

But this was Frank that Bosworth was talking about. Sure, they hadn’t been all that close over the years, but they had fought side by side on more than one occasion. They had saved each other’s life. They’d fished and gone swimming in the Brazos River and run wild as kids together. Forget for a minute about the dangers involved in trying to kill Frank Morgan. Think about betraying an old friend…

“Five thousand,” Bosworth said.

Grimshaw blinked. “What? You mean you’ll give us five thousand for this job?”

Bosworth shook his head. “No. I’ll give you five thousand, and five thousand more to split among your men. Chamberlain put up a bounty of ten thousand dollars for the man who kills the Terror. It’s worth that much to me to keep the thing alive for a while longer.”

“Chamberlain’s talkin’ about doublin’ it to twenty grand, you know.”

“Don’t push it, Grimshaw. That’s my offer. Five to you, five to your men.”

“And if I don’t take it?”

“Then I’ll make the same offer to, say, Radburn. He seems like a tough, competent man.”

There was no getting around it, Grimshaw realized. That was too much money to turn down, and if he did refuse it, then Bosworth was right—Radburn wouldn’t. The men would go after Frank either way.

But they’d be more likely to succeed if Grimshaw was along, he told himself. He knew Frank Morgan better than anybody else in these parts. The group would have the best chance of bringing him down, and losing fewer men in the process, if Grimshaw was part of the effort. And he did owe some loyalty to his current partners, didn’t he?

“All right,” he said heavily. “It’s a deal.”

“Good.” Bosworth glanced out the window, then lifted a hand and summoned Grimshaw over. “There he is now, leaving the livery barn. He’ll be riding out of town. Follow him. Kill him. Simple as that. When you come back, I’ll have ten thousand dollars in cold, hard cash waiting for you.”

Grimshaw nodded and turned toward the door. Normally, he shook hands to seal a deal, but he didn’t particularly want to shake Emmett Bosworth’s hand.

And Bosworth probably didn’t want to shake the hand of a man who would betray an old friend either, Grimshaw thought as he put a stony expression on his face and left the hotel room.

“Well, better you than me goin’ out there,” Patterson said as Frank walked out of the livery stable leading Stormy and Goldy.

The rangy gray stallion wore the saddle right now, but Frank intended to take both horses along on this trip, despite the fact that he had ridden Goldy that morning. He didn’t know how long he would be away from town. He had packed supplies to last for several days. If he didn’t find the Terror before the deadline Chamberlain had given him, that didn’t mean he was going to abandon the search. He intended to keep looking until he located the creature and determined once and for all whether Nancy Chamberlain was right about it being her brother.

If it wasn’t—if it was some sort of animal—Frank intended to kill it. Even though the Terror wasn’t guilty of all the charges that had been leveled against it, there was no doubt that it had attacked and killed more than a dozen men. Either way, it had to be stopped.

“I appreciate the good care you’ve taken of my friends,” Frank said as he held out his hand to the liveryman. “We’ll see you when we get back to town.”

“Sure thing,” Patterson said. “By the way, I went down to the undertaker’s and had a look at that dead fella, the way you asked me to.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Yeah, I think he kept his horse here for a few nights when he first got to town. That was a while back, a couple of months ago maybe, so I can’t be completely sure, but I believe I’m right.”

“Do you remember if he was traveling with anybody else?”

Patterson shook his head. “Not really. Like I said, it’s been a while.”