there.
“We’re still going after Morgan?” Treadwell asked.
Erickson frowned. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around town tonight. He may still be out there somewhere in the woods. Hell, maybe the Terror even got him.”
“That’d make things simpler for us, wouldn’t it?”
“It sure would.”
Dawson said, “We can’t do anything about any of it tonight, so I’m gonna go find me a gal and not even think about monsters and gunfighters for a while.” He downed the last of his whiskey and then settled his hat on his head. “I’d advise you boys to do the same.”
“Sounds good to me,” Treadwell agreed. “I’ve had enough hooch to deaden the pain in this wounded arm of mine. Maybe I’ll go deaden something else.”
Dawson laughed. “That don’t even make sense. But I must really be drunk, ’cause it’s funny anyway.”
The two of them stood up and wandered off, leaving Erickson sitting by himself at the table.
But not completely by himself. He still had company. He picked up the bottle and muttered, “Have some more whiskey, you bastard,” as he poured the booze down Sutherland’s shrieking throat.
Grimshaw went through the usual charade with Harry the bartender, got the key to the back room, and sat at the table nursing a drink as the other ten men filtered into the room by ones and twos. They passed the bottle around, and when everyone was there, Grimshaw said, “We’re goin’ out again in the morning to look for Morgan.”
“Bosworth still wants him dead?” Radburn asked.
“Why wouldn’t he? What’s changed since this afternoon?”
“Well, we lost Hargan, Flynn, and Dupree,” Radburn said, naming the three men who had died at the hands of the Terror.
Grimshaw shook his head. “Why in the hell would Bosworth care about that? We’re just tools to him.” He tilted his glass to his lips and drank. “Just like an ax or a saw to a logger.”
Hooley said, “Well, by God, I think he needs to pay us more. This is turnin’ into a dangerous job.”
Grimshaw stared at the man for a couple of seconds, then began to laugh. He couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, imagine that. Bein’ a hired gun is dangerous work.”
Hooley flushed. “You know what I mean. It ain’t enough we got to go after Morgan. We have to worry about that damn monster, too. What if it’s on the lookout for us now? We don’t know how smart the blasted critter really is. People seem to think that it’s only attacked folks who happened to run into it. But what if it’s really out there
“I can’t believe none of us hit it, the way we were throwin’ lead around out there,” Radburn mused. “Hell, it looked to me like we put half a dozen bullet holes in it, at least. But the thing never slowed down, never acted like it was hurt.”
“Maybe somethin’ was watchin’ over it,” Grimshaw suggested.
“Like a guardian angel?”
Grimshaw chuckled. “More like a guardian devil, since it looked to me like it crawled up right outta hell.”
“That’s right,” Hooley said. “You got the best look at it of anybody who’s still alive, Grimshaw. What did it look like?”
“Like nothin’ you ever saw before. Like nothin’
Except him, Grimshaw thought. He had seen the Terror close up all right.
But today wasn’t the first time.
Because Jack Grimshaw was maybe the only man alive who knew for sure who the Terror really was. He knew because he had been there the day the Terror was born, so to speak.
He wasn’t going to think about that, though. Wasn’t going to think about all the blood that was on his hands because of what had happened in that cabin…He had enough blood on his hands because of his own killings over the years. He didn’t need any more.
Radburn grinned and said, “It sounds to me like you’re sayin’ the Terror is even uglier than ol’ Hooley here, Jack.”
“Hey!” Hooley protested. “How’d you like it if I went around comparin’ you to a monster?”
“Forget it,” Grimshaw snapped. “Everybody have a drink, then go get a whore. Better yet, get a good night’s sleep. You’re liable to need it come mornin’.”
“How are we gonna find Morgan?” one of the men asked.
Grimshaw leaned back in his chair and tipped more whiskey into his glass. “I’m not sure we’ll have to worry about that,” he said. “Chances are, Morgan’s going to find us.”
Bosworth was pacing, smoking, and drinking when he heard the soft knock on the sitting room door. While things were going fairly well, there had been too many complications to suit him. Once that damned gunfighter Morgan was out of the way, things would be simpler again. And if Grimshaw couldn’t do the job and get rid of Morgan, Bosworth would find somebody who could.
He put those thoughts out of his mind, though, and smiled as he went to the door to answer the knock. The lamps in the hallway had been turned down low, so the light was dim. It was enough, though, to show him the slender figure who stood there, wearing a hooded cape to keep the rain off her hair.
