Bosworth grinned cockily and shook his head. “She won’t tell anyone. Because as soon as Chamberlain and I have concluded our business arrangement, the Terror is going to come along and burn down that mansion, with Chamberlain and his daughter and all his hired guns inside it. No one will ever be able to prove that Chamberlain didn’t just get tired of dealing with the Terror and sign over his lease to me so he could get out of the business.”
Grimshaw frowned. “You reckon people will really believe that?”
“They won’t be able to prove otherwise. That’s all that matters.”
“No, I reckon they won’t…Meet you at Chamberlain’s with the girl, you say?”
“That’s right. How long will it take you to get there?”
“Probably about an hour and a half.”
“That’ll put it close to the middle of the day…Let’s call it noon.”
“All right,” Grimshaw said with a nod. This would mean committing several more murders, but hell, they were already in so deep, a few more deaths wouldn’t make any difference, he supposed.
This was the end of it, though. After today, Bosworth would have what he wanted. Grimshaw was going to take his payoff and ride away, and he was done selling his gun. Things had changed too much. It was too much of a business now, too vicious. There was no honor to it anymore.
Hell, there probably never had been, he thought as he left the hotel. But at least, at times, he had been able to fool himself into believing so. Now even those illusions were gone.
And nothing was left but the killing. Just the way it had always been.
There was no point in keeping Wilcox and the other loggers from their work. Since Ben Chamberlain was gone, Frank had no need of the wagon.
“What are you going to do now, Morgan?” Wilcox asked as Frank mounted up again.
“Try to find Ben,” Frank answered. “Dog’s pretty good at tracking, and he’s been able to find Ben’s trail several times so far. He can do it again.”
The wagon rolled back up the road toward the clearing where the four men had been working. Frank told Dog to find Ben’s scent, and the big cur soon had his nose to the ground, trotting along with Frank following on Goldy and leading Stormy.
After a few minutes, Frank began to get an inkling of where they were headed. Ben’s old, primitive cabin was in this direction, and even though Frank had the impression that Ben had been avoiding the place, maybe being wounded had him even more addled than usual and he was headed back to someplace he knew. That made sense. The farther he followed Dog, the more convinced Frank was that he was right.
They were coming at the place from a different direction, though, and when they got there, Frank found himself on top of the heavily timbered ridge, rather than in the clearing down below. Realizing where he was, he reined in well short of the edge and dismounted to go ahead on foot. If Ben was down there, he didn’t want the sound of hoofbeats to spook the giant.
Frank motioned for Dog to be quiet, and moved silently through the timber himself. Even before he reached the edge of the ridge, he knew something was wrong, because he heard men’s voices drifting up from below. He bellied down, pushed his rifle in front of him, and crawled forward until he could peer over the sharp drop-off.
Ten horses grazed in front of the tumbled-up logs. Frank saw the men they belonged to scattered around, evidently waiting for something. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he had a feeling he was looking at Emmett Bosworth’s gang of gun-wolves, the same men he’d shot it out with the day before, when the Terror had intervened in the battle.
He saw no sign of Ben Chamberlain now, but an even more shocking sight met his eyes. Ben’s sister Nancy was down there, sitting on a log and looking pale and scared. A couple of the hardcases stood next to her, keeping an eye on her, and it was obvious that she was a prisoner. Frank asked himself what in blazes was going on here. Why were Bosworth’s men at the cabin, and why was Nancy Chamberlain their prisoner?
Regardless of the answers, he couldn’t make a move against the men right now. From up here, he could cut down several of them with the Winchester before they knew what was going on, but there were too many of them to get them all. Anyway, Nancy would be in too much danger if bullets started flying around. Frank knew he was going to have to bide his time and find out a little more about what was happening here.
He didn’t see Jack Grimshaw among the men, which came as a bit of a surprise. He’d been convinced that Grimshaw was one of the gunmen working for Bosworth. He knew he had heard Grimshaw’s voice the day before. Maybe his old friend had been killed by the Terror. In that case, he’d be sorry…but Grimshaw never should have gone to work for a man like Emmett Bosworth.
As Frank listened, Nancy asked in a voice on the verge of trembling, “What are you going to do with me?”
One of the men watching her, an hombre with a square, florid face, said, “Well, little lady, I don’t really know. I reckon that’ll be up to somebody else.”
“Mr. Bosworth,” Nancy said. “That’s who you mean.”
Her captor shrugged. “Man with the money gives the orders. That’s how it works in this life.”
“I have money, too, you know. My father has a lot of money. He’ll pay you to keep me safe.”
“Sorry, Miss Chamberlain. It ain’t my decision to make.”
Nancy looked down at the ground in despair.
If Frank needed any more proof that these hired killers worked for Emmett Bosworth, the conversation he’d just overheard had given it to him. If he could get Nancy away from them, her testimony would put Bosworth behind bars, if not on a gallows.
The man who was talking to Nancy went on. “Anyway, Jack ought to be back soon, I reckon, and then we’ll all find out what’s gonna happen.”
Frank’s heart sank. He knew the man had to be talking about Grimshaw, who must be alive after all. Well, the
