Palmer laughed. “You heard wrong. It’s me, all right. Let me turn around, and you can see for yourself.”
A moment of hesitation went by before the man said, “All right, but take it slow and easy. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em, and no tricks.”
Palmer kept his open hands elevated to shoulder height and swung around so he could look at the men who had snuck up on him. Three of them stood close by, covering him with pistols and rifles, while farther back, dim blurs in the shadows, several more men waited.
The moon had risen and provided enough light for Palmer to see the man who took a step toward him holding a leveled revolver. The man had a craggy face, along with white hair and bushy side whiskers, under a black Stetson. Palmer knew him without any doubt as Owen Lundy.
“Last time I saw you, you weren’t dressed like a cowboy, Owen,” Palmer said with a smile. “It was in a dive on State Street in Chicago, and you looked like a real swell.”
“Well, as I live and breathe,” Lundy said. “By God, it really is you!” He lowered the hammer on his gun and holstered the weapon. With a motion to the men with him, he went on, “Take it easy, boys. This is Joe Palmer, an old friend of mine.”
Lundy stepped forward and held out his hand. Palmer clasped it firmly.
“It’s good to see a familiar face out here in the middle of nowhere, Owen,” he said. A thought occurred to him. “I’ll bet you’ve got something to do with that pair camped down there, don’t you?”
One of the other men grated a curse and started to raise his rifle again, saying, “He knows what’s going on, Lundy. We can’t take any chances—”
“Put that gun down,” Lundy ordered harshly. “I told you, this man can be trusted.”
“Maybe so,” another man put in coolly, “but I ain’t fond of the idea of carving another share out of the payoff.”
“Nobody said anything about that,” Palmer responded before Lundy could say anything. “Whatever you fellas have going on, I don’t want to horn in on it.”
That was a bald-faced lie, of course. If there was money involved, Palmer damn sure wanted to dip his fingers in the pie. But it would be unwise to let these men know that right now.
“You let me worry about the shares, Radford,” Lundy said. “Unless you think you’d rather start runnin’ things around here.”
The threat in Lundy’s voice was unmistakable.
“I never said that, Owen,” the man called Radford replied. “This job’s gone all right so far with you in charge.”
“Yeah,” the other man said, “except for that business with Blake.”
“Jericho?” Palmer said, remembering Lundy’s old partner. “Is he here, too, Owen?”
“No,” Lundy said with a grim edge in his voice. “He didn’t make it.”
“The soldiers killed him,” Radford said.
Lundy’s head turned. “That’s enough.” He looked again at Palmer, who sensed the tension in the air, and went on, “You’d better tell me what you’re doing here, Joe. It’s one hell of a coincidence that two fellas who know each other from the old days in Chicago wind up bumpin’ noses in the Canadian Rockies.”
“Not so much of a coincidence,” Palmer said. “I was on my way to Calgary to look for you. I’d heard that you and Jericho were operating around there now.”
Lundy considered that. “What’s your connection with those two ‘breeds?”
“There’s not any, except that I met them last night. We just talked and then went our separate ways, though.”
“Did they tell you what they’re doing up here?”
“Not a word.”
“But you’ve been trailing ‘em, haven’t you?” Lundy’s words held a cunning tone. “You think you’re on to something that might wind up with a big payoff.”
Palmer didn’t bother denying it. “They mentioned something about guns.” His brain made the connections between everything he had heard. “And you’re supplying them, aren’t you, Owen? What did you do, slip down across the border and steal a shipment of rifles from the U.S. Army? Is that how Jericho got killed?” His excitement grew, but he tried not to let it show. “Those two kids are carrying the money to buy those guns from you, aren’t they?”
“You always were a smart son of a bitch,” Lundy said. “You think you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I don’t?”
“Not all of it. We didn’t steal a shipment of rifles from the Army.”
“No? Then what did you steal?”
“Just four guns,” Lundy said. “Four very special guns.”
Chapter 15
Meg already had a small fire going and the coffee brewing when Frank rolled out of his blankets the next morning. His muscles were painfully stiff as he climbed to his feet. He tried to tell himself that was because he’d slept on the cold, hard ground.
