'Would you rather be dead?'
'No,' Cabot said softly, sitting down in the snow to pull off his boots.
'We'll die out here without no boots!' Rich complained. 'We can't make it in our stocking feet.'
'I can shoot you now,' the rifleman said. 'That way, your feet won't be cold.'
Rich slumped on his rump and pulled off his stovepipe boots without further complaint.
'Now start walking,' the rifleman said. 'I don't give a damn which direction you go.'
'We will die!' Cabot cried.
The lanky gunman came toward them and picked up their boots without taking his rifle sights off them. 'Life ain't no easy proposition, gentlemen,' he said. 'Start walking, or I'll kill you right where you sit.'
Both gunslicks limped away.
'Pretty sight, ain't it?' Tin Pan asked.
Frank merely nodded.
* * * *
He closed his eyes. Was his need for revenge so great that it was worth riding this vengeance trail?
Frank knew the answer as he drifted off to sleep. Dog was curled beside the bed, watching him with big liquid eyes.
--------
*Six*
Frank reined his bay east at the river. Dog trotted beside the horse. After a big breakfast of pancakes and ham, with a pot of coffee at his elbow at Glenwood Springs' only cafe, he felt rested, better than he had in days. He'd purchased supplies at Colter's General Store, enough provisions to last him for a month or more.
He sighted a rock building and a faded, hand-painted sign reading GLENWOOD SPRINGS SANITARIUM hung above a pair of front doors. The place looked like it had fallen on hard times, like the rest of the town.
Frank swung over to a hitch rail and stepped down, wondering what Doc Holliday would be like. His waitress at the eatery had said that Holliday was dying with tuberculosis and word was he didn't have long, which was what George had said.
Frank let himself into the building. Dog watched him, resting on his haunches near the bay.
A gray-haired woman in a rumpled nurse's uniform greeted him.
'What can I do for you, mister?'
'I'd like to speak to Doc Holliday a moment.'
'He don't want any visitors.'
'It's important, ma'am. Someone's life may be in danger unless I can talk to him.' It was more or less the truth. If Holliday could tell him where to find Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen, their lives would damn sure be in grave danger when Frank caught up to them.
The woman frowned. 'I'll ask him if he'll talk to you. Give me your name.'
'Frank Morgan. He may not recognize the name, only please tell him I need to talk to him. I won't need but a minute of his time.'
'I'll tell him, Mr. Morgan. You can take a seat over there by those windows.'
The nurse disappeared down a dark hallway. Somewhere in the back of the building, Frank could hear bubbling water and soft splashing sounds, no doubt the hot mineral baths this place was known for, a spring coming from deep in the earth and filled with healing, or so some folks said.
'This place is damn near empty,' he muttered.
The woman returned a moment later. She halted in front of Frank and glanced down at his gunbelt. 'Doc says it's okay, but he asked if you was carryin' a gun.'
'I'll leave it here on your desk,' Frank replied, drawing his Colt, placing it on her desk top with a heavy thud. He still had a belly-gun hidden inside his shirt, not that he figured he'd be needing it.
'Come this way, Mr. Morgan,' the nurse said, leading him down the hallway. 'Doc said you could only stay a minute or two. He's feelin' real poorly now.'
'I understand, ma'am,' Frank told her as she opened a door into a small private room.
A frail, emaciated young man lay on a narrow bed below the room's only window, covered by a thin sheet and wool blanket to keep out the morning chill.
The woman closed the door behind Frank.
'Doc Holliday?' he asked softly. The man on the bed would scarcely weigh a hundred pounds. His cheeks and eyes were so deeply sunken into his face that he could have been dead, had he not spoken just then.
'That's me,' Holliday replied. 'You can take that chair in the corner. I've heard of you, Morgan. You have a reputation as a man with an intemperate disposition.'
Frank grinned weakly and eased over to the wooden chair. 'I've heard much the same about you, Doc.'
Holliday tried for a laugh that ended in a series of wet coughs. With a slender-fingered hand he wiped
