“You known my son Hank and the Marble boys long?” the old man asked.
“Naw,” Smith said, patting his horse. “Just long enough to do a few jobs. I’m hopin’ that we can do a few more and not get caught this time.”
“Be a good idea,” Luke agreed. “Come inside. Besides the chili, I’ve a pan of warm biscuits on the stove.”
“Sounds good.”
Smith followed the old man into the cabin. It was a rat’s nest. Most everything was scattered on the floor including a lot of dirty, stinking underwear. One look around and Smith damned near lost his appetite.
“Just step over to the table and lay a dollar on ‘er,” Luke Trabert said, “before I fill your plate.”
Smith didn’t reach for his money. He wasn’t about to pay.
“What did you say your name was again?” Luke said.
“Smith. James Smith.”
The old man was filthy and dressed in bib overalls. He had a limp and droopy left eyelid, caused, no doubt, by a rather unsightly knife scar that ran from his left ear across his eye and then up into his scalp, where it disappeared in his silver hair.
“I make good chili and biscuits,” Luke said as he used an enormous spoon to fill Smith’s plate. “You’ll like the taste of ‘em but I can’t guarantee that you’ll like the way they will fire up your innards.”
Smith figured that the old man was making a joke, so he chuckled.
“Here you go. Eat your fill. There’s plenty more where those came from … hey, where’s your dollar?”
Jim smith smiled. “Dammit, I guess I forgot to bring my money inside.”
Trabert’s expression changed. He grabbed up the plate and carried it over to lay it on his hot stove. “Get your gawddamn money or get your ugly ass outa my cabin!”
“Now, that’s no way to be hospitable.”
Luke shook his big, silver-topped head. “I ain’t too sure about you, stranger. Hank never said anything about a James Smith riding with the Marble Gang. And I damn sure have a feeling that you didn’t forget your money.”
“No,” The Assassin said, reaching for the gun at his side and drawing it from his holster to aim at the old man’s chest, “but you sure as hell forgot your good manners.”
When Luke lunged for his shotgun, The Assassin shot him in the side. The old man cried out and fell hard. He began to crawl toward the shotgun, and Smith shot him in the hand when he reached for it.
“No! No more!” Luke cried.
“Say please.”
“Please!”
“I’m afraid that you’re a little too late,” Smith said as he put a bullet in the old man’s head.
Smith stepped over the body and picked up the plate of chili. He forked some into his mouth and was prepared to spit it out in a hurry, but it was actually very good. He grabbed up a biscuit, and it was delicious.
“Damn,” he said to himself, “that old man really could cook.”
Taking his food outside, Smith squatted on his heels and began to eat. He was famished and there was plenty of food. His intentions were to eat it all before the Trabert boys returned.
Chapter 7
Jim Smith finished off the chili and biscuits, then tied his horse around behind the cabin. Daylight was fading fast and he was beginning to return for supper.
Smith went back into the cabin and grabbed the old man by the wrists, then dragged his body back outside. The bay gelding, smelling death, grew agitated, and Smith had to drag the body a long ways out in the woods.
“Rest in peace, you old badger,” Smith said. “I wonder how many good men you cheated, stole from, or ambushed in your worthless lifetime. One thing that’s for certain, the world will be better off for your passing.”
Smith went back into the cabin. He straightened it up, but did not bother to try to eliminate the large bloodstain. Instead, he found a burlap feed sack and draped it over the stain like a rug. Satisfied, he lit a lamp and began to search the Trabert cabin looking for anything of value. There wasn’t much, but then he hadn’t expected much. He did discover a nice little .45-caliber, two-shot derringer. It was a quality weapon with real pearl-handle grips, and Smith figured that the family must have killed and then robbed a gambler.
There were cash and coins hidden in a cracked teapot that added up to less than twenty dollars. Smith poured the money into another feed sack along with a few cans of peaches and a sack of coffee. He debated taking an old shotgun, but decided against it because the weapon had the initials LT carved into its stock. Smith knew better than to take anything that could be positively identified with this soon-to-be-deceased family of thieves and murderers. There was a tin of good tobacco and the makings, so Smith rolled a cigarette and walked out into the trees, where he leaned up against a rock and smoked with contentment as he watched the sun melt into the western horizon. He heard a coyote howl, and a half hour later saw the dark silhouette of a great horned owl launch itself from a pine tree to swoop across the yard and then disappear on its nightly hunt.
Smith was a patient man. He had come to believe that patience was an extremely important quality in the killing game. Impatient men generally made foolish mistakes. And in the many cases where he had been hired as an assassin, Smith had come to realize that the first person who made a move was almost always the first to die.
Better, far better, to sit and wait like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse. By patiently waiting, a man chose his own moment of attack as well as the setting, and he also gained the critical element of surprise. And when he had his quarry at his mercy, it was good to remain patient and then to kill slowly.
Smith heard the whinny of a horse break the night’s gentle peace, then the bawling of weary cattle. He
