“We’ll be careful.”
“Ford Oakley’s men are swarming into town. I gather that something is wrong at the marshal’s office.”
“Really?”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” Sophie said, “I hope it’s not serious.”
“Me too,” the liveryman said. “Those boys are real killers, and they’d think nothing of shooting the marshal if he messed up and Ford got killed.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I’d go with you if I could get away for a few hours, just to make sure that you’ll be safe.”
“We’ll be just fine,” Molly assured the man. “As you know, we are both excellent riders and with these two fast horses … well, no one could catch us anyway.”
“That’s true enough,” the liveryman had to admit. “Just be careful and don’t lame ‘em. They’re the best that I’ve had in a long, long time.”
“We’ll be very careful,” Sophie promised as she reined out of the livery toward the alley.
“Hey!” the man called. “Why are you starting off through the alley?”
Molly frowned. “Well, we just think it better if two young ladies like ourselves don’t advertise an unescorted outing. Don’t you agree?”
“Sure,” the liveryman said. “I think that’s a smart thing to do. There might be some hard-cases out on the main street, and they’d see you two innocent young ladies and might decide to follow.”
“Exactly!” Sophie said. “So don’t tell a soul that we’ve gone.”
“You can count on me!”
“Good!”
Sophie and Molly rode through the alley heading south. But when they were out of sight, they angled their rented horses east toward Lone Pine and the Ruby Mountains.
“How long will it take to get there?”
“About four hours,” Molly replied. “We can take the shortcut since we don’t have to follow the road.”
Sophie thought that was an excellent idea. She preferred to take life’s shortcuts whenever and wherever possible.
Chapter 11
Red Kane sat in a saloon opposite Marshal Wheeler’s office and watched as Molly Bean guarded the marshal’s door. Kane was a big man and although once brutishly powerful, he had now gone mostly to fat. His red hair was thinning, and his aging pale skin had begun to crust and bleed from too much Nevada sun. Kane drank his whiskey straight from a bottle, and a cigarette dangled loosely from his chapped lips.
“What do you think is going on over there?” Deke said as he joined his leader.
Kane squinted, blue eyes blank and expressionless. When he spoke, his cracked lips barely moved around his cigarette. “I think that those two women are trying to find out where the Hell them lawmen have taken Ford.”
“So you think that Marshal Wheeler knows?”
“Yeah,” Kane muttered, “I’m sure he does.”
Deke, like his boss, was not a man who appreciated the subtleties of life. “Then me and some of the boys oughta just go back there and beat the Hell outa Marshal Wheeler until he tells us! Honest, Kane, me and the boys are just plain worn out after screwing around with all this. Instead of waiting to ambush that stagecoach and spring Ford, we shoulda-“
“Stop waggin’ your gawddamn tongue!” Kane snapped. “Would you just look at that Flanigan woman.”
Both outlaws stared through the window as Sophie straightened her dress.
“What do you make of it?” Deke asked, his hot breath fogging the window.
“She looks mussed up to me,” Kane answered. “I think that old marshal has been fucking Sophie Flanigan right there in his office.”
Deke guffawed. “Aw, come on, Red! Now why would she be screwin’ the marshal in his office at this time in the morning? She’s a handsome woman and could have a man like either of us, if she wanted.”
“I know that,” Kane said, “but Sophie Flanigan don’t do nothing unless she’s got something to gain. My money says that she screwed the marshal while her friend, Molly Bean, guarded the door and that the both of ‘em are in cahoots tryin’ to learn where those lawmen have taken Ford.”
“But why’d that be so important to them two women? What do they care about Ford?”
“Because they hate him for diddlin’them both, and besides that, there’s that kid that Ford beat over the head so that he can’t think right anymore.”
Kane dipped his double chins. “I tell you, those women are willin’ to do any damn thing in order to kill Ford. That’s why they’re messin’ with the marshal.”
“I dunno,” Deke wheedled. “I still say it’d be a lot simpler just to pay another visit to Marshal Wheeler and knock the shit outa him until the old bastard breaks down and tells us everything he knows.”
But Red Kane shook his head. “The trouble with that idea is that Marshal Wheeler is on good terms with Judge
