rancher.
Emmett Zolliver wasn’t a big or physically imposing man anymore, but he had been before the years, the hard Wyoming weather, and the whiskey had all combined to take their toll on his once-powerful body. Now he glared at Diana, probably expecting her to cringe, but she didn’t.
“Mind if I have a drink?” she asked, her eyes darting to his bottle.
“You want to drink this panther piss?”
“Sure! It says on the bottle that it’s whiskey.”
He squinted at her, and when she met his eyes without flinching, he grabbed his half-empty bottle by the neck and upended it, gulping several big slugs.
“You want to drink, do it,” he challenged Diana, shoving the bottle in her direction.
“Oh, kee-rist,” Jeb whispered, starting forward.
But Longarm grabbed his arm. “Hold up, she knows what she’s doing.”
The whole saloon was staring as Diana wrenched the bottle from the embittered old man, upended it, then drank its entire contents. Longarm saw her shudder a little, but then she smiled and slammed the bottle down on the bar and demanded, “Now, why don’t you tell me where the hell I can find Nathan Cox!”
Everyone, even Emmett Zolliver, grinned after they’d recovered from shock. Longarm went over to join them and heard the old man say, “Well now, miss, you are my kind of woman. Bartender, bring us another bottle.”
Longarm guessed that Diana was going to learn about everything she wanted to know in the next few hours. The question then was whether they were going to be able to walk out of the Maverick, or would they have to be carried out.
Chapter 6
Nathan Cox had driven his half-dozen blooded Thoroughbred horses over the Laramie Mountains and then skirted around the north slope of Bridger Peak before dropping south toward the Yampa River in the northwest corner of Colorado. It had been his intention to roughly parallel the Union Pacific Railroad line, but then he’d decided that would be far too risky. No doubt, there were feds riding the rails, seeking him, that very minute.
Nathan wasn’t worried. He had fast horses and plenty of cash whose serial numbers couldn’t be tracked. Furthermore, he was quite sure that the pursuit would lead south into Arizona and that the federal agents would be waiting for him in the vicinity of Prescott and Flagstaff. Let them wait. The first half of his journey would be in the direction of Arizona, but then he’d veer north, cross the hard, high-desert country of central Nevada, and then follow the Sierras south a little into California, where he understood there was some prime ranching country to be had at very attractive prices.
California’s eastern Sierra slope was the last place anyone in the world would expect him to run. Other than a few mining towns like Bodie, all reputed to be in serious decline, there was no reason to expect a rich fugitive to settle in that country, where there just wasn’t much for a man to spend his fortune on.
The only trouble was, this was a hard, lawless land he was crossing, one known to be a stronghold of roving bands of cutthroats and cattle rustlers. And, unfortunately, three of them were heading in his direction at that very moment.
Nathan wore a two-shot .45-caliber derringer in his sleeve and a Colt .45 on his hip. In addition to that, he had a good Winchester repeating rifle in his saddle scabbard and a Bowie knife hidden in his boot top. But Nathan had little doubt that the three rough-looking men still a quarter of a mile away and trotting toward him were equally well armed and perhaps even as proficient with their weapons.
“Well,” he said as he continued herding his horses, “I might be able to outrun the bunch of them. But then they’d know I was afraid and had a lot to lose and so they’d keep coming after me. Or I can just open up on them first and hope to drop one, maybe even two … but then the third would probably put a bullet in me before I could get around to him.”
Nathan frowned. Both choices were bad, and there was the slim chance that these three riders were honest cowboys, men just coming to pass the time of day before continuing eastward. Nathan didn’t want to kill decent, hardworking men. Breaking his accomplice’s neck back in Denver had left a bad taste in his mouth and, if Tom hadn’t decided to suddenly get greedy, he’d still be alive today.
I’ll give them a chance, he thought. Maybe they are friendly and mean me no harm.
When there was still about three hundred yards between himself and the three riders, Nathan saw one of them reach for the pistol at his side and then ease it up and down in his holster. That convinced him that the men had deadly intentions. He took the precaution of slipping his derringer out of his right sleeve and transferring it to his left hand. Nathan had taught himself to shoot quite accurately with either hand, should he ever find himself outnumbered and in a rather desperate situation such as this might become.
“Howdy!” the man on the high-headed gray horse shouted.
“Howdy!” Nathan called in return, spurring his mount forward so that he would meet this trio in advance of his band of fine horses.
When Nathan was out in front, he drew in his reins, cocked his derringer, and kept it folded under his fingers and behind the horn of his saddle. The three men also reined up, and the man on the gray thumbed back his droopy hat.
“Nice horses, mister.”
“Thanks.”
“Where you heading?”
“South.”
“Where you come from?” an angular, greasy-haired man with evil-looking eyes on a buckskin wanted to know.
“Rock Springs.”
