no, we're going into Red Arrow all right.'
'But they'll be waiting.
. . . ' 'God, I hope so.' Cooper had been listening to the
conversation with his eyes closed. He didn't bother to open them when
he asked, 'You do have a plan in mind, don't you? ' 'Yes, ' Daniel
answered. 'But it involves you, Cooper.'
'Daniel, he's been seriously wounded, and his fever only just broke.'
'He won't have to do much, ' he promised.
'So what do you want me to do? ' Cooper asked.
Daniel smiled. 'I want you to die. 'Jg And in green underwood and
cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
or two long days and nights, four members of the Blackwater gang
impatiently waited to ambush the women when they got off the train in
Red Arrow. Three of them kept vigil at the depot, while the fourth
kept to the shadows as a backup in the event his friends didn't
succeed.
Two trains arrived daily, one at ten in the morning and the other at
six at night. The men were thorough in their search. After the
passengers departed, a clean sweep was made of every car just to make
certain the women weren't hiding.
The hours in between the trains' arrivals were spent in the town
saloon. The four of them drank hard whiskey together, but none of them
got drunk. Mr. Robertson did get a little careless, though, and the
others had to help him cover up his spot of trouble. Robertson blamed
his lack of control on boredom, for surely that was why he had taken
the homely little whore named Flo out to one of the caverns and cut
her. He hadn't meant to kill her, just scare her a little, at least
that's what he believed when he started out with her perched on his
saddle, but once he took his knife out and started carving, he got such
a kick out of hearing her scream he didn't want to stop.
His friends helped him bury the body, and aside from having to listen
to Robertson boast about how she had squealed like a pig, they all put
the inconvenience behind them. Flo was just a whore, after all, and no
one was going to miss her.
Because they still hadn't heard from Johnson, they assumed he'd failed
to kill the women himself. Robertson told the others he wished their
boss were there because he was much smarter than they were and would
surely be able to figure out where the women were hiding. He wasn't
there though, for he and his mistress had gone south to get Bell out of
