girl, Pitt? Give ’er up and maybe we won’t kill the pair of you today. Just maybe we’ll let you start runnin’ again and live a little bit longer. Then run you down later and kill you like the rabid coyotes you are.”

Atwood threw a snarling glance over his shoulder at Boz, then swung back around my direction. “What girl?” he said, as if he were something akin to an innocent babe.

“We don’t know nothin’ ’bout no girl,” Murdock grumped. Then he spat a fist-sized gob of tobacco juice into the glop-covered spittoon on the floor next to his chair leg.

“Well, now, Pitt, my man, that’s exactly the wrong answer to Ranger Tatum’s rather pointed question,” I offered. “Gonna have to come up with something better than that. A lot better, as a matter of pure fact. Otherwise I just might have a problem keeping ole Boz from cutting loose with that big-bore scattergun of his and splattering you two barn weasels all over hell and yonder.”

Murdock slid both hands off the table and raised them to his chest. Palms out, he looked like a man attempting to hold off an attacker. “Now, I can most certainly see that you boys mean business, Dodge. Don’t want any of you to go and jump the gun here and do something the pair of us might end up regrettin’ a minute or so later.”

“The hell with ’em, by God,” Atwood growled under his breath.

I said, “Should you manage to live more’n another minute, Pitt, way I recall it, think both you ole boys are supposed to be locked up in an iron-barred cell over in Huntsville. Figure, even if we don’t kill you, we’re gonna have to take the pair of you into custody at the very least. Have some of our law enforcement friends look into why you’re not in some stinkin’ cell where you belong. Very likely have to send you back to prison soon as we can. Lock you up so you can go back to pickin’ peas and choppin’ cotton for the state for a few more years. You bastards are a menace to society.”

Atwood twisted in his chair as if his pants were about to burst into flame. He said, “Ain’t nobody sendin’ me back to Huntsville, Dodge. And that’s for damned certain. I done had all of that hellhole I’m willing to take in this lifetime, by God.”

“Where’s the girl?” I said.

Crazed eyes twirling in their rheumy sockets, Murdock slapped the tabletop with a calloused palm and snapped, “We don’t know nothin’ ’bout no girl, Dodge, and that’s the truth of it.”

“Guess you don’t know anything ’bout killing my dog right outside the door of this place earlier today, do you? Or rubbin’ out most of an entire family name of Webb yesterday mornin’,” I said.

If I had walked over, snatched his hat off, then pissed on his head, don’t think Pitt Murdock or Tanner Atwood, either one, would’ve been any more surprised and shocked. Both men set to fidgeting and looking sneaky.

Murdock cut a shifty-eyed, worried glance at Atwood, then said, “Well, now, wait a second, Dodge. Maybe we can work something out here. You done gone and mentioned it twice, but I swear we don’t know nothing ’bout no family gettin’ rudely slaughtered. But seems like I might remember somethin’ ’bout a girl showin’ up here earlier today. Yeah, maybe I do.”

“Best keep that rain barrel of a mouth of yours shut ’bout that particular subject, Pitt, or anything else this law-bringin’ bastard mentions,” Atwood snapped. “Just shut the hell up and right by-God now. Talkin’ to this son of a bitch can get you killed, and right quicklike too.”

“Being as how we’ve already sent three men to the grave of recent. And being as how I’m feelin’ almost generous, you tell me where the girl is, Pitt, and I might consider letting the two of you get up and walk right out of here. Guess I could even let you have a day’s worth of head start, maybe two, before we come find you and then kill you,” I said.

A look of relief washed over Murdock’s face. “Ain’t kid-din’ now, are you? We can just walk on away from here?”

“That’s what I said. Have my word on it. Let you boys walk right on out. Have forty-eight hours’ head start. Hell, you could probably be in Nuevo Laredo by then. Sipping tequila and sporting a Mexican senorita on each arm.”

“Well, I ...”

Murdock didn’t get to finish his thought. In a barely audible tone, Atwood hissed, “Shut the hell up. Damn your stupid ass. This bunch might not kill us. But, by God, you go and open your mouth and I can pretty much gar-n-tee Cutner’ll show up, and he for damn sure will. That crazy bastard’ll chase us to Hell’s front doorstep to rub us out. So shut your gob.”

With both hands resting atop the table once again, a look of considerable distress chewed its way onto Pitt Murdock’s scarred, greasy countenance. “Look, Dodge, here’s the thing. Maybe the girl I’m thinkin’ ’bout ain’t the one you’re lookin’ for.”

“Then again maybe she is, you stupid son of a bitch,” Boz yelled from his corner.

Murdock’s weasely gaze darted from Glo, to me, to Boz, and back again. Then he said, “Blond, blue eyes, maybe sixteen . . .”

Then, I swear ’fore Jesus, the entire top of that poker table exploded with a thunderous, ear-splitting report. Shards of glass from a shattered whiskey bottle, wood fragments from the tabletop, and chunks of green felt filled the air like an angry swarm of multicolored bees.

About half a heartbeat later, I came to the stunned realization that Tanner Atwood had fired a single pistol shot that caught Pitt Murdock beneath the chin. A .45-caliber slug bored through all the bony passages of ole Pitt’s sizable skull and exited through the top of his surprised noggin.

The thuggish bastard’s hat flew off, followed by a shower of brain matter that splattered the wall behind him. He twitched, wiggled a bit, then came to rest sitting upright in his chair. A budding, flowerlike gusher of blood spouted from the hole in his head. Unmoving, he stared at the ceiling with frozen eyes, while a ropy stream of gore coated everything within arm’s length.

I had my weapon up like double-geared lightning. A nigh on deafening blast from the two-and-a-half-pound Colt delivered a chunk of lead that hit Tanner Atwood in the upper right side of his chest. Monstrous, slow-moving pellet knocked him out of the chair in the manner of some enormous, invisible hand that had reached down from Heaven’s front doorstep and slapped the unmerciful hell out of him. Wasn’t exactly a killer shot. Needed his sorry ass alive. My slug caught the worthless bastard in just the right place to jar his weapon loose and paralyze him to the point where he couldn’t do much of anything after being shot. Except maybe roll around on the floor and moan like a dying wolf.

I waved Boz and Glo off quick as I could. A thick cloud of spent gun smoke from the two pistol shots still swirled around the table. Didn’t want either of them cutting loose with those big ole shotguns of theirs and accidentally blowing Atwood to blood-soaked smithereens before we had a chance to talk with him.

I hustled over to the squirming, groaning killer and pulled him into a sitting position by the collar of his shirt and vest. Slapped the hell out of him in an effort to bring his rubbery, swirling eyes out of the top of his head and back into focus.

Then I got right up in his face and yelled, “You’ve done for your trail mate, Atwood. He ain’t gonna be talkin’ to no one but God from now on. My unanswered question falls to you. Where’s the girl, damn you? You men helped murder her whole family. She’s the only one left alive, you worthless son of a bitch. Now give it up. Where is she?”

He grunted and made a series of guttural sounds like a dog being drowned. Then, between frothy, blood- soaked gurgles, he said, “Hell with you, Dodge. Hell w-w-with all of you.”

I couldn’t believe the cold-eyed boldness of the evil snake’s response. Pretty sure an uncontrolled look of frustration and consternation creaked itself across my brow. Tell the truth I felt totally stymied. Then, as it sometimes happens, fate stepped up and took a hand in Tanner Atwood’s dwindling time amongst the living.

19

“. . . WEBB GAVE HER TO EAGLE CUTNER.”

BOZ STROLLED OVER. He glanced down at the wounded outlaw as if he’d found a dung beetle swimming on its back atop his bacon-and-egg breakfast. He flashed a crooked grimace of a grin at Atwood, then placed a foot on the wounded man’s heaving chest and pushed him onto his back again. He ground the stacked heel of his boot into

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