“Really?”
“She doesn’t like the owners. They treat the women who work for them like slaves.”
“And you don’t?”
“I treat a woman like a woman,” the bartender said. He saw the look on Decker’s face and said, “Don’t get me wrong. That ain’t what I mean. I don’t tell Martha she’s got to get ten guys a night into her room or anything like that. She wants to take a guy upstairs, that’s her business. All I want her for down here is to have guys buy her drinks.”
“Sounds like a nice arrangement. What does she drink?”
“Anything.”
“Give her what she wants, on me,” Decker said.
“Sure.”
Decker eyed Martha, who was young and blonde…and alive, just like he was—only he was
The bartender poured Martha a shot of whiskey. She raised the glass to Decker in thanks. Decker raised his in return, downed it, then called for his beer.
He took the beer over to the poker game and watched for a while. It was low stakes and slow—paced, and he had no desire to sit in.
“See that feller sitting on the porch at Jo’s today?” one of them asked.
“Oh, yeah. Imagine living off a woman like that, jest sitting around her house while she works,” another man said.
“What about the time he spends away?” someone asked. “Where do you suppose he goes?”
“Who knows?”
“Maybe he’s got hisself a woman in another town,” one of them said. “You know, like living two lives?”
Decker was listening intently.
“Unfriendly cuss, that one. You’d think since he’s been in and out of this town nigh onto a year he’d say hello or something. He ever talk to you boys?”
“He’s been in the store once or twice,” one of them said. “Talks real slow and careful, like. Can’t figure it out. Maybe he’s simple-minded.”
The others laughed at the prospect, although one of them said it was unlikely that a pretty woman like Josephine would take up with a simpleton.
Suddenly they looked up at Decker, as if just real izing that he was watching.
“You wanna play, mister? We got an empty seat.”
Decker turned and looked at Martha, who was standing at the bar. She smiled invitingly at him.
“Maybe just a little while,” he said, taking the seat.
Or at least until he found out where this Josephine lived.
Josephine was nervous, but she understood why Brand couldn’t go to the livery stable himself and look at all the horses. If the man who was after him was in town, then he couldn’t afford to be seen.
It was late, but the stable was still open. The liveryman, however, must have gone to have dinner. Josephine wondered why the man didn’t lock up when he left the stable. It would be very easy for someone to steal a horse.
She entered the stable and found it shrouded in darkness. She looked around for a storm lamp, found one, and lit it. Carrying it with her, she went from stall to stall, hoping that she wouldn’t find what she was looking for.
She found it, in a stall all the way in the back. The stall contained a good-looking gelding, and the saddle that went with the horse. Hanging from the saddlehorn was a hangman’s noose.
She shivered when she saw it. She would have hugged herself except that she had the storm lamp in her hand. The gelding gave her a baleful stare, as if wondering who she was and what she was doing there. Then he looked away.
Josephine backed out of the stall hurriedly, then turned to run. As she did, her feet got tangled, and then the heel snapped off one of her shoes, causing her to fall. The storm lamp was jarred from her hand. It landed on a patch of hay, and she saw the flicker of flame as the hay started to catch fire. Moving quickly, she grabbed a nearby blanket and smothered the flame. Luckily, the oil had not leaked from the lantern or there would have been a blaze that she couldn’t have put out with a blanket.
Moving as quickly as she could, Josephine put the lantern back on the wall hook where she had found it and ran out of the stable.
Brand waited at the house. He knew he should have gone to the stable himself, but he couldn’t take the chance of being seen there. If Decker was in town, he was going to have to kill him, and it wouldn’t do to be seen snooping around the man’s horse.
Once he killed Decker, his only problem would be the sheriff. He would be the only one who knew who Brand really was. He could pay the man for his silence, he thought. But once that started it would never stop.
No, he’d have to kill Roman, also, but in such a way that no one would suspect he had done it.
If he could kill both men quickly and without anyone finding out about it, there was a chance he could save his life here in Broadus.
He’d killed for less in the past.
No sooner had he started playing than Decker noticed something. One of the men at the table was a professional gambler. It struck him odd that such a man would be in a low-stakes game instead of across the street for much more money.
There was one glaring reason why he was over here.
He was cheating.
In the Broadus House, no one noticed, but across the street at the Dice Box he would have been caught almost immediately. So here he sat, stealing hardearned money penny by penny instead of dollar by dollar—so to speak.
Decker was seated directly across from the man, so he knew how the man was cheating.
The man—whom the others called “Cal”—was dealing now. He paused to cough, covering his mouth with a handkerchief from his jacket pocket.
“Excuse me,” he said, replacing the handkerchief. “Cards are coming out, gentlemen. Draw poker.”
He dealt each man five cards. Decker picked his up and spread them; he had three tens and thought this was as good a time as any to call the man for cheating. If the man seated to his left hadn’t opened, he would have. Now, he raised.
“A dollar,” he said, which was a large raise for this game. The others were losing, but they stayed in, possibly seeing the hand as a quick way to get some money back.
When the bet went around to Cal, he said, “I raise a dollar as well.”
Since they all were in for the first dollar, they stayed for the second.
“Cards?”
“Two,” said Decker when it was his turn.
When everyone had his cards, the opener timidly bet fifty cents.
“I raise,” Decker said. “Two dollars.”
The two players to his left folded, and Cal gave him a long look.
“Seems like you think you’ve got something, fella.”
“Cost you money to find out.”
“Oh, it’ll cost one of us money,” Cal said, “that’s for sure. I raise ten dollars.”
