Bounty on a Baron

which were still shaking. Decker was crazy to threaten a lawman. In fact, the man was just plain crazy, he thought.

Kyle clenched his fists and wished he’d had the nerve to wait for Decker to come out of the cafe and arrest the bounty hunter then.

Shit! he thought, he’d sneaked up to Martha’s room and strangled her in her sleep for nothing. There was no way he could prove to anyone—least of all a federal judge—that Decker had killed the girl, and Roman didn’t want a judge in town while Decker could possibly point a finger at him.

Decker had to die, and if Roman couldn’t do the job himself, he knew someone who could.

Decker finished his breakfast and readied himself to go out into the street. He didn’t like the feeling of being on the wrong side of the law, but then he didn’t consider Sheriff Roman to be much of a sheriff. The man was obviously out for himself, so it wouldn’t bother Decker to have to kill Roman if he got in his way. He’d have to square himself with the federal law on that, but he thought he could.

All he had to do was prove that Roman was using his badge to blackmail a wanted killer—and that he murdered an innocent woman as a means to further his own ends.

Decker stepped out on the boardwalk and looked around. He couldn’t see Roman anywhere, but if last night was any indication, the man was quite capable of back-shooting him. The only thing that might have kept him from doing that now was the fact that it was broad daylight.

Decker was really going to have to watch his step once darkness fell.

Chapter Twenty-four

Decker walked to the telegraph office to see if he’d received any replies to his wires. Fairly sure now that the Baron was in Broadus, he didn’t really think the wires were important any longer, but if he had received any co- operation from the lawmen in the other towns, he wanted to be able to acknowledge them.

As it turned out, he received no offers of cooperation. Apparently the lawmen in all three towns had no liking for bounty hunters, for none of them offered him the slightest bit of help.

It was just as well.

He tore up the messages and discarded them, then stepped outside.

Over breakfast Josephine asked Brand, “What are we going to do?”

“About what?”

“About what?” she asked. “About that man Decker.”

Brand looked at her across the table. She had come home in a highly agitated state the night before and had not been able to sleep very well. She looked drawn and haggard.

“Don’t worry about it,” Brand said.

“How can I not worry about it?”

“Go to work.”

She looked at him as if he were crazy.

“I can’t go to work!” she said.

“Sure you can.”

“Lucy can run the shop,” she told him, referring to the woman who worked for her.

“I want you to go to work, Josephine,” Brand said softly. “I don’t want to have to worry about you. Worrying about you could get me killed.”

“I don’t—” Josephine said, and then she stopped. She had been about to say that she didn’t understand that, but suddenly she did.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go to work.”

“Good girl.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I think,” Brand said, “I’ll have a talk with our new friend, Decker.”

“You’re going to talk to the man who wants to kill you?” she asked incredulously.

“Maybe he can be reasoned with.”

“If everything you’ve said about him is true, I don’t see how you can hope to—”

“Sometimes,” he said, “I can be very persuasive.”

Kyle Roman was standing across the street from Josephine Hale’s house, waiting for her to go to work. For a while it looked as if she wasn’t going to leave, but finally the front door opened and she stepped out. He waited until she was out of sight before he crossed the street and knocked on the front door.

After a few moments the man known in Broadus as Brand, now known to Roman as the Baron, answered the door.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We have to talk.”

“About what?”

“About a man called Decker,” Roman said, looking as if he expected the name to mean something to Brand.

“I know all about Decker.”

That deflated Roman for the moment.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Well…what are we going to do about him?”

“What are we going to do?” Brand asked.

“That’s right.” “Have you had breakfast yet, Sheriff?”

“No,” Roman said, looking confused.

“Well, come in and have a cup of coffee.”

At the poker game the night before Decker had not only found out where Josephine Hale lived, but also where she worked. He was standing across the street from her shop when she opened the front door with a key and entered. Only then did he step out of the doorway and start toward the southern end of town. Roman had two cups of coffee and listened to what Brand had to say.

“You want me to stay out of it?” he asked when Brand was fi nished.

“That’s right,” Brand said. “Decker is my prob lem, not yours.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“I—I—”

“Wait a minute,” Brand said. “I heard something about a shooting last night. That wasn’t you, was it?”

Roman stared helplessly at Brand.

“Did you try to shoot him in the back?” Brand asked.

“What are you getting so upset about?” Roman demanded. “If I’d killed him, you wouldn’t have to worry about him.”

“You son of a bitch!” Brand said. He reached across the table and pulled Roman to him by the shirt front. “I’ve never shot a man in the back in my life. Are you that much of a spineless coward?”

“I—I—”

Brand released Roman and pushed him back into his chair, where the man sat and stared at him, bewildered.

Brand stood up and began to walk around the table.

“What else have you pulled?” Brand asked. “Tell me.”