“Keep your gun close, keep the fire high at night.”
“Do you really think Langer will wait for Morales?” James asked. “After all, he has both their shares of money.”
“They’ve been riding together for a long time,” Shaye said. “I just have to hope that means something to Aaron.”
“Then get goin’, Pa,” James said. “You’re wastin’ valuable time.”
“I’ll see you in a few days, at most.”
“Good luck.”
“You too, son.”
He hated to do it, but Shaye finally gave his horse his heels and left camp at a gallop.
Aaron Langer was sitting in a saloon in Red Cloud, a small town about twenty miles inside of Nebraska. Beneath his chair were the saddlebags filled with money. Aaron was a big enough, mean enough looking man that no one in the saloon wanted to give him a second look. He sat alone with a bottle of whiskey and a deadly glare. Some of the men in the saloon even knew who he was and didn’t want any part of him.
Aaron wasn’t sure why he was waiting in Red Cloud for Morales. He had all the money, didn’t he? He didn’t need anybody, did he? Hadn’t he just cut his own brother loose?
But when it came right down to it, Morales was closer to him than Ethan ever was. And riding alone…well, that just wasn’t something he had ever really done. There was a time in his life when he thought his partner for life might be Danny Shaye, but that didn’t happen. Shaye got religion. Oh, not the way his brother Vincent had, but he got married, and sometimes that was even worse than getting religion.
So then he hooked up with Morales, and that partnership actually worked, and lasted. Not that Aaron ever told Morales he considered him his partner. They both seemed to have settled into their roles, though, and both had profited by it.
Like now, with the money that was under his chair.
Of course, if Morales never showed up, that would be okay too. The money would more than make up for it, and he could always find a new partner, couldn’t he? He’d give the Mexican until tomorrow morning, and then he’d be on his way.
He looked up as a big brunette in a low-cut blue dress approached him. She had a hard-looking face but a big, soft-looking body.
“Hello, handsome,” she said. “Lookin’ for company?”
“Company’s just what I could use, honey.”
“Down here,” she asked, “or upstairs?”
He grinned, forgetting Morales and Shaye. He grabbed his bottle and his saddlebags and said, “Upstairs sounds just fine.”
69
Shaye rode into Red Cloud on a tired horse. He didn’t even know if he’d ruined the animal, but he’d find that out later. There were other, more important things to worry about.
He encountered the livery as soon as he rode in, and decided not only to leave his horse there, but get his questions answered. The local lawman might take up too much of his time.
“Help ya?” the liveryman asked. He was long and lean, with a spring in his step. He wore sixty years on his frame real well. “Lawman, are ya?”
“That’s right,” Shaye said, “from Texas. Looking for a man. A man with two sets of saddlebags.”
“You talkin’ about Aaron Langer?”
“You know him?”
“I seen him before,” the man said. “Knew somebody’d come lookin’ for him when he rode in.”
“What’s your name?”
“Amos.”
“Do you know where he is, Amos?”
“Everybody in town knows where he is,” the man said. “Over to the saloon.”
“Which one?”
“Ain’t got but one.”
“Got a lawman here?”
“Not much of one,” the man replied. “He’s been hidin’ in his office since Langer arrived.”
“Okay,” Shaye said. “Thanks.”
“You gonna arrest ’im?”
“That’s the plan.”
“He’s been upstairs with Trudy all day,” Amos said. “Havin’ bottles of whiskey sent up, and some food. Guess mebbe they’re wearin’ each other out up there.”
“I’m much obliged for the information, Amos.”
“Just doin’ my part for law and order,” Amos said. “That sumbitch been ridin’ roughshod over these parts for years, ain’t he?”
“That he has.”
“He wanted in Nebraska? I ain’t heard.”
“I don’t know,” Shaye said, “but that doesn’t really matter.”
Amos’s eyebrows went up. “You ain’t gonna arrest him,” the older man said, “yer gonna kill ’im. You got no authority here.”
“Amos,” Shaye said, touching his gun, “I got all the authority I need right here.”
Shaye walked through town and found the only saloon with no trouble. It didn’t even have a name. Folks gave him curious looks as he went, for his stride was purposeful and the look on his face said he meant business.
He entered the saloon and found it about half full. In a town that size, that was about as full as it got.
“What’ll ya ha—” the bartender started to ask him, but Shaye cut him off.
“Which room are they in?”
“Who?”
“Aaron Langer and Trudy.”
The man frowned. “Well, Trudy’s had a fella up there with her the whole day, but I didn’t know—”
“Oh, shut up, Ed,” another man at the bar said. “By now everybody knows that’s Langer.”
“Which room?” Shaye asked again.
“Head of the stairs,” the bartender said. “First room. You gonna kill ’im?”
Shaye turned and headed for the stairs without another word.
“If you kill him, don’t make a mess!” the bartender shouted after him.
70
Upstairs, Aaron Langer was too busy continuing to satisfy a Herculean appetite for both whiskey and sex to hear anything from downstairs. The saddlebags full of money were hanging on the bedpost, along with his gun belt. Trudy was sitting on top of him, dangling her big breasts in his face and pouring whiskey from the bottle into his mouth. When the door slammed open from a vicious kick, Aaron bucked Trudy off so hard she fell from the bed. He sat up and started reaching for his gun, but stopped when he saw Shaye standing in the doorway.
“Daniels,” he said. “I knew it was you.”
“It’s Dan,” Shaye said, “Sheriff Dan Shaye, of Epitaph, Texas.”
“Yeah, I know,” Aaron said. He looked at the naked woman cowering on the floor. “You sort of caught me in the middle of somethin’.”
“Careless of you, Aaron,” Shaye said. “I don’t remember you being this careless.” He looked at the woman
