off his feet and smashed him against the wall. As limp as an overcooked noodle, he oozed to the ground. His chest reminded me of chopped beef.
Jack had shrunk into a crouch with his arms over his head. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” he wailed.
“Stand up.”
Quaking like an aspen leaf, Jack obeyed. He mewed like a kitten when he saw me reloading.
“How long have the Tanners known about this silver vein?”
He glanced at Porter, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I can’t rightly say. Months, I reckon.”
“How many months?” I prodded. “Think real hard.”
“The first I heard about it was four or five months ago. But others knew before me. The one you should ask is Ben Winslow, the LT foreman.”
“Could it have been eight months?” I recalled Hannah saying that her husband vanished about that time.
“I reckon it could.”
That tallied with the number of pockets if you counted the one they were digging. “The Tanners send some of you out here once a month for silver, is that how it goes?”
Jack had to think about it. “Now that you mention it, yes. But you keep saying the Tanners. It’s always Gerty who does it, as far as I know.”
“Lloyd didn’t know about the vein? Her son doesn’t, either?”
“I can’t speak for them. I’m only telling you what I know, and what I know is that Gerty always sends us.”
“Why was Everett Butcher murdered?”
“Was he?”
I took a half step and pointed the twin muzzles at his face. “You can join your friends right this instant if you want.”
“Honest, mister!” Jack squawked. “I heard about him going missing, sure. But no one ever said he was murdered.”
“Were you in on killing the rest of the Butchers?”
He tried. He looked right at me and spoke much as Moses must have when he came down from Mt. Sinai with those tablets. “As God is my witness, I had nothing to do with it.”
“How many hands were with her?”
“Only a few.”
Two lies. I was sure then. But I had a few more questions. “Why doesn’t Gertrude file a claim on this silver? Why keep it secret?”
“You would have to ask her.”
Although I pretty much had the next answer figured out, I asked anyway. “What does the ore have to do with accusing the Butchers of being cow thieves?”
“Again, you would have to ask Gerty.”
“I will,” I informed him. When the time came. Right now I lowered the scattergun as if I had changed my mind, but I did not lower it all the way.
Jack’s relief was amusing. He sought to gild the cage by saying, “Listen. I won’t say a word about you shooting Brennan and Porter. I’ll get on my horse and ride out of the valley and never come back. I swear on my ma’s grave.”
He should not have mentioned graves. I blew off his right foot. He screamed as he fell and flopped about like a fish out of water, only a lot worse, caterwauling like a gutted wildcat all the while. I put up with as much as I could, then walked up to him and rapped him on the noggin. He was only out for a few minutes. In that time I went through the pockets of his friends. It proved profitable. Porter had sixty-five dollars on him; Brennan had over a hundred.
Two of their horses had run off. I didn’t mind. It fit with my plan. The remaining horse and the mule I added to the string behind the mare.
Jack stirred and opened his eyes. He looked about him, his eyes glazed, uncomprehending until he saw the blood. “Oh God!” he wailed, and blubbered like an infant.
My shadow fell across him and he jerked back in terror.
“Who did the girl?”
“What?” He was shaking so bad, his teeth were chattering.
“Calm down and concentrate. Which one of you raped and killed Daisy Butcher?”
“I told you, I wasn’t there.”
I blew off his left foot. This time I let him thrash and convulse until he lay spent and whimpering. Then I stomped on his left arm to get his attention. “Once more. Who raped Daisy Butcher?”
Tears flowed down his cheeks. He broke into great, racking, pathetic sobs. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“Because you’re a lying son of a bitch.”
He had a shred of spunk left. “You have no right!” he shrieked.
“I do it because I can, boy, and that’s all the right I need.”
Jack’s brow puckered and he blinked tears away. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re born with the right to do as we please. But those who run things don’t want that because if we do as we please, we upset their apple cart. So they make laws that say we can’t do as we please, and if we break those laws, they send tin stars after us to blow out our wicks.”
The loss of blood had turned him pale and weak. “I never thought of it like that.” He gave his head a vigorous shake. “I feel sleepy.”
“That’s normal.”
“Finish me,” he pleaded.
“There’s no rush.” I stepped back and hunkered. The key now was to keep him aware. New pain would serve, and he had a lot of body left.
His eyes swiveled toward me. “Right or not right, how can you do this to someone?”
“I told you. I don’t live by the same rules as everyone else. But then, you don’t entirely live by them yourself, or you wouldn’t have helped Gertrude Tanner wipe out an innocent family.”
“They were rustlers!”
“No, boy, they weren’t. She lied to you just as you’ve lied to me. And lies always come back to bite us in the ass.”
“Please end it. I can’t take any more.”
“Sure you can. I’ve whittled on some for hours. You, I figure it will be thirty minutes yet before the loss of blood sends you to hell, where you belong. Between now and then I can do a lot of whittling.”
“What do I have to do? Beg?”
“It would go in one ear and out the other.” I hefted my knife.
He grasped at a straw and it was a good one. “What if I told you where Gerty keeps the silver she hasn’t shipped off on the stage yet? Would you give your word to get it over with quick?”
I kept my word.
Chapter 19
I had more to do before I rode off.
I dragged the three bodies about thirty yards closer to the mouth of the canyon and propped them against boulders. Anyone who came to investigate why they failed to return to the LT would spot them right off. I was in need of a hat, so I helped myself to Jack’s. It was brown instead of my favorite color, black, and it had a narrow brim instead of a wide brim, as I liked, and a high crown instead of a low crown, which I preferred, but it fit. I also shrugged into his vest and tied his bandanna around my neck so that from a distance I might pass for a cowpoke.
Snagging the lead rope, I climbed on Brisco and rode out of the canyon. I did not head east toward the Tanner spread. Instead, I reined left, seeking a way to get above the canyon. A game trail pockmarked with deer tracks was a likely prospect.
