“One,” Creed counted.
“God Almighty, this can’t be happenin’!” Roscoe exclaimed. “What sort of man are you that you would gun us down over a trifle?”
“Two,” Creed said.
“Please,” Zeb pleaded. “We apologize. We’re as sorry as sorry can be.” He had the Sharps in front of him, the muzzle angled at the tables.
“Three.” Creed’s hands swooped and rose. In unison, the nickel-plated Remingtons gleamed and boomed.
Zeb and Roscoe both cried out as their right knees were shot out from under them. Zeb pitched onto his other knee and tried to level his Sharps, but took a second slug in the shoulder that smashed him to the floor. Roscoe clutched at the bar to stay upright, grimacing in agony, and screeched when the lead bored through his vitals.
Creed methodically emptied his pistols into the pair, shot after shot after shot, until the hammers clicked on spent cartridges. He did not check the bodies for signs of life. There was no need. They were shot to pieces.
Saber rose onto his toes to peer over the bar at the spreading pools of scarlet. “You know, you’re right,” he said. “I’m startin’ to get bored, too. That wasn’t half the fun I figured it would be.”
Twitch hunkered and dipped a finger in the blood. Tittering, he drew red circles on the cheeks of both prospectors, then wiped his fingers clean on Zeb’s shirt. “I hope we hear from Dunn and Hijino soon.”
“Makes two of us,” Saber said. “I have a powerful hankerin’ to kill a heap of cowboys.”
Chapter 13
Dunn had to hurry. He had to reach the spot he wanted well ahead of the Pierce party. He had intended to sneak away from the Circle T sooner, but Clayburn had gathered together the punchers who happened to be there at the time, to inform them that they must be on their best behavior.
“Mr. Tovey has persuaded Mr. Pierce that Demp was not to blame for murderin’ the DP foreman. But some of Pierce’s vaqueros refuse to believe he’s innocent. They’re spoilin’ for a fight. All they need is an excuse—any excuse—to squeeze the trigger, and Mr. Tovey wants me to make sure that none of us give them that excuse.” Clayburn paused, and raked those present with a hard stare. “This is deadly serious, gents. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves breathin’ gun smoke.”
No one said anything. They all appreciated the gravity of the situation.
“Timmy, I want you to take a horse from the corral. Ride north over the range, and warn every hand you come across. Wheeler, you do the same to the south.”
“What do we tell them, exactly?” young Timmy Loring asked.
“That until Mr. Tovey gives his permission, under no circumstances is a Circle T puncher to cross the Rio Largo onto the DP spread. We are to fight shy of them until tempers cool. That means no one will be going to San Pedro for a spell.”
A few of the cowboys muttered resentfully. San Pedro was their one diversion. The only place within a hundred miles, other than remote Wolf Pass, high in the mountains, where the hands could go for a glass of red- eye, a game of cards, and, in San Pedro’s case, the warm glance of a friendly dove.
“I know, I know,” Clayburn said. “But it’s only for a short while. Only until Mr. and Mrs. Tovey have smoothed things over. They plan to visit the DP in a week and speak to the vaqueros personally.”
“What?” This from John Jesco, who had been leaning against a twin bunk. “Is that wise?”
“Maybe not,” Clayburn responded. “But the boss has his mind made up. I suggested he take fifteen or twenty of us along as protection, and he said he would settle for two or three.”
“I’m one of them.” Jesco was not volunteering. He was stating a fact.
Clayburn grinned. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”
The meeting ended. Dunn was near the door, and turned to slip away unnoticed, but Clayburn hollered his name and told him to keep an eye out for any punchers who might stray in off the range before the Pierces left, and fill them in.
Dunn chafed at the delay. But he could not leave without arousing suspicion, so he bided his time, and when the Pierces came out of the house and prepared to depart, he hurried to Clayburn and offered to go out and help spread the word among the hands on the range. “I know you sent Loring and Wheeler, but it’s a lot of ground for two men to cover.”
Clayburn seemed a bit surprised. But he thought a moment, and nodded. “You’re right. I should have sent a few more. Off you go. Be back by nightfall.”
Now here Dunn was, riding like the wind for the Rio Largo, cutting across country rather than use the trail to the river that Dar Pierce would shortly take.
Things were about to come to a head. Dunn imagined how pleased Saber would be when he heard the news. Soon the entire valley would run red. The range war to end all range wars, Saber had called it. Open feuding between ranches was rare, but there had been a few instances. Never a situation like this, though. Never a range war created for a specific purpose.
Dunn had to hand it to Saber. The scheme was brilliant. The Circle T and the DP would never know they had been tricked. They would kill one another off, and once there were too few of them left to offer much resistance, Saber would swoop in and finish off the rest, and that would be that. Saber would lay claim to the entire valley. The cattle would be rounded up, herded to Mexico, and sold.
Dunn couldn’t wait. The last he had heard, cows were going for up to thirty dollars a head, bulls for as much as seventy-five. Both herds, combined, would fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each member of the gang stood to pocket over fifty thousand.
Dunn could have it all. The house, the land, and all the trimmings. He would treat himself to an endless stream of doves. A different gal every night. Or maybe, just maybe, he would find a pretty young thing and marry her. He always had been partial to the young ones. Hell, once word got out how rich he was, pretty young things would fall over themselves for the privilege of becoming his missus.
Dunn laughed. The possibilities made him giddy. He had to remind himself not to put the cart ahead of the horse. Nothing was certain. The plan might fall apart. But he would do all he could to ensure his part was carried out exactly as Saber required.
Dunn wanted that fifty thousand. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. He wanted it so much, he lay awake at night thinking of all the things he could buy, all the things he would do. Life would be fine. Life would be glorious.
Money. That was the key to happiness. Lots and lots of money. The more money a man had, the happier he was. Dunn has always been envious of those who had it, always wished he was just like them. Unbelievably, incredibly, soon his wish stood an excellent chance of coming true.
That a lot of people had to die in order for that to happen did not bother Dunn one bit. He had killed his first man when he was fourteen, a drunk who became forward with Dunn’s sister. They had been walking down the street, minding their own business, talking and laughing as kids will do, when the drunk lurched out of a saloon and took to pawing Cynthia and making lewd comments. Dunn had warned the man to back off, but the drunk cursed him and threatened to take him over a knee and spank him. So Dunn had pulled his knife and buried it to the hilt in the man’s chest, and the man had died squealing in terror.
Dunn fled. He hugged his folks and kissed his sis, and lit a shuck. He’d never been back. He always intended to, but one lawless deed led to another, then to having a price on his head. He’d drifted west, into New Mexico,
