knack.”
“You don’t say.” Saber drummed his fingers on the counter, then glanced at Creed and nodded.
“Set us up,” Saber commanded. “Coffin varnish all around.”
“Yes, sir.” Mort had learned it was smart to be courteous to curly wolves. They were less apt to become riled over imagined slights. He set out glasses and filled each to the brim, making it a point to fill Saber’s first. “Is that all?”
Saber asked a strange question. “I don’t suppose you remember what I was wearin’ that night, do you?”
Mort had to think about it. “The same hat as now, a flannel shirt, and brown pants. I didn’t pay much attention to your boots.”
“Amazin’.”
“Thank you,” Mort said, and did not understand why Creed and Twitch laughed. “Are you hungry? I shot a deer yesterday and have plenty of fresh meat. Potatoes, too, if you’re partial.”
“You’re a regular marvel,” Saber said. “Venison steak would please me considerable.” He nodded at Creed and Twitch, and headed for a table. “Bring the bottle, boys. I’m fixin’ to stay a while.”
“Is that wise?” The question came from the oldest of the eight outlaws, a grizzled slab of bone and gristle with a crooked nose and a cleft chin.
Everyone except Saber stood stock-still. He cocked his head and said, “What was that, Hank?”
“With what we’re up to and all,” Hank responded. “Is it wise for us to come out into the open like this?”
“Why, Hank,” Saber said, as mildly as could be, “whatever do you mean?”
“The ranch business.”
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” Saber remarked, still as sugary as molasses. He grinned as he said it, and he was still grinning as he drew his Colt and shot Hank through the forehead. The slug blew out the back of Hank’s skull, spraying hair, bone, and blood.
Mort nearly jumped out of his boots. He had witnessed shootings before, but never one so unexpected, so sudden. Usually it was between drunks who argued and shouted and worked themselves into a rage before resorting to their hardware. He held his breath, in the fear he would be next.
Saber holstered his Colt and continued to the table. “Some of you boys drag that jackass into the woods for the wild critters to feed on.”
The bloodshed had no effect on the others. To them, the killing was a matter of course, as ordinary as swatting the fly that had eluded Mort.
“Barkeep, quit standin’ there with your mouth hangin’ open and rustle us up those steaks,” Saber directed.
“Right away.” Mort scampered to the kitchen. The back door beckoned, but if he ran they might burn his place to the ground to spite him. He kindled the embers in the stove, retrieved his butcher knife from a drawer, and went into the pantry to cut thick slabs from the haunch hanging in a corner. When he came out, he was startled to see Twitch over by the cupboard. “Somethin’ I can do for you?”
Twitch chortled. “No. My cousin just wants me to keep you company. He figured you might get lonesome.”
Mort did not like that, he did not like that at all, but he did not let on as he went about cooking their meal. He sliced potatoes, heaped them in a frying pan, and smothered them in butter. He put coffee on to brew. He also made toast.
“You do that real nice,” Twitch said as Mort was spreading the jam. “If you were a woman, I’d marry you.”
“Would you mind carryin’ one of the trays?”
“Not so long as you go ahead of me.”
A poker game was under way. At the other table, Saber and Creed were talking in hushed tones. They stopped when Mort set their tray down, and Saber sniffed several times.
“If it tastes as good as it smells, barkeep, you should be in Saint Louis runnin’ a fancy restaurant.”
“I don’t like bein’ around people that much,” Mort admitted, and blanched, worried they would take it as some sort of insult.
“That makes two of us,” Saber said. “I was knee-high to a yearlin’ when I learned that most folks are as worthless as teats on a stallion.”
With a loud crunch, Creed bit into a slice of toast. Whether he liked it or not was impossible to tell; the man never changed his expression.
“Why don’t you join us?” Saber kicked out a chair. “You and me have some things to talk about.”
“We do?” Mort noticed that Twitch had not sat down, but was a few yards away, his hands on his Colts. Icy fear stabbed through him.
Forking a piece of steak into his mouth, Saber chewed lustily, with his mouth open. “What do you want most in this world, barkeep?”
Bewilderment seized Mort. How did he answer something like that? What was Saber getting at? “The thing I want most is to go on breathin’.”
Saber burst into hearty laughter. As if it were the most hilarious comment he’d ever heard, he smacked the table and howled. “Did you hear him, Creed? He’s not as dumb as he looks.”
Mort resented the insult, but sat awaiting developments. Twitch had come closer and now had only one hand on a Colt.
“Most people say that what they want most in this world is money,” Saber said. His pale blue eyes bored into Mort. “How much do you have? Got it squirreled away, do you?”
The truth was, Mort had slightly over three hundred hidden in a jar under a floorboard behind the bar. But he answered, “I never make enough to set any aside. It’s hand to mouth, day in, day out.”
“I figured as much,” Saber said. He speared a potato slice and popped it into his mouth. “How would you like to make a hundred dollars right here and now?”
“Who do I have to shoot?”
Again Saber cackled, and glanced at Creed. “I like this one. He tickles my funny bone.” To Mort he said, “Leave the shootin’ to us, friend. The hundred dollars is yours to forget we were ever here. Forget you ever saw us, should anyone come askin’.”
“That’s all?” Mort speculated that maybe lawmen were after them.
“To tell you the truth, I was considerin’ whether to buck you out in gore,” Saber revealed while chomping. “Your memory is too good for my comfort. But then I got to thinkin’ how it must be, tryin’ to make ends meet in this dump. You’re miles from anywhere, and customers must be few and far between.”
“That they are,” Mort conceded.
“A man like you could always use spendin’ money,” Saber said. “Say, the hundred dollars now and more later.”
Mort’s innards churned. “You plan to come back?”
“We’re not leavin’. We’ll make camp off a ways, and from time to time we’ll stop by. When that happens, it doesn’t happen. Savvy?”
Apprehension coursed through Mort, and he asked without thinking, “What could possibly interest you down there?”
About to take another bite of steak, Saber’s features clouded. “I wouldn’t be too nosy, were I you.”
“It’s just that there’s nothin’ down there but a couple of ranches—” Mort stopped. The hapless Hank had said something about “ranch business” right before he was shot.
Saber sighed and lowered his fork to his plate. “You see?” he said to Creed. “You try to do right by some folks and they throw it in your face.”
“What?” Mort said, aghast at the magnitude of his blunder. “I never did any such thing.”
“You certainly did. You’ve met them, haven’t you? The Toveys and the Pierce clan?”
“I’ve seen them in San Pedro,” Mort admitted. “Some of their punchers stop here every blue moon, usually when they’re up in the mountains huntin’, but that’s about it.” Mort was desperate to get back in Saber’s good
