The establishment, were it to be called such, consisted of a weather-grayed canvas extended out, ramada fashion, from a rocked-up cavern overhang just below the Llano River bluffs, and about a half mile upstream from the town of the same name.
The bar—behind which One-Legged Shiloh Pete stood to dispense his heavenly spirits—was no more elaborate than a wagon tailgate laid atop two fifty-gallon barrels. Propped up on a stone shelf behind was the notorious ten-gallon keg of whiskey, cups of which were dispensed from the tap at its bottom.
Billy Hancock sat at one of the two rickety tables, his foot up on one of the three mismatched chairs that furnished seating for any weary customers who happened to pass by. Billy’s butt was in the second chair, and Danny Goodman slouched in the third. Atop the battered table between them a deck of cards had been abandoned for lack of interest.
A meadowlark trilled out in the winter-bare mesquite along the river.
“You hear that?” Danny asked. “Wrong time of year for that ol’ bird.”
“Maybe it’s the weather. Must be nigh on sixty degrees.” Billy rocked the tin cup back and forth on its bottom. “If I know shit about anything, tonight the wind’s gonna pick up, and by morning a blue norther’s gonna be blowing down on us.”
“Could be.” Danny leaned forward, lips pursed.
“Spit it out. You’re about to bust with whatever’s been eating you since Austin.”
Danny studied him thoughtfully and began. “Right now Texas is wide open. Lots of folks hate other folks over things done during the war. I’m not arguing that. But here’s the thing: Charlie sold us out.”
“You think I don’t remember that?” Billy stared at his dusty boot where it was propped on the chair. “I never had such a bitter taste in my mouth as that. I can’t say as I never felt better killing a man, but slipping a blade into old Charlie was right up there.”
For whatever reason, the Sarah demon hadn’t been haunting his dreams since. What was it about spilling a man’s guts that would make a demon nightmare keep her distance?
“And we’re still paying for it,” Danny growled. “How we gonna do business?” He ticked off on his fingers. “To start with, now they got a name for you and know what you look like. Next, they’s a price on yer head. Five thousand dollars. In this country, that’s all the money in the world. Third, we can’t trust nobody. We’s just lucky that that little whore down to Magdelena’s liked you. If’n you hadn’t overpaid her by ten dollars, she might not have gone outta her way to warn us. We’d a been dead men.”
“Feller gets a right powerful kick out of ambushing the ambushers, don’t he?” Billy grinned at the memory.
Danny continued to tick off on his fingers. “Fourth is that Charlie was the front man. He was the one that found the clients and set up the work. Did the business, if you will. He had the connections. We’re just two bush soldiers out in the brasada.”
“Then we have to make the connections ourselves.”
“That’s the part where we get killed.” Danny leaned forward, expression earnest.
“How’s that?”
“Me? If’n I was one of Throckmorton’s boys? I’d place me an ad in the paper. Maybe just whisper it around in the saloons. ‘Need Billy Hancock to do some killing. No questions asked. Five hundred dollars.’ And then what? We just ride up to the Travis County courthouse a-singing out, ‘We’re your men! Whar’s the Dick as needs to be shot?’”
“You’re saying they’d bait us in.”
“Damn right.” Danny nodded soberly. “They want you for that Yankee captain. Want you enough they found Charlie and brought him in to heel on their leash. Then we kilt the five men they sent to take us. Then you spilt Charlie’s guts all over the hallway in his own house, in Austin, on his wedding day, with the mayor’s right-hand man as good as in attendance. You think they ain’t got a burn up their assholes over that?”
Billy grinned. “Right pert bit of work if’n you ask me.”
“Maybe too good.” Danny leaned back and sipped his whiskey. As he swallowed he made a face and screwed his eyes closed. “God in heaven, that’s awful.”
“Puts a fire in a man’s gut, all right.” Billy shook his head. “But that’s about all, I reckon.” He paused. “So what are you thinking, Danny? Go back to Arkansas?”
Danny reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrap of newspaper. “Read that.”
“I ain’t that good at reading.” Nevertheless he picked it up, pronouncing the words as he made them out. “New ditch will free millions in gold at Last Chance Gulch, Montana.” He licked his lips, frowning at the names. “Chessman and Cowan should be able to increase profits tenfold from rich aggregate. According to Mr. Chessman, over one million dollars should pour from the earth.”
He looked up, puzzled. “What’s Montana have to do with anything? How does a ditch make gold? What’s aggregate? Who’s Chessman?”
Danny thumped the table. “That don’t matter. What does is mining. That’s the business we need.”
The meadowlark trilled in the brush again.
Billy gestured around, as if to include most of Texas. “And where is all this mining at?”
“New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Montana. Places where you ain’t twisted every politician’s pecker. Whoa, now.” He held up a hand. “Next yer gonna tell me you don’t know shit about no mining. My answer is that you don’t need to. You’re just my assistant. The man I send out to do mine scouting. Locate claims and all. Anyone asks why you ain’t around I say you’re headed to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to look at a claim. Meantime you ride to Montana to shoot a man in Bozeman.”
“What are you planning on doing? Hanging out a shingle with big block letters saying KILLER FOR HIRE?”
“That’s the tricky
