“We goin’ to shoot them, too?” Wix asked.
Shamrock made no verbal response. Instead, he shot the two children, who were on their knees alongside their dying mother.
The carnage the six men had wrought was over in less than a minute, and now all stood there, wreathed in gun smoke, the room very quiet.
* * *
Back in the kitchen Lorenzo Wilks, the black cook, had heard the shooting. When the shooting first started he ran to the kitchen door to see what was going on. He saw the women and children being shot, horrified by what he was seeing, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it without getting himself shot.
He knew he should run out the back door and put as much distance between the murderers and himself as possible, but he found himself completely unable to move. Instead he stood in the kitchen, looking through the barely open door.
He saw the man who appeared to be the leader, a man with the mark of Satan, in the form of a scar on his face.
* * *
“We’ll eat first,” Shamrock said, shoving the pistol back into his holster. “Then we’ll see what we can come up with in the way of money.”
Fifteen minutes later, after having gobbled down all the food that had been put on the table, the six men rode away from the way station. The six horses stood, immobile, unaware that their trip had been interrupted. Finding an unexpected feast, flies began buzzing around the nine bodies that lay spread out on the floor behind them.
The murder and robbery had netted them a grand total of $83.63.
“We ain’t been makin’ a whole hell of a lot of money, have we?” Wix asked.
“I’ve got somethin’ in mind—don’t worry about it,” Shamrock said.
* * *
Lorenzo Wilks waited until he was sure the outlaws were gone, then he went out to the barn, saddled a horse, and rode into Wild Horse, which was the nearest town. Stopping in front of the sheriff’s office, he went inside.
“Hello, Lorenzo,” the sheriff said. “I thought you come into town for supplies just the other day. Mr. Booker think of somethin’ you forgot?”
“He’s dead, Sheriff,” Lorenzo said.
“What? Who’s dead?”
“All of ’em. Mr. Booker, Miz Booker, Mr. Woods, Mr. Parks, ’n all the stagecoach passengers. Them bad men kilt ’em all, ’n they was two kids they kilt, too.”
Valley of the Chug
Ed Chambers could tell, just by looking, that his small herd had grown larger. Curious, he rode down to have a closer look, and that was when he saw at least ten calves.
“Whoa, I didn’t have ten new calves born this year. Where’d you come from?”
Every calf had the Twin Peaks brand.
“How the hell did you get this far? Twin Peaks is at least fifteen miles from here.”
Chambers sighed. He was going to have to take the calves back.
Or was he? Suppose he just kept them? He wouldn’t make any attempt to change the brand, and if Prescott showed up, Houser could just say that he had been holding them for him, and the unchanged brand would validate his claim. But how likely was Mr. Prescott to come over here and examine his calves? And if he didn’t show up, they would belong to Chambers.
Chambers was unaware that Prescott had died and that the Twin Peaks Ranch now belonged to someone else.
“All right, I know it’s wrong,” he said. “But if you wanted to live with me so bad that you walked fifteen miles, who am I to make you go back?”
Ten new calves? That was like seeing $350 lying on the ground, ready to be picked up.
Wild Horse, Colorado
It was the newspaper article that brought Abe Sobel to Wild Horse. The article told of a brutal murder and robbery at a stagecoach station just ten miles west of Wild Horse. The same article also stated that the station had been closed and not reopened.
The article said that there had been a witness who said there were six men, and one was a scar-faced man. Abe knew that it was a long shot, but the number of men and the scarred face were too much for him to ignore.
He dismounted in front of the sheriff’s office. There were two men playing checkers inside. A barred wall separated them, as one of the men was in jail.
“Now, LeRoy, you touched that man, ’n it means you have to move it,” the player outside the cell said. He had a star pinned to his shirt.
“No, I didn’t, I just kinda got close but I never touched that man, ’n you know it,” LeRoy said. “You just think ’cause you’re the sheriff ’n say that, why, I’ll have to go along with it.”
“All right, you can look for another move, but don’t be puttin’ your hand down there till you’re ready to move.”
“Sheriff ?” Abe said.
“If there ain’t somebody ’bout to get murdered, you just hold on for a minute,” the sheriff said with a raised hand. He didn’t look around.
LeRoy made a move, the sheriff countered, then, with a cackling laugh, LeRoy made a series of jumps.
“That just about cleans you out, Sheriff,” LeRoy said.
“Damn!” the sheriff said. He turned back to see who had come into the office. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for the men who killed all those people at the stage station,” Abe replied.
“Who isn’t?”
“Yes, but I think I know who they are. At least, I think I know who their leader is. But I won’t know for sure until I can talk with the witness.”
The sheriff nodded. “That would be Lorenzo Wilks. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
*
