Wang smiled and dipped his head. “A thousand thanks, Madam Vi,” he said.
“I’m so thankful to the two of you for saving the lives of Ethel Mae and my two grandchildren,” Vi said.
“’Tis sorry I am about the violence in front of the wee ones,” Duff said.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Mr. MacCallister,” Ethel Mae said. “I’m just thankful that you and Mr. Wang were on the coach. Why, there’s no telling what might have happened if you hadn’t been.”
* * *
As Duff, Wang, and the others enjoyed the dessert provided by Vi Winslow, down at the opposite end of the street, several people were gathered around the three upright coffins, each occupied by the body of the would-be stagecoach robbers.
“I don’t know what ever give them the idea that Jim Bob was carryin’ a bank pouch,” one of the onlookers said.
“I don’t know, neither. All I know is, it’s a good thing Duff MacCallister ’n that Chinaman that works for him was on the coach, or more ’n likely that little girl woulda been kilt. ’N Mr. Guy, too, I’m a-thinkin’.”
“You know who that feller there, in the middle is, don’t you?” one of the crowd asked, pointing toward the center of the three coffins. “That there is Zeke Bodine.”
“Zeke Bodine? The gunfighter?”
“Yes, ’n he’s got ’im a brother, Lucien Bodine, who’s even faster.”
“If you want to talk about fast, what about MacCallister? The stagecoach driver told me that the two men he shot already had their pistols drawed but that didn’t make no nevermind to MacCallister. He drawed his own pistol ’n shot ’em afore it was that they could do anything.”
“More ’n likely, Bodine’s brother is goin’ to raise some hell when he hears about this.”
“Yeah, but that’s liable to be a while. I hear tell that he’s down in Texas now. Or maybe it’s New Mexico or Arizona. I ain’t quite sure where it is, but I just know for sure that he ain’t nowhere close around here.”
* * *
As Duff and Wang were leaving Vi’s Pies, they saw Dale Allen, owner of the Pitchfork Ranch. Though not as large as Sky Meadow, Pitchfork was quite large and employed a dozen full-time hands. Allen was driving by in a buckboard, but he stopped when he saw Duff.
“I heard you were on the stage when Billy got hisself killed,” Allen said.
“Aye, I was.”
“Nothin’ you coulda done to stop it, I don’t suppose.”
“I’m sorry. ’Twas no way to know that the brigand was about to shoot your mon.”
“No, I don’t reckon there was,” Allen said. “Mr. Guy told me what happened, ’n how you saved the little girl. I’m glad you were able to do that.”
“’Twas Wang who saved the lass.”
“Yes, well, what’s done is done. And I’m damn glad that the son of a bitch who kilt Billy is dead now. I thank you for that.”
Allen nodded at Duff, who returned the nod, then Allen slapped the reins on the back of his team, and the buckboard jumped ahead.
* * *
When Duff and Wang returned to Sky Meadow, Duff’s ranch, they were met by Elmer Gleason.
“Well, that’s a good-lookin’ saddle you bought while you was over in Bordeaux,” Elmer said, running his hand across the tooled leather. “And what about you, Wang? Did you get the knives you wanted?”
“Very good knives.”
“You won’t be sneakin’ up on me to cut my throat in the middle of the night, will you?”
“You do not need to worry,” Wang said.
“Yeah, so you say. But who can trust a heathen?”
“You will not feel a thing.”
Duff and Elmer laughed.
“Oh, did you hear about Clifford Potts?” Elmer asked.
“Aye, I heard that he passed.”
“Well, it warn’t no surprise to no one, bein’ as he’s been at death’s door for two or three months now,” Elmer said.
“I’ll be attending his funeral,” Duff said.
“Yeah, me, too. He was a good man.”
Chapter Three
Sulphur Springs, Texas
Brad Houser was quite vain about his appearance. He bathed frequently, he kept his blond hair neatly trimmed, and he was clean-shaven. Most women found him a handsome man when first seeing him, but upon closer observation there was something about him that was off-putting. Though few could put it in words, they believed it was something about his eyes.
His eyes were a very pale blue, but, as a woman once said when describing him, “His eyes don’t let you see into his soul. They are like the eyes of a perfect portrait . . . without life.”
At the moment, a man named Robert Dempster was in Brad Houser’s office. An attorney-at-law, Houser was one of only two lawyers in town, and he represented the Bank of Sulphur Springs, which was owned by Dempster.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” Robert Dempster said, a broad smile spreading across his face. “That’s the most money we have ever had, at any one time.”
“Bob, have you told anyone else how much money you have on hand?”
“Of course I have. Why, it’ll be in the newspaper this afternoon. Something like that is good advertising.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Houser agreed.
* * *
Not long after Dempster left, Houser had another visitor to his office. Like Houser, the visitor had blond hair, but unlike Houser, his hair was long and unkempt. He had a purple and disfiguring scar that started just above his left eyebrow, darted down through the eyelid, sparing the eyeball but reappearing in the lower aspect of the socket, and ending just above the cheekbone.
“I was almost unable to locate you,” Houser said to the man who was now sitting in the same chair that Robert Dempster had occupied a short time earlier. “I didn’t know what name you had taken.”
“I wrote you a letter ’n told you I’d changed my name to Shamrock.”
“I didn’t open the letter and didn’t even think about it until the letter I sent you came back undeliverable. Shamrock, like the clover? How did you come by
