good start out of the Territory.
The public corral had been built near the edge of town when Sabo was only a few days old, but the mushrooming boom town had since grown up around it. That steaming manure piles sided tent restaurants and flophouses passed unnoticed in this place where filth was taken for granted and griminess as a sign of wealth.
Grant slung his saddle to the ground beside a row of rental buggies and buckboards and quickly scanned the saddle animals inside the pole corral. The liveryman, a small man heavily weighted in a buffalo coat, came out of the barn and raked Grant with a pair of calculating eyes.
“Buy or rent?”
“Buy.” Grant indicated a tall gelding against the far fence. “How much for the black?”
The liveryman spat and brushed tobacco juice from the front of his coat. “Two hundred.” And when he saw the man hesitate he turned to re-enter the barn. At another place the animal would have brought seventy-five dollars, or maybe a hundred. But this was a boom town where double price was considered cheap.
Grant sighed and felt the money belt about his waist. He called to the liveryman and the deal was made.
Grant kept telling himself that he was lucky, but a vague uneasiness, almost a fear, grew up inside him as he cinched his rig on the gelding's back.
It didn't do much good to tell himself that Rhea Muller was none of his concern—that she had deliberately asked for the trouble that went with hiring a gunman. Turk Valois was a queer one, but he had his pride and a kind of honor that Grant could understand. With that kind of man you could hate his guts and still not be afraid to leave him to look after your wife... or the woman you loved.
And Grant knew now that he had been counting on Valois to keep the gunman in line. Not that the runner could stand up to Lloyd with a gun, but there was something tough and ungiving about the man that made you know that he was strong in many ways where strength was needed.
It was strange, thinking of Valois this way. Grant hesitated before climbing to the saddle, wondering what Rhea would do if Dagget took the runner away.
And Dagget would take him away. Valois would yell, but that wouldn't stop the marshal from holding him until he could prove his innocence.
Goddamnit! Grant thought with sudden, unexpected savagery. What do I care whether or not he holds Valois? What do I care what happens to
But when he climbed atop the gelding he found that anger was not enough. It should have been an easy thing simply to bring the animal about and ride away from Sabo, but he did not find it so easy when he tried. Instead, he found himself wondering if there might be some way that he could clear Valois without putting his own neck in Dagget's noose.
Maybe it could be done. Suddenly he wheeled the big gelding away from the corral and rode obliquely through the clutter of Sabo, heading grimly back toward Slush Creek and the Muller lease.
He tried to tell himself that he was doing it on Valois' account, because he wasn't the kind to let an innocent man pay for something he'd done himself. But he knew well enough that Valois had little to do with it. No matter what kind of fool Rhea was, she didn't deserve to be left on the lease alone with a man like Lloyd.
A man had his pride, and a kind of honor that he had to preserve if he meant to go on living with himself. As he rode hunched low in the saddle, his head ducked against the cutting wind, he almost convinced himself that he was doing no more than any other man would do under the same conditions.
The black skidded down the bank of the creek and the sheet of ice cracked like a pane of glass. In midstream the gelding shied, and Grant swore harshly as his hat fell into the muddy ice water beneath the horse's belly. He swung low and swooped up the dripping hat, and the icy band around his ears did not improve his temper as he jammed the battered Stetson back on his head.
Now from the other side of the creek he could see the marshal's horse tied up on the protected side of the dugout, and he forgot the discomfort of a soaked hat. He took one deep breath and felt a nervous ripple flutter across his shoulders. This had to be brought off fast and exactly right, or it wouldn't be brought off at all.
He kicked the gelding roughly, almost as though he were afraid of changing his mind, and rode directly to the dugout. He scanned the high ground for riders but saw no one.
He left the black tied to a scrub-oak thicket behind the shack, drawing his revolver as he approached the dugout steps. He could hear voices, but the sound was warped and distorted by the wind. Quietly, now, he made his way down to the bottom step and, without warning, kicked open the dugout door.
Rhea whirled and made a strange, small sound when she saw Grant standing in the doorway. Kirk Lloyd, lounging against the far wall, showed no surprise at all. Turk Valois, standing rigidly near the stove, made no sound, but his eyes were narrowed and bright with warning.
Whether the warning was intended, Grant didn't know, but he took advantage of it quickly. He kicked the door hard and swung his revolver on Dagget who was standing by himself against the near wall.
“Drop your gun, Marshall!”
Dagget's face was a grim, pleased mask showing no surprise. In his hands was a snub-barreled carbine pointed casually in the general direction of Valois, but Dagget didn't appear to have much interest in the runner now. “I can't see that this is your play, Grant,” he said calmly, almost gently.
“This .45 makes it my play, and I can trigger it a lot faster than you can swing your carbine. So drop it.”
The marshal looked thoughtful but undisturbed. Valois looked as though he were trying to speak but the words had stuck in his throat; Kirk Lloyd had not changed his lounging position or blank expression, except when he looked at Rhea. For an instant there was complete, roaring silence in the small room, and then Rhea hissed:
“Joe, you fool! You fool! Can't you see it's a trap!”
A chill colder than the ice of Slush Creek settled in, Grant's middle. He did not glance around, did not take his eyes from Dagget's satisfied face. The marshal's shoulders moved slightly in an almost invisible shrug, and he leaned the carbine against the whitewashed wall. “Why did you come back, Grant?” he asked with that savage smile.
Grant's eyes darted about the room, then came to rest on Dagget. “Don't you know?”
“I want you to tell me.”
Rhea took one quick step forward but Dagget nailed her to the spot with one savage glance. “Joe, don't tell him anything!”
Now Grant felt the water from his wet hat dripping down his neck, running slowly over his face. With his free hand he reached up to wipe the water away. And then he noticed the dark brown stain on his hand, the color of the dye that he had used on his hair. Dagget watched thoughtfully and said again:
“Why did you come back?”
And now, at last, the picture began to form in Grant's mind. Dagget had guessed all along that he would return because of Rhea. And even as he thought it, the marshal glanced bleakly at Lloyd, then at Rhea. And he studied Valois carefully, measuring him against the gunman.
Grant took a deep breath, knowing that it was a trap. But he also knew that it wouldn't have changed anything, even if he had known at the beginning. Strangely, he found this thought bitterly amusing. Dagget didn't know how deep his trap had actually been—how inescapable.
“All right,” Grant heard himself saying. “Valois is innocent. I gave him that money to pay off Battle.”
“And where did the money come from?” the marshal pushed quietly.
There was not much sense in lying now, for he would have to fight his way out of this anyway. “Joplin,” he said. “I took it off a banker named Ortway.” He saw Kirk Lloyd's mouth curl in faint amusement, and he saw the gunman's hungry gaze measuring Rhea. Grant looked at the marshal. “Does Valois go clear? Is he free to go on working here for the Mullers?”
“Sure. If you can prove you're the bandit.”
“I just told you! You've got a confession, with witnesses. What more do you want?”
“The money,” Dagget said dryly. “Show me where you hid it and maybe I'll believe you.”
The money. All it had brought him was trouble, and at the moment he was glad enough to get rid of it. “Then Valois will be clear?”
“You've got my word on it.” Then the marshal's eyes widened, glittered with outrage when he saw Grant
