Reaper's Fee (15 page)

Wesley nodded, admiring the bundle in Pat’s hand. “Sure was. It was stuffed in Cobb’s pockets.”

“You…sifted through a dead man’s pockets?”

“Sure. How else was I gonna get it out of there?”

Closing up the bundle, Pat carefully wound the twine back around it and said, “We already dug up a grave. The rest didn’t seem like too much more to ask.”

For the first time since he’d started in on all of this, Lester got a real good impression of the rage seething behind Nick’s eyes when he’d been talking about someone disturbing his friend’s grave. In a frightened voice, Lester said, “We might want to pack up and get the hell away from here.”

Brimming with confidence over the fruits of his labor, Wesley said, “If those men want to come after my kin, they’ll have a fight on their hands. Besides, there’s three of us and only two of them, right?”

“But one of them’s a known killer,” Pat said. “I heard Graves killed his first man before he even fucked his first woman.”

“I’ve heard plenty of bad stories about Graves, too,” Wesley said. “That don’t make ’em all true. “Just the same, though, maybe we should put the
odds more in our favor. You still got them shotguns from when Uncle Mike visited us last spring to do some hunting?”

“Yeah, but one of them’s broken and we don’t have any shells.”

“Go back into town and buy some shells. Buy a new gun while you’re at it. We make sure the wives are armed along with us and it’ll be five against two. That should work out better all around.”

“I just got back from town,” Pat told him. “Stores are closed. I’m not heading straight back there.”

“Then I’ll go in the morning. Jesus Christ, you’re a whining cuss.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lester offered.

“You see there? Little cousin knows how to lend a hand when all of our asses are on the line.” Wesley booted Pat in the backside as the younger cousin went back to put the bundle in its hiding spot. “We’ll take turns keeping watch, and Lester and I’ll head into town come first light. Odds are that them two won’t even find us out here.”

Lester nodded, doing his best to mirror Wesley’s confidence.

He was given a room and allowed to sleep while the other two cousins kept watch. The more he thought about Nick’s reputation with a gun and Kinman’s reputation for tracking, the harder it was for Lester to get any rest.

By the time he and Kinman had broken camp and ridden out the next morning, Nick knew how the bounty hunter was tracking Lester. It wasn’t easy to spot at first, but Nick had managed to pick out the pattern that kept showing up among the tracks in the dirt. Kinman seemed to enjoy doing his job and was damn good at it, so Nick let him keep the lead. For the moment, their end goal was the same.

“You ever hear of Pat or Wesley Harbor?” Kinman asked after he’d gotten his bearings and was preparing his horse for the day’s ride.

Nick cinched up the last buckle on Kazys’s saddlebags and shrugged. “I’ve been to Boston Harbor.”

“They ain’t places. They’re people. Ever hear of ’em?”

After thinking about it once more, Nick came up with even less than before. “No. I guess I haven’t.”

“They’re Lester’s cousins. By the looks of it, he may be heading out to meet them.”

“If you know where to find them, we should be able to work out a shortcut. That should shave off some time.”

“If I knew where to find them, I would’ve found them already. They’re wanted men, mostly for working with your friend Barrett Cobb.”

Nick recognized the way Kinman was staring at him. It was the look that was in a man’s eye when he asked a question that he figured you already knew the answer to. It reminded Nick of the smug distrust that poured from a lawman’s eyes. “Barrett worked with plenty of men. He used them for a lot of jobs so none of them would know too much.”

“You worked with him, too.”

“Me and Barrett also worked with a lot of other fellas. If you want to know where they are, I can take you to their graves. Some of them are still somewhere in Montana, but I’m sure you’d be more than welcome to have a look around. Those vigilantes just love bounty hunters.”

“And they also love outlaws,” Kinman said without missing a beat. Making sure to stare at Nick’s mangled hand, he added, “I hear they take extra special time with the outlaws they like more’n anyone else.”

Nick nodded and climbed into his saddle. Once there, he made a particularly nasty gesture with the hand that was still in Kinman’s sights. “You want to lead the way or would you prefer to give Lester even more of a head start?”

“Don’t you worry about Lester. I’ve been tracking him long enough to know how his little pea brain works. His kin lives somewhere around a town named Hackett. He’ll run there just as surely as I’m sitting here.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Nick asked while waving grandly toward the trail. “Lead the way.”

Kinman stared at Nick for a few seconds. In that short amount of time, Nick felt as if he could hear exactly what was running through the bounty hunter’s mind. The smugness in Kinman’s eyes, combined with the way he turned his back to Nick was proof that the bounty hunter thought he could take Nick down whenever he saw fit to do so.

As he watched Kinman snap his reins and get moving, Nick shifted his hand toward his pistol. He could put a bullet through that arrogant fool before Kinman even heard the shot that killed him. Nick could even dig a hole and plant Kinman in it without losing much time in his pursuit of Lester Peterson.

But of all the things Kinman was, he sure as hell wasn’t a fool.

Nick thought about that as his fingers brushed against the specially tooled leather of his holster. It was strapped across his belly, as it was whenever he was expecting a fight. Nick could draw a fraction of a second quicker that way.

Kinman may or may not have known that Nick had caught on to the trick he’d pulled with the
shoe of Lester’s horse. Letting the name of that town drop, on the other hand, was something the bounty hunter had done on purpose. Any man would know that the name of the town closest to the spot they were after was a valuable piece of information. To a tracker, it would have been twice as valuable.

Perhaps Kinman was seeing if Nick would try to attack him and go on alone now that he had something to work with.

Then again, there was always the chance that Kinman was tired and had made a slip of the tongue.

No, Nick thought. That wasn’t a possibility.

“We’ve wasted enough time already,” Kinman shouted over his shoulder. “Stop lagging behind and let’s get moving.”

“No need to worry,” Nick shouted back. “I know where Hackett is and we should be able to get there around noon or so if we keep a good pace.”

Watching for Kinman’s reaction, Nick kept his hand over his holstered pistol. The tips of his fingers might have been mostly numb, but he could feel the smooth, curved iron well enough.

Kinman stopped.

For the next few seconds, he sat upon his horse while slowly cocking his head to one side. Finally, he turned and looked back at Nick and Kazys. “The best pace in the world won’t help us if we don’t leave this spot. Is something wrong with your horse, or are you content to let that asshole
and his cousins live like kings off of them jewels?”

“I’m just making sure I didn’t leave anything behind,” Nick said, still keeping his hand on his gun.

Kinman started riding, but slowly enough so he could hear what was going on behind him. Nick recognized the cautious way Kinman flicked his reins as well as the way the bounty hunter kept his ears pricked for any sound he could pick up. When Nick began to follow, he saw Kinman’s posture relax a bit as both horses fell into a quick step.

There had to be something that Kinman was holding back. The more Nick thought about it, the more certain he became. A man didn’t get a reputation like Kinman’s by making slips of the tongue to men he clearly didn’t trust. Then again, Kinman had made the mistake of showing himself back in Rock Springs.

Or had that been a test as well?

Nick had batted that thought around more than once, but it had been pushed aside in favor of everything else that had happened since then. Showing himself in Rock Springs could have been a fatal mistake or it could have been a piece of some other plan. Nick didn’t like to bet on mistakes. Instead, he kept his thoughts churning as he and Kinman gathered up speed and rode toward Hackett.

Kinman only allowed himself half a smirk at Nick’s expense. Even though he was pretty sure the other
man couldn’t see his face from behind him, Kinman didn’t want to muck up whatever knots were being tied within Nick’s brain.

Crossing Nick’s path in Rock Springs had been a mistake. If he’d had his say in the matter, Kinman would have preferred to go after Graves the way he went after all of his targets: after some careful scouting and preparation. But sometimes a man had to play the cards he was dealt and Kinman was pretty happy with the way this game was going.

So far, Kinman had gotten Nick to change his mind half a dozen times on whether he should trust him or not. Considering the confusion that had surrounded their first run-in, Kinman figured that maintaining that confusion was his best bet.

Nick was going to take his shot and was simply waiting for his chance to come. Kinman knew well enough that any move he made toward his own gun would be met by a storm of lead from that Schofield Nick carried. It was only a question of timing. One fraction of a second either way would decide whether Nick or Kinman would wind up dead.

Kinman took a look behind him to find Nick right where he should be. The deck was stacked in Kinman’s favor and all was right with the world. There was even more money waiting for him once he caught up with Lester and his no-good cousins. Hopefully, those boys had a wagon on that spread
of theirs, because Kinman would need one to haul all of those bodies in to claim the rewards.

To make matters even better, Kinman had seen Nick in action back in Rock Springs. For that, alone, running into Graves was worth tipping his hand a little early. The gunman Kinman had heard so much about would have given him a run for his money in shooting those Chinamen for such an easy payoff. After seeing the way Nick had faltered when it came time to earning some of Hale’s money, Kinman was more inclined to believe the stories he’d heard about how badly those Montana vigilantes had torn Graves apart.

Kinman rode ahead of Nick without much concern. Nick may have been a threat in his younger days, but he wasn’t anything that Kinman couldn’t handle now. In fact, Lester and his cousins might just do Kinman’s job for him once they got to Hackett. Either way, Kinman figured this might be the last job he would need to complete before retiring to a nice little spread of his own.

Someone knocked on the door and Lester didn’t make a move to answer it. He was still half asleep and in a strange room, so he didn’t think someone could be trying to summon him. When the knock came again, it snapped him out of his daze and got him to his feet. Lester walked across the small, cozy room and pulled open the door.

“You still in there?” Pat grunted. “Wesley’s getting ready to head into town. You’re still going with him, right?”

Lester nodded. “Yeah. I’m still going. I was just trying to…just freshening up a bit.”

Pat’s eyes moved down and up to take stock of the man in front of him. “You’re barely even dressed.”

“It’s been a long couple of days. I suppose it’s all just catching up to me.”

“Well I can bring you some fresh water to splash on your face. Maybe you can get a bath when you’re in town.” Leaning forward and sniffing the air surrounding Lester, Pat added, “Definitely get a bath in town. There’s a good spot where a friendly
redhead will wash your back real thorough, like. Know what I mean?”

A blind man would have known what Pat meant, but Lester nodded as if to play along with the other man’s attempt at subtlety.

“I’ll let Wesley know you’re pulling yourself together,” Pat said. “I’ll bet some coffee will help speed things along.”

“That would be fine.”

“All right, Cousin. I’m just going to get some things situated in the barn. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah I know what you mean.”

After a quick nod, Pat turned and walked away from the door. Lester closed it and sat down on the edge of the little bed. The room was decorated sparsely and had nothing to cover the warped wooden slats of the floor. A small table stood in one corner next to the creaky bed. Actually, it leaned in that corner, since one of the table’s legs was an inch shorter than the others.

Lester placed his head in his hands and closed his eyes. The room wasn’t on the side of the house that caught much sunlight, so pressing his face against his palms brought complete darkness. It wasn’t much of a comfort, however, since Lester’s thoughts were still rushing through his mind like whitewater flowing over jagged rocks.

One of the things that bothered him the most was the set of rumors that had nothing at all to do with outlaws or the Reaper’s Fee. They’d circulated among Lester’s own family regarding another
cousin of his that had gone missing shortly after Pat and Wesley had taken up their guns and stepped onto the wrong side of the law.

Lester hadn’t known his cousin Matt too well. What he did know was the kid had always been a hell-raiser since the day he could walk. Word had it that Matt was in on the first job that Wesley and Pat ever pulled. Supposedly Matt got greedy and was killed for it. Matt was then buried quietly and nobody in the family talked about him much anymore.

Lester really hadn’t thought about Matt until now. Something in Wesley’s eyes had bothered him ever since Wesley had shown him those jewels, though. Now Lester wondered if that had been the same look Matt had seen when his time on earth was drawing to an end.

Thoughts like that were just another set of teeth gnawing at the inside of Lester’s gut. With all the other worries he had, Lester was surprised he still had any guts left. Suddenly, one of his thoughts popped to the surface and made him snap his head up with his eyes wide open. Instead of another problem, Lester had actually come up with a solution. In fact, the more he thought about it, his solution might actually clear up some of the other problems that had been nagging at him.

“Oh my God,” Lester whispered to himself.

Unlike some of his other ideas, this one actually stood up to a second glance. It even stood up to a third and fourth glance.

Lester hopped to his feet with renewed vigor. He
looked around his room, but only found the same sparse furnishings that had been there before. As he turned toward the door and reached for the handle, someone knocked on it. Lester nearly cleared the floor, but managed to control his shock so he could open the door.

“Pat, do you have…”

Lester stopped when he saw who was out there. Instead of Pat, it was Pat’s wife, Stephanie. She was a pretty young thing with short dark brown hair. Her face was a little plumper than it had looked the night before, but that could simply have been because she was looking straight at him now rather than down at the knitting upon her lap.

Stephanie smiled warmly at him and held up a basin brimming with water. “Pat said you’d need some water,” she said. “Mind if I come in?”

“Oh sure,” Lester said as he opened the door all the way.

Moving with smooth, easy steps, Stephanie walked past him to the small table in the corner. Her hips swayed beneath her loose-fitting skirt, which was just thin enough for Lester to be fairly certain she wasn’t wearing much of anything else beneath.

Setting the basin on the table, Stephanie bent at the waist so she could fuss with it for a few extra seconds. Under normal circumstances, Lester would think she was taking too much time. However, considering the disrepair of that table, he was amazed she got it to support the basin at all.

When she turned around to face him, Stephanie dried her hands on the sides of her skirt. After the first few rubs, it seemed more as if she was caressing her hips rather than simply getting rid of excess water.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

Lester’s response was as quick as it was enthusiastic. “Yes. That would be perfect.”

Stephanie lowered her head a bit as she walked past him. Her hand eased out just enough to brush along his stomach as she went.

Although he enjoyed watching her leave, Lester was even gladder once she was gone. He had to keep reminding himself that Stephanie was Pat’s wife. No matter what she was doing to him or how much she seemed to enjoy doing it, Lester simply couldn’t allow himself to give in.

Lester shook his head and dipped his hands in the water. While splashing his face, he did his level best to force those thoughts from his mind. Before he’d even put a dent in them, his door swung open once more.

He felt a gentle touch upon his shoulder at the same time the smell of coffee reached his nose.

“I would have brought you a whole pot, but there’s nowhere to put it,” Stephanie whispered to him.

Lester turned around so quickly that he almost knocked the cup of hot coffee from her hands. Now that he was closer to her, Lester found her face to be even softer and kinder than before. Her
eyes were as clear as the water in the basin and the warmth he felt inside of him had nothing to do with the steaming cup being offered to him.

“Thanks,” he said. “That looks real fine.”

“Why don’t you try some?”

Lester reached for the cup of coffee but bypassed it altogether so he could slip his hand along the side of her body. Stephanie responded by holding the cup away from them so she could press herself against him without fear of spilling the coffee onto the floor. Her lips pressed against his and opened almost immediately.

Although Lester had been the one to move first, he quickly felt as if he’d taken one step onto a downward slope and was quickly stumbling toward a hell of a fall. Stephanie’s leg slid up and down along his side.

“I need something, if it’s not too much trouble,” Lester squeaked.

“I need it too, Sugar.”

It took a hell of an effort to keep his mind on track, but Lester forced himself through it because he knew that effort wasn’t going to get any easier if he waited. “Could I get some paper…and…maybe a pencil? I need to write a letter.”

Stephanie let out a slow breath that heated up the side of Lester’s neck. “We’ll have plenty to write about real soon,” she promised.

Most of Lester’s brain was still trying to cut through the haze that was thickening in his skull. As much as he wanted to make certain she’d heard
him the first time, he simply couldn’t get his tongue to go through the process of repeating itself. There were just too many things vying for his attention. Lester could feel the curves of Stephanie’s body rubbing against him and just as he was about to stumble further, she quickly pulled away.

Lester was left with an ache in his trousers and the cup of coffee in his hand. He felt as if he’d just been pulled out of a deep sleep when he heard his cousin’s voice thunder through the room.

“You comin’ or not?” Wesley barked.

Looking around, Lester found Stephanie closer to the basin than she was to him. She fidgeted with the crooked table while shooting a quick, knowing glance over her shoulder. “I’ll get you that paper and pencil,” she said calmly.

“I…uh…was just having some coffee,” Lester said, praying to the Lord above that Wesley bought it. “And I also wanted to write a letter to Uncle—”

“Just get your ass ready to go,” Wesley snapped. “I’m leaving in two minutes with or without you.”

Hackett hadn’t been much of a town since the nearby vein of gold had been picked clean. Lester could see remnants of the town’s former glory reflected in the dirty, broken signs that hung above most of the storefronts. Places like the Golden Saloon and Strike It Rich Gambling Hall lined the streets. Turning a corner allowed him to see mining supply stores and assayers’ offices that were now either empty or boarded up altogether.

Like most towns that were past their prime, however, the saloon trade was still booming. Wesley rode past a place called the Nugget and craned his neck to get a look through the front window.

“They put on a hell of a show in there,” Wesley said. “Watch the girls kick up their skirts and then watch them kick up their legs for ya in a back room. Hell of a place! Don’t look like there’s anyone on stage right now, though.”

“It’s not even noon,” Lester pointed out.

“It’s always a good time for that kind of show.”

Hearing that, Lester couldn’t help but think about Stephanie. As if to distract himself from those thoughts, he patted his shirt pocket to find the letter he’d hastily written before saddling up. “Is that the sheriff’s office?” he asked, nodding toward a small building with a shattered front window.

“Yeah,” Wesley replied with a snorting laugh. “He’s a marshal and he knows folks around here don’t like him much.”

“What about a post office?”

Wesley shifted in his saddle to show Lester an open-mouthed sneer. “You looking to settle here, or are you just flapping your lips some more?”

In response to that, Lester took the letter from his pocket and held it up.

It took Wesley a moment, but he finally nodded and turned back around. “Post office is that way,” he said, jabbing a stubby finger toward a row of
broken storefronts that looked like gaps in a filthy mouth. “In the back of the dry goods store.”

“I’m going there to mail my letter.”

“What made you want to start writing letters?”

Lester shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “With all that’s happened, I haven’t been talking to the family very much. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again.”

“You ask me, our family talks too much,” Wesley said. “All them rumors and stories going back and forth.”

Before he could catch himself, Lester spat out, “Like what happened to Matt?”

Wesley looked over at him with an expression that might have come from eating a piece of rotten meat. “Sure.”

Lester nodded and pointed his horse toward the dry goods store down the street. “Well, it’s only a letter. I’ll catch up with you.”

“I’ll be down on Second Street at Smith’s Firearms. Don’t take too long. I’ll be needing the rest of that money Pat gave to ya.”

Lester watched Wesley ride away, and kept watching until his cousin rounded the corner. When he rushed into the dry goods store, he was already out of breath. “This the post office?” he asked the old man behind the counter.

“Yep.”

“Where’s the sack for the mail to be sorted?”

“Just give her here,” the old-timer said as he stretched out a thin, liver-spotted arm. When he
didn’t feel anything placed in his hand, the old man stared at Lester and asked, “Do you have something to mail or not?”

“I do, but…”

Staring at the envelope in Lester’s hand, the old man said, “There ain’t no address on that.”

Lester slapped the envelope onto the counter where the old man was sitting. Taking a pencil from his pocket, he quickly scribbled a word onto the envelope and then looked up. “What’s the marshal’s name?”

“Marshal Eaves?”

Nodding, Lester wrote another word on the envelope and handed it over. “I want this delivered to Marshal Eaves, but—”

“You can hand it over yourself. His office isn’t far from here.”

“I know, but I want it delivered. He shouldn’t read it until later.”

“You could have something to eat while you wait.”

Resisting the urge to jump across the counter and throttle the old man, Lester said, “I’m not going to wait. I’ve got things to do. I need this delivered to the marshal a bit later.”

The old man looked at Lester as if he smelled dung stuck to the bottom of his boot. “I was just trying to save you the postage.”

“Here,” Lester said as he took out some of the money Pat had given him to help buy the shotgun and rifle ammunition. “Take this as your fee. Just
deliver the letter to the marshal and say it came in today’s mail. Do whatever you need to make the envelope look genuine.”

The old man snatched the money away with a speed that would have been impressive for a fellow half his age. “When do you want the marshal to get it?”

Lester pulled in a breath to steel himself. “Tonight should be fine. Say around five o’clock. No…better make it four.”

“Four it is.” Taking the letter, the old man tossed it onto an empty burlap sack folded on the floor behind him. He then placed both hands flat upon the counter and showed Lester a friendly smile.

Already on his way out the door, Lester shook his head. “That’s all I need. At least, I sure hope it is. It damn well better be.” He was still muttering as he left the store and headed for Smith’s Firearms.