Nagle, Missouri
Frank slept well that night. His rented room was tiny but its window allowed a cool breeze to drift through and fill it with the scent of the river. The fee for the room included breakfast, which wound up being griddle cakes, bacon and coffee. Pete didn’t poke his nose from his room until Frank had made his way through half of his stack of cakes. When the tracker saw him sitting at the breakfast table, he looked to the window, which was bright with the deep orange glow of morning, and then back to the table.
“It’s early,” Pete said.
“A man in my line of work gets into the habit of waking up early,” Frank replied cheerily.
“And enjoys it as well,” Pete grunted as he made his way over to the table and sat down. When the woman who owned the place greeted him, he responded with, “I’ll take what he’s having, with some more bacon.”
“Certainly,” she said. “Be right there.”
After Pete had filled a cup of coffee from the pot that had been left on the table, Frank said, “You weren’t expecting to find me down here yet.”
“Nope.”
“We’ve ridden together a few times, Pete. We should be able to trust each other.”
Pete stirred a cube of sugar into his coffee and stared quietly down into it. Eventually, he said, “It ain’t a matter of trust. It’s just . . . he ain’t only a knife maker.”
Frank smiled and got back to work on his breakfast. “I’ve pretty much gathered that on my own. Is this man is a good friend of yours?”
“No, but I’ve known him awhile,” Pete said.
The cook returned with Pete’s breakfast and set it down. Once she was happy that her work was done, she went back to the kitchen.
“I’ve got plenty of patience,” Frank said, “but my supply is running short. Tell me who this knife maker is so we can get on with what we’re here to do.”
“His name is Caster Grunwaldt. He . . .” Lowering his voice until it almost couldn’t be heard at all, Pete said, “He’s done some things he ain’t so proud of. Caster has been getting soft in his old age and he’s the sort who might just decide to repent once he gets a look at a preacher.”
“So . . . what’s the problem with that?”
“I was thinkin’ maybe you could just show yourself, but not be close enough to let him talk to you. Sort of . . . grease the wheels.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and ask that before?” Frank said.
Pete shrugged and cut a portion of griddle cakes that looked almost too large to fit inside a human mouth. “Thought you might find such a thing disagreeable.”
Frank waved that off and chewed on his last strip of bacon. “I’ve had to do many disagreeable things in my time, and not all of them are because of Nate. If seeing me will rattle this Caster person enough to talk a bit more, then so be it. I think I could do even more good if I was close enough to put a few words in myself, though.”
“Guess I underestimated you.”
“You’re not the first to do that, my friend. Tell me some more about this man we’re going to meet.”
“He’s made weapons of all sorts,” Pete explained. “If you needed something that could kill a man in the best possible way, you went to Caster. If he didn’t have any in stock or know where to get them, he’d make the weapon for you himself.”
“Sounds like someone Nate would like to meet.”
The fork Pete pointed at Frank still had a bit of bacon on it when he said, “That’s another reason I was treading carefully on that matter. Caster’s trying to make good. He ain’t another one of us who’s just given in to what we are.”
“We do good work, Pete. You’re no criminal.”
A shadow fell over Pete’s face as he lowered his fork. “Caster ain’t cut out to work with Nate Sathow. He’s a might shaky in the head. Not as shaky as some men we both know, but he’s . . .”
“Haunted?” Frank offered.
“Yeah. Haunted by what he’s done. That being said, I don’t think he’s through doing it, either. Truth is, I don’t know quite what to think. That’s why I thought you’d be a good partner to have along when we talked to him. Perhaps we can shake something loose.”
“If there’s anything to come loose.”
“There is,” Pete said. “It ain’t just some coincidence that a killer like Pescaterro gets ahold of a knife made by someone as fluent in death as Caster.”
“What else is there, Pete? I know when someone is holding back from saying something important. Also, I’ve never seen you so uncomfortable.”
Pete stabbed a few more chunks of griddle cake, used them to sop up some syrup and chewed them down. Finally, he said, “I don’t know if we can trust him. He’s dangerous.”
And there it was. The hesitance in Pete’s tone, the sudden pensiveness, even the way he shifted his eyes away came from a little flame of guilt within Pete’s core. If anyone could spot that flame from a mile away, it was a preacher. “A man who makes the best guns would naturally be a fairly good shot,” Frank said. “For a man with the talents of your friend . . . I imagine his skills extend into some pretty exotic directions.”
“That’s right. I know Nate trusts you, but I ain’t never been right with him letting a man of the Lord ride along with us when we’re getting shot at. But on these jobs, Nate calls the shots. Now that it’s me callin’ a shot or two . . .”
“First of all,” Frank interrupted, “Nate doesn’t let me do anything. He’s damn lucky I offer my services, as are the rest of you. Second, we can’t do what we do by holding back. We work together or not at all. If we, as a people, could take anything beneficial from the War Between the States, that lesson is it.”
“All right then,” Pete said as he sat up straight and wiped his face with his napkin. “For this to go the way we want it to, I need to be certain you’ll go along with the plan and not step on my toes when I’m goin’ to work.”
“That sounds . . . ominous. I thought he was a friend of yours.”
“You’re the one that’s been callin’ him my friend,” Pete said. “I only mentioned that I know him.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’ve worked with Caster enough to know when he’s lying,” Pete said through a mouthful of breakfast. “I also know what it’ll take to push him into helping if he’s feeling uncooperative. What I need from you is—”
“Is to make my presence known as a man of God so I can appeal to this man’s sense of guilt for his past, but not assert myself so much that I get in the way of you breaking his spirit and possibly parts of his body,” Frank said. “Does that sound about right?”
Pete nodded. “It would also help if you didn’t try to do nothing like confuse him with spiritual talk or discuss ways he can repent and such.”
“I see how a preacher trying to save a lost soul might inconvenience our need to beat information out of somebody.”
“When you say it that way, it sounds downright savage.”
“Well then,” Frank said through a warmer smile, “at least we’re both finally seeing eye to eye. Let’s get this over with.”