During those weeks, dozens and dozens of strangers came to Prescott from different directions for different reasons. Some to buy ranches, some to find gold and silver, some to start businesses.
But two of those strangers had come for other reasons.
One was a gambler named Sebastian; the other a gunman named Cord.
Each had been sent for by Rupert Lessur.
Milo Sebastian arrived on a stagecoach, Quentin Cord on a statuesque white stallion.
Sebastian was corpulent. So much so that he took up the better part of two spaces on the stagecoach. Dressed in an amber blanket of a suit, with the deepset eyes of a fox peering out of a furrow-browed face, he was unmistakable in any crowd. He damn near was a crowd. Those anywhere near his size were usually of a jovial aspect. There was nothing jovial about Sebastian. He had only one expression—solemn.
Rupert Lessur had booked a room for him at the Hassayampa Hotel, where they met the evening of his arrival.
“One thousand dollars,”—Lessur placed the money on a table between them—“as promised . . . for openers.”
“Go on.”
“Since last we met, I know that things haven’t been going too well for you in your . . . profession. And the reason is that you’re too damn good and too well known to get into any big games with any big players . . . and besides, you don’t have a bankroll.”
“You call that a bankroll?” Sebastian pointed to the money on the table.
“I said it was for openers. Just put that in your pocket and keep it.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll bankroll you with ten thousand more to challenge a ‘lady’ named Belinda Millay, who owns a saloon called the Emporium, to a not-so-friendly game of poker. You win the game, keep the ten thousand and I get the saloon.”
“Suppose I lose?”
“I’ll take that chance, but you won’t lose, not with those hands. . . .”
Sebastian put both his hands flat on the table. “These hands aren’t as good as they used to be. You can see they’ve put on a little weight and so has the rest of me.”
“They’re plenty good enough and so are you. We’re talking about some female, an ex-whore . . . and I’m not so sure about the ex. Sebastian, what do you have to lose?”
“You’re right. Nothing. But you do. And the last time we met, we didn’t exactly part the best of friends.”
“That was a matter over a lady friend. This is business. And you’re the man for the job. Do we have a deal?”
“We do,” said Sebastian.
“Excellent. By the way, do you know whatever became of Myrna?”
“Yes, I do. I married her.”
Quentin Cord rode into Prescott alone, as he had done in dozens of other towns throughout the South and Southwest, from the Shenandoah to the Columbia, in desert and high country, and he always rode out alone as well—and left behind a dead body. Sometimes more than one.
He had a hard, narrow face, perfectly symmetrical, with steel-gray eyes and hair, a long, thin nose, a knife-blade mouth, clean-shaven except for close-cropped sideburns that extended well past pointed earlobes. There was a prominent scar high across his left cheek, which might have been caused by a sabre or gunshot. Nobody knew. Nobody asked.
He had killed, some said murdered, more than a score of opponents after insulting each of them publicly and challenging each of them to draw first. And, in front of witnesses, after their pistol cleared leather, he would hook and draw and fire . . . and kill.
Cord had served with J. E. B. Stuart and was still an unrepentant Confederate, still dressed in gray from head to heel.
He rode an ash-white stallion that stood near seventeen hands; he named it Travler, after the mount ridden by General Robert E. Lee.
Cord was tall and limped slightly on his left leg, a result of the war or a gunfight. Again, nobody knew. Nobody asked.
“You! Boy!” Cord looked down from his mount. “You stable horses here?”
“His name is Brown. Ben Brown.” Ike appeared alongside the black man. “And no, we don’t stable horses.”
“Who are you?” Cord asked.
“Name’s Silver. Ike Silver.”
“This boy work for you?”
“This man and I are partners.”
“Partners?”
“There’s a livery up the street.” Ike pointed.
Without speaking, Cord reined his horse around and moved away.
Ben stared after him.
Ike’s hand barely touched Brown’s arm.
“Ignore it, Ben.”
“Yeah.”
“We all have to ignore some things . . . when we can.”
“Yeah.”
In his office, Lessur looked up and down at Quentin Cord, and for a moment settled on the.44 strapped low at the leg of the man who stood in front of him.
“His name is Silver. Ike Silver.”
“I’ve already met him.”
“When?”
“Just a few minutes ago.”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” Cord said without emotion, “Ike Silver is a dead man.”
“Good.” Lessur smiled. “Pick your time and place, then—”
“You hired me to do a job, Mister Lessur. Don’t try to tell me how to do it.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Mister Cord.”