Mason wished he could take more time with Maggie, but there simply wasn’t any to spare. If he was going to figure a way out of the pickle he was in, he couldn’t afford to waste a single moment. The gears in his head were turning to try to put himself as many steps ahead of the game as possible.
She’d been right about some very important things, especially when she’d told him that Greeley couldn’t do much worse to him than what he was already facing. Putting a man in a corner with his life hanging by a thread no matter what his options were was a tactical mistake. Once Mason followed her advice and calmed himself enough to see that particular angle above all else, a weight lifted from his shoulders. It was a classic case of not seeing the forest through the trees.
The weight on his shoulders, the anxiousness, the lack of appetite, the exhaustion were all more than products of a rough couple of days. Once he’d accepted the fact that each choice presented by Greeley was potentially just as dangerous as the others, they essentially canceled themselves out. For a man who lived by figuring odds, having two sets of facts and figures wipe each other away like that was a blessing as well as a chance to take a breath and regroup.
Now only two choices remained. He could either do what Greeley wanted or not. Since the first choice guaranteed certain disaster, he was left with no choice at all. The only thing left was to figure out the best way to defy a greedy outlaw with a gang of loyal killers at his disposal. Rather than spin his wheels any longer, he finished up his preparations and made his way off the Delta Jack.
Two overmen were waiting on the dock, and when Mason stepped off the boat, one of them approached to keep him from going any farther.
“Wait here,” the overman said. “Mr. Greeley wants another word with you.”
“I thought he might.” Turning toward the second overman, who was already boarding the Jack, Mason added, “Tell him in advance that I could use another drink.”
When the second overman returned with Greeley, there were no drinks to be found. A third overman approached the dock on a horse, which he dismounted and led by the reins to the point where the dock met the shore.
“That horse is for you,” Greeley said. “At least, for as long as you need it to put Simons in the ground.”
“Any thoughts on how I’ll find him or am I on my own for that as well?” Mason asked.
“When you get there,” the overman with the horse said, “look for a saloon called the Bistro.”
“Sounds fancy,” Mason said.
“It wants to be. Apart from a group of French ladies doing the cancan every other night, there ain’t nothing different there than in any other saloon. Simons usually sits at a table in the middle of the place.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Like a little man trying to be king. You won’t miss him.”
Since he doubted he’d get much more than that from the gunman, Mason took the reins from him and let the matter rest.
“You get that package that was left in your room?” Greeley asked.
“I did,” Mason replied. He peeled back his jacket to show his holster as he said, “I’m loaded and ready to hunt.”
Not only did his display fail to impress any of the men around him, but it caused all three overmen to slap their hands against their own holstered pistols in preparation for a draw. The trio tensed like bowstrings, making it plenty clear to Mason that if he wanted to take a shot at any of them, he’d be dead before his nose picked up the scent of burned gunpowder.
Calmly covering his holster again with his jacket, Mason eased his hand away and laughed nervously. There were a few passengers watching from the upper decks, and most of them lost interest when they saw there wasn’t going to be any bloodshed.
“I take it the town I need to ride to is that way,” Mason said while pointing in the direction from which the overman had come with the horse.
“That’s right,” the overman standing near the animal replied. “It’s called Sedrich. Just take this road for a couple miles and there it is.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
Greeley wore one of his expensive suits but had left his jacket on the boat. Hooking his thumbs beneath his suspenders, he squinted into the afternoon sun. “You’re really gonna do this?”
“What choice do I have?” Mason asked.
“There you go, then. So I find Simons and kill him. Anything else? Anyone need something while I’m in town? Some flour? Maybe a few bags of sugar?”
“Keep makin’ jokes and you’ll catch a bullet,” Greeley warned. “Simons may be a weasel, but he’ll shoot a man without blinking. And if he don’t pull the trigger, one of his kin will.”
“You’ll have to excuse me. This is my first time as a hired gun. I’m not familiar with the etiquette.”
The gnarled expression on Greeley’s face made it clear that he hadn’t understood at least one of the words Mason had just spoken. Quickly becoming annoyed by that, he went back to what he knew and jabbed a bony finger at Mason. “You just do what we discussed.”
“I will,” Mason assured him.
“I’ll need proof when the job’s done.”
“Won’t one of your men be following me?”
Instead of confirming or denying that, Greeley said, “He wears a ring on his little finger. It’s gold but ain’t worth a fortune or anything. By the looks of it, I’d say he can’t pull it off his fat hand, so it remains there. To get it off, it’ll need to be cut off.”
“You want the ring?” Mason asked.
Greeley nodded. “And the finger it’s on.”
“And . . . the finger?”
“Yeah. That should be enough proof.”
“Isn’t that a bit . . . gruesome?”
“So’s killing a man,” Greeley pointed out, “but you’re willing to do that much.”
Mason couldn’t help squirming at the prospect in front of him. “Yes, but . . . how does one . . . remove a finger?”
“It’s not as hard as you might think,” one of the overmen on the dock said. “Just put his hand on a table and cut it like you’re cutting an old sausage. Lean your weight down into it. The quicker the better.”
“All right,” Mason said quickly. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“For a man who wears two guns,” the overman said, “you seem awfully squirrelly.”
“I’m not squirrelly. I’m just not a butcher.”
Greeley and all three overmen broke into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Mason asked.
When he caught his breath, Greeley said, “We’ve spoken to Willowby.”
“You mean Winslow?” Mason snapped.
“Yeah. That’s the one. We spoke to him and he told us about what you did to get away from him when my boys found the two of you near their rowboat.”
“That was different,” Mason explained. “That was—”
“Cold is what that was,” the overman closest to Mason said. “You shot his leg, gave him a bit of time to get doctored up, and then stuck a sharp stick into the bullet wound. If that ain’t cold, I don’t know what is!”
One of the overmen standing at the edge of the plank leading back onto the boat mused, “I’ll have to use that one myself sometime.”
“And don’t forget the part about punching the poor bastard in the face,” Greeley added.
“I’m leaving now,” Mason said while climbing onto the horse he’d been given. “The lot of you enjoy yourselves.”
“Go get him, Butcher!” an overman called out. Since Mason had already decided to ignore them, he wasn’t sure which overman had made the comment. All of the men on the dock found it amusing enough to parrot the comment, however, while more laughter spread among them like a brush fire.
Mason sighed. After his horse had taken a few steps, he felt compelled to look over his shoulder at the Delta Jack. Greeley and his men were already walking aboard and having a grand old time along the way. Of the few passengers who’d continued to watch from above, only one remained.
Maggie looked down at him from the third deck. Both of her hands were on the railing, and her eyes were locked on him as if she were still close enough to whisper into his ear. She raised one hand and smiled in a way that made Mason feel as if they were the only two people on the face of the earth. He’d heard others say things like that and written them off as either fools, drunks, or drunken fools. Mason might very well have joined one of those categories, but he was feeling too good to care.
He snapped his reins, rode away from the Delta Jack, and headed into his first day as a hired killer.