33

It was then that the sound of the voices finally brought Amanda around. Blinking and rubbing herself, she sat up and looked about her in confusion. “What’s going on?”

“This,” Hoby said, and whirling, he slapped her across the face.

The blow knocked Amanda down and jolted her awake. “Hoby!” she cried. “Why’d you do that? I thought we were friends.”

“You thought wrong,” Hoby growled, and raised his hand to strike her again.

“Before you get into it,” Semple said, “we should tie them.”

“Fine,” Hoby snapped. “But only him.”

“Why not her?”

“Because I said so.”

Once again Fargo had to submit to having his wrists bound. This time they didn’t bother with his legs. As Granger stepped back, Fargo tried to divert Hoby from Amanda Brenner by saying, “I’m curious. Why did you come all this way from Texas? To follow Coltraine?”

“He is my pa,” Hoby said.

“Who didn’t have much to do with you when you were a boy, from what I hear.”

“He didn’t know my ma got pregnant,” Hoby said. “She never sent him word she’d had a kid. The first he heard of it was when I showed up on his doorstep.”

Semple broke in with, “You should have left it be, Hoby. So what if Ma had an affair? So what if Coltraine was your real pa?”

A troubled expression came over the boy-man. “I had to meet him. I had to find out what he was like.”

“What did it matter?” Semple asked.

“It mattered to me,” Hoby said. “How was it he was so straight arrow and I was ridin’ the owlhoot trail? It seemed to me we were nothin’ alike yet he was supposed to have sired me.”

“I would have left it be, is all,” Semple insisted.

Hoby looked at Fargo. “You can see how it was, can’t you? It ate at me, not knowin’. Sam Cotton wasn’t much. A clerk and a nobody. But Luther Coltraine. Everybody in Texas knew about him. One of the best lawmen alive. Everyone said so. And I was the fruit of his loins.”

Amanda chose that moment to say, “He was glad you looked him up. He’s told me so.”

“What do you know?” Hoby replied.

“I know I love him. I know that one day I’ll be his wife.”

“Oh, will you?” Hoby said. “And what, be my new ma, to boot?” He laughed uproariously yet with an edge. “You are so stupid, it’s pitiful.”

“Why are you being so mean to me?”

“Because you’re a cow. Because he’s doin’ it again and you’re so dumb you don’t see it.”

“Who’s doing what?”

Hoby took a half step toward her and balled a fist. “Who are we talkin’ about, girl? The great Luther Coltraine. The tin star who can do no wrong. Who all the folks look up to because he’s so good and pure.” Hoby gazed to the south as if he could see all the way to Texas. “But they don’t know the real him. The womanizin’ bastard who trifles with females right and left. Who diddled my ma. Who’s poked more fillies than you can count. To him you’re nothin’ but a notch on his pecker.”

“You’re pulling that out of your hat,” Amanda said, shocked.

“What for? To hurt your feelin’s? I don’t give a damn about you. The only reason I took you from the bank was to get to know you. To find out what you were like, and how he got up your skirts. He did it the same as he always does. He impresses females with how famous he is, then beds them.”

“His love for me is special,” Amanda said. “He’s said so plenty of times.”

“And you believe him.”

Amanda appeared close to tears. “It can’t be true. It just can’t. Maybe your ma lied. Maybe she never really slept with him but told you she did so you might change your ways.”

“She was dyin’ of consumption,” Hoby said. “She was close to meetin’ her Maker and said she wanted to come clean with me. Don’t you dare insult her again or I’ll shoot you where you sit.”

“Speakin’ of which,” Timbre Wilson said. “How much more jabber will there be before we get to it?”

“Shut your piehole,” Hoby said. “This is important to me.”

A wave of insight washed over Fargo. Here was this boy who’d strayed off the straight and narrow, who’d become a killer by fifteen, who’d learned that his natural father was one of the most upstanding men alive, who went to meet the paragon and found out that Luther Coltraine wasn’t the monument to virtue everyone praised him for being. Who discovered that the one man he thought might be someone he could look up to, was, in fact, as human as everybody else. No wonder the boy was so bitter.

Hoby drew his Colt and pointed it at Amanda.

Recoiling, she thrust out a hand. “What are you doing?”

“Savin’ you from him,” Hoby said. “Sparin’ you the misery he gave my ma all those years.”

“But I don’t need saving,” Amanda exclaimed. “I like being with him and he likes being with me.”

“Oh? Does he do it out in the open where everyone can see? Or does he have you skulkin’ around in the dead of night so he can make love to you?”

“Please,” Amanda said. “Lower the gun. I don’t want to die.”

“I’m doin’ you a favor.”

“And Coltraine, too,” Fargo said.

Hoby glanced over. “How is it any favor to him?”

“No one will ever know,” Fargo said. “You’ll have killed the only proof you have that he’s no account.”

“There’s other proof,” Hoby said, but he let the Colt fall to his side and stared hard at Amanda Brenner. “The scout has a point, though. If folks found out about you, they’d be more likely to believe the rest of it.”

“I’m not about to tell anyone,” Amanda said.

“You will if you want to go on breathin’. Or, better yet”—Hoby leveled his Colt at Fargo—“if you want him to.”