“You had your chance an’ you wasted a shot into mesquite instead of Lassiter’s hard head.” Sanlee was standing next to Doug Krinkle at one end of O’Leary’s bar. He had ordered Krinkle to go along when he escorted Millie back to the home place. Elva Dowd, big-armed and toothy, would keep a subdued Millie in hand.
“I’ll have another chance at Lassiter,” Krinkle said and gave a hitch at his gun belt.
“That son of a bitch is just plain lucky. Deverax an’ Bolin shootin’ at him in a two-by-four shack an’ by God, both of ’em missin’ the bastard. Then Lassiter puts a bullet in Deverax an’ kills Bolin.”
“Luck’s like sand in an hourglass. It runs just so long.”
“Somebody told you that. You never thought it up by yourself.”
“I read it somewhere,” Krinkle admitted. It rankled that he’d had Lassiter right in his rifle sight. And in all the confusion of the vaquero getting killed and the yelling, he could have gotten away with it. But at the last minute Lassiter had turned his head. Talk about luck. Then Lassiter had given him a cold stare that chilled his backbone.
“I’ll have to get Lassiter before he gets me,” Krinkle said after a minute. He swished some whiskey around in his glass, then drained it. “He knows damn well I was tryin’ for him at roundup.”
“Well, for Chris’ sakes, next time make sure of him.”
“Maybe you oughta make a try for him yourself, Brad,” Krinkle suggested slyly, but he was ready to duck in case Sanlee swung his hand at him, which he was known to do when his temper exploded. But today Sanlee accepted it with a tight grin.
“If it comes to the point where fellas I pay to do a job can’t get it done, then I’ll face up to the bastard. It’ll be the end of the legend of Lassiter. I’ll blow him outta his boots.”
“You can do it, Brad.”
“I’m damn sure of that. But meanwhile . . .” Sanlee gave Krinkle a hard look.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll figure somethin’ out.”
“Do it!” Sanlee snapped. “I pay good money for you an’ Doane to run risks, which you two didn’t earn the day you tried to corral him on the east road.”
Memory of the suddenness of Lassiter’s attack that day caused Krinkle’s freckled face to redden. And to have had Isobel Hartney witness the humiliation was almost too much.
“Hey, Doug, you ol’ son of a bitch you!”
Krinkle swung around at the sound of a familiar voice. “Cuz!” he cried, laughing, and he and the tall, scar-faced man gave each other the abrazo. It was Krinkle’s cousin, Sam Busher. Krinkle broke out of the embrace of his kin and introduced him to Sanlee, who acknowledged it with a jerk of his head. He was eyeing Busher’s gun in a cut-down holster. Then he studied the scars on his round face. There were four scars, two of them deep.
“Some gal use a knife when you had your britches off?” Sanlee asked thinly, referring to the scars.
“Nope,” Busher said. “I had a fair-sized poke on me. Four hombres held me while a fifth used his blade.”
“Did they get your poke?”
“Yeah. But later I got them and the money they was carryin’.”
“All five of ’em?” Sanlee was interested and put his back to the bar, elbows hooked over the lip.
“All five,” Busher admitted modestly. “An’ what they had on ’em was a sight more’n they took off me.”
“Did the law ever get after you for it?”
“Not for that. A few other things, though.” Busher’s smile was hard. His clothing was worn and dusty as if he’d traveled hard and far. Sanlee matched his grin, then nudged Krinkle.
“I figure you an’ your cuz just might handle Lassiter.”
“Point him out,” Busher said. “I’ll handle him alone.”
Sanlee shook his head. “When it happens, I want Krinkle to face up to him. An’ I want you at Lassiter’s back. He’s fast an’ I don’t want any slip-ups. I saw him work once an’ I know.”
“I rode down this way figurin’ maybe Doug could point me to a job. Looks like I got one. How’s the pay?”
“Ask your cuz.”
Busher turned inquiringly to Krinkle, who said, “Pay’s good.”
“Damned good,” Sanlee added, “if you’re successful, that is.” He let it hang there while Busher thought it over, then nodded. Sanlee called to O’Leary for a clean glass, then poured whiskey from his bottle for the three of them.
“I want you an’ Doug to stick with me wherever I go,” Sanlee said quietly when O’Leary had departed. “Not right with me, you understand, but close enough. So I can give you a signal in a big hurry.”
“You want this Lassiter real bad,” Busher said with a smile.
“On a dark night I want to be able to stomp on his grave an’ bellow at the moon.”
Busher and Krinkle laughed.
Then Busher looked Sanlee in the eye. “How much pay, in dollars, not talk?”
“One thousand each.”
“The sooner you give us that signal, the sooner I can start spendin’ the money,” Busher said, a pleased look on his scarred face.
Sanlee nodded, feeling confident that Lassiter was as good as dead.
The following day, Lassiter glanced at the sky. It was mid-morning, and he could make Santos well before noon. He had a hunch that Millie would be early for her meeting with Chandler. He told Herrera to take over for him and rode in the direction of town.
With most able-bodied men hired on extra for roundup, the town was practically deserted. Spring heat bore down and some old men were in chairs under an overhang out of the sun. Women in tight-waisted dresses fanned themselves as they picked up supplies or examined the latest in yard goods at the Hartney Store.
Isobel Hartney saw Lassiter coming with a long-legged stride, his dark face a blend of the piratical and benevolent. She quickly removed an apron, smoothed her yellow hair and put on a bright smile.
“Mr. Lassiter! It’s an honor to have you in my store. What can I show you?”
He remembered her from that day on the east road. He stood by one of the crowded counters, admiring her. Women customers looked at Lassiter, then at Isobel Hartney standing tall in a blue silk dress, much too fancy for a small-town Texas store. Some of them exchanged glances and spoke together in whispers behind fingertips.
Isobel knew they were gossiping about her and she didn’t give a hoot and a holler what they said or thought. She found Lassiter to be an interesting man and was toying with the idea that he just might be a companion—until she tired of him—which she did with all the others. One day she’d probably get around to marrying Brad Sanlee, but until that day. . . .
He stood at a counter, his dark face tight, looking over the customers in the store. Isobel waved away one of her clerks and personally sold Lassiter a sack of tobacco and some papers. He had just paid her and she was about to initiate some bright conversation when he stiffened at the sight of someone through a front window.
Isobel stood on her tiptoes so she could see who he was staring at. Her smooth forehead creased in a faint frown as she saw Millie Sanlee just dismounting at the tie rack in the big vacant lot beside the store. Millie had her black hair peeled back with the usual sullen look on her face. Her brother Brad was with her.
He said something and crossed the street to the saloon.
Lassiter had gone outside and removed his hat as he stood talking to Millie. “Damn,” said Isobel under her breath.
In the vacant lot, Lassiter was saying, “I heard you were coming to town. So I gambled that I’d have a chance to talk to you.”
“You’re Lassiter. My brother told me about you.”
“I’m here to give you a hand, if you’ll take it.”
She glanced across the street and up the block at the long two-story building that housed O’Leary’s. Sunlight was reflected off the windows. She saw her brother go inside.
“It’s about you marrying Rep Chandler,” Lassiter said when she continued to stare at the saloon. “Millie, are you listening?”
She faced him, a faint smile on her lips. “Let’s take a walk,” she suggested and started for another vacant lot behind the store. It was deeply rutted from wagon wheels.
“My real name is Millicent,” she said with a little laugh. “My mother named me. I love it. But nobody ever calls me that.”
“I will . . . Millicent.”
“You don’t have to.” Smiling wistfully, she looked up into his face as they walked together. Then she sobered. “My brother’s in town.”
“I saw him.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“Come what may.”
Her eyes were excited for a moment, then the fire went out of them. “You mentioned Rep Chandler.”
“Yeah, it’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“I’ve concluded that the only door left open for me is to marry him.”
“You’re your own boss. You can do what you want. You ran away once, why not again? I’ll help. . . .”
“Brad would hunt me down like he did last time.”
“No . . .”
“Brad says Vince was your friend. Rep told him.”
“A good friend,” Lassiter said, the scene of death coldly etched in his mind.
“All the time we were together, Vince Tevis never made a move on me.”
“What if he did? I sure wouldn’t hold it against you. All I want to do is help. . . .”
“On nights if we had a roof over our heads, Vince gave me the bed. He slept on the floor in his bedroll.”
“Millicent, Millicent, I don’t care.”
“Before that, we slept out till one night horse thieves hit us. From then on, we went by stagecoach.” Her voice caught. “So Vince died. I’m sorry.”
“Your brother killed him. . . .”
“No. It was Bolin who shot Vince. I’m pretty sure of it.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“But it’s true.” She described Bolin so accurately that Lassiter knew he was the one killed in front of the adobe shack. But he still didn’t believe her story. It seemed she was trying to protect Sanlee. But why, after the way he had treated her?
“I knew that if I ran this time, Brad would hunt me down if it took five years. You see, he’s made his plans and no one better interfere. So that’s why I’ve decided to marry Mr. Chandler. It’s what Brad wants. And it’ll save trouble in the end.”
“He’s threatened you in some way.”
“My mind’s made up.” Her black hair had the sheen of pure silk in the sunlight.
“It’s your life, but I think you’re foolish.” They had halted next to a storage shed beside the store. Across the vacant lot on the west side of the store was a saddle shop, next to that was the bank.
“If you stay on as Chandler’s foreman, my brother will be afraid to make his move.”
“Did Chandler suggest that?”
Instead of answering, Millie’s black eyes sparkled. “Oh, I know what Brad wants to do. He thinks I’m weak. He’s always planned to use me as a pawn.” The corners of her generous mouth were firm. “He thinks I’m worthless. A lot of people do. . . .”
“That’s fool talk, Millicent.”
She gave a little laugh. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Millie. I’m more than used to it by now.”
Lassiter tried to argue against the marriage, but she was adamant. “Brad Sanlee is my half brother. His father and my mother were . . . friends. Even before the wife, Brad’s mother, died. I’m only telling you this because everyone in this part of the country knows it and you’ll hear it soon enough.” She sounded bitter.
“What happened after the old man’s wife died? Did he marry your mother?”
“Things went on just as before. My father lived at the ranch, my mother and I here in Santos.”
“He never married your mother, then.”
Millie gave a small laugh. “My mother was half Mexican. And the old man had lost three uncles in the fighting when General Santa Anna was driven out of Texas. Some memories are the longest.”
“I know,” Lassiter said, thinking of Luis Herrera.
“But after my mother died, I guess Mr. Sanlee’s conscience got to bothering him. Until then, I didn’t know he had one. Anyway, he brought me into his house to raise as his daughter—despite my so-called mixed blood.” They were walking back when she suddenly halted and gripped his arm. “Stay on as foreman, won’t you?”
“I don’t know about that. . . .”
“At least for a year.”
“And what about you?” he asked her. “What about your life?”
“I’ll be a good wife to Mr. Chandler. I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. But I’ll need help against my brother. Will you do it, Lassiter?” She gave him a sad smile, stood abruptly on her toes and pressed warm lips against his cheek.
Then she started walking away, the fringe of the leather riding skirt whipping around booted ankles. There was a sadness to her beauty that touched him deeply. He liked her and felt sorry for her. But did he owe her a year out of his life? She had rejected his offer to help her run away and elected instead to submit to her half-brother’s wishes, and marry the man he had selected. But still she had asked for Lassiter’s protection. Maybe he’d stay until she was married and settled. Then it was up to Chandler to protect not only his wife but the ranch.
Then the reason for him coming to Texas in the first place came crowding back. And he was remembering what she had told him about Vince Tevis’s death.
He found her in front of the store, peering nervously down the twisting road in the direction that Rep Chandler would take from his Box C.
He saw her look around at him. “Brad can see us from O’Leary’s. You shouldn’t be seen with me.”
“No matter what you said, I think he killed Vince Tevis.”
“No.”
“You’re trying to save your brother’s life,” he said coldly, “by claiming that Bolin . . .”
“You killed Bolin. So you said. So you already avenged poor Vince.”
“You’d stick up for Sanlee? After all he’s done to you and the way he humiliated you at roundup? Then forcing you into marrying a man twice your age or more?”
“After all, we did have the same father, Brad and I. . . .”
Lassiter gave a harsh laugh and shook his head. He started to speak, but she stepped close, her lovely face showing sudden strain.
“I hoped you’d leave,” she said in a tight whisper, “so I kept talking. . . . Now I’ve got to tell you. Doug Krinkle is . . .”
She broke off, a look of terror in her eyes.
“Krinkle is . . . what?” he demanded, looking both ways along the nearly deserted street.
“While we were talking, I saw him slip out the back door of the saddle shop next door.”
Lassiter wheeled, one hand clamped to his gun. He stared at the adjoining building beyond the weed-grown lot. It was one story of weathered lumber with a parapet along the roof. A sign on the side in black letters said: SIMON’S SADDLE SHOP.
And at that moment there was a rattle of wagon wheels, the hoofbeats of a hard-running team. Lassiter jerked his head around and saw Rep Chandler driving up in his hack wagon, a broad smile under his mustache as he saw Millie. Then it faded into a look of surprise as he spotted Lassiter standing beside her.
From a corner of his eye, Lassiter finally spotted movement, possibly Krinkle. It came from the storage shed behind the store. He gave Millie a hard shove that sent her stumbling toward the front door of the store. And at the same time he yelled at Chandler. “Get out, Rep! I smell a trap!”
Chandler, with his splinted leg resting on the dashboard, awkwardly hauled in the spirited team. And as he brought them to a halt, there was a gunshot. It came from the roof of the saddle shop. A bullet splintered a corner of the wagon seat.
Lassiter had already noticed movement on the roof. He saw part of a face and the gleam of a rifle barrel over the edge of the wooden parapet. And as if jerked by wires from an observation balloon, a man popped into view on the roof. As women began screaming, he dropped the rifle. He lurched to the parapet, blood pumping from a hole in his neck. He bowed low as if to inspect the descent of his falling weapon. Then he pitched over and followed it to the ground. Lassiter had a glimpse of a badly scarred face.