“Forget it,” Spiller said. He backed off, not wanting hear any more remarks about low-hanging tree limbs.
Rochenbach walked over to his dun and led it back with him, his Spencer rifle in hand.
“What do you say, big fellow?” he asked the Giant. “You feel up to riding yet?”
“I can ride,” the Giant said. Then his deep, powerful voice turned childlike. “But can I—can I ride alongside you?” he asked hesitantly.
Casings and Rockenbach shot each other a curious look.
“Sure,” said Rochenbach, “you’re welcome to ride right beside me.”
The men looked at each other guardedly as the Stillwater Giant stood up and stepped around the fire in his long johns and put on his trousers. As he dressed, his eyes kept looking warily all around on the ground.
“I’ve never seen a man fall apart so fast in my life,” Spiller whispered to Bonham and Batts.
“It’s plumb wrenching to watch,” Batts whispered in reply, turning sadly away and looking out across the rock land.
But Spiller and Bonham continued staring at the Giant as he walked over to his horse, Rochenbach leading his dun alongside him.
Jesus.… Casings looked the two gunmen up and down with disdain.
“Think we can get going now?” he said wryly. “Or do you two need to be walked to your horses?”
“Hell no!” Spiller said. He and Bonham bristled at Casings’ words. They both appeared to snap out of their transfixed state. “Come on, Lon, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Back in their saddles, they rode on at a strong, steady pace for the rest of the day until they’d made their way upward from the east to the foothills town of Central City. There, the six horsemen left the trail and rode along an abandoned miner’s path into a string of gulches until the rocky land swallowed them.
When they were out of sight on a hillside below the booming mining town, they made camp around a small fire. They ate jerked elk and beans from air-tights they’d brought along in their saddlebags.
As they finished their dinner, the Stillwater Giant looked back and forth from one face to the next.
“I want all of you to know that what happened to me back there today, it never happened,” he said in his deep, strong voice. The threat was there and clearly understood. Yet he continued, saying, “If I hear anybody saying anything about it, I’ll yank his tongue from his mouth and make a coin purse out of it.”
The men only nodded and continued eating, afraid to even reply.
“That aside,” the Giant said, turning to Rochenbach with a milder tone and expression, “I am obliged to you for what you did, Rock. I’m ashamed that I was goading you… yet you jumped in and saved my life all the same.”
Rochenbach gave no response apart from a short, silent nod.
The Giant looked around at the others and said, “From now on, anybody says anything bad about this man—I still need a good coin purse.” A wide, big-toothed grin spread across his face, making him appear all the more menacing in the flicker of firelight.
The men nodded as they ate.
After they’d finished the meal and washed it down with strong, hot coffee, they sat in silence around the fire and waited until darkness set in purple and deep around them.
Rochenbach noted that a calm air of confidence seemed to come over the five men riding with him. Without being prompted to do so, they each sat checking pistols, rifles, ammunition and equipment. When they’d finished, they sat quietly until each of them appeared ready for the trail.
With a sigh, Casings stood up and slung coffee grounds from his empty tin cup.
“It’s time to do it,” he said quietly.
In a ragged tent saloon on the lower, eastern outskirts of Central City, a former ore wagon guard named Macon Ray Silverette relieved himself over the edge of the rocky trail as the six horsemen passed behind him a few feet away. Recognizing Spiller, Batts and Casings all three, he quickly ducked his head, buttoned his fly and hurried back inside the tent before the six were out of sight, headed deeper into town.
At a rickety table in a darkened corner, a hard case named Dirty Dave Atlo sat with his hand up the dress of a young woman perched on his lap. She stared into his eyes with a frozen grin, wiry red hair and lips painted redder than rabbit blood. Across the tent, a drunken accordion player drooled with his mouth agape as his hands squeezed out a mournful rendition of “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” Candle, lamp and lantern flickered around him like a broad circle of footlights.
“Damn it!” Dirty Dave growled, seeing Macon Ray weave toward him through a maze of tables, chairs and standing drinkers.
“You’re not going to believe who I just saw riding in from Denver City!” Macon Ray said in an excited voice, stopping less three feet away.
“Christ Almighty, Ray!” said Dirty Dave. He looked embarrassed. “Don’t you see what’s going on here?”
Hurriedly, Macon Ray shot a glance at the accordion player, then back to Dirty Dave.
“Yep, it’s fine music no doubt,” he said. “But I just saw some of Grolin’s men ride past the tent… headed into town…?” He left his words hanging as a suggestion.
“Whoa!” said Dirty Dave. “Now, that is some good news.” His hand came down from beneath the woman’s gingham dress. “Hop on up, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
He stood, forcing her to stand too or else fall to the dirt floor. To Macon Ray he said, “How long ago?” He fished a gold coin from his vest pocket with damp fingers and flipped it toward the table. The woman caught it before it landed.
“I just saw them and ran right in here. I knew you’d want to hear about it,” said Ray, hurrying along behind him as Dirty Dave headed for the wide-open tent front.
“Where’s Albert and Fackler, betting the birds?” He looked toward a far rear corner where a small group of miners were gathered around two battle-scarred roosters locked in mortal combat beneath a flurry of batting wings.
“Joe is. Albert’s just watching. Want me to get them?” Macon Ray asked.
“Hell yes, get them!” shouted Dirty Dave. “Get them, get your horses—all of you bring shotguns, catch up to me on the trail. Once I hone in on these boys, I’m not letting them out of my sight.”
As Macon Ray hurried, weaving through the crowd, Dirty Dave looked down at a table and saw a man sitting, staring engrossed at the drunken accordion player, a tall mug of beer standing in front of him. Dave stuck half his hand down into the mug, swished it around, raised it and slung beer foam from his fingers; he walked out of the tent, drying his hand on his trousers.
This was good, he told himself. He’d been wanting to get even with Andrew Grolin—kill his men, Spiller, Casings, the Stillwater Giant—any of his gunmen, ever since they had cheated him out of his cut in a robbery over a year ago.
Time to reap a little vengeance, he told himself.
He untied his horse from a crowded hitch rail, stepped into his saddle and turned the animal toward the trail leading farther into town. He rode hard along the rutted, treacherous trail until he caught sight of the six riders as they rounded a sharp turn in the trail.
All right, that had to be them, he decided, slowing his horse to keep from getting too close, lest the sound of his horse’s hooves give him away. He watched them move out of sight in front of him, and looked over his shoulder toward the sound of hooves as Macon Ray led Albert Kinney and Joe Fackler along the trail.
When the three riders saw him sitting his horse in the middle of the trail, they slowed to a halt and gathered around him.