They rode west in silence for over an hour until they stopped atop a rocky rise overlooking a short stretch of dried grassland. In the center of the grass stood a stone and weathered-plank shack, badly tilted to one side. Thirty yards from the shack, a flock of vultures were feasting and bickering on the carcass of a dead cow. Spiller drew his rifle from his saddle boot, checked it and stood it on his thigh.
“I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, seeing smoke curl from the chimney of the weathered shack.
Rochenbach and Casings eased their horses up on either side of Spiller.
“Here’s the deal,” Spiller said. “The man living there is Edmund Bell. He owes Grolin over three hundred dollars in old gambling markers. Grolin said if we can’t collect payment, do whatever we think needs doing. Make an example of him. He’s tired of fooling with this beefer.”
“Meaning?” said Rock.
“Meaning kill him, far as Grolin cares. He holds the marker against this shack and acreage,” said Spiller. He turned his face to Rochenbach. “He can go to court, take this place and resell it if he’s a mind to. Do you have any qualms with killing a losing beefer?”
“Yes, I do,” said Rock. “I wasn’t hired to kill a man over a gambling debt. That’s not where I saw my future headed.”
“Your future, huh?” Spiller said with contempt. “Then you best lag back out of our way. If we don’t get the money, I’d rather kill him than have to ride back out here.” He nudged his horse forward at a loose gallop.
“Don’t worry about it, Rock,” said Casings, the two falling in behind Spiller. “Most times we put a scare into these beefers and miners, they usually offer up some money—enough to buy themselves more time. That’s all Grolin is after anyway.”
Rochenbach didn’t reply. They galloped along in the afternoon gloom.
From the front window of the shack, a young dark-haired woman named Mira Bell looked out and saw three men ride down onto the grassland. Cupping both hands beneath a belly heavy with child, she turned from the window and looked at her husband, who was roasting a slab of beef on an iron rod over an open-hearth fire.
“Sonny, there’s riders coming!” she said, her dark eyes showing her fear. “It looks like the same men as last time—from the Lucky Nut!”
“Oh no! It’s too soon for them to be coming back here!” said the young man, standing, laying the sizzling meat in a tin pan on the stone hearth. “Pa said they’d be coming back, but I figured we’d have time to clear out!”
“What are we going to do, Sonny?” she cried out, near tears. “We don’t have any money for them.”
“I don’t know, Mira,” said Sonny. He jerked up a shotgun that stood leaning against a wall beside the hearth and hurried to the front door. He turned around toward her and leaned back against the door for a moment as if preparing himself to face an impossible task. “Whatever happens out there, you keep this door locked. Don’t come outside for nothing.”
Slowing their horses into an easy lope the last twenty yards toward the weathered shack, the three riders looked over at the feasting buzzards, then toward the scent of roasted beef wafting in the gray smoke from the chimney.
“Looks like we’ve caught ol’ Edmund sitting down to supper,” said Spiller with a laugh.
“Hey, what do we have here?” Casings asked, veering his horse over toward a grave marker standing in fresh-turned soil.
Rochenbach and Spiller turned their horses with him, rode over, jerked their horses to a halt and looked down.
“I’ll be damned,” said Spiller, reading the name Edmund Bell carved on the grave board. “This sumbitch has gone and died on us.”
Spiller turned his horse back toward the house and booted it forward as Sonny Bell stepped out the door, shotgun in hand. Rochenbach and Casings followed, booting their horses up, flanking him.
Sonny Bell took a stand between the coming riders and the shack, gripping the shotgun with both hands.
“That’s close enough,” he called out, cocking the single-barreled shotgun. “My pa’s dead. He said we had time to clear out of here. Grolin can have this place soon as my woman and I—”
“Close enough?” Spiller said, cutting him off. He pushed his horse closer, then stopped with a cruel, bemused smile. The other two stopped beside him. “I’ll tell you what’s close enough,” he said, his Colt coming up fast, firing on the upswing. “Point a scattergun at me!”
The bullet grazed Sonny Bell’s upper arm and twisted him sideways. The shotgun flew from his hands and hit the ground. Rochenbach saw the shotgun hammer drop as the gun hit the ground. But no shot exploded from the barrel.
Empty…?
“Hold up, Spiller!” Rock said, seeing the gunman ready to fire again, this time taking close aim.
Spiller stared at Rochenbach as Rock nudged his horse forward, dropped from his saddle, picked up the shotgun and checked it. Yep, empty, he told himself, looking up at the young man.
“That’s either awfully brave or awfully foolish,” he said between the two of them.
“What the hell choice did I have, mister?” the young man said through clenched teeth, gripping his bleeding arm. “My pa said I’d have time to get us out of here before you men came back.”
“How long has that been?” Rock asked.
But the young man didn’t answer.
Mira Bell, who had seen her husband get shot, threw open the door and rushed outside screaming, her hands supporting her large, round belly.
“Get back in that house, Mira!” the young man shouted at her, but she ignored him.
“This is starting to look like fun,” Spiller said to Casings. “Come on, Pres, let’s get acquainted with this little filly.”
“Jesus! Are you crazy, Dent?” said Casings. “She looks ready to foal any minute.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Rochenbach said under his breath, watching Spiller and Casings swing down from their saddles. He asked Sonny Bell, “How much money can you give them, get them out of here?”
“I don’t have a penny, mister,” said young Bell. “We’re sharing dead cow with buzzards. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
With his back to the other two, Rochenbach fished a fold of dollars from inside his coat. Sonny’s eyes widened as he watched Rochenbach riffle through the money.
“Mister, my wife is not for sale,” Sonny said to Rock.
“Take this,” Rock said, stuffing eighty dollars down into one of the young man’s shirt pockets. He shoved thirty dollars more down into his other pocket.
Sonny reached for his shirt pocket with his bloody hand. “Mister, I told you, my wife ain’t for—”
His words were cut short as Rock’s fist nailed his jaw and sent him sprawling on the ground.
The young woman screamed and tried to run to her husband’s side, but Spiller caught her by her arm.
“Hey, little filly, you ain’t going nowhere,” Spiller said, “unless it’s back inside that shack with me.”
Rochenbach stooped down over an unconscious Sonny, jerked the money back out of his shirt pocket in a way that allowed the two gunmen to see it.
“Here we go,” he called out, standing, holding the money toward Spiller and Casings. “Eighty dollars. Turn her loose, Spiller.”
The two gunmen looked surprised at the money; so did Mira Bell.
But Spiller kept a firm grip on the young woman’s thin arm.
“Too late,” he said. “This will teach them not to hold out on us next time we come to collect.”
Rochenbach calmly stooped down and shoved thirty dollars of the money back into Sonny’s shirt pocket. Sonny shook his head, trying to regain consciousness.
“Take the rest, and you and your woman clear out of here before they come back,” he whispered under his breath. “Do you hear me?”