Rochenback looked at the buggy and slowed his big dun right along with Casings.
“Are you going to make me ask, partner?” he said to Casings.
“It’s the Stillwater Giant,” Casings whispered sidelong.
“Garth Oliver…,” Rock said quietly, looking the buggy over good.
Casings looked at him, surprised.
“You know the Giant?” he said.
“Only by reputation,” said Rochenbach. “I’ve seen his picture in Pinkerton’s rogues gallery.”
Casings gave him a curious, troubled look.
“You studied the rogues gallery a good deal, did you?” he asked.
“Studied it?” Rock said. “I helped construct most of it.” He gave him a thin smile and nudged his dun forward toward an alley path leading to the livery barn.
“Jesus…,” said Casings, he and Spiller nudging their horses alongside him. “See, that’s something I find unsettling about you, Rock. You spent lots of time working on ways to put ol’ boys like the Giant… and Spiller and me behind bars.”
“Luckily, I saw the error of my ways and became one of you,” Rochenbach said wryly.
“Yeah, luckily,” Casings said. As they reached the livery barn, he said, “What are you going to tell Grolin when he asks you what happened out there?”
“I’ll tell him the truth,” Rochenbach said, “that the house was standing empty and Edmund Bell is dead and in the ground.”
Casings nodded and looked at Spiller, who’d been riding on in silence since they spotted the Giant’s buggy.
“You got that, Dent?” Casings asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Spiller said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not saying nothing that’s going to get Grolin or the Stillwater Giant on me.”
“Right,” said Casings. Testing him, he asked, “And what happened to the side of your head?”
“I rode into a damned low-hanging tree limb along the trail,” Spiller said grudgingly.
Casings chuckled to himself as the three of them brought their horses to a halt and stepped down from their saddles in front of the livery barn.
“Yep, that’s what you did,” Casings said, stifling a laugh, “and it seemed like it was no more than a minute after I’d cautioned you against doing that very thing.”
“Don’t mess with me, Pres,” Spiller warned him. “I ain’t in the mood for it.”
They walked their horses inside the barn, lit a lantern and tended to the animals in the dim circle of light. Dropping their saddles onto saddle racks and hanging the bridles on wall pegs, they grained and watered the horses.
While the animals ate, the men wiped the lathered horses down, each with a handful of fresh straw. Once the animals were finished with their feed, the men led them into clean stalls for the night.
“All right,” Rochenbach said, “it’s time we take our story to Grolin, see how well we can sell it to him.”
They walked back through the darkened alleyway, saddlebags over their shoulders, rifles in hand, down the street to the Lucky Nut. As they stepped inside the saloon doors, Grolin stood up from a corner table, lit dimly by a small oil lamp.
A squat, bald bartender stood behind the bar. Opposite him stood a miner who’d been drinking steadily since before dark. The rest of the dim saloon was empty, save for a large, hulking figure seated across the table from Andrew Grolin.
“Well, well,” Grolin said, a cigar curling smoke from between his thick fingers. “Speak of the devil and who shall arrive?”
Rochenbach and the other two gunmen walked toward the table. But Grolin held a hand up toward Casings and Spiller, stopping them.
“You two take the night off,” he said. “I’ll let Rock here tell me how things went.”
Casings and Spiller looked at each other. Neither of them liked the idea of Rochenbach speaking for them in their absence, but they both knew better than to say anything about it.
Grolin stood watching as the two turned and walked back out the door.
Once out on the empty street, Spiller glanced back over his shoulder to make certain they weren’t being followed.
“Damn!” he said under his breath to Casings. “I never counted on that.”
“Nor did I,” Casings said, walking along rigidly, staring straight ahead. “But we’d have to trust him sometime. At least we’ll find out tonight if he keeps his mouth shut or not.” He paused, then added, “I say he will.”
“If he don’t, we’re dead,” Spiller said.
“Yep,” Casings agreed, “deader than I ever want to be.”
“Maybe I should get around to the window and put a bullet in his back before he gets started talking,” Spiller said.
Casings looked sidelong at him and shook his head slowly.
“You got any better ideas?” Spiller asked, recognizing the way Casings looked at him.
“Don’t talk crazy, Dent,” Casings said.
They walked a block past the Great Westerner to a run-down house standing back from the street in a yard choked with dried weeds, wild grass and scrub. “All we can do for now is wait it out, see what the morning brings.”
“Still,” said Spiller, “I’m sleeping with my rifle tonight.”
Casings gave him a tight, thin smile.
“Your private life is your own business,” he said quietly.
Spiller cursed under his breath as he pulled the broken picket gate open and walked into the overgrown yard.
“I don’t know how you can make jokes at a time like this,” he said, walking along a weed-lined path, up onto a rickety front porch. “If this damned ex-Pinkerton law dog opens his mouth about how we’ve been collecting money, Grolin will have us skinned and—”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve been through all that,” Casings said, cutting him off. “Don’t soil yourself.” He walked along a step behind him, through the unlocked front door and into the dark, sparsely furnished house.
“What did you say to me?” Spiller growled. He watched Casings walk over to a table and pick up an oil lamp to light it.
“Forget it,” said Casings. “You’ve just been getting on my nerves all day and night.”
“Soil myself, you said?” Spiller persisted, his hand on the butt of his gun. “You’ve been making remarks all day. I won’t tolerate sass from no—”
“Shhh,” said Casings, cutting him off again.
Spiller saw Casings’ face turn orange-blue and shadowy in the flare of a match as he lit the lamp. Their eyes cut searchingly away from the circle of lamplight as Casings trimmed down the lamp’s wick and quickly set the lamp back on the table. They both heard the slight creaking sound of a floor plank in a dark, adjoining room.
Casings stepped away from the lamp table, his Colt streaking up from his holster, cocked and aimed blindly into the darkness.
“Whoever’s there, announce yourself!” Casings said, ready to pull the trigger.
From the other room, a quiet voice resounded low and evenly through the darkness.
“What if I’m just a cat?” the voice said.
“Then you better start purring, you sumbitch!” Spiller called out, raising his Colt and taking aim in the direction of the voice.
Casings raised a hand toward Spiller. “Hold up, Dent,” he said, letting out a tense breath. “It’s Turley.” He called out to the darkness, “Turley, don’t be acting a fool with us. We’re not up for it.”
“You boys sound overwrought,” said the voice with a chuckle. A gunman stepped out of the adjoining room into the circle of lamplight. “Tell ol’ Turley all about it.”
“Batts, you idiot,” Spiller growled under his breath, letting the hammer down on his Colt and slipping the gun back into his holster.
“When did you get here?” Casings asked the gun-man.