Rafe nodded. “Yes, sir! Don’t know how much of it was the truth once it got to us, but if even half of it was right, you’re a whatchacall, a living legend!”
“Imagine that!” Jason said softly—just loud enough to keep the story going and Rafe talking. He figured that Rafe was just shining-on Wash, but it was sure winning Wash over. Even Ward, leaning against the wall, looked a tad awestruck. It was as if he were seeing Wash in a whole new light!
“Imagine that!” Wash echoed, in a rare grammatical moment that lasted that—only a moment. “All the way to Californy! Jason, I’m famouser than I thunk! And wait till you see . . .” He dug down into his pocket. “I found it afore the dust storm kicked up. Ain’t she a beaut?”
He held up the rock, and just the sight of it staggered the other three men. They all stood there for a few moments, not knowing what to say.
And then Rafe said, “Is that for real, or did you have it painted up to fool us?”
Jason punched him in the arm.
But Wash said, “Nope. Found ’er ’bout thirty feet from where I was diggin’, almost took me a piss on it, as a matter’a fact, and I spent the next couple’a days tryin’ to figure out where the hell she come from. Ain’t she a beaut?”
“That she most certainly is, Wash,” Jason said, then tentatively held out his hand. “Can I hold it?”
Carefully, Wash put the turkey egg of a nugget into Jason’s hands. The gold was surprisingly heavy, but felt cool, very cool, to the touch. A few thin veins of milky quartz ran through it, but it was primarily solid gold. Anyway, so far as he could tell. He didn’t know how long he stood there, transfixed by it, but then he heard Wash say, “Jason?”
Reluctantly, he handed it back. “Man!” he said at last. “That’s really somethin’!”
Ward held out his hand next, and like Jason, seemed mesmerized by the huge nugget. And then Rafe broke in, “May I?” and took it from Ward.
“Good Lord,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “This is one more thing to add to your legend, Wash. And something for Jason and Ward to tell their grandkids about, just that they touched it.” He handed it back to Wash. “Seems to me a thing like that ought not be melted down. Ought’a be on display in a museum or somethin’. What do you think, Jason?”
Numbly, Jason felt his head shake no. “Don’t ask me. It ain’t mine.” And then he gave himself a little, shivery shake to bring himself out of it. He stood up straighter and said, “Wash, you’d best get that thing up to the bank and get it put in the safe. And I mean now! There’s people in town who wouldn’t mind guttin’ you for it.”
Everybody looked at Rafe, of course, but Jason said, “Get real, boys. He ain’t wanted for robbery.”
“No, just murder,” Ward added flatly.
“Aren’t you off the clock?” Jason asked.
“I reckon,” Ward answered after a moment, and he looked at Jason as if Jason had lost all sense of reality.
“Don’t worry, Ward,” Jason said with a reassuring smile. “I ain’t lost my marbles. Why don’t you walk Wash on up to the bank, then head on home and get some sleep. You look like you could use it! And tell Megan hello for me?”
Most of the worry drained out of Ward’s face, Jason noticed, and he said, “All right. See you tonight, buddy.”
Ward made his exit with Wash Keogh in tow, and Rafe turned toward Jason. “Don’t suppose we know where Sampson is, do we?”
“Not a clue.” Jason walked back around his desk and slouched down into the chair. He hadn’t noticed before, but his leg was killing him. “Figured I’d take a walk on over to the saloon first, and check it out. I know he was in there last night—well, I suspect that I know—but he hadn’t left before we finished playin’ cards and went to bed.”
Rafe was staring out the window. “Who’s that? Don’t believe I’ve seen him before.” He pointed toward the hitching rail across the street, where a well-dressed, dark-haired man was just dismounting.
Jason shook his head. “Never seen him before. Might be a cardsharp, lookin’ for a game.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” After a short pause, Rafe, ever impatient, asked, “Were you goin’ across the street?”
Jason hauled himself out of his chair. Some people were worth a lot less than others, and right now, he felt at the bottom of the heap. He limped to the door, grabbed his hat off the rack, and settled it on his head. “I’m goin’,” he announced, and stepped out onto the boardwalk. And immediately realized that he had to piss like a racehorse.
A little side trip to the alley set that right, and then he was off to the saloon.
Riding slow and taking his time, Ezra Welk, long dry from his ride across the river, continued to follow the wagon train’s trail. Except now his keen tracker’s eye had picked up a new rider, one who had more recently followed in the wagons’ path.
Wherever these wagons were goin’ is sure a popular place, he thought. And then he thought long and hard about avoiding it. After all, he was still wanted in the territory for killing that blacksmith . . . Jacobs had been his name, he thought. Well, it’d served the bum right for shoeing his horse off-kilter like that. Cost him the horse, in fact! Old Berry fell and busted his leg—dang near busted Ezra’s, too—not a day out of that piddling little town, and Ezra had to shoot him.
Maybe he should’ve held off on killing Jacobs, he thought angrily. Maybe he should’ve let him carry all of Berry’s tack and gear four days through the desert to the next town. And then shot him. Ezra’s mouth quirked up into an unconscious smile.
But then, he thought, he’d never heard of a town being out this way. How old could it be, anyway? Hell, it might be nothing more than a stage stop. And stage stops didn’t have sheriffs, but they almost always had whiskey. And sometimes, they had women. Still smiling, Ezra kept on following the wagons’ path, and the path that another rider had followed before him.
10
West of Fury, riding at a slow jog and taking his time, Teddy Gunderson rode through the desert brush, following the track the wagon train’s recent passage had provided. He had just ridden past the site of two fresh grave markers—travelers killed in that nasty dust storm, he figured—and by his reckoning, was about a day’s ride, more or less, from his destination.
Which was Fury, a little squirt of a town that had popped up in the Arizona Territory about four, maybe five years ago. That pretty much encapsulated his knowledge of the town, and the only reason he knew that much was that he’d spent a lot of time pumping a drunk, in a bar back in Los Angeles, for information about a fellow named Rafe Lynch.
Three hours, six beers, and as many whiskeys later, he’d found out that little snippet about Fury, but more about Rafe Lynch. He’d already known the man had twelve thousand—maybe more—on his head, and that was reason enough to pique his interest, and to make him “play nice” with the old sot who’d given him the information he needed. He’d even found out about the wagon train, which had left a day earlier.
Plying drunks might turn out to be just one more cost of doing business.
Gunderson was a bounty hunter, although fairly new to the trade, having captured and turned in only two men. But they had each paid him well enough that he wanted to keep on doing it. Hell, if he could get Rafe Lynch, he’d be set for life!
He couldn’t take him in town. He knew that much. As badly as California wanted Lynch, he was as clean as a whistle in Arizona. Killing him on this side of the river would make him a murderer, and put a price on his head!
He sure didn’t want that.
He figured to wait until Rafe was out of sight of the city, and then shoot him. Or at least, kidnap him and take him to the other side of the Colorado River, and then shoot him.