Crow Bait (16 page)

Lancaster was sitting behind the desk in the room when Roger Simon appeared in the doorway. He was a tall, handsome man with steel gray hair and a strong jaw. The position of his hands revealed something to Lancaster.

“If you got a gun stuck in your belt behind you, Simon, I wouldn’t go for it.” Lancaster touched his own gun, which was on the desk.

Simon’s hands twitched, as if he was surprised at Lancaster’s words.

“Where’s your daughter?” Lancaster asked.

“She’s upstairs,” Simon said. “You leave her alone.”

Lancaster had no intention of hurting the girl, but he said, “That’ll be up to you. Take the gun out and drop it in the hall.”

Simon hesitated, then reached behind him, produced the gun, and dropped it on the floor outside the room.

“Now come on in and sit down,” Lancaster said. “We need to talk.”

“You’re not here to kill me?” There was no fear in the man’s voice, just curiosity.

“Again,” Lancaster said, “that’ll be up to you.”

Simon came forward and sat down.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I want to know why you hired three men to attack me and leave me to die in the desert?”

“You don’t know?” Simon asked.

“I have no idea,” Lancaster said. “I don’t even know you. Never heard your name until Sweet told me.”

“Sweet? Did you kill him?”

“I traded him his life for your name.”

Simon firmed his jaw.

“The other two men who were with him are dead.” Lancaster didn’t bother to point out he hadn’t killed them himself.

“Well?” Lancaster asked.

“Well what?”

“If you want to save your life, start talking,” Lancaster said. “Why did you pay three men to kill me?”

“You’re saying you really don’t know?”

“I’m saying I have no idea!”

“My wife was killed last year, in the Mojave Desert,” Simon said. “She was on a stagecoach with several other people when the coach was robbed. The horses were driven off, and the passengers were left on foot. My wife was not a well woman, and she did not survive the trek through the desert.” His eyes filled with tears. “She died out there.”

“What the hell has that got to do with me?”

“I paid a lot of money to find out who the leader of that gang was,” Simon said.

“And you came up with my name?”

“Like I said,” Simon offered, “I paid a lot of money for the information.”

“So because you paid a lot you believed it?” Lancaster asked. “Did you bother to check it out?”

“I investigated your background,” Simon said. “You were a gun for hire for a long time.”

“So that makes me a stage robber?” Lancaster asked. “Simon, I think maybe you wanted information so bad you were an easy target for some dangerous lies.”

Simon stared at Lancaster, but the expression on his face said he wasn’t so confident anymore that he’d paid for the correct information.

“Y-you can’t prove that you didn’t do it,” the man stammered.

“Sure I can,” Lancaster said. “You tell me when it happened and I bet I can prove I was elsewhere. But the proof may simply be in the name of the person who sold you the information.”

Simon swallowed with difficulty.

“Who was it?” Lancaster asked. “What was his name?”

Simon started to speak; then he realized Lancaster was probably right. He licked his lips.

“Let me guess,” Lancaster said. “The man who sold you the information was Sweet.”

Simon nodded jerkily.

“Then after you paid him for that, he negotiated a price to take care of me for you.”

Simon nodded again.

At that point Angie appeared in the doorway, holding her dad’s gun with both hands and pointing it at Lancaster.

“Let my dad go!” she said.

Simon turned and his face paled as he saw his daughter.

“D-don’t—” he stammered, holding his hand out to Lancaster. “Don’t kill her—”

“I don’t intend to kill your daughter, Simon,” Lancaster said, “but you better talk to her before she pulls that trigger and ruins her life—and mine.”

Ardmore, Oklahoma, one month later

As Lancaster rode Crow Bait into Ardmore, he thought that he and the horse were finally together, in body and in mind. His memory had returned completely, his injuries were healed, he had returned everything he’d borrowed to Mal in Laughlin, but in the end he had not been able to give up the horse. He had his own rig—saddle, saddlebags, horse, and holster—and even Crow Bait’s bones weren’t sticking out quite as much as they had been.

Ardmore was small, hardly more than a stopover between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth. But that was okay, because Lancaster only meant to stop over.

Since the night Roger Simon had successfully disarmed his teenage daughter, Lancaster had devoted his time to tracking Gerry Beck for Wells Fargo. He’d managed to convince Simon he had nothing to do with his wife’s death. Simon had then tried to hire Lancaster to kill Sweet, but with no success. And Lancaster had tried to convince him not to hire anyone else, either.

“Men like Sweet usually get what’s coming to them, Mr. Simon,” he’d said.

He didn’t know if Simon believed him, but it didn’t matter. He was done with the whole deal. His concern became collecting that other four thousand dollars from Wells Fargo.

He reined in Crow Bait in front of the saloon, dismounted, and tied him off there.

“Jesus,” an old man said from the boardwalk, “looks like he’s on his last legs.”

“His legs are just fine,” Lancaster said. “Don’t you worry about it.”

He had long ago overcome the urge to shoot anybody who criticized the horse. None of them knew what they were talking about, anyway.

He mounted the boardwalk and entered the saloon. He looked around, noticed a few of the other tables were taken. He collected a beer from the bar and walked to a table near the back of the room.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Gerry Beck looked up at him, frowning. “Lancaster? What the hell are you doin’ here?”

“Right now I’m just looking for someplace to sit and drink my beer.”

“Well, find someplace else to do it.”

“Naw,” Lancaster said, sitting down, “I’ll do it here.”

Beck sat back and stared at him.

“What the hell—” he said.

“It’s been a while, Gerry.”

“Yeah,” Beck said, “and if I remember right, you and me were never friends, so get lost.”

“I can’t,” Lancaster said. “I promised Wells Fargo I’d bring you in.”

“Bounty hunting now?” Beck asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Well, what, exactly?”

“I just sort of found myself in a situation where I had to take the job.”

“The job of bringin’ me in?”

Lancaster nodded.

“Well, it ain’t gonna be easy,” Beck told him. “I hope they paid you enough.”

“Don’t get paid until the job is done,” Lancaster said.

“Well, then,” Beck said with a steely grin, “I guess you ain’t gettin’ paid, are you.”

“Oh, I’ll get paid,” he said, pushing half his beer away. “So, how many men you got in here backing you up, Gerry?”

“What?”

“I know your style, Gerry,” Lancaster said. “You don’t go anywhere or do anything without someone to back you up. Let’s see.”

Lancaster looked around the room. There were five other men there, four sitting at tables, two of them looking back at him.

“My guess is these two, one to my left, one to my right. But I also know you don’t pay well, so they won’t be very good.”

“Good enough to get you before you get me,” Beck said, “or to keep you busy while I get you.”

“No,” Lancaster said. “I think I’ll have to get you first, and then them. Only once you’re dead, they may not be so anxious to skin their irons, will they?”

Beck stared at Lancaster, trying to make up his mind. But Lancaster had already made up his.

“Sorry,” he said, drawing his gun and standing up.

Beck tried to react, but he was too slow. Lancaster shot him in the chest, then overturned the table and dropped down behind it.

The other two men stood, drawing their guns, while everyone else in the saloon hit the floor.

They fired, the bullets taking chunks out of the overturned table.

Lancaster rolled the table one way; then he rolled the other. Not being the smartest men Beck could have hired, they kept firing at the table. Lancaster fired two well-placed shots and suddenly it was quiet.

He walked over to where Beck lay dead and said, “Should have hired better help, Gerry.”

Laughlin, Nevada, two months later

Crow Bait was dying.

Lancaster could feel it beneath him.

Whatever energy had been driving the gallant animal since they’d met was waning away.

Mal came out of the stable and watched as they rode toward him.

“Now he really is on his last legs, isn’t he?” Mal asked as horse and rider reached him.

Lancaster dismounted and walked the horse over to Mal. “You can see it?”

“Oh yes.”

Lancaster rubbed the animal’s neck.

“Did you get done everything you had to get done?” Mal asked.

“Almost.”

He handed the reins to Mal.

“I wish I was smart enough to study him,” Mal said, patting the animal on his flank, “find out what made him go.”

“Do what you can for him,” Lancaster said.

“I’ll keep him alive and comfortable as long as I can,” Mal said. “Well, at least he got you back here, where it started.”

“What good does that do me?”

“Well, he’s here,” Mal said. “I’ve actually been waitin’ for you.”

“What? Who’s here?”

“Sweet.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Mal said. “Came back here. Guess he figured this is the last place you’d look. Now you can finish him.”

Lancaster hesitated; then he said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I made a deal with him,” he said. “Promised I wouldn’t hunt for him anymore.”

“But you didn’t hunt for him,” Mal said. “You just came back here, and here he was. Or is.”

Lancaster thought a moment. “Good point. But I also promised I’d never kill him.”

Mal smiled. “You’ll figure somethin’ out.”

Hours later Lancaster reined in the two horses he’d borrowed from Mal.

“This ain’t right,” Sweet said. “You promised.”

Lancaster looked at Sweet. He’d hauled the man out of a saloon and tied him to a horse. Now they were out in the Mojave, farther out than they’d been when Sweet left him to die.

“You said you wouldn’t hunt me,” Sweet reminded him.

“I didn’t. I came back to Laughlin, and you were there.”

“I never believed you,” Sweet said. “Thought you’d come lookin’ for me.”

“And figured Laughlin would be the last place
I would look,” Lancaster said. “And you were right. Imagine my surprise.”

Lancaster dismounted and started to untie Sweet’s hands.

“B-but you promised you’d never kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Lancaster said.

When one of Sweet’s hands was free, he couldn’t wait. He swung at Lancaster, who blocked it and yanked the man from the saddle. Sweet hit the ground hard, all the air going out of him. Lancaster thought about kicking him a few times, but decided against it. Instead, he got back on his horse.

Sweet rolled onto his ass and looked up at Lancaster. “You ain’t gonna leave me here with no water.”

“Sure I am.”

“I’ll never make it.”

“Maybe you’ll find a miracle in the desert,” Lancaster said. “I did.”

“I don’t believe in miracles,” Sweet said.

“Too bad. Oh, one more thing.”

“Wh-what?”

“Toss your boots up here.”

Lancaster came out of the telegraph office and found Mal waiting for him.

“Get your message off?” Mal asked.

“Yes,” Lancaster said. “Roger Simon will soon know that the man who killed his wife is gone.”

“Any chance he can walk out?” Mal asked.

“None,” Lancaster said. “That’s the advantage I had of having been through it before. How’s Crow Bait?”

“Resting comfortably,” Mal said. “I figured out he’s old—real old.”

“But you’ll take care of him.”

“Oh yeah.”

Lancaster had had a good night’s sleep since returning from the Mojave. Now, with the telegram sent, he was finally free of everything that had begun that day in the desert.

Now he had only one thought.

“Buy you breakfast?” he asked Mal. “I’ve got a lot of Wells Fargo money left.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Randisi always turns out a traditional Western with plenty of gunplay and interesting characters.”

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