The Stranger from Abilene

But Mitchell didn’t trust the fat man. He put his trust in nobody, and that’s why he was so good at what he did—killing men who, for one reason or another, had proved troublesome for his clients.

His last project had been in El Paso, a crusading young lawyer who was getting too close to the monetary affairs of powerful and rich men. He’d settled that contract in three days, long for him, but his clients had understood. After all, a sandstorm had been blowing at the time.

The lawyer had been his twenty-ninth victim. This man Clayton, whoever the hell he was, would make it a nice round thirty.

Mitchell smiled. This would be easy peasy.

He scanned the ranch house with his field glasses. He saw the mark move from room to room, exploring the place, and probably filling his pockets with what-ever he could find.

Mitchell didn’t blame him for that. Honesty was for idiots.

He slid forward his Spencer, parting the buffalo grass at the crest of the rise.

The rifle was a single shot in .45 caliber. Having only one round didn’t trouble Mitchell; he seldom needed more. Sometimes he used his Colt on a mark because he was fast and accurate on the draw-and-shoot, though he did not boast of it.

Mitchell boasted of nothing. At fifty, he was a coldly proficient assassin and when not on assignment he lay low, stayed away from whiskey, and kept his mouth shut.

He did enjoy whores, but that was just scratching an itch. He didn’t like women, didn’t like men either, come to that. Didn’t like anybody.

Perhaps his only virtue was patience.

He’d wait in the sun for as long as it took for Clayton to come out of the house—hours, days, weeks if necessary.

But the horse at the hitch rail told him that the man would leave sooner rather than later.

Then he’d kill him. Efficiently and without fuss.

Cage Clayton was startled. Had the gallant Custer just winked at him?

He studied the picture, but the general was staring across the room just as before. It must have been a trick of the light, a reflection maybe.

But a reflection of what? And from where?

Clayton stepped to the side of the parlor window and moved the curtain just enough to look outside.

Nothing moved out there, not even the wind.

The open ground stretched away from his eyes for about a hundred yards, past a cattle pen, a cast-iron trough, and a small shed that probably held tools and branding irons.

The open ground gradually rose to a shallow ridge, crowned with grass, scattered wildflowers, and clumps of broom weed.

Clayton was suddenly tense. Custer hadn’t winked at him.

Hell, I’m not that spooked.

It had to have been a brief flash of light that reflected on the glass.

A rifle barrel?

Maybe he was being foolish, imagining things. But there had already been one attempt on his life—could this be another?

If he ventured out to get his horse, he’d be an easy target for a hidden rifleman. He moved to the rear of the house, opened the back door, and stepped outside.

He drew his Colt, his heart pounding.

Where was the rifleman—if he even existed?

Real or not, the rifleman wouldn’t make getting to his mount easy.

Chapter 57

Clayton moved to the corner of the house where he could see the cattle pens and the ridge. The stillness troubled him. As far as he could judge, the ridge was the most obvious place for a bushwhacker to hide. But he wasn’t even sure about that. The ground between him and the ridge looked level, but it might have unseen dips and hollows that could conceal a rifleman.

Clayton wiped his sweaty palm on his shirt, then picked up his gun again. The day was hot, but a faint breath of wind rustled the cottonwoods by the creek and fanned his burning cheeks.

He studied the ridge again. Nothing stirred up there but the blooms of the wildflowers. The sky was denim blue and a few puffy clouds hovered over the Sans Bois. Somewhere a bird sang and he heard his horse toss its head, jangling the bit.

The day was peaceful, drowsy with insect sounds, and unthreatening.

Clayton holstered his gun. This was ridiculous. He was acting like an old maid who hears a rustle in every bush.

He stepped away from the corner—and a bullet splintered timber from the house wall behind him.

Without conscious thought, Clayton dove for the ground, rolled, and then sprinted for the cattle pens. He fetched up against a post, breathing hard, and pulled his gun.

His wounded thigh was healing, but now it pained him, an insistent throb, reminding him of his clumsy surgery back at the railroad spur.

Clayton looked quickly around the post, caught a glimpse of smoke on the ridge, then ducked back down as another bullet chipped wood near his head.

Clayton swore. Whoever the man was up there on the ridge, he was a fair hand with a rifle. Both his shots had been real close. If the bushwhacker caught him in the open, if only for a second, he was a dead man.

Shack Mitchell cursed. For some reason his damned shooting was off today. He’d fired twice at the cowboy—that’s what he looked like—and missed.