Ralph Compton - Bullet for a Bad Man

Tinsdale twisted toward his companion. ‘‘Damn it to hell. Tell him everything, why don’t you?’’

‘‘He has already guessed. What good would lying do?’’ Rufio had not taken his eyes off Boone. ‘‘Is there anything else, senor?’’

‘‘Not unless I can convince you to change your minds.’’

‘‘I am sorry, senor. I am more fond of money than I am of a good horse. Will you permit us to stand?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘That is a pity, senor. It is harder to draw when sitting.’’

‘‘I know.’’

‘‘You are clever for one so young.’’

‘‘I still breathe,’’ Boone said, and grinned.

Rufio smiled. ‘‘I would like you if I did not have to kill you. You are nothing like him, senor.’’

‘‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’’

The pair glanced at each other and then both heaved out of their chairs and clawed at their hardware. Rufio was faster and he almost had his pistol out when Boone slammed two shots into his chest. Shifting, Boone fanned another two into the man with the scar. Gun smoke wreathing them, the pair oozed back down and sprawled onto the floor.

For the first time since Boone met him, Skelman laughed. ‘‘I wish I could see that again.’’

‘‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about or not?’’ Old Man Radler demanded.

‘‘No,’’ Boone Scott said.

Good and Evil

The sunset was spectacular. A golden orb, balanced on the brink of the world, splashing the sky with rainbow stripes and candy swirls.

The breeze carried a hint of the coolness night would bring. The land was dry as the land always was in Arizona in the summer, but here and there spots of green testified to the vitality of the plant life.

Boone Scott and Sassy Drecker stood hand in hand on the lip of a dry wash a hundred yards from Porter’s and watched the earth take a bite out of the golden orb.

Sassy glanced over her shoulder at the saloon. ‘‘This is far enough. We can talk in private. And after what you just did, we have a lot to talk about.’’

‘‘I would rather not.’’ Boone had his other hand on his Colt. He raked the wash for sign of tracks and then the surrounding flatland for sign of life.

‘‘You just killed two men. I have seen men die before but never like that. One was a patent medicine man the Apaches got hold of. Another was a farmer whose buckboard overturned on him.’’

‘‘I had to do it.’’

‘‘What else?’’ Sassy asked. ‘‘Or do you expect me to accept that the man I am in love with and want to be with the rest of my life goes around killing people for the fun of it? There has to be more.’’

‘‘There is.’’

Sassy clasped his hand in both of hers, raised his fingers to her lips and kissed him on the knuckles. ‘‘I am waiting.’’

‘‘I would rather not say just yet. Maybe after we meet with the man who is to buy the last of the horses.’’

‘‘Don’t you dare treat me like this. I have given my heart to you and I expect better.’’ Sassy let go of his hand and placed both of hers on his shoulders. ‘‘Look at me. Look me in the eye. I need you to understand how it is between us. If you don’t, there won’t be any us. We will go our separate ways and I will have plenty of hard feelings for you misleading me as you’ve done.’’

‘‘What don’t I savvy?’’

Sassy motioned at the wash, stepped down and sat. Boone eased down beside her and draped an arm across her shoulders. ‘‘I love you, you know,’’ he said.

‘‘And I love you. But there are different kinds of love, and I am not sure now if you love me as I love you or whether you love me another way.’’

‘‘What other way is there?’’

‘‘Maybe you only love me because you get all hot inside when you look at me. Maybe you only love me for the kissing and the hugging. That is one kind of love and it is not the love I feel for you.’’

‘‘You don’t?’’

‘‘Don’t sound so hurt. Of course I want to kiss and hug you, silly. I like to do that more than anything. But that is not all there is to love, or shouldn’t be to a love like ours.’’ Sassy pressed her hand to his chest over his heart and pressed her other hand to her bosom over her heart. ‘‘I want our love to come from in here. I want our love to be deep and true.’’

‘‘So do I.’’

‘‘For it to be that way, Boone, we must be open with each other. There can’t be secrets. I have to understand you and you have to understand me. Not just what we like to eat and the kind of clothes we like to wear. But how we are deep down. How we are in our heart. Does that make sense to you?’’

Boone gestured. ‘‘Sort of.’’

‘‘Think of it this way. The more we share what goes through our heads, the deeper we can see into our hearts.’’

‘‘Damnation. How did you come up with all this? I always thought of love as just love.’’

‘‘Don’t cuss. You got on me about it and I have stopped, so now you must stop cussing too. And there is no just to love.’’ Sassy stopped a moment. ‘‘As for how, when you only have yourself for company, you do a lot of thinking. I expected one day to fall in love. Most folks do. So I thought about what it would be like, and what it should be like.’’

‘‘Am I what you expected?’’ Boone asked.

‘‘You are close as close can be. You would be perfect if you stopped keeping secrets. I have opened my heart to you and for this to work you must open yours to me.’’ Sassy gazed into his eyes. ‘‘What will it be? Do you keep your secrets or do you keep me?’’

‘‘My brother Eppley is out to kill me.’’

‘‘Why? I remember you saying how you went with him to Ranson. How after you shot the man who killed that girl and some others, he convinced you to light a shuck.’’

Boone shared his new suspicion, leaving nothing out. ‘‘I couldn’t figure out why Jarrott tried to bed me down permanent. I thought Condit had something to do with it, although I didn’t know the man and there was no reason in the world for him to want me dead.’’

‘‘And now you credit your brother with the brain-storm?’’

‘‘It had to be someone who wanted me dead so much he was willing to pay to have it done. Someone who knew Condit and Jarrott and where I would be that night.’’

‘‘You own brother?’’

‘‘I figured he cared for me. When he suggested I make myself scarce, I thought he did it to spare my folks the misery my turning into a killer would cause them.’’

‘‘What changed your mind?’’

‘‘When I found out Old Man Radler is selling the rest of the stolen horses to Epp. Although what he wants with so many horses is a mystery. Our ranch already has plenty.’’

‘‘Do you think he plans to resell them for more money?’’

‘‘I will ask him when I see him. But what matters more is that Old Man Radler says my brother is the most vicious coyote in all of Arizona. Coming from him, that says a lot.’’ Boone stopped. ‘‘It woke me up. It made me see my brother in a whole new light.’’ He looked at her. ‘‘How can we be so wrong about someone? I grew up with Epp. I thought I knew him. Sure, he was wild, and sure, he was partial to the company of those on the wrong side of the law. But he’s my brother . We have the same parents. We grew up on the same ranch. How can he have turned out so different from me?’’

Sassy pondered, then pointed toward Porter’s. ‘‘And those men in there? How did they fit in?’’

‘‘They were riding horses with Circle V brands. But our remuda is for Circle V punchers only. We take cattle to market, not our horses. We never sell them. So either those two were stolen or someone gave the horses to them. And the only one who would give them two of our horses—’’