A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams

Author:Clifton Adams [Adams, Clifton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Western
Published: 2012-02-05T04:21:09+00:00

Chapter Seven

IT'S FUNNY HOW everything seems different in the light of day. Most of your doubts and fears go with the darkness, and after a while you forget about them completely.

The kid, Johnny Rayburn, got back to Ocotillo late the next day. I came out of the office and there he was standing at the bar, gagging on a shot of tequila.

I said, “You made a quick ride. Did things work out all right in Tucson?”

“Sure, Mr. Cameron.”

Then Kreyler came into the saloon and I said, “Wait a minute. All this is for the Marshal's benefit, so he might as well hear about it.”

The three of us went back to the office, and I could feel Kreyler's eyes on my back, looking for a soft spot to sink a knife in. But he didn't bother me now. I had him where I wanted him and he knew it. Or he would know it pretty soon.

I said, “All right, kid, let's have it. Tell Mr. Kreyler just exactly what you've been doing for the past day and night.”

The Marshal gave the kid a quick look. Then he sat in a chair and waited, and he might as well have been wearing a mask, for all the expression you could read on his face.

“Well,” the kid said, “I rode into Tucson, like you said, and I gave the ledger to—to the man Bama told me about. I gave him five hundred dollars and asked him if he would hold onto the book as long as I kept coming back every month to give him another hundred, and he said sure, he'd be glad to. Then I came back to Ocotillo.”

I said, “Tell us what's going to happen if we miss giving him the hundred dollars every month.”

“He'll turn the book over to the U.S. marshal's office,” the kid said.

I expected Kreyler to do something then, but he didn't. He just sat there with that slab face not telling me a thing.

“Well,” I said, “it looks like you're working for me, Kreyler, whether you like it or not.”

“It would seem that way,” he said flatly.

“It doesn't seem any way. You're working for me and you'll keep on working for me until I get tired of having you around.”

“All right, I'm working for you.”

I didn't like the way things were going. I had expected a hell of a racket about that ledger, but there he was sitting there as if he didn't care about it one way or the other. There was something going on behind those eyes of his, and I thought I knew what it was.

He kept looking at the kid, and then I realized that just three of us knew where that ledger was, me, Bama, and Johnny Rayburn, and if Kreyler wanted to find out where it was he would have to get it out of one of us. I didn't have to do much figuring to guess which one he would work on.

I jerked my head at the kid and said, “Go somewhere and get some sleep.

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