Cutthroats by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2019-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

“Come now, fellas,” Bledsoe said. “Don’t be too hard on the poor woman. Imagine what it was like—all those years in that mountain hideout, for the most part alone. With very little in the way of creature comforts.” He glanced pointedly at Slash. “Without a man . . .”

Old Bleed-’Em-So looked at Abigail Langdon, who’d finished writing to lean forward, elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, a thoughtful expression pooching her lips out slightly. The pen dangled from between the first two fingers of her right hand.

“Could you endure that kind of loneliness, Miss Langdon?”

She glanced at Pecos, then quickly flicked her eyes to the table. There was that flush again. Slash knew that if he looked at his partner, he’d see a similar pinkening of the big devil’s cheeks, a tense tightening of his mouth. He chuckled ironically to himself.

“Just like every man,” said the jade-eyed Nordic queen in her lilting accent, “there is only so much every woman is willing to endure. When a better offer comes along . . .” She looked at Slash now, keeping her eyes away from Pecos, and shrugged.

“Tell me she didn’t go to you, at least,” Slash said to Bledsoe.

“No, no.” The chief marshal shook his head. “The sheriff down there thought he recognized her. He wired me, informing me of the beautiful redhead who’d just come to town, claiming to be a rancher’s widow. He’d seen her dining out a few times with the owner of the Saguache Bank and Trust, the man who handles the Crosshatch accounts and arranges the cash shipments to the Crosshatch headquarters via the ranch’s own private spur line. I sent a Pinkerton down there to investigate. When her story about being a widow of some rancher didn’t check out, and the operative suspected she was, indeed, Jaycee Breckenridge, Miss Langdon and I called on her one night in her hotel room. That was when I made my offer.”

“Of what?”

Bledsoe sighed as he refilled Miss Langdon’s glass from the tequila bottle. He waved the bottle toward Slash and Pecos, but seeing that neither outlaw had touched their own shots, he splashed the liquor into his own empty glass, then returned the bottle to the table.

“A few nice dresses . . . some jewelry, including a string of pearls that Miss Langdon personally picked out. Two thousand dollars . . .”

“Full amnesty and a train ticket to San Francisco,” Miss Langdon added.

Bledsoe frowned at the ceiling, tapping his index finger against his chin. “Let’s see—what day is it? August fourteenth. Hmmm . . . She’s likely arrived on the Barbary Coast by now, starting a new life for herself.”

He saw the constipated looks on both Slash’s and Pecos’s faces and turned his mouth corners down. “Like I said, fellas, don’t judge her too harshly. It was not an easy thing for her to do. She felt guilty as hell. I mean, she’s known you both a long time.”

“But she still did it,” Slash said tightly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.