One Way to Boot Hill by Max O'Hara

Author:Max O'Hara [O'Hara, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Stockburn was glad Vincent had ignored the snickers on the gallery, as well. Or maybe he didn’t notice? The town marshal of Bottleneck seemed to notice a lot of things about his pretty wife, and he worried about plenty of those things. But maybe he had a few blind spots.

On the other hand, maybe when you married a gal as pretty and obviously as coquettish as Belle, you acquired blind spots out of necessity. If you didn’t, at one time or another you’d likely find yourself having to pistol whip every man in town.

“What do you think of Belle?” Vincent asked as he led Stockburn up the hotel’s broad, carpeted staircase. He cast a proud smile over his right shoulder, showing some dried blood at the left corner of his lower lip.

“She seems . . . uh . . . very nice.”

“Purty, too, ain’t she?”

“Very.”

“Sometimes I think she’s too purty,” Vincent said, plodding heavily up the steps and grinning back at Stockburn again. “Leastways, too purty for me to sleep nights, thinkin’ about all the trouble she could get into while I’m at work. The men around here—well, they knew her, if you get my drift, back before Belle and I married a little over a year ago.”

“Oh, I see.”

Vincent stopped as they gained the second-floor hall. “Tell me, Mr. Stockburn, would you have done it? I mean—would you have married an upstairs girl?”

“I suppose if I loved her I would have.”

“Even one so purty?”

“Especially one so purty.”

“Even that all the men know . . . and remember . . . and ogle all the damn time so it about makes you grind your molars down to a fine powder?”

“Uh . . . Vincent . . . shouldn’t we catch Mr. Darlington and Mr. Ramsay while they’re still in their meeting?”

“Oh, sure. Of course! I’m sorry, Mr. Stockburn!”

“Not at all, not at all,” Wolf said, relieved to have been released from the uncomfortable conversation. Obviously, Vincent had his hands full with the woman he’d married. On the other hand, many a man would not mind having their hands nearly as full.

Following Vincent down the hall, Wolf cleared his throat to quash a wry, involuntary chuckle.

Vincent stopped at a door about halfway down the hall, and knocked. On the other side of the door, boots thudded and spurs chinged. Beneath it all, Stockburn heard two men talking. The door knob turned with a soft screech, the latch clicked, and the door opened about two feet. The face appearing in the two-foot gap was vaguely familiar, long and craggy with an inordinately large nose with a bulbous, pitted tip. The man, however, wasn’t very tall.

Yes, the gent was familiar, indeed. But for the life of Stockburn, he couldn’t place it.

“What do you want?” asked the long-faced man, glaring coldly up at Vincent.

“Hello, Mr. Ford,” Vincent said, doffing his hat and kneading the brim with his fingers. He’d suddenly become an over-friendly dog. A truckling one, at that. “I got a Wells Fargo detective here, Mr.

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