Rope Burn by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2020-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The early morning meeting at Marshal Hank Glennon’s office in Packsaddle wasn’t really a council of war, because everything was going well, but Howden-Smyth insisted on these occasional get-togethers among the conspirators. A meeting of the minds, he called them.

To Frank Olsen, they were more like a waste of time, but he tolerated them because sooner or later this scheme was going to make him rich. It had already increased his stake quite a bit, but the real loot was still out there, tantalizingly close.

Portly Judge Horace Bannister waddled in and said, “Let’s get on with this, gentlemen. I need to get to church. I have a Sunday School class to teach.”

Olsen sat beside Marshal Hank Glennon’s desk, smoking a cigar. The lawman was behind the desk nursing a cup of coffee that was probably half whiskey, judging by the smell coming from it. Olsen took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “Our English friend isn’t here yet, but he ought to be showing up any time.” A moment of puckish humor prompted him to add, “You teach Sunday School, Judge?”

Bannister frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, considering that you’re so intimately involved with a bunch of criminals like us—”

“Stop that,” Glennon said. “Everything we’ve done has been legal and aboveboard, isn’t that right, Judge?”

Bannister hooked his thumbs in his vest. “As far as you and I are concerned, that is certainly true, Marshal. I can’t speak to what happens at the fort or at Mr. Howden-Smyth’s mine, of course, since such things are out of my jurisdiction and control.”

Olsen looked at his two companions for a second and then laughed coldly. “Sure, you go on telling yourselves that. Those Jensen boys actually were deserters as far as you’re concerned, I suppose.”

Bannister spread his hands. “Misidentification isn’t a crime. Such errors are bound to occur, and our legal system deals with them in due time.”

In due time, for the Jensens, would be when they wound up in an unmarked grave in the desert, Olsen thought. He shook his head and went back to his cigars. He didn’t enjoy working with a couple of toads like Bannister and Glennon, but the end result was all that really counted.

Packsaddle’s main street was quiet and almost deserted at this time on a Sunday morning, so Olsen had no trouble hearing the hoofbeats of several horses coming to a stop right outside the marshal’s office. A few moments later, the door opened and Eugene Howden-Smyth strolled in, followed by two of the gunmen who went everywhere with him. Arizona Territory wasn’t exactly civilized yet, so the Englishman always brought his protectors along.

The lean, whip-bodied one with a face like a cadaver was Chet Van Slyke. He was Howden-Smyth’s top gun and reputed to be a fast, deadly pistoleer who had killed a number of men. The shorter, beer-gutted hombre was called Navasota Jones, probably after the place he came from back in Texas. His real name probably wasn’t even Jones. He carried a double-barreled shotgun under his left arm.

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