Big Jim 11 by Marshall Grover

Author:Marshall Grover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: colt 45, cowboy fiction, piccadilly publishing, american old west, marshall grover, big jim rand, historical fiction 1800s, outlaws and gunmen 1800s
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Six – The Colorado Borgias

By 5.10 p.m., Toby Munce had run his intended victim to ground—not a difficult chore, considering all he needed to do was check the registers of all Pringle hotels. In the lobby of the Pringle House, having ascertained the number of Jim’s room, he sidled out through the main entrance and made for the hitch rack where his mount awaited. For this visit to the settlement, he had saddled one of the team-horses.

He did not immediately ride away, however. The desk-clerk was on the hotel porch, conversing with a local. A phrase or two aroused Toby’s interest and he lingered to eavesdrop.

“...sure chose a bad time to break a leg,” the clerk was saying. “Well, you couldn’t expect a cook to move around the kitchen on a broken leg, so now Leon is laid up and the boss is wondering how in blazes we’re gonna feed our customers tonight.”

“Walt ought to put his wife to work out back,” suggested the local, “I declare Corinne Pringle is the best durn cook in the whole doggone territory.”

“She’s up to the chapel for choir practice,” said the clerk. “Nothing on God’s green earth could take Mrs. Pringle away from choir practice. Those women stay at it for hours.”

“Singin’ they call it,” chuckled the local. “Me, I call it caterwaulin’.”

A suddenly excited Toby Munce swung astride the broad-backed teamer, wheeled it and started it moving south along Main. In a matter of minutes, he was rejoining his fellow-conspirators in the cottonwood grove and gleefully announcing,

“I got our man nailed down! Know right where to find him and just how to settle his hash!”

“How about them two perfeshionals—Keane and Bissell?” demanded Phoebus; his speech was muffled because he was eating—as usual.

“Didn’t sight .hide nor hair of ’em,” said Toby, dismounting. “But it’s for sure they ain’t made their move yet, because Rand is still well and truly alive.”

“What you aim to do, darlin’ Toby?” enquired Fiona. “You gonna use your old Sharps, or a six-shooter or a shotgun—or what?”

“I’ve figured out an easier way,” grinned Toby. He was climbing into the wagon now. “No shootin’. No noise. He just sets down to his supper, eats a spoonful of chow—and that’s all.”

“You fixin’ to poison him?” blinked Phoebus.

“Gonna mix the stuff right away,” called Toby. “Fiona’s gonna dish it up to him. It’ll be plumb easy for her, on accounta that hotel needs a relief cook, and Fiona’s gonna show up right when they need her most.”

From the other side of the fire, Fiona smiled happily at her obese kinsman and began bragging about the agile imagination of her fiancé. Phoebus, scowling at the wagon, bluntly declared,

“I don’t like it one little bit, sister Fiona. That fool ain’t one quarter as smart as you claim. Him and that box of stink-water—all that powder and pills he stole last spring. I always did say it wasn’t a bright notion—robbin’ that apothecary feller. What could he do with such stuff?”

“Toby figured to buy

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