“My God, man!” Adam exclaimed, even though it was not the first time he had heard it. Once again, he found he had to ask, “Why don't the people elect their own sheriff, somebody who will do something to stop the murders?”
“The outlaws outnumber the honest folk,” Mutt explained. “You might as well paint a target on the back of anybody you name sheriff, 'cause he won't last out the day.” He paused to look right and left of him before continuing. With his voice almost in a whisper, he said, “A bunch of the miners and store owners has got together to put a stop to the lawlessnessâvigilantes, like I told you. They've already strung up six of the ones that have been identified. I expect they'd be interested in talkin' to you.” He paused to see Adam's reaction.
“Me?” Adam responded. “What for?”
“After the way you handled that rifle when they tried to rob us, there ain't no doubt in my mind that they could sure use a man like you.”
“Well, I ain't interested,” Adam quickly replied in no uncertain terms. “I've got no part in the trouble the miners are havin' in these gulches. Like I told you, I'm just lookin' for my brother. Soon as I find him, I'm gone. I wish the honest folks here the best of luck, but it ain't none of my concern.”
Although somewhat disappointed, Mutt said, “I reckon I can understand how you feel, and I can't say as I blame you.” He shrugged off the discussion. “Let's go in and have a drink. Bonnie's probably already hitched up another couple fellers to buy her whiskey.”
Inside, they found Bonnie waiting for them at the bar. She was alone, but it was not for lack of trying. There were a few younger women in the saloon, and each one commanded the attentions of a group of admirers. It was still a bit early in the evening for Bonnie. Her usual hunting season was in the wee hours of the morning when the volume of whiskey already downed by the patrons had effectively erased the lines of age in her face. Turning to greet them, she said, “I was beginning to think you had forgot about me.” Then she turned to aim a remark at the bartender. “See, asshole, I told you I had friends coming.”
“Well, pour us a drink, bartender,” Mutt ordered grandly.
The bartender set two more glasses on the bar and poured. “She's already had two. Said you'd pay for'em,” he said.
Mutt cocked a wary eye in Bonnie's direction, but pulled out his poke. Adam put up his hand to stop him. “I'll take care of the lady's first two,” he volunteered. After settling with the bartender, he turned to Bonnie and asked, “Do you see the girl you told me about, the one you said Jake was sweet on?”
“Yes, I do,” Bonnie promptly replied. “Lacey Brewer. That's her sitting at the second table with those four men.”
Adam turned to follow the direction of Bonnie's gesture. The girl he saw was young, as Bonnie had said. He could not call her a pretty girl, but she did present a neat appearance, and he could not help comparing her to Bonnie. He could understand the attraction that Jake felt. “Did you talk to her?” he asked. “Ask her about Jake?”
“Hell no,” Bonnie replied, “and I don't recommend you asking her, either, until you can catch her away from that crew she's partying with.”
“Why is that?” Adam asked.
Before answering, Bonnie shot a knowing glance in Mutt's direction. “Because that bunch is some of the sheriff's friends, and they might resent the intrusion.” Mutt nodded his silent agreement.
Adam was rapidly getting the impression that Mutt had not exaggerated when he implied that the outlaws had overrun the town. “Why do the honest folks stay here?” he asked Mutt. “If the placer minin' has dried up, like you say, why don't they just move on?”
“It ain't that simple,” Mutt said. “These folks is kinda trapped here. They can't get out with what gold they found because the damn outlaws are watchin' every road outta here. The only time they ain't watchin' every road is when the winter sets in hard, and then the snows close up the mountain passes and you still can't get out.” He glanced over his shoulder then to make sure no one could overhear. “It's changin', though, and pretty damn quick. Like I said, the honest citizens has had enough.”
“Vigilantes?” Adam asked again. Mutt nodded in reply. “Well, I'm awful sorry the folks hereabout are in such a fix, but I've got to find my brother. So I'm gonna go talk to that young lady. What was her name?” Bonnie told him again. “Lacey Brewer,” he repeated.
Mutt caught his arm as he turned toward the tables. “Maybe you oughtn't ask her right now. Bonnie's right; it might be better to wait till you can catch her alone.”
Adam looked at Mutt, then back at the table again. “Hell, who knows when that might be? She'll probably go off somewhere with one of 'em, or all of 'em, and I don't intend to wait around that long.”
“Just when I was beginning to like you,” Bonnie commented drily as Adam walked away.
“Don't start writin' his eulogy just yet,” Mutt said. “This might be interestin' to watch.”
None of the four men at the table noticed the tall, broad-shouldered man as he approached until he caught Lacey Brewer's eye. When she continued to gaze in Adam's direction, one of the men turned to see what had distracted her attention. “Who the hell is that?” he uttered, causing his companions to follow his gaze. Nothing more was said at the moment, while all four looked the stranger over thoroughly. The one who had spoken looked accusingly at Lacey and repeated, “Who the hell is that?” For it appeared he was coming to their table.
“What are you asking me for?” Lacey replied. “I've never seen him before.” She paused a moment to appraise the approaching stranger. Then, with a mischievous smile, she said, “I believe I'd remember him if I
had
seen him before.”
Her remark served to stir up a fit of jealousy that was already well developed in the man sitting close beside her. Adam could feel the intensity of the man's gaze as he stopped beside the table and asked, “Are you Lacey Brewer?” She nodded, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“What about?” her companion demanded before she had a chance to respond.
“Well, that would be between the lady and me,” Adam answered calmly as he made a quick judgment of the man's potential for causing him trouble. He possessed an unusually youthful face, and he wore a thin black mustache, an obvious attempt to appear more mature.
“Is that a fact?” the man replied. “Well, the answer is hell no, she can't talk to you. She's talkin' to me.” He glanced smugly around him at his friends to get their smiles of approval. “Now, you can drag your ass back over to the bar with that old whore and that brokedown stage driver.” His last remark drew a snicker from one of his friends.
Hoping to avoid an unpleasant encounter, but anxious to learn anything the girl might be able to tell him about Jake, Adam paused for a moment before pursuing the matter. He decided he wasn't willing to waste time waiting for her belligerent friend's permission. “Look, mister,” he said in as calm a voice as he could fashion, “I don't want to interrupt your little party with Miss Brewer. I just want to ask her a couple of questions. Then you can have her right back.” He shifted his focus to the girl then. “Is that all right with you?”
Still puzzled by the tall stranger's interest in her, and curious to know what he wanted to ask her, Lacey shrugged and said, “I guess.”
“The hell you do,” the man said, and grabbed her arm to hold her in her chair. Glaring at Adam, he warned, “Now, I've had a bellyful of you. I ain't gonna tell you again.” His free hand dropped to his side to rest on the pistol he wore.
“Mister,” Adam said, “I told you I'm not lookin' for any trouble. I just wanna ask the lady a couple of questions. It's not worth gettin' riled up about. I'll just take a minute, and you can go right on with your party.”
One of the others at the table, an amused spectator to that point, decided to wade in on the fun. “Hell, Lon, he's just lookin' to get his ass whipped. Why don't we take care of that for him?”
With his patience wearing thin, Adam still tried to maintain a calm and noncombative manner. “I told you I wasn't lookin' to cause any trouble,” he said, but he knew he had better survey the situation and hope they had already had enough to drink to slow their reactions.
“You ain't, huh?” Lon responded. “It don't look that way to me. Why ain't you lookin' for trouble?”
“Well, for one thing,” Adam replied, “there's four of you. I don't care much for the odds.”
“You shoulda thought about that before you opened your mouth,” Lon smugly informed him. “They seem about right to me.”
Adam shifted his attention back to Lacey. It looked as if speaking to her privately was going to be out of the question, so he asked her, “I heard you know Jake Blaine. Do you know where I can find him?”
“Why, you son of a bitch . . . ,” Lon exclaimed, infuriated that Adam chose to ignore his threats. He made a move to get up from his chair, dropping his hand to his revolver in the process.
“Don't do that,” Adam warned, stopping him before he was halfway up, the muzzle of his Henry rifle already pointed at Lon's chest. “This ain't worth anybody gettin' killed over, but if that's what you've got your mind set on, I'll accommodate you.” The calm, unhurried tone of the big man conveyed a message that it was no idle boast.
Lon sank back in his chair, his face now a twisted mask of anger. “Mister, you must be loco. You don't know who you're dealin' with.”
Adam quickly checked Lon's three friends while keeping his rifle on Lon. They were slow in reacting, still taken by surprise with the unexpected confrontation. One of them, a wild-eyed man with a face as sharp as an axe blade, appeared to be making up his mind, so Adam shifted his gaze briefly to warn him. “I know what you're thinkin',” he said. “He can't get all of us before we get him. Well, maybe you'd better think on it real hard. Because I guarantee you I can cut you down, and chamber another cartridge before your friend here has a chance to get that .44 out of the holster. So I'll get you and him for sure, and maybe you.” He nodded toward the fat shaggy-haired man sitting next to him. “It ain't so easy drawing a pistol while you're sittin' down in an armchair, is it?” There followed a few moments of uncertain hesitation on the part of the four seated at the table. The solemn, confident manner of the man standing over them with a cocked rifle was convincing enough to cause the four to reconsider any foolish moves. “Like I said before,” Adam continued, “I apologize for interruptin' your party. I'll only take a couple of minutes of Miss Brewer's time and nobody gets hurt.” With a nod of his head, he motioned for Lacey to get up. “We'll just walk over here to the bar where I can keep an eye on your friends while you tell me what you know about Jake Blaine.”
Satisfied that the confrontation had been settled without bloodshed, Adam turned to follow Lacey to the bar. It was not to be that easy, however, for Lon was still steaming over having to back down in the face of the leveled Henry. Thinking Adam had dismissed the incident, he reached for his pistol. Adam's next move was so swift that Lon didn't know what had happened when he recovered consciousness a few minutes afterward with a two-inch gash on the side of his head and a broken nose, left by Adam's rifle barrel. He also missed hearing Adam's comment to him as he fixed the other three with a warning gaze. “Now, there wasn't any need for that. You're a hardheaded bastard, aren't you?”
“There's all different ways to commit suicide, I reckon,” an astonished bartender commented to Mutt as the three at the bar watched Adam and Lacey walk to the end of the bar, “but your friend has found one surefire method. Them four he just buffaloed ain't all he's gotta worry about. There'll be a dozen men lookin' to take a shot at him now.”
Mutt shook his head thoughtfully, as much amazed by Adam's bold approach as anyone else in the saloon. Like the bartender, he knew the whole town was run by outlaws, with the sheriff right in the thick of it. “I ain't knowed him but half a day,” Mutt said, “but damned if he ain't the most determined man I ever saw.”
“Determined to get hisself shot,” the bartender remarked. “I wouldn't stand too close to him if I was you.”
“It tickles me,” Bonnie declared. “Ol' Lon Bridges ain't used to somebody knocking some sense in his head like that. That mean bastard. He was one reason I left Bannack in the first placeâtill I found out it ain't no better in Virginia City.”
At the end of the bar, Adam rested his rifle on top with the muzzle pointed at the table he had just left, watching Lon and his friends while he questioned Lacey. “I'm lookin' for my brother, Jake,” he said. “Bonnie, over there, said you knew him pretty well. I was hopin' you could tell me where to go to look for him.”
“You're Jake's brother?” Lacey asked. Adam answered with a nod. “I don't know where he is,” she said. “I ain't seen him in about three weeks. He said he was coming back for me. He was gonna take me with him.”
“Take you with him?” Adam had to ask. Jake was as fond of the ladies as anyone, but his style was to love'em and leave âem. Could he have fallen for this frail young flower of the dance halls and saloons? “Take you with him where?” he asked.
“Home,” she replied innocently, her eyes like those of a puppy that's been left behind by its master.
Well, that's sure as hell some news that ought to tickle the old man,
Adam thought, picturing his father when Jake introduced her. Looking even closer at the girl's face, he could not help questioning her morals. “And you're here workin' the saloons while you wait for him?”