That woman’s screams echoed in Henry’s mind.
He remembered the eager look on Duncan’s face as he’d hurt her and the way he’d snapped around wild-eyed, like a dog about to bite, when Henry had grown sick of the screaming and the weirdness and told him to let her go.
Yeah, Duncan would like to have Henry under his power. He’d like to make him scream.
And who among these men was decent like Henry? Who would even try to stop Duncan once he got started on him?
Nobody, that’s who.
Certainly not Turpin.
Maybe Dog. Maybe. But probably not. He was too stupid.
At that moment, Dog rode into view.
Even from a distance, Henry recognized the man’s slack face, broad shoulders, and rust-colored beard. And that stupid-looking, little hat he wore.
But he clutched a paper in one hand. So he’d done his job.
That was something Henry liked about stupid people. If you kept things simple, they did the job.
Unlike Turpin. He wasn’t smart, but he thought he was, and that was just as bad. Maybe even worse, when you got down to it.
Henry lifted Turpin’s bottle to his lips and took another sip, hating the taste of the whiskey. It was terrible. Just terrible.
But he drank some more out of spite.
Dog rode up and handed Henry the newspaper. It was all wrinkled because Dog had carried it clutched in his fist like a towel.
Henry shook his head. That’s what he got for asking an illiterate numbskull to fetch reading material.
“Any trouble in town?” Henry asked.
Dog shook his head and just sat there, staring at him with an open mouth, breathing and staring, breathing and staring, like he didn’t have a single thought in that big, lumpy head of his, like he was fascinated by what Henry might do with the wrinkled newspaper he’d carried from town.
“Go on around back and hide the horse,” Henry said.
Without so much as a grunt, Dog rode off.
He was a good man that way. Obedient. And he didn’t wear you out with talking like the other two.
Maybe call them up here? Call them up then shoot them as soon as they came out of the mine? Shoot Turpin first. Put him down then plug Duncan.
The idea appealed.
What would Dog do, though?
Maybe pull him in on it? Give him the command. Tell him to shoot Duncan as soon as Henry shot Turpin?
Maybe.
Tell him he heard them talking. Tell him they were planning on killing them. Or maybe say they were wanting to kill Dog, that they had tried to talk Henry into helping them.
Might work.
But then, reading the newspaper’s headline, he reckoned maybe he’d let them live a little longer. He might be needing the help.
SULLIVAN KILLS ANOTHER KILLER.
