Sullivan?
Henry felt a stab of unease.
Sullivan was the name of the man they’d hung, the tall one outside Fairplay. Had the man survived somehow?
No. It wasn’t possible. He’d been as dead as dead can be.
Henry’s eyes flashed back and forth.
Conn Sullivan’s vow of vengeance progressed again yesterday afternoon, when he and two other men, William Sheffield and Rudy McKay, both of Fairplay, caught up with Benjamin Blake, one of the eleven men accused of murdering Conn’s brother, Cole.
Henry read the whole article then read it again.
Apparently, this Conn Sullivan was the twin brother of the man they’d hung. The first man, that is, the one with the pretty wife who’d got away.
Apparently, her name was Mary. She was quoted in the article, saying she was confident that Conn would wipe them all out.
Which made Henry chuckle.
Let Sullivan and his buddies come.
But there was something in the article that bothered him.
First was Mayfield. Apparently, Marshal Andrews, who was about as deadly as a throw pillow, had wired the U.S. Marshal.
And unlike Andrews, Mayfield was plenty deadly. Everybody knew that.
It gave Henry a creepy crawly feeling, thinking Mayfield might be coming for him.
He lifted his eyes and studied the scrubby hillsides around him, half-expecting to see the wink of a barrel.
But of course, Mayfield had no idea they were here. No one did.
So he quit scanning his surroundings and read the newspaper article a third time.
Because something was nagging at him, the vague sense that he had overlooked a detail. That there was a danger here he hadn’t anticipated…
And then, suddenly, he had it.
Ben Blake.
Conn Sullivan had killed him and a couple of his brothers. Was that all he had done? Or had he talked to them?
Ben Blake knew Henry was headed here. So did Rafe and Toby, those traitors.
Henry shook his head and spat. For years, he’d dreamed of running a gang. He finally gets his chance and look at the bunch of fools and miscreants he’s saddled with.
Some guys get all the luck. That’s the way he saw it. And he wasn’t one of them.
Oh well. When life dealt you bad cards, you just had to play them well.
You had to make your own luck.
And realizing the situation here, he was about to make himself some luck. And make this Conn Sullivan some decidedly bad luck in the process.
Because Ben Blake would’ve jumped at the chance to rat Henry out. Even if those were his dying words, he would’ve been sure to sell out his old friend, Henry.
Which meant Conn Sullivan would come here.
