Where did those women get to?
He went to the peg on the wall and pulled his revolver out of the gunbelt and carried it back to the table to finish reading the papers.
The newer paper made Rafe feel like puking. Because it said U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield was on their trail, too.
Just like that, he was sweating bullets.
He glanced over to where Toby lay with his mouth open.
He looked dead.
Rafe shook his head, hating the image, and went back to reading the paper.
Mayfield was quoted saying he’d get them all, no matter how long it took. And there was Rafe’s name, listed right alongside the rest of them.
Mayfield was a heartless killer. Everybody knew that. And he always got whoever he set after.
Yeah, it was time to get out of here. Head back to Georgia, steal a boat, and go live in the swamp for a while. Way back there.
Because right now, they had three heartless men gunning for them: Toole, Conn Sullivan, and the most feared marshal in the United States.
He didn’t like those odds one bit.
But hopefully Sullivan and Mayfield were after Toole and them right now. Because the paper said Toole had stopped atanother farmhouse on the way to Poncha Springs and killed a man and hurt his wife and burned their house.
There was something seriously wrong with those boys. And not just Toole. Duncan was just as bad. Worse, maybe. And Dog was about half an idiot. Then you had Jesse Turpin, who was bound and determined to be known as the fastest gun in the West.
Well, maybe Rafe would get lucky. Maybe all these bloodthirsty killers would come together in Poncha Springs and kill each other off.
Maybe. But he doubted it. And he sure couldn’t count on it.
He did suspect, however, that Sullivan and Mayfield would both head south after what Toole and them did to those farmers.
That would buy Rafe and Toby a little time.
“Toby!” he called across the room. “Quit snoozing. We gotta get out of here.”
Toby sputtered and woke up and blinked at Rafe and said his head hurt.
Rafe would’ve told him to shut up and get his boots on, but that’s when his eyes fell on the end of the article he’d been reading.
The reporter interviewed the Sullivan widow. Her name was apparently Mary, and the paper made her sound like quite a lady.
She was the whole reason they’d gone out there. Him and Toby, anyway. Well, her and the money.
But mostly her. Because everybody said she was the prettiest woman they’d ever seen. Blond hair and blue eyes and a perfect figure and a real pretty face. The prettiest.
So yeah, he’d been looking forward to a turn with her.
Then everything had gone sideways.
Apparently, she was responding like a true frontier woman.
The reporter said that and called her a “brave woman who won’t be run off her land.”
Mary Sullivan vowed to stay and rebuild what she and her late husband had started.
Which meant she was probably all alone there, maybe living in a tent or that little stable.
