“Take off your gun belt.”
Morgan slowly moved his hands to his buckle. “It’s been a lot of years, Gideon. It seems we should say hello at least.”
“Slide it over this way. Low, like you were playin’ tenpin with it.” Morgan pitched it across the floor, and Gideon kicked it out of the kitchen beyond everyone’s reach. He pointed to the empty rack near Morgan’s head.
“I saw it,” said Morgan. He spared a brief look for the trio at the table. “Jane. Boys. Are you all right?”
Jane pressed her lips together, nodded. Finn and Rabbit each raised a hand just above the table.
“Good. They have nothing to do with what’s between you and me, Gideon.”
“That’s why they’re not dead.” He ended the sentence abruptly. Although he did not say it, the word “yet” hung in the air.
“Where are my men?”
“Around and about.” Gideon chuckled lightly. “That’s what your wife said to me when I asked where you were. She came around though. You got more to worry about than your men, Morgan. I come to make things square between us. You owe me. I need you to think about that. You got a nice place for yourself. A wife who’s real fine to look at when she’s not talkin’. So many head of cattle that I bet you didn’t know the half of what we took. Sure, you had three years out before Jack and I saw the light of day, but I think you’ve done better than can be explained by dumb luck. Zetta Lee says you got what was comin’ to you for all those years you were her own special ginger pie.”
He raised a couple of fingers. “Now, don’t go all twitchy on me, Morgan. You don’t want to ruin this before we get under way. Besides, Zetta Lee’s gone. Same as Jack’s gone. She can’t spread her legs or her stories. And Jack? He’s all done with cheating.”
“You killed them?”
“Not Jack. Not my brother. But Zetta Lee was nothing to me except the whore who sent us away. I went to see her in Lander before I found you. She wasn’t livin’ on the ranch. Sold it off for a place in town and swore to me that she didn’t get much for it. A lot of her stock was gone. Cattle thieves. The house was not worth anything, but she did have the land. You know what she did with that money? She bought herself a brothel. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?”
Gideon smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Do you really have a problem with me shooting her dead in sight of our daddy’s grave?”
CHAPTER 15
Jane pressed a fist against her mouth. It was not enough to suppress her whimper. She saw Morgan set his jaw and knew he had heard her. Gideon was either oblivious to her distress or uncaring of it because he began to describe the final minutes of Zetta Lee’s life, those minutes when she realized his intention was to kill her.
For the first time since entering the kitchen, Finn and Rabbit actually looked afraid. Jane wanted to take them by the hand. It might have reassured them, but it would not have made them happy.
“Enough.” It was Morgan, not Jane, who spoke up. He surprised Gideon into silence. “That’s enough,” he said quietly. “If you need to tell someone, tell me, but not in front—” Morgan spun around as the back door opened. A second gun was pointed at him.
Gideon holstered his Remington. “Give him some space before he takes it out of your hands.”
Marcie pulled the door shut and then kept his back to it. He looked around, nodded to Dix, and then came back to Gideon. “Everything all right?”
“As it should be,” said Gideon. “Did you check on Avery like I told you?”
Marcie nodded. “He’s fine. Those three boys sure are fit to be tied.” The long scar running through his salt-and-pepper beard meandered a little as he chuckled. “And I mean it exactly like I said it. Especially that one we acquainted ourselves with over at the Pennyroyal. He’s spittin’ mad. You’d think no one ever got the drop on him before.”
“All right,” Gideon said. “You’ve had fun.”
Morgan turned his back on the gun and faced his brother. “Where’s Max? He said three boys. What did you do with Max?”
“He’s resting. There was an altercation, I’d guess you call it. Your wife fixed him up.”
Jane said, “He was a little worse off than Jem. They put him in one of the bedrooms. I haven’t heard a sound from him since.”
Gideon smiled pleasantly. “See? He’s resting, just like I said.”
“There’re four of you?” asked Morgan. “I’m counting four. Three here and one in the bunkhouse.”
“Let’s just say you don’t know the half of it.”
“Eight men? I don’t think so, Gideon.”
“Four,” Jane said quickly. “He wanted me to think there are others, maybe two more, but there aren’t.”
