Sliphammer Read Free

Holliday drawled, “Alone?”
    â€œI suppose.”
    Holliday nodded. “Yeah, who else would be left? You killed the other two.”
    Wyatt said, “He’s the last of Morg’s killers. Save me the trouble of looking for him.”
    Josie’s face had changed. She said, “There’s going to be trouble, then.”
    Wyatt had a tired, confident, masculine smile that worked slowly across his mouth. His heavy, deep voice was loose at the edges. He said: “Not for me, girl.”
    Holliday, without comment, had got to his feet. He was unbuckling the straps of a carpetbag; when he turned around he had a double-barreled shotgun. He walked over to Wyatt and handed him the gun. Wyatt broke it open, inspected the loads, and snapped it shut, setting both hammers on safety half cock.
    Warren moved in away from the open doorway. “I wish to Christ somebody’d let me have a gun.”
    Holliday drawled, “What for, to shoot off your foot?”
    â€œIn my opinion I’m a pretty damn good shot:”
    â€œSonny, your brother isn’t interested in your opinion.”
    â€œNobody ever is.” Warren grumbled. He went back to the door. His movements were graceful but self-conscious, in imitation of Wyatt: he carried himself like an open bottle.
    Josie said, “Doc.”
    Holliday’s glance shifted. “What?”
    â€œGo shit in your hat,” Josie said, and grinned.
    Holliday muttered an oath and went back to the card game. Texas Jack, holding his hand of cards down so Holliday couldn’t see them as he went by, looked up and said lazily, “Yew thank yew need any hep, Wyatt?”
    And Virgil, his heavily bandaged right shoulder gleaming in the half-light, said, “Maybe you could use a backup, Wyatt. You’re a little tense. A man who’s tense makes mistakes.”
    Wyatt shook his head. “Keep your seat, Jack. And”—to Virgil—”please don’t presume to advise me how to handle Frank Stillwell.” With a quick snap of his big shoulders he turned away from the casket and walked over to join Josie, indicating that the discussion was ended. He appeared to have put the Stillwell threat clean out of his mind; Warren faintly heard him say to Josie, in an exaggerated hick-country drawl, “Ma’am, you look slicker’n a schoolmarm’s elbow.” Then both of them laughed and Josie squeezed herself against Wyatt. Warren wondered what it would be like to have those soft breasts pushing against his own chest.
    Across the swaying car, Virgil moved away from the wall and came forward to the head of the casket. He braced his good hand against it and stood there, brooding. Virgil had been ambushed a few weeks before Morg’s death—the same shotguns. They hadn’t killed him but Virg’s right shoulder had been smashed, probably beyond repair; in time the bandages would come off but it was doubtful the big man would ever use his arm again. The tracks of pain and bitterness had etched deep creases in his long-jawed face. Warren wondered what he was thinking. Virg had been laid up in bed when Wyatt and Holliday and the others had gone after the ambushers who’d crippled Virg and killed Morgan. Wyatt had killed Cruz at a desert ranch, and the day of Warren’s arrival Wyatt had ridden into Tombstone and announced he had caught up with Curly Bill back in a canyon and left Curly Bill there dead. Nobody had found the body but Warren had no reason to disbelieve his brother. It left one ambusher at large, and Wyatt said that was Frank Stillwell, and now Stillwell was waiting for them in Tucson, a few minutes ahead. What was Virg thinking? A right-hander, he couldn’t be much use with a gun left-handed. Was he, in his mind, talking to Morgan in that quiet, manly, reasoning voice of his?
    Warren walked to the casket and leaned both hands on it. “Wondering what he’d want us to