Chapter 1
“Look at her,” Henry Toole said and nodded toward the blond-haired woman entering the hardware store with a tall man.
The man’s height and broad shoulders set Henry’s teeth on edge. Tall men were nothing special, even if they had some muscle, but folks always treated them like kings. Which is how this man had come to get such a pretty girl on his arm.
Tripp Daniels gave a low whistle. “She sure is pretty.”
The two of them sat across the street in front of the Fairplay Saloon, which should have been called the Last Stop, because they were out of money again.
Henry was sick of being out of money. He was sick of Tripp, too, but they were pards, so he put up with him. Mostly, he was sick of tall men getting all the pretty women.
He stood up and glared across the street. He and Tripp had drunk the last of their money that morning. He’d been feeling pretty good, but that was wearing off, and now what he felt was mean.
Tripp stood up. “Guess we’d better go ask Mr. Jacobs if he has any work.”
Henry spat into the street, still staring at the door the tall man and his woman had gone through. “I’m sick of Jacobs. And I’m sick of work.”
“Me, too, partner. But I ain’t sick of eating. And if we don’t get some work, we won’t have nothing to eat.”
Saying this, Tripp got a stupid grin on his face, like he thought he’d said something wise.
Henry was tempted to knock that grin off Tripp’s face, along with a few of his teeth, but then Tripp would get mad and leave and he’d probably tell the others, and then they wouldn’t want anything to do with Henry, who’d been setting things up for weeks, making them understand he was the leader of what he hoped would become a gang.
You heard about gangs. They came and went, taking what they wanted and answering to no one. Unless they got gunned down.
And what of that? He’d rather get gunned down in glory than live life like a dog with his tail tucked.
What he needed was a job.
And not the type Tripp was wanting.
Robbing stagecoaches or trains or banks appealed to Henry a lot more than mucking out Joe Jacobs’s stalls again.
Last time they’d done it, one of Jacobs’s kids, some bucktoothed boy maybe nine or ten, had hung around the whole time watching them and grinning like he thought it was funny, them shoveling horse apples for his daddy.
Made Henry want to knock the kid over the head with the shovel, then go inside and do the same thing to his pa, the high and mighty Joe Jacobs.
But everybody would have known who’d done it. And Henry would be on his own, running from a posse.
He needed a gang that was tough enough to stand their ground if men took after them.
He reckoned he might have the men. Tripp could fight. Some of the others back at the cabin probably could, too. Ben Bruce, Dev Harris, Ira Blain. They were all tough.
What they needed was a leader.
He had that covered.
But they also needed a purpose.
He had to come up with a job and rope them in. Once they had a taste of the high life and all that excitement, they would be hooked. And if any of them weren’t, well, he’d just put them down.
He just needed a job. Something to really grab their interest.
In the meantime, however, he still needed Tripp, so instead of punching him in the mouth, he said, “We’ll get some work. But first, I want a closer look at this woman.”
“Sounds good to me, partner,” Tripp said, following him across the street. “Looking is free.”
And there was that stupid smile again. Some men weren’t happy unless they were broke. That was Tripp. Being destitute brought out plucky cheer in the idiot.
Henry stayed half a step in front of Tripp. His chest led the way, and he swung his shoulders back and forth in a confident swagger. You had to let folks know you were in charge.
Every new situation, he waded in like he was stepping into the ring again.
He’d done well as a prizefighter back east, whipping all nine of his opponents. The first eight were Philadelphians, like him.
Trouble was, no one would fight him then. No one in Philadelphia or New Jersey had the guts.
Then he’d finally gotten his big break against New Yorker and top American lightweight contender, Burgess Mack.
After thirteen brutal rounds, both men had answered the fourteenth bell, gasping and bleeding, and Henry, a southpaw, had nailed Mack with a thunderous left and dropped him to the canvas.
The ref counted him out, and for a brief moment, Henry had celebrated. He’d won the fight, setting himself up for a match against the American champion, a fight that would bring real money and open the door to fight the lightweight world champion from England.
But then the New York crowd got angry, and people spilled into the ring, and there was a brawl that went on for a few minutes until policemen came in and broke things up, and then, when they got things settled down, the referee lied and said that Henry had fouled Mack, and the fight was ruled a “no contest.”
Henry went straight at the ref and broke some of his ribs before police beat him with their clubs and dragged him off to their lousy jail.
Even now, two years later, the memory still angered him.
He won that fight. He was going places. They stole everything from him.
“Afternoon, gentlemen,” the old geezer who ran the hardware store said. “You boys picking up something for Mr. Jacobs?”
“Not today, sir,” Tripp said, all friendly about it.
Henry just ignored the man and kept walking. How much money did hardware stores keep in the till?
Not enough. He needed an exciting job, something to turn these men from a passel of shiftless drifters into a gang of hardened desperados.
Knocking over a hardware store for a pocketful of pennies wouldn’t do that.
He needed a big job. More money. Something to get them fired up.
That’s what he needed. But right now, what he wanted was a closer look at this woman with the blond hair.
“There she is,” Tripp said and pointed out the back door to where the woman and the tall man stood, talking to Tim Blye, who worked here.
Henry went out there, pretended interest in a keg of nails, and snuck a glance at the woman.
She had her back to him, so he couldn’t see her face, but he sure could see the rest of her, including that honey-colored hair where it wasn’t covered by her bonnet.
She wore a pale blue dress. It was modest, of course.
The best-looking women always covered themselves up, but he could still see she had a figure to die for.
Wasn’t no dress in the world could hide that.
The tall man turned then, as if he sensed Henry looking at his wife.
But if that was the case, the man sure was friendly about it.
He smiled and nodded.
Henry nodded back, irritated as much by the man’s face as his great height and broad shoulders. Because he was handsome, too, despite a big scar that ran down one cheek, with a square jaw and a straight nose and gray eyes.
Which made Henry even angrier, even though he didn’t waste any time wondering why.
Then the man turned his attention back to Blye, who handed him a sheet of paper and said, “All right, Mr. Sullivan, you take that in to Mr. Diems, and he’ll get you all set up.”
“Any idea when you can make delivery?” Sullivan asked in a deep voice.
“Should be just a few days is all,” Blye said. “And that’s good. You’ll want to get a roof on that barn before the snow comes down from Mt. Sherman.”
Sullivan nodded. “We’ll get the barn up, roof and all, before the snow flies.”
“Well, I like your spirit, Mr. Sullivan,” Blye said, “but I do wish I could deliver sooner. This is Colorado. You never know when the next storm’s coming.”
Sullivan smiled. “A few days is fine. It’ll give us time to finish prepping the site and dig our postholes. Besides, Mary and I haven’t spent much time in town, so we were looking forward to doing some shopping and maybe trying one of your restaurants instead of working today.”
“That’s nice,” Blye said. “If you’re open to suggestions, I would recommend you folks try the Barton Inn. They’re a little pricey, but their food is the best I’ve had this side of the Mississippi.”
“Well, then, we’ll just have to try the Barton Inn,” Sullivan said. “Thank you, sir, for the recommendation.”
“Yes,” Mary Sullivan said, speaking at last, and her voice was nearly as angelic as her face, which Henry finally saw as she and her husband followed Blye back into the building, probably to pay for the lumber before going out on the town.
Seeing her beautiful face with its big blue eyes and rosy cheeks filled Henry with sick heat. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Anywhere. Even back east. Even in New York.
“Golly,” Tripp said, shaking his head after the woman had disappeared back inside. “Some guys get all the luck, huh?”
“Until their luck runs out.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on. I want another look at her.”
He went inside and picked up a length of pipe in case anybody asked what he wanted. Then he got up close to where the Sullivans were standing at the counter.
“We’re south of town on the Cody Road just below Joe Jacobs’s place,” Sullivan said.
“Ah,” Diems said with yet another smile. “I know the place. Heard somebody had staked a claim and was proving up the place.”
“That would be us,” Mary chirped happily, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Well, I’ll have my men out there just as soon as we get everything from the lumber mill. That’s three hundred board feet of rough-cut pine, eight 12x12 beams, four thousand shakes, and enough nails to put it all together. You need any glass panes?”
“No, sir. Not yet. Maybe down the road.”
“All right. You set for hand tools?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hinges?”
Sullivan looked at his wife, who bit her lip.
Henry would like to bite it for her.
Sullivan smiled. “I’m glad you asked, Mr. Diems. Better put us down for hinges, too.”
The men talked for a time about the barn Sullivan was planning and worked out the number of hinges.
Henry couldn’t imagine working at a hardware store, listening to people talk, working things out. He wouldn’t last a day.
“All right then, Mr. Sullivan, delivery on that’ll run twenty-five dollars. Here’s your total.” Diems pushed the bill across the counter.
Mary Sullivan peered down at it. Her pretty blue eyes swelled, and she turned to her husband with an anxious expression.
Sullivan smiled reassuringly, rubbed her back with a big hand, and drew a leather pouch from his pocket. When he dropped the pouch on the counter, it gave a clink that Henry knew well.
Sullivan opened the pouch, pulled out seven twenty-dollar gold pieces, and cinched the sack tight again—but not before Henry spotted what looked like at least another dozen golden eagles.
That sick heat in him cooled at the sight of the money, growing purposeful and dangerous.
“Come on, Tripp,” he said, tossing the pipe onto a stack of flour sacks. “Let’s get out of here.”