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  “Is there some reason you don’t want me in the kitchen with you?”

  She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. She was drying her hands on a towel. Her hair was caught back above her nape, but some strands had come loose and were flying around her head. He thought he’d never seen anything prettier.

  “You make me nervous.”

  “I do?” he asked, surprised.

  “Maybe I should say you…intimidate me.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t answer, but her eyes went to the gun on his hip.

  “Oh.”

  “Do you ever take it off?”

  “Sometimes,” he said, “when I sleep.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “It’s not always wise to take it off, even when I’m asleep.”

  “Must you…” she started, then shook her head and stopped.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “If you want to ask me something, ask me.”

  “Could you sit down? You’re…very big.”

  “I’ll sit if you’ll—give me a cup of coffee.”

  “All right.”

  “And have one with me.”

  “A-all right.”

  She poured two cups of coffee, came to the table with them, and sat down.

  “Must you always be afraid that someone will…will try to kill you?”

  “I guess I must.”

  “That must be a horrible way to live,” she said. “How do you stand it?”

  “The way I live is of my own choosing.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s a result of the way I chose to live my life when I was younger.”

  “Is that when you made most of your…reputation?”

  He scratched his jaw.

  “That’s hard to say,” he said. “Let’s say it’s when I set the tone for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand…”

  “What do you know about me?”

  “Only what I’ve read, and heard.”

  “How much of that do you believe?”

  “I…I guess I believed most of it, until…”

  “Until what?”

  “Until I met you…again.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I guess I’m confused.”

  “I had a wild youth.”

  “Unfortunately,” he said. “Some of the things I did caused me to gain a reputation.”

  “And you have to pay for that for the rest of your life?”

  He shrugged and said, “Yes.”

  “And you accept that?”

  “I have no choice.”

  “You could take your gun off.”

  “What would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my gun on a few days ago, when those men tried to ambush me?”

  “I—I suppose you would have been killed.”

  “That fate doesn’t appeal to me, Serena.”

  “What if you stayed here, lived here?”

  “Here, in your house?”

  She blushed and said, “I mean, what if you took up residence somewhere and took off your gun. Wouldn’t your reputation…uh, go away after a while?”

  “That kind of a reputation never goes away, Serena,” he said. “At some time someone would recognize me and decide to try me. It’s happened before.”

  She looked interested.

  “You tried to do this before?”

  “Once,” he said, “in Mexico. I thought I could settle down there and not be bothered.”

  “Settle?” she asked. “Uh, did you have a woman?”

  “I had a wife.”

  “A wife?”

  “Yes,” he said. “A beautiful Mexican girl.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was recognized by a man who wanted me to face him with my gun.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I refused.”

  “And?”

  “And he and his three friends raped and killed my wife when I was away from my house.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, going pale. “W-what did you do?”

  “I killed them.”

  She swallowed and asked, “All of them?”

  “Yes, all of them.”

  “T-thereby adding to your reputation.”

  He nodded and said, “Through no fault of my own, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wrong,” he said. “What happened was a result of the way I chose to live my life when I was younger. You see, I can’t escape it, Serena. I’ve tried.”

  She stared at him for a few moments, her eyes moist, and then she said, “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  “Don’t be,” Sam said. “It was a long time ago. Would you like me to help you wash these cups?”

  “No,” she said, “no…”

  He stood up and said, “Do I still make you nervous?”

  She looked up at him and said, “Yes.”

  He smiled and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll pass.”

  Sam left the kitchen and went into the living room with Dude Miller.

  Evan McCall looked down at his cards. It was the best hand he’d had all night, and he wanted to be careful not to tip it.

  They were playing seven-card stud, and he had all but one card. He already had a flush, with two of the flush cards in the hole and three on the table. He still had a shot at a straight flush to the queen, if his seventh card was a jack of spades.

  He looked up at Jubal, who was standing at the bar with a beer in his hand. Jubal raised his mug a half inch, just to tell his brother everything looked all right.

  At that moment the batwing doors opened and four men entered. They were all Burkett’s men and, in fact, one of them was John Burkett, Lincoln Burkett’s son.

  Evan and Jubal didn’t know that, because they had never seen him before.

  The Burkett men walked to the bar, and it was plain that they had already been doing some drinking elsewhere. “What’ll it be John?” Jubal heard the bartender ask.

  “A bottle for me and my friends,” John Burkett said. He resembled his father slightly, but since Jubal had still not seen Lincoln Burkett, he didn’t notice that. All he saw was a man about his own age, slighter than he was, pale, with a poor growth of beard. It was clear to Jubal that the others were with him, and he was in charge.

  He leaned over to the bartender and asked, “Who is that fella?”

  “Why, that’s Lincoln Burkett’s son, John,” the barkeep said.

  “Thanks,” Jubal said, and proceeded to listen very carefully…

  “When is this geologist supposed to be getting in, John?” one of the other men asked.

  “He was supposed to have been here already,” John Burkett said.

  “We just gonna wait for him?”

  “For as long as it takes,” John Burkett said.

  “I can’t think of a better place to wait,” one of the others said.

  “You can’t?” Burkett asked. “I can.”

  “Where?”

  “Louise’s.”

  “Johnny, you know you been gettin’ kicked out of there.”

  “Yeah, but now I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “My old man,” John Burkett said, “he bought the place.”

  “And he wants to keep you out?”

  “Yeah,” John Burkett said, “he’s trying to save me from myself.”

  “So what’re we gonna do?”

  “Tonight, we’re going in there and we’re gonna get us Louise’s best girls—for free.”

  “All right,” one of the other men said, and they all laughed.

  “Except for you, Truck.”

  “Why?” the man called Truck asked.

  “You gotta stay outside and wait for the geologist.”

  “That ain’t fair!”

  “I never said it was. Come on, drink up’the girls are waiting.”

  The men drank up and followed John Burkett out of the saloon.

  At the
poker table Evan raked in his chips. He had filled in for the straight flush, which was fortunate because one of the other men had had a higher flush than his.

  “You got to be the luckiest man alive,” the disgruntled loser said.

  “It isn’t luck,” Evan said.

  “What do you call it, then?”

  “You wait for the right hand,” Evan said, “and you play it right. That’s all for me, gentlemen.”

  “Whataya mean?” the loser asked. “You ain’t gonna give me a chance to win my money back?”

  “I’ll be here tomorrow night.”

  “Well, I won’t,” the man said. “I’m leavin’ in the mornin’, and you ain’t leavin’ this table with my money.”

  The table went quiet and everyone around it sensedthe tension. Jubal straightened up at the bar and picked up his rifle. It was one of the ones he’d gotten from the gunsmith shop the day of the ambush on Sam. Ed Collins had insisted that they keep the rifles.

  “I say I am, friend,” Evan said. “If you can’t make it back in this game, you can make it back somewhere down the road.”

  “I wanna make it back tonight, friend,” the man said. “The only way you’re leavin’ this table is dead.”

  Evan eyed the man coldly and said, “Then the next play is all yours.”

  One of the other players leaned over and said, “Don’t you know who that is?”

  The loser’s eyes flickered and he said, “I don’t care who he is. He ain’t leavin’ the table with my money.”

  “His name is McCall,” the other man said urgently. “He’s Sam McCall’s brother.”

  “Sam McCall?” the loser said.

  The helpful player said out of the side of his mouth, “And Sam McCall is in town.”

  The loser’s eyes flickered again and his shoulders slumped as he relaxed.

  “Come on,” Evan said. “Am I leaving or not?”

  “Sure, friend,” the loser said, “sure. You won, you can leave if you want to. I don’t want no trouble.”

  Evan picked up his money and walked over to the bar, to stand next to Jubal.

  “Everything all right?” Jubal asked.

  “Sure,” Evan said. “I’m Sam McCall’s brother, ain’t I?

  Why wouldn’t everything be all right?”

  “You need a drink.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Beer?”

  “Whiskey.”

  Jubal called the bartender over and asked for a whiskey.

  “Guess who I just saw,” Jubal asked when Evan had his drink.

  “Who?”

  “Burkett.”

  “Lincoln Burkett was here?” Evan asked, looking at his brother.

  “No, not Lincoln,” Jubal said, “John, his son.”

  “Oh, so?”

  “He and some of his friend went over to the whorehouse. It seems Lincoln Burkett owns it and has been keeping his kid out.”

  “I wonder what else Lincoln Burkett owns that nobody knows about.”

  “Maybe we should find out.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” Jubal said, “we could ask his son.”

  “Bracing Burkett’s son is looking for trouble.”

  “Ain’t that why we’re here?”

  Evan finished his drink and put his glass on the bar. He was still seething over what had happened at the table. He wasn’t angry that he’d been braced so much as by how it had been resolved. He’d always solved his own problems and had never before depended on being Sam McCall’s brother.

  “Evan?”

  “Are you interested in a whore tonight, Jube?”

  “What?”

  “Share a girl with a fella, buy him a few drinks, and he might talk to you.”

  “Share a girl…”

  “Well,” Evan said, “maybe you won’t have to go that far.”

  Jubal still wasn’t quite sure what his brother was talking about, but when Evan said, “Come on,” he followed him out of the saloon.

  Although Evan and Jubal had not been to Louise’s before they knew where it was from passing it on the street. It was a building the size of the hotel, but there was no sign over the door proclaiming it a whorehouse. Still, everyone in town knew what it was.

  The front door was locked, so they had to knock to gain entry. The man who opened the door was almost as big as Sam, and uglier.

  “Whataya want?” he asked.

  “What do you think we want?” Evan asked. “You serve food here?”

  “Hell, no,” the man said. “Just whiskey and women.”

  “We’ll settle for that,” Evan said.

  “Come on in,” the man said, stepping back.

  When they entered they were almost blinded by the crystal in the chandeliers. In a room filled with overstuffed sofas and brocade curtains, men and women sat around, relaxed, drinking, the women in various stages of undress. The men were comfortable, but they still had their pants on.

  Someone was playing a piano in one corner, and some men and women were standing by the piano, dancing.

  “Would you look at this place?” Jubal asked. “What’s a place like this doing in Vengeance Creek?”

  “I don’t know,” Evan said, still looking around in wonderment.

  “Well, well, new blood,” a woman said, approaching them. She was in her thirties, heavily made up, with lips as red as blood and hair as black as night. She was wearing a black nightgown that left little to a man’s imagination.

  “Hello, boys, my name is Louise. I run this place. I can see you’re impressed, and this is just the downstairs. You should see what happens upstairs.”

  Jubal was dumbstruck. He’d been in whorehousesbefore, but he’d never seen a place like this. Evan had, but only in Portsmouth Square, in San Francisco.

  “You boys want to start with a drink?”

  “Uh, sure,” Evan said.

  “Well, come on then,” she said, linking her arms in theirs. “The whiskey is included in the price.”

  She took them into the sitting room and turned them over to two girls. One was a tall, lank blonde with small breasts, the other a slightly chubby redhead with a very pretty face. They gave each man a drink and sat with them on a sofa. Evan and Jubal were between the two women, who were pressing their thighs tightly against the brothers’.

  Jubal looked up and saw John Burkett and two of his friends pushing past the big man at the door.

  “Uh-oh,” the blonde said. “Looks like trouble.”

  Evan and Jubal watched as the big bouncer tried to bar the three men from entering.

  “Look, fat boy,” they heard John Burkett say, “if you want to keep your job you’ll get out of the way.”

  “You are not allowed in here,” the big man said.

  “If you don’t move,” Burkett said, “we’re gonna move you.”

  At that moment Louise appeared with another big man in tow. The second man joined the first man in blocking the door.

  “Please, John,” Louise said, pleading, “you know your father doesn’t want you in here.”

  “Tell these two to step aside, Louise,” John Burkett said.

  “John—”

  She didn’t get any further before John Burkett threw a punch at one of the men. The big man caught the punch easily and pushed it aside.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Louise said loudly.

  “Move on, cowboy,” the bouncer said.

  “To hell with you,” Burkett said, and threw another punch. This one bounced off the man’s nose, angering him. He drew back a massive fist.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Louise shouted, but the man was beyond hearing her.

  John Burkett ducked and the punch hit the man behind him, knocking him out. The third man with Burkett turned to leave, but the second bouncer caught him by the collar, turned him around, and knocked him to the floor with one punch.

  “Now’s your chance,” Evan said to Jubal.

  “For what?”

  “Get in there,” Evan s
aid, pushing Jubal up off the sofa.

  The girls moved so that they were sandwiching Evan between them, and he threw an arm around each of them and settled back to watch.

  Both bouncers had now cornered John Burkett, and there was no way he was going to be able to duck a punch this time.

  As one of the bouncers drew back his fist Jubal launched himself and landed on the man’s back. Burkett, seeing a reprieve, lowered his head and drove it into the other man’s belly, staggering him back. As the man straightened up Burkett hit him with a punch. The man rocked back on his heels, but refused to go down.

  Meanwhile, Jubal was riding the other man like he was a bucking bronco, holding on for dear life as the people in Louise’s came to life and began shouting encouragement to the two young men.

  Jubal slid his forearm down across the man’s throat and began to throttle him. Meanwhile, Burkett had hit his opponent again, and then fell back a step and launched a kick that landed right between the big man’s legs. Thebouncer gagged and slowly fell to his knees. From that position it was easy for Burkett to kick him in the chin, finally felling the man like a huge tree.

  Jubal’s man was blue in the face by this time and had gone to his knees. This allowed Jubal to plant his feet on the floor for better leverage, and before long the big man was unconscious. Jubal released his hold before he killed him, and the bigger man fell to the floor.

  The place went crazy, cheering and yelling and stomping their feet.

  Burkett and Jubal, both huffing and puffing, looked at each other across the two fallen men, and John Burkett smiled.

  “Much obliged for the help,” he said.

  “Couldn’t see letting them pound on you. Two-to-one odds just ain’t fair.”

  “You two better get out of here,” Louise said.

  Jubal looked at Burkett, raising his eyebrows.

  “Now that you’re in, what do you want to do?”

  “I proved my point,” John Burkett said. “How about I buy you a drink someplace else, by way of thanks?”

  “Sure.”

  They started for the door and Louise said, “What about them?” She was pointing to the two men who had come in with Burkett.

  “When they wake up, tell them to meet me at the saloon,” Burkett said. “I’ll be buying my friend a drink.”

  Burkett went out the door and before following him Jubal looked over at Evan and smiled.