seen her, have you?” Prew asked.
“No. I told you, I ain’t never been to no whore house nowhere before.”
“Well, sir, they call her Flat Nose Sue ’cause she’s done got her nose broke so many times by drunk cowboys and the like, that when you look at her sideways, it purt’ nigh looks like she don’t have no nose at all,” Prew explained.
“Oh,” Hank said, even more dispirited than before.
“But she don’t look all that bad when you are lookin’ at her from the front,” Timmy said. “’Ceptin’ for how old she is,” he added.
“Tell you what,” Prew said. “Why don’t we all go into town first thing in the mornin’ after we get off work? Seein’ as we’re goin’ to be ridin’ herd all night, it’ll be early in the mornin’ and there won’t hardly be nobody else there. We can have our pick.”
“Except for Hank,” Timmy said. “He don’t get his pick, ’cause he’ll have to lay with Big Nose Sue.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be free,” Prew said.
“You lucky dog,” Timmy said, reaching over and striking Hank playfully on the shoulder. “You’re goin’ to get it for free.”
“Yeah, I’m just real lucky,” Hank said without enthusiasm.
The colt whinnied again.
“Sounds like one of the colts might have got somewhere it shouldn’t be,” Hank said. “I’ll go take a look.”
Prew waited until Hank rode out into the darkness, then he laughed.
“We got that boy so up tight that right now you couldn’t drive a straw up his ass with a ten pound sledge hammer,” Prew said.
Timmy laughed, then asked, “You sure Flat Nose Sue will go along with it?”
“She said she would,” Prew answered. “This is going to be funnier than all hell.”
“Yeah, I reckon so. But it’s sort of a dirty trick when you think about it. Lord I hate to think of breakin’ him in with Flat Nose Sue. I mean, she could turn a fella off women for life,” Timmy said.
“She ain’t really all that bad,” Prew said.
“How do you know?” Timmy asked. Then he laughed out loud. “I’ll be damn. You’ve had her, ain’t you?” He laughed and slapped his hand against his leg. “I can’t believe you’ve actually had her. Does Jenny know that?”
“What’s Jenny got to do with it?”
“I thought you was kind of sweet on her. You always hangin’ out with her at the Sand Spur.”
“She’s s’posed to hang out with me. That’s her job.”
“It’s the job of all the girls in the Sand Spur, but she’s near ’bout the onliest one I ever see you with.”
“Maybe you got it backward,” Prew teased. “Maybe she’s sweet on me.”
“Ha! I can see that,” Timmy said.
Suddenly, their banter was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the darkness.
“What the hell is Hank shootin’ at?” Prew asked.
“I don’t know,” Timmy answered.
“Hank? Hank, what is it you are shootin’ at? A cougar?” Prew called out.
“Hank? Where you at?” Timmy called. “What the hell? Where’s Hank? How come he ain’t answerin’ us?” Timmy asked.
“Maybe we’d better go see what’s goin’ on,” Prew replied.
Timmy and Prew were both wearing guns, and though sometimes in town they liked to wear them low and kicked out in the way of a gunfighter, neither of them had ever done anything but take a few pot shots at a rabbit now and then. Nevertheless, both men drew their pistols, then rode out into the darkness to check on Hank.
Before they had gone too far, gunshots erupted in the night, the herd of horses illuminated by the muzzle flashes.
“Rustlers!” Timmy shouted.
“Let’s get out of here!” Prew said.
Firing their own pistols, even though they had no target, the two young men tried to run, but within less than a minute, both had been shot from their saddles, and once again, the night was still.
Sitting quietly in his saddle after having dispatched a few other riders to take care of business, Poke Terrell saw one of those riders, Sam Logan, appear from the darkness.
“What was the shooting?” Poke asked.
“It was just like you said. She’s got night riders out watchin’ over her herd.”
“How many of ’em was there?” Poke asked.
“They was three, but we took care of all of ’em.”
“Good. Now, round up seventy-five horses, and let’s get out of here.”
“Say Poke, I heard that these here horses is worth a hunnert dollars apiece,” Logan said. “How come we only been getting’ twenty-five dollars apiece for ’em?”
“Because to us, twenty-five dollars apiece is all they are worth.”
“Why is that?”
“This here is the only horse ranch in the county. You want to take ’em in Medbury to sell, do you? Or maybe to Glen’s Ferry or King Hill?”
“No. More’n likely the horses would be recognized there.”
“Then don’t you think it would be better to sell them to someone who will give us twenty-five dollars a horse and not ask questions? Poke asked.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Logan said.
“Maybe you aren’t as dumb as I thought.”
Out in the dark, Jason Prewitt crawled on his stomach until he reached Timmy.
“Timmy! Timmy!” he said, whispering as he shook the body. He was afraid to speak any louder because he was afraid he would be heard.
Helplessly, Prew lay in the dark and watched the rustlers round up the horses, then take them away.
“Son of a bitch,” he said to himself. “That’s Poke Terrell.” Prew reached for his pistol, but his holster was empty. He had lost his gun somewhere in the dark.
Not until they were gone did he get up. Favoring the wound in his shoulder, he found his horse, and rode back to the big house to report the robbery.
Mrs. Wellington wasn’t going to like this. She wasn’t going to like it at all. The only reason there were nighthawks out at all was to prevent just such a thing from happening. At least, that’s what they were supposed to do. But they failed.
The next day
“I arranged for Timmy’s body to be sent back to Missouri where his family is. He’ll be goin’ out on tomorrow’s train,” Tyrone Canfield told Kitty. Tyrone Canfield had been foreman of Coventry on the Snake for eighteen years, long before Kitty had married Sir Thomas Wellington. Thomas died three years earlier, but, at Kitty’s request, Tyrone had stayed on as her ranch foreman.
“What about Hank?” Kitty asked.
“Hank, being raised in an orphanage and all, I done like you said,” Tyrone replied. “I made arrangements to bury him in the cemetery in town.”
“Not in Potter’s Corner?”
“No, ma’am, he’ll have him a spot right in the middle of the cemetery.”
“Good.”
“You’re