Outlaw Hearts(69)

God only knew where the bastard had gone, let alone what had gotten into him in the first place, taking that girl out from under their noses and returning her to her family. Hell, Harkner was handsome enough that he could have fucked the girl without her even protesting; but what did he do? Drew those damn guns of his and blew away half his men to get her out of there. Damn sonofabitch! He thought he knew the man. Hell, Jake had ridden with them for quite a while, robbed banks and trains with them, drunk and whored it up with the best of them.

He was pissed at himself for not realizing a man as good with those guns as Jake was would eventually decide to be his own boss. That was probably it. He might be gathering up a gang of his own right now. Whether he was or not, he had to be found. A man like Jake didn’t stay low for long. Those guns of his were bound to get him into trouble.

He won the hand with three aces and pulled in his money, leaving a five-dollar bill in the pot and waiting for the next man to deal, spitting again and missing again. Juan raked in his own money. “I’m goin’ to find me a woman for the night,” he said in his raspy voice, forever damaged by an old wound that left still another scar on the man, across his throat. So far, no one had gone up against Juan with a knife and won. “One of the men in here told me about a whore at a saloon up the street who likes ugly men.”

Kennedy chuckled. “Go ahead.”

“I think we should go on west, boss. We’ll all get bored sittin’ around here all winter.”

Kennedy glanced at the other men at the table, strangers who looked uneasy at their presence, especially Juan’s. “We’ve got somebody to find yet. If we don’t find him by spring, we’ll leave then.”

“I want to find him as bad as you do, patrón, but you will not find him if he don’t want to be found. You know that.” Juan scowled and pulled on his jacket, walking out.

“You, uh, you in for another hand, mister?” one of the others at the table asked.

Kennedy scratched at the stubble on his face. He supposed he ought to find a bathhouse, hadn’t had a good soak for weeks. “Yeah, deal me one more hand.”

One of the others at the table began dealing, glad the one called Juan had left and wishing the Mexican’s friend would do the same. He had a pretty good idea that this Bill Kennedy and the men who had barged into their little town outside of Omaha a couple of days ago were a bad lot, maybe wanted men; but dangerous enough that nobody around here was willing to go to the law in Omaha and start any trouble. Kennedy was a hard-looking man, with blue eyes that cut into you like a knife, his sandy-colored hair looking greasy, a scar down his right cheek. He was a tall, well-built man, perhaps in his thirties, the dealer guessed, and he could be pretty good-looking if he were cleaned up. Kennedy and his men were heavily armed, and the man couldn’t help wondering if the money they were gambling with was stolen. The one called Juan kept talking about how much money there was in the gold towns out west, how he wished they would head that way before spring.

“Damnedest thing I ever seen,” a man at the next table was saying, his voice growing louder from whiskey.

One of Kennedy’s men who sat at that table turned to look at his boss. “Hey, Bill, come over here and listen to this.”

“I’ve just got dealt another hand,” Kennedy grumped.

“Throw it in. This is important, unless you don’t care this guy over here might know somethin’ about Jake.”

Kennedy straightened, looking over at them. He threw in his hand and grabbed up his money, leaving the table and causing the rest of them there to breathe a sigh of relief. He dragged his chair to the next table and turned it, straddling it and resting his arms on the back of it. He looked at his friend. “This better be good, Jeb. I had a good hand.”

The one called Jeb grinned, showing a missing tooth in front. He laid down his cards and nodded toward a man sitting across the table from him and looking a little nervous now. “That’s Les Stanton. This past spring he was workin’ at a tradin’ post about three weeks west of here.” He leaned back. “Les, this here is Bill Kennedy, a friend of mine, you might say. Tell him what you just told me.”

Stanton swallowed. He didn’t like any of these men any more than the others in this little town did, but he was no more ready to give them trouble than the next man. They all looked mean enough to kill a man for smiling wrong, about as mean as the one who had called himself Jake Turner looked the day he shot things up at the trading post over that woman.

Stanton took a swallow of whiskey. “Well, Mr. Kennedy, I, uh, I was just tellin’ your friend here about somethin’ that happened at the tradin’ post where I’d been workin’. Some travelers came along, a preacher fellow, dropped off a woman name of Miranda Hayes who’d been snakebit. They went on without her, figurin’ she’d most likely die, I expect. The man who owns the tradin’ post, Jack Nemus, he took her in and took care of her.” He grinned. “More than took care of her, if you know what I mean.”