This Gun for Hire by Jo Goodman Read Free Book Online Page A

together. The twenty-first out of Ohio. Came this way separately. I mustered out after Grant and Lee made peace, but Bagger stayed and took up with the cavalry. He was a scout during the war and liked it, so that’s what he did.”
    “Army scout,” Quill said softly, thoughtfully. It explained some things. “And you say she was hanging on his every word?”
    “Every word. Every deed. She learned from him. Of course, Bagger was confronting a different situation out here. What he learned about tracking in the Western territories, he learned from the Indian scouts the Army employed. Calico absorbed it like a sponge.”
    “You know, she asked me if
I
was a bounty hunter.”
    Joe chuckled. “That sounds like her. If she was competing for a reward, she would want to know it.”
    “Makes sense, I suppose, but she was hired by Mrs. Fry. There is no bounty on Nick Whitfield.”
    Joe stopped rubbing his knee. He reached across thescarred oaken desk for a stack of papers, wet his thumb, and began sifting through them. “Huh,” he said, studying one for a moment. He pulled it out and passed it to Quill. “Here’s the leader of that rustling outfit I was telling you about.”
    Quill looked the reward poster over. The face staring back at him was quite ordinary, someone people would pass by without a second glance. The rustler’s only distinguishing feature was his glasses. You did not see that often in a wanted poster, and Quill thought it was a reasonably good disguise. Once the man removed them, he would be all but invisible in a crowd. “Shelton area, right?”
    “Good memory.” He jerked his thumb at the wastebasket beside his desk. “You can throw it in there. We got him.”
    “With or without his glasses?”
    “With. Turns out he can’t see his hand in front of his face if he doesn’t have them on.”
    “I thought they were a disguise. He looks like a mail clerk or an accountant.” He crumpled the paper, tossed it in the basket, and accepted another notice from the sheriff. This time it was Nick Whitfield who stared back at him. The artist had drawn eyes that were dark, narrowed, and flat. The proportions of the man’s broad features were correct, but they were set without expression. The effect was to make Whitfield seem dull, not threatening. It was not a particularly good likeness, but probably good enough for people who had met the man to identify him.
    Quill whistled softly as he read the particulars. He looked up from the sketch and met Joe’s eyes. “He robbed a bank? He’s worth five hundred dollars because he robbed a bank?”
    Joe nodded.
    “And nothing at all because he beat a whore.”
    “I am not having that argument again,” Joe said, sighing. “You heard me before. It’s the way of the world. That notice came to my office a couple of days ago, while Calico was hiding out at Mrs. Fry’s.”
    “Then she doesn’t know about this.”
    “Nope.”
    “But you are going to tell her.”
    “Is that a question? Because I’m not sure I like it as a question. Of course I am going to tell her. It would be foolish, don’t you think, to tell you and keep it from her?”
    Quill thought so, too, but he had to be sure. He apologized to the sheriff for the slight on his integrity. Joe Pepper acknowledged the apology with a guttural utterance that might have meant anything. Quill chose to take it as acceptance. He returned Whitfield’s likeness when the sheriff held out his hand for it.
    “Shouldn’t Miss Nash be here by now?” asked Quill. They had left her to settle up with Mrs. Fry and speak to the doctor. She promised to escort Amos to the jail once Doc Maine examined him. Surgery, if required, would be performed in one of the cells. The only person who objected to that was Amos, and Joe reminded him that he did not get a vote.
    Joe looked past Quill to the window. Full-on darkness was closing in fast and the stores across the street were shuttered. Lamplight shone from windows above the