Free The Last Trail Drive by J. Roberts

“Seems to me they all know their jobs.”
    â€œWhat if we mixed up their jobs?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean a good drover, and professional waddie, can do any job on a drive. So we take the men riding flank and make them switch with the men who are riding drag. We make somebody else handle the remuda, and the hoodlum wagon.
    â€œYou want to switch somebody with Spud?” Clint asked.
    â€œHell, no,” Flood said. “The man’s a magician with the chuckwagon, and he picks out good campsites. I don’t want to play around with him.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” Clint said. “I’ll start switching things up. If anybody doesn’t belong he’ll soon start to stand out.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œNow what about the fact that we’re being followed?” Clint asked.
    â€œWhat?” Flood asked. “By who?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Clint said. “I thought you’d be able to tell me who.”
    Flood stopped chewing and stared at Clint.
    â€œWhataya mean by that?”
    â€œI mean I think there’s something you’re not telling me, Hank,” Clint said.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike there’s more to this last drive than meets the eye,” Clint said. “Like maybe if you thought I knew I wouldn’t have come along. Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? I’m here.”
    Flood chewed and swallowed, washing it down with a swig of coffee.
    â€œIt’s not too late,” he said. “You could always leave.”
    â€œIt’s one of my faults, Hank,” Clint said. “I always finish what I start.”
    â€œOkay,” Flood said. “Okay.” He put his plate down and stood up. “Let’s go for a walk.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I don’t want to talk here,” Flood said.
    Clint frowned. If he didn’t know Flood, and trust him, he wouldn’t have agreed.
    â€œOkay, Hank,” Clint said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
    Â 
    â€œYou ever heard of a man named Larry Morgan?” Flood asked, when they were between the campsite and the herd.
    â€œThat sounds like a pretty common name,” Clint said, “but no, I haven’t.”
    â€œHe used to be a trail boss, like me,” Flood said, “but lately, the last few years, he’s gone rogue.”
    â€œRogue?” Clint asked. “How does a trail boss go rogue?”
    â€œInstead of headin’ up a trail drive and a gang of drovers, he heads up a gang of killers.”
    â€œA private army?” Clint asked. “Mercenaries?”
    â€œNot quite,” Flood said. “They ain’t that disciplined. They’re just a bunch of killers. His segundo is a half-breed named Santiago Jones.”
    â€œJones? That his real name?”
    â€œWho knows?” Flood asked. “But the man is a killer, pure and simple. Worst of the bunch.”
    â€œAnd what does this all have to do with your last trail drive?”
    â€œMorgan heard about it,” Flood said. “He’s determined to see that I don’t get this herd to the end of the line.”
    â€œSo he killed Trevor?”
    Flood shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But he knows me well enough to know that wouldn’t slow me down.”
    â€œSo it still could have been something personal that got Trevor killed.”
    â€œYup.”
    They stopped when they got to the point where they could see and hear the herd. There were several riders on watch, and Flood was thinking of increasing that number now that Clint told him they were being followed.
    â€œWe bein’ followed, or watched?” he asked Clint.
    â€œThat’s a good question,” Clint said. “I haven’t seen anybody, but it’s not hard to follow a herd of a thousand steers. But it could be that we’re being watched.”
    â€œMight not be Morgan,”