Free Under a Turquoise Sky by J. R. Roberts Page B

seen the color of his money.”
    â€œGood point. How about some lunch?”
    â€œSounds good. I’ve got some money left.”
    â€œSo do I. Hopper House?”
    â€œWhy not?” Clint asked. “Been eating there since I got to town.”
    â€œFound the best place right off, huh?” Chance said. “Me, I ain’t eaten there in awhile. Be nice to get some good food into my belly.”
    â€œSounds good,” Axel said, eyeing them both.
    â€œOh, hell, Axel,” Clint said, “why don’t you come along?”
    â€œReally?” the liveryman said. “I ain’t never et at Hopper House.”
    â€œGo get cleaned up some,” Clint said. “We’ll wait.”
    â€œCleaned up?” the man said, aghast. “You don’t mean…a bath?”
    â€œJust get some of the horse smell off of you,” Clint said. “We don’t want to get kicked out before we have a chance to eat.”
    â€œI got me some bay rum in the back,” Axel said. “You know, case I ever meet a lady?”
    â€œWell, wash yourself off in that horse trough back there and then slap on some bay rum. We’ll wait out front.”
    â€œI’ll hurry it up!” he said anxiously. “Don’t leave without me.”
    Clint and Chance went out in front of the livery to wait.
    â€œYou know you’re bein’ followed,” Chance said to Clint.
    â€œI know,” Clint said. “Spotted them right off. Two men. Sometimes they take turns, sometimes both.”
    â€œWhat’s it about?”
    â€œDon’t know,” Clint said. “Might be friends of Mike Dolan.”
    â€œWay I heard it, Dolan didn’t have no friends.”
    â€œYou mean like you?”
    â€œNo,” Chance said. “I got no friends because I don’t want ’em. Dolan didn’t have no friends because he was a sonofabitch.”
    â€œI got you,” Clint said. “In any case, I’ve just sort of been waiting on them to make some kind of move.”
    â€œI end up gettin’ shot, I’m gonna want some hazard pay,” Chance told him.
    â€œI think I can get Markstein to go for that,” Clint said.
    Axel appeared from around the side of the stable, running. The smell of bay rum preceded him.
    â€œThought you mighta left without me,” he said. “We ready to strap on that feed bag?”
    â€œThe question is,” Clint said, “are they ready for us?”
    Â 
    â€œI don’t like it,” Breckens said.
    â€œLike what? That they’re eatin’ and we’re not?”
    â€œChance went and bought supplies, enough for an overnight to one of the mines,” Breckens said. “That means he’s probably gonna guide the dandy to his mine.”
    â€œAnd Adams?”
    â€œHe was lookin’ at horses, and if you’ve seen his horse you know he don’t need one.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo all that means that the three of them are gonna be headin’ up the mountain tomorrow.”
    â€œSo we need help?”
    Breckens, going against everything in him, said, “Yeah, we need help.”

TWENTY-ONE
    Hopper was appalled when Clint and Chance entered his restaurant with Axel—even more so because he had to give them a table in the middle of the room, because they would not all fit at the corner table Clint had used earlier.
    Clint wasn’t comfortable with the center table, so he was going to have to keep an even warier eye out while he ate.
    â€œI’ll watch your back,” Chance promised him.
    â€œThanks.”
    As it turned out, Axel wasn’t embarrassing at all. He ate slowly, and carefully, and did not use his hands. This seemed to mollify the owner somewhat.
    They all had bowls of beef stew, soaked it all up with biscuits and washed it down with beer.
    â€œI gotta thank you fellers,” Axel said. “I ain’t et that good in years.” He stood