Free The Copper City by Chris Scott Wilson Page B

the other side of the border.”
    â€œPatience,” Quantro counseled.
    Pete snorted. “Patience and we’ve lost ’em.”
    Quantro shot him a hard look. “No patience and you’re dead.”
    ***
    â€œYou think they’ve found them yet?” Dobey asked, twisting in his saddle to look at their back trail.
    â€œNaw,” Upton replied, squinting ahead at the scrub covered hills.
    â€œBut you’re sure we’re being followed?”
    â€œI can feel it.” Upton rubbed a hand across the back of his neck as though unseen eyes had burned his skin.
    â€œA posse?”
    â€œNaw. Quantro and that old coot who rides with him.”
    â€œWhy them? Maybe when they found out we’d already taken the shipment they headed on back for Cananea.”
    Upton shook his head. “Naw. That Quantro’s different. He can add up what’s happening. I’m beginning to wish I stuck a knife into him out in the alley when I killed Hulbert.”
    â€œI figured Hulbert was okay.”
    â€œI’d already planned for Jeffers and Webster here to join up with us. Splitting it five ways would have been too generous. Four’s just right.” He grinned slyly, then winked slowly. “Anyhow, we might lose these two along the trail somewhere. You and me, that’s one lot of money between the two of us, ain’t it?”
    Dobey smiled. Yes, Upton was right, but he still disagreed with him killing Buck Hulbert. And just because Hulbert had passed some remark about that Mexican woman. Hulbert had been right too, she had been the ugliest looking female south of the border. Fact was, Dobey had seen prettier looking steers. When they got over the border now, things would be different. There would be fine-looking, no, beautiful women. With that kind of money they could buy all the women they could ever want. And it would take a man some time to get used to the idea.
    And he was going to enjoy getting used to it.
    Upton had fallen back into his customary silence. The way he figured it, a man would have to be plain foolish to waste his energy just by talking under this hot sun. So he retreated into his thoughts.
    Quantro worried him more than he cared to admit to Dobey. As soon as Harley had taken Quantro and Wiltshire on to the payroll, he had made it his business to find out what there was to know about them. Wiltshire was an open book. A few drinks and his whole history came out. A two-bit prospector, searching for a dream until his head was busted in by banditos by the waters of the Escondido. After being rescued, he had been living with Apaches in the mountains of the Sierra Madre until he met Quantro.
    Quantro was a different case altogether. A man hunter. Two years of tracking four men doggedly across as many territories until he caught up with each of them and paid them out in full. It made him a man to watch. Dangerous and patient. A deadly combination. Upton wished to God he had taken him out of the game back in Santa Cruz. He hadn’t wanted Quantro or Wiltshire along on the trip in the first place, but the three other men had made the journey before and Upton had feared they had figured his plan out. It had been easy to spike their food so they went down with food poisoning. He hadn’t figured on Harley picking Quantro and Wiltshire to replace them. He had hoped they wouldn’t be so fast to catch on to what was happening. Now he wasn’t quite sure. They had both seemed to be watching him extra carefully before he’d sent over Hulbert with the doped whiskey.
    He checked the sun. One thing, if they were after him, they’d both have heads as sore as bears. He could only hope that would slow them down.
    ***
    â€œIt make any sense to you?” Pete asked, one leg hooked around the saddle horn of his motionless pony. On the ground in front of him, Quantro was casting back and forth across a mess of sign. Occasionally he frowned and stooped for a