Free Snake Eyes (9781101552469) by Jory Sherman

that?”
    â€œThere’s other jobs,” Sorenson said. He put his hat back on and squared it.
    â€œNot as good as this one,” Schneck retorted.
    â€œMaybe better,” Sorenson said.
    â€œIs that a threat, Sorenson?”
    â€œNope. I just don’t cotton to no gunplay, that’s all. Without good reason, anyways.”
    â€œYou liked Rudolph, didn’t you?”
    â€œI thought he was a good kid. Light on brains, but a hard worker.”
    Schneck stiffened in his chair at the head of the table.
    â€œWell, with this jasper on the roan, we got us a black boy in the woodpile, Sorenson. I want to know if you might be interested in a little bonus, some sugar in your pay.”
    â€œThat depends, Snake. What kind of string is tied to that bonus?”
    â€œYou’re a tracker. I want you to track that man down and kill him. His horse tracks should still be fresh.”
    Sorenson drew in a deep breath.
    â€œJust like that, eh?” he said. “Track a man down and put his lamp out. No judge, no jury, just the law of the six-gun.”
    â€œJust like that,” Schneck said.
    â€œOtherwise?”
    â€œOtherwise, draw your pay and light a shuck out of here,” Schneck said.
    Sorenson stood up. He looked at the three other men, then at Schneck.
    â€œI’ll sleep on it,” he said, and walked out of the cabin. They heard him climb into the saddle and ride away.
    â€œWhat do you think of that, Snake?” Hal asked. He stubbed out the butt of his cheroot with his foot, grinding it down into the black earth.
    â€œI think we got more than one darkie in the woodpile,” Schneck said, and his cold eyes turned even colder and pale as shirred egg whites in a black bowl.
    The three men looked down at their hands as if they wished they were anyplace else but there in that log cabin with Schneck.
    None said a word, and Schneck looked at them with contempt as his neck swelled again and turned the color of an April sunset when the sky in the west was on fire.

ELEVEN

    Mike bunked Brad in a small pitched-roof log dwelling. Brad laid his bedroll out on the dirt floor against the back wall. Joe Arramospe set his blankets at a right angle, with small spruce boughs between him and the floor.
    Sitting outside, the two men watched the sky change colors at sunset. They sat on a pair of pine logs sawed in half. Joe smoked a clay pipe with a long stem while the cook prepared stew for supper. The cook, Renata Tiribio, was a sturdy woman married to one of the sheepmen, Nestor, who was driving the flock down from Cheyenne the next morning. Two women brought bowls of the stew over to Joe and Brad, their faces partially hidden by their ample shawls that they wore like cowls. Brad knew they were not young, and their brown faces were lined with the evidence of past sorrows. He and Joe ate from the steaming bowls and washed down the food from canteens filled with cold creek water. The western sky became a bright smear of red streamers tinged with gold and the ashes of clouds floating in a netherworld of pale blue sky and encroaching dusk.
    Mike walked over after supper and squatted in front of the two men, a pipe clenched in his teeth.
    â€œThere will be coffee,” he said. “Weak coffee so that we will all be able to sleep. Vivelda will bring us our cups.”
    â€œI will patrol the pasture,” Joe said, “until midnight, when Fidelio will relieve me.”
    Mike turned to look at Brad.
    â€œFidelio Yorick is Joe’s cousin,” he said to Brad. “He is also the brother-in-law of the man who was killed and beheaded. His sister was married to the murdered man.”
    Brad was beginning to think that all of the sheepmen and their women were related. He did not know the name of the man who had been beheaded, nor the name of his wife, and he didn’t know if he wanted to know. He missed Felicity, and he was becoming a part of this Basque community despite