Free The Loner by J.A. Johnstone

happen. But he had his orders, and he intended to carry them out; otherwise, he might not get paid. A man didn’t have to be young to be in love with money.
    All day long she had carried on, tied hand and foot and lying under a pine tree. Lasswell had finally gotten fed up and told a couple of men to gag her. Rattigan had almost lost a finger trying to follow that order.
    Moss came over to Lasswell and said, “Duncan just died.”
    Lasswell grimaced. “Damn. Ray was a good man. He hung on longer’n I expected him to really.”
    “If he was a good man, he wouldn’t have let a girl shoot him.”
    Lasswell felt a flash of anger toward Moss. “I rode with him for a long while, you didn’t,” he snapped. “I reckon I know how good he was. Anyway, that ain’t no regular gal. She’s a hellcat if ever I saw one.”
    Moss shrugged and then lowered his voice. “Carlson’s gettin’ some of the boys stirred up. He wants to have a go at her, and the others think they ought to have a turn, too.”
    “I never said anybody could do that.”
    “You never said they couldn’t either.”
    Moss had a point. But Moss didn’t know the rest of the plan. Nobody did except Lasswell. He was the only one who had actually talked to the boss. The orders he had were very specific, and they didn’t include molesting Mrs. Browning. But he had allowed the other men to believe they might get a chance to have some fun with their captive, thinking that might make them more inclined to go along with what he wanted. He saw now that might have been a mistake.
    “All right,” he said with a weary sigh. “I reckon we’d better clear the air.”
    The sun was low enough in the sky so that thick shadows were gathering under the trees. Lasswell strode through them to the center of the camp and called, “Everybody gather ’round. I got somethin’ to say.”
    The men formed a rough circle around him. Lasswell looked at them and thumbed his hat back on his head. Then he lowered his hand and hooked his thumb behind his gunbelt, so that his fingers hung near the butt of his Colt.
    “There’s been some complainin’ around the camp because you fellas ain’t had a chance to get more…friendly-like…with Mrs. Browning.”
    “Damn straight,” Carlson said.
    “Well, I’m here to tell you, that ain’t gonna happen.”
    The men stared at him in surprise. Some of them, like Rattigan, didn’t seem to care all that much. Others, like Titus Gant and the Winchell brothers, looked mad.
    Carlson was the most upset, though. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” he demanded. He waved a big hand toward Rebel. “She’s right there, and she can’t do a damned thing to stop us. Why can’t we take turns with her?”
    “Because I say you can’t,” Lasswell said. “I’m the boss of this outfit, and what I say goes.”
    “Is it because you want her for yourself?” Gant asked. He wore a black frock coat and a string tie, and when he wasn’t holding up banks or trains—or kidnapping women—he dealt faro in saloons. His voice was soft, but Lasswell recognized a dangerous quality in it. Maybe Carlson wasn’t the one he ought to be worrying about the most.
    “That ain’t it,” he said. “We took Mrs. Browning for the ransom money. That’s all I’m thinkin’ about.”
    “Her husband won’t know that he’s not getting her back in exactly the same condition as he saw her last until after he’s paid the money,” Gant pointed out.
    “Yeah, well, what if he won’t hand over the loot until he’s talked to her? If she tells him that you fellas molested her, he might not pay.”
    Gant shook his head. “That’s loco. He won’t be calling the shots. If he tries anything like that, we’ll just kill ’em both and take the money anyway.”
    “Not if he’s hidden it somewhere.” Lasswell was trying to think of arguments he could use to convince them without having to tell them the truth. “I’m tellin’ you, we got to be careful and