Free A Frontier Christmas by William W. Johnstone Page A

time now, ain’t no tellin’ how long he’s been dead. Anyhow, it’s tight against the wind, and even has a fireplace. There’s a creek out back for water.”
    â€œThe creek will be all froze up,” Sunset complained.
    â€œWe can break out ice and melt it,” Jesse said. “We’ll hole up here for a while. Let’s get moved in.”
    â€œHow long you plannin’ on us stayin’ here?” Sunset asked.
    â€œYou got someplace else you need to be?” Jesse asked.
    â€œNo place in particular, but you may have took notice, there ain’t no saloon around here. There ain’t no girls, you know the kind I mean, around here, neither. Hell, there ain’t even no cafés around here.”
    â€œWe got bacon, beans, coffee, flour, sugar, and salt. You want more ’n that, we got a whole forest filled with critters we can kill ’n eat. You afraid you’re goin’ to starve?”
    â€œIt ain’t that. It’s just that what good is it to have money, if you ain’t got no place to spend it?”
    â€œYou can’t spend money if you’re dead,” Jesse answered. “And right now, what with ever’ one knowin’ we was the ones that killed the Guthries, there ain’t no place we can go for a while, without maybe bein’ seen and recognized.”
    â€œSo, we’re just goin’ to stay here?”
    â€œWhy not? We’ve got us a house. And anyone who might be comin’ lookin’ for us is goin’ to have to come right through this draw. There ain’t no other way in, unless they come over the mountains.”
    â€œThat’s right,” T. Bob agreed. He chuckled. “And the only way they can come here like that, is if they’re ridin’ mountain goats.”
    â€œIt just don’t seem right, us havin’ to stay here,” Sunset complained.
    â€œWell, Sunset, if you want to go now, go on. Go back to Millersburgh, or to Rawhide Buttes, or Bordeaux. Maybe they haven’t heard of you yet.”
    â€œAnd maybe they have. You’ll more ’n like get your neck stretched if they have.” T. Bob made a fist, then put it beside his neck and made a retching sound in his throat. He let his head flop over to one side and laughed.
    â€œThat ain’t funny,” Sunset grumbled.
    â€œThen I reckon you’d better stay with us for a while longer. Tell you what, come the first big snowstorm—I mean a really big one so’s nobody is out lookin’ around—we’ll leave here, and head south.”
    â€œSouth where?”
    â€œI’ve always sort of wanted to see Texas,” Jesse said.
    Sidewinder Gorge, Wyoming
    Located in the Laramie Mountains, the gorge was so well concealed by the rocks and ridgelines that guarded its entrance that it couldn’t be seen unless someone was specifically looking for it. At the entrance to the canyon was a pinnacle from which someone could keep a watchful eye, thus preventing anyone from approaching without being seen. Down inside the canyon, a fork from the North Fork Laramie River supplied a source of water.
    Those were the virtues that had caused Sidewinder Gorge to be selected as an outlaws’ hideout. There, too, were built a dozen adobe structures to house the outlaws who had made it their hideout.
    Max Dingo, the recognized leader of the group, and Wally Jacobs and Nitwit Mitt arrived after holding up the stagecoach at Pulpit Rock. Their take from that holdup had been a very disappointing one hundred and fifteen dollars.
    â€œDamn. It was hardly worth it,” Dingo said in disgust. He was sitting at a table with a woman known as Bad Eye Sal, so called because she had a drooping eyelid. The eyelid was the result of a run-in with a drunken customer when she was a saloon girl down in New Mexico. Two weeks later, she killed the man who had cut her up, then left town. She lived in Sidewinder Gorge, along