Free Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden by J. Lee Butts Page A

or Carl at checkers two or three times a day, or generally dawdling around and wasting daylight, admit that I felt right pert and more than ready for something to happen—anything. And sure enough, it did.
    Come a beautiful morning, as I recall it. Come on just the right combination of blue sky and puffy white clouds that day. Temperature proved bearable, long as a body didn’t move around too much. Still and all, one of our seeming endless days of less than productive indolence. And, as usual, the three of us broke-down lawmen were stationed in our rocking chairs. We’d camped out in a moving wedge of comfortable shade soon as Carl arrived and went to rocking like certifiable maniacs. Sipped at tall, cold glasses of Elizabeth’s fresh-squeezed lemonade and pretty much indulged in the joyful contemplation of another week as thumb twiddlers.
    Then, of a sudden, Carl stopped his rocking. Snatched an ash-laden, smoldering hand-rolled from between twitching lips. Rose and adjusted his royal-colored pillow a bit, then pointed out a cloud of dust coming up the road from Fort Smith.
    â€œLooks like you might have some more visitors on the way, Hayden,” Carl said.
    Nate climbed out of his chair, strolled over to the veranda’s waist-high railing. Took a seat with his back to one of the porch pillars. “Can’t be absolutely certain from this distance, but that looks like Judge Parker’s chief bailiff, Tilden,” he said.
    â€œYou mean Mr. Wilton?” I asked.
    Nate nodded.
    â€œThink he’s right, Hayden,” Carl said, leaned with his elbows on his knees for a second, then stood and eased up to a spot near Nate.
    Arms crossed over his chest, Carl glanced back, shrugged, squinted hard, then held his arms out and turned his hands up at me as though asking a silent question. Knew from his wordless reaction, he felt Wilton might have a job for the Brotherhood of Blood, and Carl was wondering what we’d do about telling Nate. Still hadn’t brought Swords in our secret society, and that was my fault.
    Turned my attention away from Carl and watched as the rider neared. Made up my mind, right then and there, the time was about as right as it was going to get. Figured if Judge Parker had a new mission for us, might as well talk with Nate and determine if he wanted a place in the Brotherhood. Carl and I had discussed such an action when the three of us went down to Waco looking for John Henry Slate. But Billy Bird’s terrible death still weighed heavy on my mind at the time, and I just had no stomach for thoughts of replacing him.
    George Wilton got in no rush to get to us. Appeared to me as how he was genuinely enjoying the opportunity to get out of Parker’s courthouse for a spell. Man proved quite a sight in the saddle—tall, straight-backed, well-dressed, dignified. Animal he’d chosen for the short jaunt from downtown Fort Smith was a prancer. Black as coal from nose to tail. Fire breather of a stallion. Kind of mount that looked like it just might take off and fly. Sizzle through the air like a bolt of lightning, if given its head.
    Ever since my confidential agreement with Judge Parker to act as his personal manhunter and, as he put it, “the sword in my mighty right hand in the Nations,” George Wilton had acted the part of go-between. Man took care of all my assignments and let me know, in no uncertain terms, whether the judge wanted the men he sent me after to come back dead or alive. All too often past assignments had ended with the admonition to kill them, kill them all. Knew as soon as Nate spotted Wilton coming toward the house that something requiring my deadly services was very likely in the works.
    Wilton reined his midnight-colored steed to a halt, stepped down, then looped the reins over my hitch rack. For all his poise and flamboyance in the saddle, George Wilton proved exactly the opposite when afoot. A large man, his legs appeared too