Blood and Bullets

Book 2: Firestick Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

Johnstone Justice. Where it's never quiet on the Western Front.
 
REVENGE ENDS THE DAY WELL
 
As sleepy as Buffalo Peak's been, legendary marshal, Elwood "Firestick" McQueen, and his deputies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks never expected a couple of drifters to wake it up—by kidnapping two lovely ladies in town.
 
Hardly the sharpest quills on a cactus, these dim drifters call it courtin'. Firestick doesn't see it that way. Now the woman snatchers are heading for West Texas with their reluctant brides-to-be—and unwittingly plunging trackers Firestick and Moosejaw headlong into a rescue. With only Beartooth keeping the peace back home, Buffalo Peak's wide open for an outlaw ambush.
 
Sure as dirt, a gang of owlhoots clean out the bank, grab a hostage, and flee, spurring Beartooth on a deadly chase. In one lousy day a lot of people have gotten on Firestick's bad side. And with rifle cocked, and vengeance burning, Elwood “Firestick” McQueen is going to prove just how unforgiving his bad side can be.
 
Live Free. Read Hard.



 

Release date: August 24, 2021

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 330

Sample

For eleven months out of the year, anyone who found themselves passing through Jepperd’s Ford might look around and wonder what needed to be “forded” in this godforsaken, sun-blistered corner of West Texas.

The answer could be found only during the handful of days when the spring rains came hard and every gully and low-lying pocket of land for miles around was awash in muddy torrents except for the hump of rocky ground where the meager collection of ramshackle buildings stood.

It was late on such a day when Charlie Gannon and Josh Stallworth rode into Jepperd’s Ford. With a black, boiling sky overhead and sheet after sheet of rain slicing into them, the sight of the gray, sodden structure that bore a faded SALOON sign above its entrance was a thing of beauty to the eyes of the two drifting cowpokes. After tying their horses to the hitch rail out front, they slogged hurriedly inside.

“Close the damn door and skin outta them drippin’-wet slickers before you swamp the place! Why don’t you just carry in a couple bucketfuls of water and pour ’em all over while you’re at it!”

This warm welcome came from a diminutive old crone behind the plank bar. She couldn’t have stood more than five feet tall, her chin only a few inches above the warped, cigarette-scorched planks nailed down over the tops of three wooden barrels. She had iron-gray hair pulled tightly back into a bun, eyes as black as two polished marbles set in a doughy face with a cruel slash of a mouth from which a corncob pipe poked out of one corner.

She wore a faded blue man’s work shirt (or a boy’s, considering her small frame), tucked into tan corduroy trousers held up by red suspenders and in turn tucked into wine-colored cowboy boots. There was nothing feminine about the shape filling out these clothes; they could have been hung on a cedar log for the same effect.

A gunbelt was buckled around her middle, with a black-handled Schofield revolver riding prominently in the holster.

“There are wooden pegs on the wall there for hangin’ up your gear,” the crone pointed out, her tone mellowing somewhat. “Then come on over here and belly up. I expect you’ll be wantin’ a slug of something to warm your innards.”

“Likely more than just a slug, Grandma,” said Charlie. “But you are definitely on the right track.”

“I got rye, corn squeezin’s, tequila, and beer,” came the response. “And if you call me Grandma again, you pup, I got a wheelful of .45 caliber you can get a slug out of for free.”

“Take it easy, take it easy,” Charlie said, holding up his hands, palms out, as he and Josh strode up to the bar. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“State your business then, and no sass.”

“We’ll have rye. And you can leave the bottle,” said Josh.

“A shot I’ll pour on trust. To put up a bottle, I’ll need to see some money.”

Josh pulled a wad of damp bills from his pocket and laid them on the bar. “There you go. Take what you need.” He was a bandy-legged specimen, medium height, with a potbelly pushing the front of his shirt taut, a bulbous nose, and an unruly thatch of brown hair, some of which was always spilled out from under the front brim of his hat. He was quick to flash a big, toothy smile, and the laugh crinkles around his deep-set blue eyes were testimony to this and to his generally good nature.

The wad of bills on the bar top produced a smile of sorts from the crone, too, but hers was short-lived and neither bright nor toothy. After withdrawing proper payment, she set a bottle of rye whiskey and two glasses in front of the new arrivals.

“There ya be. Wet your gullets. But don’t let that popskull cause you to go rowdy on me.”

Charlie reached eagerly for the bottle and began filling the glasses, saying, “Gettin’ rowdy is the farthest thing from our minds.”

Charlie was half a head taller than Josh, elongated and narrow all over—from his beanpole frame to his blade of a face dominated by a hatchet-sharp nose. He had suspicious little eyes, a weak chin, and limp blond hair that hung in greasy strands down the back of his neck and over his ears. When he tipped back his head to toss down a shot of red-eye, the oversized lump of his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his stringy throat like there was some kind of frantic bug or small wild animal running back and forth under the whisker-stubbled skin, trying to escape.

The two cowpokes slapped their emptied glasses back down on the bar top in unison. This time it was Josh who reached for the bottle to pour some more.

“If you don’t mind me askin’,” he said, filling each glass to the brim, “you got a name you’d rather be called than just ‘barkeep’?”

The crone frowned, considering. “I can live with ‘barkeep. ’ But, if you’re gonna hang around a spell, reckon you might as well make it what most folks hereabouts call me. Ma. Ma Speckler.”

Charlie paused with his drink raised partway to his mouth. “Wait a minute. I called you ‘Grandma’ a minute ago and you threatened to plant a slug in me. But now you’re sayin’ it’s okay for us—along with everybody else—to go ahead and call you ‘Ma’?”

“I reckon that skinny head of yours don’t have room for a lot of thinkin’ before you run off at the mouth, is that your problem?” Ma said sharply. “In the first place, I might be old enough to be a mother to some of your kind who come through here. But that damn sure don’t make me old enough to be no grandmaw! In the second place, your pard there was courteous enough to ask before he started bein’ too forward. That makes a difference, if it ain’t too hard for that skinny head of yours to understand.”

“He understands, Ma,” Josh was quick to assure her, throwing in one of his most charming smiles for good measure. “Ain’t that right, Charlie?”

Charlie, who spent a lot of time being self-conscious about his narrow face and head and didn’t like being reminded of it by others, replied somewhat sullenly, “Like I said, we ain’t here to start no rowdiness.”

“Well, see to it you don’t, then.”

“I’ll tell you what is rowdy, though,” said Josh after tossing down his second drink, “and that’s the doggone weather out there. How long does a storm like this usually last hereabouts?”

“This is the spring,” said Ma. “Could last the rest of the night, could last another day or two. Even if this one lets up, you can bet there’ll be another toad-strangler right on its heels. Then, after a couple, three weeks, it’ll all be over and everything will turn dryer than a fried coyote turd. A drop of rain, except for maybe during a little piece of winter, will be scarce as hen’s teeth until next spring again.”

“In other words,” said Charlie, “ain’t much hope for us ridin’ outta here before tomorrow unless we can grow fins and teach our horses to swim.”

“I wouldn’t even count too strong on tomorrow,” said Ma.

“Damn the luck,” Charlie grumbled.

“Hey, it could be a whole lot worse,” Josh reminded him. “Leastways we’re somewhere warm and dry. Wasn’t only an hour or so ago we were out there in the middle of nothing with no sign of shelter in sight and water rushin’ through every gully and low spot in any direction we looked.”

“Where you fellas from, to allow yourselves to get caught in these empty parts in the middle of the rainy season?”

“We been workin’ for a rancher up Oklahoma way for the past couple years,” Josh told her. “Nice-sized spread. Not too big, room to grow. But then, right after Christmas, the rancher got stomped powerful bad by an ornery ol’ bull. Left him ridin’ a bed for the rest of his days, which probably won’t be many. With him out of commission, his wife and kids wanted nothing to do with keepin’ the ranch goin’. So they sold it off in pieces to some surroundin’ ranchers who already had full crews of their own, leavin’ me and Charlie and a few other fellas all of a sudden out of jobs with no, whatyacall, prospects in the area. So that put us on the drift, lookin’ for a new spot to settle.”

Ma’s expression soured. “Even through the rain, I expect you saw that there ain’t much in the way of decent ranchin’ to be found in these parts.”

“To tell the truth, we wasn’t really payin’ attention,” Charlie told her. “You see, we’ve lately come to agreement on a particular destination we’re aimin’ for.”

“Place about three days’ ride from here. We came through there one time in the past, back before we landed in Oklahoma,” Josh explained. “Peaceful little valley stretched out below the Vieja Mountains. A sprawl of good grassland with ranchin’ outfits that are growin’ bigger all the time. And they got a nice, quiet little town there, too, called Buffalo Peak . . .”

It was storming in Buffalo Peak. Hard. It had been, on and off—mostly on—for the past three days. People used to clear skies, wide-open spaces, and plenty of elbow room were starting to feel hemmed in. Cramped and irritable. Nerves were raw and getting rawer.

“I say it’s mostly on account of this blasted rain,” declared Malachi “Beartooth” Skinner as he tramped down Trail Street, the town’s main drag, keeping to the boardwalks as much as possible, covering the open, sloppy alleyways in long, hopping strides.

“The rain sure as hell ain’t helpin’, I won’t argue that,” responded Elwood “Firestick” McQueen, striding along beside him.

Both men wore black, shiny wet rain slickers and wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hats. Firestick was a powerfully built individual in his early fifties, a shade over six feet, square-jawed, with pale blue eyes and streaks of gray at his temples. On his feet he wore high moccasin boots with fringed cuffs. Beartooth was equally tall, a year or two younger, leaner of frame, with a wedge-shaped face, intense dark eyes, and a dimpled chin that served to somewhat offset the harder angles of his features.

“But ever since Sterling brought in soiled doves and started makin’ ’em available at his place,” Firestick continued, “the outbreaks of trouble there have been steadily on the rise, rain or no rain. And his latest girl, especially—that strawberry blonde—is a trouble-causin’ little teaser who’s ratcheted everything up another notch strictly on her own.”

“So you figure we’re gonna find she’s behind the trouble goin’ on there again tonight?” said Beartooth.

Firestick grunted. “She’ll factor in somehow. I’d bet on it.”

“A troublemakin’ tease and this damn endless rain,” muttered Beartooth as a low, lonely rumble of thunder rolled across the nighttime sky. “Not a good combination.”

By this point they had stepped up onto the stretch of boardwalk that ran in front of a large two-story building with a tall sign that proclaimed in red-trimmed gold lettering: THE LONE STAR PALACE SALOON. The sign was propped on the lip of a narrow strip of shingled awning that jutted out over the entrance and extended across the front of the building. Huddled under this slice of protection, bunched to either side of the batwing doors, were half a dozen men wearing anxious expressions. A couple of them clenched half-empty mugs of beer in their fists.

“You’re none too soon, Marshal,” said one of the mug holders. “There’s trouble brewin’ in there and it’s primed to bust wide open any second.”

“Those High Point wranglers are drunk and riled and takin’ turns eggin’ each other on,” warned another.

“Drunk and riled ain’t all those young rannies are,” somebody else added snidely. “They’re hump-backed for that new gal Sterling’s got in there, and they ain’t ready to back away without gettin’ a turn at what they came for.”

“Well I ain’t drunk or hump-backed, neither one,” grumbled Firestick, “but I’m damn well riled at bein’ drug out in this rotten weather. So you fellas stay here out of the way and we’ll have this tamed down in short order.”

Before pushing through the batwings, Firestick took a second to peel open his slicker, revealing the town marshal’s star pinned prominently to the front of his shirt. Beartooth did the same, revealing a deputy’s tin, as well as the fact he was carrying a double-barreled Greener twelve-gauge shotgun.

The two lawmen entered the Palace in the same long, quick strides that had carried them down the street. Once in, they promptly fanned out, Firestick taking a couple steps toward the side of the room along which ran a rather ornate bar, Beartooth angling a little wider the other way, over toward where some round-topped gaming tables were spaced out.

The scene froze for a moment as all eyes swept toward them. In that instant, Firestick and Beartooth were able to grasp the situation.

Two of the gaming tables had card players seated at them, apprehension and varying degrees of concern showing on their faces. Behind the bar, Earl Sterling, the unflappable, always precisely groomed owner-proprietor of the Palace, stood with his hair uncharacteristically mussed and a trickle of blood leaking from one corner of his mouth.

Also behind the bar, though a few steps down from Sterling, was Frenchy Fontaine, the cool French beauty who served as hostess/entertainer for the establishment and was generally presumed to be Sterling’s lover.

At the far end of the room, near the bottom of the stairs that led up to the second floor, a man sprawled unconscious. His cleanly shaven bullet head and blocky build identified him as Arthur, the Palace’s main bartender and bouncer. Lying on the floor beside him was the thick-barreled billy club—its many dents and nicks signifying frequent use—that Arthur resorted to when things started to get out of hand. It looked like this time he hadn’t resorted to it quite soon enough.

The source of the trouble was as obvious as the bright red blood dribbling from the corner of Sterling’s mouth. It was three liquored-up cowboys, drunk enough and riled enough to feel ready to take on anybody in the saloon or the town or, hell, the whole world.

Two of these hombres were leaning insolently against the bar, one positioned in a way that allowed him to keep an eye on Sterling, the other facing outward toward the men seated at the gaming tables and wearing a sneer that silently challenged them to try and do something if they didn’t like what was going on.

The third troublemaker, a tall, slab-shouldered specimen with a neck like a young bull, stood in the middle of a roughly defined aisle that ran between the bar and the gaming tables. In his right hand he held a drawn revolver, in his left he gripped a sawed-off shotgun similar to the one Beartooth was brandishing. Above and slightly ahead of where the man stood, a thinning haze of powder smoke hung in the air.

When Firestick and Beartooth first came in, the third man had been facing the stairway where Arthur lay crumpled. At the lawmen’s arrival, he cranked his head and upper torso around and raked them with an angry glare.

“Everybody stay just like you are!” barked Firestick, sweeping his slicker open wider and dropping his right hand to hang clawlike above the .44-caliber Frontier Colt holstered on his hip. “You with the guns—drop ’em! The rest of you keep your hands where we can see ’em plain.”

Nobody said or did anything . . . except the apparent leader of the troublemakers. His eyes locked on the marshal, and though he remained very still in his half-turned pose, he didn’t hold back from working his mouth.

“What if I don’t feel like droppin’ my irons, law dog?”

“Then you can die with ’em in your hands. All the same to me,” Firestick replied.

The sneerer at the bar said, “Don’t let him bluff you, Orval. Me and Willis will back your play.”

“That’s a real encouragin’ thing for you to say,” said Beartooth. “Encouragin’ but awful dumb. From where I stand I can cut loose with both barrels and blow you two to mincemeat before you ever clear leather. The spread of this baby might even catch a piece of Orval in the process.”

“That’s mighty big talk,” grated Orval. “But in case you didn’t notice, yours ain’t the only scattergun here. So far I only used this one I took away from the barkeep to club ol’ baldy there when he tried to get in my way. That means I still got a pair of fully loaded barrels, and I’m thinkin’ I got a chance to spin and blast at least one of you meddlin’ bastards before you’re able to cut me down.”

“Thinkin’ it and doin’ it are real different things,” Beartooth cautioned him. “But feel free to find out for yourself.”

Out of the corner of his mouth, never taking his eyes off Orval and keeping the other two in his peripheral vision, Firestick said to Sterling, “What the hell’s this all about, anyway?”

Chalky-faced, his voice trembling a little, Sterling said, “One of my girls, Miss Cleo . . . These fellas showed up lookin’ for a turn with her. But she’s already booked with a client who paid for a whole night’s worth of her services. They’re not willing to accept that.”

Firestick’s expression soured. Miss Cleo. The strawberry blonde he’d had a hunch about.

“You damned right we ain’t willin’ to accept that,” proclaimed Orval. “It plumb ain’t right! It’s greedy and wrong! Me and my pards rode an hour and a half through the rain for a turn with Miss Cleo, only to be told some money-flasher has claimed her for the whole stinkin’ night and we’ll have to wait until another day!”

“There are other girls available,” Sterling wailed. “I offered them their choice—at a bargain price even, due to the inconvenience.”

“We don’t want no other choice. We came to see Miss Cleo,” insisted the sneerer at the bar.

“Let me do the talkin’, Sully,” Orval told him. “You and Willis just stay focused on those law dogs; don’t get distracted.”

“Don’t make no difference who does the talkin’, or how much of it you do! I wouldn’t lay with any of you three ruffians now, even if you had gold coins pourin’ out your ears!”

This declaration came from a new voice, a female one, speaking from the second floor. A young woman stood on the landing at the top of the stairs, leaning on the top rail of the waist-high banister. She was thirtyish, still pretty, though starting to show some wear from the hard life she led. Thick reddish-blond hair spilled around her face and the flimsy gown she wore—scooped low enough in front to reveal the upper swells of her generous breasts.

“Cleo!” Sterling shouted. “Get back in your room. You coming out here won’t do anything to help.”

“Don’t look like anybody else is doing a damn thing to help . . . why should I be any different?” the girl responded. “You let that ape blast the hell out of my door. What if one of those slugs had come through and killed somebody?”

For the first time, Firestick noticed the bullet holes in the partly open door of a room overlooking the saloon from the balcony. That explained the wisps of powder smoke still hanging in the air above Orval; that and the six-gun still in his hand pretty clearly indicated he was the one who’d fired the shots that put the holes there.

Before the marshal could say anything, Orval turned back around and glared up at Cleo, saying, “If those bullets were such a bother, why don’t you have Mr. Moneybags hisself step out here and complain to my face about ’em?”

This gave Firestick the opening he needed. Orval’s obsession with and anger toward the girl, combined with his drunken state, caused him to cap off the series of foolish decisions he’d already made by taking his attention off the lawmen—the very thing he’d warned Sully against only a minute ago.

Without hesitation and all in one smooth motion, Firestick drew his Colt and fired from the waist. The .44 slug expelled by a tongue of red flame smashed into the heel of Orval’s gun hand, just above where he was holding the hogleg down at his side. He yelped in surprise and pain, his bullet-stricken hand jerking involuntarily out in front of him, the gun flying from its grasp.

Perfectly timed to Firestick’s draw, Beartooth elevated his Greener slightly and, also firing from the waist, triggered a single barrel. Smoke and flame belched from the muzzle, releasing a twelve-gauge load that went screaming over the heads of Willis and Sully, destroying a wide section of liquor bottles on a high row above the bar. Amidst the gush of booze and pulverized glass that exploded outward as a result—much of it also drenching Sterling and Frenchy—the two startled cowpokes made frantic dives to the floor, covering their heads with their hands and making no attempt to go for their guns in order to try and “back” Orval.

Following his shot, Firestick moved quickly toward Orval. On the way, as he was passing where Sully had dropped to his hands and knees, the marshal swung a well-timed foot and slammed the heel of his moccasin boot hard to the side of the cowpoke’s head. He did this without breaking stride, leaving Sully knocked cold and flat in his wake, as Firestick continued toward Orval.

The latter was still on his feet, hunched forward, making mewling noises as he pressed his damaged hand to his chest. But the sawed-off remained gripped in his other hand, making him still too unpredictable and dangerous for Firestick to take any chances.

With this in mind, the marshal stepped up behind the big man and clubbed him across the back of his head with the Colt. He had to do this a second time before Orval finally dropped to his knees. As he teetered there, the sawed-off slipped from his grip and thumped to the floor. And then, at last, Orval tipped slowly forward until he dropped face-first and lay still.

When Firestick looked around, he saw that the remaining troublemaker—the one called Willis, the only one of the three still conscious and uninjured—remained on the floor, pushing himself crablike back against the base of the bar, while Beartooth hovered over him with the business end of the Greener practically shoved up his nose.

Over his shoulder, Beartooth asked casually, “This jasper here look to you like he might be thinkin’ about tryin’ to resist arrest?”

“Could be,” Firestick said. “He’s got a kinda shifty look to him. Might be capable of about anything.”

“For God’s sake no!” Willis gasped. “I ain’t gonna try nothing. With a shotgun jammed in my face, you think I’m loco?”

Firestick sighed wearily. “Maybe not. But that sure as hell don’t make you smart.”

“Buffalo Peak, you say?”

The question was posed by a deep, well-modulated male voice from across the room. Its tone was one of simple curiosity, but it caused Josh and Charlie to both turn with a bit of a start. In their haste to get in out of the rain and throw down some belly-warming red-eye, they’d entered Jepperd’s Ford’s nameless, dimly lighted little saloon without either of them noticing there was anyone else besides them and the barkeep present.

They saw now that four people sat at a rough-hewn table positioned back near the far wall. They were outside the pool of pale yellow light cast by the oil lamp hanging from a ceiling beam in the middle of the room. This left them largely in shadow, and, if not for a squat candle burning in the center of their table, it would have been difficult to discern their features even once it was known they were there.

“That’s right . . . Buffalo Peak,” Josh said in answer to the question. He couldn’t tell which of the murky faces had asked it, though one of them appeared to be a woman so he was pretty sure it wasn’t her. Letting one side of his mouth lift into an easy, lopsided grin, he added, “That’s where we’re headed, even though we didn’t reckon on needin’ a boat to make it there and then hopin’ it won’t be washed away once we do.”

One of the faces, a gent of about fifty or so with a long, thin nose, pencil mustache, and fleshy pouches under heavy-lidded eyes, returned something akin to Josh’s grin. On him it was so brief it was more like just the hint of a smile.

“You’ll make your destination okay,” he said, the same voice that had spoken before. “You just need a little patience is all. This rain’s bound to let up before too much longer. When it does, the relentlessly thirsty land around here will suck it up and turn dry again practically in an eyeblink. And then, by the time you get to Buffalo Peak, you’ll find it waiting for you just fine.”

Charlie edged up beside Josh and said, “You familiar with Buffalo Peak, are you?”

“I know of it, yes,” the man with the pencil mustache replied. “Can’t say I’ve ever been there myself, though I’ve met some folks who are familiar with the place and they’ve all spoken highly of it.”

“Good. That’s the way we remember it, too. Hope it ain’t changed none,” said Josh.

“Tell you what, why don’t you fellas take a load off? Bring your bottle, pull up a chair, and sit for a while. Join us,” Pencil Mustache invited. “Don’t let Ma throw too much of a scare into you. It might be hard to believe, but once you get used to her you’ll find she’s actually more human than she-wolf.”

“That might be,” Ma said from her side of the bar, “but I still got fangs enough to tear the bark off your hide, Pierce Torrence.”

Torrence, the man with the pencil mustache, chuckled tolerantly. “Don’t doubt it for a minute, Ma. But put your hackles down. All I’m trying to do is spread a little hospitality and maybe make you some money at the same time. After all, this is a business you’re running here, right? Serving customers and so forth?”

“I get enough customers to suit me,” grumbled Ma.

“Yes, I’m sure you do. But most of them are desert rats barely able to squeeze out a few cents for a splash or two of rotgut. But here”—Torrence made a gesture toward Charlie and Josh—“you have two wage earners who can actually afford, like me and my group, to pay for an assortment of services. If, that is, you take the time to let them know what’s available.”

Ma frowned. “They got mouths and tongues, ain’t they? All they got to do is ask.”

Torrence sighed. “What I’m trying to get at, gents,” he said, addressing Josh and Charlie again, “is that there are some amenities besides liquor that are also available in this out-of-the way little paradise. If you’re interested, that is. And at a reasonable price, I might add.”

“Such as food and a place to put us up and our horses for the night?” asked Charlie, looking hopeful.

“Exactly,” said Torrence. “Much like her liquor supply, Ma’s menu isn’t big on variety—usually either venison or rabbit stew—but it’s tasty and the portions are generous. There’s a barn out back for your horses, and I’m sure sleeping accommodations can be arranged. There’s a loft upstairs, but I have to warn you that’s already spoken for by me and my group.”

Charlie turned to Ma. “How about it, ma’am? We’d like to arrange all those things.”

Ma rolled her eyes. “Jesus, are we gonna have to go through that again? I ain’t no damn ma’am or I ain’t no grandma. I’m Ma—can you get that through your head?” Then, jutting her chin out, she added, “Yeah, you can get vittles and a place for you and your horses to spend the night. Like the man said, there’s a barn out back. If you put up your horses there and pay for hay and grain, it’d be no extra charge for you to sleep out there, too. It ain’t exactly leak free but there’s more dry spots than wet ones. If you want to pay some for stayin’ under the roof here, I can put down a couple straw mats on the floor and you can bring in your bedrolls to use with ’em.”

Charlie and Josh exchanged glances and then, turning once more to Ma, Charlie said, “We’ll take the straw mats and some grub for ourselves, hay and grain for our horses. It sounds just fine . . . er, Ma.”

“No need to butter me up. The prices are the same, sweet talk or no.”

“Sure. Okay. You want us to take our horses around back while you’re dishin’ up a couple bowls of that stew? If there’s a lantern out there, we oughta be able to see well enough to—”

“No need for that, either. Breed!” This last part the old woman turned and bellowed over her shoulder at full voice. A moment later, some curta. . .