Bounty on a Baron

Chapter Sixteen

Roman was seated behind his desk, drinking a cup of coffee, when Decker entered the office.

“Grab yourself a cup,” he said. “The pot’s a fresh one.”

Decker did so, then took the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk. The office was small, but it was clean and well cared for.

Sitting so close to Roman, Decker realized the lawman was younger than he was. The beard made him look older, but Decker didn’t think the man was yet thirty.

“So?” Roman said.

“I’m looking for a man,” Decker told him.

“That’s what you do,” Roman said. “What’s this par tic u lar man’s name?”

“He’s called the Baron.”

“The hired gun?”

“That’s him.”

“What makes you think he’s here?”

“I don’t know if he’s in Broadus,” Decker said. “The word I got was that he was up here around the Powder River somewhere.”

“Know what he looks like?”

“Just what it says on his paper,” Decker said. He handed the poster to Roman.

“I must have a copy of this somewhere,” the sheriff muttered, accepting the poster.

He read it, then passed it back.

“From that description he could be anyone.”

“The talk about him says he’s foreign. Comes from Russia or someplace,” Decker said. “Maybe he talks with an accent. That ring a bell?”

Roman thought a moment, then said, “No, not right off.”

“Mind if I take a turn around town?”

“How long you planning to stay?”

“How big is this town?” Decker asked. “How long does one turn take?”

“Be my guest,” Roman said. “If you find him, though, I want to know about it.”

“You will,” Decker promised, putting the coffee cup down on the desk, “just as soon as I bring him in.”

“Alive?”

Decker turned and said, “You know, you make a lousy cup of coffee.”

Decker walked around town, wondering what he was looking for. Did he expect to find a man with a Russian accent twirling a gun or shooting the eyes out of flies? In order to find out if anyone had an accent, he’d have to talk to every man in town. He wasn’t prepared to do that, not here and not in any other town he came to.

And what about other towns? Broadus was the first decent-sized town that he’d come to. Were there others farther along the river?

Decker decided to see about Broadus’s two saloons.

One was called the Broadus House, the other the Dice Box. He guessed that the difference between the two was that the Dice Box would offer more gambling. He decided to try the Broadus House first.

Going to the bar, he ordered a beer. Surprised to find it a cold one, he downed half of it while the bartender watched, an amused look on his face.

“Been a while, huh?” the man said.

“Been a long while since I had one as cold as this,” Decker admitted.

“Got our own ice house.”

Finishing the beer, Decker said, “How about another one?”

“Sure.”

The second one was cold, too, but nothing ever seems quite as cold or good as the first one. He decided to take his time with this one.

“Passing through?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah. Riding along the river for a while. This is the first town of any size that I’ve come to.”

“Only one like it along the Powder River.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Got to go east or west of here to get to another town. Up north you’ve got to go where the Tongue River meets the Yellowstone. That’s about twenty—five miles west of the Powder.”

“What town is that?”

“Miles City. If you keep following the Powder until it joins the Yellowstone, you’ll be about six miles from Terry.”

“And between here and there?”

“Keep riding north and the Powder takes a bend to the east. From the point of that bend it’s about twenty miles to Ekalaka. I guess if you stick to the river, those are the three towns within reach.”

“They all have telegraph offices?”

“I’d say yes, though I don’t know for sure.”

The bartender moved down the bar to take care of another customer, and Decker thought over what he had just learned.

If the Baron was indeed holing up near the river, Decker’s guess was that he’d stay in Broadus or one of the towns the bartender had mentioned. If Decker rode directly from here to Terry, it would take him the better part of two days. If he stopped in between to go to those other towns, he’d end up with more than a week’s worth of riding to do. If the Baron was not in any of those towns, Decker would have to ride south and start checking small settlements and shantytowns like Brenner’s Fork.

Of course, he could use the telegraph lines to check those larger towns, but he’d have to find a co—operative lawman at the other end. As a rule, lawmen didn’t like bounty hunters, so he knew he couldn’t count on that.

It was worth a try, though.

“Another?” the bartender asked.

“Maybe later. What do you have in the way of gambling?”

“You might pick up a poker game here, but if you want green felt you got to go to the Dice Box. They got poker, blackjack, faro, roulette, and dice.”

“Where’s the telegraph office?”

“Out the front and two blocks to the right.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Sure.”

Decker left and headed for the telegraph office, already composing his messages in his head.

After Decker had left the sheriff’s office Kyle Roman thoughtfully poured himself another cup of coffee and drank it slowly.

He’d always wondered about Broadus’s mystery man, the man who called himself Brand. The man who had come to town and destroyed his relationship with Josephine Hale. Josephine had been immediately taken with Brand, and instead of accepting it gracefully, Roman had reacted badly. The result had been that Josephine rarely spoke to him, even to say good morning on the street. Had he reacted differently, he might have won her back during one of Brand’s absences, he knew, but it was far too late for that now.

He’d always wondered what the man did when he was away from Broadus, and he’d always wondered about the slow, precise manner in which the man spoke, as if he were trying to hide some sort of accent.

Now he knew.

Brand was the Baron.

With careful planning, that knowledge could be turned to a great advantage.

After Decker had sent his three carefully worded telegraph messages to Miles City, Terry, and Ekalaka, he decided to take a look at the Dice House. They had gambling, but was their beer as cold as the beer at the Broadus House?