Crow Bait

Forty-four

Lancaster finished his beer and followed Dan to the rear of the building. The bartender opened a back door and led the way out. When they got out there, Lancaster saw a bunch of crosses and wooden headstones.

“This is our Boot Hill,” Dan said.

Lancaster looked out over the expanse of graves and said, “All these people used to live here?”

“At one time,” Dan said, “we were a whole town. Then one day there was a fire. Most of the buildings burned down. A lot of the people were killed, and the rest left. Except for Hermione and the brothers.”

“And you.”

“I came later, but I been here for a while,” he said. “But not all of these graves are people who used to live here.”

“Who else is here?”

“People who wouldn’t pay the toll,” Dan said. “Or people who just crossed Hermione.”

“So the brothers put some people back here with their guns?”

“Take a walk with me.”

They walked through the graveyard and when they got all the way to the back Dan stopped in front of two new-looking graves.

“There ya go,” he said.

Lancaster looked and saw the names Cardiff and Adderly on the wooden crosses.

“She said they weren’t here anymore,” Lancaster said. “I guess this is what she meant.”

“They killed Cardiff when Hermione was through with him,” Dan said. “Then they killed Adderly when he came lookin’ for Cardiff.”

Lancaster remembered the beating they had administered to him along with Sweet.

“These were hard boys,” he said. “I can’t believe the brothers took them both.”

“Separately,” Dan reminded him, “and did you think they were dangerous when you got here?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“They act—acted—like four idiots who were run by their sister,” Dan said. “Well, they were run by her and they were idiots, but they were dangerous when they worked together. They were just no match for you. You presented them with a situation they had never seen before, and they panicked.”

“So everybody’s dead but me and you.”

“And I’m okay with that,” Dan said. “But I got somethin’ else to tell you. Come back inside.”

Once they were back at the bar, Dan offered Lancaster another beer, which he turned down.

“What’s this other thing you’ve got to tell me?” he demanded.

“I heard Cardiff tell Hermione about Flagstaff.”

“What?”

“I overheard them. She was playin’ like she wanted him to stay, but he told her he had to meet somebody in Flagstaff.”

“And he said the name?” “He did,” Dan said.

“He said Sweet.”

“And how about Adderly, when he got here? Any word about Sweet?”

“No,” Dan said, “he didn’t last very long.”

Lancaster gave Dan a long look. “You wouldn’t be as big a liar as your cousin Hermione, would you?”

“Nobody was as big a liar as her, but look. You just did me a huge favor. I got no reason to lie to you. Besides, I got one more favor to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“Would you help me bury my family before you leave?”

Lancaster found Dan’s desire to bury his “family” odd. However, once they had dug all the graves, rolled the bodies in, and covered them up, Dan’s final words over the graves sort of clarified things.

“Good riddance,” he said.

Still not convinced that the last family member wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster was alert while he saddled Crow Bait to leave town. When he rode the animal out of the livery, he raked the rooftops and windows of the hotel and saloon with his eyes, looking for a rifle barrel. Satisfied that Dan was true to his word and wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster turned Crow Bait south and headed for Flagstaff, Arizona.