The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 56

Shack Mitchell was well pleased with himself.

He’d only been in Bighorn Point an hour, but in that time the contract had been agreed on, his fee paid up front, and he’d left on the trail of the mark.

That was how he liked to conduct his business. Get in, get out, and get lost.

The fat man had understood all that, since he’d once been in the man-killing profession himself.

“Call it professional courtesy,” the fat man had said. “You trust me, and I trust you to get the job done. So there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Just bring me Cage Clayton’s head and then ride out.”

But Mitchell didn’t trust the fat man. He put his trust in nobody, and that’s why he was so good at what he did—killing men who, for one reason or another, had proved troublesome for his clients.

His last project had been in El Paso, a crusading young lawyer who was getting too close to the monetary affairs of powerful and rich men. He’d settled that contract in three days, long for him, but his clients had understood. After all, a sandstorm had been blowing at the time.

The lawyer had been his twenty-ninth victim. This man Clayton, whoever the hell he was, would make it a nice round thirty.

Mitchell smiled. This would be easy peasy.

He scanned the ranch house with his field glasses. He saw the mark move from room to room, exploring the place, and probably filling his pockets with what-ever he could find.

Mitchell didn’t blame him for that. Honesty was for idiots.

He slid forward his Spencer, parting the buffalo grass at the crest of the rise.

The rifle was a single shot in .45 caliber. Having only one round didn’t trouble Mitchell; he seldom needed more. Sometimes he used his Colt on a mark because he was fast and accurate on the draw-and-shoot, though he did not boast of it.

Mitchell boasted of nothing. At fifty, he was a coldly proficient assassin and when not on assignment he lay low, stayed away from whiskey, and kept his mouth shut.

He did enjoy whores, but that was just scratching an itch. He didn’t like women, didn’t like men either, come to that. Didn’t like anybody.

Perhaps his only virtue was patience.

He’d wait in the sun for as long as it took for Clayton to come out of the house—hours, days, weeks if necessary.

But the horse at the hitch rail told him that the man would leave sooner rather than later.

Then he’d kill him. Efficiently and without fuss.

Cage Clayton was startled. Had the gallant Custer just winked at him?

He studied the picture, but the general was staring across the room just as before. It must have been a trick of the light, a reflection maybe.

But a reflection of what? And from where?

Clayton stepped to the side of the parlor window and moved the curtain just enough to look outside.

Nothing moved out there, not even the wind.

The open ground stretched away from his eyes for about a hundred yards, past a cattle pen, a cast-iron trough, and a small shed that probably held tools and branding irons.

The open ground gradually rose to a shallow ridge, crowned with grass, scattered wildflowers, and clumps of broom weed.

Clayton was suddenly tense. Custer hadn’t winked at him.

Hell, I’m not that spooked.

It had to have been a brief flash of light that reflected on the glass.

A rifle barrel?

Maybe he was being foolish, imagining things. But there had already been one attempt on his life—could this be another?

If he ventured out to get his horse, he’d be an easy target for a hidden rifleman. He moved to the rear of the house, opened the back door, and stepped outside.

He drew his Colt, his heart pounding.

Where was the rifleman—if he even existed?

Real or not, the rifleman wouldn’t make getting to his mount easy.