“Are you Joe Stack or Bill Hurley?” he inquired.
“Stack,” the man grunted. He stared at Rock out of sullen eyes.
“Then I suppose that was Mr. Hurley that I downed, eh?”
The man assented with a nod. Those were the names of the two hard citizens Buck Walters kept hanging around the Cross home ranch, so Charlie Shaw had told him. Rock was not in the least surprised to find his guess correct. Men who had acquired notches on their guns in the South were not usually averse to adding more notches when they drifted North—either for profit or satisfaction.
“Well, you took on a contract,” he said. “And you have fallen down on it. I am going to tell you a few things, Stack, then I am going to ask you some questions. You’re a Texan. Did you ever hear of Steve Holloway who was a U. S. marshal at Abilene for a spell? I expect you did. He cleaned out a nest of outlaws up in the Childress country, where I understand you made yourself a reputation. Steve was my father. Then there is Tom Holloway, who is a captain in the rangers. ‘Long Tom’ they call him. He’s an uncle. Then there’s Ben Holloway who owns the Ragged H down on Milk River, not so awful far from this neck of the woods. He’s a cousin of mine. There are other Holloways scattered here and there west of the Mississippi. Most any one of them would go a long way to shoot a skunk, especially of the two-legged variety. I’m something like that myself. You were sure hunting big game when you camped on my trail. Did you know it?”
The man didn’t answer. But the look of apprehension in his eyes deepened.
“And Buck didn’t tell you? Maybe he didn’t know, himself,” Rock said. “Now, why did Buck Walters set you to kill me the way he got Doc Martin killed? Will you answer me that?”
“You got me foul,” Stack muttered. “I tried to get you, an’ you got me, instead. But I ain’t talkin’.”
“No?” Rock said very softly. “Well, I was raised in an Apache country, Stack. I expect I can make you talk.”
He turned away with a frown. No use wasting words. All about in the thicket were dry twigs, dead sticks. He gathered an armful of these, broke them up into short lengths, and dumped the lot by his prisoner. He took out his knife and whittled a lot of shavings. Once he stopped to roll another smoke.