“She wants money too bad.”
Kendall Marsh looked at his watch. It would be quite a while before he and Alden could board that freight, and Kendall Marsh wanted to get out of Medicine Tree.
“I’ve a notion to drive to Broad Arrow,” he said.
“Gettin’ scared, eh?” growled Butch.
“I’m not scared. But it might complicate matters if I stayed here.”
“Well, go ahead, if yuh feel that way about it.”
“I think I will, Butch. Send Alden in here, will yuh?”
Butch went out past the door again, without saying anything to Alden, who was drinking more brandy. There did not seem to be any activity across the street. Butch leaned out and looked up at the north end of the street.
A rider was coming down the road as fast as his horse could run, a dust cloud eddying along behind him like the smoke screen of a destroyer at sea. The horse whirled in at the hitchrack and lurched to a stop, while the rider tried to dismount, got half-way off and then fell flat on his back in the dust. The horse whirled around and moved a few feet away, its flanks heaving from the long run.
Butch stepped from the saloon and ran to the hitchrack. It was Mac Rawls, his shirt gobby with gore from his wound, trying to get up, gasping for breath in the dust cloud.