other man was almost as big as the Mexican, but he was older, maybe in his forties. He had red hair beneath a black slouch hat. He was dressed in a paisley vest and sleeve garters, like a pimp or a gambler, and he carried a double-barreled shotgun at port arms across his chest—a grim, angry-looking gent with a large, wide slab of a face outfitted with small, gray eyes set too far apart, giving him the look of a demented mongrel. All four were likely riding a bout of hard luck in these remote mountains, probably having followed gold veins to nowhere. They’d probably thrown in together to make do, which meant haunting lonely trails for pilgrims to plunder and send nestling with the diamondbacks.
The redheaded mongrel’s thick lips were set in a hard line. His ratty string tie blew back over one shoulder as he caught up to the Mexican, and they stopped about ten feet out beyond the two lead mules, who shifted uneasily in their hames and traces.
“How much you carryin’?” asked the red-haired man, giving his chin a belligerent rise and shoving it forward.
“I’ll do the askin’, Cord,” said the Brit.
“Get on with it then,” Cord said, an angry flush blazing in his nose.
The Mexican grinned as though nothing thrilled him like dissension.
The limey turned to Slash and Pecos. “How much you carryin’?”
The kid squealed a little laugh. The Mexican’s grin broadened.
Their demeanors told Slash that they weren’t professionals, and that they hadn’t been together long. Sure enough, they’d merely thrown in together to try their hands at highway robbery for a stake that would take them to the Southwest before the first winter snows. Their types were a dime a dozen on the western frontier.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Slash said.
“Don’t let’s chase the nanny goat around the apple orchard,” the kid said, canting his head and twisting his face angrily. “We seen you comin’ up this trail two days ago. You had a good load on ya. You came up from Fort Collins. We followed you out of town. Now, your wagon bed is empty, and we’re thinkin’ you mighta made a tidy little sum for deliverin’ them goods up to one o’ the minin’ camps in the higher reaches.”
Pecos glanced at his partner and said, “Slash, I think they’re fixin’ to rob us of our hard-earned wages. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t like it, Pecos. I don’t like it one bit.”
Pecos looked at the limey and then at the kid standing on the opposite side of the trail from him, aiming his rifle out from his right hip. “Why don’t you four raggedy-heeled vermin get yourselves some honest jobs? Try workin’ for a livin’!”
Given his and Slash’s shared past, Slash glanced at him skeptically. Pecos caught the glance and shrugged it off.
“Wait, wait, wait,” the kid said, scowling again, again canting his head to one side and staring at the two former cutthroats through skeptically narrowed eyes. “Did you say Slash an’ Pecos?”
Slash winced.
Now that he and Pecos had given up their outlaw ways and had bought a freight company in Fort Collins and become honest, hardworking, and more or less upstanding citizens, he and his partner had tried to forget their old handles and call each other by their given names instead. Slash was now Jim or Jimmy, and Pecos was now Mel or Melvin.
Old habits died hard.
The kid grinned like the cat that ate the canary and slapped his thigh. “I’ll be damned!”
“What?” asked the Mex.
The kid glanced at each of his long coulee-riding partners in turn and said, “You know who these two old coots are?”
“Who?” asked the limey.
“Why, they’re Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid, that’s who!” The kid threw his head back and laughed, showing that he was missing one of his eyeteeth.
“You mean,” said the Brit, dubiously, “you think these two old men sitting here in this freight wagon are Slash an’ Pecos?” He stared at the two freighters and shook his head. “No. No. Nonsense. You’re gettin’ soft in your thinker box, Donny boy.”
“We ain’t that old, fer chrissakes!” Slash said, scowling angrily at the younger men, all four of whom were now laughing at him and his partner. “We ain’t but fifty or so . . .”
“Give ’er take,” put in Pecos.
“Whatever,” Slash said. “That hardly makes us old men. Besides, were you fellas raised by wolves? Don’t you know you’re supposed to respect your elders, not rob and belittle ’em?”
The limey shook his head again and stared in disbelief at the two middle-aged freighters. “Damn, you two sure have changed. I’ve seen pictures of you both in the illustrated newspapers, an’, an’, well . . .”
“Yeah, well, we all get older,” Slash said, indignant. “Just wait—it’ll happen to you, amigo.”
“What’s Slash Braddock an’ the Pecos River Kid ridin’ a freight wagon for?” Donny asked, keeping his rifle aimed at the two former cutthroats. “You mossyhorns get too stove up to sit a saddle? Your peepers dim so bad that you can’t shoot?”
He smiled again, mockingly.
“As if it was any of your business,” Pecos said, “which it ain’t, we was both pardoned by none other than the president of the United States his ownself. So we got no more paper on our heads, and we’re free to live honest lives workin’ honest jobs, which is exactly what we’re tryin’ to do.”
That wasn’t the entire story. The agreement was that they’d be pardoned for their many sundry sins in exchange for working under the supervision of Chief Marshal Luther T. “Bleed-Em-So” Bledsoe unofficially from time to time as deputy U.S. marshals, hunting down the worst of the worst criminals on the western frontier. Between those man-hunting jobs, they were free to run their freight business, which they’d been doing now for six months, having bought the small outfit from an old man in Fort Collins who’d wanted to retire and live with his daughter in Denver.
“You’re also free to get robbed by blokes like us,” said the Brit, narrowing his eyes threateningly again, clicking back his rifle’s hammer. “Now . . . back to how much money you’re carryin’, which, by the way, we’ll be relievin’ you of.”
CHAPTER 2
Pecos turned to Slash and made a face. “Ah, hell. How much we got, Slash?”
Slash sighed as he reached inside his black wool suit coat, which he wore over a pinto vest and suspenders.
“Slow, now,” the limey warned, steadying the aimed Spencer in his hand.
Slowly, Slash reached into the breast pocket of his chambray shirt and withdrew the manila envelope in which he’d collected his and Pecos’s pay after delivering an organ to a canvas dance hall up in Boulder and sundry dry goods and whiskey to a mercantile in Estes Park.
He
