“I see you haven’t slowed down any,” Ruiz said, gesturing to the four dead men, “since we last met.”

“I try to stay sharp,” Pritchard said.

“You decided to take my offer and join the outfit?” Ditch said.

“I did,” Pritchard said. “If you’ll still have me?”

“Hell,” Ditch said, looking down at the four bodies at his feet, “I’d be a fool not to.”

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Dovie threw open the door to the bedroom and stormed inside. There was a maid in the room, filling the water bowl and emptying the chamber pot. When she saw the furious expression on her mistress’s face, she hastily made her exit.

Burnell Shipley lay propped up with pillows in bed. His gout and the weakness and tremors in his limbs had left him bedridden for months. His florid face, like most of his skin, was a mass of discolored sores. His eyes had become milky, and he squinted at the doorway.

“Dovie,” he called out in his raspy voice, “it that you?”

“You know damned well it is,” she said, slamming the door after the maid had gone. “We need to talk.”

“What’s bothering you now?” Burnell said. He reached for the bottle of brandy that was always stationed on the nightstand near his hand. Keeping the bottle filled was his servant’s most important duty.

“Eli Gaines,” she said. “That’s what. He’s not bothering me, he’s bothering Idelle. He interrupted her at school today, in the middle of teaching her classes. He barged into her classroom with another one of Sheriff Foster’s thugs, that fat ape, Bernie Moss.”

“Your daughter’s a pretty girl,” Burnell said. “It’s natural she draws suitors.”

“That filthy deputy is not a suitor,” Dovie said. “He’s a deranged pig. He’d been drinking, spit tobacco on the schoolhouse floor, and drew his gun and twirled it around in front of the children. Then he announced she was going to marry him, and drunkenly insisted she leave her class immediately to go riding with him. She refused, of course. They eventually left, but only after both of the Nettleses came to her aid and demanded the deputies depart. Gaines actually threatened to shoot Rodney Nettles in front of the children. Idelle was so upset, she came directly down to the hotel to tell me.”

“She must have been upset,” Burnell said, attempting to pour his glass full to the brim, but sloshing it due to his shaking hands. “I know you forbid her to come to the hotel.”

“What are you going to do about this?” Dovie demanded.

“Nothing,” Burnell said. “And neither are you. Sheriff Foster’s getting old. Doc Mauldin says he’s got a bad heart. Eli is the chief deputy. When Foster quits, or dies, he’ll take over as sheriff. Idelle could do worse in a husband.”

“You can’t be serious?” she said. “Gaines is a disgusting, toothless, animal.”