“He had us pretty much holed up at Bodine’s, so that’s the reason we came here,” Booth said. “To get him out in the open. We set up an ambush, figurin’ he was gonna follow us. We were gonna take care of him for good, but the bastard never showed up. So we ain’t sure if he’s give up on tailin’ us or not. I reckon we’ll find out if he shows up here.”

Mutt was working his mind on the piecemeal story he was getting and the one thing that struck him was that Booth and Jesse must have made a big score on some job. They were pretty tight-lipped when it came to talking about it, so that told him it must have been so big they didn’t want him to know how much they stole. Maybe, he figured, there was a possibility he could cash in on it as well. “This jasper that’s tailin’ you, has he got a name?”

“Yeah, his name’s Hawk,” Booth said. “He’s easy to spot, big feller, wears a buckskin shirt, and has a feather in his hat.”

“Hawk,” Mutt repeated. “I’ve heard somethin’ about a feller named Hawk. He had some kinda trouble here, in the Last Chance Saloon. I don’t know what it was, but I think that Hawk feller is a big friend of Sam Ingram’s, who owns the Last Chance.” Thinking now about getting his hands on some of Booth and Jesse’s money, Mutt made a suggestion. “What you need is a man who’s an expert at gettin’ rid of people like that.”

“We don’t need nobody to do our killin’ for us,” Jesse responded, his dander up at the suggestion. “We just need to catch him when he’s out in the open, face-to-face, then we’ll see who kills who.”

“You’re startin’ to talk like Trip Dawson,” Booth said. “It would be a lot easier for somebody Hawk ain’t ever seen to get the jump on him.” Turning back to Mutt then, he said, “You talk like you’ve got somebody in mind.”

“I do,” Mutt replied. “Billy Crocker—he’s the fastest man with a gun this town’s ever seen.”

“Your son, Billy?” Booth responded in surprise. When last he had heard of Mutt’s son, he was serving time in prison for holding up a stage out of Cheyenne. “Has it been that long? I wouldn’t have figured he’d served his time yet.”