“You’re doin’ the right thing,” Booth said to him. “It’s best not to have any connection between Billy and your saloon.” He was thinking the same thing that Jesse was thinking. If Hawk knew there was a connection between Billy and this saloon, he might put two and two together and come looking for the two of them. Booth would never admit it to his brother, or to anyone else, but this man called Hawk was beginning to seem invincible. No matter who confronted him, he just kept on coming after them. Booth had little respect for Mutt’s son, Billy, but he was supposedly a fast hand with a gun. And he had met the same fate as everyone else who had attempted to stop Hawk. “Who is that son of a bitch?” He suddenly blurted it, not realizing he was thinking out loud. When Jesse gave him a questioning look, Booth went on with what he was thinking. “How the hell did he find out we had a little money? He got all of Tater’s share of the money. Ain’t that enough for him?”

Jesse gave his brother a look of astonishment, thinking if he continued, he might verify Mutt’s suspicion that they had made a major score. Booth didn’t seem to pick up on his signal, so Jesse said, “There ain’t no tellin’ how he found out about that bank job.” He hoped Booth realized Mutt was already thinking they were carrying a sizable amount of money. If he found out just how sizable it really was, he would be thinking up ways to cut himself in on it. “But he found out somehow,” Jesse went on. “He’s hunted us long enough, it’s time we started huntin’ him.” Even as he said it, he wasn’t sure how best to go about it, so he asked Booth what to do.

“First, we gotta find him before he finds us,” Booth said in response to Jesse’s question. “If we can catch him out in the open, don’t matter where it is, we shoot him down.”

“That sounds like the best thing to do,” Mutt put in. “If he sets foot in here, that’s what he’ll get, both barrels of my shotgun. I ain’t gonna bother sayin’ howdy do. I’ll let my shotgun do the talkin’.” Billy had suddenly become dear to him in death, replacing the indifference he had felt when he was alive.

“Where is Hawk stayin’?” Jesse asked Fred. “Is he at the hotel?”

“I don’t know,” Fred answered. “I didn’t hear anybody say where he was stayin’.”

“I’d say the hotel would be a good place to start lookin’,” Booth suggested. “I know for sure the son of a bitch has got enough money to stay there, and we might be able to catch him when he ain’t expectin’ it.”