A Wanted Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

jaw was clenched. He released it by conscious effort. “I just would.”
    “You ever hear from Nick or Levi or Ethan?”
    “No,” Rowdy said. “I guess Gideon’s still at home.” He looked around. “If you can call the back end of a brothel home,” he added.
    “Don’t you get smart with me, boy,” Payton warned.
    “I can still whup you and three others like you without breaking a sweat. Anyhow, this ain’t a brothel. Ruby and me, we’re honest saloonkeepers.”
    An involuntary grin tilted one side of Rowdy’s mouth. “Whatever you say, old man.”
    “You look fit,” Payton allowed, though grudgingly. He was a stubborn old rooster, and sparing with his approval. “You ever get hitched? Sire me a grandbaby or two?”
    Rowdy wanted to avert his eyes, but he didn’t. He waited a moment or two, letting his silence serve as all the answer he was willing to give, then countered with a question of his own. “You still robbing trains, Pappy?”
    Payton hated to be called Pappy, which was why Rowdy had addressed him that way, but he had to give the old bastard credit for self-control. The only reaction was a reddening above the collar of his tidy white shirt. “Now why would you make a rude inquiry like that?”
    Rowdy thought before he spoke, even though he’d planned what he would say all during the two-hour ride over from Stone Creek. He’d left Haven, where he’d drifted into a job as town marshal, for two main reasons—first, because he’d gotten that cryptic telegram from Sam O’Ballivan and Major Blackstone, summoning him north for a meeting in the lobby of the Territorial Hotel, and second, because a Wanted poster had landed on his desk with his real name and description printed on it.
    He was taking a chance, continuing his acquaintance with O’Ballivan. Rowdy believed in hiding in plain sight, moving on when his feet itched, with most folks none the wiser for knowing him.
    Sam O’Ballivan wasn’t most folks.
    “I need to know if you’re still robbing trains, Pa,” Rowdy reiterated. “The railroad’s laying tracks from here to Stone Creek, and then all the way down to Phoenix. I’m hoping it’s a coincidence that you’re here in Flagstaff and two trains have been boarded and looted, not ten miles from here, in the past six months.”
    Payton drew on his cheroot and blew a smoke ring. “You find religion or something?” he hedged. “Or maybe you’re just looking to make an extra dollar or two by riding my coattails.”
    Rowdy leaned forward in his chair, lowered his voice. “Listen to me, Pa,” he said. “I came to Stone Creek because I was asked to, by two Arizona Rangers. I don’t know for sure what they want with me, but I’ve got a hunch it has to do with the railroad coming in. Most likely the territorial governor is putting some pressure on them to put an end to the robberies. If folks don’t feel it’s safe to settle and do business here, the men back in Washington might not be willing to grant statehood.”
    Payton’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “What the hell do you care if Arizona ever becomes a state? You’re an outlaw. There’s a price on your head, Rob. You can’t afford to cozy up with rangers!”
    “If Sam O’Ballivan had me figured for an outlaw, he’d have tried to arrest me by now.”
    Payton went pale as limestone in a creek-bed. “Sam O’Ballivan?”
    “I see you know him,” Rowdy observed.
    “Hell, everybody in the territory knows him!”
    “He’s a good man,” Rowdy said.
    “He’s a ranger, ” Payton returned. His hands tightened like talons on the arms of his chair, and he looked as though he might bolt out of it, crash through the window and hit the ground running. “First, last and always, Sam O’Ballivan is an Arizona Ranger. You have truck with him, and you’re likely to find yourself dangling at the end of a rope!”
    Rowdy looked around, spotted a decanter half-filled with liquor, and got up to pour a dose for the old