Anita Mills Read Online Free PDF Page A

buried a needle there, we’d have it.”
    “Yeah.”
    “There’s nothing to say it’s not between here and Galveston. While he was running from us, Jack had hiding places all over Texas.” Having said that, Hannah turned to the others. “If you’re in this, you’ll ride with me. Otherwise, you don’t get your cut. Right now, there’s four shares, but—”
    “Four? What about Frank’s?” Bob Simmons spoke up.
    “What about it?”
    “Well, he left a wife back in Illinois, you know. He was always writing to her.”
    Hannah shrugged. “She’s nothing to me.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Look, Bob, I don’t care what you do about your quarter—or third, if that’s the way it works out,” Gib added, his eyes on Lee Jackson. “Way I look at it, when Frank took that bullet, he lost his share.”
    “All I was saying is I don’t know why we got to go to Galveston if the girl’s coming here,” Jackson protested. “It ain’t giving up my share to say it.”
    “And he just told you why,” Pierce pointed out. “Jack left everything to the girl.”
    “Including our gold,” Simmons reminded him.
    “So the way I’ve got it figured,” Hannah went on, “we get the girl, and we’ve got the money. Any more stupid questions before we hit the trail?”
    “How do you know she ain’t coming in at Indianola?” Pierce persisted. “Why don’t we just go into ’Angelo and wait? Be a damned sight easier, you know. Hell, there’s boats coming in both places all the time, so what’s to say we don’t miss her?”
    “She wrote Hamer she was coming by Galveston the first or second so she can make it here for the probate June tenth. I don’t aim to wait until the tenth to find out what she knows.”
    “Hell, Gib—you ever see one of them boats? Folks is stampedin’ off ’em like cattle!”
    “Either you’re in, or you’re out, Charley.”
    Pierce paled, then smiled sickly. “You’re funning, ain’t you? I been in since the day we ambushed them Rebs, ain’t I?”
    “Leave ’im alone, Gib,” Simmons muttered. “Ain’t but four of us left nohow, and we started with ten, including the major and Billy McCormick. I reckon we all got a right to know what’s goin’ on, and I’d kinda like to know how we find Howard’s girl myself, if you want the truth.”
    “She’s traveling alone,” Hannah snapped. “How many women you know fool enough to come out here alone? According to Hamer, she’s about twenty, and her name’s Verena Howard.” Stopping to fumble in his pocket, he drew out a folded paper and tossed it at Bob Simmons. “Here’s the letter she wrote him. Go on—read it.”
    “Ain’t nobody can read at night, Gib.”
    The bigger man bent down to retrieve the paper, then returned it to his shirt pocket. “It says,” he said evenly, “that she’s five foot four, built slender, and she’s got brown hair.”
    “How’d you get ’im to give you that?” Lee Jackson asked curiously.
    “I told him I was a ranger.”
    “Jesus. He can check that out, Gib.”
    Hannah swung up into his saddle, then adjusted his hat carefully before answering, “Not too much he can ask anybody in hell, is there?”
    “But—”
    Hannah’s jaw tightened visibly. “I haven’t spend eight years of my life hunting down Jack Howard for nothing, Lee.” Using his knee, he turned his horse. “One way or another, I’m going to make his girl lead me to that gold,” he declared grimly. “One way or another, I’m going to get it.”

Chapter 4
    To conserve her dwindling dollars, Verena had walked the four blocks between Mrs. Harris’s boarding house and Galveston’s train station, and with each step, the carpetbag had seemed heavier and heavier. By the time she reached the ticket window, her carrying arm felt as if it had grown six inches. It was with a great deal of relief that she set the bag down and opened her purse at the ticket window.
    “One passage to San Angelo, please,” she told the clerk,