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hundred a month or any part thereof for my services, plus expenses.” Flintlock said. “The first month payable in advance.”
    â€œAnd what do I tell him he gets in return?”
    â€œTell me what you think of me, Cliff.”
    â€œWell, you’re a barely civilized savage, mean enough to piss on a widow woman’s kindling and you cut your teeth on a Hawken barrel. You’ve killed more men than I’ve got toes and will probably go on to kill as many more.” The Pinkerton made a show of thinking deeply, a forefinger on his temple. “Let’s see, you frequent loose women, by times drink too much, are given to profanity and you’ve never lived within the sound of church bells in your life.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œYou’re a product of your time and place, Sam, a hard, unforgiving man bred for a violent land. Some say you’re low-down and a natural outlaw, but I don’t hold with that.”
    â€œThen that’s what you tell Constable he’s getting for his two hundred a month.”
    â€œTell him all of it?”
    â€œAll of it.”
    â€œThat’s quite a résumé,” Wraith said.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    All interested parties, in other words just about everybody in Open Sky, crowded into the courtroom to hear Circuit Judge Altheas T. Drummond deliver his opinion on the guilt or innocence of Jamie McPhee, bank clerk.
    Behind the judge’s great leather chair that was raised high on a dais, stood United States Marshal Coon McCrystal, a bull of a man who scowled suspiciously at the crowd from under lowered, shaggy eyebrows.
    Drummond, by contrast, was a small, sharp-angled man with the bright, intelligent eyes of a house sparrow.
    After he gaveled for silence, the judge spoke into the sudden hush.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” he intoned, “before we start I need a lighter head to offset my heavy heart. Oh, unhappy day.”
    McCrystal bent, reached into a drawer in the judge’s desk and produced a bottle of Old Crow and a glass. He poured three fingers and placed the glass in front of Drummond, who downed it in a single gulp.
    The little man wiped his mustache and again regarded the crowd.
    â€œUneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” he said.
    This caused a puzzled stir of conversation in the crowd and Flintlock, sitting at the back of the courtroom, was as bamboozled as the rest.
    â€œOh, perfidious fate that compels me to render judgment today,” Judge Drummond said. “I must set free a monster, nay, a ravening wolf, to once again walk among you to prey on the womanly virtue of your wives and daughters. Nay, I say to myself, don’t do it Drummond, don’t free the brute! But, alas, I have no other course. I must work within the law and aye, the sacred pages of Holy Scripture.” Then, in a whispered aside, “Hit me again, Coon.”
    â€œWhere the hell is McPhee?” a man in the crowd yelled.
    And another, “You ain’t really letting him go, yer honor?”
    â€œI must. I must,” Drummond said after he drained his glass. He raised his hands and wailed, “Oh, unfortunate day that this travesty of justice should come to pass.”
    That last was the fuse that lit the ticking time bomb that is a hostile crowd.
    â€œShame! For shame!” a woman called out.
    â€œFor shame!” Judge Drummond cried, his face miserable. “Yes, dear lady, for shame indeed.”
    There were more outraged yells, chairs overturned and one half-drunk rooster waved a pair of revolvers in the air.
    â€œWhere is McPhee?”
    â€œGet a damned rope!”
    â€œString him up!”
    The angry crowd advanced on the dais, cursing their rage and disappointment, thirsting for McPhee’s blood and Flintlock told himself that maybe two hundred a month for this job wasn’t near enough.
    Then Coon McCrystal stepped forward, a huge Colt’s Dragoon in each massive fist.
    â€œBy