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them were spread out a little, while Whitfield and his men were bunched up. That was potentially a tactical mistake on Whitfield’s part.
    But maybe it wouldn’t come to shooting. Hamish spoke up, saying, “What are ye doin’ here, Whitfield? Ye know that ye ain’t welcome on my spread.”
    “I came for my man Dumont,” Whitfield replied, his voice harsh with anger.
    “He’s dead.”
    Whitfield’s scowl didn’t change. “I figured as much,” he snapped. “I hear you’ve got some sort of hired gun working for you now, MacTavish. Did he kill Dumont, or was it you or one of your boys?”
    Without straightening from his casual pose in the doorway, Conrad called, “It was your own man who blew himself up, Whitfield. If anyone’s to blame for his death…it’s the man who sent him over here with dynamite.”
    Whitfield turned his horse a little so that he could glare murderously at Conrad. “You’d be the hired gun,” he snapped.
    “No,” Conrad said flatly. “I’m just passing through these parts on my way to Val Verde. I stopped and took a hand because I didn’t like the odds against the MacTavishes. That’s all.”
    “What’s your name, mister?” Whitfield demanded.
    “Conrad Browning.”
    Whitfield frowned, as if the name was somehow familiar to him but he couldn’t place it. “Well, you’ve made a bad mistake by stickin’ your nose in where it ain’t welcome, Browning. This bunch you’re defending is nothing but a gang of rustlers and murderers.”
    “You’re a damned liar, Whitfield,” Hamish burst out. “My son told ye that to your face, and now I’m tellin’ you.”
    One of the men edged his horse forward. “Want me to take care of this trash for you, boss?” he asked.
    The man wasn’t very impressive-looking. Even on horseback, he wasn’t very big. The marks of some childhood disease pocked his dark, narrow face. He wore a cowhide vest and a black Stetson pulled down low. A quirley dangled from the corner of his mouth.
    Conrad knew, though, that appearances were deceptive. The way this man carried himself in the saddle with his hand never straying far from the butt of his gun, the muscular thickness of his right wrist, the cold, dark eyes…They all added up to the fact that he was a gunslinger. Conrad had grown to know the signs all too well.
    “That’s all right, Trace,” Whitfield snapped as he lifted a hand to motion the gunman back. “I can stomp my own snakes.”
    “Evidently not,” Conrad said. “You come visiting with a handful of hired guns at your back.”
    Whitfield’s already florid face flushed even more with anger. “Because I don’t want to wind up with a bullet in my back, like three of my riders did when a hundred head of my cattle disappeared!”
    “We didn’t steal your cattle, and we sure as hell didn’t shoot any o’ your men!” Hamish said.
    “What happened to them, then?”
    “The border’s not all that far away,” Conrad pointed out. “Bandidos could have crossed over, ambushed your men, stolen those cattle, and run them back across into Mexico without much trouble. That sort of thing happens all the time.”
    “It never happened around here until this greasy-sack outfit moved in,” Whitfield argued.
    “Because ye run roughshod over ever’body else in this part o’ the country until they’re all scared o’ ye,” Hamish said. “There’s a good reason folks call ye Devil Dave.”
    “By God, I won’t stand for that!” Whitfield’s hand started toward his gun.
    Before it could get there, Conrad’s Colt was out and leveled, his draw a flicker of movement hard for the eye to follow. At the same time, the man called Trace slapped leather as well. Everyone froze, with Conrad’s gun pointed at Whitfield and Trace’s revolver trained on Conrad.
    “Put it down, Browning,” Trace grated, “or you’re a dead man.”
    “Not before your boss is,” Conrad said without taking his eyes off Whitfield. His thumb looped over the