"Not exactly. Can I get a head count on your cattle? Do you perhaps have a bill of sale to confirm how many you should have had?"
Glen did the head count. What had been fifty-three, then fifty dead even, now there were forty-six. At this rate, he wouldn't have a herd left by the end of the summer, wherever they were taking them to.
The deputy seemed to be sympathetic, but there wasn't a whole lot the man could do to change the past, and Glen wasn't about to ask him to try it.
"Now that's done—let's go talk to Mr. Dawson, shall we?"
Glen liked the sound of that.
Catherine watched them go and tried not to let the bad feeling in her stomach get to her. The way they rode off together, Glen looked as comfortable as she had ever seen him.
He looked a hundred times more comfortable riding off to make sure the Deputy Marshal didn't get shot than he ever had riding off with the cattle. As if doing it was what he naturally wanted to do.
They were going off to the Dawson brewery, she thought. They would be back tonight, no problem. Even if there was a problem, Glen wasn't going to be in the middle of it. He was just hired on to help do the job.
There wasn't any reason to kill him. So there was no reason to be worried about him.
The reasoning didn't help to calm her nerves. As she watched him ride off, Catherine couldn't help feeling that something was fundamentally changing. Something she wasn't going to like.
She wanted a horse, to follow them from a ways behind to make sure they would be alright, and she wished he had taken the Spencer from over the mantelpiece. Anything that would supplement that pistol of his. Regardless of how natural it looked on him.
She let out the breath she had been holding. There was no use in watching him go. He would be back tonight. She repeated it again to herself. Only in a few hours. Back by tonight. She liked the sound of it.
Now if only she believed it.
Twenty Four
Glen had a bad feeling. They didn't have enough men. That was the worst part. Knowing that they should have had at least two more.
One should wait outside with a rifle, make sure that nobody came up behind and cover their exit. The other… well, Glen didn't see Rod Dawson going quietly in any case. Not with this many men hanging around. Three inside was the minimum. More would have meant that they might all be going home.
Two men felt like a joke. They would be lucky to make it out of the place with their lives, never mind with Dawson in tow. He said so to Deputy Barrett.
"The way I figure it, if we take the time to get backup, they might just remove any evidence. Your Sheriff probably already warned him that you're onto his trail—can we afford the time?"
Glen thought they could, but he wasn't in charge, and both of them knew it. He was there for muscle and to provide support. An extra gun. He didn't have a rifle in the first place, either, so the more comfortable position wouldn't be possible.
He turned the cylinder to check that the Colt was loaded, then thought better of it and thumbed a cartridge into the last space. Six shots would do him better than the assurance of the empty cylinder right now.
The Deputy turned to him. "You ready?"
Glen nodded. He didn't like this, but that didn't mean he was a coward, and it damn sure didn't mean that it was going to change anything if he waited.
They got back onto their horses and started in, nice and slow. No hurry. If they were lucky, they would walk out with the man. Lucky being the operative word—Glen would nearly take it as proof that the man was innocent if they made it out alright.
The Deputy knocked. Glen stayed a few steps behind, keeping an eye on the men who were sitting by the side, smoking thick cigars. They shut up as soon as the two men came into earshot, but pretended not to notice them.
Well, either way. He wasn't going to get riled up over just that. Still, his fingers flexed on the butt of his gun. This wasn't going to end well, he knew. Not at all well.
The door opened on a broad-shouldered man wearing a heavy apron.
"I'm with the United States Marshal Service, and I'm here to serve an arrest warrant for one Rodney Dawson. I believe he owns this brewery, is that right?"
The man raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, Rod runs this place, sure. He ain't here."
"That's very disappointing to hear, sir. Do you know where I might be able to find him?"
"No."