“That’s your story. Mine’ll be different.”
“Why are you so bent on getting rid of me? I’ve dealt you no grief. I’m law abiding. And right now, I’m trying to help a man who’s laid out on his back.”
“Yeah, by a kinsman of yours.”
A deputy brought over Timo’s keys and dangled them before the lawman. “Keys was right where he said they was.”
“Ride for the fort and make sure his story meets up with Bowers’s. We’ll just stay right where we are till you get back. Go on. Strobaw, you get back to work.”
I watched the deputy disappear outside. “No thanks, I’ll just stand right here until he confirms Timo’s accounting. Wouldn’t want this thing to go catawampus. That might give you call to mistake the hammer for a weapon.”
“Balderdash, boy. I was of a mind, I’d just shoot you and put the hammer i
