Outlaw Pass (9781101544785) Read Online Free

Nobody deals for paper.”
    Adam didn’t respond at once, remembering then what his father had said when he gave him the double eagles. The old man was right on that call. After a few seconds’ pause, he went to his saddlebags and retrieved the small pouch. Taking out one of the coins, he handed it to the bald man and said, “This is a twenty-dollar gold piece, so you damn sure better have sixteen dollars’ worth of gold dust for change.”
    The owner took the coin, turned it over two or three times inspecting it before placing it in his teeth to test it. “I reckon it’s genuine,” he conceded. “I can give you dust for it.”
    Adam followed him into a storeroom where a set of scales sat on a shelf. The man pulled a pouch from inside his trousers and weighed out a small pile of dust. “There you go,” he said, “sixteen dollars.”
    Adam could not be certain the man had used the proper weight to measure the gold dust, but he looked at it closely as if he did know. “How do I know that’s pure gold dust?”
    â€œIt’s as pure as you’ll fine. Don’t matter how pure it is as long as it’s worth sixteen dollars—and that’s what it’s worth.”
    â€œI’ll be using it to buy some supplies, so if it ain’t sixteen dollars’ worth, I’m comin’ back to shoot your ass,” Adam stated.
    There was something in the broad-shouldered young man’s eyes that convinced the stable owner that he didn’t waste words in idle boasting. “Listen, young feller,” he hastened to reply, his tone much less indifferent than before, “ever’thin’s high in this town. You ask around, anybody’ll tell you Jack Samson’s an honest man. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Since you’re new in town, I’ll give your horse a double order of oats and no extra charge. How’s that?”
    â€œThe horse will appreciate it,” Adam answered, although his deadpanned expression did not change. “You by any chance know a man named Jake Blaine?”
    Samson shook his head. “I can’t say as I do,” he replied.
    Adam hardly expected him to remember Jake by name even if he had seen him, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. With Samson watching, he pulled the saddle off Brownie. Then Jack led the horse into an empty stall. Adam followed him in and threw his saddle in a corner of the stall. “My saddlebags be all right here?” he asked. When Samson said nobody would disturb them there, Adam put the pouch with the two remaining double eagles in his pocket, drew his rifle from the saddle sling, and left the stable to begin his search of the saloons.
    It took very little time to verify the difficulty he had anticipated in looking for Jake. In every saloon he entered, the response was a variation of a similar reply. “Hell, mister, I ain’t got the time or the inclination to know every prospector and drunk that comes in here. I just sell ’em whiskey and beer. I don’t wanna know their names.” When he had canvassed all the saloons in Virginia City, he tried his luck in the stores with the same lack of success. As a last result, he inquired at the hotels on the possibility that, if Jake had actually struck it rich, he might have sprung for a room. That was not the case, however. There was no Jake Blaine on any hotel registries. At the end of the evening, he stopped back at an establishment called O’Grady’s, the first saloon he had visited, to have a glass of beer while he thought about what he should do next.
    The bartender recognized him as having been in earlier that evening asking about someone. “You find that feller you were lookin’ for?” he asked when he set the glass of beer on the bar before Adam. “What was his name?”
    â€œJake Blaine,” Adam replied. “No, I ain’t found him yet.” He