The Valley of the Wendigo Read Online Free Page B

most pleasure she’d ever had with a man, let alone from just thinking about one.
    After Dakota left, Clint went back to the bar and got himself a fresh beer. There were some poker games starting around the room, but he’d had too many beers to take part in them. He hated to gamble when he was drunk.
    â€œWho—or what—the hell was that?” the bartender asked.
    â€œThat was a woman.”
    â€œReally? You couldn’t tell by me.”
    â€œOh, I think there was a woman there, all right, under all the dirt.”
    â€œWhat about the smell?”
    â€œThat’ll come off in the bath, like the dirt,” Clint said. “You’ll see.”
    â€œYou convinced her to take a bath?”
    â€œI’m a very persuasive man.”
    â€œYou must be.”
    â€œFor instance,” he went on, “I’m going to convince you to give me a beer on the house.”
    The bartender grinned and said, “Coming up.”
    In another corner of the saloon three men sat and watched Clint Adams at the bar.
    â€œYou sure that’s the Gunsmith?” Eddie Largent asked.
    â€œBig as life,” Denny Blaine said. “I seen him in Denver, once.”
    â€œWhat was you doin’ in Denver?” Pat Sanchez asked.
    â€œI was screwin’ your Mexican mama,” Blaine said. “What the hell does it matter what I was doin’ there? I seen him!”
    â€œThink he’s here for the bounty?” Largent asked.
    â€œI ain’t never heard of him chasin’ no bounty,” Blaine said, “but things change.”
    â€œWhat chance we got if’n he’s gonna be huntin’?” Sanchez asked.
    â€œShut up, Pat,” Blaine said.
    â€œWhy you always tellin’ me to shut up?”
    â€œBecause you’re always askin’ stupid questions, that’s why,” Largent said.
    Sanchez thought about protesting, but decided to pout instead.
    â€œBad enough we got that old Indian in town,” Largent said.
    â€œThat Fiddler,” Blaine said. “Some day soon he’s just gonna fall off his horse and die.”
    â€œWhat about Dakota?”
    â€œHer?” Blaine snorted. “She’s held together by dirt and stink. She won’t be a problem.”
    â€œSo then the only problem will be this Wen-digo, or whatever it is,” Sanchez said.
    â€œI’m tellin’ ya,” Blaine said to both men, “it’s a goddamned bear. It’s gotta be.”
    â€œAnd we can kill a bear,” Sanchez said.
    â€œYeah,” Blaine said, “we can, and collect the five-hundred-dollar bounty.”
    â€œWe gonna split that even?” Sanchez asked.
    â€œWe sure are, Pat,” Blaine said. “Two hundred for me and Denny and a whole hundred for you.”
    Pat Sanchez’s eyes glittered and he said, “Hot damn!”
    Using the mirror behind the bar, Clint could watch the three men who had been studying him. It was his guess they were either after him for his rep, or they were hunters looking at him as competition. That five-hundred-dollar bounty was bringing them into town, and because it wasn’t a huge amount of money, it was going to bring in quite a few penny-ante hunters. If it were, say, twenty-five hundred dollars, then the professional hunters would be coming in. So far, the only pros he’d seen or heard about were Dakota and Fiddler, and they were here because they were from these parts—meaning Northern Minnesota and the southern part of Canada.
    And, of course, it was more than money that had brought Jack Fiddler. From what Clint had heard, this man considered hunting Wendigos as his mission in life. The bounty—or his fee, whatever he could work out—was just to keep him going.
    He finally decided that the three men were hunters. They didn’t have the look of hard cases who’d be out to prove their mettle against the Gunsmith.
    He turned his thoughts to