Red West II.

Chapter seventeen - Back in the saddles

Horace Tabor folded the newspapers down only after the black tea was poured into the cups and his new black female servant retreated to the waiting room in front of his office on the fifth floor of the Brown Palace Hotel. Finally, the cocky chief-editor of 'The Denver Post' gave in to his specific demands and Horace was very satisfied with the published article and the announcement concerning that annoying gang, unlike with the man sitting opposite to him.

Lieutenant Governor leant his elbows on the table and connected his fingers, observing his guest, who stared at the offered hot liquid rather disgustedly, as far as he could tell from the man's expression visible under the layer of bruises and bandages.

"I have to say I expected your services to be more... effective, Mr. Harvey," Tabor stated calmly, though if one looked more closely, the glimpse of unsatisfied anger could have been found in his eyes.

"I almost got them," the bounty hunter grunted and the tips of his fingers peeking out from the hard gypsum, which protected his broken arm, twitched, revealing his annoyance.

"And unfortunately, 'almost' is the most important word in your statement, right?" Governor remarked coldly.

"Name me just one person, who managed to get so close to them, Tabor, or to find out as much as me. I know the faces of six Riders already," Harvey challenged him stiffly. "They were just lucky. Next time..."

"I don't care about the way you do things," Tabor interrupted him. "But I expect proper results. And the only result which I've got from paying you so far is the fact that the Riders and their filthy leader are travelling freely through the states, surely paying the tickets with my money."

"If you weren't so stingy on the costs and hired better men, they wouldn't have had that much for spending," the hunter replied caustically.

"Well, if I were really such a miser, I wouldn't have hired you, Mr. Harvey, would I?"

The bandaged man made a face, but didn't react this time.

"Anyway, if you keep going on like this, you might as well share all that precious information of yours with the Marshals to get the job done. But of course, your pay check would be significantly lowered with that."

The eyes of the hunter gained dangerously cold shine hearing that underestimation of his efforts.

"They will come back," he stated with certainty. "And that will be their end."

"How can you be sure about that?" Governor asked haughtily.

"There were only a few of them on that train; I'm pretty sure they just set off for a short trip, whatever the reason, and they'll be back soon."

"And you intend to watch over the Union Station every hour of every day not to miss them?" Tabor raised a mocking question.

"No," Harvey gritted through his teeth, already quite fed up from being mocked by that overly rich bastard. "I'll wait for them in Leadville."

"Because...?" Tabor required an additional explanation.

"Your former servant was sending those telegrams to the local post office. It's not difficult to figure out that Akanishi had set their base there. I will use anything at hand to get to him, you can rely on that."

"I see," Tabor leant back into his comfortable armchair. "In that case, I want you to contact a certain man in the city. He had already proven himself to be very useful in the past."

"I've told you I don't want..."

Horace didn't let Harvey to finish his complaint: "He's already on my payroll list as well, that means no deduction for you."