The Russian Billionaire’s Secret(159)

“Yeah…his body was found with a note on it from Doc Dawson.”

“The cattle rustler?”

“The very same,” Dandy answers Junior. “To get at me.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah…after you left, I started working for Dave. He said that a rustler was stealing his cattle, so he asked me and the Garret boys to stop him.”

“Jefferson and Davis?”

“Yeah…well, they didn’t listen to me, and got shot. I was…indisposed.”

“Okay?”

“Well, Dawson went to Dave’s house and killed him, and left a note for me, and I had to kill him.”

“He didn’t just kill Dawson,” Dwight interjects. “He met him in the middle of the street and beat him to the quick draw!”

“Wow,” Ruth says.

“Don’t make it into something it wasn’t, now Dwight,” Dandy says. “All it takes is being the fastest once. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’m the one lying dead in the dirt. I was just faster that one time, and it was the one time I needed to be.”

“What about Amanda?” Junior asks.

“Well, it was raining the day of Dave’s funeral, and a few days later, she took to a cold. Within a week, it had developed into fully fledged pneumonia. She died a month later.”

“I’m sorry,” Junior and Ruth say together.

“It’s okay, now,” Dwight says. “If I hadn’t lost Amanda, I wouldn’t be where I am now, and I wouldn’t have this beautiful woman,” he says, hugging Pauline with one arm. “I’m not saying that I love Pauline more or less than Amanda, but I am saying that God’s got a plan in everything, and that’s why I am so angry with Tyson.

”

“Yeah, Tyson…what’s he been doing?” Junior asks.

“Well, the pompous * formed a mob to run Pauline and I out of town!” Sarah Anne exclaims. “The little prick is so pissed that he can’t control everyone that he formed a mob, and that damned nigger whore tried to say that my husband was her man before I came around.”

“It was kind of funny when my beautiful wife went off on Sally,” Dandy says, smirking.

“What did you say?” Ruth asks.

“Well, I told her that I didn’t take her man, because she was nothing but a God damned whore that my husband f*cked until he met me!” Sarah Anne exclaims, her vulgarity causing Ruth and Pauline to blush. Sarah Anne surely was a spitfire.

“Well, I suppose we’d better go find Tyson,” Junior says.

“What are you going to do?” Dwight asks.

“I’m going to remind him of why he isn’t able to talk bad on anyone…because I know what he’s done. If he doesn’t promise to keep his mouth shut, let’s just say that Pastor Bill is going to find out why I was against Tyson’s election as an elder.”

Chapter 10

Happy Endings

It didn’t take Junior and the boys long to find Tyson. Ruth, Pauline, and Sarah Anne stayed behind at Dandy and Sarah Anne’s house (Junior’s old ranch house), because they would likely only inflame the situation more than it needed to be. Dandy, Junior, and Dwight entered into the Hanged Man Saloon, and sat at the bar, and ordered three whiskeys. While their backs were turned, Tyson entered the saloon, immediately causing a ruckus.

“Where is that whore!” he was yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Ahh, Tyson!” Junior says, turning around, his empty whiskey glass in his hand. “I was hoping that I would run into you!”

“Junior Parker!” Tyson yells drunkenly. “What the hell are you doing back in Atoka? I thought I told you to stay the hell away from here with your whore of a wife!”

“Oh you did? I was under the impression that you had run away to keep your wife from finding out why I fired you,” Junior says, pleasantly.

“Oh? And why was that again? Because as I recall, I quit!”

“Now, Tyson…don’t be foolish. Everybody in this room knows that nobody ever quits working for me…I was too good to my guys. Right, Dandy?”

“That’s right, Boss,” Dandy answered.

“Now, Dandy, I done told you that I ain’t your boss any longer.”

“I know. Old habits die hard,” he answered.

“So, Tyson…let’s think this over. We can make this as easy or as hard as you like. I’m already gone from these parts. Ruth and I have got a nice new homestead in Nebraska, we’re trying to have a baby, and we have no intention of coming back.”

“Yeah! Because I ran you out of here!”

“No. Because I wanted to go somewhere where I wasn’t widely known as the richest son-of-a-bitch in the area. Now, I am going to give you one last chance…either promise me that you will leave Dwight, Dandy, and their lovely wives alone, or I will wreck every vestige of power you have in Coleman County, Texas.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I’ll simply tell everyone the truth. Who do you think they’ll believe? You? Or me?”

“Me you whoremonger!”

“Last warning, Tyson…call my wife a whore one more time, and I will end you.”