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“There’s several hundred of them. They’ll fan out and look all over this town, understand? Good thing is, it won’t last. They’ll do it until they get tired, then go back to Outlaw Road and get drunk tonight. By tomorrow they’ll be back to normal, which still isn’t good, but at least they won’t come hunting us.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s how they are. If somebody gets killed, a brother, friend, these people go berserk for a short time, and whether they find somebody or not, they calm down after drinking. I grew up down here, heard it’s happened fifteen, twenty times.”
“But not like this, not one man against them all.”
“No, nothing like this.”
Hunter said, “Pepper, you want to take a chance they aren’t coming?”
“Oh no, no,” Pepper held out her hand to Hunter, “Give me his keys. If we both pack we can leave sooner.”
***
They were across the international bridge and in Presidio when Hunter said, “I’m sorry about your car, Raymond.”
“Things die down, I’ll get it back.”
“Did you see it, where I parked it, I mean?”
“Yeah, by the first building.”
Pepper said, “My car is parked at Las Palmas. You can drop me there.”
Hunter took the loop around town and stopped by Pepper’s custom painted emerald-green BMW. Hunter couldn’t resist, “Matches your eyes?”
“I’m trying to create an image. It’s not vanity, I need to break into the big time and I’ll use every trick I can,” she got out and punched the alarm release button on her keys and the alarm beeped. Pepper opened the driver’s door and leaned in, putting the keys in the ignition and starting it up without sitting in the seat.
She walked around the pickup to Hunter’s window. Hunter rolled it down and Pepper said, “I want to thank you.”
“No need.”
“Yeah, there is. I’ve never been in a situation like that. It…it was terrible. I guess I thought it would be an adventure and I’d be this reporter hero, like in the movies.” She shook her head, “I was scared out of my mind, and I found out fast I’m no hero.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Yeah, well, see you.”
Hunter said, “I need to ask you one question. Straight up.”
“Go ahead.”
“How did you know where to find us?”
“From Rockman.”
“He told you? How’d he know?”
“I was in his office when he got a phone call. It upset him and he wrote notes down while he was talking. He took the top page and I took the other when he wasn’t looking. I rubbed a pencil lead across it later and it said you and an Indian - it was the little girl, huh? - were at that saloon with Mingo Cruz. He wrote down other stuff, but it was like, dollar signs,” Pepper drew one in the air with her finger, “and single words like ‘Murder’, and ‘Stealing’, and a couple of names, I think.”
“You remember the names?”
“One was Godoy. I won’t forget that name as long as I live. The other was Mora, I think. Is that a name?”
“Oh yeah.”
Pepper said, “If I think of anything else, I’ll call. Right now, I’m going back to El Paso and get a bottle of Southern Comfort and go to my apartment and drink and cry until I get some of this out of my system.” She walked to the BMW, got in and drove away.
