The Bold Frontier by John Jakes Page A

He laughed softly. He had to put the Kansas & Western through. Not with actual rails and ties, not by sweating in the sun, but as an outlaw, with his gun and his mind. It was surely a new way to drive the iron west. …
    He stopped laughing then. A noose wasn’t funny. He remembered how close he had come, how he’d felt death near.
    He went out through the storeroom window to the back of the yard, the papers in his coat. His horse waited in the shadow thrown by the coaches, whose angular shapes rose against the swollen white moon.
    Yancey. The answer lay with the grinning, death-crazed youngster. At least, Rome thought, the first step lay there. He had to clear himself and thereby clear the railroad. With the moon out and night lying on the town, he had the opportunity. He knew very little about Yancey and yet he knew a great deal. Enough, perhaps, to give him the edge he needed.
    He rode slowly through the shadowed streets. They wouldn’t be searching for him at this hour. His horse moved quietly between the rows of houses while he looked to the right and left till he found the object of his search.
    The first boardinghouse, run by an Irishman named Harrigan, revealed nothing. The irate and sleepy landlord told him nobody named Yancey lived there. The door slammed in Rome’s face. He moved back to the street, mounted, and rode on.
    The second boardinghouse stood on a large lot on a dusty street directly to the rear of the Emporia. Rome heard the rhythms of the player piano still dinning into the night along with occasional laughter. He tied his horse at the sagging gate and stepped as quietly as he could onto the squeaking boards of the run-down porch.
    He knocked three times before a landlady appeared, carrying a tall lamp. Her hair was put up in papers, her thick face mottled. Her breath reeked of alcohol. Rome felt safe. She was too full of rotgut to recognize him, even if she had been at the church. Judging from her appearance, chances were she hadn’t.
    “What the hell’s the idea of waking a lady at this time of night?” she growled, pulling her wrapper close. The liquor fumes clouded around Rome’s head as she spoke.
    “I’m looking for a man named Yancey. Does he live here?”
    “Sure he does. Cole Yancey. Second floor. First door to the left of the landing.”
    He moved by, into the hall. She slammed the door and continued to babble drunkenly about being awakened, standing in a pool of lamplight by the newel post. She was still complaining when he turned the corner at the head of the stairs.
    He halted at the first door, standing in the gloom, listening. Beyond the thin panel he heard loud snoring. He eased his gun from its holster and shoved the barrel near the lock. Then he rapped on the door.
    He kept knocking till the snoring stopped. Yancey mumbled incoherently; footsteps padded to the door. Rome heard the noise of a hammer going back. Even if Yancey was still groggy from sleep, he couldn’t get out of the habit. But his reaction would be slow … or so Rome hoped.
    “Yeah?” Yancey called. “Who is it?”
    “Gashlin sent me over,” Rome whispered.
    “What about?”
    “About you and Job Thompson. Now open up.” He tried to sound angry and harried at the same time.
    Rome’s heart slugged out a beat within his chest. The key rattled in the lock. A tiny bit of light appeared as Yancey pulled the door open.
    Rome shoved the barrel of his gun against the man’s stomach. “Let go of your gun. Now! ”
    Yancey’s face lost its look of sleepy idiocy. His eyes flared with the sudden awareness that he was caught. He tried to step back, but Rome jammed the barrel deeper into his flesh, gouging. “Drop it on the floor!”
    Yancey choked and coughed, still not totally awake. He eased the hammer carefully into place. The gun thudded on the carpet, and Rome stepped quickly into the room, shutting the door. Yancey, barefoot, in his underwear, looked like a helpless and frightened boy. He didn’t have