After riding out of town and circling back again, he and one of his men left their horses tied to a post two streets from the spot where they’d had words with Matt and then walked straight back to that same hotel. Ben walked with a confident stride and an easy smile on his face. He might have been considered a handsome man if not for the deadly gleam in his eyes that marked him the same way a rattlesnake was marked by the colors on its back. A few paces from the hotel’s front door, Ben glanced to the man beside him and said, “Keep your mouth shut and follow my lead.” “What if Matt’s in there?” “I told you to keep your mouth shut, Danny. Are you going deaf?” The other man was an inch or so taller than Ben and was missing the bottom halves of three front teeth. Despite the battle scars he wore in his mouth and on his face, he deferred to Ben without so much as a word in his own defense. “If he’s in there, we’ll deal with him,” Ben said. “You saw them laws that were out here before.
