by Tinnean
He looked to the horizon. Over the rise, two horses appeared, moving at a pretty fast clip.
That last year of the war and then the years after had taught him caution, and he knew he needed to learn as much about the riders as he could before they got too near.
He took his field glasses from a saddlebag and glanced up at the sun. No matter which way he angled Salida, the sun was still likely to reflect off the lenses.
“Well, I reckon there’s no help for it, girl.” He raised the glasses to his eyes with his right hand, while he kept a loose grip on the reins with his left.
The men came into focus, and he swore softly. He knew them—it wasn’t likely he’d ever forget them. They were two of the brothers he’d crossed paths with years earlier, during the war: Ezra and Eli Wilson. You didn’t forget faces like those, although the last time he’d seen them, there had been four of them. There was no sign of Enoch or Ephraim, the two middle brothers, and Sharps concentrated on studying the area to the right and left of the brothers. He wouldn’t put it past them to try to get the jump on him.
No, there was no sign of the other men, and he drew in a silent breath. He didn’t care what had happened to the missing brothers. All it meant was there were two less for him to deal with.
The Wilsons approaching him were both carrying double—one a woman and the other a kid.
Sharps’s grip on the reins tightened, and Salida shifted and shook her head.
“Sorry, girl.” He lowered the glasses, put them away, and patted her neck. “Looks like trouble is coming to call.” He adjusted the banjo case on his back.
Since he was alone, Sharps knew he had to stay alert. He also had to find an edge, or the brothers would try to get the better of him and do what they’d intended to do years before. Once they were done with him, they’d shoot him dead and take Salida, and the captain would never get his banjo.
Sharps knew as soon as the two men spotted him. They urged their horses—a big gray and a smaller pinto—down the rise and across the prairie toward him. The pinto, who was carrying Eli Wilson and the woman, trailed behind, seeming to favor his off rear leg.
Sharps made sure the loop securing the hammer of his Remington revolver was off and that the revolver could be drawn easily from its holster.
“That’s close enough,” Sharps told them, and the two men pulled up a dozen yards away from him. Sharps was downwind of the brothers, and the sour odor of their unwashed bodies had him breathing shallowly through his mouth.
Abruptly, Salida tossed her head and whinnied, and took a step forward. “Easy, girl,” he murmured, and although she stood still, she stretched out her head, as if she were scenting the air.
“Georgie, is that—”
The woman cut the kid a glance, and he shut up.
Sharps could see the men up behind them on the horses tighten their grips around them. They said something, although he couldn’t hear it, which was probably how they wanted it.
“How do, pardner?” Ezra, the one riding the gray, grinned, revealing a missing tooth, and he used his thumb to push his hat back on his head. A quirt dangled from his wrist.
“Howdy.”
“Don’t pay no mind to this kid. I ain’t learned him his manners yet.”
“Touch him and I’ll kill you,” the woman said in a low, cold voice that was deep for a woman.
“Shut your trap, woman.” Eli cuffed her head. He must have hit her before. There was a knot on her cheekbone, her lower lip was split, the shoulder of her dress was torn, and there were scratches on her arm. Eli’s face also bore some scratches.
“Don’t pay her no mind neither, pard. She’s just a fool woman.”
Sharps tried to meet the woman’s gaze, but she stared down at her hands, and he wondered how these two travelers had wound up with the Wilson brothers.
The pinto—a gelding—looked worn—he wasn’t made for carrying double, and it would have made more sense for the woman to ride with Ezra.
He turned his attention to the gray, which he could see now was a stallion, and studied the welts on his flanks. He was a handsome animal, and it was a shame he belonged to someone like Ezra Wilson.
Up close, the stallion’s size was evident, about seventeen or eighteen hands, he reckoned. Sharps’s mare, at fourteen hands, was on the small side for her breed.
The stallion stretched out his head and his nostrils flared as he took in the mare’s scent. He took a step toward her, and his rider yanked back hard on the reins, sawing at his mouth and hitting him over the head with the quirt. “Hold still, you flea-bitten knothead.”
The stallion’s ears went back, he rolled his eyes, and shudders rippled through his hide. It was obvious he was getting ready to buck, and the woman called out something to the kid in Spanish. Sharps had been down Texas way for the colonel, and he’d been around enough Mexicans to recognize the language.
The kid gripped the stallion’s mane and rolled his shoulders, preparing for an explosion of motion, but then another blow from the quirt fell, this time the butt end, and the stallion stopped moving.
Yeah, Ezra was still as bad a penny as he’d been seven years ago.
“You gotta show ‘em who’s the boss.” Ezra continued nonchalantly, “You a stranger to these parts?”
Sharps gave him an easy grin. “I reckon you could say that.” It was obvious Ezra didn’t recognize him. Well, the last time Ezra had seen him, Sharps had been a boy wearing a uniform of madder red trousers and blue jacket. Since then, he’d grown some, although he was still short, and as for his face, well, a glance in the mirror showed it was still young-looking until you saw what those years after the war had put in his eyes. Sharps made a point of keeping that hidden, but sometimes it slipped out.
“Where you headed?” Ezra asked.
“Anywhere there’s a town where I can get a bath. A body gets tired washing in the creek.” Would that casual reminder nudge their memories?
The brothers ran their gazes over him, but no, it seemed not, as no recollection showed in their faces.
“You gents know where the nearest town is?”
“Nah. The only thing thataway…” Ezra gestured back the way he and his brother had come. “…is a whole lot of nothin’.” He sent the woman a fierce look. She narrowed her eyes but returned to studying her fingers. “Seen some Injun sign, though.”
“Hmm.” A long, hard ride could be why their mounts’ coats were covered with dried sweat, but remembering what he knew of these men, Sharps wouldn’t wager the farm on it.
“You’re better off ridin’ along with us. For protection.” Ezra sent a grin in Eli’s direction. “Eli’ll even share the woman with you.”
“Hey!” Eli protested. “I ain’t had a taste of her yet.”
Sharps let out another silent, relieved breath. Knowing the brothers, he’d been afraid…
“I said you’ll share,” Ezra snarled.
Eli grumbled but backed down.
“That’s kind of you,” Sharps said. “How does the lady feel about it?”
“She’s just fine with it.” Eli reached around and squeezed her breast. “Ain’t you, woman?”
Somehow, Sharps doubted that, especially when she kicked the pinto’s side, causing the gelding to shy. At the same time, she drove her elbow into Eli’s gut. He let out an oof, let her go, and almost toppled off the gelding. Somehow he managed to catch himself in time.
“So sorry,” she said. The glance she sent his way promised she was anything but.
“Why you—” Eli raised his hand.
“Don’t you hit my b-big sister!” the kid shouted.
Ezra slapped his hand over the kid’s mouth to shut him up and then howled when the kid bit him. He cuffed the kid’s head, and the woman twisted in Eli’s grip in an attempt to get free. Eli smacked her so hard he knocked her bonnet off and her black hair came undone and tumbled down around her shoulders. It wasn’t as long as most women grew it, Sharps noted, but then maybe she’d been
sick.
“Mind your manners, missy,” Eli snarled, “or I’ll cut that pretty face of yours.”
“Georgie!”
“It’ll be okay, Chris.”
“You two keep thinking that.” Ezra slid his fist around the kid’s throat and squeezed. The kid went still.
“You really want to do that?” Sharps asked.
“Stay out of this.” But Ezra let go of the kid’s throat.
“Uh huh.”
“Say, Ez, something’s—” Eli looked confused.
“Well, I reckon I’ll be heading on west.” Sharps had no qualms in interrupting Eli.
“Hold on there a minute, stranger. There ain’t no need to rush off.”
“Yeah?” Sharps sat the mare calmly, wondering how he was going to get the woman and the kid out of this jam.
“What’s that you’re carrying on your back?”
Sharps reached over his shoulder and ran his fingers over the canvas that encased the captain’s gift. “This? It’s a banjo.”
“Yeah? You wanna play something for us?”
“I don’t play.”
“Right. Well…uh…” Ezra took out a green-black twist of tobacco and held it toward him. “Care for a chaw?”
“No, thanks, never got into the habit.”
Ezra shrugged, used a Bowie knife to cut off a slice of the tobacco, and stuffed it in his mouth.
“Hey, what about me,” Eli whined. “Don’t I get a chaw?”
“You got your own.”
“You know it got left behind—” He shut up when Ezra glared at him.
The oldest Wilson smoothed the expression on his face and replaced it with a grin he probably thought of as friendly, but to Sharps it was anything but. “That’s a mighty fine-looking mare you got there,” Ezra mumbled as he ran his sleeved arm over his lips, wiping up the tobacco juice that dribbled down his chin. “Would you be willing to sell her? We’ll even throw in Eli’s pinto.”
From the looks of him, the black and white gelding might have been a good horse at one time, but now he stood with his legs splayed and his head hanging low, his chest heaving as he tried desperately to take in enough air.
“I don’t reckon. Sorry.”
Ezra grunted. “You got any grub you’d be willing to share? We got a long way to go, and with these two extra mouths, we’ll wind up running low.”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, now, that ain’t very neighborly of you.”
It wasn’t, and on another occasion, with other people, Sharps would have been more than willing to share his supplies, but he had no intention of spending any more time with these varmints than he had to. He glanced toward the empty rifle scabbard behind Eli’s left leg. “Losing your rifle is kind of careless,” he said, knowing riling these two wasn’t smart, but finding he didn’t care a damn. “I spotted some white-tailed deer a mile or so back. They lit out when they caught my scent, but if you get a move on, you can catch up with them. If you get close enough, you might be able to shoot them with your revolvers.”
Ezra gave him a dirty look.
Sharps continued as if he hadn’t seen it. “You can leave the woman and the kid with me, if you like.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I got plans for the kid.” Ezra’s little pig eyes slid to his right, signaling his brother. Eli tried to be surreptitious in getting his gelding to move, nudging the pinto’s sides, but the horse was played out. Eli’s lips curled in a grimace, and he drove his roweled spurs into the gelding. This time the horse moved, but sluggishly.
“Goddammit,” Eli muttered.
As obvious as the move was, Sharps knew if he didn’t make his own move right then, they’d outflank him. Or try to.
He shifted in the saddle, the movement so unobtrusive only someone looking for it would notice—Colonel Sebring had taught Sharps well. Salida felt it though, and she began edging backward. Sharps had been working with the mare for the past year, but whoever had originally trained her had done a good job.
“Whoa, pard! Where you going? That’s no way to be.” Ezra had his hand resting on his thigh, and he inched it toward the big Colt on his hip.
Sharps had no intention of waiting for Ezra to play his hand, but he didn’t want to put the woman and kid in jeopardy. He drove his heels against Salida’s sides, and she leaped forward and barreled into the pinto, the force causing the weary gelding to stagger. At the same time, the woman jammed the heel of her hand up under Eli’s chin, and his head snapped back.
“My tongue! My tongue!” he howled. Blood dripped down his chin.
The woman slid out of his grip and ran to get to the kid. Her sudden appearance startled the stallion, and he shied back. While Ezra was busy trying to control him, the woman snatched the kid and ducked out of the way.
“Get her, Eli!” Ezra bawled. “Goddammit! Get him!”
Sharps didn’t know whether Ezra was referring to the boy or to him, and he wasn’t planning to sit there with his thumb up his ass, waiting to find out.
In one smooth move, he had his Remington out. He fanned the hammer, and Eli spilled out of his saddle, landing face first with a thud on the hard prairie ground. The pinto started to move, but the reins dropped to the ground, and he came to a halt, shuddering.
Sharps didn’t have time to see if the woman and kid were all right. A bullet whistled past his head, and he felt the breeze as it just missed his ear, thanks to Salida sidestepping. He shifted again in the saddle, and again the mare picked up on the signal. This time she spun around, which allowed him to turn his gun on Ezra and fire once more, deliberately shooting Ezra in the gut.
A wound of that sort was almost always fatal. It wasn’t a pretty death or an easy one, but it was what Ezra deserved.
Ezra stared at him in shock. His gun slipped from his fingers and he clutched his belly, shock replaced by an affronted look. “Goddammit, what’d you have to go and shoot me for?” He toppled off the gray stallion.
It was as if time had stood still, but the entire run of events hadn’t taken more than thirty seconds.
Sharps kicked free of the stirrups, swung his leg over the mare’s neck, and slid off, dropping the reins. She stood ground tied, as did the other horses, although he could see the scent of blood disturbed her. It sure as hellfire spooked the pinto, and the gray stallion didn’t seem too happy either.
Sharps went to Ezra and kicked his gun away from his outstretched hand; Ezra looked to be unconscious, but Sharps wasn’t taking any chances. He walked toward the Colt, picked it up, and examined the grip. Were the notches in it for the men Ezra had shot or the women—or boys—he’d raped? Sharps shook his head and tucked the gun into his belt.
“You all right, ma’am?” He started to walk toward her, but when she cowered away from him, he stopped and held up a hand in a soothing gesture.
“Yes.” She gathered the kid in her arms and murmured to him. He nodded and stared at Sharps.
“I’m sorry you had to see this.” Sharps turned and walked toward Eli.
“They both got what they deserved,” the woman said in an icy voice.
“I reckon.”
Sharps knew Eli was dead—he’d shot him through the left eye. Sharps holstered his Remington and picked up Eli’s gun as well. He blew out a disgusted breath. Even before the war, his pa had taught Sharps how to care for weapons. “A smart man takes care of his gun and his horse,” Pa had said. “They can be all that stand between him and death.”
This gun wasn’t in good condition, but that didn’t surprise Sharps when he got a closer look at the pinto.
“For the love of—would you look at this? How could any man treat his animals this way?” In addition to the sweat that had dried in white waves over the pinto’s coat, there were welts on his flank. “Jiminy Cricket! I’m surprised the pinto could carry—” The sound of hoofbeats interrupted him, and Sharps whirled around in time to see the woman and the kid taking off on Salida. “Hey!”
He stuck his fingers b
etween his lips and gave a shrill whistle, but the mare didn’t respond as she usually would—she seemed to flatten herself closer to the ground and run even faster.
“Well, I’ll be.” Sharps stood there with his hands braced on his hips, staring after them. It looked like they were heading back in the direction they’d come from.
Well, at least he hadn’t been abandoned without a mount. He just hoped the woman didn’t run Salida into the ground.
Sharps would take care of the horses, and then go after them.
He adjusted the banjo more comfortably against his back, turned to the stallion, and caught up his reins. He was in better condition than the pinto, probably because he was so much bigger.
The stallion’s ears went flat, and he drew back his lips. Sharps swore softly. The gray’s mouth was ruined. Blood dripped from the corners, and he’d probably never be able to wear a bridle again.
Sharps could tell by the tension in the stallion’s body that he was about to lash out. “Whoa, boy. Easy now.” Crooning in a soft tone, keeping an eye on those deadly hooves, he approached the stallion’s head. “Know something? You look like a cloudy sky at twilight. How about if I call you Twilight?” For the time being, anyway. “That’s the boy. It’ll be all right.” He eased the cruel bit out of Twilight’s mouth and rubbed his nose. Then he untied his bandana and dampened it with water from the canteen hanging from the saddle horn. With gentle strokes, he wiped the stallion’s mouth, soothing the torn flesh.
There was a length of rope tied by a thong to the rear of Ezra’s saddle, and Sharps unfastened it. He unwound about fifteen feet, cut it with his Arkansas toothpick—the twenty-inch blade he’d picked it up during his work for Colonel Sebring, and wore in a sheath at his left hip—and used it to help fashion a hackamore, a bitless bridle. Once he had it on the stallion, he removed the bridle and draped it over the saddle horn.
It was a fancy bridle, with silver and turquoise worked into the browband and noseband. If Sharps could find a decent bit, he might be able to trade or sell it. He didn’t bother wondering who Ezra had stolen it from—he doubted he’d ever find the owner alive. Even if Ezra hadn’t shot him, being without your horse was a death sentence in these parts.