They were fast. I had to be smarter or we were dead. With my next breath, I shot from each weapon. With my outstretched arm, I fired directly toward the beast while I waited a count and shot from my second gun, aiming to the side. As I hoped, the wolf focused on my primary arm and dodged that bullet, stepping into the path of my second, taking that bullet in the chest.
The wolf’s eyes went from brown to glowing a copper color.
“That’s new,” I muttered and shot again, catching him in the leg, causing him to jump out.
I’d now used four of my twelve shots, so I had to make my last eight count. Sure, we had two rifles, but these guys were up close and personal.
A loud shot fired, vibrating behind my knees. I turned in time to see a wolf’s head come clean off as his body fell lifeless onto the road. That’s when I realized Ben had shot his rifle from the seat where it sat.
“He was about to take your ass!” he explained.
“Thanks!” I yelled over pounding hooves and the growling of three new wolves that had joined the party as we passed the Torreon. “It’s not even a full moon! Jeez!” I shot, killing the next wolf who got close. This time I sat down before my head did a loopty-loop.
“Hang on!” Ben yelled as he directed the horse to make a sharp right just as we passed the McSween house.
Pulling her to a stop, I leapt down, grabbed my rifle, and turned to see not one furry bastard. I glanced at Ben, standing on the seat, rifle in position.
“Where’d they go?” he asked.
“Hell if I know. Come on, let’s get this stuff loaded into—”
“Could you two be any louder? Both of you, comin’ down the street like drunken hooligans!” came a female voice behind us.
Turning, we saw Mrs. Susan McSween holding an oil lantern. Her dark hair piled high, still wearing her traveling attire, gloves and all.
“Ma’am, you should get inside,” I said.
She walked toward us, eyed the covered contents of the wagon bed, then her gaze met mine. “I certainly will not go inside, not until you tell me what in blazes you are doin’ ridin’ onto my property like Hell is on your heels!” She sat the lantern on the seat of the wagon. “And give me that before you shoot a passerby, for God’s sake.”
She grabbed my rifle, and for no reason I can fathom, I let her take it.
“Well, we sort of did have Hell on our heels, ma’am,” Ben said. “There were these wolves and―”
I cut him off before he said too much. “Just two of nature’s creatures, Mrs. McSween. They spooked the horse and us a bit, if we’re to be truthful. Took a shot or two and they ran off. We apologize if we disturbed you. To be honest, we didn’t know you’d returned from Missouri.”
“Just got in a short bit ago,” she said, walking past me to stand on my left, her eyes again flitting to the lump of things under the blankets in the wagon bed. “Found my husband gone to who knows where and a letter. I’m hopin’ you can explain some of this to me.”
Susan had been gone to see family since before John’s murder, so there would be a lot to cover and many lies to tell. I saw a long night ahead of me and was prone to a grumble, until my stomach did so instead.
“Dear heavens, I could hear that from here. When did you eat last? Never mind, seein’ as Alex took both servants with him, I’m sure my sister or I can fill your belly for your time and information. What are you unloadin’ there and where does it need to go?” Her dark eyes bore into me as she raised an elegant eyebrow.
“I’ll explain inside. First, we should get you and these inside, away from the Murphes,” I said, using the word Charlie had made up.
Ben jumped down from the wagon and pulled the blanket back, saying, “It’s just some—”
A wolf, smaller than most I’d seen, leapt out from under the blanket at Ben. I pulled my revolver and was about to fire when a loud blast went off and hit the animal in the head moments before his jaws would’ve sunk into Ben, who had frozen in fear.
Turning to see who’d taken the shot, I found Susan with my rifle raised up, perfectly poised, in firing position. Ben and I just stared at her for a moment.
“Silver?” she asked.
I nodded, for that’s all I could seem to do.
“Good, then that’s done. Let’s move your...?”
“Ammunition, ma’am,” I squeezed out, voice a bit higher than usual.
“Let’s move your ammunition inside. And don’t dawdle! I’m not savin’ your ass from another one of them bastards tonight.”
I watched Susan’s tall frame walk into the house and questioned everything I knew about the woman. How much did she know about this word, why did she know, and what the hell was I going to do about it?
10
Susan Mcsween And The Man From England
Ben and I shared a glance and then got to work. Carrying the second crate in, Ben looked at me and said, “A heads up about werewolves comin’ for us next time, okay?”
I almost dropped my side of the crate. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“Silver ammunition, wolves attackin’ us, comments about the moon...I’m not an idiot, Billy. Besides, my dad and I know some of what John was really doin’ here. Not all of it, but enough for me to know there’s some supernatural mumbo-jumbo goin’ on and you’ve not been honest with me.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “Look, Ben, there are rules about...” Susan opened the door, holding it for us, so I finished with, “Ya know what, never mind.”
Susan McSween was a tall woman with a walk that said she meant business. Without a word, she directed us to the front room of the west wing, which was the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. McSween. Heading to the far wall, which was the front of the house, she pulled back the drapery there to reveal a large storage space with a bar that ran along near the top with shelving above. Hanging from the bar were summer clothes for both the McSweens, with his belongings to the left and hers to the right.
Susan examined the floor of the closet. “It would seem my husband took his trunk with him. That’s likely for the best. It leaves room for you to fit that crate in here without difficulty. Slide it behind my dresses. That’ll hide it best. Then bring the opened crate into the parlor.” She opened the door that led to that room and stepped through.
Turning back to us as we maneuvered around the bed with the crate, she said, “Oh, and don’t be startled, the gentleman in the parlor is a friend of Mr. Chisum’s who assisted him with his trials in Las Vegas. I think you’ll like him, he’s a crusader like you, but he tends to attack his enemies with words, like an adult.”
She walked out and shut the door.
I looked to Ben and whispered, “Was that an insult?”
Ben only partially hid his smile and quietly replied, “I think it was.”
I grinned with a shake of my head, then we worked at placing the crate in the closet as instructed. To do so, I had to back up into the space. Once inside and surrounded by walls and garments, I whispered to Ben, “Why do I have a feelin’ that Mrs. McSween knows more than she’s sayin’?”
“‘Cause she does,” Ben said. “And it’s probably a hell of a lot more than me, so you’re gonna fill me in, or this is the last time my father or I help you, Billy. God as my witness, I want answers.”
I thought back to Regulator training, to Garrett’s emphatic rule of, “Tell no one without my permission.” How many knew now? Obviously, I shouldn’t tell him, but we couldn’t lose the Ellis’s assistance in this war, what with John’s store not open for business anymore.
“I’m not kiddin’, Billy,” he prompted.
“I know you ain’t,” I snapped. “Damn it.” I took a moment to adjust the dresses over the case and gather my thoughts. In doing so, I noticed a locked trunk in the back-right corner with three decorative initials in capital script. It said RLN, the L larger than the R and N.
With a shrug, I stepped back into the room and pulled the tin Garrett had given me from my pocket and flipped it open. “Hell, my hide
is already poised for a good tanning, might as well make it worth it.” I took out a toothpick, set it between my teeth, and closed the tin. “Come on, you’ll get your answers, but first, let’s meet this crusader of words and see why he’s come to Lincoln.”
“You don’t trust anyone, do you?”
I slid the metal container into my pocket. “Not as a general rule, no.”
“After you, then,” Ben said, motioning for me to go first.
With a nod, I opened the door to the main front room. Carpeted like the rest of the house, it was lit with oil lamps as well as candles on the long table in the center of the room. A roaring fire in the fireplace on the back wall added further light and sitting beside it on the couch was an Anglo man easily pushing fifty. He had short, thick hair pushed back from his face, a full beard and mustache, and wore a British styled suit not unlike many I’d seen on Tunstall.
Sipping something from a porcelain cup, the man eyed Ben and I over the rim. Setting it down, the fine china clinked on the matching saucer. Next to it lay a metal tin that matched the one I’d just put in my pocket, the one Garrett gave to me and all the sworn-in Regulators.
“Mr. Bonney, I’ve heard a lot about you,” the man said, his British accent stronger than Tunstall’s. Standing, he put his hand out toward me. “Montague Richard Leverson, fellow Regulator here to help the cause.”
I shook Mr. Leverson’s hand and pulled one of the six table chairs over so I could sit opposite him while Ben sat at the other end of the couch.
“Is he sworn in?” Leverson asked, motioning to Ben.
“Of course,” I lied without hesitation.
“Rightly so, good. Can’t be too careful now, can we?” Leverson said as he sat back down.
“What brings you to Lincoln, Mr. Leverson?” I asked, leaning back in the chair to appear casual and unassuming.
“Many things. Off the record, I’m here because of Tunstall’s death. My plan is to use my influence with those who have the power, in this country and mine, to obtain the dismissal of Governor Axtell and take his place.”
“On the record?” I prompted.
“I’m in America seeking a location for an English colony.”
“And you think Lincoln is that place?” Ben asked with a light chuckle.
Leverson shrugged. “Why not?”
“Uh, because they just killed an Englishman,” Ben replied.
“Like I said, that’s just my cover story. I plan to assist Alex with writing letters to get the government to investigate the Santa Fe Ring and their plot to murder John. I’m not of an age to fight the demons physically, but I can go at them another route.”
“Well, good luck with that, Mr. Leverson. I plan to use my guns. In fact, we already have. The man who shot John is dead, as are two others who were involved, while a fourth is injured and in jail.”
Leverson sat forward in his seat. “When did this happen?”
“Over the weekend. We’re hopeful to take more of them out when we regroup in ten days.”
“Regroup?” he asked.
I filled him in on Governor Axtel’s actions and how that affected us.
Leverson stood and began to pace. “This isn’t good. We need to find a way to combat this.”
“We have. It’s called huntin’ them bastards down anyway,” I said.
“You can’t be serious, Billy!” Ben said.
“I’ve been an outlaw before, and I’m sure after this, I’ll be one again. I’m not scared of the Santa Fe Ring. Let ‘em come at me.”
Leverson picked up his cup, which appeared to be tea, and sat. “Easy for you to say, but the rest of us don’t heal like you, Mr. Bonney.”
I stopped breathing and swallowed the words on my tongue. I didn’t know this man and just because he had a matching tin to mine didn’t mean I was gonna be putting him on my Christmas list, so I chose my next words carefully. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, Mr. Leverson, but the only thing special about me is my obnoxiously good aim with either hand.”
“And his obnoxious personality,” Susan added as she walked in, her presence seeming to shut Leverson up on the subject immediately. “Would you like a refill on your tea, Montague?”
“That would be lovely, thank you, Susan,” he replied.
“Boys?” she asked.
“I’m not really a tea person,” I said. “Do you have any coffee?”
“Of course. Ben?”
“Coffee, please, Mrs. McSween,” he replied.
“Be right back. You boys behave,” she said.
The bite to her words was either to warn me to not say something rude, or it was to warn Leverson not to say too much. With no idea which it was, I just smiled while Leverson picked up the fire poker and moved the logs around.
Ben, feeling the tension, stood up and said, “How about I come help you out in the kitchen, Mrs. McSween.”
“That would be lovely, thank you, Ben.”
He left the room following behind Susan’s bustle and petticoats with a glare at me that said I had better be telling him things later. I rolled my eyes and nodded at him before he left, plastering a calm and blank expression on my face by the time Leverson turned around and sat in a chair this time around.
“I take it Ben doesn’t know about your...abilities.”
“My curse,” I corrected him. Leaning in toward him, not hiding my irritation even a little bit, I kept my voice low and my eyes on his, and said, “Question is, why do you?”
Fear lit behind his eyes, and he swallowed it down as best he could before he spoke. “I was sworn in with full knowledge of the situation here on the ground before I left England.”
“Includin’ John’s death?”
“Of course not. But I have John’s letters to his father that mention he believed you were one of Scáthach’s chosen warriors. I wasn’t sure you were until you walked in here.”
I leaned back in my chair, hand on my gun, fingers tapping a random beat on the handle. “And how is that? Is there some invisible mark on me that only you can see, Mr. Leverson?” I didn’t like that a man I didn’t know knew my secret. It was unsettling.
“The way you move.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve only known one of your kind, and when you are full of soul-energy, which you would be, considering you just killed a bunch of demons on the way here, you move like them. It’s not obvious to others, but it is to me. How many souls are in the well?”
“Who have you told?”
“No one.”
I quickly stood and leaned over the man, with a hand braced on the chair arms on either side of him. “If I find out you’ve told anyone, I’ll remove you from the equation here, Mr. Leverson. Do I make myself clear?”
Eyes wide, he nodded. I smelled fear on him, much like a wolf would, and I sat back down, not allowing how this realization upset me. “Good. So long as we understand one another.”
He swallowed. “We do.”
“Excellent. And if I’ve counted right, I have five or six in the well, as you call it.”
Susan entered with Ben on her heels. They had coffee and plates of food.
I smiled a genuine, toothy grin at her and stood. “Coffee and food? Mrs. McSween, you are a goddess. Thank you so very much.”
She eyed me with suspicion, but when Leverson also smiled at her, she seemed to decide we’d behaved and set the food and coffee on the table. “Well, come and eat. Then you two would be smart to spend the night here. With Alex and David gone, I’ll bunk with my sister and her children in the east wing. Montague, you can use Alex’s and my room while Billy and Ben can bunk in east bedroom as it has two beds.”
I sat at the table. “Thank you, Mrs. McSween.”
Ben parroted me and also sat down to eat.
“Well, we can’t have you boys headin’ out until after the moon sets, and that’s not until almost two in the mornin’. You both will get some rest here and get back to the Ellis’ before it rises again tomorro
w around eleven in the mornin’.”
Ben stared at her, a fork poised in his hand with food on it, frozen in the air.
“Mr. Ellis, eat your food before it gets cold.”
“Yes ma’am,” was all he said before focusing on his food.
To distract from his awkward behavior, I swallowed my food and said, “Thank you for lettin’ us stay. Go help your sister. We’ll clean up these dishes.”
As if on cue, Susan’s sister came into the room, evidently pregnant. I didn’t know how far along she was, but it was enough that she was showing. “Don’t you boys worry about those dishes. I’ve got you taken care of.”
“Mrs. Shield, really, it’s no bother,” I said, and I meant it.
“It’s good for my children to help out around here,” she said. “The boys are teenagers, for goodness sakes. They can help.”
This was true. George was seventeen, and David Curtis was fourteen. I saw them helping in the Tunstall Store back before everything went to hell in a handbasket.
I noticed a girl in the doorway behind Mrs. Shield and remembered Elizabeth Shield’s youngest living child. “And how old are you, Mary?”
Mrs. Shield spun about. “Mary, what are you doin’ up this late? I told you to get to bed.”
Mary lifted her defiant chin just a touch and stepped from the shadows and into the parlor. “I’m ten, and I’m not tired. Besides, George is horrible at doin’ dishes. He leaves all kinds of things stuck to the plates.”
I fought a grin at her seriousness on the topic as my nose picked up a scent that was not from inside this house. I turned my attention to her and examined everything about her as I said, “That is a serious accusation, Miss Mary. Have you not shown him where he is lackin’?”
She sighed dramatically. “I have! He doesn’t care. He’s a boy.”
I quickly noticed she was in shoes and that what I smelled was the grass and dirt on her feet. It was fresh. Unsure as to why, I stood and stepped past her mother to her. “Well, I’m a boy, and I do a fantastic job at cleanin’ dishes. In fact, I used to wash them at a hotel as a kid. I’d be glad to show George how to for you, Miss Mary, if you’ll go to bed like your mother asked.”
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 12