Most of the buildings that had been left over from the original settlement were gone, as well. The stores and shops and saloons from his childhood had been erased from the townscape as if they had never been there. The upper floors of the Campbell Arms had been burned away and the roof had fallen into the building. The first floor looked untouched, but he was sure the entire hotel was a mess. He hoped all of the guests had been able to get out in time.
That made him think of Katherine and how she would take the news of her hotel being destroyed. But he quickly pushed her out of his mind. He could not afford to think of her now. He had to remember his training and remember his mission, no matter how difficult it was to look at.
The only remnants of Dover Station still standing were the buildings that James Grant had built when he had been in power. The sawmill and the Record building and The Bank of Dover Station, and the station itself had all been left untouched by flame.
And, of course, the Municipal Building was still standing, looming over the ruined town like a medieval castle. Mackey had grown to hate that building and all it represented.
But his hatred died away when he saw the old jailhouse was still standing, as if in defiance to the destruction around it. It was still as squat and ugly as ever, but its stone walls and slate roof had protected it from the flames.
He could see the door to the jail was shut. And five men were keeping an eye on it from behind an overturned wagon in front of the Municipal Building across Front Street. He knew that was where Jerry Halstead must be holed up.
Billy cleared his throat and, had Mackey not known better, would have sworn he wiped away a tear. “What do you want to do next, Captain?”
He normally hated when Billy referred to him by his old title, but under the circumstances, it seemed to fit. They were reconnoitering an enemy camp, just like they had back in their cavalry days.
“Let’s split up and look everything over on foot,” Mackey told him. “You head north toward the old Van Dorn house up on the hill while I circle back to the sawmill. We stay among the rocks and meet in the middle. We report on what we see and figure out what we do next. I think they’ve got Jerry pinned down in the jailhouse, so let’s not worry about him for now. Keep an eye out for Grant and Rigg. If we can peg down where they are, we can plan what to do next.”
“Sounds good to me,” Billy said. “Let’s meet back here in two hours.” He nodded at the clock in the tower of the Dover Station bank building. “Might as well put that thing to good use for once.”
They moved back away from the rim and set off to carry out their respective missions.
CHAPTER 31
Billy had never disobeyed a direct order from Aaron Mackey. Not when they had been in uniform and not since they had pinned on their badges. But he would disobey his last order and for good reason.
He had scouted enough enemy positions to know there was only so much a man could see from afar. Sometimes, he had to get closer to see what was really happening.
Billy moved around toward the old Van Dorn house, keeping among the large rocks along the ridgeline to avoid being spotted by anyone who might be living in the house. He did not know if Mr. Bishop was still living there, or even if he was still living. He kept out of sight in case the place was guarded.
He stopped moving when he reached Cy Wallach’s mortuary. The old wooden building was far enough from the main part of town to have avoided being burned. After being fairly certain no one had spotted him, Billy took a risk and quickly scrambled down among the rocks toward the mortuary.
He paused at the base of the rocks, checking to see if anyone was on the street to spot him. No one was looking his way, so he darted through the back door of the mortuary.
Cy Wallach looked up from his desk, startled by Billy’s sudden appearance. “My heavens! Billy! You’re here.”
But the deputy had no time for pleasantries. “Good to see you, too, Cy. Where’s Doc Ridley?”
“I don’t know,” Cy told him. “I know he survived the calamity, which is more than I can say for many of us. I take it you know of what happened to poor Brendan?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Cy was a simple soul, and Billy did not want him to know Mackey was with him. He might tell the wrong person. If Billy found himself against Grant’s men, at least Mackey would still be out there somewhere. “I need you to find Doc Ridley and bring him here. Quietly. Can you do that?”
“I can certainly try. When should I get him?”
Billy wondered if the new embalming fluids he had brought to town were starting to rot his brain. “Now, Cy. As soon as possible. Go.”
The mortician scrambled to find his hat and pulled down the shade to his front door before heading out into the street. Billy wheeled the mortician’s chair to a dark corner of the room and sat down among the shadows.
He listened for any sound that might tell him someone was coming. He watched the windows and saw wagons and the crews of men moving along the streets. Most of the men were either hauling wreckage or new timbers fresh cut from the sawmill. None of them looked toward the mortician’s place. If anything, they made a point of looking away from it. He imagined they had all had their fair share of death for now.
The town was still Dover Station, but Billy knew it was no longer his home. It belonged to James Grant now and always would. To Grant and Nathan Rigg. Billy felt like he had snuck into an enemy camp because that was what he had done. There were no reinforcements waiting to ride down to rescue him. He had no idea of the nature of the enemy he faced. He had no idea if Jeremiah Halstead was still alive in the jailhouse or if he was injured.
Billy felt himself getting jumpy and decided now was the time for a smoke. He pulled out a paper from his shirt pocket and tried to fold it, but his hands were shaking so much, he dropped the paper. He picked up the paper and stared at his hand, willing it to stop shaking.
You survived Alton Canyon. You survived Greely Pass. You survived Adobe Flats. You hunted down Darabont. You brought Grant to justice once. You will do it again. You and Aaron. Same as always.
His hand stopped shaking and he pulled his tobacco pouch and began to build himself a cigarette.
* * *
Billy had just snuffed out his cigarette when he saw Cy and Doc Ridley approaching the mortuary. They were alone.
Doc Ridley looked as if he had aged a decade in the month or so since Billy had last seen him. His hair had gone from gray to an unruly shock of white. His clothes were stained from ash, and his face was thick with stubble. He shuffled along at a stoop and Cy had to help him up the stairs that led to his office.
Ridley’s eyes were vacant when Billy emerged from the shadows. “Billy?” He clutched his Bible as if it were a blanket. “Is it really you?”
“In the flesh, doc.” He shook the man’s hand gladly, which seemed to pump new life into the doctor. “We’re here because of what happened, but I need you to tell me where we stand.”
Billy rolled the chair around so the doctor could sit before he fell down. Billy was content to sit on the floor. Cy set about pulling the drapes closed.
“Aaron with you?” Ridley asked. “He knows what happened to Brendan?”
“He knows. And we’re here to make things right, but we need to know what we’re up against. Where’s Edison and Jerry Halstead?”
“Gone,” Ridley stammered. “All gone. Edison’s bunch left the morning after the fire. Just climbed up on their horses and rode out of town. Said there was no town left to defend and no way for them to get paid. Figured they’d cut their losses and move on. Can’t say I blame them.”
Billy was not surprised Edison and his men did not stick around. They were mercenaries, after all, and no badge could change that. “What about Jerry? Is he in the jailhouse?”
“Cornered like a rat,” Ridley said. “But he’s got no way of getting out, and they’ve got no way of going in. They’ve tried everything to pry him loose, but he always managed to put a few of them down every
time they took a run at him. After a while, they got smart and decided to wait him out. They’ve been perched in front of the jailhouse for the past day or so like they’re sitting a vigil. I suppose they are, in a way. A vigil of death.” The doctor’s eyes grew far away. “I’ve been sitting a vigil of my own, you know. For Brendan. For Dover. The town’s gone, Billy. All gone.”
Billy could see the doctor was beginning to fade back into the horrors he had witnessed over the past few days. Billy needed to pull him out of it until he learned all he could. “What about Grant and Rigg? Where are they staying?”
“Bishop’s gone,” Ridley told him. “Was summoned back to New York yesterday. Now, it’s as if Grant was never arrested. Rice’s company is selling off everything it owns in town. Word is that they have a willing buyer in Grant. He’s moved into the Municipal Building. He lives there now in that damned castle of his. Rigg has become the sheriff. Grant gave him the old Van Dorn place. Both of them look down on the town from their high perches like a couple of vultures, while the rest of us are here in the middle, left with nothing.”
Billy knew Doc Ridley was fading quickly, so he pumped him for everything he could before the well ran dry. “And what about the Hancocks? How many are here?”
Doc Ridley’s eyes grew even more vacant. “More come in every day. Must be over a hundred by now. The Ruby is the only wooden building in that part of town still standing. All of their other saloons and hotels, too. God, how could one family be so big so fast? And that horrible Nellie and her infernal cackle that echoes in the street all day and all night. Even worse at night. That demonic laugh haunts my dreams, Billy. Haunts everything around it.”
The doctor looked at Billy with wet eyes. “There was nothing I could do for them, son. Nothing at all. There were no sick to heal. Not in time for me, anyway. There was only the dead and dying. So many dead and gone. So many gone now.”
Doc Ridley rubbed the Bible on his lap and finally slipped away, muttering verses and passages from the good book. Billy wanted to know more, but knew he had gotten all he could from this poor man. Or what was left of him.
He pulled himself up from the floor and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You rest now, Doc.” He wanted to tell him everything was going to be fine, but he did not have the heart to lie to him.
Ridley surprised him by covering Billy’s hand with his own. He looked up at him and said, “You’ll kill them, won’t you? You and Aaron? Promise me you’ll avenge us. You’ll avenge Brendan. You’ll kill them all, just like you killed Darabont, won’t you?”
Billy did not know what to say, so he simply squeezed his shoulder and moved to the door.
He pulled Cy aside and whispered, “Take him back home and stay with him. Make sure he rests. He’s in a frail way. And remember, you can’t tell anyone I was here.”
Cy seemed to understand. “What will you do now, Billy? You and Aaron?”
Billy left without answering him. He did not know what to say.
CHAPTER 32
When they met again an hour later, Mackey told Billy all he had seen from the ridgeline.
“All of Lee Street is gone except for The Ruby. I saw a lot of Hancocks walking around, and I have a feeling that’s where the Hancocks are working out of. They’re all toting rifles and bossing the work crews. There’s got to be at least a hundred of them from what I saw. Didn’t see Grant or Rigg, but their people are watching the jail, so my money’s on Jerry being in there, if he’s still alive. Maybe some of Edison’s men, too.”
Judging by the look on Billy’s face, Mackey could tell he already knew everything he had just said. “You went into town, didn’t you?”
Billy said he had. “Took a chance and headed into Cy’s place. Talked to Doc Ridley, or what’s left of him. Poor man’s out of his mind with grief.” He took a long drag on his smoke. “I know he was hard on us over the years, Aaron, but it’s a shame to see such a proud man laid so low.”
But Mackey had more on his mind than Doc Ridley’s health. “I thought we agreed to keep our distance. To recon—”
“I reconnoitered, Captain,” Billy snapped. “I reconnoitered the hell out of that place, and all I saw was a bunch of burned-up buildings and scared men, same as you saw. But it didn’t tell me anything except what I already knew when we got on the train in Helena. We’re outgunned, outmanned, and Grant controls the town again. I couldn’t learn any more than that by peeking around a bunch of rocks, so I took a risk. I disobeyed your order, and I’m not the least bit sorry, either, so don’t go expecting an apology.”
Mackey sat quietly, making sure the storm had passed. In all the years they had known each other, in all the trouble they had faced together, neither of them had ever raised their voice to the other.
But Mackey knew this was different. Everything was different now. Nothing was the same and never would be again. Mackey was beginning to think it might even be for the best.
And arguing with Billy would only make everything worse.
Mackey toed the ground. “I suppose reconnoitering could mean going into town. And I never ordered you to do anything. It was more like a plan. Guess you just made it better. Like you always do.”
Billy finished his smoke and flicked away the dead butt. “That your way of apologizing? Because if it is, it’s a lousy apology.”
“No need for anyone to apologize because you didn’t do anything wrong and neither did I.” He forced the first smile in days and nudged his deputy in the shoulder. “Good work, Sergeant.”
Billy looked at him. “Damn, you really are sorry.”
Mackey did not want to talk about it anymore. “What did Ridley tell you?”
After he finished hearing everything the broken man had told Billy, Mackey had a clearer picture of what they were up against. “Bishop’s gone. That’s bad. And Jerry being cornered is worse. How long has he been holed up in there?”
“Since it happened, I suppose,” Billy said. “The doc didn’t say, and I got as much out of him as I could. But he’s got to be low on food and bullets by now. At least the pump is still working unless they figured out a way to cut that.”
Mackey was already turning that over in his mind. “I rode in here hoping we’d get Grant and Rigg. But with Grant up in the Municipal Building and Rigg on the other end of town, that splits our objectives.”
He felt Billy looking at him, almost like he was testing him. “What’s our main objective?”
Mackey was surprised he asked. “Getting Jerry out of there alive, of course.”
“Glad to hear you say that,” Billy said. “But you’ve got a choice to make, Aaron, and it’s not an easy one. We can go after Grant or we can go after Rigg. You’ll only have one chance to get one quietly. I can raise a distraction to a point, but not before every gun in town gets pointed at us. That’s when things will start to get nasty.”
Any trace of a smile disappeared from Mackey’s face. “I can kill both.”
“Not quietly,” Billy told him. “And not publicly, either. It’ll look like murder if you do, and Judge Forester will see you swing for it. He told me so the morning he told me about Pappy and he means it, Aaron. I saw it in his eyes. He’ll hang you for murder if he has to.”
Mackey knew Forester would do it, too. He would do it because he would have no choice. He would do it because he said he would.
But Mackey had made a promise to himself when he left Helena that he would avenge his father and his town. And he had every intention of living up to his word.
Maybe there was a way of doing both after all.
The more Mackey thought about it, the more sense it made. It might even work. “I’ve got a plan, if you’d allow me to present it, Master Sergeant Sunday, sir.”
“I wasn’t an officer,” Billy reminded him. “I worked for a living, remember? Now what’s the plan?”
CHAPTER 33
Later that evening, Nathan Rigg walked out of The Ruby and stretched. The dying sunlight felt good, and he
welcomed the approaching night. It was harder for a man to spot him as he walked the darkened streets of town, and he knew Mackey was gunning for him.
He looked up at the hills that surrounded the town and wondered if he might already be up there, somewhere in the coming darkness. He might be up there waiting his turn or he might be rallying some men outside of town. He had spies camped out near the telegraph lines throughout the day. None of them had reported seeing anything on the outskirts of town.
Rigg had no doubt Mackey would show up soon. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day, but not tonight.
Rigg walked down the steps of The Ruby and began to walk home. Grant had wanted him to attend yet another one of his torturous meetings in the mayor’s office at the Municipal Building; this time with members of The Bank of Dover Station to review his grand plans for the town. Grant insisted that Rigg attend since this was the meeting that would decide the future of the town.
But the only meeting Rigg had planned for that night was between his backside and a chair on the porch of his new house. The locals might call it the Old Van Dorn house for now, but there would be a new batch of locals soon. And by the time he was through with this town, they would call it Rigg’s Mansion. Yes, he rather liked the sound of that.
He imagined he would like the sound of rain on the roof even more. His roof. He had never had one over his head that he could call his own. He had grown up on a plantation owned by his grandfather and had been forbidden by his father from ever returning. The old fool had always been a prude.
After his appointment to West Point came through, Rigg had lived in quarters paid for by Uncle Sam for most of his life. The time since he left the army had been spent in hotels or lodging houses.
This was the first night in his life that Nathan Rigg had a place to call his home, and he intended to enjoy every second of it. Grant’s grand plans would have to wait.
As he walked home, Rigg had to admit there was a certain rough charm to the place. He could see why old man Mackey and his friends had picked this spot to make a life and build a town. The rocky outcroppings that surrounded it protected it from the wind, and the rocks themselves kept the town from being swamped by a flood. The ground pitched away from the town, and into the river for which River Street was now named. It was good land, and he was glad Pappy had been able to die in the place he had built. He did not hold much stock in the Mackey name, but he figured Pappy had died the best way any man could want. He had taken the men who killed him with him to hell on the ground of his choosing.
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