by Robert Davis
News travelled quickly in Ladd’s Corner, as it was prone to do in any small town, and Chris had gotten wind that Shane was coming. He had known that he hadn’t stood a chance of survival but he had stayed anyway and faced Shane like a man. David had not been so courageous. He had skipped town and had not heard of his brother’s death until three days after it had happened.
‘I bet you wish it had been you.’ Buchanan whispered in his ear. ‘Wouldn’t you have rather been the one who killed him?’
Shane did not want to think about it. Of course he wished it had been him. To Shane’s way of thinking, David’s mission of vengeance had been an affront to his brother’s memory. Chris Sullivan had been a man of principle and Shane had respected him. David, meanwhile, was a coward who had waited five years – until long after Shane had laid down his guns and sworn never to shoot again – before finding the courage to avenge his brother’s death. Shane would have loved to have been the one to kill him, and he would not have shown him the mercy that he had shown his brother by making it quick.
But that was not the sole reason that Shane would have liked to have taken Matt Nesbitt’s place. A part of him longed just to fire a gun again, to handle the power that had once been his to command. He yearned for it, but at the same time he was afraid of it. For Shane knew the secret of the Fastest Guns and he had barely escaped from them the last time.
The second match drew the contestants back to the crossroads. It was Chastity’s turn to fight and so far the enigmatic gunfighter had yet to be seen by any of the contestants. Shane was eager to catch a glimpse of her and learn her measure, as was her opponent, Escoban Cadero.
The Mexican bandit leader swaggered from O’Malley’s and drained the last of a bottle of beer before tossing it aside and letting it break against the saloon wall. Hands on his hips, he searched about for his opponent, then strode boldly out into the crossroads to wait for her.
He was a singularly foul-looking man. In the deserts where he lived, the springtime winds blew up sandstorms so violent that they were known to strip the flesh from a man’s bones. Cadero had weathered countless such storms, often using them as cover when he raided the villages and ranches of that land, and his face and arms were covered with scars where the sands had bitten deep. His beard and moustache were thick and matted with grease, his hair long and wild. His eyes were as black as the night and narrow from squinting into the ravenous winds.
He took advantage of Chastity’s absence to choose to stand on the northern side of the crossroads, superstitiously avoiding the spot where David Sullivan had died. Having taken his place, he heaved at his shirts with meaty hands and tore them apart, exposing a muscled chest that was coarse with thick, black hair. The sunlight glimmered on half a dozen gold chains that hung around his neck.
He roared, flecking spittle from his rotten gums. ‘Where is she then? Where is this little puta who would fight me?’
There was no answer and Cadero laughed contemptuously. ‘Perhaps she has dresses to mend, or is too busy cooking dinner, no?’
He raised his voice in a sing-song: ‘Come out, senora. Don’t be shy. Escoban has something for you.’ He gestured obscenely.
His challenges echoed desolately through Covenant’s abandoned streets and a long moment passed in which nobody moved. Then, the door of the Grande hotel creaked slowly open.
Nathaniel emerged, followed by Whisperer, and they were not alone. They were accompanied by a thin, pale woman. She was in her mid-thirties with long brown hair that hung straight and without style. She moved timidly, her eyes pointed down at the ground and by her manner Shane judged that she was used to being beaten.
She led a child by the hand: a young girl who could not have been more than seven or eight years old; who wore a pink dress and had ribbons in her hair. Incongruously, she also wore a gun belt fastened around her waist, the holster empty and about the right size for a small pocket gun.
Shane turned and shot Buchanan a withering glare. It was unconscionable that someone so young was competing. Buchanan only grinned. ‘She’s not what you expected, is she? Don’t be fooled by how she looks. That little bitch might even give you a run for your money.’
Shane felt the deepest revulsion. He turned back to see that the girl had been passed over to Nathaniel, who was now leading her down the wooden steps from the porch. There was something odd about the way she moved, her steps wooden and unbalanced, as if walking was unfamiliar to her.
‘Nathaniel found her in an asylum in New England.’ Buchanan explained. ‘One of the doctors there sold her to him for twenty bucks.’
She had reached the foot of the steps and Nathaniel steered her toward the crossroads. Her feet scuffed in the dirt and Shane noticed that her attention was elsewhere. Her eyes, unblinking, seemed fixed on something that only she could see.
Escoban Cadero thought she was a joke. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘You expect me to shoot a child?’
‘If you can,’ Nathaniel replied. ‘But I assure you it won’t be as easy as you think.’
‘You play games with me.’
‘No. No games. Chastity has the same right to be here as any of you.’
Cadero shrugged. ‘It makes no difference to me,’ he said. ‘It will not be the first time that I have killed a child.’
Nathaniel had to steer the girl by the shoulders to get her to face Cadero. Even then, she seemed unaware of his presence. Her gaze wandered, eyes distant. Her arms hung uselessly by her sides.
‘She’s got no mind.’ Buchanan explained. ‘No will. Nothing. That girl’s a clean slate.’
His meaning was perfectly clear to Shane and it provoked an anger in him that was fiercer than anything he had known in years.
A clean slate.
The idea of it was so terrible that he did not want to believe it was true, and yet the proof was right there in front of him.
He watched as Nathaniel reached into his jacket and withdrew a small, double-action .41 calibre pocket revolver. With only a three inch barrel it was just the right size for Chastity’s small hands. Nathaniel set it in her holster and, before he left, he whispered in her ear. ‘Make daddy proud,’ he said, and then hurried from the crossroads as if he had just lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite.
Escoban Cadero snorted irritably, still convinced that he was being fooled with. Chastity was not even looking at him. She stared blindly at the roadside, her head cocked to one side, arms limp.
Then she blinked. The change that came over her was so abrupt that Shane’s breath caught in his throat. Her eyes suddenly became focussed and her head straightened on her shoulders and turned about mechanically to face towards Cadero, who gasped with surprise. ‘Que pasa?’
‘Now he’s for it.’ Buchanan said, his voice an excited whisper.
‘Contestants!’ Nathaniel shouted. ‘You may fire when ready.’
Escoban Cadero reached instantly for his gun.
And the side of his head exploded in a violent shower of blood.
His body stood there, gently swaying back and forth while the contents of his head pattered down around him like a heavy shower of rain. Then his knees gave way and he crumpled on the spot.
He had not even had time to draw his gun from its holster.
Shane was awestruck. He had never seen anybody draw so fast. All around him, the town was gripped in silence as people stared, dumbstruck by Chastity’s skill.
The girl stood motionless, her arm extended and still pointing her diminutive revolver at the spot where Escoban Cadero had stood. She had not moved at all since she had killed him, remaining frozen on the spot as if held in a state of shock. There was a look of confusion in her eyes, as if she was unable to make a connection between the body on the ground and the man who had stood before her. It looked to Shane as if she was disappointed that she had killed him already. It had all been over too quickly for her. She wanted to kill him again.
The invigilators who were supposed to take away Cadero’s body w
ere understandably reluctant to go forward while she was still so dangerously poised. Nathaniel derided them for their timidity.
No will of her own, Shane thought, and cursed bitterly to himself. The girl’s plight cut through his own self-pity and he grieved for the loss of her innocence.
Cautiously, Nathaniel walked up behind her and gently reached out his hand to encircle her wrist. ‘It’s over now, cherub,’ he said, speaking softly. ‘All done for today.’
The girl cocked her head sideways and looked up at him, uncomprehending. The look of cold hatred in her eyes was something that Shane had never thought to see in a child so young. Nathaniel prised the gun from her hand.
Chastity suddenly threw back her head and screamed. It was a noise of pure, animal loss, as if Nathaniel had reached into her body and torn out her soul. The force of it was incredible. Even at a distance, it sent a stab of pain ripping through Shane’s ears that made him flinch. Those contestants closest to her blocked their ears with their hands.
Nathaniel had clearly expected her reaction and had beaten a hasty retreat to the side of the road. ‘Bethan! Take her inside.’
The girl’s nanny came scurrying over and gathered Chastity into her arms. The girl fought violently, striking with balled fists and kicking while the woman tried to subdue her. In the end, Nathaniel had to shout for one of his invigilators to grab her, and the girl was unceremoniously tucked under one arm and carried back into the hotel while Bethan fluttered at her side, making ineffectual shushing noises to try and calm her down.
Her screaming became muffled as the door was closed behind her and the resultant silence was uncomfortable, with nobody knowing what to make of what they had just witnessed. Nathaniel smiled reassuringly, dismissing Chastity’s outburst as just an ordinary child’s tantrum. He turned and nodded across the street to Buchanan, who nodded back in reply, some comment going unspoken between them. Nathaniel then joined Whisperer and the two men disappeared into the Grande.
‘She’s quite something, isn’t she?’ Buchanan said.
Shane was not interested in making small talk. He wanted the facts. ‘How long?’ he asked.
‘Nathaniel’s had her shooting for a couple of months now. She took to it right away, didn’t even need to be shown or nothing. Girl’s a complete natural.’
‘How many has she killed?’
‘Not many.’ Buchanan replied. ‘Ten, maybe twelve.’
Not many? Shane wanted to laugh except that it wasn’t funny. Nathaniel had taken a child with no will of her own and turned her into the perfect killer, accomplishing in her what it had taken Shane more than twenty years of practice to achieve.
Chastity was damned, just as surely as he was.
And she had had no say in the matter.
Chapter 7
Shane had returned to the Babson ranch at first light the following morning, his arrival scaring crows into flight as he led his horse through the stink of the battleground. His mind cold to the events of the night before, he knelt outside the open gate of the corral and examined the hoof marks that were left there.
Benedict Hunte had fled westwards. He was no great horseman and in his panic he had exhausted his mount in the first hour of riding. Thereafter he had been forced to travel slowly and by midday Shane had caught up with him enough that the chase looked certain to be over before nightfall.
Shane was glad. He was eager to get the job done and put the events of the previous night behind him. The murder of the Babson woman and her child still haunted him, sitting badly on a conscience he had not known he had until he had woken that morning.
It was the senselessness of the incident that bothered him the most. Shane had never killed a child before. He had shot over a hundred men and more than his fair share of women, but he had never found reason to shoot a child. He was not altogether convinced that he’d had a reason this time either. Quick hands were something that every gunfighter was fast to develop if he wanted to survive, but however quick the hands the eye was always faster and Shane had known who his targets were before he had pulled the trigger.
He had known and he had still done it and he did not know why. It was almost as if, for a brief moment, somebody else had been in control of his body and that bothered him because it made him wonder if he was going mad.
He pondered heavily on these thoughts while he rode and by midday he arrived at the town of Wainsford.
His appearance earned him suspicious looks as he rode into town. A mother hastily dragged her children indoors out of his way and a shop sign in the window of the general store was hastily flipped over to read ‘closed’. Shane drew up outside a fine-looking hotel and he hitched his horse beside it and went inside. A bell, situated above the door, rang to announce his arrival and a man called out from one of the other rooms, asking him to be patient. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Shane was not feeling patient and tracked the voice to its source: a middle-aged man dressed in a floral-print apron, who was spring-cleaning. He looked embarrassed to have been discovered and hastily shed the apron, casting it aside. ‘Belongs to the wife,’ he muttered. ‘We’re dining with the vicar tonight; I didn’t want to get my clothes dirty. You must want a room real bad, mister.’
‘A man came into town recently. Did you see him?’
‘You a friend of his?’ The hotelier clearly did not believe he was.
‘I want to know where he is.’
The look in Shane’s eyes and the tone of his voice convinced him to answer. ‘He’s across the street in the marshal’s office. Marshal Fletcher come by and arrested him just a half-hour ago. If you’re looking for a bounty, mister, I guess you’re too late.’ He gave a nervous laugh which Shane silenced with a glare. Hunte getting himself arrested was a complication he could have well done without.
‘This Marshal Fletcher, he got a deputy?’
‘He’s got two. Alan Grant and young Ben. They’re more than capable of taking care of things, mister.’
Shane cursed silently to himself. Killing lawmen always meant trouble and if there were three of them then that made matters even worse. He left the hotelier to his spring cleaning and stepped outside.
Word of him had spread across town and the marshal was waiting for him as he walked out the door. With him was a young man who held a 12-guage shotgun, which he pointed right at Shane’s chest.
‘Howdy,’ the marshal said amicably. He was an elderly man with wiry grey hair and a moustache like a steel brush. He was thin but had the sort of lean physique that suggested he was still a force to be reckoned with. ‘You know, I didn’t believe it at first when I heard that Shane Ennis was in town but now I see it with my own eyes. What you doing here son?’
Shane declined to answer. ‘Am I under arrest?’ he asked.
‘No, you’re not. Ben here is just my insurance. You’ve got a nasty reputation Mister Ennis and my old bones ain’t what they used to be. Now I believe I asked you a question.’
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘And who might that be?’
‘Just someone.’
The old lawman sighed wearily. He knew that Shane had come into town looking for Hunte. Shane was a professional gun for hire and Hunte was a man with a high price on his head; it didn’t take a suspicious mind to put two and two together. Fletcher was out-matched but he managed to look cool. ‘So what’s this someone look like?’ he asked. ‘It could be that maybe I’ve seen him around.’
‘I’d like to tell you, marshal, but to tell you the truth I haven’t seen him.’
‘That might make it hard for you to find him.’
‘Hard.’ Shane agreed. ‘But not impossible. I got a pretty good idea I know where he is.’
‘You fixing to cause trouble in my town?’ Fletcher asked.
Shane looked him levelly in the eyes. ‘Not if I can help it,’ he said.
The marshal nodded, understanding him perfectly. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘In that case I’ll leave you to g
o about your business. Oh there is one thing: Benedict Hunte rode into town a little while ago and I understand there’s quite a price on his head. I’ve got him locked up in the jailhouse and there’s some federal marshals coming to pick him up in a couple of days. Until they get here though, me and the boys are likely to be a little nervous so I’d stay out of our way if I were you. I’m not threatening you, you understand; I’m just saying. A man like you has a reputation and we don’t want any misunderstandings around here now do we?’
Shane smiled slightly, admiring the old man’s nerve. ‘No, we wouldn’t want that at all.’
‘So everything’s clear?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Well, good day to you then.’
Shane tipped his hat to them and watched as they retreated back toward the jailhouse. He had hoped to have been able to intimidate them into giving him Hunte without any trouble, but it seemed as though things were going to be a little more complicated than that.
He swore quietly to himself. Hunte was becoming more trouble than he was worth.
The stroke of noon was the Gunfighter’s Hour. It was sacred to the Fastest Guns and Shane thought it curious that no match was fought to honour it. Instead, the contest between Luke Ferris and the woman, Vendetta, took place, like every other match, at half-past the hour.
Vendetta was the woman that evil men feared. Ten years ago, her husband had been murdered by a gang of outlaws led a famous gunfighter named Michael Brett. The local sheriff had been powerless to do anything about it, being too scared and too underpaid to risk his neck over something as trivial as justice, and so Mary Elizabeth Becker had learned to handle a gun, changed her name to Vendetta, and sought her own retribution.
It had been bloody and dangerous. Vendetta had pursued her enemies relentlessly and only Michael Brett had managed to elude her. In 1881 he had competed in the first tournament at Covenant, from which he had never returned. Since then she had wandered the continent, fighting for others that the law was powerless to protect and championing the causes of those too weak to fight for themselves.