“I guess I do.”
“Then let him rest. The day is early, which gives you time to think about what you must do. You’re welcome to rest here. So is the boy when he awakes.”
Her tireless fingers continued to knead his back and his shoulders. He couldn’t remember the last time Angela had done this for him. Maybe she never had. He found himself telling Marguerite all about Angela, all about their marriage and its gradual undoing.
Which brought him to the night the devils took his wife.
Cody regretted broaching the topic almost immediately. He was sure Marguerite would scoff at him—or worse, decide to chuck him out of her room—but to his surprise she did neither, only listened to him with an inexhaustible supply of patience.
When it was done, Marguerite said nothing. Cody waited as long as he could, and when it became apparent she wasn’t going to comment, he said, “Some yarn, huh?”
“They sound like animals.”
Cody swallowed. “So you believe me?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“I wouldn’t believe me.”
“A man wouldn’t make a story up in which his wife humiliates him.”
“And gets herself killed in the bargain.”
Marguerite’s fingers paused while she seemed to consider.
“You’re sad she died?”
“Was murdered, you mean. Of course I’m sad. I mean, it wasn’t like we had much time left together as it was. I guess in a lot of ways we were already separated. But that doesn’t mean I wanted her to die. Especially not at the hands of such…”
“Actors?”
Cody grunted. “That’s what they call themselves anyway.”
“Do you think they’ll come here?”
“There’s a good chance. They’ll love that fancy stage of yours.”
“My father thought Mesquite would grow. I even had a limelight brought in from the East, thinking we’d have big shows here.”
“Their show’s not the kind you want in your bar.”
“Should I go stand watch?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ve been following them for several days now, and they only travel after sundown.”
“Why only then?”
“Hell if I know. Maybe because it’s cooler.”
Marguerite fell silent, but her fingers pushed harder and deeper into his weary flesh. It was as though her fingertips knew the way to heal each individual muscle, to take away the worry and the dolefulness and the stultifying dread he’d been feeling ever since they’d escaped the devils last night.
So he talked some more. He told her about his father, about his father’s ranch in Escondido, about how it was only a few hours from here but still seemed like it was a continent away. He described the road that led to the property, the layout of the ranch itself. He told her how great a man Jack Wilson was and how Cody worried he’d never see his father again.
And Marguerite listened. She worked on him steadily, asking a question now and then, but mostly listening. After a time, she began to talk too, and it occurred to him that this was what had been missing from his marriage with Angela. The talking. When that went away, the suspicion and the resentment crept in, and eventually there was nothing left except the suspicion and the resentment.
Marguerite told him something of her childhood, and as she talked, a strange thing happened to Cody. He realized he liked this woman very much. He trusted her. And if he and Willet somehow made it through this ordeal alive, maybe she’d want to spend more time with Cody too.
Her fingers kneaded, lulling him into a dreamy torpor. His thoughts grew muzzy, diffuse. He said, “So your name used to be Marguerite Keeley?”
“What of it?”
“Nothing. Except it doesn’t go together. The Marguerite and the Keeley.”
“You’re right,” she said, a bitterness in her voice. “They didn’t go together.”
“What are you now?”
“I have my father’s name.”
“And that is?”
“Smith.”
“You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke about that?”
“I figured it was Gonzalez or Chavez or something like that.”
“My mother was born in Chihuahua. She married my father after they met in El Paso. She was a waitress.”
“Was your mom as pretty as you?”
Marguerite’s hands stopped moving, though she didn’t remove them from his shoulders. Her breath was warm on his ear. “Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Wilson?”
“You’re too smart to be seduced.”
“That’s true. Unless I want to be. Now be quiet for a while so I can work out these knots from your back.”
Marguerite graduated from his shoulders to his upper arms. Her thumbs and index fingers probed deep into his triceps, made him aware of just how sore they’d been from holding Sally’s reins all night. He yawned. Man, he needed sleep.
What you need is a pair of testicles, a voice within him chided. A beautiful woman massaging oil into your back and all you do is nod off?
Easy, Cody thought. Take it easy.
But the voice would not be deterred. Something wrong with you, boy? You don’t try something now, you’ll never forgive yourself.
Cody took a breath. “What you said earlier.”
“Mm?” Marguerite said without a break in her attentions.
“About wanting to be seduced.”
“Ah. That.”
“I was thinking—”
“I don’t.”
“Oh.”
She chuckled softly. “You’re a very handsome young man, Cody. But you’re still just a boy.”
“I bet we’re the same age.”
“That doesn’t mean you’ve had the same experiences.”
“I’ve been around.”
“You can forget about sleeping with me.”
He sighed. “All right.”
She began rubbing one of his hands. This he knew no one had ever done to him before. It felt exquisite. It was as though her fingers were stones dropped into a pond that sent slow ripples of pleasure through his entire body. Pleasure and relaxation. Even his facial muscles were going slack. Marguerite moved around the bed and began kneading his other hand.
“Can’t fall asleep,” he murmured.
“Do you trust me?”
“Course I do.”
“Then go to sleep. I’ll wake you by two o’clock.”
Reluctantly, because he couldn’t stop himself, Cody complied.
Chapter Twelve
His first thought upon waking was a languid hope he could sleep just a little longer. In his dream Marguerite was oiling her entire nude body and undulating on top of him. He was naked too and on his back. but no matter how he tried to push his engorged member inside Marguerite’s warmth, her slippery body always glided up or down so that he remained constantly and achingly erect and burning for her. Lying there on the cozy featherbed, a soft sheet draped over him, Cody scrunched his face in concentration, verily begging sleep to descend on him again so he could consummate his dream tryst with Marguerite.
But when it became apparent he wouldn’t be able to doze again, Cody grew aware of how quiet the room was and how different the light seemed to be beyond his shut lids. He opened his eyes and glanced about the bedroom, bewildered and instantly afraid.
The sense of wrongness increased rapidly as he pushed onto his palms and stared at the window. The curtains had been drawn, but they were sheer. Further, the shutters were unfastened, yet the light slanting through the windowpanes was a muted orange, the kind of light you got at midafternoon, not late morning.
Cursing, Cody scrambled out of the bed and crossed to the window. Not only had the sun advanced toward the west—it was three o’clock at the earliest—but the outer door to the doctor’s office hung slightly ajar, as if someone had left there in a hurry.
Cody was dressed and down the stairs in an instant, his heartbeat
a painful stutter in his chest. So stupid, he thought as he rushed through the unoccupied ground floor of the saloon, so stupid and so goddamned clumsy. Cody burst through the doors into the punishing orange glow of the New Mexico sun. He hurried across the dusty thoroughfare, thinking, It isn’t evening yet. They won’t have come. But with a sinking dread, he noticed that Sally was absent from her hitching post.
Cody approached the door of Doc Jackson’s office at an awkward run, a sense of misgiving so strong it nearly strangled him, lending speed to his limping gait. Movement in the street in front of him drew his eye, and he saw with little surprise he’d nearly trodden on a large vinegaroon, another unwelcome reminder that nightfall was fast approaching. The sluggish black creature hardly moved as Cody stepped over it. He stumbled up the porch steps and almost rammed the door with his forehead. He gathered himself, leaned panting against the door and glanced around to see if his behavior had aroused suspicion. An elderly couple eyed him warily from down the street, but other than that he’d been ignored. That was good. He had no idea why it was so, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. The fewer people focused on him and Willet, the easier it would be to surprise Price’s gang tonight if they showed up in Mesquite.
Of course they’ll show up, the cynical voice told him. You think they’re gonna let you and Willet live after what you two did? Cody realized the old couple were still staring at him. Throwing a nod in their direction, Cody twisted the knob and stepped inside Doc Jackson’s office.
It was dark in the office. He was reminded of how dark it’d been upon waking in Marguerite’s room, and he fought off a hot surge of self-condemnation for having been asleep this long.
He didn’t remember drawing down the blinds in here, but that could have been the doctor shielding Willet from the blazing sun. Still, the sight of them, yellowed and wrinkled like the skinned hides of diseased cattle, made invisible fingers of dread clutch his throat.
Cody stepped closer and saw what was on the examination table.
The whiskey and the bacon gushed up his esophagus. His whole body shook with revulsion at the sight of the splayed arms and legs, the ribcage pried open and jutting at the ceiling like the carcass of some butchered animal. Cody lurched against a cabinet and upset a jar of some clear liquid. He gagged as a cloud of flies erupted in angry surprise. They buzzed around the ruined torso a moment before returning to their feeding.
“Aw, Christ,” he said, a forearm shoved over his mouth. He’d been so stupid, so much less than Willet deserved. Cody willed his body to venture nearer, but it wouldn’t obey, would only stand rooted where it was, distraught and shaking, as the carrion flies siphoned the dead boy’s blood.
What an idiot Cody’d been to assume they wouldn’t come until nightfall. What kind of superstitious garbage had compelled him to believe that? Chances were they were still inside this building somewhere, likely right next door in the doctor’s living quarters, roasting the man’s legs for a late-afternoon snack. Cody realized he was making a high, keening sound in his throat, the noise a child might make under the covers while hiding from monsters. Got to go, he thought helplessly. Got to go now. But even that escape was denied him. He couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t even move.
Get ahold of yourself, goddammit, Jack Wilson commanded.
I can’t, Dad. I just can’t. You raised a coward, I’m nothin’ like you. I’m—
The thought broke off as he noticed something for the first time. Frowning, Cody edged closer to see if it’d been a trick of the dim light. The boy’s head was turned away from him so that he was spared a good view of the face, yet what he beheld was spattered with dark red gore. He told himself it was the panic, that he was fooling himself into seeing things that weren’t there, but…wasn’t there too little hair on the corpse’s head? Under the crimson patina of blood, wasn’t the face too wizened, too large?
“Holy God,” Cody said, stepping around the table. It wasn’t Willet who’d been eviscerated. It was Doc Jackson.
A huge exhalation pushed out of him, and he was forced to steady himself by leaning against the examination table. Something sticky squished under his fingers, and though he knew he should have been disgusted by it, the fact that it wasn’t Willet’s blood made it somehow bearable. Swallowing, Cody peered down at the ruined face, realized at once how they’d taken the man’s eyelids, sawed a giant hole around the mouth so that it gaped obscenely at the ceiling in a lipless grin.
Whatever relief he’d felt disappeared in a wind of terror.
They were surely still here.
Cody pushed away from the table and had gotten halfway to the door when he remembered Willet. If the boy wasn’t here, where was he? Where the hell had they taken him? Cody glanced at the door to the doctor’s quarters and suddenly knew the devils were in there. Had they done the same to Willet as they had the doc? Were they, even now, slicing through the skin around his mouth to—
A voice behind him said, “Don’t move.”
Cody uttered an involuntarily yelp and spun around. The man in the front doorway was large and unfamiliar, his round upper body all but blotting out the outer light. How the man had ever managed to slip inside without Cody noticing, he’d never know. Cody raised his hands to show he meant no harm, but the man tensed, shoved his wavering pistol forward and shouted, “I said don’t fucking move!”
The fear in the man’s voice broke through Cody’s jumbled thoughts. He said, “All right. Just put the gun down.”
The man—Jesus, he was as tall as Penders and as fat as the other was strong—watched him several more moments, evidently contemplating shooting him anyway. Cody tried to swallow, but his saliva had evaporated. A shifty grin lifted the man’s sagging jowls. Cody decided he liked the man better when he’d been frightened.
“Turn around,” the man said.
Cody knew he had to do it, but still he hesitated. There’d been something deeply unsettling about the man’s voice. There was something hungry in it, almost lustful.
Without knowing he was going to speak, Cody asked, “Did you do this?”
The man’s grin went away. “Don’t you speak such filth. You did it, you goddamned monster.”
Cody relaxed a little. He knew he should’ve been alarmed by the accusation, but knowing the man holding a gun on him hadn’t murdered the doctor meant he likely wouldn’t kill Cody either.
At least Cody hoped it meant that.
The man said, “You don’t turn around now, you won’t make it to trial.”
Cody nodded, did as he was told. Marguerite would vouch for him. She’d tell this bastard the truth, and then Cody could commence his search for Willet. Christ, he hoped the devils hadn’t killed the kid already.
The sound of creaking floorboards told him the man with the gun was stepping closer. Cody asked, “Can I put my arms down now?”
“Sure you can,” the man said, his voice still rife with that disquieting hunger.
“I know how it looks,” Cody said, “but I didn’t do this. You can ask—”
“That’ll be enough,” the man said from directly behind. Hell, any closer and they’d be lovers.
“Can I ask who you are?” Cody said.
“Sheriff Robert Bittner,” the man said. Cody caught a whiff of the man’s breath, a stomach-churning stew of curdled milk and tobacco juice. As if to confirm this suspicion, the man spat a hot stream of spit at the back of Cody’s head. Cody grimaced as it crawled down his neck and disappeared beneath his collar.
“Hold still,” Bittner said, and before Cody had time to ask how come, something hard smacked him in the base of the skull.
Part Two
Bloodbath in Mesquite
Chapter Thirteen
He twitches awake and realizes he can’t breathe, not even a little. The substance filling his airway is brown and gritty and it’s all around him. He’s in a pit of quicksand, the terrible stuff towing him lower, lower, and no matter how he gasps, his lungs only pack tighter with
it. Cody’s chest is leaden, an unoiled machine that’ll never function again. He’s sinking lower, lower still, no air—
Cody gasps and flails his arms, free of the dream. Then he’s falling again, only this time it’s really happening, because the rest of his senses are liberated from that muffling veil. Then, right as he opens his eyes, two things happen in quick succession: his right hand upsets a container, the liquid within sloshing over the side of his leg; and his knees thud painfully on the stone floor.
Cody opens his mouth to cuss, but the drawing apart of his lips triggers an unholy gonging in the base of his skull. He hears laughter to his left and all at once it comes back to him: the doctor’s corpse, Sheriff Bittner, the knock on the head—
—Willet missing.
Cody managed to open an eye and take in the sight of the heavyset lawman slouching in a chair across the room, his feet resting on a wooden barrel sawed in half. Bittner nodded, his puffy face bisected by one of the cell bars. “I was plannin’ on emptyin’ that pan later on, but you went and saved me the trouble.”
Cody smelled it then, the vile, sulfurous stench of old urine, the rusty metal container lying on its side after having vomited its contents all over Cody’s pant leg. Wiping his hand on the dingy fabric of the cot off of which he’d just tumbled, Cody said, “I don’t suppose the piss is mine.”
The sheriff tilted his head, folded his hands in his lap. “Course it wasn’t yours, Wilson. Just how the hell’d I have done somethin’ like that? Take your peter out for you while you slept? Give it a good shake when you was done? Jesus, you must think I’m some kinda pervert.”
Cody noted the ill-fitting brown hat, too wide at the brim, the crown too snug, so that the Stetson perched impatiently atop the sheriff’s head like it couldn’t wait to return to its rightful owner. The man’s facial hair resembled a furry brown horseshoe someone had hung on Bittner’s lips. But it only accentuated the drooping jowls it was no doubt meant to conceal. To the fat man’s left stood a slight, almost delicate desk with tall, slender legs. The man and the desk looked incongruous next to one another, which furthered the surreal fog Cody found himself in.
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