by Jake Logan
Although he tried to cover it with a disapproving stare, Haresh’s interest was clearly sparked. “Like what?”
“Like how Abernathy could fire a shot at me outside of that saloon with a pistol from over seventy yards away and send a bullet whipping past my head?”
“He is a good shot.”
“He’d also have to be a groundbreaking gunsmith because the effective range of those .44s he carried is about fifty yards. Even if his gun could cover that distance, there’s no chance in hell he could get so close to hitting me while on the run.” Seeing the question start to form behind Haresh’s eyes, Slocum added, “No chance.”
“So what are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing that he’s cheating. It’s not a terribly complex scheme. All he does is stand up front and bluster loud enough to draw every eye to him. When he starts to fire, he’s got an accomplice with a rifle somewhere behind him firing at his targets. It’s just a deadlier spin on an old magician’s technique.”
“How would the accomplice know all of his targets?” Haresh asked. “They could have the first one worked out ahead of time, but what happens when things get wild?”
“He starts firing away and his accomplice covers him. You were there when he shot up Jocelyn’s place. Can you honestly tell me you know his guns were pointed at the spot where every bullet was delivered?”
“No. We were all firing a lot of shots.”
“Which is exactly how that scheme can work.”
“But what about when a man is fighting one on one?” Haresh asked. “Far Eye Abernathy earned his reputation by gunning men down in street fights and killing gunmen on his own. There were witnesses. Surely he couldn’t have cheated all those times without being noticed.”
“I’m not saying he cheated every time,” Slocum replied. “I’m saying he cheated at Jocelyn’s saloon and that he’s probably cheated on other occasions as well. Mix in that system of his with some genuine skill and you’ve got a man to be reckoned with who’s building up a reputation that’s good enough to be head of his own gang.”
“This means we can’t go after him like we would a normal outlaw. Without knowing who we are dealing with, how many there are, and where they are aiming, we would be fighting in the dark at all times. I have not hunted many men,” Haresh told him in a strained voice that showed how much of an effort it was to admit ignorance in the matter. “This one is more dangerous than I thought. Perhaps you were right in the first place. Perhaps I will be more of a burden than a help in this matter.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as all that,” Slocum said. “In fact, a wild card may be just what we need to tip the balances. The hardest part when dealing with a trickster is in figuring out you’re being tricked.”
“Like the magician you talked about. Many of those illusions rely on a willing audience.”
“Yep. And now that we know we’re being tricked, we’re not a very willing audience. The next step is to try and figure out how to break this magician’s illusions down to their separate parts. In this case, those parts are the accomplices he’s got covering him when he goes into a place to shoot it full of holes.”
“What will he be doing in Hollister?” Haresh asked.
“All that dying man told me was that he was supposed to meet up with Abernathy there.”
“If that accomplice was killed, who’s to say he wasn’t given bad information in the first place?”
Slocum thought back to the surprised look on Rob’s face when he’d been shot and the anger in his voice soon after. Those were the expressions of a man who didn’t even know there was a possibility of being stabbed in the back when the blade slid into him. What Slocum had to decide now was whether that was the look of a man who’d been double-crossed on a whim after being a trusted member of Abernathy’s gang or if he was a loose end that had been trimmed after being strung along by men he’d mistaken as friends.
“I’ll be honest,” Slocum said. “There’s no way for me to tell you we can fully believe what Bensonn told me. All I can say is that he believed he was supposed to meet up with his partners in Hollister. I looked into his eyes as he died, and there ain’t much room for lying at that moment.”
Haresh was lying on his back, looking up at the stars, as he nodded solemnly. His gaze was so intense that it seemed to pierce the velvety black sky when he said, “I have seen eyes like that as well. It takes a powerful resolve to speak lies when a man is so close to seeing his god.”
“I may not have known Rob Bensonn for long, but he didn’t strike me as a man with anything close to powerful resolve.”
“Then he believed he was to go to Hollister.”
“Yes.” Suddenly something hit Slocum like a bolt of lightning. “And just maybe whoever shot him wanted to do him in before he could spill that fact to anyone else.”
In the next several moments, the only sounds to be heard were the crackling of the fire and the rustling of critters in the nearby trees. Finally Haresh said, “That is an awfully large maybe.”
“Yes, it is,” Slocum admitted. “But it’s all we got.”
12
Ferril Abernathy’s camp was similar to Slocum’s in one respect: there was a fire. Despite having been set up in a similar amount of time and under hectic circumstances while trying to avoid being spotted from afar, Abernathy still managed to erect a small tent and find enough time to groom himself. The scents hanging in the air were all that remained of a supper he’d prepared consisting of fried pork loin and greens sautéed in lard. The man himself sat upon a small stool that could be folded up and stored in one of two large packs carried by a horse that had lost its rider.
Compared to the distinguished gentleman who sat upon his stool pruning a narrow strip of chin whiskers with a small set of scissors, the man who paced on the other side of the fire looked like something that had crawled in from the mountains. He was short in stature and narrow of build. The dirt covering his face was more of a thick crust that would require a chisel to remove. A thick coat of whiskers sprouted from his skin and his squint was so severe that it was impossible to determine the color of his eyes. They were simply dark, as was his mood.
“How can you sit there primping like a goddamn woman?” the skinny man asked.
Abernathy lifted his chin and screwed up his face in an expression meant to grant him cleaner access to the whiskers closest to his Adam’s apple. “Contrary to what you may believe, women are not the only ones who need to take care of themselves. Appearances mean a lot, you know.”
“Yeah. I do know. Mostly on account of me bein’ the one who gives you them appearances!”
“Keep your voice down, Justin. No need to share our conversation with every living thing residing in these mountains.”
“If I want to conversate with you, I can do it any damn way I please.”
Although Abernathy’s movements were subtle, there was no mistaking the power behind them. When he turned to look directly at Justin, he did so using precise, perfectly refined muscle control that didn’t force him to move the scissors away from his throat. He even clipped the next few whiskers without using the small round mirror in his hand. “Are you unhappy with our arrangement?”
“Finally picked up on that, did you?”
“Your hints were quite exaggerated.” Setting down the mirror and picking up a small leather case, Abernathy said, “All right, then. Tell me what’s on your mind,”
“I think Slocum may have had a word or two with Rob before he died.”
“That’s funny. How could Rob survive more than a few moments with you gunning for him? After all, you’ve been so anxious to shoot everything full of holes no matter where we go anymore.”
“You don’t like the way I work?” Justin snapped. “Then maybe you should do yer own shooting from now on.”
Abernathy pl
aced his scissors into their leather case and set it down as if there was a spot for the case outlined in the dirt near his feet. Then he stood up, straightened his vest with a quick tug, and worked a kink out of his neck by twisting his head to one side. “If you have so little confidence in my shooting, then perhaps you’d like to put me to the test?”
Justin’s face twitched and his body froze. “I just don’t think you know enough about this Slocum fella.”
“I’ve heard the name and I’ve heard a thing or two in regards to the man’s reputation.”
“Then you should know he ain’t the sort that should be trifled with.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Abernathy said in a voice that was haughty and elegant without resorting to something as simple as an accent. Even without such an affectation, his words sounded as crisp and clean as polished silver.
“Well, he’s mixed up in this now,” Justin said. “In fact, he’s probably out there closing in on us while you sit there staring into that mirror.”
“You had an opportunity to shoot him in Spencer Flats. In fact, I might venture to say he’s one of the few things in that saloon you didn’t shoot.”
“I did what I was supposed to do,” Justin growled. “Keeping your sorry ass from being killed is work enough.”
“If you would have done what I’d asked and merely killed the younger deputy at that table, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Now we’ll have to find another lead in regards to the California job, and to make matters worse, you’ve drawn the ire of someone like John Slocum.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I wouldn’t have had to draw no ire if you hadn’t made me go back into town to fetch your damn clothes!”
“A job, I might add, that you failed to do since I am out several shirts, a pair of silk trousers, and one fine pair of shoes. I suppose I’ll just tack that expense onto the ever-growing list of your shortcomings.”
Justin was beyond words by now. His eyes opened and closed in a set of nervous blinks before his hand went for the old pistol strapped to his side. Although his speed would have been adequate under most circumstances, it wasn’t enough to beat Abernathy to the punch. The well-dressed older man took one of his .44s from its holster and pointed its barrel at Justin in a smooth set of motions that had taken a lifetime to perfect.
“I appreciate you being upset,” Abernathy said as he coolly thumbed back the .44’s hammer. “But do you want your final mistake to be this one?”
“I ain’t no idiot,” Justin said.
“I never called you one.”
“Well, that’s what you meant.”
One of Abernathy’s eyebrows slid upward in a perfectly straight vertical line. “Perhaps that is what I implied. For that, you have my apologies.”
“All right, then,” Justin said as he stared at the older man’s unwavering gun hand. His brow trembled and both corners of his mouth twitched as he figured as many of the angles as he could. In the end, the situation was all too simple. If he thought he could get an accurate shot off quicker than Abernathy, he could take it. If not, he had to holster his gun. When he holstered his gun, Justin tried his hardest to make it seem as if he was doing the older man a favor.
Abernathy accepted the gesture gracefully. “There’s no need to fight,” he said while placing his .44 into its proper place. “I thought going into town for my things would be an easy matter for someone of your talents.” Before that could be interpreted as a slight, Abernathy added, “Obviously, neither one of us figured Slocum would be on our trail so quickly. Or at all, for that matter.”
“What the hell does he want with us anyhow? You think he knew anyone we shot?”
“Several of the things I heard about him involved riding in a posse or helping a lawman in some other fashion. Perhaps I was correct in assuming it would be a mistake to kill that sheriff.”
“There wasn’t no choice. We had to break Rob out.”
“I had the situation well in hand. That lawman wasn’t anxious to draw his gun and there wasn’t any help on its way. We could have removed Rob from that jail without it becoming such a messy affair.”
“That lawman went for his gun,” Justin said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, your eyes ain’t what they used to be, are they? That’s why you’ve got me and Rob along to do our part.”
“Now . . . just you.”
Justin grinned at that. “You got that right. And since it’s just you and me, we gotta stick together more than ever.”
Abernathy nodded as he lowered himself onto his stool. When he let out a breath, it was as if a heavy burden had dropped onto his shoulders. “There’s only one more job ahead of us. We’ve come a long way to get here and we’ve almost got all of the pieces to get it done. That man you say you know . . . the one who has a touch with safes . . . he’s supposed to be in Hollister?”
“That’s right. If he ain’t, I know how we can find him.”
“He was supposed to be in Spencer Flats,” Abernathy said in a voice that had grown tight as a bowstring. “And Tarnish Mills before that.”
“A man like him has to move around a lot,” Justin replied with a shrug. “What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”
“So far, everything we’ve had to acquire for this job has been moved around a lot. The informants who knew where to find the gold, the clerks who would know when it was being delivered to California, the make and model of the safes, the layout of the bank and its guard schedule . . .”
“We need all of them things, don’t we?”
“Yes,” Abernathy sighed. “We do. I only wish we haven’t had to spill so much blood along the way.”
Justin sat down on the ground, stretched out his legs, rested his head upon the saddle lying on the perimeter of the fire’s light, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t think such valuable information would be unguarded, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“And those men we needed to capture. Did you think they’d give up what they knew or what they had without bein’ squeezed?”
“Now you’re the one assuming I’m an idiot,” Abernathy scowled.
“I’m just layin’ it all out for you.”
“I’m the one who brought you into this! I laid it all out for you! You and Rob and Pete.”
Justin nodded quickly. “You sure did. This is your job, Far Eye. You’re the one with the reputation that’s allowed us to get this far. And even though Pete and Rob both got killed on this job of yours, I’m still with you.”
Until a few moments ago, Abernathy’s calm had been an unbreakable wall. Every primping of his whiskers, straightening of his suit, and polishing of his boots fortified that wall and kept him walking proudly through damn near everything. Jumping to his feet, Abernathy rested his left hand upon one of his holstered .44s and used his right to jab a finger at Justin. “That’s right! This is my job and you’re just along for the ride! You’re not the one up front when the shots are fired! You’re not the one putting your life on the line!”
“Rob was covering you when he was found and killed,” Justin reminded him. “You ain’t the only one sticking his neck out.”
“Well, I’m the one with the price on his head, and every time one of these events turns sour, I’m the one that gets most of the blame. Do you have any idea how much trouble is stirred up when a lawman is gunned down? Do you have any notion of how badly other lawmen will want to make an example of me or avenge a colleague’s death? And don’t forget where you are! This is vigilante territory! Those men are animals out hunting for men like you and me the way red men hunt for scalps!”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you get so worked up about anything, Ferril.”
The older man was on him in a flash, hunkering down to grab hold of Justin’s shirt and
lift him less than an inch off the ground. That’s as far as he needed to go to meet the sharpened steel of the knife that Abernathy had pulled from where it had been hiding. The blade was about two inches long and shaped like a wedge. The handle fit around his two middle fingers and the blade extended between them as if it had sprung from the top of his fist.
“Let me tell you something, boy,” Abernathy snarled. “You haven’t seen how worked up I can get. Just because I’m using men like you and Rob doesn’t mean I need you to get this job done. You’re here to make things go smoother. Easier. Faster. Instead, I find myself in a bloody goddamn mess with dead lawmen piling up on all sides.”
“Take it easy, Ferril!” Given a sharp jolt by the fist that held him, Justin felt the tip of the other man’s blade poke through his shirt to jab into his chest. Some blood trickled beneath his clothing. “I . . . I mean Mr. Abernathy.”
“It’s about goddamn time you spoke to me with respect. Just because you’ve been with me for the longest on this ride doesn’t grant you special privileges. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“And just because you can carry a gun doesn’t make you a dangerous man. You’re a killer. I know that much for certain, but even that doesn’t make you dangerous. Want to know what does?”
The knife hadn’t dug any deeper into Justin’s chest, but it was slowly twisting back and forth as if to milk the shallow flesh wound for every ounce of pain it could produce. The more it twisted, the less Justin could concentrate. Therefore, instead of saying anything in response to the question that had been posed, he simply nodded.
“A dangerous man kills someone up close, where he can look into his victim’s eyes and listen to the poor soul beg for one last breath,” Abernathy said. “He does this even though it haunts him, and when the time comes, he does it again. A dangerous man knows he’s damned for what he’s done and isn’t afraid to keep doing more. He knows he won’t have to answer to any Good Lord when he’s finally brought down in what will most certainly be an ugly manner. Therefore, knowing all of those unpleasant facts about who he is, what he’s done, and what lies in his future, that man doesn’t have a thing to lose by committing the most vile acts on earth. In fact, with a soul so black, he can think up new, even more despicable things to do that won’t make one bit of difference when his Judgment Day comes.”