Reaching out to push aside one branch, Alice failed to notice another and stumbled headlong. Before she could hope to control it, a cry had left her startled mouth.
She rolled awkwardly sideways and pushed herself up with her left hand; with her right she rubbed at her knee. Her head swam. She could hear someone following her and she knew it was the man with the black shirt, that he had noticed her missing and now was chasing after her.
Alice wondered whether to run on or try to hide, climb one of the trees … moments wasted in thought that got her nowhere.
Vonnie had heard her cry and was heading towards it, hurrying but no longer running, less worried now that he knew he was going in the right direction.
Alice stood and leaned against the nearest tree for a few seconds; then she heard a branch snap behind her and her dark eyes flooded with fear.
She pushed herself away and began to run again, not certain which direction she was taking, simply hurling herself forward and swerving between obstacles, jumping over the jutting roots of trees, sweat stinging her eyes and making her close them to a squint. Her right side, at her waist, burned as if a hot blade was being gradually forced into it. Deep. She held it now as she ran, body wobbling from side to side, her thighs and calves beginning to knot.
Helpless, helplessly lost, she blundered on.
Fell. Clambered up. Ran her mazy run. Fell again.
Blood trickled down the side of her head from a cut alongside the hairline. The skin had been grazed from her knees. Her side burned, throat burned, lungs burned. Sweat stung her eyes. She saw a dark branch swing into the edge of her vision and grabbed at it, fending it away. The branch moved: was branch no longer. Alice realized that she had touched Vonnie’s arm.
Alice screamed.
She turned and tried to run back in the direction she’d come but got no further than the length of the arm. His fingers bit deep into her shoulder and pulled her back, swinging her round to face him. The shadows of leaves dappled his head with patterns of light and shade. Alice stared at the hooded pouches about the eyes, the mustache and below it the gap to the left of his teeth, showing as he smiled.
Alice struggled in his grip and called out.
His other hand flashed so fast she could do nothing to avoid it. Vonnie’s knuckles cracked across her cheek and her head rocked sideways, her whole body swinging and only his hold keeping her from falling.
Alice looked up at him through tears that she couldn’t stop and saw he was smiling still. His fingers pressed deeper and deeper as if trying to meet each other through her flesh.
Open-mouthed, Alice fought to control her breathing, her sobbing. He laughed and lifted her into the air, throwing her over his shoulder and starting off through the trees with her head midway down his back, hair falling over her face. For a time her legs kicked out awkwardly but Vonnie only laughed the stronger. By the time they had reached the clearing she was still again, a small dead weight on him.
‘Bitch!’
He threw her on to the bunk and she bounced clumsily, not expecting it, the side of her head banging against wood and making her cry out.
‘Stupid little bitch!’
When she dared to look he was unbuckling the thick leather belt from the top of his pants, looking down at her all the while.
‘Nooo!’
Alice jumped to one side and tried to rush past him. Surprised, Vonnie almost let her go. His free hand clawed at her hair and grasped it tight. Alice screamed and struggled and he yanked her back towards him, tripping her so that she sprawled on the floor.
The belt whisked through a circle above her, swished and cracked.
‘No!’
Her cry was cut short by the slap of leather on her bare arm, her side. She huddled instinctively into a ball, drawing her knees up tight into her stomach and pulling her head down on to her chest.
Vonnie struck her with the belt again and she ground her teeth together and sobbed and her chest heaved and he hit her again and she jerked under the force of the blow and wondered if he would ever stop.
Spittle flecked Vonnie’s face, hung from the corners of his mustache. He dropped the belt to the floor and hauled the girl to her feet. Another slap across her tear-crumpled face and he hurled her back against the wall.
Alice seemed to hang there, motionless, fear in waves through her wide, dark eyes.
Vonnie looked at the girl for the shape of breasts not yet formed. When he came towards her she knew what he wanted even though she had no memory of it. His hand clutched at the top of her dress and tugged it hard, pulling her against his chest, finally succeeding in tearing the material down.
Alice stood back against the cabin wall and closed her eyes. His breath on her face and neck: hands on her body. For a moment she thought she was going to faint and then he pressed hard against her and his mouth was on hers and she could feel the brittle hairs of his mustache and wetness of his lips opening to cover her own. Tongue pressing against her teeth.
Vomit rose at the back of Alice’s throat and she swayed sideways.
Opened her mouth to his tongue.
Alice bit down and pushed out with both hands at the same time. Vonnie yelled and pulled his head away fast and she ducked under his flailing arm and ran for the door.
Blood tasted salt and hot in Vonnie’s mouth.
He cursed her and ran after her, one hand to his face, more surprised than pained. Alice was running fast across the clearing, going diagonally, hair streaming out behind her. Again aimless but intent only on getting away. Anywhere. Away.
Vonnie hesitated an instant, then set off after her again. Ten yards from the cabin a shot rang out and he spun sideways, feet slewing beneath him, sliding badly. Pain bit his right side and he crashed on to the ground and groaned.
Alice stopped in her flight; turned; stared. Unable to understand.
Vonnie clawed the snub-nosed Colt from his holster and thumbed back the hammer, short of breath, vision unclear. Ribs aching, shrieking. He touched the front of the black shirt with his other hand and yelled with the agony of the pressure. Blood smeared his fingers. He stared at Alice and then at the edge of the clearing and saw nothing.
Gradually he pushed himself to his knees and shook his head, eager to clear it. Alice still hadn’t moved. One hand was to the side of her face the other pressed against her chest, holding the two torn sides of her dress together.
Vonnie got shakily to his feet and as he did so a bullet smashed through the middle of his left leg, shattering the- knee cap to smithereens, bursting one of the tendons at the back of the leg as it ripped its exit. Vonnie dropped to the ground, screaming in pain, his Colt gripped and unfired in his hand.
‘Who the hell is that?’
Vonnie’s mouth a dark blur.
‘Who the hell...?’
Alice stared at the blood. Warm liquid trickled from between her legs, ran down inside her dress. She called out, high-pitched, wild with fear. Then she was running again, past the corner of the corral and on into cover, dress flapping about her young girl’s body, sounds of pursuit heavy in her ears.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw a shape following her, running. A man but she did not register who. Stumbled, wavered, regained her balance.
‘No, nooo!’
‘Alice!’
‘Leave me … leave … nooo. Leave me…’
A hand caught at her arm and pulled her back; she swung round and saw that it was Hart but under the faded blue of his eyes all she saw was the bright, sticky blood that had burst from Vonnie’s leg and chest. She looked into Hart’s eyes and saw reflected there the expression that had been on Vonnie’s face in the cabin.
Suddenly she was clawing at him, fingers like small sharp branches attacking his face, his arms. Tears again, hot on her cheeks. Her mouth open and half-sobbing, half-screaming. Her elbows hit his chest and he brushed them aside and lifted her into his arms, turning her against him, little fists beating at his head, tears dropping on to hi
m now, the voice cracking, fading as her small body heaved.
Alice’s arms wound about his neck and he held her close, waiting for her body to still
Hart turned so that he could see back the way he had run; there was no sign of movement. He thought that Vonnie had had time to either come after him or get back inside the cabin - depending upon how thorough a job he’d done on his knee.
‘We have to go back.’ Alice stirred against him. ‘I have to go back.’
Her arms tightened; his neck was wet with her tears. He hadn’t realized what a child she was, nor how much he’d missed knowing the trust of a child inside his own arms.
‘I want to marry you. For you to come and live here. For us to have kids.’
‘I’ve told you. Not while…’
‘Kathy, it’s not like before. I’m a Ranger, a lawman. That’s different. It’s….’
‘It isn’t different. It’s the same.’ She stared at the Colt holstered at his side. ‘That’s the same.’
‘Kathy, for Christ’s sake, you don’t understand?
She shook her head, almost sadly. ‘No, Wes, Wes you that doesn’t understand.’
Hart carried the girl a short way back towards the cabin and set her down, prising her fingers gently apart before he could free her arms from his neck.
‘You wait here. An’ don’t worry, don’t wander. Okay? I’ll be back.’
Alice looked at him and then away. He touched her cheek then turned and passed quickly, quietly from her sight.
Vonnie had crawled slowly and painfully across the clearing in the direction of the corral. He’d wriggled underneath the bottom piece of fencing and then crawled some more, intent upon reaching his horse. The hand that caught hold of the metal of the stirrup was sticky with blood. Vonnie gasped as the animal backed away, dragging him after it, his shattered knee banging against the hard ground.
He called to the animal, quieting it, glancing over his shoulder at the trees, the attacker he’d not yet seen. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult and when he coughed a sliver of blood lanced the ground.
Vonnie began to pull himself up, the Colt pushed back down into its holster, both hands needed. One of them tight now around the saddle pommel. Eyes flickering and failing to focus for seconds at a time.
‘Hold it!’
Vonnie’s breath caught.
‘Turn round slow. Unless you want it in the back.’
Vonnie didn’t know whether to believe him. Maybe he should carry on with what he was doing. How many men would shoot another in the back without a thought? As his boot slid into the stirrup he remembered the way the man had fired from cover, chest and leg, two aimed shots.
Vonnie set his leg back on the ground, not without pain. His fingers loosed themselves from the saddle and he turned slowly, seeing the man standing in the center of the clearing - the low-crowned black hat, the Colt .45 steady in his right hand, legs braced, body slightly crouched.
‘You wasn’t supposed to come back,’ said Vonnie tonelessly.
‘Yeah. I know.’
‘You was ...’
‘The girl,’ said Hart grimly, cutting across him. ‘The girl. You shouldn’t have done that.’
Vonnie winced as a band of pain tightened across his ribs. Blood was seeping through his torn shirt and pants; the ground where he was standing was darkening with it.
‘I didn’t …I never…’
Hart shook his head: ‘You tried.’
Vonnie gulped in air, but the air was dry as sand. He wanted a cigarette. Wanted one bad. His fingers fumbled for the makings and failed to hold them - wisp of paper and tobacco floated away on the wind.
Hart looked at Vonnie deliberately and returned his pistol to its holster.
‘There’s no other way?’ said Vonnie.
‘No.’ Hart shook his head.
Vonnie nodded and leaned his body forward, right arm arching away. He tried to focus on Hart but the man’s shape seemed to keep shifting in and out of mist. It was like looking at a man through fine rain.
For a sharp second the pain in his chest jammed his eyelids shut and the fingers of his right hand clenched together tight.
‘Make your play,’ said Hart, his own hand hovering at his hip, fingers splayed wide and curved inwards; eyes fixed on Vonnie’s swaying body.
Vonnie coughed and wiped his left arm across his mouth. Blood and mucus clotted in the dark hairs of the arm and dripped down on to the front of his black shirt. He knew that if he didn’t go for his gun soon it would be useless even to try. Something broke inside his head, high up against the roof of the skull.
He let out a roar and his hand dived for the butt of the Colt, finding it, pulling it up, thumb working the hammer. Hart clear now, yes, clear before him. Mist, rain gone. The sun hot on the back of his neck again, Vonnie brought the pistol past his waist, finger beginning to tighten on the trigger.
Hart had waited until Vonnie had begun his draw, waited until the man’s gun had started to clear leather. Then his own hand had made its practiced descent, the weapon coming up in a blur of speed that suddenly steadied, triple click of the hammer smooth and even, squeeze of the trigger back towards the curve of the guard.
The bullet hit Vonnie in the center of his chest, an inch below the breast bone.
It flung him back into the side of his horse, the slug grazing the animal’s flank as it exited with a burst of fiber and blood through the back. The animal shied up and whinnied in shock and terror. Vonnie was hurled sideways and fell to the ground without a hand to break the force of landing.
The gun pitched out of his hand and away, out of reach.
Hart began slowly to walk towards him.
The mist had returned now, only it was thicker than before -clouds which hung over Vonnie’s eyes like damp grey sheets that were flecked here and there with red. He coughed and coughed and a clot of blood caught in his throat and he doubled up, choking.
Hart ducked between the rails of the corral and stepped to-ward’s Vonnie’s gun, bending and picking it up; he pushed the barrel down into his belt. Watched Vonnie straighten, coils of red sliding from both nostrils; mustache, teeth stained with it. A stink rose up towards Hart as the dying man’s sphincter loosened for the final time.
Hart carefully released the hammer of the Colt.
Vonnie’s arm jerked out and down and hit the side of his black leather boot. A message tapped its way to his brain. His fingers slid along to the top of the boot as he tried to see the man standing over him. The hand pushed inside and closed round the handle of the little Colt .41 that was stashed there.
Always carry a back-up gun, he’d said to Lee and Little Fats and Turkey. You never know when it’s going to come in handy.
His body arched involuntarily as a convulsion of pain racked him and the gun was no longer to his hand, the fingers of the hand clawed at the wound in the middle of his chest instead, trying to tear it out, rip it loose from his body…
Hart watched dispassionately as Vonnie twitched and turned a final time, rolled on to his face and was still. He leaned forward and found the pistol in the boot and examined it, tucking that, too, into his belt.
When he turned away Alice was standing at the edge of the clearing and she ran to him and he caught her and held her and for a time it was all right.
Chapter Ten
‘Where in the Lord’s name are they?’
Kennedy flicked open the cover of his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, scowling and pressing it closed, setting it back in the side pocket of his off-white coat.
‘They should be here by now.’ His voice was edged and anxious. He swept the hat from his head and wiped a handkerchief over his broad forehead, pushing the falling lock of hair out of the way only for it to drop back again immediately. He wiped the cotton handkerchief around the inside of the hat before settling it back on his head.
‘What, hmm, d’you think has gone wrong?’
Fowler eyed him evenly. ‘No
thin’, I doubt.’
‘But the time, man!’
‘Sure, you said, they’re a few minutes late. These fellers ain’t bank clerks.’
Kennedy looked at the detective with clear distaste and lifted the water bottle from the pommel of his saddle. He wiped both the top of the bottle and his mouth before drinking.
‘Would you, mm, care for some water?’
Fowler grimaced and shook his head, reaching into his side pocket for a small silver flask. The bourbon warmed his throat; he belched and took some more.
‘Don’t you ever stop?’
‘What?’
‘Drinking?’
Fowler looked at Kennedy and laughed: ‘Sometimes I sleep.’
Kennedy scowled and lifted a hand to cover his eyes from the brightness of the light. Right of the trail trees grew thickly, the land sloping lazily upwards; to the west was a mixture of brush and boulders behind which the purple shadows of mountain ranges merged into the edges of land and sky.
Kennedy took a pistol from his pocket and broke it open at the hinge, checking the chamber.
‘What in hell’s name you fixin’ to do with that?’ snapped Fowler angrily.
‘A precaution. That’s all.’
‘Yeah, well the best precaution you can take for the both of us is to keep that thing out of sight and forget about it.’
Kennedy snapped the pistol closed and dropped it back into his pocket. ‘I don’t see...’
‘That’s the trouble.’
‘It seemed wise…’
‘To hell with your wisdom! I don’t intend to get myself shot on account of any damned wisdom of yours. You remember that!’
Kennedy was about to argue back but some light in Fowler’s eyes stopped him and made him turn his head away. He shifted uneasily in the saddle as his horse dipped its head, trying to rid itself of the flies that buzzed about it, settling in the corners of its eyes.
‘Here they come,’ announced Fowler, picking out two riders moving slowly left to right across his squinted vision, passing between trees.
‘Where? I don’t...’
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