The first one said, “You’re the one who should drop his rifle.”
“Damn stupid Harkeys.” Chace shot the first one in the head and the second in the head, but the third bounded for the brush and made it under cover as Chace was taking a bead. Darting behind the spruce, Chace jacked the lever to feed another cartridge into the chamber.
From out of the growth came a pounding sound, as if the surviving brother was so mad, he was striking the ground.
“Are you Lincoln?” Chace called to him.
The pounding stopped. “Whether I am or I ain’t, you’re dead. You’ve done killed my brothers.”
“All they had to do was say,” Chace said.
“Kin never betrays kin. You must not have a brother of your own or you would know better.”
Chace swiveled toward where the voice was coming from. “I have a sister and Lincoln raped her.”
“I’d do it again and make you watch if she was here.” And Lincoln Harkey laughed.
Staying low, Chace ran from the spruce to a cluster of tall grass. As he threw himself down, a rifle boomed and pain seared his right arm. The brother whooped, but the slug had only torn Chace’s sleeve and barely creased his skin. He stayed down and groaned as if in torment.
Lincoln did more laughing. “You came all this way, Shannon, and for what? To die alone.”
Chace didn’t answer. He snaked a few yards to the right. The woods had gone quiet. A fly winged past, its buzzing unnaturally loud. A beetle crawled along. He stayed motionless save for his eyes and a slow turning of his head. It was a full ten minutes before a shape that was not part of the landscape caught his eye. The shape was prone and crabbing toward where he had fallen.
Lincoln was good; he moved slowly and he made no sound. His only mistake was he assumed Chace had been hit hard.
Chace inched the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. He didn’t shoot until he saw the head clearly and then he put a slug into one of the dark eyes, into the pupil, and the body flopped once and was still. Rising, Chace confirmed the kill. He went to Enoch and climbed on. “Only one left.”
There were poor Harkeys and there were well-to-do Harkeys. One of the well-to-dos was Thaddeus Harkey, whose farm covered hundreds of acres.
Instead of a cabin, the family lived in an honest-to-goodness house with three floors and a slate roof. Thaddeus even had four hands who worked for him. His family consisted of his wife, three daughters, and a boy named Festus.
There was no cover near the house save for a few trees. Chace surveyed the situation from a quarter of a mile away and said, “I guess we do this the hard way.” He clucked to Enoch.
None of the hands working the fields paid much attention. A girl of ten or so was on a swing under a maple. Another girl, slightly older, was playing with a puppy. A woman was hanging laundry on a line. She stopped hanging and dried her hands on her apron and came over, smiling.
“Hello, stranger.”
Chace smiled, too, his best and warmest smile, the smile that Cassie said lit him like the sun. “Hello, ma’am. Would your boy Festus be to home?”
“I’m afraid not,” the woman said. “Him and his pa went to Wareagle yesterday and won’t be back for a week.”
“You don’t say.”
“What do you want to see him about?”
Chace held out the Henry. “This. I was told he might be interested in buying it.”
“A rifle?” The woman nodded. “I can see why. Festus loves to hunt and loves his guns and that one is a beauty.”
“Yes, it is,” Chace agreed. “It’s a shame I have to part with it.”
“Who told you he might buy it?”
“A man in town.” Chace sighed. “Appears I’ve come all this way for nothing. I could have stayed there and waited for your son to come to me.”
“Would you like some tea or lemonade or maybe a johnnycake before you head back?”
“Thank you, ma’am, but it’s a long ride and I’d like to find Festus sooner rather than later.” Chace tipped his head and reined around. He stuck to the dirt road. That night he camped beside it and made a small fire. He cleaned the Henry and the Spencer, and when he was done, he set them side by side. “I am rich with rifles,” he said, and laughed.
Later Chace lay on his back with his head propped in his hands and gazed at the stars. Right before he fell asleep, he said softly, “My sweet twin.”
The next dawn found him under way. It was half a day’s hard ride to Wareagle. He passed a fair number of travelers but they paid him no mind.
Finally he arrived, dusty and weary, at the end of Wareagel’s main street.
The only place that had rooms to let was the tavern. Chace tied Enoch at the hitch rail and strode in with the Henry at his side. To the right of the front door a woman was behind a high counter scribbling in a ledger. To the left was an archway into the dining room.
“You look a little young for liquor, young man,” the woman said. “Or is it a room you’re after?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Chace added to his lies. “Name’s Festus Harkey. He’d be staying with his pa, Thaddeus.”
“They are here, in fact,” she confirmed, and nodded at the archway. “Went in about ten minutes ago.”
“I’m obliged.”
The tavern served food as well as liquor. People came just to eat and there were couples and single townsfolk. Only one table had a man and a boy, over in a corner. Both were dressed fine, by Wareagle’s standards, in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, and were hungrily attacking thick slabs of beef with their forks and knives.
Chace stopped a few feet from them so he had room to use the Henry.
“Festus Harkey,” he said.
Father and son looked up. The father was middling height with sloped shoulders, the son Chace’s age, or thereabouts, his hair slicked down and his face scrubbed clean.
“Something we can do for you?” Thaddeus asked.
“I’m here for your boy.”
“Do I know you?” Festus said.
“You know my sister. You and Rabon and Woot and others raped her in Harkey Hollow a while back. All of them are dead except for you and now your turn has come.”
Father and son turned to stone with their knives and forks in their hands.
Then Thaddeus shifted uneasily and said, “You can’t be serious. My son would never rape anyone.”
“Ezriah said different,” Chace said.
“My uncle told you this?” Thaddeus turned to his son. “Festus? Tell me he’s mistaken. Tell me you didn’t.”
Festus set down his knife and fork. He kept his right hand on the table and started to inch his left hand under it.
“Festus? You answer me,” Thaddeus said.
The boy heaved out of his chair and brought his hand up, holding a pocket pistol. He was fast but he didn’t have it pointed when Chace fired from the hip and put a slug into Festus’s gut. Punched back by the impact, Festus doubled over and Chace shot him in the face.
Thaddeus sat paralyzed with disbelief.
Chace started to back away and stopped when a gun hammer clicked behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.
From one of the other tables a man had risen. He was holding a revolver and he was wearing a badge.
15
Cassie paced back and forth near the chicken coop, her arms across her chest, her head bowed. She had been pacing for a good ten minutes. Every now and then she would stop pacing and stomp a foot. She had just stomped when someone coughed.
“You mad at the chickens for not laying eggs?”
Jed had come from the barn. Bits of straw clung to his buckskins and stubble speckled his chin. He wasn’t swaying, but his eyes were bloodshot and unfocused.
“You’re drunk still,” Cassie said.
“Only partly,” Jed admitted. “I handle my shine fine. Your ma had no call to throw me out like she did.”
“All this time you kept it hid from me.”
“What a man does when he is a
lone is his business,” Jed said. “So what if I drink a little if it doesn’t hurt anyone?”
“I have a hurt of my own,” Cassie told him. “Chace.”
Jed came closer. “You’ve had word? Is he all right? Or did the Harkeys get their hands on him?”
“It’s a feeling I have,” Cassie said.
“A feeling?”
“Yes. A feeling he is in trouble. Or is going to be.”
“He’s in Harkey country,” Jed said. “You only now realize that he’s in danger? God, girl. Why do you think I was so dead set against it?”
“It’s more than that,” Cassie said angrily. “I can feel what he’s feeling. Usually he doesn’t let his emotions out so I don’t feel much but it just came over me that he needs me and needs me bad.”
“A feeling,” Jed said again, his skepticism thick enough to cut with a butter knife. “Will you listen to yourself? He’s miles from here. It’s only in your head.”
“You’re saying I’m imagining it?” Cassie knew her sister scoffed at the notion and her mother had doubts she never voiced. “I figured you would believe me if anyone would. I guess I figured wrong.” She went on pacing.
“I’d like to,” Jed said, “but I’ve seen too much foolishness in my day. People believe what they want even when it’s not true.”
“Oh, Grandpa,” Cassie said.
“Don’t take that tone, girl. You, your brother, I love you both dearly. I’d do anything for you. You know that. But don’t expect me to believe you can feel your brother from far off.”
“Go back into the barn and suck on your flask. I’d rather be alone.”
“That’s harsh,” Jed said.
“I don’t care. You come out here and call me a liar, what do you expect?”
Cassie turned her back on him and went around the chicken coop. She walked to the orchard and stood under an apple tree. Bees buzzed around a few early fallen apples and a pair of wrens flitted in the branches. She stomped her foot again and said out loud, “I have to find out.”
Cassie couldn’t take the not knowing. She circled to the coral, careful to keep out of sight of the cabin windows. She brought out her mule, Bessie, and slipped on a bridle but didn’t bother with a saddle. She had been riding bareback since she could remember. She walked Bessie until she was sure her mother wouldn’t hear, then mounted and galloped off. She wasn’t sure which direction so she just rode north a short distance and stopped. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on Chace. She pictured him in her mind. The special feeling came over her, stronger than ever. She let it wash through her whole being. It was like sinking into a tub of wonderfully warm water, only it was on the inside of her, not on her skin. She felt a pull, like an invisible rope, a sense that she should head east.
That was the direction she reined. She had gone half a mile when she realized where she was being pulled.
Toward Wareagle.
“No sudden moves—you hear?” said the man wearing the badge. He was slight of frame but muscular and wore store-bought clothes, including a vest. He had spurs on his boots and a belt with a big buckle. His revolver was a new Colt. His face was dark from a lot of riding in the sun and he appeared to be upwards of thirty.
“Who might you be?” Chace asked. “You’re not Sheriff Wyler. I’ve seen him. He’s a dumpling and a half.”
The man grinned. “Wyler does like to eat, sure enough. I’m one of his deputies. Nick Fulsome. I’m placing you under arrest.”
“It was self-defense. He drew on me.”
“I saw the whole thing,” Deputy Fulsome said. “I want you to set down your rifle and hold your hands out from your sides and stand real still.”
The tavern was as quiet as a tomb. Everyone had stopped eating and talking and was staring.
“Sure, Deputy.” Chace set the Henry on the floor and extended his arms. “I’m as peaceable as a kitten.”
“You weren’t a minute ago. What was that about, anyhow?” Deputy Fulsome asked. He was wary but not overly so, doing something he had done a hundred times. “I didn’t catch what you and him were talking about.”
“I can’t say.”
“You’ll have to, in court. If you don’t they’ll throw you behind bars.”
A strangled cry caused Chace to turn his head.
Thaddeus Harkey was clutching Festus and choking down grief. “No,” he wailed. “No, no, no, no.” He came out of his chair and put a hand on the hilt of a knife on his left hip. “You killed him. Made up a story and killed my boy.”
“It wasn’t made up,” Chace said.
Thaddeus jerked the knife out. “My boy would never do what you claimed. Not a thing like that, he wouldn’t. I raised him good, raised him proper.” He took a step.
“Hold it right here,” Deputy Fulsome said loudly. “And let go of that pigsticker.”
“He shot my son,” Thaddeus said. “I have the right.”
“Not to kill him, you don’t,” the lawman said. “You can testify against him in a court of law, and if the judge and jury see fit, you can watch him swing from a gallows. But you can’t do it yourself.”
Thaddeus Harkey’s face was contorted in fury and sorrow. He was a boiling pot fit to overflow with emotion. With a loud cry he flung himself at Chace and raised the knife to stab. The boom of the deputy’s Colt was loud in the room. Blood spurted from Harkey’s wrist and his arm was whipped back and the knife went skittering.
“I warned you,” Deputy Fulsome said.
Thaddeus bent, his wrist to his belly, tears filling his eyes. “I had the right,” he said. “No law can take that from me.”
“Calm down.”
Thaddeus didn’t seem to feel his wound or notice the red drops falling on his boots and the floor. “You shouldn’t ought to have butted in. This is between us Harkeys and the Shannons.”
“I won’t tell you again.” Deputy Fulsome sidled to put himself between the two of them. “Sit back down and I’ll send for the sawbones.”
Chace stayed still, his arms out, smiling. “Better listen to the tin star,” he said to the enraged father. “You don’t want to end up behind bars over a worthless no-account like your son.”
Deputy Fulsome glanced at him. “Hush, you.”
Thaddeus’s lips curled back from his teeth like a rabid wolf’s and he raised his good arm, his fingers hooked like claws. With a piercing cry he threw himself at Chace. Deputy Fulsome tried to push him back but Thaddeus grabbed both of the deputy’s wrists and they grappled.
Instantly, Chace scooped up the Henry. He slammed the stock against Fulsome’s temple and as the law dog started to crumple he rammed the muzzle into Thaddeus Harkey’s gut. Both men went to their knees. Deputy Fulsome gamely attempted to raise the Colt and Chace hit him a second time. Thaddeus groped for Chace, hissing like a water moccasin. A sidestep, and Chace smashed him across the jaw.
No one else moved. No one spoke.
Chace pointed the Henry at Thaddeus. He touched his finger to the trigger but he didn’t squeeze. Frowning, he backed to the archway and past the shocked woman at the front counter. “Anyone comes out this door, I’ll shoot.” Whirling, he rushed out and bounded to the hitch rail.
People had heard the shot. A number stared at the tavern and several men were coming toward it.
Chace swung up. He reined sharply and trotted to the east end of the main street and on to the first bend in the road. Once out of sight, he changed direction, plunging north into the forest and circling until he was west of Wareagle. He slowed to spare Enoch. Staying shy of the road, he took his time. “No one is after us,” he said to the mule. “I reckon we got plumb away. I only hope no one recognized me.”
The bright splash of sun, the warbling of birds, the green of the woodland, were a tonic. Chace smiled as he rode. “I did it,” he said. “Accounted for all of them, and the patriarch besides. Pa would be proud of me.”
Enoch flicked his long ears.
The day waxed. Chace had a mile to go when
there was an intimation of trouble: the thud of hooves. Horses were coming fast. Chace veered to the crest of a low hill, rose in the stirrups, and shielded his eyes with his hand. He counted seven, riding hard. The lead rider wore a vest and on it something sparkled.
“That deputy has a hard head,” Chace said, and used the reins and his heels. He headed northwest, away from home, galloping where the ground permitted and moving as fast he could where the forest was thick. The minutes and the miles fell behind him. He gained enough that he didn’t hear the sounds of pursuit but not enough to feel safe.
The afternoon crawled into evening. Chace climbed to the high lines and drew rein atop a broad ridge. He scoured the darkening gray land below and spotted the string of pursuers well back but persistent.
“That deputy is taking this personal.”
Enoch was tired and so was Chace but he pushed on until midnight. A large willow offered a haven from the wind. He stripped Enoch and lay on his back with the Henry on one side and the Spencer on the other. To the north a female fox gave voice to a cry that would bring every male fox within earshot. Closer, wings fluttered and a mouse squeaked. Gradually his eyelids grew heavy. He fell asleep to the music of the night and slept soundly until the crack of dawn.
Up at first light, Chace ate a few pieces of jerky. He left the Henry and the Spencer on the ground and threw on the saddle blanket and saddle. He was bending to pick up the Spencer when the undergrowth crackled and they were on him, bursting out on horseback. They didn’t shout for him to throw up his hands. They didn’t yell to surrender. They opened fire.
Chace spun and shot from the hip. A rider tumbled. Whirling, Chace vaulted onto Enoch. A swarm of leaden wasps sought him as the mule broke into motion. Chace’s ear stung. His upper arm flared with pain. A slug dug a furrow in Enoch’s neck. Then they were in the trees and the shots were missing, but it was close.
“After him, boys!” Deputy Fulsome hollered.
Chace glanced back at the Henry, lying where he had left it. Then he rode as he had never ridden. The mule had always been fleet and surefooted; now both were put to the test. The posse came on swiftly, determined to overtake him.
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