In the blink of an eye, all of the warning signs flooded through Sol’s mind. Nester had told him more than once not to trust another outlaw. Nester had even harped on how dangerous it was to ride with men who were too stupid to shoot when the time came to do so. He’d said those things so many times that Sol had stopped listening. Now it looked as if Sol would be taught this lesson the hard way and Nester could take a shot at all that money himself.
Sol didn’t want to get Nester killed, but he wasn’t about to let the old man slink away. If Nester meant to let Sol hang, then the old man deserved to be chased down as well.
Just as Sol opened his mouth to say his piece to the lawmen, he was cut short by a sharp punch to the jaw. Before he could pull in another breath, Sol felt a dirty piece of cloth being stuffed into his mouth.
Chapter 26
For Sol, the next few minutes were more of a jumble than the failed attempt to escape that camp. He kept trying to speak, but could only mumble and grunt into the bandana that filled his mouth. He was dragged away from the camp and dropped next to a tree. When Sol rolled onto his side and squirmed to get a look at where the other men had gone, he found one of them standing directly beside him.
Wayne knocked Sol out with one well-placed kick to the temple.
Once Sol opened his eyes again, he thought he might already be dead.
He was blind. His head ached so badly that Sol feared his skull had been cracked open. Soon, he realized he was breathing. After that, Sol realized he was sitting upright in a saddle. His hands were still tied behind his back and he could still taste the filthy cotton that had been stuffed into his mouth. Every breath smelled like a mix of rust and dirt. The one thing he could hear above everything else was the rush of blood through his veins and the slamming of his heart in his chest.
He was alive. At least, he was alive for the moment.
‘‘. . . like he’s awake,’’ someone said from nearby.
Although Sol could hear the voices, they were muffled and distorted. Every beat of his heart sent a wave of sound through Sol’s aching head. It reminded him of when he’d gotten knocked on the head by a piece of falling rock while working in Charlie’s mine. Sol fought to keep listening, but couldn’t shake the feeling that his head was at the bottom of a bucket of water.
‘‘He’s awake all right. I can see him squirming,’’ someone else replied. It might have been Cam.
‘‘That noose tight?’’
‘‘Let me check.’’
It was tight, all right. Sol could feel the rope scratching against his neck as it was twisted around and cinched in to squeeze even tighter across his throat. Once that adjustment was made, the pounding rush in Sol’s ears grew even louder. As the horse beneath him shifted its weight, Sol could feel the rope digging even deeper into his neck. That woke him up, but only so he could wonder if his head was going to pop.
‘‘That branch gonna hold?’’
Since the other man was a bit farther away, Sol couldn’t quite hear the response. He forced himself to swallow, straightened his back and lifted his chin. The blood flowed a bit easier through him, but just enough to make the throbbing in his skull ease up a bit. He could feel the gentle touch of a breeze against his hands. Since he couldn’t see and couldn’t feel anything on his face or neck, Sol guessed there was something covering his head.
‘‘Looks official,’’ Cam said. ‘‘Get that horse moving and let’s be done with this.’’
In the space of the next few seconds, Sol reflected upon his entire life. Every moment rushed through him like a cascade of photographs and he could somehow see every single one as they went by. Beneath that rush of memory, Sol thought about the little things he would miss.
Coffee that was brewed just right.
A pretty lady’s singing voice.
Crisp bacon.
Sleep.
Then again, Sol guessed he wouldn’t miss that last one too badly. He’d be getting more than his share of sleep real soon.
With that, Sol grinned. His cheeks brushed against whatever was covering his head and he let out a tired laugh, which was soaked up by the dirty bandana in his mouth.
‘‘. . . told you to hand that man over!’’
‘‘Who the hell are you?’’
Sol didn’t start paying attention to the conversation until he heard Cam’s distinct growl in the mix. The horse was still under him and the rope was awfully tight around his neck. Before long, Sol would no longer have the strength to keep his chin up.
‘‘I’m one of the men doing your job! There’s a posse out there getting shot to pieces and you’re here fooling about with a lynching!’’
Sol couldn’t quite place this new voice. His own heartbeat was thumping too loudly for him to hear more than just the words themselves.
‘‘What posse?’’ Cam asked.
‘‘The one chasing down that gang of robbers!’’ the new man replied. ‘‘The sheriff got wind that he was missing some deputies and sent us to check on all of you.’’
‘‘Who are you?’’
‘‘I’m a deputy from Santa Roja. See for yourself.’’ There was a long moment of silence, during which Sol began to drift into sleep. He figured it was all for the best. If these were to be his last moments, he didn’t want to spend them listening to a bunch of lawmen bickering among themselves.
After a while, Sol felt as though he were drifting downward like a falling leaf.
His heartbeat faded away and the constant pounding in his ears tapered off.
He still couldn’t see.
All in all, death wasn’t so bad.
Sol opened his eyes and was greeted by a bright, brilliant light. The light almost immediately blinded him, but at least he wouldn’t feel any more pain.
Come to think of it . . . that wasn’t exactly true.
In fact, everything above Sol’s shoulders was in a lot of pain. The moment he started to move, he quickly regretted it.
‘‘Rise and shine, lazybones,’’ Nester said from somewhere nearby.
Sol was confused. He rubbed the back of his head where it hurt the most and struggled to sit up. The next time he tried to open his eyes, he took his time and slowly raised his eyelids. The bright light was still there, but that was only because he was facing the sun. Something drifted through the air, however, which made him feel somewhat closer to heaven.
‘‘Is that . . . coffee?’’ Sol asked.
Nester was sitting on a log beside a campfire. He grinned and handed a dented cup to Sol. ‘‘Just brewed it up myself.’’
Sol took a sip and let it trickle down his throat. It hurt terribly, but the taste was more than worth the suffering. He drank again, let his eyes adjust to the sunny skies and then finally looked back toward the old man. ‘‘Tell me what in the blazes happened. The last thing I recall was having a noose around my neck. Some deputy came to get me.’’ Steeling himself for the answer, Sol asked, ‘‘You shot him, didn’t you?’’
The old man didn’t say anything. When Sol looked back to him, he found Nester grinning like the cat that ate the proverbial canary. Finally, Nester pulled open his jacket to reveal the tin star pinned to his shirt pocket. ‘‘You didn’t know it was me?’’ Nester asked. ‘‘And here I thought I had such a distinctive singing voice.’’
‘‘That was . . . that was you?’’
‘‘Sure was.’’
‘‘How did you get me away from there?’’ Sol asked. ‘‘I didn’t even hear any shots!’’
Nester used his sleeve to proudly wipe off the front of his badge. ‘‘Only one of them boys laid eyes on me before I got hold of this badge He was one of them scouts I spotted. Just so’s you know, I did have to put him down.’’ Sipping his coffee, Nester leaned back and spoke as if he were telling another one of his tall tales. ‘‘I was surprised as all git out when I saw that scout was a deputy. After my tussle with him, I saw his badge and took it fer myself. A man never knows when somethin’ like that will come in hand
y.
‘‘I started making my way back to that camp when you must’ve slipped up because all hell was breaking loose. I got close enough to pick off a few of them others before they got a chance to put a bullet into yer worthless hide.’’
‘‘I heard those shots,’’ Sol said. ‘‘I recall at least one or two of them saving my life. What happened after that?’’
‘‘Well, them dandies were awful quick to get them wagons rolling as soon as they could,’’ Nester replied. ‘‘I thought about chasing them down to get that money, but damn near every one of them hired guns went along to guard it.
‘‘When I saw they got a hold of you,’’ Nester sighed, ‘‘I managed to get up close before you lost too much of yer wind and talked them into handing you over. I told ’em they were needed to help the rest of those law dogs protect them wagons. From what I could hear, it seemed those boys weren’t so much crooked as they were enterprising. They were mostly more loyal to their boss than to any of them dandies in that camp.’’
Sol nodded and sipped his coffee as his strength slowly trickled back into him. ‘‘More scouting told you all that, huh?’’
Tapping his temple with one finger, Nester winked and nodded.
‘‘All that happened when it was still dark,’’ Sol said. ‘‘Looks to me like that was a while ago.’’
‘‘Yeah. Sorry about that. My story was that I was to take you back to the sheriff so they could do a legal hanging, if there even is such a thing. Them deputies were too rattled and confused to push the matter. I think they might’ve had a guilty conscience on account of them stringin’ you up like that. Anyway, one of ’em wanted to come along with me to bring you in. I refused, so he cracked you on the back of the skull so’s you wouldn’t fight me.’’
‘‘That was thoughtful,’’ Sol grumbled.
‘‘Actually,’’ Nester admitted, ‘‘it was. Them deputies sure stick together.’’
Holding his tin cup between both hands, Sol swirled the coffee around and let his eyes wander among the dark liquid and wet grounds that stuck to the sides. ‘‘Tell me something, Nester. Were you scouting when you were crouching with your rifle in that collapsed tent?’’
Without so much as a twitch, Nester said, ‘‘Yeah. I was.’’
‘‘So you saw me before I had that rope around my neck. You were right there when I was going to be strung up. You could have shot all those men and freed me, but you didn’t.’’
‘‘Killin’ lawmen ain’t a smart thing ta do, boy. It tends to get all the others riled up.’’
‘‘You already killed one,’’ Sol declared as he looked up from his coffee. ‘‘Or did he just hand over that badge out of kindness?’’
‘‘I did kill one. Stabbed him good too. It was a fight and only one of us was gonna walk away. I didn’t know he was a lawman till it was too late.’’
‘‘Would it have made a difference?’’ Sol asked.
Nester thought it over for a few seconds. ‘‘Probably not,’’ he finally admitted. ‘‘We should’a known there was lawmen riding with those wagons goin’ in, but we didn’t.’’
‘‘And even if you did know . . . would you still have fed me to them?’’
‘‘What’s that supposed to mean?’’
‘‘You heard me, old man,’’ Sol replied. ‘‘You made it to that camp. You got in a good spot to take out those lawmen. You could have scared them away or scattered them from that horse that was holding me off the ground. You could have shot the damn rope! Shot the tree! You could’ve done anything but just crawl away!’’
Refusing to be riled up by Sol’s words, Nester nodded and said, ‘‘I don’t need to explain myself to you nor any man, but you needed to feel the end of that rope.’’
Sol was on his feet before he could think about it. He reached for his holster and was genuinely surprised to find his gun there. ‘‘I better not have heard you right. Did you just say I needed to be hung?’’
Nester slowly took in the sight of the man in front of him. When he saw that Sol was about to draw his gun, the old man stood up and lowered his head so he was staring at Sol the way a wolf stares down its prey. ‘‘What I said is that you needed to feel that rope tightening around yer neck, but if you needed to hang, I would’a left you there.’’
‘‘So you could take all that money for yourself, is that it? Perhaps I should see about making you feel some pain of your own. Maybe all those stories about you are just that. Stories. Right now, you just seem like a yellow—’’
‘‘You’d best watch yer tongue, boy,’’ Nester barked. ‘‘I felt more pain than you could ever know, but you ain’t felt enough. Leastways, you ain’t felt enough to know what a mistake you made in tossin’ everything you had out the window so you could try to be a bad man.’’ Nester’s hand remained less than an inch above his gun and his eyes remained fixed upon Sol. ‘‘That may have been the way for me and it may be the way for other men, but it ain’t the way for you, Sol. You ain’t a bad man. You may be angry and you may have gotten yer feathers ruffled by some cheatin’, lyin’ bosses, but you ain’t bad to the core. You ain’t a killer.’’
‘‘I’ve killed,’’ Sol said quietly. ‘‘That makes me a killer.’’
‘‘You got into some scrapes and had to take a life or two, but you didn’t take to it naturally.’’ Nester’s scowl eased up a bit as he continued to speak, but his hand didn’t stray too far from his gun. ‘‘I can sniff out a good killer or a good thief the way a blacksmith can sniff out a good apprentice. Bad men steal because they can. They kill because they’re killers. It’s in their blood. They don’t get into fights and fire their guns to stay alive. They don’t shoot to defend themselves. They kill. They murder. That’s what a bad man does. That’s what makes him bad, Sol. You ain’t a bad man.’’
‘‘Why didn’t you tell this to me before?’’ Sol asked.
‘‘I did. At least . . . I tried. Hell, I ain’t no teacher, because the men I rode with didn’t need to be taught. What would you have done if I told you that you didn’t have what it took to ride with me and that you should go back to a quiet life somewhere else?’’
More than anything, Sol wanted to lie. As always, however, he knew he couldn’t pull that off while facing Nester Quarles. He was also too tired and rattled to be very convincing no matter who he was facing. Grudgingly, he said, ‘‘I would’ve gone ahead without you.’’
‘‘And you would’ve gotten yerself killed. In case you hadn’t noticed, you ain’t too good at robbin’.’’
‘‘What’s so hard about it? Stick a gun in someone’s face and take what they got.’’
‘‘There’s more to it, boy,’’ Nester growled. ‘‘You can’t pick a gun ’cause it’s pretty. You gotta be ready to use it. You gotta be ready to kill a man just because he got in yer way. And if need be, you gotta be ready to kill anyone else that gets in yer way.
‘‘You know what your problem is? You only wanna hurt them’s that has it comin’. I killed men just to clear a path for a getaway. I gunned down plenty of folks that didn’t deserve it. I even shot plenty of ’em in the back. You know how much that haunts me to this day?’’
Sol shook his head.
‘‘It don’t,’’ Nester hissed. ‘‘I don’t lose one wink o’ sleep over none of the widows I made or throats I slit. I don’t give a damn whose money I stole. You wanna rob and kill for a livin’? That’s the kinda blood that’s gotta run through yer veins.’’
Listening to Nester’s words, Sol waited for a sign that the old man was bluffing or that he was even stretching the truth. He didn’t get a hint of any such thing.
‘‘I seen you when you was a kid,’’ Nester continued. ‘‘I know you got a real nice family who’d miss you if you became the sort of man I am. Maybe I’m gettin’ soft in my old age, but that’s why I decided to do you the biggest favor I could ever do by showin’ you the error of yer thinkin’.
‘‘You got blood on yer hands. You took
a walk through the mud and I could tell you didn’t like it. When I pulled my gun and went to work in that trading post, it was all you could do to keep from keeling over. Any other man I ridden with would’a killed that salesman just to see what he had in his pockets.
‘‘You tried to take part in what could have been a real sweet job and damn near got yerself killed. With the idiots runnin’ that caravan, we should have been able to get both of them wagons. Instead, you have a talk with some dandy until he gets a chance to turn things around on you. When the lead started to fly, you barely made it out alive.’’
‘‘You weren’t in there with me,’’ Sol said. ‘‘You didn’t see how it all happened.’’
Nester smirked and cocked his head a bit. ‘‘I saw plenty. You tryin’ to tell me you were runnin’ that show?’’
‘‘No. There were too many of them.’’
Shaking his head, Nester replied, ‘‘You got into that camp. I was proud of you for that. If you would’a killed a few of them, the rest would’a scattered or fallen into line. The least you could’a done was drop some of them hired guns. But you lost yer wits and bolted like a spooked horse.’’
Seeing the look in Sol’s eyes, Nester held up one hand as if to hold back the torrent he knew was coming. ‘‘I ain’t saying you’re a coward. Ye’re just biting off a whole lot more’n you can chew. The only way you’d know for certain is for you to get a real good look at what happens to men who sit in on a game like this when they ain’t ready to play. Men like that get shot or hung. The first didn’t wake you up, so I thought the second might. That’s why I crawled away and let you dangle for a bit. Hanging like that, it takes a real long time for you to die. At the very least, you got a good taste of what a bad man’s death is like.’’
‘‘And what if you didn’t get to me in time?’’ Sol asked. ‘‘What then?’’
Nester’s response was quick and succinct. ‘‘I would’ve had to watch you die,’’ he said. ‘‘The way you were goin’, I would’ve had to watch that sooner or later anyhow. Since you held back on some of that money you were supposedly bringing along to fund our travels, I might’ve been forced to kill you myself.’’
Death of a Bad Man Page 24