The cabin’s lower story windows were all lit. Through the sashed window right of the door, Lonnie could see his mother sitting at the kitchen table with Shannon Dupree and “the boys.” Lonnie glanced back along the trail that was a faint, butterscotch line in the darkness. No movement out there. Not yet. There was a chance the law would not come for him. There was a better chance that they would. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow. Maybe not for a few weeks. But eventually they would.
A posse, probably—five, maybe ten men.
If the dead lawman’s partner came for him tonight, what would Lonnie do? Would he confess his sins, or run? He’d heard that when you killed a lawman, you were done for. Other lawmen took the killing of one of their own personally. So did judges. That it had been an accident wouldn’t matter to anyone. Especially not to the partner of the lawman Lonnie had killed.
Besides, who would believe him? His mother was known by some in the Never Summers to “cavort with owl hoots.” They’d see Lonnie as an owl hoot, too. A thirteen-year-old murderer.
Lonnie would drop through a trapdoor and hang by his neck, kicking and dancing in midair, until he was dead. He’d seen a man do that in Cheyenne once, in front of a crowd who’d gathered to watch, and the image haunted Lonnie to this day. The boy shuddered as he remembered how the hanged man had kicked so hard that he’d kicked off one of his boots.
Lonnie considered saddling a fresh horse, packing a cavvy sack and a war bag, and riding out. All hell had broken loose. But the cabin door opened, throwing a wedge of yellow light across the porch, and his mother called impatiently, “Lonnie? Supper’s gettin’ cold!”
Lonnie made a sour face. Oh, well, he was too tired to ride out tonight. He’d fill his belly, get a good night’s sleep, and consider his options again in the morning.
He headed back to the cabin and washed up at the tub perched on a wooden stand on the porch, against the cabin’s front wall, beneath a cracked mirror a little larger than Lonnie’s hand. His father used to shave in that mirror. From the rain barrel standing in a corner of the porch, he dippered up tepid water and thirstily drank several dippers full, then raked his fingers through his close-cropped brown hair that wore the shape of his hat, and stepped to the cabin door.
Reluctantly, he drew it open and stepped tentatively inside.
“Hey, Squirrel!” intoned Shannon Dupree, who rose from the near end of the table, where Lonnie’s mother usually sat. His wet, longish blond hair showed the lines of a comb, and he wore a checkered oilcloth bib tucked into the collar of his rand-and-black-plaid work shirt. He also wore a pistol on his hip.
“How you doin’, Squirrel?” Dupree said, turning to Lonnie and punching him twice lightly in the belly.
They were soft punches but in Lonnie’s mood, and in light of his feelings toward the outlaw, they might as well have knocked the wind out of him.
“Come on, kid,” the outlaw persisted, feinting like a boxer and wagging his big, red fists in Lonnie’s face, swiping at his chin. “Come on! You got some sand, don’t ya? Let’s see what you got, Squirrel!”
Lonnie exploded, and though Shannon towered over him, over six feet tall, the boy lurched forward and drove both his fists into the big man’s hard, flat belly. It was like hitting a side of beef hanging in the keeper shed.
The big man roared with glee, blowing his sour whiskey breath. “There ya go, Squirrel. Don’t take nothin’ off’n nobody. Hah!” He bent down, wrapped his arms around Lonnie’s waist and picked him up as though the boy weighed no more than a bucket of water. Lonnie felt his boots rise up over his head until he was upside down and facing the open front door, punching only air.
Fury boiled even harder. Fury fueled by helplessness and humiliation. He heard himself sob and his fury doubled. Flailing with his fists and feet, Lonnie screamed above Dupree’s loud guffaws, “You go to hell, you gutless, raggedy-heeled outlaw!”
Dupree stared down at Lonnie. Lonnie glared up at him and Dupree opened his arms, dropping Lonnie straight down to the floor.
Lonnie’s mother screamed, “Oh, Shannon!”
Lonnie hit the floor on his shoulders, the back of his head taking a glancing blow. He was on his back, gasping, trying to force air into his lungs. He wasn’t on the floor long, however, before Shannon Dupree, his long, slanted, gray demon’s eyes looking flat and dead and mean as a rattlesnake’s, reached down and picked Lonnie up and threw him up against the wall between the window and the door.
The eerie, menacing flatness in Dupree’s eyes told Lonnie that he was about to die.
CHAPTER 7
Dupree held Lonnie against the wall with one hand wrapped around the boy’s neck, digging his long, thick fingers into Lonnie’s windpipe.
“Oh, Shannon, no!” Lonnie’s mother beseeched, running around the table and throwing herself against Dupree.
Dupree stood like a brick wall. Lonnie flailed at the man’s sun-browned, muscle-corded arm, trying to work the iron grip free of his throat. He felt like a bug on a pin, at the big man’s mercy. When the room started to grow dim around Lonnie, and his knees started to buckle, Dupree removed his hand from Lonnie’s throat.
The boy dropped to his knees, sucking air down his aching throat and into his lungs. His head throbbed, ears burning. He felt as though his eyes would explode from their sockets.
“Shannon, that was mean!” May Gentry admonished Dupree as she knelt beside Lonnie and placed a hand on his back. “Lonnie, honey—are you all right, son?”
“Ah, hell,” Dupree said, all fun and games again. “I was just funnin’ with the boy!”
He wrapped a hand around Lonnie’s arm. Lonnie fought against the man, but there was no use. Dupree was four or five times stronger than the thirteen-year-old. Dupree pulled Lonnie to his feet and patted his head, laughing. The other two men sat at the table, regarding their gang leader and the boy uncertainly. Childress chuckling, close-set eyes glowing from all the whiskey he’d been drinking.
The stocky half Indian, Fuego, kept shoveling food into his mouth.
“You all right, son?” Dupree said. “Sorry if I hurt ya. I was just funnin’. Oh, come on—you can take a joke, can’t ya? Why, I got no respect for a man who can’t take a joke. Sit down, and I’ll buy ya a drink!”
“Shannon, let him go,” Lonnie’s mother implored as Lonnie jerked his arm free of Dupree’s loosening grip, and stumbled out onto the porch. He was still trying to work the kinks out of his windpipe with his fingers as he stumbled down the porch steps and started dragging his boot toes across the yard toward the barn.
“Ah, come on, Squirrel!” Dupree yelled behind him. “Get in here and eat your supper.” More quietly, he said, “Ah, hell, May—I was just havin’ a little fun with the boy. I thought we were just horsin’ around. You know—like a boy and his pa!”
Mrs. Gentry said something that Lonnie couldn’t hear beneath his own choking as he continued toward the sanctuary of the barn. But her voice rose in the quiet night behind him, “Lonnie, come back. Shannon didn’t mean it. Son, you have to eat!”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” Lonnie heard Dupree say inside the cabin. “I thought the boy had a thicker hide than that. I was just horsin’ around, May!”
Lonnie fumbled one of the two big barn doors open, and slipped inside. It was almost dark outside, and it was even darker inside the barn. It smelled of hay and horses and moldy tack leather and of the milk cow that was out in the rear pasture. Lonnie knew the layout by heart, so he didn’t bother to light a lamp.
He stumbled back into the rear shed addition, which served as a tack room and an extra sleeping area for a hostler. Lonnie slept in the tack room whenever his mother was “entertaining” Dupree. Fuego and Childress sacked out in the bunkhouse, and Lonnie didn’t want to be around them, so he stayed in the side shed, where he had some gear including a bedroll.
His rifle was in there.
Lonnie fumbled around until he got an old hurricane lamp lit. The lamp’s glow revealed the cramped qu
arters stuffed with shelves overflowing with tack of all kinds—harnesses, hames, bits, saddles of all ages and states of disrepair, and even some horseshoes. There were ropes, one wagon wheel, and odds and ends of Lonnie’s father’s gear from before the Civil War, which he’d fought in. Cobwebs hung everywhere, and mouse droppings littered the place.
There were two old Civil War–model Confederate pistols that Lonnie kept clean and enjoyed shooting from time to time, when he was caught up on his work. Shooting the old pistols made him feel a little closer to his father, whom Lonnie had never really known and now, of course, never would.
If Shannon Dupree thought he was going to become Lonnie’s father, Dupree had best think again …
Lonnie had set his Winchester ’66 against the tack room wall. Now he picked it up, brushed his hand down the fore stock that still had some mud on it from its bath in the creek, and he racked a shell into the chamber. Lonnie’s heart was racing. Bells of fury and humiliation continued to toll in his head.
“One shot,” he seethed through gritted teeth. “One bullet to Dupree’s black heart, and that would be the end of him.”
Lonnie moved to the tack room door. He stopped suddenly. In his mind, he saw the lawman he’d shot earlier—the man’s head snapping back with the red spot on his forehead.
Again, Lonnie’s belly writhed as though he’d slugged a quart of sour milk.
A sneering voice inside his head said, “Two men in one day? Sure you got it in you, Killer?”
Dupree’s cold, dead, menacing eyes flashed in Lonnie’s mind. He could do it. At least, he thought he could now, with the rage coursing through him. He could burst into the cabin and shoot Dupree in the heart. But what, then, about Dupree’s “boys”? Surely, they’d kill Lonnie.
And what about Lonnie’s mother?
Could he put her through all that?
Lonnie felt his grip on the Winchester loosen. He slammed the tack room door, threw his back against it, and loosed a mewling wail of frustration. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He hastily leaned the rifle against the wall and threw himself belly-down on the cot. He mashed his face against the musty, cornhusk pillow covered with blue-striped ticking that smelled of old sweat. He felt the dam inside him break, loosing a veritable earthquake of pent-up emotion.
He hadn’t cried in a long, long time. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. But now his body was racked with wails that the pillow muffled. He writhed on the cot, closing his hands over the wooden frame, kicking his booted feet against it, ramming the pointed toes into the bedroll covering it.
He was not crying about Shannon Dupree. He was not crying about the man he’d killed earlier that day. He was crying about all of it together and about his seeming powerlessness to do anything about this mountain of trouble that had suddenly grown up in front of him.
He had done so much to keep the ranch going, to make it possible for him and his mother to remain here on the range. He’d done the work of two men. Three, maybe four men. But now he’d hit a mountain wall. All his hard work and determination were like spent cartridges in a gun’s cylinder.
The gun was empty.
And, to top it all off, he was lying here crying into his pillow as though he were still in rubber pants!
That thought sobered him. He gave one last, shuddering sob, and rolled onto his back. He drew a couple of deep breaths, kicked out of his boots, curled onto his side, and closed his eyes.
It took a while, but he managed to sweep all the shrieking, razor-clawed demons from his mind, and the gauzy sanctuary of sleep closed over him like a favorite quilt.
CHAPTER 8
“Lonnie?”
His mother’s voice came as though from the far end of a long tunnel. Lonnie groaned, smacked his lips. Then there was a light, wooden knock, and he recognized the creak of the tack room door’s rusty hinges.
“Lonnie?”
He didn’t want to reenter the horrific world he’d fled, but his mother’s voice tugged at him as though it were the hondo of a lariat looped around his neck.
“Son, wake up. I have to talk to you.”
Her hand was on his shoulder and he heard the cot creak as she sat on the edge of it. He smelled food. His stomach reacted to that, and he lifted his head from his pillow.
Mrs. Gentry had a steaming tin plate in her hand—slowcooked steak smothered in onions and dark-brown gravy. The gravy also covered a helping of mashed potatoes and green beans from a can. A chunk of his mother’s crusty, dark-brown bread teetered on the edge of the plate.
The fragrant steam bathed Lonnie’s face. His stomach opened its mouth and roared. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He sat up against the wall flanking the cot, drew up his knees, and took the plate from his mother.
He saw that there was a tray on the bench running along the wall opposite the cot. On the tray was a glass of milk. His mother fetched the glass, and set it on the backless chair beside the cot.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said softly. He could tell from the glitter in her eyes and the paleness of her drawn cheeks that she’d been crying.
“Obliged,” Lonnie said, instantly forking a heap of gravy-drenched potatoes into his mouth, and chewing as he cut into the meat.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” his mother said, running a hand through his short hair, and pressing her lips to his temple.
Lonnie canted his head away from her. He wasn’t in the mood for apologies. In fact, he wasn’t in the mood for her. Only the food she’d brought. He wished she’d leave, go back to the no-account scoundrel she was going to marry. Soon, she and the no-account scoundrel would ruin everything Lonnie had worked so hard for.
He had no doubt about that. None at all.
“Did you hear me, Lonnie?” she asked again, again running her hand back from his forehead.
“I heard.”
“He’d been drinking,” she said, as though that explained or excused Dupree’s behavior.
“Yeah, I s’pect so,” Lonnie said curtly, continuing to shovel food into his mouth. Shovel and chew, shovel and chew. God, he was hungry!
May Gentry removed her hand from her son’s head with a sigh. She had a blanket over her shoulders. She sat on the edge of the cot, holding the blanket closed at her throat, staring down at the wooden floor beneath the deerskin slippers she was wearing. She seemed to be waiting for something, or maybe thinking intently.
When Lonnie was nearly done with the meal but still shoveling and chewing, she turned to him, and her eyes were large and grave.
“Lon?”
Lonnie stopped shoveling. Chewing, he looked at her, frowning. “What?” he said around a mouthful of food.
“I need a favor.”
Lonnie swallowed and sat staring at his mother, puzzled. Apprehension raked the back of his neck. He rested the plate atop his upraised knees, and waited.
May Gentry rose from the cot and walked to the door, which was closed. On the floor beside the door was a pair of saddlebags that hadn’t been there before. She picked up the saddlebags, slung them over her shoulder with a grunt, her blonde hair spilling across her shoulders, and sat down on the edge of the cot once more.
“What’re those?” Lonnie asked.
His mother stared at him, her eyes still wide and grave, fearful, hesitant. She closed her upper teeth over her bottom lip and opened the flap of the pouch hanging down her right shoulder. She reached into the pouch, withdrew something, and showed Lonnie the two-inch wad of paper money resting in the palm of her open hand.
Lonnie’s eyes snapped wide. “Holy cow!”
The smell of ink and paper mixed with the leather smell of the saddlebags pushed against his face, nearly taking his breath away. It was an exhilarating smell. Even more rich and intoxicating than the food had been. Lonnie’s heart hammered as he stared, his lower jaw hanging nearly to his chest, at the wad of what appeared to be ten-dollar greenbacks secured with a paper band in his mother’s open hand.
&nb
sp; He slid his gaze from the single wad of bills to the bulging pouch. “There’s more?”
“Oh, yes,” his mother said grimly. “Lots more.”
Lonnie laughed and slid his hand toward the wad of bills, but before he could touch it, his mother returned the wad to the pouch hanging down her chest. And then, through the knee-jerk glee of seeing that much money and semiconsciously speculating on what could be bought with it—how easy a fellow’s life could suddenly become!—Lonnie was assailed with what felt like the blow of an ax handle.
The money was not his and would never be his. Dupree had brought the money.
Speechless, Lonnie looked into his mother’s dark eyes.
“Shannon’s asleep in the cabin. Earlier, I saw him shove something under the bed. When I was sure he was dead asleep, I dragged it out.” Lonnie’s mother’s voice broke. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s stolen money.” She paused, swallowed. She swiped the back of a hand across her cheek as she stared down at the pouch in shame. “They robbed a bank. Or a payroll, maybe. I don’t know.”
Her lips quivered. She turned her face away and cleared her throat.
“Holy cow,” Lonnie said numbly, without the delight with which he’d said it before. He’d suspected that Dupree was on the run from a robbery of some kind. But now, seeing the concrete proof of it … not to mention that much money … Lonnie felt like he’d been dropped on his head all over again.
“I knew it,” he whispered, thinking back to the two lawmen.
“Yes, you did,” his mother whispered, hanging her head in shame. She sniffed.
Lonnie felt sorry for her. “What’re you gonna do, Ma?”
Mrs. Gentry turned to him again gravely. “Not me, Lonnie. You.”
CHAPTER 9
Lonnie said, “Me?”
“Son, I want you to do your mother a big favor. I want you to saddle General Sherman before dawn and take this …” She let her voice trail off as she looked distastefully down at the bulging saddlebag pouch, as though she wasn’t sure what to call it. “This money … this loot … to the town marshal in Arapaho Creek. Say you found it out on the range somewhere, maybe in the line shack.”
Lonnie Gentry Page 3