Westwood sighed. “I had to kill him because he killed Outlanders.” It was a bitter statement, and his face reflected his frustration that this wasn’t how he had meant to show her why he did what he did.
She tried to smile her famous smile, but it came out all wrong. Instead, more tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheek, hot and slippery. Her nostrils flared, and she could feel her mouth pouting from the overwhelming sadness. She was weak, and she hated it. “Your Outlanders.”
“My Outlanders . . . ” He shook his head.
“I kill Outlanders . . . so are you going to shoot me next?” Her voice was filled with venom.
“Don’t say that. It wasn’t like that.”
“It wasn’t?” Her lips pulled in a tight line, and she squinted at him. “What was it like?”
“What was it like?” he repeated.
A look of pity and sorrow filled his eyes, and Coyote felt him imploring her to believe what he was about to tell her.
Their eyes locked in a silent battle. A loud noise followed by fearful screams interrupted the silence. Coyote jumped in her seat, a mixture of fright and relief coursing through her. Alarmed, Westwood ran to the door.
“What the hell is going on down there?”
Her chair fell down. When Westwood turned to face her, she had scrambled to her feet, holding a small knife. It had taken some effort to reach the blade hidden in the back of her corset, but she’d managed to cut herself lose. Westwood stared, his face pained and confused.
“We did hire Maria.” She couldn’t hide the smile from her voice. “You expected us to do something, so we did.” There was a triumphant wildness in her heart, and she spoke louder than she wanted to. “She didn’t know what our real plan was, though.” A smile played around her lips, but the tears still brimmed thick and hot in her eyes. Underneath the tight corset, her heart pounded.
“I didn’t know you were following me, but I was pretty damn sure that you knew I was here the moment I arrived in Angel Camp.”
Westwood gawked at her. Coyote reveled in her victory. The tears on her cheeks had cooled, though her skin was still wet.
“My plan was never to seduce the Outlander. Do you think I am an idiot?” she scoffed. “I would have lured him in a different way. No, the plan was not for me to lure him at all.” Her smile grew even wider as she let her words sink in. And sink in they did. His eyes grew round, and his mouth became a perfect “o” shape.
“You wanted me to catch you.”
“Yes. That would keep you busy long enough for my partner to trick your friend to join him in a more secluded place and kill him.” Her eyes darted toward the door, where they could hear a lot of commotion. “I guess Caesar didn’t find a place that was all that secluded.” She shrugged her shoulders in that “oh well, what can you do?” manner. She felt too smug to let such a little glitch in the plan bother her.
The screaming was a strong indication that Caesar had completed his mission. All she could hope now was that Caesar hadn’t been caught. Her confidence waned slightly when she thought about her companion. This was the first time he’d made a kill on his own, and that worried the blond bounty hunter.
Caesar had the right papers. He was officially a bounty hunter, but a black man might not get a chance to pull out his papers in this kind of situation. White men weren’t always too understanding about anyone with dark skin killing one of their own. They tended to be narrow-minded idiots. That is why Coyote preferred to pull the trigger herself. Seeing a man being shot by a pretty woman usually stunned bystanders rather than turning them hostile. Her sweet face had rescued her several times in the past.
This time, things were different. The plan kept Coyote away from the kill. They relied on Caesar’s ability to fade into the background, and on Coyote’s ability to attract attention. Westwood may be Coyote’s vulnerability, but they thought that perhaps she could function as his weakness as well.
Westwood was an arrogant man. He would’ve had men trail the bounty hunter, but he would be less focused on her introverted sidekick. Coyote was the only thing that could truly distract Westwood into looking the other way. As long as he had his eye on her, Caesar could focus on their real target. The plan had been perfect, and Coyote never doubted it would work.
“Damn you.” Westwood ignored the ruckus, even though Coyote half expected him to run out, but he stayed, shooting another glance at the door. He threw back his head and grunted, then he turned to her again, his agitation obvious.
Westwood stared deeply into her eyes. He’d lost, and that irked him. There was something else in his expression that made Coyote feel uneasy. Anger.
“You want to know why I killed your daddy?” Something malicious echoed in his voice. “I didn’t kill your daddy because he was a vigilante who killed my Outlanders. I killed your daddy because he was a murderer.”
“What do you mean?” His words shocked her, backing her into a corner. Every muscle in her body tensed, and again her heart was pounding. Part of her did not want to hear the answer to her question. She did not want to know what he meant. The triumph was gone. She wasn’t the hunter anymore; she was the prey.
“Think back, Charlotte. What was your father like when he was hunting?” There was a challenge in his question. “Surely you are not that naïve? Surely you realize what he was like?”
Coyote thought back to her days of hunting with her father, “Wicked Will Webb.” He liked to kill his prey with a large hunting knife, and always took trophies.
“Did you see it?”
“He didn’t murder Outlanders for revenge, Charlotte.” There was a cruel calm in Westwood’s eyes. “He murdered them because he liked to kill. Not just kill, he liked to hurt them. It wasn’t that he was saving the world from danger; he found a prey he could kill and get away with it. Heck, he would even get support. He was only killing Outlanders, after all.”
Coyote shook her head in mute denial. She took a step back as if Westwood’s words were poison, and the heels of her shoes connected heavily with the wooden floor.
“Your mother wasn’t killed by an Outlander, Charlotte,” Westwood continued relentlessly. “Your mother was an Outlander.”
Coyote’s mind spun. She felt a wave of nausea come over her. He’s lying, she thought, he has to be lying.
The cornflower blue eyes of her mother came to mind, the softness of her voice. My mother was a human . . . she had to have been a human, she tried to convince herself, but suddenly she wasn’t sure. Her mother had been different from other people; even as a young girl Coyote had realized it. She had a strong eye for spotting Outlanders. Maybe that’s what she had seen as a child. Her mind frantically tried to recall her father. She saw him in that last moment when he looked at her. His expression was burned on her mind’s eye. The way his lips curled up . . . the way his eyes focused on her. She’d always thought that the look on his face had been worry and fear. It wasn’t. She could see it clearly now. That look that he’d given her . . . it was a look of contempt.
“Can you see it?”
“Oh my God,” she said, gasping for air. She brought her hand up to her chest, the other clutching the knife. Her knees felt weak and her ankles wobbled, unstable.
Her father had been a monster. She knew he was, had always known, but because he was all she had, she’d ignored it. He was kind to her, and his kindness made her turn a blind eye to the knowledge that ate away at the back of her brain.
“You know,” he said, but she shook her head.
The corners of her mouth drooped down so much she could feel the muscles cramp up painfully. The tears threatened to spill again. She did not want to hear this, not from him, not from Westwood. He was the man she hated. She cast her eyes downward; she couldn’t bear to look at him.
“You knew back then already, Charlotte,” he said, his voice kind now, softer, “when you were younger.” His eyes pleaded with her, and he took a step forward. Simultaneously, she took a step back. “It was easier f
or you to blame me.” There was a bitterness to his tone.
She shook her head again, words failing her.
“I let you blame me because I was sure that, sooner or later, you would find out the truth.”
Westwood ventured another step toward her, but she held out the knife. She would use it if she had to. It looked pathetic and small in her hand, but it was sharp enough to cut rope, so it was sharp enough to cut flesh.
“He killed your mother. I believe he loved her, but when he found out what she was . . . I don’t think he could forgive her.” Westwood talked in a calming voice. His hands spread out to show her he meant no harm. “Eventually, he would have killed you. He hated you for having tainted blood.”
Coyote stepped back, bumped her hip on a dresser, and wanted to scream at him, but she didn’t.
“I had to protect you, Charlotte. No matter what. You needed to be safe.” He shook his head. “You have no idea how important you are. How important your mother was. I . . . you . . . you are the reason why I’m looking for a way to open the rips.”
“You’re lying.” Her argument was weak—she knew he wasn’t lying—but it was too much for her to take in and she couldn’t digest his words.
“I admit, I handled it all wrong,” Westwood said. “I tried to talk to you before, to get you away from him before he could hurt you, but your father was very protective of you. You were never once alone. I should have tried to talk to you that day, but things went different than I’d planned.” He bit his lip. “I was young too, and your father was a big threat. I should have done everything differently, but I didn’t.”
Coyote looked at the knife in her hand. He handled it wrong, she thought bitterly. He had taken her father, and now he was telling her that he should have found a more considerate way to kill him.
“That Outlander, the one who killed him,” Westwood said, “that was one of your mother’s guardians. He wanted to avenge your mother’s death.”
Gently, he laid down his gun and put up his hands as a sign of good faith. “He wanted to take care of you, Coyote, but you fled before I ever had the chance to introduce you. Now it’s too late . . . he died.”
Coyote thought back on how fast she ran that day. She recalled the giant with the gun. Her mother’s guardian. Lies.
“He was killed by the IAAI, so the next time we met, I kept it quiet. I didn’t want to hurt you, to confuse you anymore than you already felt. There was nothing I could do to change the situation, so I decided to keep my mouth shut until I found a way to open the rips. I want to take you back to your mother’s world, Charlotte. To my father’s world.” He held his hands out, palms down, and moved them slowly up and down, as if to soothe her. “You are a half-breed,” Westwood said, “Like me.”
Their eyes met and she felt an involuntary gasp escape her. A half-breed?
“Can’t you feel it?” he said, “That weird pull between us? That attraction?”
She shook her head, but they both knew she was lying. Every time she was near him, she felt it. Her body reacted involuntarily to his presence. She loved the way he smelled, the sound of his voice, the way his muscles moved under his shirt. It was so easy to lie to herself, but deep in her heart, she knew the truth. She felt it too. And worse, she knew she had always felt it. She had hated herself for it, but her attraction for him had been strong since the day they met. Slowly, she opened her mouth to speak, to deny his words, when a sharp male voice called from downstairs.
“Hang that nigger!”
Shit!
Coyote tensed, looking over her shoulder at the door, her eyes wide and round. Something out there was going wrong in a big way. Her own pain was suddenly forgotten, and she felt the hunter’s instinct take over. Caesar was in trouble, and that was more important than reminiscing over the loss of her father. She had to save him.
Straightening herself, her expression changed from sad to determined. Doubt made way for confidence, and she pushed the knife gently between her garter belt and her leg. With a newfound strength, she wiped the tears from her cheeks, raised her chin, and looked at James Westwood.
“Sorry, Darling,” she said, her voice sharp. “Looks like you and I will have to continue this conversation at a later date. I’ve more important things to do.” She turned around and ran out of the room.
All she needed now were some guns.
A HANGING
Go to http://www.coyotethebooks.com and visit the gallows to unlock this safe. It’s not necessary to read the short stories at this point, as they’re not crucial to the plot. Please don’t read the stories before you’ve read up to the safes, since they may contain spoilers. The code is: 230576
The folks of Angel Camp gathered outside of the brothel. No matter how sophisticated the town seemed or how many gadgets the inhabitants had, it was still the same as everywhere else. If there was a good, old fashioned hanging, people came from all over town. Schadenfreude was the number one form of entertainment, and hangings were a spectator sport. Coyote panted as she stepped onto the balcony, surveying the scene below her. Her fingers gripped the gun she took from a patron who had crossed her path to the balcony.
One of the prostitutes was trying to explain to a fat lawman with a scraggly beard that Caesar wasn’t just any “boy.” He was a bounty hunter, and he had a partner. The lawman wasn’t about to let a dumb whore get in the way of him having a hanging, and he dismissed her with a hand gesture. He puffed his chest out and looked over the crowd with a backwards sort of authority.
Two burly men dragged the short, black man from the brothel. He was tied at the wrists, and there was a filthy burlap sack over his head. Caesar looked like a small boy between the two giant men, and many of the people in the streets openly pitied him with whispered doubts about such a frail man being capable of murder.
A tall man with a large nose and a blond, pointy beard threw a thick rope over the porch entrance of the brothel.
From inside came a well-dressed man with a balding head and a large, grey moustache, who cried out, “I saw that nigger shoot a white man with this demonic pistol.” He held up the gun for everyone to see. With an air of drama he yelled, “He turned him to ashes right before my very eyes. This man is the servant of Satan, and he will be hanged.”
Some women screamed, and one looked as if she were about to faint. The whole crowd was titillated by the spectacle. People shouted and some applauded.
The tall, lanky man with the pointy beard pulled on the rope, tied it into a noose, and then placed it around Caesar’s neck.
One of the large, burly men that had dragged her partner outside pulled on the rope and caused Caesar to stand on his tiptoes.
At that moment, Coyote lost her patience. She hadn’t quite formed a plan yet, but she fired a shot, drawing everyone’s attention to the balcony. The bullet went clean through the rope, cutting it in half. People gasped, some even screamed.
“The hooker has a gun,” someone yelled, and a few people ducked for cover, as if her next shot would randomly hit the crowd.
“Now that I have your attention,” she called out, “I would like to know what’s going on here.”
“Put down the weapon, whore,” a man with a large shotgun yelled. He pointed the barrel at her, but Coyote didn’t even flinch.
“Don’t tell me you were about to hang my partner?” She spoke with the stern voice of a schoolmarm. “I would not be pleased if you did.” She swung a scantily clad leg over the banister of the balcony. “It would also be illegal, seeing as he is a man of the law.”
The remaining crowd below started to spread out, and more people rushed to the safety of the nearby buildings. Coyote realized she looked like a madwoman standing there, but nothing else came to mind.
It worked in her favor that the people ran; she was very willing to start shooting folks. The fewer people down there, the fewer innocent lives that would be at stake. She wasn’t feeling as confident as she appeared, and she realized her actions were a bit rash. On th
e other hand, they were about to hang Caesar. There wasn’t much time to come up with a cunning plan. Desperate times call for desperate measures, she thought.
“Who are you?” a fat man with a brown moustache called up at her. The shiny badge on his vest announced he was the sheriff.
The way he looked and moved reminded Coyote of a pretentious beaver. The man was clearly not very fit. His heavy body moved slowly, and she saw he had trouble looking up at her from where he stood. This man hadn’t chased a criminal in a great many years.
“The name is Charlotte Webb,” she called back, hoisting her other leg over the banister. “But I am known by ‘Coyote’ to everyone.”
She wondered what she was going to do now that she stood on the wrong end of the banister. It made her a better target for gunmen, but at the same time, it also gave her the opportunity to jump if she needed to.
“My friend Caesar and I are bounty hunters, assigned by the Pinkerton agency.” She pointed her weapon toward her partner. “I would identify myself, but I seem to have left my letter in my other corset.” She stared sheepishly at her ample bosom. “Caesar will have his papers on hand, if you haven’t taken them away from him.”
“Ma’am,” said the sheriff, “this here fellow killed another man, a white man. And that is not how we do things here in Angel Camp.”
Coyote frowned. The mention of the Pinkertons should have carried more weight, but the sheriff showed no interest in what she had to say. He wanted his hanging.
“He did not kill a white man, he killed an outlaw that needed killing,” she said. “Different thing. I would have done it myself if I’d had the chance, but he beat me to it. We have all the correct papers, and he was well within his rights to do what he did. Now let him go.”
There was danger in her voice. She did not want to start a shootout. It would not end well. There were too many of them, and only one of her. Coyote was usually more cautious than that.
“Ma’am, I don’t see no Pinkertons around here. In this town, I am the law,” the sheriff bristled, his brown moustache twitching on his fat upper lip, “and we do things my way around here. My way is to hang any nigger who thinks he can shoot a respected citizen.”
Coyote: The Outlander (with FREE second screen experience) Page 18