by E. L. Ripley
“No,” Joe Fisher called out, coming into the moonlight with his rifle trained. “No, Mr. Silva.”
Silva’s pistol was still empty of course, though no one knew that but him and Carpenter. And no matter how angry he was, Silva wouldn’t have touched it, not in front of a house with Karr’s two children in it, girls he knew by name.
It was a little worrying that Joe seemed to think he might.
“Joe,” Carpenter said.
“Bill. Go on and throw it down,” the sheriff said to Silva, who obeyed after only a moment’s hesitation. The shiny pistol landed in the mud, and the hooves came clopping around the house. It was Isaiah on the horse.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You shouldn’t’ve stopped, Bill.”
“Thank you, Isaiah. I know that now.”
“My horse is over the rise,” Joe told him absently. “We’ll be along.”
Isaiah nodded and cantered off, shooting one last look back at Carpenter.
“Did you have a meal at least?” Joe asked, cradling his rifle.
“We did,” Carpenter replied.
“Well, that’s something, then.” He indicated with his eyes that they should start moving.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to drag us behind your horses?” Silva asked, though his lighthearted tone wasn’t very convincing.
“It’s a nice night,” Joe told him. “We’ll walk.”
“We’ve walked enough,” Carpenter said.
“I never took you for lazy, Bill.”
“My feet hurt, Joe.”
“Worse than your feet if you don’t get moving. You can walk, or you can walk with a bullet in your arm.” He cocked the rifle.
“That’s no way to treat a friend.”
“You had your chance to be my friend, Bill.”
“Did he?” Carpenter asked, jerking his chin at Silva.
“I don’t see that it matters.”
“And if I don’t want to walk?” Silva asked tiredly.
“Then I’ll shoot Bill. He’s your friend now. Isn’t that right?”
It was a pleasant night. There was no howling in the trees, just the hooting of owls. Fortune had made another of her little pivots, and Carpenter was too exhausted to be bothered. And was it really fortune? No. It was greed. They might have come here, taken the horses, and gone in relative peace.
But no, they had been seduced by dinner, seduced by being tired out, and more inclined to argue than to ride. The irony hurt more than the prospect of what was coming. More than once, Carpenter had preached the evils of complacency, evidently without the slightest notion that he’d been up to his neck in it all along.
He looked back at the house and the shapes at the windows, watching them go. Factory work was respectable work for respectable men, men who didn’t want any part of this foolishness.
Joe hadn’t brought any sort of light, so there was only the glow of his cigarette. They walked in the dark, the feeble lights of Antelope Valley off to the left, passing by an inch at a time. That wasn’t where they were going; they were going to Hale’s property, taking the straight path down the mountain, then up the next one, through the trees. In the night, the way down was more hazardous than the climb would be.
Joe knew it. He stayed well back from them and chose his footing carefully. Even with his prisoners so thoroughly drained of strength, he was still outnumbered. If he took a tumble, it would not end well for him. Joe had the sense to know that, but not the sense to see beyond it.
They reached the bottom, striking out into a field of grass as high as their waists, less walking than wading.
“Stop there,” Joe called out, and they did, turning back curiously.
“What’s the matter?” Carpenter asked. “Need a rest already?”
“No. I was just thinking this would be as good a place as any for you to escape, Bill.” Joe shrugged, glancing to the east. “You’re on your last legs. If I see you go over that ridge, I know I won’t have to worry about you coming back.” He pointed. “And it’s best if you’re gone.”
“That’s mighty decent of you, Joe.”
“On account of your service,” the other man replied, making an ironic gesture.
“A moving sentiment,” Silva noted dryly.
“You want to do me a favor?” Carpenter raised an eyebrow. “For old times’ sake?”
“Something like that.”
“Well.” Carpenter adjusted the straps of his suspenders. “That’s considerate. All the same, I think I’ll come along.”
“You think hard about this,” Joe warned, as though Carpenter hadn’t already.
“Does Hale pay you by the hour, Joe? Or do you just like to hear yourself talk?”
“Damn it, Bill.”
He didn’t reply to that; he just turned and started to walk again. After a moment, Silva did as well, his expression hidden by the dark. Carpenter knew what the younger man wanted to say: he would want Carpenter to leave him to what waited for him. Silva didn’t understand, though.
His business partner, the man who was supposed to be the law, every living soul in Antelope Valley—not one of them would come through. Even his dog was gone.
Someone had to stand with Silva, even if Silva himself couldn’t see it.
Carpenter could close his eyes and see the stifling courtroom: a still, foul day in the city—the city that didn’t feel anything like normal with the war on. The room packed with men wearing the same uniform, but still enemies, except they weren’t.
Because Hale had been there, and Joe, and everyone else. Carpenter hadn’t been made to stand alone in front of the men who wanted him hanged, because they had all been there.
The only thing worse than facing it would have been facing it alone.
If Joe and Hale wanted to commit murder, they would do it in front of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Silva didn’t try to run or slip away once they were in the trees. He knew he wouldn’t get far. They were approaching Hale’s property from the rear, and the hush over the woods meant there were more people nearby than usual. All of Hale’s men would be there, or at least the ones he trusted to be a part of this business. They wanted to be ready to ride out to collect the patent right away, once they knew where to go. A bill of sale was easy to forge, but the patent itself—that, they weren’t prepared to fake.
Someone was at the firepit at the very back of the garden, a long way from the house, stoking it. A few other figures loitered nearby. They all looked up as they heard Joe and the two prisoners coming.
Hale was the one by the fire. The other two were Fred and O’Doul. The flames and shadows put hard lines on their faces, as though they didn’t all look old enough already. Too old for all this in Carpenter’s opinion, but he had a feeling no one was planning to ask him for his thoughts.
The captain was shaking his head.
“I wish you hadn’t have come, Bill,” he said, snapping the stick in his hands and tossing it on the flames. “I figured old Joe’d let you go.”
Isaiah and the others were up at the house, probably making sure Hale’s family didn’t catch an accidental glimpse of what was about to happen.
“That so?”
“It is.” Hale nodded, quite serious. “He gave you a chance at least, I hope.”
“He did. But when you stand with a man, that’s what you do. You don’t run away when the bad times come.” Carpenter squinted at Hale on the other side of the firepit. “Your words, as I recall.”
“Oh, I know,” Hale said, groaning. “I only thought you had more sense about who you stood with, that’s all.” He got to his feet and caught O’Doul’s eye. “Best tie him. He can’t be trusted.”
“Can’t I?” Carpenter was taken aback, but he put his hands out and let O’Doul wrap the rope around his wrists. Silva was bound in
the same way, though a little more roughly.
“I know we don’t see eye to eye,” Carpenter told Hale, looking down at the ropes. “But at the very least, you were never one for bloodshed that could be avoided.”
“This can’t be avoided.”
“Of course it can,” Carpenter snapped. “Call it all off. Become a partner. Mend what you broke. You won’t be rich overnight, but factory income will keep your creditors at bay. The factory will buy the town time, maybe enough for some fool to find some gold. It can all come together without doing anyone wrong. There’s no call for this. For any of it.”
“That’s a real sweet thought, Bill.” Hale perched on the edge of the firepit again, folding his arms. “But it’s too late for me to welcome Mr. Silva to my bosom. And I don’t need charity from a Mexican.”
“What about from me, then?”
“Bill, you aren’t in a position to offer charity.”
“Why not?” Carpenter shrugged. “Money’s all I got left.”
“Where?”
“In the bank. Where else?”
Hale seemed to come to his senses. “I don’t want your money, Bill. No need for it when I have my own and the means to make more.” He started to roll a cigarette.
“Waste of time,” Silva said, now sounding more tired than angry. He snorted and looked over at Carpenter. “Supposing someone really did find gold. How long do you think it would be before their claim was quickly and mysteriously transferred in ownership to Mr. Hale? Or one of his men?”
That wasn’t lost on Carpenter. Hale already considered Silva’s property his own. If he would do that, why would it end there? Why would he be any less a bandit to anyone else?
Carpenter turned to look at the grounds, blanketed in flowers and plants that were pretty but served no other purpose. He looked at the pillars flanking the path up to the house, the excess of it all. It wasn’t enough for Hale, and nothing would be.
Hale had told stories in his letters of savvy deals, the stories of a man with a head for business. But Hale had no head for business. The stories in the letters weren’t true, and Carpenter hoped he would die without learning how Hale had come into possession of whatever it was he owned that didn’t already belong to the debt collectors.
It was all upside down. The men hadn’t stayed together after the war because they were a family; they had been pulled along, or dragged, by Hale. They had been made a part of this. Some must have known from the beginning. Others might have been blinded by their faith in a man who had been, by all accounts, a good and just leader.
“Bill, you’re old enough that you don’t need to be surprised when things aren’t like you remember,” Hale said over the crackling of the fire. “Change is what it is.”
“That don’t bother me,” Carpenter told him truthfully. “What I’m afraid of is that one day I’ll realize that you haven’t changed, and neither have I. That this is what we all were all along.”
“Odd thing to be afraid of,” O’Doul said, leaning against one of the pillars.
Joe was walking past him, back up toward the house. He paused and handed O’Doul his cigarette. “For you—I mean, Bill.”
“He’s always been odd,” Hale replied dismissively, turning to Silva. “Will you see sense?”
“I wouldn’t expect to recognize it even if I did.” Silva’s mouth was smiling, but the rest of him wasn’t. “Is that what you want to use to change my mind?” He was looking at the barbed whip coiled on the ground beside the firepit.
“I expect so.”
“He won’t tell you no matter how badly you hurt him,” Carpenter warned. “He’s brighter than the men you’re used to, you’ll find. He knows you’re lying. He knows you don’t plan to let either of us leave.”
Momentarily, Hale looked offended, as though it surprised him that someone had the audacity not to take him at his word. Then he found himself.
“Bill.” He smiled, though it was a melancholy smile. “I wasn’t planning to ask him anything.”
It was Carpenter’s turn to stand speechless. He cocked his head.
“Why would I ask him when I can ask you?” Hale nodded to Fred, who kicked Silva behind the knee, sending him into the dirt. He hauled him to his knees and drew a knife, sawing through Silva’s ragged shirt and tearing it off.
O’Doul stayed where he was, leaning but keeping his eyes on Carpenter and his hand on his pistol. Joe finished climbing the path up to the distant house and crossed the grass to go inside.
Hale leaned down and picked up the whip, shaking it at Carpenter.
“You taught me a lesson, Bill. I ain’t never taken a lash, but I know it ain’t the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing is having to watch it happen to your good friend. Like I did. Like we all did.” He swept the coiled whip in a circular motion, then brought it back to point at him. “With you. And I don’t want that for you, Bill. I don’t like your high horse, but I still like you.” He hefted the whip, and his eyes flicked to Silva. “Him, though? I don’t much like him.”
“What if I don’t know?”
“Bill,” Hale said, very quietly, “you listen to me now. We ain’t negotiating. You tell me where my property is right now, before anyone has cause to use this.” He shook the whip, then pointed with it. “Look, Bill. Your things are right there.” They were, bundled neatly. Hale must’ve had someone take them from the hotel. “You tell me, and then you go. You go west, and you go tonight. And Mr. Silva will stay, safe and sound. Every inch of him. I will not, and my men will not, lay a finger on him. He will remain safe and healthy until my men return with my property, because you, Bill, will have told me the truth. Because I trust you. And when I have what is mine, and Mr. Silva has graced me with a few signatures, he will leave here with a horse, money in his pocket, and not a scratch on him. Because we are not animals.”
O’Doul puffed on his cigarette, and Fred kept an iron grip on Silva’s shoulder, his knuckles white.
“Even from way up there,” Hale said, glancing at the whip with distaste, “on that high horse, you can still see I got no desire to use this.”
That was true, for all the good that would do anyone. There was a lot of truth in what Hale said. Unfortunately, not in the part that mattered.
Carpenter opened his mouth, but the other man cut him off.
“Not a negotiation,” he warned.
“Well, it’s late,” Carpenter replied, speaking up over him. “So if you don’t want to negotiate, I guess you best get to whipping.”
It was gratifying, the way Hale stared at him. O’Doul nearly dropped his cigarette, and even Fred looked over, frowning. There were so many things these men really were good at, but dealing with the unexpected—it seemed that was still a struggle for them. It had been their weakness when they’d come under attack on the road all those years ago, and it hadn’t changed in the years since.
Hale’s mouth went tight. Then he got to his feet and threw the whip to Fred.
“Gag his mouth,” he said. “I don’t want nobody to hear this.”
Fred nodded.
“Bill,” O’Doul hissed, a bit frantically.
“If you ain’t got the stomach for it, look away,” Carpenter told him disdainfully. “Like your boss will.”
Hale was already starting up toward the house, but he didn’t take the bait. He just kept climbing.
Fred watched him go uncertainly, and O’Doul glared at Carpenter, then shook his head.
“You’re a fool,” he said. “Same as you ever were.”
“Roll me a smoke, and I’ll reconsider.”
“Like hell you will,” O’Doul muttered, but he got out his pouch and papers. He rolled one and put it in Carpenter’s mouth, striking a match.
“Fred,” Carpenter said, taking a puff, “sure you don’t want to try prospecting instead? We tried it.
It wasn’t so bad.”
Fred snorted, then shook out the whip and stepped back from Silva.
“Suit yourself. Better tie his feet, then. So he don’t run.” Carpenter tossed him the ropes that had been binding his wrists.
Fred caught them, startled, and O’Doul didn’t even realize what had happened. Carpenter struck him down with a single punch, and perhaps when he woke up, he would realize that Carpenter had held out his fists to be tied horizontally, leaving himself more than enough room to slip out. O’Doul wasn’t incompetent, or at least he hadn’t been during the war.
But time had made him lazy and inattentive.
Fred went for his gun, and he was faster than expected, but Silva struck from his knees, hitting him in the side with his shoulder so his shot went wild. Fred cocked the pistol, but not before Carpenter knocked him into the dirt.
Shaking his aching hand, he took Fred’s knife and cut Silva free.
“You missed your calling,” Silva gasped, struggling to his feet, rubbing his wrists, and shivering without his shirt. “Did pugilism never take your fancy, Mr. Carpenter?”
“I’d just as soon make furniture,” Carpenter replied, tossing the knife aside. “You’re lucky Hale didn’t have the stomach to watch.”
“I’d argue that it’s been a long time since luck and I were on speaking terms.”
“Is arguing the best use of your time?”
There was a shout from up at the house, and a bullet struck the firepit, throwing up a swirl of sparks and ash. Silva snatched up O’Doul’s pistol and put his back to a pillar. Carpenter took cover at the opposite one.
“You want to run away again?” Silva called out, turning the revolver’s cylinder to check that it was loaded.
And it was there, even more than before, burning much hotter than the fire in the pit. Silva’s anger hadn’t gone away, and it wouldn’t. Nothing had changed. If anything, it was worse now.
Carpenter sighed. Nothing good would come of Silva’s anger, but nothing could stop it, either.