by R. Kent
I wouldn’t let myself dwell on any one scene. I had no courage for horror. I only wanted to live a good life and to be a good man. First, I needed to survive—
I survived massacres. Survived losses. Survived deaths.
Killed to survive. Ran to survive. Ran from the memories of needing to survive. Always hiding.
I could never run far enough, fast enough. The memories overtook me anytime, anywhere. They taunted me in the dark, and harried me in closed spaces. I drew my gun, mindlessly twirling it back and forth on my trigger finger. The antler grip kissed my palm before whirling away, just to come back to a firm embrace, over and over.
There was one thing I was dead set on doing. I jammed the gun into its holster.
I would kill McKade.
My gun weighed heavy on the front of my thigh. I pulled it again and flipped the cylinder open. The casings had cooled. They ejected easily. I reloaded the empty chambers and slapped the cylinder closed. I spun the Smith and Wesson around once, then slammed it back into my holster.
“I’m coming for you, Jack McKade.” I shouted into the vast nothingness.
I reached to tug the brim of my hat lower over my eyes out of habit. I’d forgotten that my hat was gone. A strand of hair fell into my face. I tucked it behind an ear. A chill wind bit at my deerskin smock. I shivered. My coat, too, was gone.
I arrived at the edge of Main Street. The crumbling Spanish-Mexican fountain in the center of town glowed by the light of too many torches.
“Psst. Psst.”
I yanked my gun and cocked the hammer. “Step out.”
“Okay. I’m coming out.”
Squinting, I shifted my gaze this way and that. I couldn’t make out any definition to the man. I aimed center mass.
“Don’t shoot,” he said.
That wasn’t a given. I widened my stance and shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet.
Brush rustled. A twig snapped. “Ouch. Damn.” He emerged. The white square at his throat beamed. “I was waiting for you,” the pastor said. He swatted at the lower legs of his trousers. “I knew you’d come this way.”
I stared at him, letting silence grow between us.
He took that to mean he should keep talking. “You can’t go through the middle of town.” He brushed his hands down his frock. “They’re gathering a posse.” He fidgeted with his lapels. “For you.” The pastor displayed his open palms. “Could…” He pointed. “Could you lower your weapon?”
I did but I kept it handy.
“McKade’s whipped up a storm about you killing the dead man who rode into town.” He swallowed loudly. “He says you started an Apache uprising.”
When I didn’t react, he said, “We have to go. This way.” The pastor scurried off.
I followed.
My senses were alert. I could feel the tension in the air. Crackling from lit torches assaulted my ears. Burning pitch sputtered rancid smoke into the cold air. I snicked my tongue off the roof of my mouth in distaste.
We skirted past the back side of the first cluster of tent establishments. Every split second, I studied each and every noise carried on the breeze. Businesses were closed in these early hours of predawn. Tents were still. Lanterns had sputtered out. But there was no obnoxious snoring.
Flickering light from the abundance of torches on Main Street reached through the alleyways.
If anyone came, I was sure to be seen.
A man floundered from a privy in his half-sleep. His suspenders were collapsed to his knees. The button fly on his holey breeches gaped. He wiped his nose on the faded red sleeve of his long handles then belched, smacking his lips like he’d regurgitated tasty chunks.
I slipped to the side of the outbuilding to wait. I had to grab my nose. Foul.
In a patch of darkness, the pastor waved me to him. There was no way I would chance it. The privy man might be half-asleep and drunk, but it would only take the one person to sound an alarm.
When the man staggered from sight, I dodged the fingertips of light that crawled between the tents to catch up with the pastor. I sneaked around one outhouse to the next then slipped, falling into a shallow ditch. At the bottom, liquid sludge engulfed me to the ankles. Stirred, the excrement alerted my nostrils to the furrow’s use. When the privy shacks were occupied, miners copped a squat outdoors. I had landed in their overflow.
Bile rose in my throat at the stench. I scrabbled from the pit, racing to catch the pastor.
Past these tent establishments was the Watering Hole. McKade’s lair. I’d have to be extra cautious. Men came and went constantly on a dull night. They trolled the alleys for dalliances with other men. And the stack of outhouses was busy busy busy because Jack McKade didn’t allow open air fouling behind his saloon. On a dull night, it was treacherous. Tonight? I hoped the impromptu town meeting was occupying any extracurricular traffic.
“Kill the breed,” a thunderous voice boomed.
I crept a little ways into the vacant alley next to the Watering Hole. Risky, yes. But fears of frolicking gold diggers and privy attendees didn’t quell my curiosity.
“Kill the breed,” a higher pitched voice echoed. I didn’t see who shouted. There was a milling mass of rabble-rousers in the street. They gazed up at men standing on the boardwalk toward the far corner of the saloon.
McKade was orating like he was running for mayor.
Scant handfuls of men stood distant from the main murderous horde. Neckerchiefs wrapped around their throats, probably to ward off November’s bite. I touched the silk encircling my own neck.
Voices took me by surprise. Several men rounded the corner into the alley. Glowing cigarette butts hung from their lips. They were deep in conversation. Their low hat brims narrowed their vision.
From behind, my shoulder was roughly shoved against canvas. A slender hand clasped over my mouth. I squirmed, attempting to cock the hammer of my gun, attempting to worm my way from the thin figure that pressed against my body.
“Who’s there?” a gruff voice demanded.
“Hank, it’s just the pastor.” He giggled. “Atta boy.”
They each chucked the pastor on the upper arm as they walked by.
“No more sightseeing,” the pastor rebuked in a whisper. “Let’s get out of here.”
On his release, I coaxed my revolver’s hammer open. Click, click, click, click.
We ran to the church as quietly as we could. The good thing about tent housing? It wasn’t as solid as it pretended.
“Sahara’s at the livery.” Charlie Horse. The pup. Though I could see Molasses Pond Livery from where I stood, it was impossible to get there. Diagonally across the torch-lit street, the big barn sat too far to run to unnoticed. “I need to get word to her.” Even as I said it, I knew there was no way. Not even a pastor would be safe darting across Main Street on this night.
I ducked under the low edge of the canvas to come up inside the church tent. “It wasn’t me.” That’s what I wanted to tell Sahara. “What they’re saying—it wasn’t me. She needs to know that.”
The Whites’ nailed Lord was on his cross looking down at me. He looked peaceful and kindly. Except for his eyes. They followed me as I moved among the benches in the tight tent hall. I sat. Those eyes pierced me with accusations. But I knew them to be blind.
They were blind to what was happening to the Indians, the miners, Molasses Pond, the whole country outside of this tiny sanctuary. Did he see what happened to my White ma and my baby sisters? Did he care what happened to my Navajo mother and father…my Navajo brothers and sisters… Where was his divine intervention?
“Would you like to pray with me?”
“Why did you help me?” I rolled the cylinder, one chamber at a time, just to feel the smooth oiled action of the too familiar killing tool.
The pastor stared at the gun in my hand. He preached, “Thou shalt not kill.” But his words weren’t spoken in a direct manner to me.
Was it that I was gunning for McKade? Or that McKade
was gunning for me? “The Whites’ God? He makes little sense when it’s the Whites who started the killing.”
The pastor sat on a bench opposite me. He reached into the watch pocket of his trousers. I thought to see a silver timepiece with some pertinent godly inscription. He revealed a derringer. “I have my own reason to commit sin.” He flopped the derringer around in his palm. The pastor was comfortable with its weight and familiar with its shape.
He stroked the floral-engraved surface of the frame with the soft pad of his thumb. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.” The pastor stared at the tiny weapon, mesmerized, as if he didn’t hear himself speak from rote.
I looked at him. I really looked at him. He was hurting. His heart was so greatly wounded that his Lord must be having difficulty repairing it.
His .22-caliber derringer was loaded.
Chapter Eleven
“What’s happening out there?” I asked as the pastor lurched into the church tent. The sun was shining brightly, near to its zenith. I must have fallen asleep toward dawn. I had slept right through morning.
“The town’s quiet. A crowded posse is out looking for you.” He squirmed onto a bench across from me. From an opened cloth in his hand, the pastor offered bread, cheese, and apples. I shook my head.
The pastor mulled the selection over like it was the most important decision of his life, then popped a bite of cheese into his mouth. After he swallowed, he said, “I stay in Molasses Pond to show McKade that he can’t run me off.” A hunk of bread had his interest next. He ripped the bread in half. “McKade took someone from me. Not much I can do about that. I’m not a fighting man. I’m not even a brave man. All I can do is stay to be a reminder of what he’s done.” His hand strayed to his watch pocket. “I stay. And I wait.”
I stomped toward the front tent flaps, doubtful McKade had any care for anything he’d done. Never mind dwelling on one pastor’s nuisance.
The pastor continued. “Nothing left he can take from me. Except my life. And he knows that.” The pastor cut his teeth into the torn piece of crusty bread.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek until it bled. A gust fluttered the tent flap. I eased it open.
“You can’t,” he said, choking on the dry mouthful. The pastor flipped the cloth over his bounty and tucked it into his coat. “McKade’s got men standing outside the Watering Hole. They can see clear down Main Street to here, and then some.”
“I need to get to Sahara.” I needed to see her. I needed to know she was safe. I needed to tell her… I wanted to tell her—
“There he is. In the church.”
I burst from the tent, sprinting toward the livery.
A burly bunch of men gave chase. They wore six-shooters tied down. I could hear their spurs chink and jingle.
I was tackled and pinned to the ground. My arms were wrenched cruelly behind my back. I thought they would pop from their sockets. My face mashed into the mud as my hands were tied. My lower lip split. I tasted grit and blood. Their metallic tangs coated my tongue.
I didn’t have to walk. They dragged me down Main Street. At the Watering Hole, my knees bumped the step up. The tops of my moccasins scraped and scuffed along the floorboards through the saloon, to a private room on the side.
“Where’s the girl?” McKade asked as his men propped me in front of him. He backhanded me before I had a chance to answer. Not that I was planning to.
I spit a wad of mud and blood from my mouth.
He punched me in the nose. The crunch echoed in my head.
“I want the girl. Here.” When he socked me in the gut, I fell to my knees.
Lily stood behind him, examining her nails. She looked quite bored as I gasped for each shallow breath, fresh blood dribbling from my mouth and nose. “What I want to know is where’s the copper. Where is it?” She huffed and puffed like having to ask a question had really put a strain on her.
I struggled to breathe. “I noticed your men,” I said to McKade, “don’t usually let the debate of right versus wrong leak into their decision-making.” I paused for a raspy inhale. “I can see how it’d get in their way.” I sucked air in through my mouth, heaving with the spasms from that belly punch. “What’d you have to spend to buy their consciences?”
“You’d be surprised how little a man’s soul sells for.” McKade poured himself a shot of dark liquor and tossed it down his throat. “A swallow of whiskey.” He saluted me with the empty glass. “Money dictates the law around here. I dictate the law.” McKade smacked his lips and belched. “Gold diggers are a dime a dozen. None of them are worth anything unless they make a strike.” He turned his back on me to pour another glassful. “Then, they’re only worth killing.”
McKade tossed back another shot of whiskey. “It’s the hired guns I pay a premium for. Men like Seth and Jeb are worth the coin.” He smacked his thin lips then squinted into my eyes. “You’d be worth my coin. I’d pay you well to stand at my side.”
Lily sighed loudly. “Make him tell me about the copper.”
McKade slammed his glass onto an ornate desk. “There’s no sustainable copper strain. Just crumbles hammered into trinkets.” He eyed me, watching for any reaction. “Long-term, the whore’s worth more. That’s where the money is. Working women and whiskey. You control a man’s whore and their drink, and you control him.”
He grabbed Lily’s upper arm, escorting her from the room. “What did I tell you about being in the saloon during business hours?” he said.
Rose scuttled through the door like a June bug scrambling from under foot. “Let me have a look at you.” She pressed a wet cloth to my lips and nose, clearing the blood and grunge.
I was still heaving for breath when she pressed her hands over my torso.
“Oh,” she gasped. Her hands slid down to my lower ribs and pressed again. “I don’t think any are broken.”
“Are you going to say anything?” I asked.
“You don’t know what they’ll do to me if they find out I haven’t told everything I know. You can’t imagine what he’s capable of.”
I had a feeling I could imagine. I couldn’t blame her if she did tell. Information was worth gold…or life.
“I’ll try to keep your secret. After all, I think we both know it hasn’t been that much of a secret between us.” She dabbed at my lip and nose once more with the damp cloth. The cuts and bruises coloring her own face had yet to heal. Splotches of dark purple were turning green. The outer edges were ringed with yellow and brown. “There’s something you should know—”
Thudding boot steps echoed just outside the office room.
Rose jumped. She scurried out, leaving the door ajar.
I looked long and hard at that opening. But there was no escape. McKade’s hired killers were standing guard. Still, I struggled against the ropes binding my wrists. The twists bit into my flesh. Even slick with blood, the restraining rope was too tight to wiggle from.
“—was holed up with the pastor.” Seth. “That weren’t no problem. I explained it real nice to the preachy man and he was happy to oblige me with information.” He giggled. I hated his weaselly giggle.
I sat my butt to the floor and worked my tied hands under. Then, I squeezed each leg through my bound arms.
“Boss, the girl’s at the livery. Justice won’t give her up.” Jeb.
“Locked and barred tighter than an Army fort in an injun raid,” Seth said.
I shoved myself to standing. A groan leaked from between my clenched teeth. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my sore ribs. My nose throbbed like it was swelling and stretching to ten times its size.
“We’ve got us a solution,” Jeb snickered. His heavy boots thunked over the wooden floorboards. The saloon doors swung with a complaining creak as he exited.
McKade burst in to find me upright. I grabbed at my holster for my gun.
“Looking for this?” He plucked my revolver from his belt. “Smith and Wesson. Old, if I’m not mistaken. The condition is fine, belying i
ts age. And the action is too smooth.” McKade spun the cylinder then sighted down the barrel at me. “I’ll bet she’s fast.”
“Fire. Fire.” A triangle rang in alarm from Percival’s Mercantile.
Townsfolk poured from hiding. Smoke billowed through Main Street like a slow moving fog.
McKade socked me with a roundhouse to the side of my head. The torque crackled my neck. I dropped.
“Austin. Austin.” The voice sounded distant. “Austin. Wake up.” My cheeks were patted. I felt my limp head waggle from side to side but my brain wasn’t keeping up. I scratched at the wooden floorboards, using my calloused fingers to grasp for consciousness. The last thing I remembered was standing in McKade’s office.
“Who?” It was all I could form for words with a swollen, cracked lip, blurry eyes, and a fuzzy brain.
“It’s the pastor. Come on. You have to get up.” He tugged at my listless arms. “We have to get out of here.”
Was he helping me? Or was he reminding McKade he’d stay underfoot? The pastor came into focus. Red handprints marked his pasty cheeks. A bright pink egg blossomed in front of his ear. The pastor wore a black silk neckerchief, doubled and tied, obliterating his white collar.
“My gun.”
“It’s here. C’mon.”
The pastor left me at the backside of Molasses Pond Livery. I checked each chamber in the cylinder of my Smith and Wesson. Empty.
Flames burst from the gambrel rooftop. Boards splintered and popped. Beams moaned. Horses hollered. Steers bawled. Waves of heat shimmered and danced, blurring the huge livery. Thick smoke billowed from the open back barn doors. Cattle busted their pen rails in escape and scattered in frightened disarray.
I saw a way in. Would there be a way out?
“Smoke signal.” TwoFeathers pointed toward the fire with his rifle. “Men on horses come.” He had appeared from nowhere like an apparition. “A man is inside. A big man.” TwoFeathers laid his heavy Hawken on the cold ground. He stripped from his great coat, pulling pouches off his shoulders and over his head. “Os-ten’s woman is inside. Charlie Horse.”