‘DAVE, ME AND Sully are easin’ back. We can’t take this heat and dust.’
Handsome Dave Duvall turned to the short, wiry man who’d ridden up beside him in the pack heading north for Fargo. Duvall laughed. ‘Eddie, you look as green as Kentucky. How much o’ that bull piss you swill, anyway?’
‘I musta downed at least a bottle my ownself,’ Eddie Leach complained. ‘I just can’t ride no more for a while. Me an’ Matt, we’re gonna throw down somewhere and sleep it off. We’ll meet up with yous at Cora’s later tonight or early tomorrow.’
‘Well, if you don’t, you’re gonna be out one hell of a poke,’ Duvall warned.
‘We’ll be there, Dave,’ Leach said, wincing at the blacksmith hammer working with fierce abandon at the tender nerves in his brain.
He reined his horse out from the pack, letting the group canter past him on the trail. Several of the men, nearly as sick as he from all the forty-rod they’d swilled the night before and had been unable to sleep off like they’d planned, sneered at him and cursed, their faces pallid and, in several cases, the green-yellow of a stormy summer sky. But they were tough hombres, as tough as Leach had ever seen. They’d probably stomp some more again tonight.
Just the thought of it made Leach’s bowels roll and his head throb mercilessly. He used to think he could keep up with these boys, but maybe he couldn’t. Maybe it was time to try some other group without quite so much vim and vinegar, so many reprobates fresh from federal lockups.
But, then again, Leach had never had so much fun terrorizing folks, smashing into homes and looting trunks and mattresses, raping women and girls, beating and shooting men. He’d even run a man through with a pitchfork! Then there was this girl he’d whipped to death with his belt, just after he’d ...
Leach shook his head. No, he’d never known what fun was until he’d joined up with Dave and the boys. He guessed he could no more give out on the gang than a child could give up candy. But boy, oh boy, did he need to grind his heels in now and sleep off some of that redeye!
He gigged his horse back on the trail, where Matt Sully stood beside his mount, bent over, hands on his knees, heaving as though hacking up his innards.
‘You find him?’ Leach asked.
Sully lifted his waxen face and growled, ‘Who?’
‘That Ralph you keep calling for.’
Leach smiled in spite of his swirling bowels and throbbing eyeballs. But when Sully barfed again, the green bile from his tormented guts splatting on the grassy turf, Leach lost his own cookies—or whatever was left in there— down the side of his saddle.
‘Goddamnit!’ he groused. ‘Look what you made me do to my stirrup!’
The tall, greasy-haired Sully donned his battered, rain-stained hat, and legged it over his saddle, hunkering over his horn as though chilled. ‘Come on,’ he rasped. ‘Let’s head for that tree yonder ... get some shut-eye.’
Spatting the foul taste from his mouth, Leach followed Sully toward a large cottonwood poking up in the west. It was the only landmark out here, and the only tree they’d seen since crossing a creek about five miles back. This flat land was all stirrup-high grass and sky, and Leach vaguely wondered how, on a cloudy day, you ever knew which direction you were headed.
Bees buzzed and the hot sun beat down, making Leach’s head thunder even worse. He was glad when he and Sully finally made the cottonwood, which offered sizable shade on the south side of its trunk. The wind in its leaves made a cool, fresh sound, sporadically distracting Leach from his misery.
The outlaw tore the leather from his horse in a daze. When he’d hobbled the animal beside Sully’s, he grabbed his bedroll, spread it out beside the tree, lay carefully down on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and tipped his hat over his eyes.
Sully did likewise, and both men were sound asleep in minutes.
A half hour later, Leach opened his eyes and lifted his head. He looked around at the sun-washed grass. ‘What was that?’
He looked at Sully, who lay on his side, sweating, his eyes pinched shut, his lips moving as he dreamed.
‘Hey, Sully,’ Leach said, nudging the other man’s arm.
Sully opened his eyes angrily. ‘Leave me alone, god-damnit!’
‘Didn’t you hear it?’
‘Hear what?’
‘I don’t know—that’s what I’m askin’ you.’
Sully grunted with exasperation, then closed his eyes and repositioned his head on his saddle. ‘Shut up and let me sleep. I know one thing—I’m goin’ back to Wahpeton first chance I get, and I’m gonna make that apron guzzle a whole bottle of his own busthead... see how he likes it.’
With that, Sully fell back asleep.
Leach looked around again. Only the sound of the wind in the cottonwood and grass broke the quiet. Occasionally a fly buzzed and one of the horses tore at the grass or snorted, but that was all. Finally deciding that he must have dreamed the sound that had awakened him, Leach eased his still-aching head back onto his saddle, and closed his eyes.
But then he heard it again—a sound like a girl singing far off in the distance. Leach couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like a song a child might sing on a playground. It owned a haunting, dirge like quality, and it came and went on the breeze.
‘Damn it all!’ he groused.
He looked around again, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun with his hand, blinking against the drum throbbing within his skull. All he saw were the horses and the wind-ruffled grass. Finally, with another curse, he gained his feet and scoured the distance in a full circle with his eyes. He expected to see a farm somewhere along the horizon, where kids might be playing.
But nothing ...
What the hell... ?
He was about to sit back down when heard the keening sound again. Swinging around, he looked to his right and saw a tree way off in the distance. It had to be a half mile away, all alone amidst the tawny, sunburned grass.
The singing, if that was what you’d call it, seemed to originate from over near the other tree.
Leach swung his gaze back to Sully, who slept with his eyebrows rumpled and a heavy sheen of sweat above his mouth. No use trying to wake him. He’d just curse some more and go back to sleep. But there was no way Leach could relax, not hearing that damn ghost sing her damn song in his ear, just loud enough to give him the willies.
Who in the hell was she, anyway? Where in the hell was she?
Wrapping his gunbelt around his waist and cinching the buckle, he started walking toward the other tree, which appeared a thin shadow from this distance. Every once in a while, just when he was about to turn back, he heard the girl’s high, sonorous voice. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him toward the cottonwood growing slowly on the horizon, all alone in the sea of ruffling, shadow-swept grass.
When Leach was within fifty yards of the cottonwood, which looked like a mirror image of the one he and Sully had chosen for their naps, he stopped. A black horse stood beneath the tree, its reins tied to the trunk. The horse nickered when it saw Leach, and twitched its ears. The horse blew and shook its head, watching Leach warily.
Leach scowled, peeling his lips back from his teeth. ‘Now what in the hell...’
He saw something hanging from the branch above the horse. Unable to make out what it was from this distance, he walked forward several more steps. He stopped again, feeling something wet and cool skitter along his spine.
What hung from the branch above the horse was a noose. A hangman’s noose ... swaying in the wind....
Suddenly, a figure stepped out from behind the tree. Leach’s heart jumped into his throat, and he reached for his six-shooter, but stopped when he heard a hammer ratchet back.
‘Uh-uh,’ the girl said.
Leach froze, lifted his head to look at her. She was, indeed, a girl—a fair-faced, blue-eyed blonde, hay-colored hair ruffling in the wind. She held a silver-plated revolver on him. Had him dead to rights, too.
Leach screwed up his face at her, befuddled. ‘What... what you doin’ out here, Missy?’
‘Waitin’ for you, sir.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah, you.’ She raised the gun higher, then moved her head to one side a little, indicating the noose. ‘That’s for you.’
‘Me?’ Leach smiled nervously. He suddenly wondered if this were a joke the gang was pulling on him, to razz him about his hangover. But who was this girl? Where in the hell had they found her... ?
No. Couldn’t be.
‘You murdered my family,’ the girl said tightly, her pretty eyes squinting mean. ‘You played a part in it... I remember you. I remember your face from your dodger, too, Eddie Leach.’
At the sound of his name, Leach’s face flattened out, and his eyes gained a fearful cast. ‘What are you talking about, girl?’
‘I’m talking about Roseville, Nebraska. Last year, about this same time. A little farm on Pebble Creek. My mother and father. My two sisters and my brother. You killed ‘em all after you savaged my mother and sisters.’
Leach was amazed at how steady she held the gun while she spoke with such passion. The barrel was aimed directly at his heart. He was trying to think back to a year ago, trying to remember a place called Roseville.
The girl read his mind. ‘Oh, you won’t remember it, I’m sure, Mr. Leach,’ she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘I’m sure there are far too many such atrocities in your history to remember just one family on Pebble Creek. Just take it from me—you were there. You and the others in your gang took my family away from me forever, and now you’re gonna pay for it. Climb up on that horse and put your head through that noose.’
Leach could barely feel his hangover anymore, barely register the throbbing in his brain. Fear had overcome him. Fear and exasperation that this little snot-nosed girl thought she could get by with such a thing.
Anger flattening his eyes, he snarled, ‘I... I ain’t climbin’ up on no horse... and I ain’t stickin’ my neck through no noose, Little Miss.’
‘You’ll die now, then.’
She closed one eye, sighting down the barrel.
He threw up his hands. ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ he cried. ‘Wait a minute now. You don’t wanna do this.’
‘I’m going to give you to the count of three,’ the girl said. ‘Then I’m going to sink one forty-five-caliber slug through your lung and leave you to choke to death on your own blood.’
Gazing at her with astonishment, Eddie Leach realized she would do exactly what she’d promised.
‘And if you call out to your friend,’ she added, again reading his mind, ‘the last word will not have died from your lips before I’ve killed you deader than a widow’s husband.’
His voice gaining a beseeching tone, he said, ‘Well, what good’s it gonna do me to get on that horse? You’re gonna kill me one way or another!’
‘It will give you several more precious seconds to breathe the air and reflect on your life. Maybe even a minute or two. We humans do cling to life so, when the chips are down. Seconds can feel like hours.’
‘Jesus God, kid, you’re one crazy little bitch!’
Her voice remained maddeningly level. ‘It’s your choice. You can die slowly now, choking on your own bodily fluids, or you can have the few extra minutes it takes you to climb into the saddle and tighten the noose around your neck.’ She licked her lips, inclined her head slightly, and gazed down the barrel at his chest. ‘I’m going to start counting now. When I get to three, I’m going to shoot you in your right lung.’
She stared at him.
‘One, two—’
‘All right, all right!’ Leach cried, flabbergasted, his head pounding now even harder than before.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There was no way out. All he could do was hope that some miracle happened between now and the moment he stuck his head through that noose.
Matt Sully heard the yell and opened his eyes. Slowly, he sat up and looked around.
‘Hey, Leach?’
Eddie Leach was nowhere in sight.
‘Who in the hell yelled?’ Sully asked himself, wincing against the throbbing in his head.
He was sure it was a yell he’d heard. A loud one, coming from a long way off. And, come to think of it, the voice had sounded like Leach’s. Was that why Sully’s heart was pounding?
Sully stood, grunting, and shielded his eyes against the bright sun, scanning the grassy terrain around him.
‘Leach?’ he yelled.
He yelled it several times. There was no more reply than the breeze rustling the cottonwood and the nicker of Leach’s horse standing with Sully’s nearby.
Sully saw the tree standing in the direction from which he thought the yell had come. Corroborating his assumption was a silvery trail of bent grass leading that way. Hitching his gun belt on his hips, Sully began following the path toward the tree.
When he was about a hundred yards from the tree, Sully stopped. Something appeared to be hanging from it. Something long and shaped like a body.
Frowning curiously, feeling a sluggish reticence nip at his already seared bowels, Sully drew his revolver and resumed walking toward the tree. The closer he got, the more reticent and fearful and cautious he became.
Approaching the tree, he stared up at the body with wide-eyed horror and indignation. ‘Leach?’ he whispered.
His mind swirled and wheeled and tumbled back over itself. Was he dreaming? Was Eddie Leach really hanging there from that tree, his neck stretched a good foot, out here in the middle of nowhere?
Who? Why? How?
Sully heard feet crackle grass behind him, but before he could wheel around, he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel jammed against his neck. He froze, bile flooding him, his knees turning to glue.
‘Kneel,’ came a girl’s voice.
‘Wha ... wha . .. ?’
‘Kneel down.’
‘Why ... who ... ?’
‘Kneel down!’
The man knelt down. Louisa Bonaventure snugged her silver-plated revolver up to the back of his head and fired two bullets through his skull. Then she wheeled, holstered her revolver, and walked away through the grass.
Behind her, Sully’s body tipped onto its side. Eddie Leach moved gently at the end of his rope.