Kansas
Two days later
The clatter of shod hooves against dusty rock sang out behind Nate in an uneven staccato entwined with heavy, grunting breaths. By the time Deaugrey’s mule caught up to his horse, Nate swore the sorry thing was going to flop over and die on the spot. At first, it overshot him. Then, after several frantic tugs on a set of old reins that had been coiled at the bottom of Frank’s saddlebag for the better part of a year, Deaugrey fell behind once again.
“Jesus H.— Sorry, Reverend,” Deaugrey said.
“I’m not a reverend,” Frank said.
“Whatever. Will you let me catch up, Nate?”
“I’m not trying to stop you, Grey.”
Finally pulling alongside Nate and then matching his speed through concerted effort and sheer force of will, the mule plodded next to the gelding like a duck trying to keep pace with a bobcat. “How much farther to that town you mentioned?” Deaugrey asked. “I think this animal you provided is about to drop.”
“Shouldn’t be far now.”
“I hate to sound contrary, but didn’t we pass a town just before we made camp last night?”
“That’s not being contrary,” Nate said. “That’s just asking a question.”
Flustered, Deaugrey twisted around to get a look at Frank. The man in the black coat and shirt nodded. “He’s right. Being contrary means you go against most everything that’s being said.”
When Deaugrey looked back to him, Nate said, “You can look it up if you like.”
“If you ever wonder why I sometimes lose my mind, all you’ll have to do is think about moments like these.”
“Speaking of that, how’d you wind up tossed into the bin this time, Grey?” Nate asked. “I heard about Jefferson City, but that would have landed you in a jail cell. What’d you do to convince folks you were too crazy to roam free? Burn down another restaurant?”
“I’m not talking about that. And in case you’ve lost your memory, my name isn’t Grey. It’s Deaugrey. Dooooh-graaaay.”
Nate shifted back and forth in his saddle, expertly acclimating to every movement of the horse beneath him. His head swayed ever so slightly and when it swung back toward Deaugrey, he raised an eyebrow and said, “Talking to me like that, like I’m an idiot child, it’s a real good way to get yourself hurt.”
“So’s taunting a man who was, until very recently, considered dangerously unstable.”
“Fair enough.”
“So what’s the job that was so important you came all this way to break one Virginian out of incarceration?”
Nate Sathow had seen many different brands of incarceration. Not one of them included renovated mansions, clean dressing gowns and rocking chairs. Rather than debate the finer points of misery with Deaugrey, Nate said, “I’d rather not get into it until we’re all in one place.”
“Can you at least tell me who ‘we’ are?”
“Sure. You, me, Frank and Pete.”
After thinking for a few seconds, Deaugrey asked, “Pete who?” Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Not Pete Meyer.”
“The same.”
“That oaf knocked me unconscious the last time we were forced to work on the same job!”
“Which is something damn near anyone who knows you has wanted to do at some time or another,” Nate said.
When he glanced back at Frank, Deaugrey got an affirming nod from the preacher. Since he was getting no help there, Deaugrey said, “Well, I can’t guarantee I won’t lose my normally cheery disposition once we’re in too close of a proximity.”
“I’ll roll those dice.”
“What’s the pay?”
“You’ll like it just fine,” Nate said.
When Deaugrey pulled back on his reins, he nearly slid out of the saddle they’d purchased the previous day. They hadn’t been able to find anything priced within the pittance Nate had been willing to spend, so Deaugrey wound up sitting on a collection of leather scraps stitched together with twine. He didn’t know the materials for certain, but the sore spots on his rump told Deaugrey that they surely hadn’t been chosen by a true craftsman. “We’ve known each other a long time, Nate,” he said. “And yes. I do owe you for getting me out of McKeag’s but I’m not an indentured servant! I insist on knowing what I’m in for.”
Since it was clear that the mule’s rider was even more stubborn than the animal itself, Nate brought his horse to a stop and turned it around. He approached Deaugrey, glaring down at him with enough fire in his eyes to make the mule shift nervously on its tired hooves. Finally, he said, “You’re right.”
“Yes,” Deaugrey said in a valiant effort to keep from looking as if he’d dodged a bullet. “Of course I am.”
“The pay is guaranteed to be at least two thousand each.”
“Two thousand? I would think it would take a bit more than that for you to go through all the trouble of collecting me.”
“Plus bonuses,” Nate added.
Deaugrey’s smile would have been just as fitting for a starving wolf. “Now you’re talking! What kind of bonuses?”
“The man we’re after has been on the run for a time and has plenty of men who want him brought back. If we can make a list of the names of anyone willing to help this son of a bitch, we’ll be paid extra. If we bring in the sons of bitches themselves, that’s even more.”
For the first time in quite a while, Deaugrey didn’t have a response cocked and loaded. Far from stunned, he merely nodded slowly as the wheels inside his arguably derailed mind began to turn.
“And then there are the acquaintances,” Frank said from the rear of the small procession.
“Acquaintances?” Deaugrey asked.
“Oh yes,” Nate replied with a similarly wolfish smile. “Between the man we’re after and the bastards lending him a hand in remaining free while killing anyone he pleases, there will be plenty of assholes trying to join up with them. The sorts of assholes who commit their own list of sins.”
“The kind of sins that put a price on a man’s head,” Frank said.
“Well now,” Deaugrey said as he turned in his saddle to get a look behind him. “That’s something you’d know all about, Preacher.”
“Indeed it is.”
“Is that enough to get your ass moving again?” Nate asked.
Deaugrey reached out to pat his animal’s neck. “Oh! You mean the mule?”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
When Deaugrey snapped his reins, he barely caught the mule’s interest. After a few taps of his heels against its sides, the mule started walking again. “How long will we be out and about looking for these miscreants?”
“As long as it takes to find ’em.”
“And I don’t suppose you know where to find Pete . . . exactly?”
“He should still be in a town called Marlonn no more than another half day’s ride from here.”
Deaugrey’s avarice lit him up from within like a candle inside a lantern. “What are we waiting for, then?” he said while snapping his reins. “Let’s proceed!”
Although the proclamation would have been more dramatic if his mule clopped forward at more than a purposeful walk, Frank and Nate still followed his example.