CHAPTER 33

Later that evening, Nathan Rigg walked out of The Ruby and stretched. The dying sunlight felt good, and he welcomed the approaching night. It was harder for a man to spot him as he walked the darkened streets of town, and he knew Mackey was gunning for him.

He looked up at the hills that surrounded the town and wondered if he might already be up there, somewhere in the coming darkness. He might be up there waiting his turn or he might be rallying some men outside of town. He had spies camped out near the telegraph lines throughout the day. None of them had reported seeing anything on the outskirts of town.

Rigg had no doubt Mackey would show up soon. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day, but not tonight.

Rigg walked down the steps of The Ruby and began to walk home. Grant had wanted him to attend yet another one of his torturous meetings in the mayor’s office at the Municipal Building; this time with members of The Bank of Dover Station to review his grand plans for the town. Grant insisted that Rigg attend since this was the meeting that would decide the future of the town.

But the only meeting Rigg had planned for that night was between his backside and a chair on the porch of his new house. The locals might call it the Old Van Dorn house for now, but there would be a new batch of locals soon. And by the time he was through with this town, they would call it Rigg’s Mansion. Yes, he rather liked the sound of that.

He imagined he would like the sound of rain on the roof even more. His roof. He had never had one over his head that he could call his own. He had grown up on a plantation owned by his grandfather and had been forbidden by his father from ever returning. The old fool had always been a prude.

After his appointment to West Point came through, Rigg had lived in quarters paid for by Uncle Sam for most of his life. The time since he left the army had been spent in hotels or lodging houses.

This was the first night in his life that Nathan Rigg had a place to call his home, and he intended to enjoy every second of it. Grant’s grand plans would have to wait.

As he walked home, Rigg had to admit there was a certain rough charm to the place. He could see why old man Mackey and his friends had picked this spot to make a life and build a town. The rocky outcroppings that surrounded it protected it from the wind, and the rocks themselves kept the town from being swamped by a flood. The ground pitched away from the town, and into the river for which River Street was now named. It was good land, and he was glad Pappy had been able to die in the place he had built. He did not hold much stock in the Mackey name, but he figured Pappy had died the best way any man could want. He had taken the men who killed him with him to hell on the ground of his choosing.

From the time he had been a boy on his family’s plantation, Nathan Rigg had always known he would die in bed. He was certain of it, just as he was certain the sun would rise in the east each morning and set in the west each night. It was why he had taken so many chances in battle and why he had never lived in fear of any man. White, black, or red. He only hoped, that when that day ultimately came many years from now, that he would show as much grit as Brendan Mackey had shown when he faced the reaper’s scythe.

Rigg could feel the people watch him as he walked across Front Street. Laborers clearing out the debris and shopkeepers who no longer had shops to keep. Men building tents in the burned-out lots that had already been cleared of charred wood. New buildings were already beginning to go up, with credit extended by James Grant and lumber provided by his sawmill.

The townspeople who dared to look at him did not look upon him with admiration. They looked at him in fear. Rigg drank in that fear as happily as he had forced down Mad Nellie’s rotgut that passed for whiskey at The Ruby. The time to enjoy fine spirits would come soon enough, but for now, the wretched drink reminded him he still had much work to do.

Keep at it, you damned fools, he thought as he passed another work crew. I own forty percent of your labor.

He laughed to himself as he passed by the burned-out husk of The Campbell Arms. The place had been the pride and joy of Aaron Mackey’s woman, Katherine Campbell, the Boston whore who let a good man die so she could be with her lover. He had known and admired Major Campbell as the only officer he had ever met who could match his own brutality. His wife’s betrayal had practically forced him to charge the Comanche the fateful day he lost his life. At least he had died honorably, if foolishly clouded by notions of honor.

Honor was a luxury that outcasts like Rigg could ill afford.

Yes, Rigg was glad the rioters had burned the hotel to the ground. It was a fitting blow to the vain widow and a fitting price to be paid by any ally of Aaron Mackey. He only wished he had ordered it burned himself.

Grant had wanted the ruin pulled down immediately, claiming the plot where it stood was a prime location for a grand hotel. But Rigg had ordered the workers to clear other lots first. He wanted to be able to sit on his porch for a while and gaze upon the fallen hotel as a trophy to forever casting out Mackey and his ilk from the town he now controlled. Yes, he would enjoy the view from his porch indeed.

He tipped his hat to a wagon full of church women who rumbled past his house, but the women all turned away. He imagined they must be the women of the men at the logging operations on the outskirts of town. He wondered why a wagonload of church mice would be coming to town at this hour. It was not Sunday, and there were no sick left to attend to. The violence that accompanied the riot had been as efficient as it had been destructive. The dying were all dead, and the living were all who remained.

He wondered if the church women would throw in a good word with the Lord for him, though he doubted it would do much good.

He walked up the steps of his house and opened the door. He had not been able to spend much time there since Bishop had moved out and Grant had given the house to him. Grant had decided to move into the Municipal Building lock, stock, and barrel; preferring to live and breathe the future of Dover Station. The constant presence of armed guards in a fortified building to keep the townspeople at bay did not hurt, either.

But Nathan Rigg had refused to allow any guards near his place, especially while he was not there. He knew the five remaining men he had brought with him to town, and he would not trust any of them to be near something so personal to him. He was enough to face down any threat to him, including Aaron Mackey.

Besides, he believed being surrounded by gunmen exuded weakness, not power. Grant’s ego dictated that at least one guard be with him at all times, even though Grant was fairly good with a firearm himself. Rigg was happy to oblige. They were all Rigg’s men and would keep him apprised of Grant’s activities. It was almost as good as being there himself.

He closed the door behind him and set the latch. He took off his hat and tossed it into the front parlor. He did not bother to see where it landed, for wherever it landed, it was in the house that now belonged to him.

He would take his time to explore the house later, but he was anxious to change out of the clothes he had been wearing for two straight days. He might even call over one of the ladies from The Ruby later to draw a bath for him to christen the new house.

His hand glided along the smooth handcrafted railing as he went upstairs. Silas Van Dorn may not have been much of a man, but he had impeccable taste. Rigg would make it a point to enjoy the house he had left behind.

At the top of the stairs, Rigg opened the door to the large bedroom that was now his. The thought of lounging in the soft four-poster bed delighted him.

But he stopped short when he saw something hanging from the canopy.

A scalp.

Mackey.

He reached for the Colt on his hip just as the bedroom door slammed behind him, and he felt four sharp blows to his kidneys.

An intense pain webbed through his body as he sank to his knees. He felt the Colt being ripped from his hand before he was struck with the butt of the pistol in the back of the head.

The blow sent him flat on the floor. The room was now spinning, but instinct replaced his dulled senses. He flopped over on his back and reached for the second Colt at his left side.

But Mackey had beat him to it; snatching the pistol from its holster and tossing it to the other side of the room.

Rigg gripped the small blade he kept tucked beneath the holster and drew it, slashing out at Mackey’s throat.

But the younger man was fast enough to pitch back just in time for the blade to slice across his chest.

Seeing the blood of his assailant gave Rigg new energy as he scrambled to his feet and lunged at Mackey, blade first.

But Mackey parried the swipe and followed up with a vicious left hook that caught Rigg square in the jaw.

Rigg staggered, but kept his feet, intending to stab Mackey when he drew closer.

But Mackey followed up with a savage uppercut that shattered Rigg’s nose and sent him flying back onto the bed.

Dazed and bleeding, but not out of the fight yet, Rigg bounced off the bed and roared at Mackey as he plunged the blade at his assailant’s face.

But Mackey grabbed his right hand, stopping the blow, and fired an elbow into Rigg’s ruined face. Stars exploded before his eyes, and he fell back on the bed empty-handed and exhausted.

His head was throbbing, and he shut his eyes to keep the room from spinning lest he throw up. He would not give Aaron Mackey the satisfaction of seeing him be sick in his own bed.

Rigg’s eyes sprang open, but he saw nothing. He remembered his own prophecy.

I will die in my own bed.

A searing pain in his left leg caused him to cry out as he shut his eyes again, followed by an equal pain in his right.

He did not have to reach down to know what had happened. Mackey had used his own knife to cut the tendons at the backs of his legs. Just as he had taught him to do to fleeing Apache prisoners.

His eyes bulged when he felt Mackey grip him by the throat and raise him from the bed. He expected to see rage in the man’s eyes. Hate, even.

Instead, he saw nothing. No spark of humanity or emotion at all as he dropped Rigg higher up on the mattress.

“You coward!” Rigg screamed, though his voice was barely a rasp. “You didn’t give me a chance.”

“You got more of a chance than Pappy had.”

Rigg watched in horror as Mackey took a lamp from the side table and began to pour the kerosene over the length of Rigg’s body. “At least you’ll die the same way.”

Rigg gagged as some of the fluid found its way into his mouth. He clawed at the bedclothes that pulled free as he gripped them. “I’ll see him in hell and spit in his face.”

“Remember what you used to say, Nathan? How you always wanted to die in bed?” Mackey thumbed the match alive. “You’ve got your wish.”

The last thing Rigg saw, as the flames began to consume him, was Aaron Mackey standing in the doorway. He could not see his killer, only the vaguest outline of him as he watched the fire take hold.

And then the pain began.