Solomon ended the call and studied the stone tomb in front of him.
He had drifted away from Billy Walker during the conversation to stop him overhearing and found himself beside the largest grave in the cemetery. Like the mansion in the centre of town it was bigger and grander than anything around it and had been constructed for the same man. He read the carved inscription on the stone:
REV. JACK CASSIDY
PIONEER. VISIONARY. PHILANTHROPIST
FOUNDER AND FIRST CITIZEN OF THE CITY OF REDEMPTION
DEC 25TH, 1841, TO DEC 24TH, 1927
The stone was white, like the church. Imported. There were marks along the top and sides, jagged lightning bolts where the stone had cracked open and been repaired with cement that didn’t quite match the stone.
‘What happened here?’ he asked, running his hand over the cracks and feeling the edges of the broken stone.
Billy didn’t reply and Solomon felt a shift in the air. He turned to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun for the third time that day.
‘Hands where I can see ’em,’ Billy said.
He was holding a second phone in the same hand he was cradling the stock of the gun and Solomon guessed what had happened.
‘I didn’t kill Pete Tucker,’ he said, raising his hands and taking a step forward.
‘Stay right where you are.’
‘You’re not going to shoot me.’
‘You want to find out? Keep on walking.’
‘You ever killed a man, Billy?’ Solomon took another step. ‘Ever stared into his face and watched the life leave him? You don’t want that on your conscience. Thanks for the phone, by the way.’ Solomon lobbed it towards him and Billy followed it with his eyes, instinct telling him to catch it and stop it falling to the floor and breaking.
Solomon used the distraction, sprang forward and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. He knocked it aside and pulled hard, yanking gun and man forward. A boom crashed the silence as Billy’s finger triggered a shot and buckshot tore through the broad, heart-shaped leaves of the cottonwood. Solomon continued his spin, driving his elbow backwards, aiming for the forehead and not the nose. A hard blow to the nose could drive bone shard back into the brain and kill a man.
How did he know all this? How did his body know the moves to disarm a man pointing a shotgun at him? How did he know what would kill and what would not?
His elbow connected with Billy’s head, snapping it back. Solomon yanked the barrel again, pulling it free from his hands.
‘Otis!’ Billy hollered. ‘Otis – kill!’
Solomon continued to spin, using his momentum to pull him round. He felt the heat of his rage again, like an unstoppable urge. He drove his other elbow hard into the side of Billy’s head, relishing the feel of the impact. Billy crumpled to the floor, eyes rolling up into his skull, and Solomon dropped down with him, his hand grabbing a stone from the ground, his anger like a physical thing now trying to burst out of him. He could feel the pressure of it in his chest and his hand squeezed the solid rock as he raised it over his head.
Bring it down, a voice inside him said. Bring it down hard on this man’s head. Break his brain out. That will ease the pressure. That will show you who you are.
He could picture it – the rock, the skull, the blood – the images so vivid he thought he must have done it. The stone came down, hard and fast, and struck the ground by Billy Walker’s head. Solomon wasn’t sure what had nudged his hand away from its murderous path. It might have been him or something else. Whatever it was, it had spared a life and Solomon let go of the rock and pushed himself away before something else made him pick it up again.
He was sweating and breathing hard but not from the effort of the fight. It was his rage boiling inside him.
There was a grunt over to his right and he looked over at the bulldog, lying by the bowl, his great head resting on his front paws. He twitched, like he was trying hard to move, then grunted again, as much of a bark as he could manage before finally he gave up, closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Solomon took a deep breath. Let it out slowly then went to work.
He moved over to the truck and found a knife, some rope and a pack of black plastic cable ties in a box in the back. He used the ties to bind Billy’s wrists and feet, then dragged him over to the trunk of the cottonwood and wrapped most of the rope round him, fastening him tight to the tree. He tied it off, cut a twelve-foot length from the end, then tucked the knife in his belt and found a crate of bottled water in the truck. He pulled two bottles free, drank one straight down before unscrewing the cap from the second and carefully pouring a quarter of the remaining Ambien into it. He had taken it from Holly’s bedroom and used about a quarter of it in the dog’s water bowl – enough to knock him out, not enough to kill him, he hoped. The dog was snoring loudly now so he must have guessed the dose right. He shook the bottle to dissolve the powder and left it next to Billy’s slumped form so he would reach for it when he roused and send himself straight back to sleep again. Then he emptied the shells from the shotgun and flung it deep into the cemetery where it couldn’t easily be seen.
The stallion raised its head from the trough when Solomon stepped on to the wooden porch, then lowered it again and carried on drinking. Solomon glanced down the road and the pony track, checking no one was heading his way, then moved over to the map by the door.
He found the cemetery marked on it and traced his finger along the lines of roads until he came to the one leading east into the Chinchuca Mountains. It curled and looped like the coils of a long, thin snake, following the contours of the land.
Solomon looked out across the town to the mountains beyond, his hands working the rope now, knotting and tying it quickly and expertly while his eyes studied the line of the road, calculating how he could get there without riding through town. The track he had arrived on continued in the right direction, but only for a way; after that he would be cross-country, which was why he needed the rope.
He tugged a final knot tight and walked over to the horse.
‘Come, Sirius,’ he said, slipping the rope halter over his head. ‘We’re going for an evening ride.’
He secured the rope halter behind the stallion’s ears then jumped on his back, settled then moved in circles around the car park for a minute, testing it. It was good, it allowed him to sit up straighter and made it possible to steer him by the head. He would need that over the loose terrain he was about to cross. He wouldn’t be any use to anyone lying in a gully with a broken arm. He wouldn’t be any use to Holly.
Was that why he was here? Was he here for her and not her husband? He did feel responsibility to her. That was why he had taken the Ambien. He didn’t want her to die. He knew if he let that happen he would have failed somehow, though he couldn’t say why.
He moved away from the building and towards the track, glancing out at the burned desert stretching away to the northwest. The sun was sinking lower in the sky now, a burning disc of shining copper. He thought about the ranch beyond and the bloodied body in the barn. He thought about the man with the gun in Holly’s house. He thought about who might have sent him and what else might be coming their way. Then he turned on to the track and eased the horse into a trot to make time over the easier terrain, his shadow leading the way, long and dark across the broken land.