JENNINGS WALKED OVER to where Wyatt lay on the floor. The ugly smile was fading from his face, his features resuming their cold, indifferent cast. He stared down at the blacksmith, green eyes locking with grey.
‘You look like a man would enjoy killing me, feller.’
Wyatt said nothing. Just stared up at the tall, black-haired killer. Jennings shrugged.
‘Where’d she go?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wyatt kept his voice calm. I told her to hide.’
‘Don’t make much difference.’ Jennings nudged the brown-haired man with his boot. Like a man thinking about squashing a beetle. ‘She served her purpose. Maybe you can be useful, too. I saw you watchin’ us when we came in. You was in the smithy, right?’
Wyatt nodded as best he could in a supine position. ‘Yeah. I’m a blacksmith.’
‘Well, that’s real handy,’ Jennings whispered. ‘You can save us the trouble o’ shootin’ the lock off that ole strongbox you was guardin’. Get him up on his feet, Andy.’
Chance stepped forward, reaching down to grab the back of the chair still holding Wyatt. His biceps bulged as he hauled the deadweight clear of the floor, setting the chair upright again, and Wyatt realized just how strong he was.
‘Cut him loose.’ Jennings motioned for DuPré to use his knife as he retrieved his own saber and wiped it clean. ‘Bring him over to the forge.’
The Creole cut through the ropes, his oiled hair giving off a smell of pomade as his head bent close to Wyatt’s.
He sheathed the knife, and the smith saw that he kept it hung beneath his left arm, the scabbard fixed to his vest. It was another little piece of information to be filed away against future use. If there was a future. He got to his feet, rubbing at his wrists where the ropes had chafed him. Andy Chance picked up the strongbox and set it on his shoulder like it weighed no more than a picnic hamper, and Jennings led the way out of the Belle.
Light was showing over in the east, and the cock Wyatt had heard the previous morning was getting ready to crow again. It was the only usual thing in Black Rock. The town was silent; windows that would normally be showing light were dark; chimneys remained smokeless. Even the brindle dog was gone from the front of Wilbur Meacham’s store. Outside the chapel, the scar-faced man Jennings had referred to as Strother Cannon stood stolid as a statue, right hand cupped around the butt of the big LeMat. There was no sign of Josie and Wyatt prayed she wasn’t hiding in the house, where the outlaws might think to check.
She wasn’t. DuPré and Coltrane went inside the building and pronounced it empty as Chance dumped the strongbox on the floor of the smithy. The others clustered round as Wyatt took a ballpeen hammer and smashed the lock away. He set the hammer back in place as Jennings opened the lid, whistling appreciatively as he studied the contents.
‘There she is, boys. Three thousand dollars. Just like Tansy told us.’
‘Tansy?’ Wyatt remembered the shotgun rider on the stage had been called Tansy. ‘The stage guard told you about this?’
‘Sure.’ Jennings chuckled. ‘Me an’ Tansy rode awhile together. I run into him again, an’ he told me about the load he was scheduled to deliver here. Jean an’ Wade come in to check it. An’ I got the extra bonus o’ findin’ out Garrett was in town.’
‘There’ll be more in the houses.’ Coltrane’s eyes wandered avariciously along the street. ‘You want us to check ’em, Vance?’
‘Sure.’ Jennings nodded. ‘Why not? Put this feller with the rest first. An’ Wyatt? Don’t try nothin’. Ole Strother’s got no tongue, an’ the injuns cut off his balls so he don’t enjoy much except killin’.’
Coltrane and Martin marched Wyatt off down the street as the others began to break into the locked buildings. The sun was coming through the haze now, limning the white-painted outline of the chapel with brilliant light. The mute Cannon produced a key from inside his coat and pushed the door open. Then Wyatt was shoved through, covered by the LeMat. He paused, looking around the still-gloomy room, nostrils pinching at the sourish odor of the entrapped bodies. Every living inhabitant of Black Rock was herded inside the frame building, the sole omissions Cole Garrett and Josie.
Abner Teech pushed to the forefront of the crowd as voices babbled, asking for news.
‘They get the strongbox?’ Even now, the depot manager lowered his voice. ‘What happened?’
‘They got the strongbox.’ Wyatt’s voice was flat and cold. ‘They butchered Cole. Now they’re looting.’
‘Christ!’ Teech shook his head. ‘Poor Cole. Why?’
‘Jennings had a score.’ Wyatt looked to where the sun was beginning to filter through the windows at the far end. ‘He settled it.’
‘They took Josie out,’ said Teech. ‘What happened to her?’
Wyatt looked at him and the smaller man closed his mouth with a snap, eyes falling away from the cold, grey stare.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Real sorry, Tyler.’
‘She’s alive,’ was all Wyatt said.
He moved past Teech, heading for the rear of the building. He had helped put the chapel up, and he knew the walls were too strong to break through, that the door was securely locked. And that Strother Cannon was waiting outside for a chance to use the LeMat. But maybe there was another way out. The chapel was built on a direct east-west line, so that early sun entered through the two big windows that were the only openings other than the door. They were set high so that light fell on the lectern, each one six feet tall and four across. Cole Garrett had paid for them—Wyatt remembered Doc Mortimer joking about ‘conscience money’—getting them shipped in from St Louis. They were made of multicolored glass, the segments depicting biblical scenes mounted in heavy strands of thick lead. Wyatt had set them in place. And he knew that breaking them would be a difficult and noisy process. But the leaded panels could be worked loose, and if he could make an opening in one maybe Josie could pass a gun through.
If Josie stayed free.
If Josie wasn’t hiding somewhere, lost in shock.
He saw her face again, the way it had looked as he drew back from the slimy aftermath of the multiple rape. And he felt an onrush of guilt. When he should have comforted her, tried to lend her strength, he had pulled back. He should have hidden his disgust, but instead he had let it show. And he had seen the hurt he caused in her eyes.
He reached up to touch the colored glass. He would need something sharp to work on the lead.
‘Where’s Doc?’ he asked.
‘Over there.’ Teech angled a thumb towards a corner. ‘Passed out. Was drinkin’ most of the night.’
‘He got a bottle in?’ Wyatt moved past the benches in the direction of a stentorian snoring.
‘He got three in,’ grunted Teech. ‘Said it was his emergency stock.’
‘He bring his bag, too?’ Wyatt asked.
‘Sure.’ Teech nodded: curious. ‘He thought it was a fire just like the rest of us. Had the bottles inside.’
‘Good.’ Wyatt went down on one knee beside the drunk physician. ‘That’s real good.’
Doc Mortimer was slumped on the bare boards in the gap between the benches and the wall. His derby was over his face, head resting on the medical bag. He grunted as Wyatt tugged the thing clear, rolling onto his side without leaving go the quarter-full bottle he was clutching. An empty lay beside him, and when Wyatt opened the bag he saw a third resting on the doctor’s medical stuff. He took it out, passing it to Teech.
‘Hide that someplace. Could be we’ll need him sober.’
The depot manager took the bottle, face curious. Wyatt began to rummage through the bag, grunting as he found what he wanted. He stood up with a scalpel in his hand. The shaft was of polished ivory, a metal fitment at the thinner end holding a slender blade in place. The blade was slightly curved, razor sharp along one side, needle tipped where curve met straight edge. He went back to the window.
‘Get over to the door, Abner. You hear anythin’ outside sounds like they’re coming in, you holler.’
‘What you plannin’ to do?’ asked Teech.
‘Try to get us outta here,’ Wyatt grunted. ‘Before they decide to burn this place.’
Abruptly, he realized that he didn’t care if the chapel burned down. He didn’t care that the outlaws were looting Black Rock. They could take every damn’ thing in town and raze it to the ground—so long as Josie was still alive.
So long as he could kill them.
He felt no guilt at what he saw was a kind of betrayal. These people were his neighbors. They had invited him into their homes, and they had visited with him. They were friends. And now—from the expectant way they were looking at him—they saw him as their leader. They were relying on him. And he didn’t give a damn. The cold fury seething inside him was personal. It left no room for compassion or neighborly feelings. It was too fierce, too hot, to allow room for anything other than the need to see his wife safe and the men who had raped her dead. It was as though the events of the night had seared away his humanity, stripping him to a hard, savage core of selfish purpose. Had Strother Cannon come into the chapel to cut down the prisoners, Wyatt’s only thought would have been to use the others as a shield. Not because he feared death, but because he needed to live—a dead man could not kill.
He began to work on the lead holding the lowermost panel in place.
It was painstaking labor. The frame was new wood, not softened by time and weather. The putty was hard, threatening to break the scalpel’s blade as he chipped it away. The rising sun burned on his face, masking it in red and gold and blue light as the day grew older. His wrists ached from the chipping and sweat ran down his back, plastering his shirt against his brawny frame. The window was set high enough that he had to stretch up to reach it, and that tensing of his muscles began, after a while, to send flashes of pain down his legs and shoulders. He ignored the pain as he ignored the sweat. Ignored the numbness that robbed his hands of feeling. Ignored everything except the need to go on working.
It was early afternoon before he got the panel loose enough that he could ease it out of the main frame. He set it carefully on the floor, not wanting to risk warning the outlaws by dropping it. The air that drifted through the opening was warm, but on his heated face it felt welcomingly cool: a faint hint of freedom.
‘Now what?’ Abner Teech came up as Wyatt slumped, flexing his aching shoulders. ‘What good’s that do?’
‘Maybe Josie can get a gun to me.’ Wyatt felt irritation as he answered the depot manager. ‘Give me a chance.’
‘Christ!’ Teech protested. ‘You start shootin’, they’ll kill us all.’
‘I don’t think Tyler cares much.’
Wyatt started as Doc Mortimer voiced his own thought. The physician was staring at him, eyes quizzical. His thumbs were hooked into the front of his crumpled vest and his derby was pushed to the back of his head, giving his whiskey-flushed face the aspect of a drunken cherub.
‘I been watching you,’ he murmured. ‘A doctor learns to read a lot from a man’s face. I’d say you seen some things you’d sooner forget.’
‘No.’ Wyatt shook his head. ‘What I seen, I can’t forget.’
‘Nor forgive,’ said Mortimer.
Wyatt shook his head again. ‘Could you?’
‘No.’ The doctor’s gaze wavered. ‘I couldn’t.’
It was impossible to tell whether he referred to the loss of his own wife, or accepted Wyatt’s negative.
He said: ‘What you plan to do? You ain’t no gunfighter, Tyler. Even if Josie can get you a pistol, what chance do you think you’ve got? You against six killers?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wyatt shrugged. Then, his voice low: ‘I’m going to kill them. All of them.’
‘That’ll take time.’ Mortimer hunkered down facing the blacksmith. ‘You start shooting around here, it’s gonna be a slaughter. They’ll kill everyone, just like Abner says. You included. Josie, too, maybe.’
‘What would you do?’ Wyatt’s eyes were fierce, hawkish, as he glowered at the physician. ‘You’d let them ride out?’
‘If it gave me a better chance,’ nodded Mortimer. ‘I’d keep myself alive an’ trail them.’
‘They could split up,’ said Wyatt. ‘I could lose them.’
‘Man six feet under the ground loses a lot,’ murmured the doctor. ‘Hardcases with money to spend get kinda noticeable.’
Wyatt nodded thoughtfully, an idea forming. He glanced at Abner Teech.
‘The shotgun rider? Tansy? Where’ll he be?’
‘Tansy?’ The depot manager sounded surprised. ‘Be in Albuquerque by now. One day lay-over, then the return run. Be comin’ through here next week. Why?’
‘He told Jennings about the money.’
Wyatt saw the man’s face go pale. Then red. Teech removed his spectacles. Rubbed furiously at his nose.
‘I’ll see the bastard strung up. You got my word on that.’
‘No.’ Wyatt’s denial was final. ‘He’s mine, Abner. He owes me. An’ he might know where Jennings is going. He’ll want a cut.’
‘You think he’ll come back?’ Teech sounded doubtful.
‘Be a good alibi.’ Something like a smile showed on Wyatt’s face. ‘He could figger to act normal. Then quit later. Meet Jennings someplace.’
‘You’re making sense,’ urged Mortimer. ‘Keep your head an’ wait for Tansy.’
Wyatt nodded without speaking.
Mortimer said, ‘I’m drying out. Where’s my bottle?’
‘Stay sober.’ It was a command. ‘Josie’ll need you.’
Mortimer sniffed, his face lugubrious. ‘Yeah. You’re right, Tyler. I’ll stay sober.’
The blacksmith climbed to his feet. Then spun round as something metallic rattled against the edge of the window. He saw a gun poking through, butt first. It was an old hogleg Dragoon Cole Garrett had showed him once. The Southerner had carried it through the Civil War. He grabbed it and put his mouth close to the opening.
‘Josie? You all right?’
‘I loaded it just like Daddy showed me.’ Her voice was dull, empty of emotion. ‘All six. Kill them, Tyler.’
‘Josie! You go hide. Stay outta sight until they’re gone. You understand me, Josie?’
There was no reply. Only a guttural laugh. The sound was so alien to the tones he knew that for a moment Wyatt wondered if it was his wife standing out there.
‘Josie!’ he repeated. ‘Go hide.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Tyler.’
He spoke her name again, but there was no answer. Just the faint soughing of the wind. Wyatt eased the Dragoon’s hammer back to quarter cock and spun the cylinder. Each nipple was capped and greased, the big .44-caliber balls tamped down against the powder loads. He lowered the hammer, weighing the pistol in his hand. It was heavier than the Colt he used, the longer barrel dragging the gun down when he extended his arm. He thrust it into his pants at the small of his back and looked round.
‘I need a coat.’
A big youngster with jug-handle ears stepped out of the crowd. Wyatt saw the thick homespun jacket he was holding. It would fit him: George Carby was around the same size.
‘Thanks.’ He took the coat.
‘I'll help.’ George’s open face was eager. ‘You just tell me what to do, Tyler.’
‘Stay clear.’ Wyatt realized his voice was close to a snarl. ‘They’re mine.’
Carby nodded, shocked. He stepped back from Wyatt like a man moving clear of a dangerous animal. Wyatt ignored him, tugging the coat on as he moved towards the doors.
They opened as he approached, Cannon stepping through with the LeMat cocked. Jennings stood behind him, holding a Colt. DuPré was smiling, with the Smith & Wesson in his hand.
‘We’ll be leavin’ you folks soon,’ sneered Jennings. ‘Just got a little job for the blacksmith first.’
He beckoned Wyatt forward, backing off as the big man stepped out of the chapel. Cannon swung the door closed and jammed the LeMat against Wyatt’s spine.
‘Fellers like us,’ Jennings whispered, ‘we need sound mounts. Thought you could maybe check the shoes for us. Sooner that’s done, the sooner we go.’
‘My wife?’ He couldn’t help asking. ‘Josie’s …’
‘Crawled off someplace, I guess.’ Jennings chuckled. ‘Hid up in some hole.’
‘Hers,’ murmured DuPré, ‘was a most pleasant hole.’
Wyatt fought the surge of rage. Not now: this wasn’t the time. Like Doc Mortimer had said, let them go. Let them feel safe. Then hunt them down like mad dogs and kill them.
‘Tansy get much of a share?’ he asked bitterly.
‘Enough.’ Jennings shrugged. ‘Don’t reckon you’ll see him again. Not if he’s got any sense.’
Wyatt grunted, moving under the prodding of the LeMat towards the smithy …
Light shone over the dust filling the hacienda. It glistened on the blood pooled beneath Wade Martin, shining off the slick black bodies of the flies clustering over the holes in the outlaw’s belly. Martin’s face was a waxy color, his breath ragged, each agonized intake bringing a fresh welling from his back.
Wyatt smiled, glancing at Andy Chance.
The freckle-faced man was conscious now, his features ugly with the bruise along his temple, drawn in by the pain of his crushed hand. His ankles were lashed together, wrists secured behind him. His eyes were wide and baby blue, fear and fury struggling with the pain.
‘Yore partner’s dying.’ Wyatt’s tone was almost conversational. ‘He’s bleeding inside. Take him the rest of the day, I figger.’
Chance’s eyes moved slowly, reluctantly, to Martin’s contorted shape.
‘You bastard!’ he snarled. ‘You goddam bastard.’
‘My folks was married,’ said Wyatt. ‘So was I.’
The blue eyes shifted from Wade Martin to Wyatt. ‘How’d you find us?’
‘Feller tried to kill me coming out of Terlingua.’ Wyatt shrugged. ‘He wore a badge.’
‘Rafe Coombes.’ Chance shifted position, wincing as his broken hand sent pain lancing up his arm. ‘We left word.’
‘How’d you know?’ Wyatt asked. ‘You thought I was finished.’
‘Heard about Tansy.’ Chance’s eyes moved around the room: trapped. ‘Heard someone sounded like you cut him up.’
‘To ribbons,’ grinned the grey-eyed man. ‘Tansy sent me to Terlingua. Then Coombes tried to ambuscade me.’
The way he said it left no doubt in Chance’s mind that the marshal was dead. He licked his lips. They still looked dry.
‘When you expecting Jennings?’ Wyatt asked.
Chance said, ‘Go to Hell.’
Wyatt went on smiling. ‘You’ll be there first, Andy. You got the one choice to make: whether you go fast or slow.’
The freckles stood out red against the pallor. The eyes rolled like a steer’s entering a slaughterhouse. Wyatt lifted his left arm, studying the vicious tines protruding from the metal hand.
‘You gave me this,’ he said softly; dangerously. ‘I learnt to live with it. Learnt how to use it. I use it pretty good, Andy. You could take longer’n Wade to die.’
‘I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,’ grunted Chance. ‘Not a goddam thing.’
‘You’ll tell me.’ There was certainty in Wyatt’s voice. ‘I just have to hook it out of you.’
The metal hand flashed forward. Andy Chance screamed as his flesh parted and red cascaded down his face.