‘I’LL GO PUT some work clothes on.’
Wyatt was conscious of the Dragoon resting against the small of his back. Suddenly the pistol was a threat, and he cursed himself for failing to think his plan through. If the outlaws saw the gun, they would most likely kill him on the spot. Perhaps work out that Josie had gotten it to him and go looking for her. It had not crossed his mind that they might get their horses checked for loose shoes: it was too mundane an activity, part of a life that somehow seemed to have ended with their arrival. He moved casually towards the house.
‘Go with him.’ Vance Jennings motioned to DuPré. ‘Watch him.’
The Creole nodded, lining the Smith & Wesson on Wyatt’s back. He followed the blacksmith inside, dark eyes scanning the room with professional expertise. Wyatt breathed a silent sigh of relief as he saw Josie was not there. The bedroom door stood open, giving a clear view of the bed, sheets rumpled where his wife had risen in answer to the fire bell. The coffee pot stood on the stove, filled in readiness. DuPré touched it, testing the heat, and smiled.
‘C'est bon. I can use some coffee.’
Wyatt headed for the bedroom. Then halted as he realized where Josie was hiding. When he had built the house, he had insisted on digging out a root cellar. It was an ingrained precaution, drummed into him during childhood. His parents’ soddy had been built to withstand Indian attack, the cellar its last line of defense, and he had put one into his own home. It was a stone-lined cubicle about nine feet by nine, with a ladder going down from the trapdoor in the main room. Usually, the trapdoor was covered with a rug Josie had salvaged from her parents’ home. Now the rug was pushed clear, exposing the outline of the trap.
Wyatt began to ease the thing back in place. DuPré glanced at him and he hid his actions by staring at the Winchester hanging above the door. The Creole followed his gaze and chuckled, reaching up for the carbine.
‘You would be very stupid to try it, mon ami.’ He brought the long gun down and began to work the lever, ejecting shells. ‘Just do as you are told. And live a little longer.’
Wyatt nodded and went into the bedroom. The rug was back in place over the trapdoor. He stood facing DuPré and eased George Carby’s coat off his shoulders. It fell onto the bed and under the pretext of reaching for a bandanna, he got the Dragoon out of his belt and let it drop onto the coat. He sat down, tugging off his boots and removing his pants, tossing them over the pistol as he stood up. He pulled on his workpants, fixing the bandanna around his neck as he went back into the main room. Shells crunched under his boots as the Creole motioned him through the door, out into the sunlight and the ghostly silence of Black Rock.
He pulled on a leather apron and began to stoke the forge. Jennings was counting money from the strongbox, adding in the bills taken from the looted stores and houses. There was a small pile of more personal items laid out on the boards. Watches and rings, a few necklaces, brooches: the little fineries displayed on social occasions. Amongst them, Wyatt recognized Cole Garrett’s gold hunter, the Southerner’s diamond stickpin. Jennings discarded most of the trinkets, adding the valuables to the pile of money. He began to stuff it all into saddlebags.
Wade Martin said, ‘Why don’t we split it now?’
‘Later.’ Jennings glanced up at the fair-haired man. ‘Like we agreed.’
‘Hell, Vance!’ Martin argued. ‘Suppose we get split up?’
‘We meet where we said,’ Jennings countered. ‘Like we agreed.’
‘It is best.’ DuPré supported the leader. ‘We have always done things this way.’
‘I ain’t been with you so long.’ Martin’s thin face was irritable. ‘I say we take a vote on it.’
Jennings climbed to his feet. His eyes were cold as he studied Martin’s face. The younger man’s hands eased closer to his guns and Jennings sneered.
‘We ain’t votin’ on nothin’, Wade. You’re doing like I tell you. Best you get that straight.’
Wyatt went on pumping the bellows as he watched them face off. So far he had assumed the gang acted in unison, following Jennings’ lead, but now he could see there were internal tensions, the possibility of argument. DuPré was with Jennings, that was obvious from the way he moved slightly to the side, shifting his position so as to flank the whispery-voiced man from the left, manicured fingers gently stroking the butt of the Smith & Wesson. Strother Cannon, too, sided with Jennings. His ugly face assumed an expression that might have been a smile as he glowered at Martin from Jennings’ right, looking like he would welcome an excuse to use the LeMat. Simon Coltrane giggled, stepping back so that he was positioned midway between Martin and the others. Wyatt guessed that in a fight he would hold back until he was sure which side to take. Andy Chance scratched his straw hair, looking confused, his Winchester hanging loose in his right hand.
‘Well?’
Jennings’ choked-off voice was harsh as his injury allowed, Wade Martin glared at him and Wyatt saw that he was close to chancing a draw. He looked to have a hair-trigger temper without too much intelligence to hold it in check. For a moment, Wyatt thought a gunfight was going to erupt.
Then Martin said, ‘I’m outvoted, I guess. We’ll do it yore way.’
‘Remember that,’ Jennings snapped. ‘You always remember that, Wade.’
Martin nodded, turning away to kick irritably at the wagon wheels stacked against the side of the smithy. Wyatt got his forge going as he thought about it. Cannon was backing Jennings out of blind loyalty, the way it looked. DuPré, because he had enough brains to recognize Jennings as the strongest of the pack. Andy Chance was just muscle. Coltrane would go with the strongest. And Wade Martin didn’t like anyone much.
‘You like havin’ us around?’ Jennings’ voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Or you gonna check them shoes?’
Wyatt rose from the forge. It was heated up now, a shimmering aura of warm air wavering about the metal. A tub of pitch, set there for caulking a wagon, was bubbling on top, filling the smithy with its sharp, tangy odor. The blacksmith nodded.
‘Bring them on.’
He checked the animals, noting the color of each, filing it away in his memory against future use. Two of them had shoes that were worn down enough they would cripple the horses in a few days, and one had loose nails. Conscious of the outlaws watching him, he dutifully removed the shoes.
‘I’ll need to work new ones.’ He glanced at Jennings. ‘It’ll take a while.’
The dark-haired man shrugged. ‘So do it, feller. You just pretend we’re regular customers.’
‘Only we ain’t gonna pay,’ tittered Coltrane.
‘There is coffee in the house,’ DuPré murmured. ‘And I am hungry.’
‘Yeah.’ Jennings grinned. ‘Andy? Why don’t you go fix us some breakfast. I worked me up an appetite.’
Chance nodded and went inside.
Wyatt forced himself to concentrate on the horseshoes. He was praying Josie wouldn’t show herself. That Chance wouldn’t spot the gun. That he wouldn’t notice the trapdoor leading down to the root cellar. That the six men would eat breakfast and ride out. Without killing him. There was a lot to pray for.
He worked methodically as the smell of frying bacon began to drift from the house. It was ironic, that smell. The sheer homeliness of it contrasted with the situation to drive bitterness deeper into his soul. It was like spilling salt on an open wound. Yesterday that same smell had meant home and Josie, a place he wanted to be; stability and contentment. Now his food was getting used by outlaw killers, his wife was hiding, soiled by the men forcing him to work for them. Cole Garrett’s body was hanging bloody in the saloon, and the population of Black Rock was locked inside the chapel. Wyatt spat on a shoe, watching the liquid sizzle as it danced over the red-hot metal.
‘Food’s ready!’
Andy Chance looked no different to a Georgia farmboy as he shouted from the doorway. With his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hair tousled, he looked as though he belonged there. Only it should have been Josie: the thought ground Wyatt’s teeth together and he began to pound furiously at the horseshoe on the anvil.
‘Gets you kinda mad, I guess.’ Jennings grinned at him. ‘Us makin’ free o’ yore home an’ all.’
‘Mostly the all,’ leered Coltrane. ‘I wonder where the little lady hid herself.’
‘Don’t matter,’ Jennings shrugged. ‘Ain’t anything she can do, an’ we’ll be gone before long.’
He turned to Cannon: ‘Strother? You stay watch him. See he puts them shoes on good.’
The scarred man grunted, fingering the LeMat as the others trooped into the house. Wyatt dumped the shoe into water, letting it cool before setting it on the hoof. He thought about trying to jump Cannon, then decided against it. The scalped man was a professional and he looked as though he would enjoy an excuse to kill the blacksmith. He was lounging back against one of the uprights, eyes not moving from Wyatt. His right hand was curled around the butt of the shotgun-pistol and he had moved to place the anvil between them. Better, Wyatt decided, to play along with them, like Doc Mortimer had said. Hope they would leave him alive when they rode out, then go after them.
He went on working, face masking his fury.
Andy Chance came out, shouting for Cannon to go eat while he replaced the mute on guard duty. He, too, kept distance from Wyatt, the Winchester he seemed to favor cocked and pointed at the smith’s belly.
‘You got a nice place.’ He seemed to have forgotten the events of the night, his tone casual. ‘I had me a place like that once. My folks are still there.’
‘How long you been with Jennings?’ Wyatt asked.
‘Close on four years.’ Chance grinned innocently. ‘Met up with Vance when I come outta the penitentiary. I killed a feller with my hands. It was a fair fight, but I got put away, anyway.’
Wyatt said, ‘Tough.’
Chance mistook it for sympathy. ‘Met him an’ Jean an’ Strother in Abilene,’ he continued. ‘They was ridin’ together a year before that. Vance is real good at thinkin’ things out.’
‘Coltrane?’ Wyatt said. ‘Him and Martin. When did they join you?’
‘Vance knew Sime from the war.’ The yellow-haired man seemed to welcome the chance to talk. ‘They was in the same outfit. Sime stayed in the cavalry, but when he saw Vance again, he deserted. Wade we met ’bout a year ago. We was fixin’ to take a bank. Place called Wickenburg, it was. Wade was thinkin’ along the same lines an’ he got there afore us. Shot the Sheriff. We kinda teamed up an’ he’s been with us since.’
‘You make much?’ Wyatt asked. ‘In yore line of work?’
‘Enough.’ Chance laughed. ‘Sure beats haulin’ a plough. We made us plenty here.’
‘What you planning to do with it?’ Wyatt kept his voice casual. ‘Where’ll you spend it?’
‘I ain’t got straw behind my ears.’ Chance went on smiling. ‘I ain’t tellin’ you something like that.’
Wyatt shrugged and settled the final shoe in place. The outlaws emerged from the house as he dropped the horse’s leg. Strother Cannon had egg smeared down his shirt. Simon Coltrane was picking at his teeth.
‘You finished?’ Jennings demanded.
‘Yeah.’ Wyatt nodded. ‘What now?’
‘Now we ride out.’ The outlaw stared at the blacksmith. ‘I ain’t gonna kill you, that’s what you’re thinkin’.’ A slow, ugly smile spread across his face as he added: ‘Reckon you got enough sufferin’. What with yore wife an’ her daddy.’
Wyatt opened his mouth to reply, but just then a movement inside the house caught his attention and he gasped, unable to stop himself.
Josie showed in the doorway. Her face was pale, the skin around her mouth red as though she had scrubbed herself too vigorously. Her hair was lank, unkempt, and her eyes blazed with a wild light. She was wearing a pale blue dress, lace trimmings at neck and cuffs; demure. She clutched the Dragoon in both hands, the pistol massive against her slender frame.
The hammer clicked back, the sound filling the sudden silence.
It was impossible to tell whose bullet killed her. Wade Martin was, perhaps, fractionally faster than Jennings. DuPré’s Smith & Wesson blasted in the same instant, Coltrane’s Peacemaker echoing the shot. Chance simply pointed the Winchester and squeezed the trigger. Cannon swung the LeMat out, the massive detonation of the shotgun load overriding all other sound.
Wyatt saw flame spurt from the Dragoon. Saw his wife picked up and hurled back. Saw crimson blossom down the front of her dress. Where her face had been. Saw blonde hair transformed to red.
He shouted. A lung-searing, inarticulate cry of rage and pain and loss.
And the hammer in his left hand swung round at Jennings’ head.
The outlaw ducked, Colt lifting, lancing flame. Wyatt felt the hammer torn from his grasp as fire consumed his hand. A shock ran up his arm, numbing him so that he groaned, reaching for the outlaw with his fingers clawed. And saw red on his skin. Then a great explosion of light as someone clubbed him from behind.
And he heard Jennings whisper say, ‘The bastard coulda killed me. With a goddam hammer!’
Then they were hauling him up, stretching him back with his arms spread wide as Jennings snarled,
‘Give me that hammer. I’m gonna teach him not to be so handy.’