‘YOU’RE CRAZY!’
Fargo’s voice was a nervous snarl. He plucked at the brim of his hat and stared at the old man in the wheelchair.
‘Maybe,’ said Jonas Masters, ‘but that’s what I’m telling you.’
‘An’ on the say-so of some goddam killer half-breed you’re lettin’ us go? Just like that?’
‘Just like that,’ said Masters. ‘You worked for my son, anyway. You never did much around here.’ His gesture took in the stock pens and the fences surrounding the main ranch building. ‘Now Luke’s gone there ain’t much reason to keep you. Here. Severance pay.’
He tossed an envelope to Fargo, who caught it neatly, fingers rustling the notes inside.
‘Three hundred dollars,’ said the cripple. ‘Share it between you.’
‘What the hell did that ’breed bastard say to you?’ asked Fargo. ‘To change yore mind this way?’
‘Maybe he told the truth,’ answered Masters. ‘Or maybe he just made me see what I was. It don’t matter, you just get off my land. Luke’s gone now, so there ain’t no one to protect you.’
‘You’ll be sorry,’ Fargo snarled. ‘You’ll regret this.’
‘Get out,’ said Masters. ‘He’s waitin’ for you.’
‘Hundred each,’ said Jude. ‘That ain’t bad.’
‘Could’ve been more,’ grumbled the beak-nosed man. ‘If Luke hadn’t got hisself killed.’
‘How much we made in all?’ asked Cotton.
Fargo thought for a while, then grinned. ‘Close on a thousand with this.’ He tapped the envelope. ‘An’ we still got them cows in the south section. Shit! That goddam cripple never even knew his son was runnin’ cows off his own land. Poor old bastard!’
The redhead and the youngster laughed.
‘What we gonna do now?’ Jude asked. ‘With that half-breed lookin’ for us?’
‘Spend some money,’ said Fargo, laughing. ‘He ain’t gonna come into Mattock, so we’ll wait around a bit. Have us some fun. Then we’ll move them steers out an’ sell ’em over towards Grantsville.’
The others joined in his laughter. They didn’t know what was coming.
Breed waited long enough for Jonas and Sarah to get back home. Then he waited a day longer. After that, he went into the town. On foot, coming up behind the Black house and waiting until he was sure Sarah was alone inside.
‘You meant it,’ she said, surprised when he came into the kitchen. ‘I didn’t think you would.’
‘They won’t either.’ He lifted a chicken wing from the pan and began to gnaw on the meat. ‘That’s what I counted on.’
‘And me?’ she asked. ‘You counted on me, too?’
‘You won’t tell anyone.’ He looked hard at her gray eyes. ‘Will you?’
‘I could.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘That’d mean your father getting named as Luke’s killer. Best to leave it. Best to help me.’
‘How?’ She wiped a strand of blonde hair back from her face. ‘What do you want me to do?’
The question surprised her. She hadn’t meant to ask it, but somehow it had come out. It was, she thought, partly because he had never tried to paw her, just treated her with respect. Except for when he had taken her naked to that sandpit, but even then he had not sought the kind of advantage Luke or Con had wanted. And in another part, it was gratitude for not revealing her father as Luke’s killer. At least not where it counted: to the upright citizens of Mattock, who might have demanded a fresh trial. And in another part, it was – maybe – the attraction she felt. He was different. Not like anyone she had known. Not like Con or Luke; not like anyone.
She wondered what it might be like, in bed with him; or on a blanket under the open sky.
‘Well?’ she asked, feeling a blush suffuse her face.
He stared at her, his eyes surveying her body as if he knew what was in her mind.
‘Fargo and the others? Where are they?’
‘In the saloon, mostly,’ she said. ‘The whorehouse got a new girl, and Cotton spends most of his time with her. When he’s not in the saloon.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Cotton’s there afternoons and nights.’ She poured more oil over the frying chicken. ‘They all seem to have a lot of money. Fargo and Jude spend more time in the saloon.’
‘Thanks.’ He dropped the chicken wing onto the table. ‘Thanks a lot.’
After he had gone she found it hard to concentrate on cooking her father’s dinner. She wanted to follow him. Wanted to see what he did. She wondered if she had fallen in love with him, then sighed and went back to the food.
It was the wildest night Mattock had experienced since the killing of Luke Masters. It brought the bordello a whole new trade of gaping, vicarious customers who wanted to see where it happened. Jonas – who owned a one third share in the place – made money out of it.
And it all happened because four men had beaten up a half-breed.
Breed left the Black house in the early evening. The sky was getting still and quiet as it prepared for the setting of the sun. By the time he reached his horse and rode it round to the north side of the town, the sky was dark. There was a big moon shining down, so that Main Street shone palely in the ethereal light. The stores were closed. The houses were either dark, or showing faint glow from behind curtains and shutters. Someone’s caged bird trilled a farewell to the sun, shutting off as darkness fell.
He tethered the horse behind the brothel and studied the building. It was two stories high, a slope-roofed verandah running round the lower level, where a porch lifted up from the raw sand of the prairie. There was no fence out back, just a line of barrels filled with empty bottles and scraps of food. There were dogs scrabbling around the scraps.
Light showed at the rear, matched dimly by fainter radiance from a few of the upper windows. The back door was open, exhaling the smell of food and liquor into the night.
He paced over to the comer and stepped onto the porch. An upright pole granted purchase enough, so that he was able to climb onto the roof. The wooden tiles were hard and dry, crackling under his feet. What sound he made was lost under the creaking of bedsprings and the groans of the clients, the feigned-pleasure moaning of the whores.
At the end of the building there was an open window giving access to a corridor running the length of the upper story: he climbed inside.
The corridor was dark, lit only by two dim, red lamps at either end. It looked down onto a central room that held a bar at one end and a series of tables at the other. There was a woman with hennaed hair playing a piano that was backed up against a window. She was wearing a corset of striped red and black silk, and dark stockings. A man with brilliantined hair was serving drinks, and just beyond the open outer door there was a big man with a pick-haft clutched in his arms like a scepter.
Breed paced down the corridor, checking the rooms for light. Three places down he saw a glow from under the frame and turned the handle.
A girl with frizzy brown hair sat up in bed and smiled at him. She dropped the nail file she was using and smiled, exposing bad teeth. She had a black velvet choker round her throat and nothing else. Her breasts were small and pointed, ending in little dark nipples that were outlined with rouge.
‘I didn’t know you was coming, honey,’ she said, ‘you coulda brought a bottle.’
‘I’m not,’ said Breed. ‘You know who Cotton uses?’
The whore pouted. ‘I’m as good as Maybellene. Why you want that three to a bed stuff? Stay with me.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Which room?’
‘Two down. Didn’t they tell you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. Or might have been.’
He shut the door and went on to Cotton’s room.
Cotton was named for the crop his father grew back in Louisiana. His full name was Cotton Frederick Rockwell, but he thought just Cotton sounded more suitable for a gunfighter. He had run away from home when he was sixteen years old, drifting around Texas as he built himself a modest reputation as a mean kid to cross. He had worked ranches and ridden shotgun for a local stage line; played a minor part in a small range war; rustled cattle and once held up a store. Three years ago, he had met Luke Masters and joined the payroll of the Box M. Cotton was twenty-three now.
He wasn’t thinking about his past as he lay back in the creaking bed and watched Maybellene’s dark hair moving between his spread thighs. He wasn’t thinking about anything except the moment, and the pleasure it was bringing him.
Until the door opened and the past-and what little was left of his future—came through the door.
Breed was holding the throwing knife flat in his right palm, his hand slightly out from his side. There was no light in the room, but the window was wide open and moon’s light was coming through, bright. It illuminated Cotton’s mouse-colored hair. It shone on the buttocks of the girl between his legs.
It threw Cotton’s face into stark relief as his mouth opened in a snarl and he rasped, ‘What the hell? Get outta here.’
The woman pulled away, her mouth open in an expression that was part surprise and part annoyance.
Cotton recognized Breed first. The shadow across his face made it impossible to tell whether his eyes showed anger or fear, but his action was clear enough. He slammed both knees up against the woman’s breasts, pitching her backwards in a kneeling position that blocked his body. He rolled on his right elbow, left hand clutching for the gun belt hung from the bedhead. He moved fast, fingers closing on the ivory grip of the closest Remington.
Breed moved faster. His right arm flung forwards and up, hand opening to release the throwing knife. The slender blade glittered in the pale light. And then the glisten of the metal was lost in the darker color of Cotton’s hand, the even darker color of his blood. It went in through the back, the point extending from the palm so that it dug into the leather of the gun belt. Cotton winced in pain and instinctively yanked his hand away. The movement tore the blade through his flesh, severing tendons so that his fingers jerked rigid and were then limp, useless appendages that dripped shadow-blackened blood over his hips and belly as shock froze his reactions and he sat, staring at the dark tip protruding from his palm.
Breed went across the room almost as fast as the knife. The woman was holding her breasts and opening her mouth to scream. The half-breed clubbed her with his bunched fist. Once, heavily, on the side of the jaw. Her mouth snapped shut and her eyes closed. He hit her again, this time on the side of the neck, using the edge of his left hand. She fell across Cotton’s legs.
Her body seemed to break the trance-like spell of shock that gripped the young gunfighter. He said, ‘Oh, Jesus! Oh, hell!’ and kicked clear of the body and the bed, reaching for his guns with his good right hand.
Breed came over the bed with a disregard for the whore’s unconscious form that left bruises on her thighs and stomach and cannoned him into Cotton. The Bowie knife flashed bright in the moonlight – there were too many people below to chance the sound of gunfire – and pressed against Cotton’s throat.
The young man’s hand froze on the ivory butt. He said, ‘Don’t. Please.’
Breed held the blade tight against his windpipe as he reached round to hike the two Remingtons clear of the bed. He tossed the belt across the room. Then he took the haft of the throwing knife and hauled it clear of Cotton’s hand. Cotton moaned as the metal twisted, grating on bone. Fresh blood pulsed from the wound, trickling over his wrist.
‘Turn around.’ There was winter in the half-breed’s voice. ‘Do it slow and quiet.’
Cotton turned. His body was pale, his eyes very wide and watery. A nervous tic had started up at the comer of his mouth.
‘What you gonna do?’ His voice was shaky, teetering on the verge of hysteria. ‘Please, don’t hurt me no more.’
Cold blue eyes studied his face with the same interest a cat shows in a wounded mouse. Breed said, ‘You hurt me. You were ready to kill me.’
‘Christ! that was Luke.’ Urine splashed down Cotton’s naked legs. ‘He ordered me. I never—’
The words cut off as Breed’s right hand moved. Twice. Almost like a slap. But where his palm might have landed there was, instead, the heavy blade of the Bowie. Two cuts appeared on Cotton’s face. Above and below his lips. Blood covered his mouth and chin, began to drip onto his chest. Teeth showed momentarily through the higher slash, then were hidden behind the curtain of blood. He sobbed and went down on his knees, hands pressed against his face. Crimson dripped from between his fingers.
Breed grabbed the right wrist, dragging the arm out from the body. He hacked the Bowie down in a short, vicious arc that ended where the fingers joined the palm. The flesh parted as the razor edge cut through to the tendons, into the muscles. A great sobbing intake of breath set Cotton to choking on the blood still filling his mouth. Breed hacked again and the web of flesh between forefinger and thumb was divided down to the joint, a great spurt of scarlet jetting from the sundered veins.
Cotton’s face went the color of a fish’s underbelly. He stared at his hand, then began to vomit, great wracking heaves shaking his body.
He didn’t hear Breed rasp, ‘Your gunfighting days are over.’
He did feel his hair grasped so that his head was tugged back, forcing him to look up at the blond-haired man standing over him. The moonlight shone on Breed’s face, throwing the lean planes of his cheeks into stark relief, emphasizing the feral intensity of his eyes. His mouth was set in a thin, ugly line.
‘There a doctor here?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’ Through the severed lips it was a sibilant whistle.
‘Good.’ Breed let go the hair and motioned for Cotton to stand up. ‘You understand me?’
‘Yeah.’ Cotton let himself be pushed back onto the bed.
‘You know how long it takes a man to die of a belly wound?’
Cotton shook his head, sending droplets of blood spraying to either side.
‘A day,’ said Breed; very slow, very distinct. ‘Maybe longer. Long enough for you tell the others I’ll be waiting for them where you found me before. On the Valverde trail. You understand?’
‘Yeah.’ Cotton nodded automatically. Then realized what the half-breed was saying. ‘No!’
‘Yeah,’ said Breed.
And his left hand clamped over the severed, slippery surface of Cotton’s mouth and pushed the young man back flat on the bed. Cotton’s legs came up in an attempt to kick the half-breed away, but the man was in too close and Cotton could only drum his knees against the hard muscle of Breed’s thighs. He tried to use his hands, but the fingers didn’t work any more: they were just useless appendages that dangled loose from his hands.
The Bowie knife came down and across.
Over Cotton’s belly, just below his navel, there appeared a gaping cut. It was lipped with raw flesh that dribbled redly in the pale light. Curiously, there was no pain. At first. Then there was a fierce burning sensation as the muscle was parted by the second cut, exposing the sac of the interior stomach. A third cut, delicate and precise as a surgeon’s work, slit the sac. A foul smell filled the room as Cotton’s intestines bulged out from the wound, glistening yellow and blue and pink for a moment before the crimson made everything dark.
Breed stooped over the bed.
‘Remember,’ he said. ‘Tell them I’ll be waiting.’
And he was gone.
Cotton began to scream then.
And Maybellene woke up. She heard the screaming and clambered to her knees, clutching at her aching head. When she saw Cotton she began to scream, too.