Sonny Pratt was not a man given to analyzing his motives, but he felt so good on the ride home after killing Hank Jones, he had to wonder why. Although he hadn’t noticed it at the time, he remembered feeling the same way a few months earlier after cutting Lester’s throat.
It has been a harsh winter for the Jones boys.
That thought made Sonny smile. Not counting the Mexican Sonny ran into last year outside of Casper, Lester had been the first man Sonny had ever killed. He supposed it wasn’t the thing a fella should be doing, killing white folks. But, damn, he could not abide disloyalty. Sonny had been having to deal with disloyalty his entire life, and now that he was a full-grown man, he did not intend to take it anymore.
Looking back on it, it was clear that he should have killed Polly at the river last spring the way his good sense told him to. If he had, everything would’ve been all right. Hank and Lester would still be alive, and that God-damned trial would have never happened.
That thought dulled Sonny’s good feelings some. It was a terrible mistake not killing Polly. She turned out to be the most disloyal of the bunch. But he shouldn’t be too hard on himself. How could he have known she’d tell her mother and the doctor and that lawyer and in the end the whole God-damned town? Who would have expected it? After all, he did do his best to put a scare in the girl. Sonny had figured at the time what with the scare and the fact that she was family—not blood, of course, but family all the same—that Polly would keep their little adventure down by the river to herself.
He’d sure been wrong about that one.
Now, he guessed it was too late to kill her. Hell, she’d already done her damage. Now it came down to his word against hers. And if she turned up dead, he’d be the first one they’d suspect. He’d gotten away with killing Lester. With killing Hank, folks might be a little suspicious, but there was no way they could put him in the Jones house this morning. Polly, though, was a different story. If she turned up dead after her testimony yesterday, things could get pretty warm. Nope, he’d missed his chance with Polly. Next time he would not allow himself to be so damned careless.
Live and learn.
Sonny always enjoyed the ride home from the Jones place. It was a rough trail that went up over the breaks, but at one spot where the cliffs were the steepest, it looked out past La Prele Creek all the way to the North Platte and the rolling prairie beyond.
There was very little snow right now, except on the north side of some of the larger boulders where the sun never hit. It was a beautiful view, and Sonny stopped for a moment to appreciate it. It had been cold off and on so far this winter, but right now Sonny guessed it was upward of fifty degrees. The view here was nice, but he thought it was prettier when it was all covered in snow.
Sonny liked the winter. Most folks only bitched about the winter, but not Sonny. He looked up at the white disk of sun that shone through the gray clouds. This time of day in any other season, his old man would be giving him hell about calving or branding or harvesting or rounding up or . . . Christ, the list went on and on. But the winter was different. The winter slowed things down. Sonny liked that. Sonny liked things slow.
He nudged his right spur into his horse’s flank and started off again.
The world was starting to move way too fast for Sonny’s tastes. He’d been down in Cheyenne a few months back and there were telephones all over the place. Messenger boys were pretty much driven out of business. The talk was there would be phone lines strung up all over Probity here in the next few years.
He read somewhere that back East there were gas lines everywhere, and now everyone was talking about electricity.
Sonny didn’t like it. He figured he’d been born about thirty years too late. He would have liked to have lived in the earlier times, the frontier days the old-timers talked about. Back then a fella could ride his horse in a straight line in any direction and never see a fence. Those were freer times without all the towns and people and rules. Rules and laws. Lawyers and lawmen. Judges and juries.
Sonny turned his head downwind, cleared his throat, and spit. The wind caught the spittle, lifted it, and carried it twenty feet before in finally came down in the rough arms of a dry piece of sage brush. Sonny expected the day would come when a man couldn’t even spit when he wanted. There would always be someone around like that McConners fella telling a man whether he could or he couldn’t.
McConners. Now that’s the one who could use some killing. Smart, know-it-all son of a bitch. Holed up for three weeks before the trial in a nigger’s house. What kind of a man would do that? Sonny figured McConners was screwing that nigger filly too. But he guessed he couldn’t blame him. Fay Charbunneau was a fine one. He wouldn’t mind having some of that himself.
When Sonny rode into the yard, he saw his father’s gelding tied at the front porch. That was strange. The old man had gone into town early that morning, and Sonny expected he’d stay there all day.
Sonny tied his sorrel next to the gelding, climbed the porch and went in the house.
“Where you been, Sonny?” Emmett asked before Sonny could even take off his hat.
“I took me a ride on this fine December morning,” Sonny said. He hung his hat and coat on the hall tree, crossed the room, and sat in one of the easy chairs in front of the fire. He stretched his long legs out and felt the heat soak through the thin soles of his boots. These old things have about had it, he told himself, looking down at his beat-to-hell footwear. He’d get a new pair the next time he was in town. Right now, though, the heat soaking through felt pretty good. He liked the winter, but he hated when his toes got cold.
Sonny looked toward his father and said, “I figured you went into town.”
“I did,” said Emmett. “I had myself a conversation with Thomas Blythe.”
Returning his gaze to the fireplace, Sonny watched as flames curled off a two-foot-long cottonwood log. “Why’d you want to waste your time talking to that fool? He couldn’t get a man convicted who admitted to committing a crime. It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard.”
“I also had a visit with Micah McConners.”
When Emmett said that, Sonny didn’t turn his head away from the fire, but he did take his father in as much as possible out of the corner of his eye.
His father had been talking to McConners. That was interesting. Sonny had been wrong earlier. Polly wasn’t the most disloyal of the bunch. This old bastard was. First he lets Sonny’s mother die, then he marries that school teacher and brings her and her brat kid into their house. And now this. What was next?
“McConners, eh?” Sonny said. “Now there’s another waste of time. What business could you have with that man?”
Emmett sat in the chair across from Sonny and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “McConners wants to visit with you and Hank about what Polly said in the courtroom. He wants to ask you boys a few questions.”
“Ask a few questions, hell. He wants to see me in prison. That’s what he wants.”
The old man sat back in the chair and nodded. “Well, I expect he believes what Polly says, all right, but he strikes me as a fair man. If you tell him your side, he’ll give it consideration. You’ve got to talk to him, boy. He’s running the show on this, no one else. As far as this thing’s concerned, McConners is the law.”
“That’s right,” Sonny said. “McConners is the law. What have you been telling him, you old fool?”
Emmett looked away, ran a hand over his balding head, and said, “I haven’t told him anything. I want you to talk with him. That’s all.”
His father was a fine rancher and businessman, but he was not accomplished at deception. Sonny knew he was lying as soon as the words toppled from the old bastard’s mouth, but he kept his face impassive and allowed Emmett to talk.
“It may be hard, but you got to face this thing, Sonny. Whatever it is, I want you to know I’ll stand beside you. Maybe I haven’t always been there in the past, but I’m here now. Mc-Conners isn’t the sort to let it go. He’ll get to the bottom of it before he quits, so we have to deal with this thing. We have to go to him and talk it out.”
“Go to him?”
Emmett nodded. “I told him I’d bring you in. I was afraid if he and the sheriff came after you, there’d be trouble.”
The old man stood and started to pace. He was a great one for pacing. “You’ve gone a little wild in the last couple of years, Sonny. I got to admit that. I expect you’ve done some bad things, but I still believe you’re a good boy. I don’t know if you did what Cedra and Polly say you did. The fact is no one knows except you, Polly, and I reckon Hank Jones. I do know what they accuse you of would be a hard thing for even a man as clever as Micah McConners to prove, especially at this late date.”
Sonny held back his smile.
“It’s a tough thing to know what to do,” Emmett said. “I don’t know for sure what’s right. I guess I’ve spent my whole life sorta making things up as I went along.”
With that one, Sonny had to clamp his jaw down and purse his lips to keep the smile off his face. “Me too, Pa,” he said. “Me too.”
“But I worry about you, son. I worry if something’s not done to stop the direction you’re headed, you’ll be lost forever.”
He and his pa had never had such a touching conversation.
The old man still paced as he spoke. He walked from one end of the large room to the other and back again. All the while he kept his hands in his pockets and his head down, staring at the floor.
“I lied to you a while ago, Sonny.”
“No, Pa, you lie? That can’t be.”
“I know you’re the one who fired the shot into the Charbunneau house the other night, and I told McConners about it.”
Sonny felt his jaw clench again, only this time it was not to hide a smile.
“He’s going to get you on some kind of charge, Sonny, before he’s done. That’s the kind of man he is. If you go in and admit to firing that shot, it may be that’s as far as it’d go. Like I say, it’ll be hard if not impossible for him to prove anything more than that.”
Sonny stood and faced his father. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You told that lawyer that I’m the one who fired that shot at the window, and now you want to take me into town so he can lock me up?”
Emmett turned to his son as he spoke, but he continued to pace. “Sonny, firing into that house was a bad thing. It’s pure luck no one was hurt.” He looked back to the floor. “But no one was hurt. So if you go to prison, it wouldn’t be for long, and I’d bet we could work it out for you to serve your time right here in the county jail.”
“Golly, Pa, do you think so?”
“I know you’re upset with what I’ve done, boy, but in the long run it’s for the best. Besides, I don’t know that he’d lock you up right away. He only wants to talk to you now. That’s all. He wants to ask you a few questions. And we don’t even have to go all the way into town.”
“What do you mean we don’t have to go into town?” Sonny asked.
“I agreed that you and me’d meet McConners at the Jones place.”
“You what?”
“He and the sheriff were going there to talk to Hank. I told him I would bring you over and he could talk to you at the same time.”
The situation was getting worse fast. Sonny wasn’t sure what he should do now. McConners would find Hank’s body, and he’d assume it was Sonny who killed him. Still, though, he couldn’t prove anything. There was no way he could show Sonny had been at the Jones place that morning. On the other hand, Sonny had no alibi. If McConners even discovered Sonny had been away from home that morning, it would mean trouble.
But there was no way McConners could find that out—no way in the world.
Except . . .
As Emmett paced back toward Sonny, he spoke in a tone that suggested he was thinking out loud, going over it in his mind, making it all up as he went along. “We’ll meet McConners at Hank’s. You explain to him how it was you who fired the shot into that house.” Emmett turned, started back the other way. He stared at the floor as he ran through what they would do. “You’ll explain it to McConners. You’ll have to take whatever’s coming to you. That’s all you can do. But once you’ve done that, Sonny, it’ll all be over. Everything’ll be fine.”
Maybe if Sonny had made it back home this morning before Emmett had, there’d be another choice, but he hadn’t. The old fool came back earlier than expected.
Well, Sonny resolved, that was his bad luck.
Sonny lifted his revolver from its holster, took two quick steps toward his father, and brought the barrel down hard on the base of Emmett’s skull.
Like his pa, Sonny had to make things up as he went along.
Emmett hit the floor face down. Sonny nudged him a couple of times with his toe. Emmett was still breathing but out cold. There was a gash in the back of his head and a nasty-looking red spot above his eyebrow from where he hit the floor. The gash was bleeding some, but not a lot. Sonny was glad for that. Unlike at Hank’s, whatever mess got made here, Sonny would have to clean it up.
The place was covered in blood at Hank’s that morning. Hank’s whole damn face came off. There was blood everywhere, and the son of a bitch fell in such a way he was blocking the door leading out of the bedroom. Sonny had to step over him to get out, and there was no way to do it without stepping in the mess. It was disgusting.
Here, though, things were pretty clean. Sonny hefted Emmett up onto his shoulder before the old man could bleed on the floor any more than he already had. The old man was lighter and bonier than Sonny thought. He even felt frail. The coot was probably going to die of some nasty-damn disease pretty soon anyway. Sonny expected he was doing Emmett a favor—saving him a lot of pain and strife. With a smile, he allowed as how Emmett might not see it that way, but what the hell.
He took Emmett outside and tied him across the saddle of the gelding, climbed aboard his own horse and, holding the gelding’s reins, he headed toward the gate.
Sonny guessed he didn’t have much time. Once McConners realized Sonny and Emmett weren’t going to show at Hank’s, he’d head to the Pratt place. If McConners was as shrewd as everyone said, he might even start out the minute he found Hank’s body. Either way, Sonny had to move fast.
He held his horse to a lope. He had loosely tied Emmett to the saddle, and he doubted if he rode any faster the knots would hold. But it was less than a mile to the breaks, and Sonny figured with any luck there would be time.
When he got to the top, he reined in. The trail curved sharply here, and the ground was loose and treacherous. He climbed off his sorrel, went to the gelding, and pulled Emmett down. He carried his father to the edge of the cliff and laid him in the dirt. As he did, Emmett’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at his son.
“So, you woke up, did you? That’s more bad luck for you, I reckon.”
“Sonny,” Emmett whispered, “I’m cold.” The old man was shivering, and he didn’t look too good.
Sonny smiled. “You’re about to get a lot colder, old man.”
Emmett’s gaze moved about as he realized where he was.
Sonny looked out at the view. “Pa,” he said, “you’re like me, aren’t you? You’ve always liked this place. There’s the creek running down yonder, and the river beyond. Hell, the way I figure, it’s about the best place around to die.”
Emmett winced as he touched his fingers to the back of his head. “You hit me, Sonny.”
“By golly, old-timer, you are the smart one. There’s no putting anything over on you.”
“Why are you doing this, son?”
“Because you talk too damned much, old man. You should never have gone to McConners.”
“It’s true what they say about you, isn’t it, boy? You did rape Polly. You killed Lester Jones.” When Sonny only stared at him without answering, Emmett said, “I was wrong. There’s not any good left in you. Somewhere along the line you went rotten, and the rot went all the way through.” He said this without surprise, or anger, or recrimination.
Sonny felt himself quiver inside. There was a time when he’d thought this man lying in front of him was the greatest man who ever lived. There was a time when Sonny would have done anything the man said. But when his mother died, everything changed. Emmett had killed her. Sonny knew that. His mother had never been the kind of woman cut out for life on a ranch in Wyoming. She was from St. Louis—born and raised in city life. She knew about things no one else knew. She loved plays and music. She had taken Sonny to the opera once down in Denver, and although he had hated the thing himself, he’d loved how much his mother had enjoyed it—how taken she’d been with the clothes, and the carriages, and the people. She was like a girl, young and beautiful in her own green velvet dress. Alice Pratt had been a lady, and the life this selfish bastard had forced her into had killed her.
Sonny locked his eyes to Emmett’s. He wanted to see inside the man at the moment Emmett realized what was going to happen. Sonny wanted to see the man’s fear. Sonny wanted to watch as his father cowered at death.
Sonny bent low and put his mouth close to Emmett’s ear. “You’re going over, old man.” He pointed past the edge of the cliff. “Them rocks down there, that’s where you’re going to die.” Sonny looked deep into the old man’s watery eyes, and search as he might—as much as he wanted it to be there—he could not find the fear he was after.
He could see something, though. Sonny saw something deep inside the blue of his father’s eyes. He could not identify it, but it was there, and whatever it was, Sonny knew it wasn’t fear.
Emmett lifted his hand to his son’s face and ran his finger along Sonny’s cheek. “I ache for what has happened to you, boy. I ache for whatever it is I’ve done, or whatever it is I’ve neglected to do.”
With that, Emmett lifted his hands, placed them on the back of Sonny’s neck, and pulled Sonny’s face down toward his own. Sonny tried to resist, but Emmett was unbelievably strong. Sonny pushed against Emmett’s chest as hard as he could, but still the old man drew Sonny’s face closer and closer.
Through clenched teeth Sonny grimaced, “What the hell are you doing, you old fool. Let me go.”
For a moment Sonny thought the son of a bitch was going to toss him over the cliff, and Sonny knew there was not a thing he could do to stop him. The old man’s hands were like two vises. Sonny wriggled like a fish, but he could not break free.
Sonny was convinced he was a dead man. That he was going to be the one to die at the base of the cliff rather than his father. The hands grew tighter against the back of his neck and Sonny whimpered, “No, Pa, don’t.”
But Emmett didn’t throw him over. Instead, he slowly brought Sonny’s head down until their faces were two inches apart, and he reached up and kissed Sonny full on the mouth. Sonny struggled, but Emmett held him fast.
When Emmett let him go, Sonny scuttled back away from his father, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You crazy son of a bitch!” Sonny screamed. “I’ll kill you, you bastard! I will kill you!” But rather than move toward his father, he crawled farther back until he was against the rocks on the far side of the trail.
Emmett stared at his son for a long moment. His gaze pinned Sonny to the dirt where the boy sat. “No, son,” he said in a hollow voice, “You won’t kill me. I’ll not let you do that.” Then without taking his eyes from his son, Emmett rolled himself over the cliff and in silence fell to the rocks below.
Sonny stared in disbelief at the spot where his father had been. He could still feel the strength of Emmett’s hands on his neck and the pressure of Emmett’s lips against his own.
His heart hammered into the walls of his chest. His knees were oozy and soft. He wondered if they would hold him as he struggled to his feet. When he was sure of his footing, he walked to the edge of the cliff and peered over. Emmett lay crumpled fifty feet below, not moving, and obviously dead.
Sonny was trying to sort out what had happened when he heard the buzzing of a fly. At least that was what his cloudy mind first told him it was: a huge, angry fly. But that didn’t make sense, did it? He forced himself to listen with a more rational ear, and he realized it was not an insect at all. He had no idea what it was, but whatever it was, it was no fly.
He mounted his sorrel, rode the hundred feet to where the trail curved around, and he saw. A half-mile down and headed his way was Micah McConners. Next to him on his noisy two-wheeled machine was Dr. Hedstrom. There was no sign of the sheriff, but that didn’t surprise Sonny. Brad Collins was a coward, and Sonny figured the sight of Hank’s face in little chunks all over the floor was more than enough to send the sheriff packing.
Sonny had hoped for more time, but a man had to take things as they came. He wheeled his horse, gave him his heel, and took off for home at a gallop.