46

Fargo rammed his shoulder into Semple’s chest, knocking Semple off his feet. In the same motion he swept Semple toward the sound of Hoby’s voice. He felt the jolt of impact and Hoby squawked, and all three of them were down and in a tangle.

The grip on Fargo’s neck slackened. Smashing his fist against Semple’s forearm, Fargo broke free and rolled.

“Shoot him!” Semple bawled.

Not sure where Hoby was, and expecting to feel the searing impact of hot lead, Fargo lunged to his feet and ran.

“Get off me, damn you!” Hoby Cotton yelled.

Fargo went another dozen steps and flattened. Twisting his head, he could just make out the rising forms of the Cottons.

“He’s gone, thanks to you,” Hoby was saying. “I couldn’t get a shot.”

“Do we go after him?”

“In the dark?” Hoby replied. “Use your head and stay close.”

They sprinted off.

Fargo didn’t move. It might be another trick. Not until the drum of heavy hooves told him the Cottons were apparently skedaddling.

Rising, Fargo crept forward until he spied the bulk of the dead horse. “Coltraine?” he whispered.

There was no answer.

Fargo moved closer.

The lawman lay on his side with one arm bent unnaturally under him and his leg under the bay. His hat was missing and his holster was empty.

“Coltraine?” Fargo said again, and touched the lawman’s shoulder.

Luther Coltraine opened his eyes and seemed to try to focus. “Fargo? That you? Did you get them?”

“They got away.” Fargo saw that the front of the marshal’s shirt was a lot darker than it should be. Blood, and a lot of it.

Coltraine coughed and dark specks flecked his lips and chin. “That’s a shame. I hate to die with him still on the loose.”

“He won’t be for long,” Fargo vowed.

Coltraine looked down at himself. “Part of me didn’t think he’d do it. Not really. But he up and shot me with no more regret than if I was a fly.”

Fargo remembered the bank teller and Rufus and all the others he had heard about. “The boy is a natural-born killer.”

“How he could be mine, I’ll never know,” Coltraine said. “Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t me who sired him. If maybe she slept with someone else besides me.”

Fargo hadn’t thought of that. “Could be,” he acknowledged.

“He’s done me in,” Coltraine said, and coughed some more.

“Anything I can do for you?”

“Don’t go yet.”

“I’ll stay until . . .” Fargo didn’t finish.

Coltraine gazed about them even though there was nothing to see. “Never reckoned it would be like this. By my own son, no less, if his ma’s to be believed.” He sighed. “Our pokes come back to haunt us when we least expect.”

Fargo hoped not.

Coltraine bowed his head, and then said quietly, “I couldn’t, when it came down to it.”

“How’s that again?”

“I couldn’t shoot. I had my six-shooter out and pointin’ right at him when he walked up but I couldn’t squeeze the trigger. And do you know what he did? He laughed and kicked it out of my hand.”

“He’s lived too long,” Fargo said. A strange thing to say about someone who hadn’t seen eighteen summers.

“Did I ever tell you that Amanda is a she-cat under the sheet?”

“How did we get from him to her?”

“I don’t want to die with him in my head.” Coltraine sank back and closed his eyes. “It won’t be long.”

The wind picked up and stirred the dead horse’s mane.

“I used to be one of the best lawmen around,” Coltraine said wistfully. “Before that boy came along. Before he made my life hell.”

Fargo realized he still held his Colt and holstered it.

“Funny thing is, there’s not any pain. A slug in my chest and my leg half crushed and I don’t feel much. How can that be?”

“You’re lucky.”

“You call this luck?” Coltraine said, and started to laugh but broke into another coughing fit. “I am bound for hell and that’s for sure.”

“If I had whiskey I’d offer you some.”

“My saddlebag,” Coltraine said. “There’s a flask.”

Fargo found it, a silver flask half-full. He opened it and pressed it to the lawman’s good hand.

“I’m obliged.” Coltraine swallowed and said, “Ahhh.”

“Any kin you want to be told?” Fargo thought to ask.

“I wish there were. The only kin I have left in this world is that boy.” Coltraine’s mouth curled in a grim smile filled with blood. “Ain’t that a hoot?”

“I’ll give him your regards if I’m able when I do him in.”

“You do that. You tell him that his pa . . .” Coltraine stopped and the flask fell from fingers gone limp and his chest deflated.

“Hell,” Fargo said.