Chapter 8

The sound of hoof beats on the road outside his window startled Shane from his thoughts. He rose and parted the curtains a crack so that he could see outside.
The horseman was a wild-looking man, dusty from the trail, with a revolver worn prominently in a shoulder holster and a pair of knives strapped across his back.
He was the fifth bounty hunter to have arrived in Wainsford in the last couple of days, and Shane did not think that he would be the last. Word had gotten out that Hunte was in town and now bounty hunters from all across America were flocking in, each one vying to be the man who killed Hunte.
Marshal Fletcher had stopped greeting them as he had greeted Shane and now just watched from the jailhouse porch. He was outnumbered and outgunned and praying that the federal marshals would arrive soon.
Shane withdrew from the window and let the curtains fall back into place, dimming the light. It was hot and stuffy in his hotel room and Shane’s naked body was greased with sweat. He crossed to where he had laid his guns out on the floor and sat down, cross-legged in front of them.
Both were Colt 1873 Single Action .45 calibre revolvers. A lot of people criticised the Colts but Shane had always preferred them over competing manufacturers because they were finely balanced and leant themselves easily to the kind of fast handling that he preferred.
Some gunfighters chose to personalise their weapons with ivory or solid silver handles, or with stylised engravings on the frame and barrel, but Shane disliked such affectations. A gun was a tool, not an ornament. The only modification that he had made to his guns was to have the barrel of one of them shortened from seven and a half inches to just five inches long. This made it faster and easier to draw and it was this gun that he fired with his right hand, for while Shane could shoot accurately with both hands he was marginally better with his right.
He had arranged both guns on the floor before him pointing outwards. Both had been cleaned and oiled reverently and the blackened metal gleamed in the dusky light. Their scent, acrid and sharp, reminded him of the smell that lingered after sex. It was perversely erotic.
Both guns were fully loaded and the hammers cocked. Danger radiated from them. A slight knock was all that it would take to set them off. A door could be slammed in another part of the hotel and the vibration might cause the hammer to fall, discharging one of the powerful .45 Long cartridges. Capable of penetrating through as much as four inches of solid timber, the result of being on the receiving end of one of those bullets was likely to be fatal and as Shane sat there, meditating on his weapons, he fancied that they wanted to be fired, that they wanted to kill and that, while he was a necessary medium by which they could achieve that desire, they would gladly kill him if there was no one else around.
The idea that his guns could think and that they had desires of their own was nothing new to Shane. He had often thought as much. During the long times that he spent alone, travelling across the country he had formulated quite a complex mythology for them.
A gun existed solely to kill. Unlike a knife that could be used for a variety of purposes, a gun was singular in its design. It was good for nothing else. Shane had admired that simplicity ever since he was a boy. He had been envious of it. Human life was so full of questions and uncertainties, so bewildering in comparison that the world of the gun had seemed seductively well-ordered to him, and he had sought to emulate it in his own way of life. He had many times sought to find solace in them as he did now, meditating on them and seeking to perfect his state of mind and be more like them, to eliminate doubt and focus purely on the task at hand.
This time, however, the clarity that he sought kept eluding him. He kept thinking back to that night at the Babson ranch. Each time, he vividly recalled the look of surprise on the woman’s face, the splash of wet blood.
What was more, he kept thinking about how he had not felt in control of himself at that time but rather as if some other mind was working him while he had been just a spectator. He stared at his guns, his body sheathed in perspiration, and wondered if he was going crazy.
Outside, the bounty hunters were gathering and Shane knew that he was wasting time. The more bounty hunters that arrived in town, the more competition he would have to contend with, and yet he felt unmotivated to do anything about it. He sat in his room, plagued with strange doubts and staring at his guns.
And trying to deny something that he knew in his heart was true.

He blinked and came out of his reverie as if waking from a dream. The contestants were gathering again. It was time for the next match.
‘Half-past one, Shane. Not long for you now.’ Buchanan told him. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’
Shane said nothing. He had tried not to think about the passage of time and how it was steadily running out on him. Only two more bouts remained after this one and then it would be his turn. Four hours in total before he stood on the crossroads and held a gun for the first time in six years. The prospect filled him with a confusing mixture of emotions: part dread, part excitement.
Right now, the present match belonged to Kip Kutcher and Tom Freeman. On the opposite side of the street from Shane, Kutcher was counting out six bullets into his palm. He held them out to his girlfriend. ‘Blow on them,’ he said.
The girl was puzzled. ‘What?’
‘For luck,’ he explained. ‘Like when gamblers shoot dice.’
She smiled to herself and indulged him, blowing gently. Kutcher slotted the bullets one by one into the chambers of his Colt 1873 Peacemaker. He was trembling with nervous energy, not frightened but invigorated. His eyes were wild.
He got up and sprang down off the boardwalk with a lightness in his step. Tom Freeman stood lounging against the hitching post outside of O’Malley’s, waiting for him. He was a handsome black man with closely-cropped hair and a muscular physique. He wore his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and was smoking a cigar.
Kutcher grinned at him. ‘I promise I’ll make this quick.’
‘You’d better hope you can shoot your guns as fast as you shoot your mouth.’ Freeman replied.
‘My friend, I can talk so fast that I can be running six conversations all at the same time, but my hands, well they move even faster than that.’ Kutcher boasted. To demonstrate, he waved his hands rapidly in the air as if drawing imaginary guns, moving them at such a whirling speed that they became a blur. Freeman was unimpressed. He stubbed out his cigar on the hitching post, checked his heavy Schofield revolver, and followed Kutcher out onto the crossroads.
Kutcher took the north and Freeman took the south, facing off to each other. Kutcher waggled his fingers to get the blood flowing while Freeman stretched out the tension in his neck, turning it first to one side and then the other, his bones popping audibly.
Nathaniel rose to his feet on the porch of the Grande and called for them to make ready.
The two fighters tensed and the street became deathly silent.
The moment stretched.
And then Nathaniel called it.
In an instant, both fighters drew. Kutcher’s hands once again became a blur as he slapped the hammer back with one and then drew with the other.
In the very next instant, the .44 calibre bullet fired from Tom Freeman’s Schofield revolver smashed through Kutcher’s ribs like they were made of glass.
It was followed by another and another, and Kutcher fell to his knees. His eyes were wide with shock and he did not appear to be able to make sense of what had happened to him. He looked down at himself in bewilderment, saw the blood that stained his shirt and reached out with a shaking hand to touch it. Finally realising what had happened to him, he gave a small cry of alarm. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth and ran down his chin.
Freeman calmly walked the distance that separated them and shot Kutcher through the elbow, causing him to drop his gun. Kutcher opened his mouth to scream but was silenced as Freeman suddenly thrust the barrel of his revolver into his mouth. He used it to turn Kutcher’s head until they were looking eye-to-eye. ‘Looks like your hands aren’t as fast as your mouth, son.’
He glanced sideways to where Kutcher’s girlfriend stood. She watched helplessly, her hands tightly clenched, not making a sound. A girl like her had seen plenty of men die.
Kutcher tried to call out to her but gagged on the revolver in his mouth. He choked, spitting up blood that landed on Freeman’s boots.
Tom Freeman stared at him in disgust. ‘She’s a pretty girl,’ he said quietly. ‘What was it, you think, that attracted her to a nobody like you? Was it your pretty-boy face or your smart mouth?’
Tears began to roll down Kutcher’s cheeks. Freeman exaggeratedly cupped a hand to his ear as if waiting for his answer. Seconds passed. Kutcher slipped in and out of consciousness.
Hearing no answer, Freeman gave a shrug. ‘Guess it couldn’t have been your smart mouth then,’ he said. He tilted his gun sharply, so that it was aimed straight up through the roof of Kutcher’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out loud and was followed afterwards by a long silence, broken by the heavy thump as Kutcher’s faceless body toppled over into the dirt. Tom Freeman wiped the blood from his hands and from the barrel of his gun and strode casually away. He tipped his hat to Kutcher’s girlfriend as he passed her.
The girl barely seemed to notice him. Her face was blank, drained equally of both colour and expression. She looked as if she was having difficulty coming to terms with what had just happened. Her eyes began to shine with tears as the shock subsided, but she admirably held on to her composure. When the invigilators came to drag Kutcher’s body away, she stepped down off the boardwalk and quietly followed them.
Shane did not expect that she would survive much longer. Covenant had a way of dealing with its unwelcome guests and now that Kutcher was dead the girl had no further excuse for being there. The town would swallow her up and nobody would miss her.
A part of him wondered if maybe he should feel sorry for her, but he had problems enough of his own and none of his pity to spare.
Only two more bouts remained and then it would be his turn on the crossroads.
The next hour passed quickly and it was not long before another pair of gunfighters stepped out to face each other. This time, the fight was between Evan Drager and John MacMurray.
Evan Drager was a freak of a man. Shot in the head five years ago, his injury had left him with a large star-shaped scar that covered the left-hand side of his forehead, leaving him partially bald. All of the muscles along the left-hand side of his face had been paralysed by the injury and it was only the right-hand side that showed any expression; the left remained slack.
‘This could be interesting.’ Buchanan commented. Like Shane, he had never actually seen Drager fight, although he had heard the rumours. In the days before his injury, Drager had been a man of little repute, a brawler, a cattle rustler and a small-time crook. He had picked a fight with the wrong man coming out of a saloon in Dodge City and the rest was history. It was a .45 calibre bullet that had split his skull and it was nothing short of a miracle that he had survived. The bullet had penetrated his skull and lodged itself deep within his brain, where it still remained, completely beyond the reach of any doctor.
A kindly Samaritan had taken him in and nursed him during the long month that he had lain in a coma. He had been a changed man when he had woken. Drager claimed that the bullet had spoken to him while he had been unconscious. It had shown him visions of a future in which terrible wars inflamed the whole world, spawning guns of such awesome power that they could annihilate whole cities. The bullet had told him that he must prepare for this coming age and, to help him in his mission, it had promised him that no shot he fired would ever miss.
He had since developed into a formidable gunfighter and his reputation, coupled with his feverish charisma, had attracted a small cult following who had sprung him out of jail some nine months ago.
Old-hand gunfighters like Shane and Buchanan were sceptical of his claims and the Fastest Guns themselves had yet to formally accept him but, nevertheless, there were few who could say that there was not something special about him.
His opponent was the ‘The Christian’, John MacMurray. He was a stocky man with a wrinkled, pig-like face and a humourless attitude. As Shane watched him, he pinched his nose with one hand and blew out one nostril and then the other, clearing them messily before wiping his hands off on his dusty pants.
Drager faced him with his hands gently clasped before his waist, radiating an air of ministerial calm. He looked like a preacher about to deliver a sermon.
‘No way is he the new Jacob Priestley.’ Buchanan said dismissively. ‘I don’t care what anybody says. I wouldn’t follow him.’
Shane said nothing. He was keeping his own opinions to himself. He looked across to where Nathaniel stood, Whisperer present by his side as usual. Nathaniel called for the two men to make ready and they both tensed.
At Nathaniel’s signal they both drew. Their hands moved so quickly that it was hard to see who fired first. MacMurray went down, hissing through clenched teeth as Drager’s shot punched a hole in his chest. At the same time, his own shot ripped into Drager’s left thigh. The specially-cut bullet deformed instantly, mushrooming in size to almost twice its original width. Blood splashed across the hot sand.
MacMurray was mortally injured but still alive. Tottering on his remaining good leg, Drager fired a blaze of shots that hammered deep into MacMurray’s torso, denying him the chance to fire a second shot in return, firing again and again until MacMurray pitched over backwards and fell dead. Only then did Drager lower his smoking gun and limp painfully to the side of the road.
Shane turned and looked meaningfully at Buchanan, who merely shrugged. ‘I still ain’t following him if he is,’ he muttered.