Chapter 10
Nathaniel sat on the front porch of the Grande,
flanked by his two bodyguards and smoking a cigar. As ever,
Whisperer lurked behind him, keeping to the shade and regarding
everything with a look of supercilious calm.
As Buchanan crossed the street to join them, he mentally suppressed
his hatred of them both. For the time being, he needed
them.
‘Well, Buchanan?’ Nathaniel called out to him. ‘How have you been
enjoying the show so far?’
‘It’s okay. Have you noticed how it’s only the fighters I picked
who’ve gone through to the next round?’
Nathaniel’s smile was replaced with a frown. ‘That’s not entirely
true. The woman, Vendetta, made it through. And Chastity of
course.’
‘Vendetta don’t count; Ferris was one of yours as well. And I never
said Chastity couldn’t beat Cadero. I only said she won’t beat
Shane.’
‘And your predictions for Shane?’
Buchanan smiled. ‘The same as before. He’s going to win this
tournament.’
One of Nathaniel’s bodyguards laughed at him. Buchanan shot him a
withering stare and the man instantly fell silent.
‘You’re confident that Mister Ennis will shoot then? Yesterday when
we spoke, he seemed quite adamant that he would rather die,’
Nathaniel said.
‘You underestimate him. He wants this almost as much as I
do.’
‘He hides it well.’ Nathaniel observed, glancing over to where
Shane sat, staring gloomily into the distance.
‘He always did.’ Buchanan replied. He climbed the steps and joined
Nathaniel on the porch. ‘How are we doing?’ he asked
quietly.
Nathaniel twisted about and gave Whisperer a querying look.
Obediently, the tall man closed his eyes. There was a moment in
which his expression became distant. ‘We have their attention,’ he
said at last.
‘They’re watching? Now?’ Buchanan eagerly glanced around him,
looking at the empty windows and doorways that lined the street,
hoping to see something. Whisperer laughed at him.
‘They are close, but not that close.’
The mocking tone of his voice raised Buchanan’s temper. He started
forward, his good hand tightening into a fist. The two bodyguards
moved to bar his path.
‘Calm yourself, Buchanan.’ Nathaniel snapped. ‘Whisperer is
correct. It is too early for you to see them. Be patient. They will
come to us in time.’
‘They had better.’ Buchanan snarled. He was tired of waiting. He
had waited six years already and now that his goal was at hand it
was frustrating to find it still just outside of his reach. He
breathed deeply, fighting against the rage that swelled up inside
of him. Slowly, he brought it under his control.
‘You cannot rush the occult.’ Nathaniel told him. ‘Why don’t you
take Mister Ennis’ gun back to him? Let that amuse you for a
while.’
Buchanan grinned, his anger forgotten. Taunting Shane would be fun.
He was looking forward to seeing the expression on his face when he
showed him his surprise.
Shane discretely watched them talking from
across the street. The conversation ended and Buchanan went into
the Grande. Nathaniel said something to Whisperer and the tall man
nodded in agreement.
Shane would have liked to have known what they had talked about.
There were certain things about the tournament that didn’t add up,
and either he didn’t know as much as he thought he did or else
there was something strange going on.
It wasn’t that he particularly cared. He did not expect to survive
his fight with Devlin and looked no further into his future than
the twenty minutes he believed he had left. If Nathaniel was up to
something then it could hardly affect him but, still, he was
curious. If Nathaniel really was fucking with the Fastest Guns then
he was playing with fire and likely to get burned.
All along the street, contestants who had wandered away to pass the
hour alone were returning. It wouldn’t be long now, Shane told
himself.
He thought back to that night at the Babson ranch and recalled how
it had felt when he had shot the woman and her child. It hadn’t
been the first time that he had shot someone without really wanting
to but it was the first time that he had actually been aware of it.
There were men – women, even – that he had callously shot out of
hand and never stopped to ask himself why. He had done that for
years and had just always assumed he’d had a reason.
Shooting the child had been different. He had been unable to
justify it, not by any standard, and it had opened his
eyes.
It was said among the Fastest Guns that beyond skill there is
mastery.
But Shane had wondered, if that is the case, then who is the master
and who is the tool?
He had not liked the answer.
Buchanan returned bearing a mahogany box and a
gunbelt, which he gave Shane to put on. Shane did not argue. He
fastened the gunbelt and adjusted it until he was satisfied. The
feel of it was natural, as if a piece of his body had been missing
for a long time and he had only now discovered what it
was.
Buchanan held out the box. It was fancier than it needed to be. Its
surface had been lacquered and buffed to a shine and it was inlaid
with brass catches. ‘Open it,’ he said.
Shane was afraid to touch it.
‘Open it.’ Buchanan repeated, and this time the command was
reinforced by Shane’s jailer, who drew a revolver and cocked it in
his direction.
Nervously, Shane reached out and released the brass catches. His
fingertips were electric as he opened the lid and exposed the gun
inside.
It was a Colt 1873 Single Action .45 calibre revolver. Not a new
weapon as Shane had expected; its frame was scratched from years of
use. It had been customised: the barrel was a couple of inches
shorter than the factory model. Shane remembered paying a gunsmith
to have it done.
It was his gun, the self-same weapon with which he had destroyed
Buchanan’s right hand. The gun he had thrown away at Santa
Morgana.
‘You wouldn’t believe how many people I had to kill to get hold of
that gun.’ Buchanan told him. ‘It was about a year after you shot
me that I decided I wanted it. I rode back to Santa Morgana but by
then it had moved on. One of the miners had taken it with him to
Nevada, lost it in a game of poker there. Word had gotten out that
it used to belong to you and it was sold to a collector. A powerful
man, with protection. Not very good protection it turned out, or at
least, not as good as me.’
Shane stared at the gun. He was sure it was not just his
imagination that made him think it was staring back at
him.
‘I’d got it into my head that I wanted to kill you with your own
gun.’ Buchanan continued. ‘I liked the idea of it. I was going to
start with your hands and feet and work inwards, one shot at a
time. Then I met up with Nathaniel and, well, everything just
seemed to fall into place.’
‘Destiny.’ Shane said.
‘What can I say; the two of you were meant to be
together.’
The gun had been lovingly cleaned and oiled. Shane could tell that
it had seen some neglect since he had abandoned it, but Buchanan
had restored it. The gun lay nestled on a velvet cushion, the metal
gleaming in the afternoon light. It was beautiful and Shane hated
it.
Nervously, he reached out to touch it, running his fingers along
its barrel and tracing the contours of its cylinder, the loop of
the trigger guard. As soon as he touched it, he felt it in his
mind. He recoiled as if stung.
Buchanan laughed. ‘You’re going to have to get better acquainted
than that, Shane. Go on,’ he said. ‘Take it. You know you want
to.’
He was right; Shane did want to. It called to him and he touched it
again, stroking his fingers along it before taking it into his
palm. It felt so perfect in his hand that his fear was momentarily
forgotten. Then he remembered himself and cursed himself for a
whore. After six years of abstinence it had taken only a few
seconds for the gun to become a part of him again.
Now he wanted to shoot with it.
He held it up for inspection, checking that the barrel was clear
and the mechanism smooth and professional. Buchanan had taken good
care of it.
It was not loaded however.
‘Patience, Shane.’ Buchanan chided. He dug around in his pocket and
produced a single .45 Long cartridge. Holding it out, he teased
Shane by refusing to give it to him, only dropping it into his palm
when the game grew tiresome.
‘You’ll understand if I only give you one.’ Buchanan said. ‘But I
wouldn’t want you to get carried away. Can’t have you doing a
Priestley, now can I?’
Shane wasn’t listening. He took the cartridge and inserted it into
the Colt’s side loading gate, then spun the barrel until the loaded
chamber was under the firing pin. It was all exactly as he
remembered it, as familiar as the day he had thrown the gun
away.
‘Knock him dead,’ Buchanan whispered excitedly.
Shane stepped onto the crossroads on legs that felt stiff and
wooden and not his own. It was like being in a daze. The gun was
not yet in control of him. In fact, he barely felt its presence at
all. He was simply numb.
He could not believe that it was all really happening. Everything
had acquired a dreamlike quality and he felt as if he would awaken
at any moment to find that everything that had happened to him in
the last few years was only a nightmare. He imagined he would wake
up and find himself at Santa Morgana and he fervently wished it was
true. But in his heart he knew better. This nightmare was his
reality.
And his time had just run out.
John Devlin was waiting for him. He was like a younger, paler, more
fanatical mirror-image of Shane. They could have been father and
son they were so alike. Devlin was only twenty-two years old. He
was tall and willow-thin, with a pale complexion made whiter in
contrast by the black clothes that he wore. His straight black hair
fell halfway down to the small of his back and was held in place by
a small black ribbon, tied in a bow. He could not quite master the
same expressionless gaze as Shane, but his stare was bleak and if
his eyes were the window to his soul then his soul was a maelstrom
of screaming torment and pain.
Devlin was a maniac. He had once shot up a schoolroom in Ohio in an
attempt to emulate Jacob Priestley’s rampage in Covenant, killed
more than a dozen young children and their teacher, then gunned
down half the posse they had sent to catch him. He had twice been
sentenced to hang and twice had escaped from the gallows, once so
closely that he still had a rope scar on his neck. All of this he
bore with pride, believing that it made him special somehow, better
than the rest of the world which had so wisely chosen to shun
him.
Shane found his mark opposite him and looked down at the blood that
stained the dirt. He wondered if his own would shortly mix with it.
The crossroads seemed vast and open, the sky above him almost
impossibly broad. Shane felt open and exposed, conscious of the
people that were watching him. Nathaniel reclined lazily on the
edge of the porch, a half-smile on his lips. Whisperer, behind him,
his expression oddly knowing but otherwise unreadable. Buchanan,
his eyes throwing off sparks he was so excited.
The invigilators were curious, the contestants wary. Shane noticed
that Kip Kutcher’s girlfriend had come back to the street and was
watching him. She, like all the others, was wondering if the
stories about him were true. Had he really lost his edge? Was he a
coward like everybody said he was? And if so, would John Devlin
kill him now?
Shane really didn’t care what they thought. To be honest, he didn’t
much care about anything any more. He felt drained of all emotion,
used up and desiccated by the burning heat.
Devlin stared at him and Shane stared back.
He heard the floorboards of the porch creak as Nathaniel rose from
his chair, that telltale signal that preceded the call and, in that
moment, Shane’s entire future condensed into a handful of seconds.
In those brief moments of time, his mind raced.
He had not yet decided for certain what he would do, whether he
would shoot Devlin or simply let himself die. Whatever he chose,
the end result would be the same. The Fastest Guns had taken hold
of his soul and they would claim him one way or another, dead or
alive. His only real option was whether to give himself up to them
willingly or fight them every step of the way.
Nathaniel’s voice broke his train of thought. ‘Gentlemen,’ he
called. ‘The time has come. You may fire when ready.’
Devlin drew and Shane’s decision was made for him.
It was over before he knew what was happening.
Seconds later, staring down the barrel of his gun as Devlin fell,
he realised he had drawn and fired.
A numbness filled his soul. He could sense the gun’s exaltation
raging through him and felt its triumph. But, mercifully, that
triumph did not last long. The gun had been loaded with only a
single bullet and it was impotent now that it was empty. Its silent
scream of rage went ignored as Shane slowly lowered it and took a
deep breath. He felt his chest expand, filling with air, the
sensation real and grounding.
Out of the corner of his eye he was aware that Buchanan was
approaching him, but he did not care. He had survived. His mind was
still his own. For six years he had feared shooting a gun, dreading
that it would consume him in one gulp. He had let that fear grow
inside of him like a cancer until it had seemed that there was
nothing else.
He felt empty now, burned out and hollowed. But like a forest that
had been razed by fire, new shoots were beginning to
sprout.
Buchanan came up beside him. ‘Good to see you haven’t lost your
touch.’
Shane turned and hit him. The punch caught him across the jaw and
Buchanan was knocked to the ground. Immediately, half a dozen
rifles were aimed at Shane. The ratchet of their lever-actions
echoed across the street as the invigilators readied themselves to
fire. Shane slowly backed away and held up his hands to show that
he wanted no more trouble. He tossed his revolver aside.
Buchanan stared up at him from the ground, his eyes wide. Shane
said nothing. He had no need to; his eyes said it all. They were
cold and desolate as the void and, staring into them, Buchanan was
rendered speechless. He waved his hand slowly and indicated for the
invigilators to stand down. They complied and Shane turned abruptly
on the spot and walked away. He stalked back to the courthouse and
went inside, where he went straight to his cell and slammed the
door behind him.
Still lying in the dirt, Buchanan rubbed his aching jaw. ‘Welcome
back, Shane,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time.’
There was a gathering at O’Malley’s that night.
Buchanan came to collect Shane a little before sundown and they
crossed the street in silence.
Shane felt as if something had changed inside of him. Killing
Devlin had been like a splash of cold water and it was as if he had
woken from a deep sleep. The last six years felt like a bad dream.
There was a sureness in his step and he walked with his head held
high.
When they came to the saloon doors, Buchanan paused to let Shane go
first. He strode in, ignoring the faces that turned to stare at
him, and crossed straight to the bar; where he grabbed himself a
bottle and a glass and moved on to find himself a table. This time,
Buchanan let him go and did not move to join him.
Shane pulled up a seat alone with his back to the wall and pushed
another chair out in front of him on which he propped his feet. He
poured himself a drink and leaned back and studied the contestants
who had made it into the next round.
They were all present, all except Chastity, and each sat with
several tables between them and their nearest neighbour, filling
the saloon even though there were only a handful of them. They were
watched over by Nathaniel’s invigilators and the atmosphere was
tense. Nobody spoke.
Several of the windows had been opened but inside it was still hot
as Hell. Tobacco smoke drifted, mixing with the smell of liquor and
sweat and the underlying scent of gunsmoke, mould and dry
wood.
The woman, Vendetta, sat where she had sat the night before, one
foot resting on the seat of her chair. Her hat had a noticeable
hole in its crown. Evan Drager stretched his injured leg out in
front of him. The Apache, Nanache, had a fresh finger bone hanging
from his necklace.
Shane noticed that Kip Kutcher’s girlfriend, Madison, had come
along. She sat way back in the shadows and looked to be keeping out
of Tom Freeman’s way. Freeman, for his part, seemed uninterested in
her. He sat with his back to the wall and was watching the other
contestants discreetly, sizing them up.
The chalkboard on which Whisperer had scratched up everybody’s name
stood propped against the wall as it had been last night. The names
of the dead had been scratched off and from the empty spaces
chalked up to the right of every match it was easy to deduce the
pairings for the second round. The winner of the first match would
face the winner of the second; the winner of the third would face
the winner of the fourth, and so on. Matt Nesbitt was drinking
heavily because of this, for his next opponent would be Chastity
and he knew that he did not stand a chance.
Shane’s next fight would be against Valentino Rodrigues, the man
who had killed the Gentleman. He would be a more difficult opponent
than John Devlin had been but Shane was confident he would win.
Shane drained his glass and poured himself another.
The doors opened and Nathaniel’s bodyguards entered, followed by
the man himself, with Whisperer close behind. He was full of praise
for the contestants. ‘I salute you all,’ he said. ‘Today’s round
separated the wheat from the chaff. You have each of you shown the
speed and the skill worthy of a true gunfighter. But that is not
enough. Tomorrow we will divide you still.’
Whisperer walked past him and began chalking up the names on the
board, confirming what everybody had already deduced about the
second round’s pairings.
‘The first two matches tomorrow morning will take place at ten and
eleven on the hour. Matt Nesbitt and Chastity to begin, followed by
Vendetta and Nanache. The second two matches will be fought in the
afternoon at one and two respectively. The pairings are . .
.’
Shane had stopped listening. He had noticed that once again
Nathaniel had avoided the Gunfighter’s Hour of twelve noon. He
wondered why.
‘Those of you who succeed tomorrow,’ Nathaniel continued. ‘Will
earn the chance to further distinguish yourselves in the
semi-final. Those of you who do not will die as unremarkably as
those who failed today. May the best of you prevail.’
He walked over and joined Buchanan at the bar. With the business of
the meeting concluded, many of the contestants began to leave. Matt
Nesbitt stayed where he was. Sullenly, he filled his glass back up
to the brim and sat there staring at it.
Somebody walked over to Shane’s table. It was Nanache. ‘You shot
well today,’ he said.
Shane smiled wryly to himself. ‘You want to add my fingers to your
collection?’
‘If I could do that, I would not need my collection,’ the Apache
said. He sat down opposite Shane. ‘You could have competed here
before. I would like to know why you refused.’
‘And I’d like to know why you’re talking to me. I thought you hated
white men.’
‘That is true, but you are no man.’ Nanache replied. ‘You are like
he is,’ he said, and he nodded toward Whisperer.
Despite the heat, Shane suddenly felt cold. ‘And what’s he?’ he
asked.
‘Devil-kind,’ Nanache replied. The word was familiar to Shane. ‘No
longer of this world, not yet of the next.’
After all of the others had gone the only two
people left in O’Malley’s were Matt Nesbitt and the girl, Madison.
Both sat alone and in silence. Shane had been taken back to his
cell, Nathaniel had returned to the Grande and the invigilators had
gone back to their patrols.
The saloon lay mostly in darkness. A few lanterns burned, offering
a dim source of light in places, but in others the shadows were
deep. The place felt empty.
Nesbitt stared at his glassful of whisky. He had not touched it in
more than half-an-hour, but simply sat and stared and thought about
what would happen to him tomorrow. He thought about the death of
Escoban Cadero and how the little girl, Chastity, had killed him
before he had even had chance to draw his gun.
Matt Nesbitt did not want to die.
He did not look up when the girl came over and sat opposite him.
For a long time they both sat in silence. Then the girl spoke. ‘Are
you going to drink that?’ she asked.
Nesbitt thought hard on it for a while then leaned back in his
chair and pushed the glass away. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll need a clear
head in the morning.’
The girl shrugged. She too had seen Chastity fight that morning and
understood what Nesbitt was up against. ‘You’ll need more than
that,’ she said doubtfully. She reached over and took his
glass.
‘Finish it.’ Nesbitt told her, leaving her the bottle. He kicked
back his chair and left the saloon.
Madison watched him go, wishing that he had stayed to keep her
company. She stared at the glass for a moment, then downed it in
one. The harsh liquor burned her throat but it felt good and she
poured herself another and downed that one too. She had spent a
good deal of her adult life in saloons and gambling dens and cheap
hotels and Madison could handle her drink better than some men she
knew. Kip had never been a very good drinker. After two shots the
alcohol would go straight to his head and he’d start singing. She
smiled. Kip had always got frisky when he was drunk and she
remembered him fondly.
She had never meant for him to die, not like this.
Her eyes began to water with fresh tears and she rubbed them
viciously. She did not want to cry any more. She had always thought
herself tougher than that. Angrily, she poured herself another
glass of whisky. She was clumsy and slopped a little bit onto the
table. Behind her, she thought she heard someone laugh.
She called out: ‘Is somebody there?’
The darkness swallowed up her voice, muffling it. Madison could not
see anybody else in the saloon with her but still she had a
creeping sensation that she was being watched. She began to get
uneasy and, snatching up the unfinished bottle, she hurried to the
doorway.
She reached it just as the town began its nightly chorus. The wood
beneath her feet groaned and the walls shuddered noisily. Madison
started and ran outside, jumping off the boardwalk onto firm
ground. All around her in every direction, every building was
making the same noise, wood popping and cracking as if the whole
town was about to fall down. She had heard it many times already
but still it made her nervous and she headed out into the middle of
the crossroads, where she thought she would be safe if anything did
collapse.
From where she stood, the sound was even more creepy. She listened
as it settled into rhythm, each individual building gradually
falling into time with its neighbours until the sound rolled in
towards her like a wave advancing up the shore, then turned and
rolled back out again towards the desert.
In and out.
In and out.
The timing was as consistent as the ticking of a metronome and it
moved through all four quarters of the town at the same pace. It
was far too regular to be natural. Madison did not understand what
caused it, but then there was a lot about Covenant she did not
understand and more besides that she wished she had never found out
about in the first place. Kip was dead and she wished that she had
never insisted that he come here. Again fighting the urge to cry,
she hurried down the street until she reached the house that she
and Kip had claimed as their own.
The house had once belonged to a family with a little girl. Madison
had found an old rag doll on the day they arrived and, though it
was a little dusty, she had adopted it for her own. It was perched
close to the bedroll that she and Kip had shared and she gathered
it into her arms as she sat and swigged straight from the bottle of
whisky.
Finally, she could hold off her sadness no longer and she broke
down and cried.
When the messenger had brought Kip his invitation to compete, Kip
had initially not wanted to attend. ‘It’ll just be a bunch of
psychos, Maddy. No fun at all.’ Madison had known that really he
was afraid that he would die, but that hadn’t bothered her at the
time. She had only known Kip a few weeks and while he was fun to be
with he was not as good a gunfighter as he liked to think he was,
and Madison liked gunfighters. Proper ones.
She had figured that if Kip took her to Covenant then she would be
able to replace him with somebody better, maybe even one of the
Fastest Guns. He was only supposed to have been a temporary thing,
a stepping stone. She had never expected to fall in love with
him.
She slugged miserably from the bottle and wiped her eyes with the
back of her sleeve. She had never felt so wretched before in all
her life and now she did not know what else to do with
herself.
As she drank, she failed to notice the figure who stepped silently
out of the darkness on the opposite side of the room. He was tall
and wore a long, leather coat and a hat whose brim was pulled down
low to cover his face in shadow. Pale, grey smoke rose from his
body, smelling strongly of fulminate.
Madison did not notice. She had her back to him and was too wrapped
up in her grief to hear him as he drew a long-barrelled revolver
and thumbed back the hammer.
‘Wait.’
A second figure emerged from the shadows next to the first and
closed a slender hand around his wrist, forcing him to lower his
aim.
The first turned to the newcomer, questioningly.
‘We have made an accord.’ The second whispered, his voice like
distant gunfire. ‘No one is to die. Yet,’ he added.
Unobserved, both figures melted back into the darkness.