Chapter 11
They were the six most powerful men in
Wainsford: a banker, traders, a rancher and two lawyers; the men
who ruled the town, who influenced, shaped it, milked and bled it
dry. They were the six members of the town council and Shane had
not been entirely surprised when they had asked to speak with him.
He only wondered that it had taken them so long.
‘It would only be a temporary arrangement, you
understand?’
Shane said nothing. The six men were all used to getting what they
wanted and it showed. All wore power suits, gold watches and
polished shoes. All, that was, except for the lawyer, Boyd, who did
not care what other people thought of him and wore an ill-fitting
suit, stained and mildewed, his hair unstyled, greasy and unkempt.
He smelled of stale sweat and tobacco and cheap gin.
The six men were confident, domineering, and Shane took great
pleasure in unnerving them with his dead-eyed stare until the point
that even Reynolds, the fat rancher, shifted uncomfortably on the
edge of his chair.
It was Boyd who was doing most of the talking. ‘You’ll be paid
five-hundred dollars,’ he said. ‘How you do it is up to you but we
want Fletcher out before the end of the week. This situation has
gone on quite long enough.’
Earlier that morning, as Shane and Buchanan had talked on the
boardwalk, the town council had gone to the jailhouse and formally
terminated Fletcher’s employment as town marshal. ‘You’ve been
neglecting your duties,’ Boyd had told him, speaking to the locked
jailhouse door. ‘This town is overrun and instead of protecting us
you’re holed up like a coward. This is unacceptable.’
Since only the town marshal was supposed to use the jailhouse, they
had demanded that Fletcher and his men vacate it immediately, to
which Fletcher had replied in no uncertain terms. After a lengthy
argument he had eventually flung his marshal’s badge out the window
and it now rested in the palm of Shane’s hand, where Boyd had put
it.
Shane did not know if the councilmen were just trying to preserve
their interests in the town or if somebody more powerful had wired
them before the telegraph lines had been cut, but they had not
hired him to get rid of the bounty hunters in town; they had asked
him to get rid of Fletcher, Ben and Alan Grant, and in so doing had
effectively given him a free hand to do what he liked with
Hunte.
Hunte’s name had not been mentioned once in all of the discussion
and it was clear that the councilmen wanted no complicity in
whatever became of him. If there were any repercussions for what
happened in town then Shane had no doubt that they would hang him
out to dry. He expected no less, but that didn’t mean he had to
play by their rules. ‘I want to be sworn in,’ he said. ‘In front of
witnesses. The hotel manager and his wife will do. And I want my
contract in writing.’
The banker, Patterson, was not keen. ‘I don’t think that’s
necessary,’ he said evasively.
‘Hunte’s wanted in front of a Congressional Committee. If he dies
because of this, I’m not having my head put on the
block.’
Boyd was slick. ‘We’ll swear you in,’ he agreed. ‘And have
everything done up in writing. Effective immediately, you will be
marshal.’
‘And I want a deputy.’ Shane said.
Boyd’s face twitched in irritation. ‘I’m not sure we can
find–’
‘I already have someone in mind.’
‘Fine.’ Patterson said. ‘Employ him. But you’ll have to pay him out
of your own pocket.’
‘Yes. About the money,’ Shane said, turning to face him with his
dead-eyed stare. ‘It’s not enough.’
In truth, the money was fine; Shane just enjoyed fucking with
them.
The tray scraped as it was pushed into his
cell, bringing with it the smell of greasy fried bacon and lukewarm
coffee. It was not Buchanan who delivered it but one of the
invigilators instead, a solemn-looking man in his early-thirties
who left without saying a word.
Shane rose from his bunk and rubbed his head with his palms. He
felt different this morning. Perhaps it was just that he had slept
well for the first time in six years, but he felt clear-headed and
composed. What was more, he had an appetite and wolfed down his
breakfast, mopping up the last drips of fat with a crust of bread.
He paced over to the window when he was finished and looked out,
angling himself so that he could see to the end of the alley and
look onto West Street and the crooked walls of the Grande hotel.
The sun beat down on another hot and dry morning with scarcely a
cloud in the sky to offer any shade. A pair of invigilators walked
by.
It was all exactly as it had been the day before, only this time
Shane saw it with different eyes. It was as if he had been seeing
in black and white and now the colours were back again. Details
that he had only half-noticed the day before now caught his eye:
the way one of the two invigilators favoured his right leg over his
left; the tilt of the third step that led up to the Grande’s porch,
which was more precarious than the rest. Little details that were
insignificant on their own but which added up to make a larger
picture.
A picture that became a map or a diagram that went some way towards
forming a plan of escape.
Shane stepped back into the shade. He had been thinking a lot about
the newspaper that Buchanan had brought him yesterday, about how
the world outside of Covenant thought he was dead. Before
yesterday, Shane had been convinced that he had nothing worth
living for. Now he knew better. Outside of Covenant he was a free
man, free to stop running and free to start over again. If anybody
ever said that he looked like Shane Ennis he could laugh and remind
them that Shane Ennis was dead, he just had the misfortune to be a
man who looked like him. His name . . . his name could be whatever
he wanted it to be.
Shane Ennis was dead.
All he had to do was escape from Covenant.
He turned as the door to the sheriff’s office creaked open and
Castor Buchanan strode in. ‘Well, something’s got you looking
sparky!’
Shane did not answer him but waited sullenly while he unlocked the
door to his cell.
‘Come on, out you come. Round two, Shane. Time to show us what
you’re really capable of.’
As Shane stepped out of his cell he deliberately dropped his
shoulder into Buchanan’s chest, driving the wind from his lungs.
Buchanan was pushed sideways. A second later, his temper exploded
and he hit Shane like a cannonball. His arm came up across Shane’s
throat and drove him hard against the bars of his cell, pinning him
there and choking him. Buchanan pressed his face close, eye-to-eye,
the light of his madness glittering like sparks from a tinder
box.
‘I let you get that shot in yesterday,’ he snarled. ‘But don’t
think you’re so fucking important to what we’re doing here that I
won’t lay you out if you fuck with me again.’
He pulled his arm away and Shane dropped to his knees, gagging for
breath.
‘There’s plenty of ways I can hurt you and still leave you well
enough to compete.’ Buchanan said. ‘Just remember that.’ He hauled
Shane up and propelled him towards the door. Shane staggered where
he was flung, colliding bodily against the wall. He was shaken and
his throat felt raw, but inwardly he felt victorious. He had wanted
to test Buchanan’s reaction and what he had learned was very
encouraging. Buchanan’s temper was still volatile for all that he
had learned to control himself, and it was still the easiest means
by which he could be manipulated.
Shane would remember that for when the time was right.
The streets were already lined with contestants
and invigilators, all of whom had gathered for the morning’s first
match: the fight between Matt Nesbitt and Chastity.
Shane walked to the edge of the boardwalk and sat down on his own.
Buchanan settled on the wooden bench behind him while Shane’s
jailer stood nearby, watching Shane with narrowed eyes. Buchanan’s
temper was still unsettled and Shane could feel his anger radiating
from him, the emotion evident in the way he breathed loudly and
shifted restlessly on the bench. Shane noted that it took him a
while to calm himself completely.
A sullen breeze that did nothing to ease the morning heat blew dust
across the road. Shane let his attention wander slowly, first to
the invigilators – whose body language he discreetly studied,
ascertaining who was good and who merely wanted to be – and then
the contestants.
To his surprise, Kip Kutcher’s girlfriend was still around. Shane
had not expected to see her again, figuring that the town would
have disposed of her during the night, and yet still she was here,
looking in fine health but for what looked like a bad night’s sleep
and a hangover. She had tricked her eyes out with liner and
powdered her face but she had not been able to hide all of the
signs that she had spent most of the night crying.
The fact that Kip’s death had upset her so badly, or rather, the
fact that she had tried to conceal it surprised Shane almost as
much as the fact that she was still alive. It implied a level of
self-respect and pride that women of her kind seldom possessed in
any great quantity, and he wondered if maybe there was more to her
than he had first assumed. He made a mental note for future
consideration and turned his attention to Matt Nesbitt, who was
pacing back and forth by the side of the road.
He wore his nerves like an overcoat: plain for all to see. Like the
girl, he showed signs of having passed a sleepless night but that
was to be expected. Having seen Chastity fight, there was not a man
in Covenant who would have put money on Matt Nesbitt surviving this
round and it was a measure of his courage that he had come to the
crossroads at all.
He periodically stopped his pacing to check the time on his pocket
watch, or draw his Merwin revolver and check it over before
returning it to the holster; acts of nervous repetition that
nonetheless passed the time for him until the door of the Grande
was opened and Nathaniel emerged with his bodyguards, Whisperer,
Chastity and her nanny.
Pointlessly, Nesbitt checked his watch for the final time, snapped
it shut, and went out to take his mark. He walked with his head
held deliberately high as if he could fool anyone that he was not
afraid. The only prayer he had was that he would meet his fate with
dignity and not die like a coward.
Nathaniel took Chastity from her nanny and led her to the
crossroads. As with the day before, the girl’s face was
expressionless, like something sculpted in fine bone china with
wide blue eyes painted on above a straight, flat mouth. Her steps
were clumsy, feet scuffing in the dirt, so that Nathaniel almost
seemed to be dragging her half the time. The hand that he held
might have belonged to someone else for all the awareness she had
of it.
The mood along the street became apprehensive. Everybody watched as
Nathaniel positioned her opposite Matt Nesbitt and drew out the
tiny pocket revolver. The girl stared vacantly straight through it
and into the middle distance beyond.
Nathaniel tucked the weapon into her holster, then straightened her
shoulders so that she was facing Nesbitt more squarely. He then
hurried to the side of the road.
Nesbitt stared at her, his brow furrowed with concentration.
Everybody knew what was going to happen next.
The girl seemed unaffected for the space of three heartbeats and
then her posture straightened. She drew herself up from her
slouching stance and raised her head, eyes swimming into stark
focus, piercing Nesbitt with her gaze.
Nathaniel called it, seeing that she was ready, and both fighters
reached for their guns.
Two shots rang out in rapid
succession.
The first struck Nesbitt in the hip, shattering his pelvis into
splinters of bone that lacerated his kidney and spleen. The second
shot hit him in the chest going faster than the speed of sound. It
ripped straight through his lung and burst the left ventricle of
his heart, filling his chest cavity with blood. He staggered
sideways, clutching at his side, blood frothing on his lips. His
gun slipped from numb fingers and hit the dirt. Seconds later he
sank down on his knees next to it and cursed Chastity with his
final breath.
The third shot caught everybody by surprise.
It was unexpected and broke the post-match silence like a hammer
breaking glass. It was followed moments later by a dull thump as
one of the invigilators fell from his perch on the clock tower and
hit the ground, dead.
Startled, everyone looked to see who had fired.
The culprit was in plain sight for all to see. Chastity stood with
her tiny revolver pointed at the spot where the dead invigilator
had stood, thin wisps of grey-white smoke curling from the
barrel.
The surviving invigilators reacted at once, bringing their guns to
bear on her. Nathaniel shouted at them. ‘No! Stop!’
A fourth shot rang out.
It was not the piercing crack of a rifle but the angry cough of
Chastity’s revolver and a second invigilator fell in a burst of
crimson. The girl had moved with phenomenal speed, going instantly
for the man who had moved the fastest.
Shane and the other contestants instantly went for cover. Chastity
moved, turning on the spot with balletic grace, scanning the
multitude of moving targets for the one who next represented the
greatest threat to her and settling on a third invigilator. The man
had her in his sights but held his fire on Nathaniel’s order. For
some reason, Chastity held her fire as well and a tense stand-off
was achieved. The little girl stood in the middle of the
crossroads, surrounded by five invigilators. Others came running
and Nathaniel shouted at them to stand down. ‘She is not to be
harmed,’ he ordered.
The invigilators obeyed him insofar as they did not shoot, but they
kept their rifles trained on her diminutive figure. Peering out
from behind the water trough where he had dived for cover, Shane
studied her technique. She was completely at ease with the
situation. She kept turning in a slow circle, gun moving in a
controlled sweep, her eyes making small, rapid movements to keep
everybody in sight. She reacted quickly to the slightest possible
threat.
It was an incredible and chilling thing to see. Watching her, Shane
figured that she was at least as good as he had been in his prime,
if not better. He saw the look of coldness in her eyes and knew
that she would not back down. She would fight until the
invigilators killed her, and she would claim one of them with every
shot she fired.
Across the street, Nathaniel was aware that he
had lost control of the situation, and he was worried. His
invigilators were hired men, loyal to the money he paid them and
the promises he had made but at the end of the day their loyalty
was bought, not offered, and that meant that there were limits
beyond which they would not be pushed. Sooner or later, he knew one
of them would disobey his orders and Chastity would die, and that
was unacceptable. She was too important to what he was doing in
Covenant. True, he would still have Ennis if she died, but he
placed less value on that old gunslinger. Chastity was fresh.
Chastity was pure.
And she was out of control.
He needed to disarm her before anybody else got hurt, but lacked
the courage to go out onto the street and do it for himself.
Casting about, he spied the girl’s nanny, Bethan, cowering under
the Grande’s porch beside Whisperer. He called out to
her.
‘Bethan! That child’s your responsibility. You get out there and
you get her to put that gun down.’
Bethan’s eyes went wide and she shook her head at him imploringly,
but Nathaniel would not be denied. ‘Don’t you make me ask twice,
woman! You get out there and you do as you’re told.’
Whisperer closed his hand around Bethan’s shoulder, adding his
formidable presence to Nathaniel’s demands, and the woman’s will
dissolved. She was crying as Whisperer pushed her out into the
open, silent tears streaming down a face that became pinched and
ugly whenever she cried. Nathaniel had no sympathy for her and even
less concern for her safety. He called out to his invigilators
again. ‘Nobody fires. Is that understood?’
The invigilators kept their rifles trained on Chastity. Their
fingers were on the trigger and getting tired. Soon, people would
start to get twitchy.
Chastity slowly turned, keeping them all in her sights. She paid
little attention to Bethan, recognising in just a single glance
that the woman carried no weapon and was therefore no threat to
her. As Bethan advanced tentatively out into the street, she
realised that she was being ignored and grew a little bolder. She
wiped the tears from her face. Bending over slightly, she offered
her hands toward Chastity, inviting her to an embrace, and called
out her name. Her voice was shaky, but soft.
She got no reaction and edged closer to the little girl, who
suddenly turned to face her.
Chastity brought her revolver up to point directly at Bethan’s
face. She said nothing, but the look on her face stopped Bethan in
her tracks and forced a startled cry from her lips. Her courage
faltered and she wavered uncertainly, poised on the edge of running
for her life when Nathaniel shouted at her: ‘What are you waiting
for? Get her to put that gun down, woman!’
His words checked Bethan in mid-step. She burst out in sudden
tears, sniffed them back and wiped her eyes. ‘Chastity,’ she said,
her voice weak. She held out her hand imploringly to the child.
‘Give me the gun, please baby.’
Chastity gave the proffered hand a suspicious look, then glanced up
at the rooftops, studying the invigilators as if concerned that
Bethan had been sent out as a distraction. Thinking that she was
being ignored again, Bethan took a step closer.
Chastity immediately swung back to face her. Bethan was only a
couple of steps away from her now, her outstretched hand just a few
inches from grasping Chastity’s gun. The little girl stared at her
nanny with a look of pure hatred such as no child should ever
possess.
On the roof of O’Malley’s, one of the invigilators rose out of the
half-crouch he had been holding since the first shots had been
fired, stretching stiff legs. Chastity glanced his way, assessed
what level of threat he represented, and dismissed him. She swung
her attention back toward Bethan and the whole street waited
tensely.
Bethan edged closer. ‘Please, baby. Please.’
The little girl’s expression remained the same. Hesitantly, Bethan
stepped a little closer and that was when the gun went off.
The sound was as violent as the deed itself,
shattering the silence into exploding fragments. Bethan fell over
backwards, her head erupting in a spray of red. She had scarcely
hit the ground when Nathaniel’s voice roared out through the echoes
of the shot.
‘Hold your fire! Hold your fire goddamnit!’
He was not shouting at Chastity, but at his invigilators. The hired
gunmen silently cursed him, angry that they could have prevented
Bethan’s death if he had only given them rein to. Nathaniel knew
that he was losing their respect and that if he did not resolve the
situation soon that they would take matters into their own hands,
and the tournament and everything that rested on it would be in
jeopardy.
He was not concerned by Bethan’s death. She had been a good nanny
but poor company so far as he was concerned, and he had been
planning to dispose of her when the tournament was over anyway. His
one regret was that she had been his best hope of getting Chastity
to calm down. He still did not like the idea of going onto the
crossroads in person to disarm her. He was an officer, a leader,
and men like him did not do something themselves if there was
somebody more expendable who could be told to do it
instead.
He glanced about, searching for somebody who fit the bill. He could
not call upon one of his invigilators to do it. He was stretching
their loyalty just getting them to hold their fire. Neither could
he call upon Whisperer, who was simply too valuable to put at risk.
To his surprise, he found exactly the person he needed close at
hand.
Madison had taken shelter as soon as things had turned bad, ducking
into the nearest alleyway which, unluckily for her, was where
Nathaniel had gone as well. She saw him looking at her and guessed
his intentions just a few seconds too late to be able to escape
him. He grabbed her fiercely by the wrist.
‘You!’ he said. ‘Go take that gun off her.’
Madison was still hung-over and her senses were not as sharp as
they usually were, or she would have known better than to argue
with him. ‘You have got to be kidding!’ she said.
The back of his fist whipped across her jaw, knocking her silent.
‘I’m not asking if you’d like to,’ he said in a low
voice.
The blow caught Madison by surprise, stunning her. Amazed that she
had been struck, she reached up a hand to touch her face, to prove
to herself that it had happened. She had the good sense not to say
anything more. Nathaniel roughly dragged her from the alley and
pitched her into the street.
‘Get out there and do as you’re told you little bitch!’ he
snapped.
He drew his gun and thumbed back the hammer, reinforcing his words
with physical threat. Madison stared at him wide-eyed. She had
absolutely no doubt that he would shoot her if she didn’t do as he
said.
Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes but she blinked them
angrily away. She had already let Nathaniel hit her, push her and
shout at her. She was damned if she would now give him the
satisfaction of seeing her cry. She straightened herself up and
brushed the dirt from her clothes, conscious of the fact that
everybody was watching her.
Just my luck, she thought. All this attention and I look like
shit.
She cursed herself for having drunk so much last night. Her head
was sore and her stomach was unsettled and getting worse now that
she was afraid. On top of all that she really needed to pee, as if
things weren’t bad enough already.
‘One thing at a time, Maddy.’ she whispered to herself.
Chastity was staring at her, intrigued by this new woman who had
been pushed out into the open and made into such an inviting
target. It was conspicuously tempting, and Chastity turned a slow
circle, eyeing the invigilators and the other contestants and
looking for danger. Madison took a hold of her nerves and forced
herself to walk towards her on legs that felt heavy and strangely
numb.
She got to within ten yards before Chastity swung about to face her
and gave her a rattlesnake stare that stopped her dead in her
tracks.
Madison had stared down the barrel of a gun before. It felt much
the same this time as it had back then. A coldness seeped through
her, draining her body of all feeling and leaving her
numb.
Damnit Kip, why did I insist you bring me here?
She glanced back over her shoulder at where Nathaniel stood. He
waved his gun at her, urging her forward and her feet scuffed in
the dirt as she did as she was told. Chastity glared at her from
behind the iron sights of her little revolver.
Madison was familiar with the type of gun she held. Most pocket
revolvers had a five-shot cylinder, but some were manufactured to
hold six or even seven rounds. She was too far away to see it
clearly enough to be certain which kind Chastity held. Madison
tried counting backwards to work out how many she had fired
already. Fear clouded her thoughts and made it hard to
concentrate.
She shuffled closer and her next step brought her level with
Bethan’s corpse. She told herself not to look but she could not
help it. Her eyes were drawn to the hole in the back of Bethan’s
head and to the flies that crawled in the sticky red mess, picking
their way between the matted strands of hair. Madison’s stomach
heaved and she swallowed down hard to resist the urge to
puke.
Chastity was now only a few steps away and her aim had not wavered
at all in the last twenty heartbeats.
‘Nobody fire!’ Nathaniel ordered.
Madison silently cursed him. Try telling her that, she thought to
herself. She forced herself to breathe deeply, to calm herself and
not give in to the thoughts of panic that were clamouring for her
attention.
Just another couple of steps, she told herself. She was close
enough that she could almost make out the details of the gun’s
cylinder. It was either a five- or a six-shot; she didn’t think it
was a seven.
Fighting her fears, she took another step closer and reached out
her hand.
There was no hesitation, no suggestion of
compassion or mercy or any semblance of human emotion at
all.
Madison reached out to take the gun and Chastity pulled the
trigger.
Madison saw it coming but had no chance of getting out of the way.
She covered her face with her hands and screamed but somehow she
didn’t die. Seconds later, in retrospect, she realised that the
sound she had thought was a gunshot had actually been the noise of
the hammer falling on an empty cartridge.
She lowered her hands in surprise. Chastity stared at her as if
unable to figure out why she was still alive. She pulled the
trigger again and Madison flinched as the hammer fell once more
onto an empty brass. Chastity became frustrated. She pulled the
trigger again and again and let out an unhappy wail.
‘Give me that!’ Madison snatched the revolver out of the girl’s
hand, emboldened now that she knew she was safe. She turned and
held it up for Nathaniel and the invigilators to see. ‘I’ve got
it,’ she cried triumphantly.
Her words were drowned out as Chastity began to scream. The noise
lanced through Madison’s hangover like a bullet to the head.
Madison clapped her hands to her ears. The girl kept on screaming,
filling her lungs and howling like a fiend.
Madison staggered away and fetched up suddenly in Nathaniel’s arms.
He took the gun away from her and pulled her hands away from her
ears. ‘Take her into the hotel and get her calmed down,’ he told
her. ‘You work for me now.’
Madison was too stunned to argue with him. Agree with him, her mind
told her. For the time being just do as he says. Survive now, find
a way out later; it was a policy that had gotten her through many
bad scrapes in the past.
Wincing against the pain in her head, she accepted Chastity’s arm
as Nathaniel offered it to her and dragged the child toward the
Grande. She was still alive, and that was all that really mattered
right now.
Nathaniel stood in the middle of the crossroads and watched her go,
admiring the shape of her figure from behind. He was joined by
Buchanan, who surveyed the bodies that Chastity had left littering
the street.
‘I think,’ Nathaniel said. ‘That it would be prudent if we only
give Chastity one bullet in future, like Ennis.’
Buchanan did not disagree.