Chapter 15
Ben’s funeral was conducted on the same day
that Lyndon Appleby and his marshals took Hunte away. The whole
town turned out for a ceremony that included both Ben and his
parents, each buried side-by-side in a dusty plot outside of town.
Shane attended, his hands shackled in front of him and Fletcher and
Grant solemn figures on either side. Behind them at the lych gate
their horses were saddled with bags for the long journey to the
state line. Fletcher was through with Wainsford and he and Grant
were taking Shane with them. They were taking Appleby’s advice and
turning him in for the ten-thousand dollar reward.
The ceremony was a bitter, guilt-ridden thing. The preacher choked
on his words and the townsfolk stood with their heads bowed. When
it was over, Fletcher raised his head from prayer and wiped his
eyes. Solemnly, he turned and pushed Shane toward the horses.
Townsfolk who had gathered to pay their respects offered Fletcher
their condolences as he passed and scowled at Shane. A few spat at
him but most still feared him too much to give him any cause to
remember them. It was as they drew near to the lych gate that the
lawyer, Boyd, pushed his way free of the crowd and caught Fletcher
by the sleeve.
‘August, wait! Let’s not be hasty. I know what happened was
unpleasant but we had to think of the town.’
‘The only thing you were thinking of was the money in your pocket.’
Fletcher tugged his arm free and marched on toward the horses,
pushing Shane ahead of him. ‘How much did they offer
you?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’ Boyd insisted.
Fletcher shook his head, unable to voice his disgust. They reached
the horses and Alan Grant kept Shane covered with a shotgun while
he mounted.
‘I know you feel that you’ve been betrayed.’ Boyd said.
‘Could that be because I was betrayed?’ Fletcher replied
testily.
Boyd pretended not to have heard him. ‘We want you to stay on as
marshal. We’ll increase your wages to forty dollars a
month.’
Fletcher mounted his horse.
‘Fifty then.’ Boyd said urgently. ‘Think of the town, August.
They’ll be no one here to keep the law.’
Fletcher slowly turned to face him. ‘I don’t think you understand
me, Boyd. I don’t fucking care.’ He raised his voice so that
everyone could hear. ‘This whole town can go to Hell,’ he said, and
steered his horse away.
Boyd still wouldn’t accept defeat. ‘Sixty then!’ he called after
them, but his words fell on deaf ears. Fletcher wasn’t coming
back.
They rode until nightfall. Fletcher was in a dark mood and said
nothing the whole journey. His silence worked well for Shane, who
rode with his head bowed and his brain working, a constant eye on
Grant.
Up until now, Alan Grant had been a name without a face. Shane had
heard him spoken of about town and had learned that he had been
marshal before Fletcher. His wife had left him suddenly for a
travelling salesman and, heartbroken, Grant had turned to the
bottle and damn near drank himself to death. Fletcher had hauled
him off the street and gotten him to sober up, but that had only
been a couple of weeks ago and Grant’s cravings still gnawed at him
with obvious ill-effect. He sweated profusely, was clumsy and
lethargic and sometimes looked on the verge of passing out. His
hands shook so badly that Shane didn’t think he could shoot further
than ten or fifteen yards and have any guarantee of hitting what he
aimed at. His friendship with Fletcher seemed about the only thing
that kept him going and, in Shane’s eyes, that dependence made him
exploitable.
Shane drew up his plans as they rode and plotted the means by which
he would win back his freedom and finish the job he was being paid
to perform.
That night, as they sat around the campfire in silence, Shane
turned to Fletcher and spoke. ‘Hanging me won’t change what
happened last night.’
His words were met with a long and uncomfortable pause before
Fletcher answered. ‘You’re right, it won’t. But it’s no less than
you deserve.’
‘What happened to Ben and his parent’s was none of my
doing.’
‘And you really expect me to believe that?’
Shane shrugged. ‘I could have killed you the day we met if that was
how I wanted it.’
Fletcher had nothing to say to that. He knew that there was some
measure of truth to Shane’s words. Wood popped on the fire,
throwing up sparks that spiralled into the air on an
updraft.
‘Buchanan’s the man you want; not me.’ Shane said.
‘You could have stopped him.’ Fletcher said accusingly.
‘Maybe. But I didn’t.’ Shane spoke plainly. His own feelings on the
subject were irrelevant; all that mattered was Fletcher’s reaction.
‘You can curse me all you want but my not stopping him doesn’t
change the fact that it was him that done it, not me. If you want
justice, Fletcher, you’ve got the wrong man.’
‘I’ll settle things with Buchanan in due course.’
Shane let out a short, cruel laugh. ‘I doubt that. You’re a
stubborn old mule Fletcher, but you’re no match for a man like
Buchanan. He’d do you like he did Ben’s parents.’ He paused for a
moment to let the thought sink in. ‘I could kill him though,’ he
added softly, almost as an afterthought.
Shane and Fletcher’s eyes met over the campfire and the two men
stared at each other, neither saying a word. There was a reckoning
in that meeting of eyes, a judgement that passed between them, and
Grant did not like that it happened at all. ‘Don’t listen to him,
August. He’s just trying to save his worthless hide.’
‘Buchanan and I have unfinished business to resolve.’ Shane said.
‘I want him dead just as much as you do.’
Grant told him to shut up, but Shane ignored him. ‘If you want
justice for what happened to Ben; I’m the only man who can give it
to you,’ he said.
‘I said: shut up!’ Grant drew his revolver and pointed it at Shane.
The way his hands were shaking it wouldn’t take much for him to
accidentally pull the trigger. Shane forced himself to look
unafraid and turned to Fletcher.
Fletcher sighed. ‘Put the gun away, Alan.’
Grant reluctantly did as he was told, muttering to himself as he
fumbled the revolver back into its holster. Fletcher got slowly to
his feet and took a few steps away from the fire, his eyes distant
as he stared across the plains. ‘I’m almost tempted to take you up
on your offer,’ he told Shane. ‘But I’m not that stupid. I know if
I set you loose you’ll only go after Hunte.’
‘So what if I do?’ Shane asked. ‘Buchanan’ll be going after him
too. I find one; the other won’t be far away.’
‘I won’t let you kill him, Ennis.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you will.’ Shane said, his voice quiet. ‘But I
guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Fletcher turned to face him but said nothing at all. Standing there
like that, Shane thought he looked older than he had seemed before,
older, broken and frail. As little as a few days ago, August
Fletcher would never have agreed to what Shane was offering
him.
But a lot had happened since then.
The butterfly-wing doors of O’Malley’s swung on
rusty hinges and Buchanan strode in, his boots clumping heavily on
the wooden floor. He had Shane’s gun belt draped over his arm and
held the lacquered mahogany box that contained Shane’s
gun.
‘Is it that time already?’ Shane asked.
‘Like you haven’t been counting the seconds.’ Buchanan replied. He
tossed the gun belt onto Shane’s table. ‘You been drinking alone?’
The way he said it made Shane think he knew that Vendetta had
joined him.
‘I might as well have been,’ he replied, and slowly got to his
feet. He fastened the gun belt around his waist. ‘Did you sort out
that problem with the missing body?’
‘It’s dealt with.’ The lie was transparent. Sensing a little
friction, Shane decided to press further.
‘What did Nathaniel have to say about it?’ he asked.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It must be hard not being able to sense them for yourself any
more. Are you sure than Nathaniel’s telling you the whole
story?’
He could see by the look on Buchanan’s face that it was something
that had been preying on his mind. ‘That’ll all change soon,’ he
said adamantly, and he set the mahogany box down on the table.
Shane felt a shiver of excitement run through his body and
immediately resented it, but he longed to open the box and hold his
gun again. It awoke a yearning in him that reached deep into his
soul, exerting such a power over his emotions that it filled him
with self-disgust.
‘What can you sense, Shane?’ Buchanan asked. He tried to make it
sound tough but even growling his words like a dog couldn’t hide
the raw need with which he wanted to hear the answer, like a
lovelorn teenager asking to know a beautiful girl’s name.
Shane cleared his thoughts and opened up his senses. He shivered as
he felt a scratching at his soul. It was as if somebody had reached
a spectral hand into his body and was plucking at his nerves as at
the strings of a guitar. The melody they played was sweet but the
song was vile.
‘They’re all around us,’ he said. ‘Watching. Waiting.’
He shook his head and broke the spell. His skin felt clammy but
whether from disgust or desire Shane could not properly be sure. He
tried to blank the thoughts from his mind as he reached for the
box.
The gun inside had been cleaned and oiled again since yesterday and
was as smooth and beautiful as a woman’s naked thigh. Its smell
rose up at him, sultry like musk and poisonously seductive. Shane
took it into his hands and holstered it quickly, not wanting to
hold onto it for any longer than he had to, not right now while his
senses were still raw from the Fastest Guns’ touch. He did not
trust himself.
The room seemed too close. He walked to the door and stepped out
onto the boardwalk, breathing deeply to ground himself. Outside,
the invigilators were taking up their positions in preparation for
the impending match. Their black hats and three-quarter length
coats made them look like crows as they hunched on the rooftops and
noisily cocked their rifles.
Buchanan walked him to his spot on the crossroads. It was hot and
dusty and Shane tasted grit in the back of his throat. Buchanan
gave him his bullet. ‘Try not to waste it now,’ he said.
The significance of his comment did not occur to Shane until after
Buchanan had gone and he turned to face his opponent. In this round
he had been matched against Valentino Rodrigues, the man who had
fought against the Gentleman.
Given a fully-loaded gun Shane would have felt confident that he
could defeat him without difficulty, but only having a single
bullet changed things. It left him with no margin for error. If he
fired and Rodrigues ducked out of the way again, Shane would not
get a second chance to hit him.
His safest option was to sacrifice the initiative and let Rodrigues
act first, then try to counteract him before he fired, but that
would require perfect timing. Act too quickly and he might waste
his one and only shot. Act too slowly and he might never get a
chance to fire. Rodrigues knew this as clearly as Shane, and he
knew that it gave him a slight advantage. He looked confident as he
strutted out onto the crossroads and found his mark. He stretched
his fingers like a pianist about to play a concerto and tipped his
hat to Shane and smiled charmingly. Shane nodded in return. It was
the last gesture by which he acknowledged the man as a fellow human
being. From that moment onwards, Shane stopped seeing him as a
person and viewed him solely as a threat, a danger that had to be
eliminated. It drained the colours from his point of view and
heightened his senses to a sharper level.
By objectifying him, Shane transformed Rodrigues into a set of
probabilities. The set of his stance dictated the possible ways in
which he could jump, dive or roll before firing his shot. Rodrigues
was ambidextrous and wore a gun on each hip. Against the Gentleman
he had drawn with his right hand and fired a .44-40 Remington but,
equally, he could draw with his left and use his .38 revolver
instead; a gun that was lighter and fractionally quicker to
draw.
Shane looked into his eyes and tried to read his intentions, but
Rodrigues had a solid poker face and he kept his thoughts locked up
tight. His eyes revealed nothing.
The boardwalk creaked under Nathaniel’s boots as he moved to the
edge of the porch and made ready to give the call.
In only a few more seconds, the fight would begin. Shane twitched
his fingers impatiently and tried to predict what Rodrigues would
do. He believed he had it narrowed down to about three
possibilities. It was just a matter of picking the right
one.
He heard the silence around them deepen as the crowd tensed and
figured that had to mean that Nathaniel had opened his mouth to
speak.
There was no more time to think. No more time to doubt.
‘Draw!’ Nathaniel shouted, and Shane drew and fired.
The shot hit Rodrigues high in the throat and
burst through his larynx. It struck against the pillar of his spine
and shattered the vertebrae a couple of inches beneath the base of
his skull, cutting the spinal cord. His body went limp on the spot
and he coiled up on the ground like a piece of rope, having never
even had a chance to move.
Shane had guessed his intentions just a split second before
Nathaniel had called the shot. It seemed obvious now in hindsight.
Gambling that Shane would expect him to dodge one way or another,
Rodrigues had counted on him to hesitate and had gone straight for
the draw. He had stood right where he was and just reached for his
gun, hoping to move fast enough that he could catch Shane while he
was still waiting to see which way he’d move.
It was clever and it had nearly worked. Shane felt proud of how
easily he had out-witted Rodrigues and beaten him to the draw. His
blood surged powerfully through his veins and he felt strong,
invincible even! The sense of power that raced through him was
electrifying. He wished that the gun had more bullets. Then he
would show everyone in Covenant what a force he was to be reckoned
with.
He forced himself to put the gun back in its holster. His hand
moved slowly, reluctantly. The sensation of having the gun in his
hand lingered afterwards like the memory of a parting kiss. It left
him yearning for more and it frightened him; the feeling was so
overpoweringly intense.
Not trusting himself, he unbuckled the gun belt and tossed it to
Buchanan.
‘You made that look easy.’ Buchanan said.
It had been easy, Shane thought. Too easy. Valentino Rodrigues had
been good enough to make a name for himself as a professional
gunfighter, and he had been good enough to kill the Gentleman,
albeit with some simple trickery, but he had never been good enough
to meet the Fastest Guns’ high standards.
Shane thought it about later in the quiet solitude of his cell. He
was now absolutely certain that the tournament was Nathaniel’s idea
and that it was being held without the Fastest Guns’ involvement.
If that were the case though, he could not understand why they were
allowing it to continue.
It did not make sense. The Fastest Guns were notoriously intolerant
of allowing anybody into Covenant. Shane could only assume that
Nathaniel had to be controlling them in some way or, at the very
least, that he had found some way of appeasing them, and that was a
thought that made him nervous. He did not know a great deal about
the occult but what he did know came from having seen it
face-to-face. Shane had looked into the very mouth of Hell and no
man came away from an experience like that without learning
something of the black arts. If Nathaniel had appeased the Fastest
Guns then it was probably the opening step toward some sort of
bargaining ritual, but Shane could not understand what Nathaniel
expected to receive from such a deal. More importantly, how did he
expect to get away with it? The Fastest Guns were not some ancient
line of demons that could be held in service. They were
newly-formed and so young that Hell’s aristocracy had not yet
bothered to even look their way. Such demons could not be bound.
Only a fool would dare such a thing.
Shane felt that he was missing something, some vital piece of
information that would make sense of it all but whatever it was it
eluded him no matter how he tried looking at things. It bothered
him that he couldn’t work it out and he was still sat in determined
contemplation when Buchanan came for him a few hours
later.
The meeting at O’Malley’s that night was little more than a
formality. With only four contestants left alive, everybody knew
what the pairings for the semi-final would be. Vendetta was paired
against Chastity, leaving Tom Freeman to face Shane. Nathaniel
avoided the Gunfighter’s Hour again and the first match was set to
take place at eleven and the last match to take place at
one.
About the only thing that was unexpected was Chastity’s presence at
the meeting, accompanied by her new nanny. Madison was dressed like
a lady in an ill-fitting dress and quarter-length jacket. Her
bodice had a high collar that covered most of her throat and she
had piled her hair up in a way that made her look quite
respectable. Shane was amazed by the transformation. It seemed as
if Nathaniel had successfully tamed her.
The meeting broke up soon after the placings had been read and
Buchanan returned Shane to his cell and locked him in. It was
getting late and as the darkness settled the town began its eerie
night-song, the creaking and groaning of every house and ruin
softening gradually into melody. Perhaps lulled by the noise, Shane
drifted into a light sleep and his dreams carried him back in
time.
They had journeyed north the next morning,
changing course to pursue Lyndon Appleby in the hope that by
finding him they would find Buchanan. Grant was not happy about it.
He dropped back until he and Fletcher were side-by-side, with Shane
several metres in front and out of earshot. ‘He’ll kill us the
first chance he gets,’ he said.
‘More than likely.’ Fletcher agreed with him.
‘Then why don’t we just take him in? He’s worth ten-thousand
dollars.’
‘I don’t care about the money; I’m thinking about Ben.’
‘Ben’s dead, August. And it’s that bastard there that killed
him.’
‘He had a part in it, I’m sure.’ Fletcher said. ‘But it was
Buchanan who killed Ben’s folks.’
‘He and Shane were working together.’ Grant reminded him. ‘You
can’t trust a goddamned word he says.’
‘I trust him when he says he’ll kill Buchanan. And that’s all I
need him to do.’
‘And what about Hunte?’
‘He’s Appleby’s problem now.’ Fletcher said bleakly. ‘He don’t need
our protection any more.’
They picked up the trail at San Alejo. Appleby and his men had
passed through town earlier that morning and had been followed soon
after by Castor Buchanan and another man who rode with him.
Buchanan was likely to be the least of Appleby’s worries however.
Rumour had it that there were more bounty hunters coming down from
the north, at least twenty of them if the town’s telegrapher was to
be believed.
‘They’ve got every watering hole, ford and mountain pass staked out
between here and Sisko,’ he told them enthusiastically. ‘Ain’t no
way Appleby’s getting by them without a fight.’
Shane disagreed. ‘He’ll slip past them like a ghost,’ he said, and
he drew Fletcher’s attention to a map on the wall. Between San
Alejo and Sisko lay a broad expanse of uncharted desert. ‘That’s
exactly the sort of country Appleby’s used to. That’s where he’ll
go. He’ll get off the trails and go deep into the wasteland. No
one’ll find him out there.’
He was surprised to find that there was actually a small measure of
comfort in the thought of Appleby getting away from him. Hunte had
brought him nothing but trouble and it was tempting to think that
all his problems might go away if he simply turned his back on
pursuing the man. He quickly squashed the idea. His head was so
full of doubts that he was finding it hard enough to think as it
was, and he needed to stay focussed if he was going to escape from
Fletcher.
Fletcher gave a shrug. ‘Then I guess that’s where we’re heading,’
he said, stabbing his finger at the featureless part of the
map.
They stocked up on water and provisions and headed out into the
desert, ignoring every warning from the locals not to. Fletcher
kept Shane’s hands locked in cuffs. Shane argued to be set free,
but Fletcher couldn’t be swayed.
‘You know, when we find Buchanan I won’t be much use to you with my
hands in chains.’ Shane said.
‘If we find Buchanan, I’ll set you loose. But not until
then.’
‘And if he catches us by surprise? We’ll all be dead before you can
set me free.’
‘And what about your death makes you think I give a shit?’ Fletcher
replied harshly.
They rode for two days. Just as Shane had reckoned, Appleby had
gone into the deepest, most inhospitable part of the desert, and
the going got harder every hour. Scorching heat and the dry, arid
land made every drop of water precious.
On the afternoon of the second day out, they stopped at a cool
water spring and ran into trouble. A small gang of cattle herders
from a ranch nearby had decided that the lure of Hunte’s bounty was
too strong to resist and had packed in their jobs and gone looking
for him. As misfortune had it, they arrived at the spring while
Fletcher and Shane were filling their water skins, and Grant did
not see them coming until it was too late.
There were four of them: two young men and two seasoned hands in
their mid-forties. They must have mistaken them for Appleby’s men
and spotted the cuffs on Shane’s wrists and thought he was Hunte.
They started shooting as they rode in.
Shane darted to one side and splashed through the waters of the
spring to reach a pile of boulders on the opposite side. The men
were armed with revolvers and didn’t have much more than a basic
level of skill. Their bullets chipped flakes of stone off the
boulders as he dived for cover.
Grant let off a blast of his scattergun but failed to hit anybody.
The noise it made gave them something to think about though, and
they dismounted and moved to take cover.
Shane was cut off from his companions, and unarmed. He wrestled
with his cuffs but they were too tight to slip out of and the locks
were too strong to break. The cowboys closed in. They divided
themselves into two teams. One group kept Grant and Fletcher pinned
down while the others moved into position to catch them in a
crossfire. One of the young men circled around towards where Shane
was hiding. Shane got into a niche among the rocks and waited,
listening to the tread of his footsteps as he came nearer. He
picked up a rock and tensed himself.
He struck the moment the boy came into sight, uncoiling from the
side of the boulder and smashing the rock down hard against the
boy’s wrist. The boy howled and dropped his revolver. Shane hooked
the rock into the side of his jaw and he went down to the
ground.
One of the other cowboys saw it happen and came running over. Shane
quickly dropped the rock and went to retrieve the revolver but
suddenly found his legs pulled out from under him. He had failed to
knock the young man unconscious and the boy now wrestled into
position on top of him and swung a punch at Shane’s face. Shane
weathered the blow against his forearm and tried to reach for the
gun, but it was too far away. He rolled onto his back and fended
off another couple of punches.
He knew that he didn’t have much time before the other man arrived.
A few more seconds at most. Ducking between the boy’s punches, he
threw his wrists up around the boy’s head and pulled him down close
to control him. The boy was stronger than him and fought violently,
but Shane wrapped the chain of his cuffs around his neck and used
it to choke him, cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. The
boy got weaker and slipped unconscious.
Shane heard footsteps closing in. He released the boy and scrambled
for the revolver, reaching it just as the second man came into
sight. Shane fired and blew off the top of his head, then turned
the gun on the young man and shot him as well.
He felt less vulnerable now that he had a loaded gun in his hands,
even if he was still cuffed. He checked the ammunition and
reloaded, using spares from the young man’s belt. On the other side
of the spring, he could see that the last two cowboys were working
their way towards Fletcher. There was no sign of Grant and Shane
hoped he was dead.
He ducked out from behind the boulders and fired, shooting down one
of the two men. Fletcher got the other.
As the last echoes of the fight died down, Fletcher turned towards
Shane and saw the gun in his hand. ‘Put it down.’ Fletcher said
sharply, and pointed his gun at him as a warning.
Up until then, Shane had not even considered killing Fletcher but
now something flipped inside of him. It was like it had been back
at the Babson ranch. He felt as if his mind was pushed aside and
that something else seized control of his body.
He fought it. The muscles in his arms bunched with the strain as he
tried to keep himself from raising his gun. He felt a surge of
conflicting emotions run riot through his skull: hatred, anger, joy
and ecstasy. Somehow he was able to centre himself and push it all
away. He breathed deeply until he felt in control of himself once
more, but it took so much effort that he did not see Grant creep up
on him from behind. The butt of Grant’s shotgun struck him in the
side of the head and Shane sank to his knees before the ground
rushed up and punched him.