by Matt Kilby
“You’re getting ready for something.”
She might as well say, you have hair, don’t ya?, but if he thought it was a dumb thing to say, it didn’t show. With a distracted nod, he stood.
“How bad will it get?” The way he glanced at her was answer enough.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” he said on his way to the door, lowering to the peephole as always. “You’ll be gone before it gets here.”
“Before what gets here?” It came out sharp—not a question but a demand. When he turned to look at her, she felt strong. “I deserve to know.”
“You do,” he said and came to squat in front of her, so close she thought he’d take one of her hands, “but I’m worried knowing will scare you enough to run. Right now, I need you here.”
“If I didn’t know better,” she smiled, “I’d say you were being sweet.”
“I’m not,” he said, flat as the slap of his hand.
“Then why do you need me? Tell me or I’ll run to spite you.”
He sighed as he stood again and walked back to the door, though his view of the outside couldn’t have changed much. Still, he squinted through the peephole to make sure. “I think you’re more stubborn every time this happens.”
“I’m not even gonna pretend I understand what that means anymore,” she rolled her eyes.
“It means things would be easier if you just listened. This next part is stress you don’t need because it won’t touch you if you do what I say.”
“You’re saying a lot of nothing right now.”
“I’m saying a few states aren’t far enough to outrun a drug cartel.”
The shock hit hard and brought a sliver of ice-cold clarity. She remembered the face of the man outside—the man so interested in them, he decided to camp by the pay phone to watch their room. She’d thought there was something familiar about him, but all junkies were familiar from a distance. After all, not long ago, they were her people. But it wasn’t just that, and now she remembered why. He was at her house once. The drugs had helped her forget, but sober she recognized him. He was one of Ciasto’s men, one of those who talked Snead into selling. He sat on her couch and drank her beer, probably gave her the same look they all did when Snead left the room. They blended together after a while, but she was sure.
“He’s with Mr. Ciasto,” she looked up. “You knew and let him keep tabs on us.”
“It’s why I needed you.”
“For what?” she demanded. “Bait?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” she shook her head. She looked around the room to see if there was anything she needed and realized there was nothing. Only the door and him in front of it.
“I need to leave,” she told him. “We took their money, and I don’t want to think about what they’ll do to me when they show up. Please let me go. You saved my life twice, so you can’t let me die like this.”
“I told you this was how you’d react,” he said, and she couldn’t understand how he could stay calm, “but the worst thing you can do is leave. If you go, they’ll follow, but I won’t. I have work to do here, so I can’t protect you if you go off alone. Wait one more day and you can leave tomorrow free from any fear of those men finding you.”
“How?”
“Because I’ll kill them. All of them. Stay and I promise that.”
“You promise,” she echoed and shook her head. She stared at his face and then put hers into her hands. “One more day, but if I stay, you’ve got to give me something else.”
“More than your life?” he raised his eyebrows.
“More than that.”
“What?”
“The end of your story,” she answered and waved her hand at the room. “Make sense of this. All I’ve heard about is revenge, but that doesn’t explain how you know everything that’s going to happen or why you came to my house in Bishopville to make me drive you to Louisiana. Tell me that and I’ll sit like a good girl until you say I can go.”
“It isn’t so simple,” he shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because someone else needs to find out how it ends.”
“And where are they?”
“By now, he should be sitting in a county jail cell.”
“Are you going to see him?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he nodded.
“Bust him out?”
“Something like that too,” he did again, this time with a smile.
“Well, let’s get this over with then,” she stood.
“We have time before that,” he told her, “and he doesn’t need to hear about the last brother.”
She huffed but dropped back to sit on the bed. At least listening to him talk was better than watching him pace.
“Okay,” she said and leaned on the mattress to listen.
12
In Kansas, John found snow and bitter cold wailing with the wind through barren trees. He rode with one hand tucked into his coat and the other on the reins, switching when his fingers numbed. Behind him in the saddle, Lester sat still as a corpse.
The misery seemed appropriate for what they rode towards—either another death at his hands or revenge cut short. He didn’t waste hope thinking this would go as easy as the others. Instead of a cattle ranch, he headed towards a military fort. Instead of a kid and an idiot, he planned to kill a man who was sharp-witted and mean. He didn’t doubt Richard Arstrom was the reason his wife was dead. John would kill him no matter what, even if those other soldiers wheeled out a Gatling gun to whittle him into a puddle.
The wind gusted hard enough to cut through his coat’s leather. He lowered his head to avoid losing his hat and moaned as if the sound would stop it, but the land had enough ghosts left over from the war, the wind just thought him another.
When old Lester sat quiet long enough to assume he fell off or died, John looked back to find him sitting so still he might have frozen upright until he blinked and glanced up.
“You’ll want off this road before long,” he looked at the endless white ahead. “The closer we get, the more likely we’ll run into soldiers. If Arstrom happens to be one, it won’t work out well for you.”
“The trees won’t help much,” John shook his head, “and if I put this horse in a spot he can’t get out of, we’ll be in real trouble. I’d rather a bullet end things quick than the cold do it slow.”
“Have faith.”
“In what?”
“Me,” Lester pulled his satchel between them.
John steered the horse into the woods. By his guess, he needed to go far enough in to be hidden from the road, sneaking towards a place that would hang them for treason. Of course his road probably ended there anyway, once he came up with some plan to murder a colonel. As impossible as it seemed, he would find a way. He only needed to remember Mary and his promise to know there were mere hours between him and the bullet that would settle it. The idea made him drunk with anticipation, running from the small of his back where Lester’s satchel rested. It told him he could kick the horse’s sides and ride straight to that bastard and no bullet would touch him until he did. A measure of will resisted the urge, knowing the better way was as far into the trees as possible. There, they would stop and make their plan. Before that happened, a figure stepped from the cover of a trunk.
At first glance, it looked like a small buffalo on its hind legs, but John shook off the cold-induced hallucination to realize it was a man. He wore the animal’s pelt tight enough to make finding his face hard, but the dark of his hands against the snow marked him as a native. Wherever his eyes hid within the fur, he stood as carved stone without a shiver to betray him. He didn’t appear armed, but John knew that didn’t mean much. His kind was dangerous with their hands if they needed them, but he likely scouted for a larger party. For that, John tugged the reins to a stop.
“What are you up to now?” Lester asked, and John shushed him without a look back, figuring any movement would break whatever
spell he shared with the Indian—the one that kept him and the old idiot alive.
As if to prove how stupid he was, Lester leaned to look around him.
“Well, look at him,” he said in awe, but not the kind that kept him quiet. “You think he skinned that buffalo himself?”
“Can you just shut up?” John barked louder than he wanted but figured it the only way to get the urgency across. He would have done better using his elbow against the old man’s head because, instead of holding his tongue, Lester slipped from the horse and walked forward. In silent horror, John prepared to see him cut down by an arrow before another came for him. Instead, the buffalo-skinned man gave a curious tilt of his head.
Halfway between John and the Indian, Lester stopped and adjusted the satchel at his shoulders. He held up one hand and spoke, but not in any language John ever heard. The other man stared and looked half-asleep as he listened, the old man as boring in his language as he was in English. When Lester stopped, the man nodded and walked away.
“What the Hell did you say?” John asked.
Lester looked back but didn’t return to the horse. Instead, he smiled as he gestured with his hand.
“Come find out,” he turned to follow the buffalo man into the forest.
John had two choices but didn’t like either. He could follow the man who got him this far, though he seemed determined to get them both killed at whatever passed for a camp among people who wore animal skins, or he could try it alone against a fort full of soldiers and the woman-murdering devil in charge of them. Either sounded like a short trip to dying. He could wait for the wind to blow and see which way it took him, but as the dark fur shrank in the distance with Lester’s frail frame trailing behind, he made his horse follow.
He could catch up but was still convinced the ground under him was covered in holes big enough to catch his horse's hoof. So he matched their pace for a mile, heading away from the fort as best he could tell. He might question it if he had anyone to ask, but Lester was far enough away he wouldn’t hear him shout, though others might. If more natives watched in the wilderness, they might take him as some threat and decide cutting that short beat any curiosity about where this led. He kept forward with his mouth shut except for a moan into a drift of snow. By the time his view cleared, he saw the camp.
All of the natives wore some type of fur—mostly buffalo, though John saw variation among the women and children. The smallest wore beaver pelts, and he couldn’t help envying them a little. As cold as he was in civilized clothes, he would wear a skunk’s hide to block the wind. Lester walked in ahead, and the tribe stopped to stare in the same way a town like Pine Haven would to one of them passing through. The old man didn’t notice as he followed their buffalo to a man who must have been chief, because he was clothed in bear’s fur, which had to be tougher to take off its animal. Still unsure if he trusted the situation, John rode to the edge of camp, wrapping his hand in the reins in case they decided to scalp Lester and come for him. The old man walked without any apparent fear and spoke. John watched their distant conversation and regretted not being close enough to hear, even if he wouldn’t understand. If nothing else, he could judge their tone but didn’t dwell on it before Lester waved him over.
If the tribe had been interested in Lester, they were obsessed with John. They gave him the same stares as he passed through their camp, but the closest reached with curious hands. They touched his boots and the stirrups they sat in, the place where his duster draped over the horse’s back. He did his best to keep his eyes ahead and avoid the sneaking suspicion their real marvel was at how much his stuff would sell for once they slit his throat. The thought crawled up his back and made him colder until he was riding across the open space to Lester and his two new animal friends. Halfway to them, the bear’s dull eyes sharpened as he pulled back the fur near his waist to show a hatchet. He rested a hand on its head, which looked plenty sharp, and John took that as a sign to stop.
“I don’t think he likes me,” he called to Lester but didn’t take his eyes from the danger.
“He doesn’t know you enough for that,” the old man answered. “Your horse and gun have him spooked. If I were you, I would consider leaving both behind.”
“Well, you’re crazy if you think I’m getting further than arm’s length from my revolver now.”
“Even if it gets you killed?”
“Keep the gun,” the bear spoke in as good English as John heard from any white man, “but leave the horse.”
“Sounds fair,” Lester said.
“You’re already down there,” John said. “I’m not sure I want to be too. If something goes wrong, I won’t manage a step before they’ve killed both of us. At least up here I have some chance to fight or run.”
“Then choose one,” the bear said. “We’ve learned not to trust men who speak from their saddles.”
John didn’t say anything to that but huffed as he decided what to do. Of course fighting was no option. With his back to most of the camp, he might die before he jerked the gun from his belt. That left running or staying.
“They can help you,” Lester said.
“How do you figure that?”
“Because they’re planning to raid the fort anyway,” the old man smiled.
The bear didn’t share his humor as he yanked the axe free. John drew as quick, though he would have thought better if he gave himself time. But even if Lester was a fool, he was his fool. If anyone got to kill him, it’d be him.
“Hold, John,” the old man held out his hand and turned to do the same to the other. “It was a guess. Your people are camped near enough to the fort to ride there and back in an hour but far enough to escape if your scouts signal it. I know you have no love for the United States military, and that fort stands as a reminder of the pain they brought you. Am I right?”
“How do you know these things?” the bear-skinned man growled but loosened his grip on the axe. John lowered the revolver’s hammer with his thumb.
“Because I’m smart,” Lester smiled again. “That happens the longer you live. You see the fire in a man’s eyes who’s been done wrong too many times is not far from the one he gets when he’s suffered a hard enough wrong once. You two can help each other, but not with those weapons in your hands. Not on that horse’s back either, John.”
John couldn’t decide if the old man was right or he was too cold to argue, but he dismounted. A woman came from the crowd to take the reins and lead the animal away. Following her with his eyes, John noticed a scattering of tribesmen at the fringes of the rest with bowstrings drawn and arrows pointed his way. He summoned a smile and a nervous nod as he turned to look at the man in the bear fur.
“Since we’re friends now—” he said and didn’t finish before the other raised his hand to dismiss his warriors. John wasn’t too proud to sigh at the danger averted. He shook his head at Lester, but before he said anything, the bear walked past him.
“Come warm near our fire. Then we can talk.”
At first, John didn’t follow, but Lester waved for him to go before the opportunity passed. So John did, the cold biting his legs by the time he reached the crowd and buckling them in his last steps to the fire. He fell just short of the flames, and a woman came to drape a buffalo hide across his shoulders. Others brought a severed stump for the bear to sit on the other side of the fire, one hand on his knee as he leaned to stare at John.
“You came a long way?”
John nodded. “Halfway across this damned country.”
“Why? Why do you want to fight the men in that fort?”
“Just one,” John held up a finger. “A man named Richard Arstrom killed my wife and the baby inside her. There were three against her, but I gave his brothers better odds. Neither came out alive, so it’s his turn.”
“Why did these men take her from you?”
“Harsh words and bruised knuckles. They beat me until I was asleep and left me in a ditch. That should have been enough, but they
took things too far.”
“But you didn’t see them,” the man squinted at the flames. “If you were asleep, how can you be sure they did?”
“I’m sure. I saw it in the eyes of the first one I went for. He expected it—deserved it.”
“Maybe,” the bear said.
“Maybe Hell,” John scowled. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“I was told we would help each other, but what do my people get out of this?”
“Isn’t that always the way with white men?” Lester approached and took the hide from the hands of a woman who came forward. “We offer deals that never pan out and are gone before you realize it. It’s a damn shame, and I don’t expect you to trust me because I say we’re different.”
“Then why should we?”
John looked over with the same question.
“Gather your people and I’ll tell you,” Lester stepped behind John, putting a hand on his shoulder.
John wanted to shrug it away but pretended he didn’t mind the old man. He needed the Indians to trust him and so had to show he did too.
The bear stared long enough to doubt but then called out. The others came and crowded them, making it hard to breathe. They waited in silence until Lester spoke in their language.
In the thick now, John hated being in the dark about the words spoken. The bear’s eyes took on that same lazy look as the one who led them there. They all did now. The look on their faces, the life drained out, made him feel like he was part of some devil’s work. The hand at his shoulder felt like a claw, but before he worked up the nerve to shrug away, Lester went quiet.
“What did you say to them?” John whispered, though the silence was deep enough it might as well have been a shout.
“Have faith,” Lester said.
“In you?”
