Worse than a fox, Blaylock thought, and the chickens know it.
Gunfire broke out at the tree line, lots of it. The man behind the coop must have heard it, and he broke from cover, running for the barn that was even farther from the house.
Blaylock snapped off two quick shots, but both missed their target. The man was moving too fast and erratically to give Blaylock a decent chance to hit him.
The man got into the barn, but Blaylock was close behind. The horses whinnied and kicked their stalls, and Blaylock went through the door in a running crouch. He ducked to the left as soon as he got inside, and a bullet smacked into the wall just above him.
Blaylock had no cover. Moonlight filtered in through a few cracks in the walls, but it was so dark in the barn that Blaylock was sure the man couldn’t get a good look at him. So he simply stood up and fired at the place where he’d seen the muzzle flash. Either the man was no longer there or Blaylock’s shot missed him.
Blaylock moved away from the place where he’d fired and wound up behind a horse stall. He smelled gunsmoke, hay, and horse manure as he reloaded the pistol, dumping the shells and thumbing the fresh cartridges into the hot cylinder. When the pistol was loaded, Blaylock looked over the wall.
He saw movement in the darkness. Someone was climbing the ladder to the hayloft. Blaylock didn’t call out to the man or give any other warning. He just shot him.
This time, Blaylock didn’t miss. The man fell heavily to the dirt floor of the barn.
Blaylock stayed right where he was.
“Damnation,” the man said after a couple of seconds. “I’m hurt bad. Help me.”
Blaylock found a lucifer in his pocket and snapped it into fire with his thumbnail. He held it well away from himself. Nobody took a shot at it, and Blaylock moved out from behind the horse stall.
He walked over to where a short man with long arms lay on his back. A dark stain spread across the front of his shirt, and a pistol lay nearby. Blaylock kicked the pistol away.
“Jesus,” the man said in a strangled voice. He groaned. “Shit.”
“Who sent you?” Blaylock asked him.
“You can go to hell,” the man said.
“Likely I will,” Blaylock said. He heard the sound of blood bubbling from the man’s chest. “Not near as quick as you will, though. You might as well talk. You don’t have a lot longer before you make the trip. You’re shot through the lung.”
“Doctor,” the man said. “I need a doctor.”
“We’ll see about that later. Tell me who sent you.”
“Go to hell.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Blaylock said. He turned his back on the man and left the barn.
#
It was quiet on the peak, but Blaylock didn’t know how things had turned out, so he was quiet as he approached the back of the house. He went to the back door and rapped quietly on it, three long taps and two short ones. For a few seconds there was no answer, and then he heard Jenny’s voice.
“Sam?”
“It’s me. Are you all right?”
“The children and I are fine. I’m going to lift the bar and let you in.”
Sam heard the bar move against the door, and then the door opened. He went inside and saw Jenny standing there, pointing a shotgun at him.
“I’m alone,” he said, closing the door and replacing the bar.
Jenny put down the shotgun, and Blaylock took her in his arms.
“What happened?” he said.
“I went to sleep in the chair,” Jenny told him. “But of course your children didn’t go to sleep at all.”
Blaylock had long ago noticed that they were “his children” when Jenny was exasperated with them. “I’d say it was a good thing they didn’t.”
Jenny pulled away from him. “You could be right. Titus heard someone outside, and he didn’t even wake me. He got the rifle and went to the window. Some men were trying to open the door, and he took a shot at them.”
“Just like him to do something like that,” Blaylock said. Even knowing that what his son had done was dangerous in the extreme, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of pride in the boy. “I guess he scared them away.”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “They ran off, but they stopped in the trees and started shooting at the windows.”
“And Titus shot back.”
“He wasn’t the only one. Miriam and Elijah had their squirrel rifles by then, and I had the shotgun. I don’t think we hit anybody, but they kept well away from us. It’s quiet now. What happened?”
“Either they’re dead or all our hands are. There’s one more of the shooters out in the barn. He’ll be dead before long.”
“Can we do anything for him?”
“Too late for that. Where are the children?”
“Watching the front. Come along and we’ll let them know you’re here.”
When they entered the front room, Titus was standing to one side of the window. Miriam was on the other, and Elijah sat in a chair nearby.
“Anybody moving around out there?” Blaylock asked.
Titus took a quick peek. “I think I see someone coming out of the trees.”
Blaylock went to the window and risked a look. A man stood at the edge of the trees waving his arms.
“Tucker,” Blaylock said.
He moved to the door and opened it. Stepping outside, he called Tucker’s name.
“We got one of ‘em,” Tucker yelled back. “Two more of ‘em got past us. You want us to go after ‘em?”
“Just bring your prisoner and come on back,” Blaylock said.
“He’s not a prisoner. He’s dead.”
“Bring him on in, anyway, then. We’ll decide what to do when you get here.”
“You were wrong about the killing,” Jenny said when Blaylock closed the door.
“I’m sorry. I never meant for it to happen. You know I’d never put you and the children in danger.”
“We weren’t in danger,” Titus said, pointing his rifle at the window. “They were.”
Jenny looked at Blaylock. “I knew when we came here there might be difficulties,” she said. “I just didn’t know what kind. What I do know is that this place is ours, and we’ll do what we have to. I understand that. The children understand it, too. But I don’t like what’s happening.”
“It’s over for now,” Blaylock said. “You and the children can go back to bed. I’ll take care of things.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jenny said, “but I’m not sure how well we can sleep.”
“We’ll be just fine,” Miriam said. She looked at her brothers. “Won’t we.”
“Sure,” Elijah said, and Titus nodded.
“That’s settled, then,” Blaylock said. “Go on to bed. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“Can we have pancakes?” Titus asked.
“Certainly,” Jenny said.
She gave Blaylock a kiss on the cheek and went to light a lantern for him. He took the lantern and went outside to meet the others, who were just coming into the yard.
Tucker and Duane carried a body between them. Tucker had his feet, and Duane held it under the arms. Randy was behind them, trying to calm Gabby, who appeared to be soaking wet.
“Take it to the barn,” Blaylock told Tucker. “There’s someone in there, too. Hurt bad, maybe dead already.”
Tucker and Duane headed around the house, and Blaylock turned his attention to Gabby and Randy.
“What happened?” he asked, lifting up the lantern to get a better look at them.
“Haints,” Gabby said. “That’s what happened. Ran me down in the dark, threw me in the millstream, left me there to drown and die.”
10
It was hard not to laugh at the bedraggled Gabby, but Blaylock managed to restrain himself.
“Those haints must’ve been pretty solid if they could throw you in the millstream,” he said.
“They ran over him, is what they did, I’ll bet,” Randy sa
id. “He never saw ‘em coming.”
“You can’t see a haint if they don’t want you to! If I coulda seen ‘em, I’ve blasted ‘em with this here shotgun!”
Gabby brandished the shotgun, which had also been in the stream with him.
“I thought you said a shotgun’s no use against a haint,” Blaylock said.
“Never you mind what I said. When those haints come after you again, you’ll be sorry.”
“Speaking of haints, we have a couple of real bodies to take care of. Gabby, you go get yourself dried off. Randy, you come with me. I want you to take a look at them.”
Gabby went off, muttering under his breath.
“And dry that shotgun,” Blaylock called after him. “You might need it again soon.”
Gabby didn’t bother to respond. He hunched his shoulders and kept walking.
“I don’t really think those men threw him in the stream,” Randy said. “I think they scared him into the water.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Blaylock said. “He’s lucky they didn’t kill him. How many were there?”
“I think just two of ‘em got away.”
Blaylock thought he knew who three of the men were. The one in the barn could have been one of those who’d picked the fight in George’s store, and so could the other dead one. Randy had described the men to Blaylock, and he thought he was right about them, but he wanted Randy to look at them to be sure. That left the third man from the store. He and someone else had gotten away. Or maybe Blaylock was getting ahead of himself. He’d get Randy’s opinion before he came to any more conclusions.
“Let’s go on around to the barn,” he said.
Tucker and Duane met them there. The body lay on the ground just outside the door.
“Did you go in?” Blaylock asked.
“Nope,” Duane said. “We didn’t hear anything, so we thought we’d just wait out here.”
“Duane thinks there might be a haint in there,” Tucker said.
“Now don’t you start up with me,” Duane said.
Blaylock ignored them and held the lantern so that Randy could get a good look at the dead man.
“Ever see him?” Blaylock asked.
“Yeah,” Randy said. “At Mr. George’s store. This is the one they called Jones. Frank and Earl were the others.”
“Let’s have a look in the barn,” Blaylock said, and he led the way inside. Tucker and Duane came along, apparently not worried about haints any longer, if they ever had been.
The man Blaylock had shot lay still at the foot of the ladder, no longer breathing. Blaylock let Randy get a look at him.
“That’s Earl,” Randy said.
“That means Frank got away,” Blaylock said. “The one you told me had a scar on his face.”
“Yeah, but there was another one with them tonight. Whoever it is wasn’t with them at the store.”
Blaylock thought it over. The four men might have come in the boat again, but right now the way they’d arrived didn’t really matter. They’d done pretty much what Elijah had suggested. They’d gotten Blaylock to do something impetuous. He should have considered that they might make a move on his family, but it hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d blundered off into the woods on the peak without a second thought for his family or anybody else.
But the men had made a mistake, too. They hadn’t reckoned with Jenny and the children and their ability to take care of themselves. Now there were two men dead, and Blaylock’s family was just fine.
“What’ll we do with these two?” Tucker asked.
“Leave ‘em,” Blaylock said. “Just cover ‘em up. I’ll take them into town tomorrow.”
“The marshal’s not gonna be happy,” Randy said.
“He hardly ever is,” Blaylock said.
#
Blaylock didn’t get much sleep during what was left of the night. Questions kept running through his mind and keeping him awake. The main question was, who was behind all the things that had been happening? Because Blaylock had no doubt that everything was connected.
He knew that there were people in Shooter’s Cross who didn’t like him. Mitchell McCarthy would be the first one on the list, and McCarthy was using his newspaper to turn others against Blaylock. That was understandable, since McCarthy’s feelings about Blaylock went beyond mere dislike.
Blaylock had messed up the deal that McCarthy had going with Senator Vaughn, and he’d won a lot of money in a poker game that Vaughn and McCarthy had been in. A good bit of that money had once lined the pockets of McCarthy and the senator, though Blaylock figured the senator had gotten everything he’d lost back in a few weeks.
Considering the senator’s reputation for accepting bribes, it might have taken even less time than that. McCarthy, however, was a different story. He didn’t have access to people trying to buy his favor.
McCarthy did, however, have a part ownership in the Bad Dog Saloon, and someone in there had taken a few shots at Blaylock before disappearing. So there was a connection, however slight.
Even at that, though, nothing added up. McCarthy didn’t like Blaylock, and he might resent what Blaylock had done to him and his crooked political friend, but that was no reason to kill Blaylock or his family. Especially not his family. Surely McCarthy didn’t hate him that much.
That was the problem, Blaylock thought. Nobody in Shooter’s Cross had any reason to hate him that much, and certainly not the two men who were now lying dead in the bed of Blaylock’s wagon out behind the barn. He didn’t know them. He’d never even seen them before as far as he knew.
It could be a matter of his past catching up with him, he supposed. He’d had an interesting life before his marriage to Jenny, and there were those he’d met along the way who might like to get a little of their own back. He might not remember them, but they’d remember him, all right.
But would they want to kill him? Or his family? Blaylock couldn’t think of any who’d do that or wait so long to do it.
There was Dick Dockett, Blaylock thought. Dockett might have a terrible grudge against him if he was alive, but Dockett was dead. A dead man couldn’t get revenge, not unless he came back as one of Gabby’s haints, and Blaylock didn’t believe that was possible.
It was all too much for him, and the little sleep he got was troubled.
#
“Goddamnit!” Dick Dockett said when Frank and Jacob told him what had happened at Blaylock’s place.
They were in Dockett’s house, the lamp on the table where Dockett sat casting shadows in the corners of the room.
“You should’ve just burned the house down,” Dockett said. “Or the sawmill. That would have been more than enough for this time. I told you I wanted to draw it out, but you couldn’t wait, could you? You couldn’t just do what I asked you to. That would’ve been too easy.”
“Look here,” Frank said, taking a step toward the table. Jacob put a hand on his arm, but Frank shook it off. “Two of us got shot back there, both probably dead, and we’re lucky we’re not dead, too. You got no call to talk to us like that.”
“I’ll talk to you any damn way I please,” Dockett said. He stood up and pushed his chair back from the table. “If those men are dead it’s their own damn fault. I paid them and you good money to do a simple job, but it’s all wasted. You can’t find your butt with both hands. That goes for you, too, Jacob.”
Jacob stepped in front of Frank. “We did our best. You should know what Blaylock’s like, considering he nearly killed you. He’s tough and smart, but he’s also got a lucky streak a mile wide. We figured we could get him distracted long enough for us to get at his family, and that’s what you wanted. Just hurting him’s not enough for you, you said it yourself. You want him to suffer. Well, killing his family, or some of them, would sure as hell do that, but it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t alive to see it. We came close, we did the best we could, and you can’t ask any better. Besides that, you sure as hell ain’t paying me. I have as much right to get back at Blayl
ock as you do.”
Dockett’s face reddened and his neck swelled. “Horse shit! You’re not the one who got beat half to death and was left to drown in the river.”
“Maybe not, but I’m the one who pulled you out. If it wasn’t for me, what was left of you after the fish and turtles got through with you would be floated halfway to Houston by now.”
Dockett took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That son of a bitch. I’m going to get him and everybody he cares about if it’s the last thing I do.”
“It might not be worth it,” Jacob said.
“The hell it’s not. I’ve been going about this all wrong. I thought I could toy with Blaylock. Make him sweat a little. The next time we won’t fool around. We’ll just go the whole hog. Kill them all at once.”
“Just how do you plan to do that?” Frank asked. “I know you’re paying me, but you’re not paying me enough to get killed like Earl and Jones did. That money’s not doing ‘em any good now.”
“I’ll think of something,” Dockett said. “Next time will be different. Jacob, do you know anybody who needs to make a little money?”
“By going up against Blaylock? Who’d be crazy enough to do that, no matter what you were offering?”
“What about the Benson brothers?”
Jacob knew the Bensons, all right. They lived a mile or so away in a little rundown shack. They spent their time fishing and hunting, and the only money they had come from the game and fish they were able to sell in town. They spent most of it on bad whiskey, or if they got enough, on women who were worse than the whiskey. Some said they were rough on the women, and they were no longer allowed in the only saloon in Shooter’s Cross.
“They might do it,” Jacob said, “but they’re not reliable. They’re both half crazy. That’s why you didn’t hire ‘em in the first place.”
“I don’t have time to look for anybody else,” Dockett said. He gave Frank a glare. “That didn’t work out so well, anyhow.”
“Now just a minute,” Frank said.
“Shut up,” Dockett told him. “Jacob, you ride over to the Benson place and get them. Bring them back here, and I’ll talk to them. That would make five of us if they go along.”
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