by Cora Brent
When she could no longer speak he leaned over and kissed her.
“Go on now, Anni.”
“No,” she said stubbornly.
“Annika,” he tried again. “You see how the cracks of sunlight around the door have faded? It’s dark now. If Cutter doesn’t come I can’t have you watching what will happen…” He faltered, trailing off.
When the door to the jail burst open Annika shrieked and flattened herself against the bars. They wouldn’t take him. They would have to kill her first.
Mercer’s voice was light, glib. “Hello, brother. Have you come to pay your final respects?”
James was quickly unlocking the cell. “Come on, there’s no time. It’s the supper hour and no one is looking right now.”
Annika looked at him in disbelief. “You’re helping us?”
James’s face broke its stone veneer and he gave her a wounded look. “I’m not quite the villain you think, Annika.”
James picked up a nearby sledgehammer and heaved it against the back wall of the jail. The adobe crumbled away and he peered into the deepening darkness. There was no one in sight behind the Contention City Jail.
“I may be a lout and a rotten excuse for the law but by god I’m not giving my brother over a pack of murderers. Now, Misty is tied to a tree about a hundred yards out. You can make it.”
Mercer stood next to him, looking out of the makeshift opening. He cocked his head, listening.
“No,” he argued, shaking his head. “We can’t.”
Annika heard it then. The furious whoops and yells of men on the hunt. It was the mob.
A loud voice boomed from the street. “Dolan! Hand over your prisoner to reap the winds of justice!”
James had tensed and grabbed his Winchester. Mercer, however, laughed, prompting his brother to stare at him in incredulity.
But Annika had recognized the mocking drawl. “It’s Cutter, isn’t it?”
“Told you he was my friend,” said Mercer quietly.
James opened the door cautiously. Annika saw the glow of fire on his face and tried to peek around him. She glimpsed a half dozen men on horseback standing on Contention Way, just west of the courthouse. Their faces were eerily covered with gunnysacks and they held torches.
The tall man in the center of the pack, Annika knew, was Cutter Dane.
James sucked in his breath suddenly and cursed. He brought the rifle up.
“They your friends too?” he asked Mercer, pointing in the other direction.
Annika heard the gunshot before she saw the second group of men. They approached from the east and there were more of them.
“They are not,” observed Mercer soberly. “Annika, down on the ground. Don’t move until I say.”
Annika saw Mercer accept a pistol from his brother and crouch in to doorway. She didn’t know who shot first and she could not see into the street. She heart shouts and the painful shrieks of horses as gunshots popped and screamed from all directions.
She saw smoke and from the yelps of chaos in the street she figured at least one building had been set afire. Annika saw Mercer and James side by side at the abyss of the mayhem. She had never known the sound of so many bullets. Every one tore her nerves a little bit further. She understood then how the bedlam of the war had altered her father. She closed her eyes as a man’s voice howled in agony. No one could listen to these sounds for very long without losing a bit of reason.
The hand on her back emerged from nowhere. Annika cried out and fingers automatically covered her mouth. She was faced with the terrifying sight of a faceless man. Then he pulled off his mask and she breathed with relief. It was Como Medici. He trained his weapon on James.
“No!” Annika shouted, pulling his arm. The shot went wild and she struggled to stand between the men.
“We are all on the same side in here,” she said breathlessly.
“Annika!” Mercer yelled, pulling her to the ground as bullets whizzed past. He looked over at his friend. “Why not some Tuscan royalty? Mighty glad to see you, Como.”
Como still watched James with wariness. “They can’t be held off long,” he warned. “We’ve got to try now.”
Mercer tightened his grip around Annika. “What about Anni? James, you need to shout out to them. Tell them there’s a woman inside and she’s coming out.”
“I will not,” Annika yelled, clutching him. “I swore I wouldn’t let you go and I won’t. Not while we’re both breathing, Mercer Dolan.”
“Mercer,” said Como, as a bullet came through the wall. “Now.”
The hole James had made, which was evidently the one Como had crawled through, was unguarded. The Italian stepped cautiously through it first. Mercer followed, holding Annika behind him as James brought up the rear.
“Stay down,” Mercer hissed as the battle continued to rage on the street. Annika thought the Mercantile might be on fire. The smoke added to the confusion.
Annika felt disoriented as she clung to Mercer in the turmoil. She heard James at her back, struggling to suppress his coughing. Howls and gunshots continued from the smoke-filled street as Mercer dragged her through the turmoil. It seemed they had managed to get at least a hundred yards away. The sounds of the chaos were fading.
Como had flattened himself against the side of a building. He spoke urgently to Mercer. “The horses are tied up behind The Rose Room.”
Mercer shook his head. “Too far. Can’t risk bringing Anni through this.”
Como glanced at Annika. “You’ll need to leave her. She’ll be safer here than riding out with us. Mercer, you know it’s true.”
Mercer was silent.
Annika began to feel a panic. She would not be left behind while Mercer rode out to an uncertain fate. She embraced him ferociously. “No, goddamn you men! This is my choice and I’m going where you go.”
“Mercer.” James’s voice was loud and unwavering. “I will keep her safe until you can send for her.” He coughed painfully and then righted himself, gasping, as Mercer quietly stared. “I swear it. I swear it on our name.”
Annika saw how Mercer’s face grew tender. “James,” he said and reached a hand toward his brother.
James extended a hand in return and for a brief second love and forgiveness between brothers conquered the raw mania of the world around them. James gave his brother a wry grin and then his eyes went wide as his body convulsed. He looked down in disbelief to the place where an errant bullet, likely fired with a different target in mind, had caught him just above the heart.
“Mercer,” he gasped and then fell.
Annika cried out in despair as Mercer caught his brother in his arms.
“James!” he choked as Como kicked in the door of the building and gestured to Annika that she should enter.
Mercer carried James inside as Annika hovered, her hand over her mouth as she saw how James’s eyes rolled back into his head. The wound, she knew, was bad.
“James,” she said softly, taking his hand as Mercer laid him down on the floor and determinedly sought a pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said, but there wasn’t much relief in his voice. He winced as he ripped open James’s shirt and saw where the bullet had entered.
Como had crept to a window and was peering outside. “It’s quieting,” he observed, setting his pistol down as he crouched next to Mercer on the floor. “They must have scattered.” Annika saw the way the Italian’s eyes searched their surroundings and frowned. For a moment she didn’t realize why a stab of familiarity tugged at her. Then, as she glimpsed the elaborate crystal perched on an ornate wood carved table she realized why. She had visited here before. They were in the parlor of the Swillings’ home.
She was on the verge of communicating this alarming fact when a deafening shot rang out. Como Medici clutched his arm and cursed in Italian. Mercer threw Annika a desperate look and lunged for Como’s discarded pistol.
“Stop,” said a voice and it was an ugly voice, full of amusement. There was a chuckle
. “Quite an exotic little tableau here. Is that the city marshal lying dead on my floor?”
“I’m not dead, Swilling.” James struggled to rise as blood trickled out of his mouth. “Not yet.” He collapsed onto his back, gasping for breath.
Mercer stood and glared hatefully at the mine boss. He held Swilling’s eye as he spoke. “Go on now, Anni. You’re nearest the door. Swilling ain’t real swift with the iron. Now that he’s not shooting at our backs he knows damn well he’s got one chance. If he wastes it I’ll grab that there pistol on the floor before he can spin sideways. And I aim straight, boss. Always.” He spread his arms wide. “Need me dead, do you? Well boss, here I am.”
“No!” shrieked Annika, desperately trying to claw her way to Mercer. Como caught her in a bloody embrace and forced her bodily behind him.
Swilling regarded Mercer cheerfully over the barrel of his rifle. “I need someone dead,” he agreed and cocked the hammer.
“You forget something, capo,” spoke up Como Medici in a singsong voice. Henry Swilling paused, uncertain, as the Italian broke into a grin between his long whiskers.
“In the last few hours, signore, have you confirmed the location of your precious metal?”
Swilling blinked.
“The safe,” Mercer said, catching on with a laugh. “Your confidently unguarded gold hoard. The Danes have seen fit to ah, relocate it.”
The aim of the rifle wavered. Swilling’s fat face appeared sick. “You lie,” he said. But there was no surety in his voice.
“Sometimes,” agreed Como, grimacing with pain as he shrugged. “But not today, capo.”
Annika could read Swilling’s face. He didn’t know what to do. He was a man used to slithering behind the scenes, recruiting others for the thorny tasks which spelled danger. And though his finger was the only one in the room trembling over a trigger, she knew he was unsure he could pull it.
Mercer pressed the advantage. “Anni’s life,” he said, taking a bold step forward. “Como here will point you in the direction of your pile of gold once she’s safely away.” Mercer glanced to James, who had ceased to move. “Look at the marshal, Swilling. He ain’t breathing no more. There won’t be no one left to believe but you. Como can manage his own way out and I’d reckon he won’t be keen on returning, ain’t that right, friend?”
Como spoke softly. “That’s right, Mercer.”
Swilling’s eyes narrowed. “And you?”
“Shoot me in the parlor. Or hand me to the mob.” Mercer laughed to himself and ran a hand through his dark hair. There, in the moonlight of a terrible moment, Annika still marveled over the beauty of him. Then she realized he would be taken from her. Soon. Mercer continued in a dreamy voice. “Hell, maybe this was an end I could never get away from. I made a deal with the devil long before I met you, Swilling. Blood was always going to find me.” The man she loved paused and turned to her. His voice was impossibly gentle, with the burden of a thousand regrets and lost days. “I love you, Anni,” said Mercer Dolan. “I’ll be with you again. In this world or another one. Now you get her out, Como.”
“I love you too,” whispered Annika. At the sound of the shot she felt the death of her soul and shut her eyes. She would not look. She would never look at anything again. Swilling would likely kill her anyway and by god she would leave this world without having seen Mercer’s lifeless body. It would be the last thing she prayed for.
“Anni.” The ring of the shot faded and she heard his voice at her ear. She wondered if she were dead already and had reached whatever lay beyond.
Annika opened her eyes. Mercer was there, he was whole. He kissed her hard and she knew the heat of his mouth on hers was a privilege reserved for the living. But her surge of joy was brief as her mind tried to sort through the confusion of events. She saw Swilling lying still on the floor, the contents of his skull gruesomely painting the wall above him. And she saw the pistol in James’s steady hand. Then he dropped it and let out a thick moan.
Mercer left her and knelt at his brother’s side. He grinned. “I knew you were playin’ possum. Just like when we were kids and would hide in Lizzie’s hay loft as she called for us to do our chores. You remember that, James? Do you?” His voice took on a desperate quality at the end.
The blood still trickled from James’s mouth. Annika saw the effort it took for him to try to speak. The wound in his chest continued to leak and his breathing was an agonized wheeze. “I remember,” he said. He ran his hand across his mouth and grimaced at the smear of dark blood he saw.
Annika knelt beside Mercer and placed a gentle hand on James’s chest. She could see in his eyes the knowledge of his death. She wanted him to know he would not face it alone.
“Can’t fault you, Annika,” he said. A convulsion of pain caused him to stiffen and then he offered her a rueful grin. “Can’t fault you,” he continued, “for what I always knew.”
Annika fought the tears. James Dolan deserved better than self-serving weeping. “James,” she finally said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he told her. He coughed and tried to swallow the blood which bubbled into his throat. His eyes, so like Mercer’s, shifted from her to his brother and back again. “I wouldn’t have lived many more years anyway. My lungs wouldn’t allow it. Just know that I loved you. Know that I loved you both. And remember me.”
“Yes,” she took his hand, kissing it as Mercer let out a moan of grief. “Always.”
It was only seconds but seemed much longer. There were distant shouts and the glow of fire as buildings lining Contention Way burned. And James Dolan was no more.
“Mercer.” Como was tying his arm into a makeshift sling. “You should go. Cutter and the rest are set to rally a mile due east of the bridge. They won’t wait long.” He looked at the ceiling where sounds on the second floor could be heard as the home’s other occupants dared to stir. “And even without Swilling the mob will remember your blood.”
Mercer stared at James as if he hadn’t heard a word. “I need to bury him.”
Como sucked in an impatient breath. “You can’t.”
“I will,” said Annika. She raised her eyes and looked calmly at Mercer. “I’ll see him put to rest. I should do it. I need to do it. You know you can’t stay.”
Mercer stared at her. Annika could almost see the inner struggle being waged within. Contention City would not have forgotten about him. With the deaths of James and Swilling and the bedlam wrought by The Danes, Mercer’s neck would be still be sought. Gun-toting posses would surely chase them all over the Territory and Annika’s presence would be a liability. But if he fled with Cutter Dane it was impossible to guess when she might see him again. Weeks, years, possibly never.
“Can you ride?” Mercer slowly asked Como.
The Italian frowned at his arm. “It isn’t a bad shot, amico, and I can ride, yes. But not the kind of riding you boys will need to do in order to escape the law of the Territory.” He took a step closer to Mercer and looked at him shrewdly. “I owe you a debt, Dolan. You saved my life out there more than once. Remember the Black Hills?”
Mercer nodded vaguely. “The Black Hills. Yes, I remember.”
Annika held him. “I’ll find you. My love. I will.” She kissed him.
“I’ll help her,” said Como. He gave them a crooked grin. “Medici’s dislike having debts.” He ambled toward the door. “I should not be present when the light shines of all of this.” He waved his good arm around to indicate the bloody mess and the dead bodies. “I promise you, Mercer, I will see her to safety.”
When Como Medici made his exit Mercer turned to Annika once more and ran a hand down her cheek. Something about it reminded her of the first time they’d kissed, a moment of passionate confusion. It seemed so long ago, she mused. It was, indeed, so long ago.
“Just don’t forget me,” Annika choked as she slipped her arms around his shoulders and pressed herself to him one more time.
Mercer’s broad hands spread across her back
. “As if I could, sweet girl.”
He did not say goodbye. Annika was glad. The words would have haunted her. She stood there in the parlor of a fine home with two dead men. Somewhere inside the house a woman began to shout.
“In this world or another one,” she whispered to herself.
Then, just before Mrs. Swilling discovered her dead husband and issued a great cacophony of wailing, a stubbornly distinct thought carved itself in Annika’s mind.
I’ll remember.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Contention City, Arizona
Present Day
Maddox couldn’t open his eyes. He would feel himself swimming out of the oblivion, fighting to surface like a drowning man climbing toward the promise of air. Then the darkness would pull him back down. Somewhere in between he found his father.
“Told ya,” Priest said, wagging a finger. It wasn’t the Priest of latter days, shriveled and gasping. This man was large and brimming with vitality, even younger than the father figure of Mad’s childhood. He wore a leather jacket and a cocky sneer which spelled a knowing defiance.
This Priest swing on leg across bike which was black to its last inch. He was still shaking his head with apparent ruefulness that his words hadn’t been heeded.
“Told ya to stay out them hills, boy. Nothin’ but death. Gold and death. All the same.” Priest gunned the engine. Maddox wondered where the hell this ghostly Priest planned on going since they seemed to be suspended together in some sort of wild gray nowhere. Then a patch of fog cleared and Maddox saw the low peaks of the Scorpion Mountains.
Priest turned and offered crooked smile. “It’ll be all right, Maddie. Open your eyes. Your brother’s here.”
Maddox found he could not speak or move. He could only watch his father ride off in the direction of the mountains until the fog closed around him, leaving Maddox alone again in the featureless landscape.
Helplessly, he looked up and strained to move. Somewhere, anywhere. To stay here, he knew, was death. Gabriela’s face flashed across his mind and he found the strength to draw back his fist. With a roar he punched through the fog and landed hard on a cold floor.
