The Gunslinger's Man

by Helena Maeve

  It was a bruising dawn, the eastern sky shot with pinks and oranges, his shadow stretching long over the cracked dirt. Asher hopped out of saddle, dusty hoof prints crumbling underfoot.

  His horse, a borrowed mare with a placid temperament, let herself be tugged along by the reins for the last ten yards. She sniffed along the edge of the wooden fence for grass, but the cows had already been at it.

  “You gonna come down from there?” Asher called out, nudging the brim of his hat with a fingertip.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Guess that’s a no.” Asher sighed and squinted at the ground around him. He found what was looking for about three feet from the gate post.

  The stone was jagged and heavy in his hand but not so heavy that he couldn’t lob it at the high barn wall. It smacked the edge of the roof and ricocheted uselessly onto a patch of dirt in the yard.

  The hammering stopped. Relief flooded like sunlight after heavy rain, and just as quickly morphed into anger.

  “You’re a mean son of a bitch, you know that, Halloran? I thought you were pushing up daisies, you fuck! And here you are…playing carpenter!”

  The earth echoed with a muffled thud as Halloran hit the ground. He’d used no harness and no stepladder to climb up to the roof of the barn. The upper ledge had been enough to hold him up.

  Damn vampire agility.

  “Thought you of all people would be pleased,” Halloran said. His gruff, familiar voice dispelled any lingering fears that Asher had conjured him out of forlorn hope.

  “Pleased?”

  “You’re free now. I ain’t gonna bother you no more.”

  Mere nights ago they’d been pulling at each other’s clothes in a desperate quest to make the most of their final moments together. It might as well have been another life. They’d certainly been different people.

  Asher sucked in a breath. Was that what Halloran wanted?

  He was starting back at him as if he was a stranger, wariness in the slant of his shoulders, hostility in his cold, brown eyes.

  “You’re gonna turn cowherd instead, is that it?” Disbelief made Asher mean. “Pretty big change for a gunslinger…”

  “Wasn’t always one,” Halloran answered, shrugging.

  The faint puffing of animal breath echoed through the open barn door. Malachi had been telling the truth when he’d said the cattle were taken care of. Halloran could well be telling the truth now.

  It wasn’t enough to get Asher back on his horse.

  “What about me, then?”

  “What about you? Ambrose’s gone. Malachi’s as weak as he’s gonna get.” Halloran hooked the hammerhead around the topmost board in the fence. “Now’s the time to leave Sargasso, if that’s still what you’re after.” His eyes searched Asher’s. “Is it?”

  Asher considered it. Leave the valley, hop on a train in Mesa and see the rest of the country before the years caught up with him or his prosthetics broke down. Maybe ride as far as Yukon and see the places he’d read about in the papers. The Red Horn Riders had traveled far and wide doing harm and robbing folks from one border to the other. Retracing their footsteps ought to be easy. Asher had kept all the clippings.

  But the Riders were no more. Maud had left town. The others were dead. And Halloran was in hiding. Asher would have to go alone.

  “Look, what happened to Blackjack—”

  “If you’ve come here to twist the knife, spare me,” Halloran growled. “I don’t need to hear it.” He wrenched the hammer free with a brutal yank and started back for the barn.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Asher’s question did the impossible. It stopped Halloran in his tracks.

  “The one before me.” Asher licked his lips, tried again. “I asked you if there had been others—other men you kept close.” Bloodbags was too harsh a term. It didn’t fit him and Halloran or Halloran and Blackjack. “He was one of ’em.” Maybe even the only one.

  The tension in Halloran’s shoulders didn’t fade one iota but he didn’t resume his retreat, either. “Does it matter?” He squinted into the horizon. The rising sun was barely a line of red in the east. “He’s gone now.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry… Here,” Asher said, stirring himself, “I thought you might want to have this.” He’d had ample time to disassemble and clean Blackjack’s carbine over the past days. It pleased him to see the barrel gleam as he freed the rifle from the saddle ties and held it out to Halloran. “You ought to have it.”

  Jaw flexing, Halloran glanced at the weapon. “I don’t—”

  “Take the goddamn gun, you asshole. It’s all you got left of him,” Asher rasped. He tried not to look away when Halloran met his gaze. “Did you know there’s an inscription on stock?” Not a particularly neat one, almost as if Blackjack had scratched it on himself over the course of many years—a strange pastime for a strange man.

  Halloran’s expression gave nothing away, but Asher thought he spied a flicker of interest in his eyes.

  “It says Fate.”

  Change came to Halloran slowly, a liquid tilt to his body, his features losing some of their innate sharpness. There was a glimmer of surrender in the set of his shoulders and the loosening of his fists as he slowly slid the hammer into his belt.

  The carbine exchanged hands.

  “Thank you.”

  Asher sighed. “First time I ever heard you say that.” Probably the last too. He stuck his empty hands in the pockets of his duster. “I should head back. Town’ll be awake soon and, uh…”

  “They need you.”

  “By a fashion.”

  Halloran shook his head. “No. They need you. Always did. Now they’re just brave enough to admit it.”

  “At least someone does.” Asher’s smile floundered on his lips. “I’ll see you around, then.”

  “Till the farm’s fixed up.”

  Willowbranch had suffered a fire, a stampede and decades of neglect. With a little tender love and care, it would survive this latest upheaval. And after that? Asher could see it now. One day he’d ride out from Sargasso and find some other man on the porch. No tearful goodbyes would preface Halloran’s flight. When he went, he would go quietly. And he would never come back.

  “Right…” Asher scuffed the toe of his boot into the dirt. “Did you ever find out what was in those vials my uncle gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  Aware that he was only dragging this out, Asher jerked his shoulders in a prompting gesture.

  “Angelita’s blood.”

  “Oh.” That made sense. She was an anomaly.

  “And yours.”

  Asher glanced up, surprised. He was tempted to ask how or why, but the answer would’ve made little difference. Uncle Howard’s timely act of treason had borne fruit. Halloran had recovered his strength. He’d fought for Sargasso and survived the battle. Not many people could say that—undead or not. Already that was more than Asher could have hoped for, more than he deserved.

  “Is that your way of saying I’ll keep seeing you in my dreams?” he wondered, cocking his head. Some degree of bitterness was unavoidable. Halloran had picked away at him for so long, taking what he pleased, discarding him when it suited his purposes. Resentment made sense. The ache in his chess, less so.

  Halloran’s expression darkened. “Like I said. I ain’t gonna bother you again.”

  The finality in his tone should have been Asher’s cue to hop back onto the mare and set his sights on greener pastures. Halloran had already turned his back. Every step that took him farther and farther away only reopened the wounds Asher hadn’t had time to close.

  “What, I don’t get a choice?”

  Willowbranch was a hollow, empty shell. It echoed his question back at him as though in mockery.

  Heat warmed Asher’s face. He’d cycled through humiliation after humiliation in this place. It wasn’t the staggering revelation that his heart hadn’t turned to stone that would make him buckle. He had to say his piece. “All
that shit ’bout me bein’ yours. If those were just words, then fine, go back to the hammering your guilt away like a goddamn coward. But if it wasn’t, if there was more—if you meant any of it, then… You owe me,” Asher said, aware of his pulse thumping in his neck. “You hear that, asshole? You owe me!”

  Halloran twisted at the waist, not quite facing him but not quite ignoring him, either. “Do I?”

  His incredulity only bred conviction. Asher nodded. “Said it yourself. Malachi’s weak. If you want to stay on in Sargasso, then it’s gotta be on my terms.” He’d made a similar case to Malachi and the remaining handful of loyalists skulking around town. “If you can’t do that, then get your horse and your gun, and get lost.”

  “You ain’t said what your terms are.”

  Asher’s throat threatened to close up on him. “You give me an answer first.”

  “That don’t seem fair.”

  “You wanna talk about fair? You abducted me and held prisoner for a month, you bastard.” I lost everything. And won it back.

  And lost you.

  Asher took a step forward, closer to the gate but not through it. The air was still, even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. No sound snuffled out of the barn.

  He wouldn’t beg for this.

  Halloran tightened his grip around the carbine and turned toward the house. “You don’t know what you’re asking—”

  “Oh, go to hell…”

  “Let me finish,” Halloran snapped. “You don’t know what you’re askin’…but I got a bottle in the kitchen that wants drinkin’.” He waved the rifle in a harmless arc, gesturing for Asher to follow. “If you want talk about those terms.”

  He would never be a soft-spoken man. He would never be welcome in town or friendly with Wesley and Connie. Tight-coiled rage made up the connective tissue in his body and grief had poisoned him down to the marrow of his bones.

  But Malachi was right. Halloran wasn’t the only one willing to make sacrifices.

  Asher made up the distance between them with a slow, measured gait. He didn’t expect Halloran to wait for him on the porch any more than he anticipated Halloran reaching out a hand, vampire-quick, and grabbing his wrist. “You get a choice. Understand? You do.”

  Asher folded both hands in the pockets of his duster. He knew what he was asking. More than anything in the world, he knew that.

  “You’re mine,” he murmured, “and I already made my choice.” And dipping his head, he kissed Halloran beneath the glare of a red Sargasso dawn.

  Also available from Pride Publishing:

  Seat Sixty-Five

  Helena Maeve

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Trembling raindrops slithered up the windowpane in meandering rivulets. Felix tapped his fingertips against the glass, measuring the progress of the fattest tears. The rain had followed him east from Innsbruck, little more than a trickle to start but ramping up with faithful precision over the long miles.

  Lightning slashed the night sky toward the German border, blasting blue-white light over the flat country plains.

  Felix knew he was perfectly safe inside the train car. That didn’t stop him squirming in his seat when thunder roared. Loud noises sparked discomfort in the pit of his stomach. He reached into the folds of his parka and slid out the MP3 player. It was an old model, greedy for battery life and congested with music Felix couldn’t manage to delete. He ramped up the volume. Deep Purple vibrated in his eardrums to drown out the storm.

  It wouldn’t be long now—another hour or so and he’d be in Vienna. He would find a hostel, get some sleep and hopefully make it to the airport in time for his flight. His insides churned if he thought about the next leg of his journey, yet once he started, it was difficult to guide his attention elsewhere.

  His father had sounded less than thrilled to hear that he was coming back. He’d made it clear that Felix would have to find other living arrangements than his childhood home.

  No surprise there…

  The last time he’d talked to his father had been at the wedding. Alcohol and gaiety should have softened his old man’s heart. Instead, when he saw Felix show up with his then-boyfriend, all hell had broken loose.

  Felix hunkered down in his seat, cowering at once from the memory and the storm outside.

  The stiff chair was neither upright enough to let him rest against the window, nor sufficiently reclined to dub as a bed. Attempts to sleep had yielded little success in the past three hours.

  At least the cacophony of screaming children and chattering travelers had dimmed some.

  Felix’s seatmate was a woman blessed with generous curves and a Sophie Marceau nose. She dozed with impunity, cheek cushioned on the faux-fur collar of her cashmere sweater.

  Envy simmered in Felix at the sight. He looked away. His reflection in the rain-spattered windowpane revealed the curl of his upper lip more plainly than he would’ve liked. Innsbruck had drawn out the worst in him. It showed in the sallow curve of his pale cheeks, the circles under his eyes. He was a ghost of his former self. A mean ghost.

  A few seats away, across the aisle, a dark-haired man caught his eye in the glass. Taken one by one, his features seemed vaguely familiar. The whole rang no bells.

  Just some guy.

  People-watching was a commonplace hobby on public transport, no doubt every bit as familiar to the heavily-pierced punk-rocker slumbering in the seat beside the man as it was to the pristinely dressed elderly woman with the severe widow’s peak in front of them.

  For politeness’ sake, Felix did not let his gaze linger.

  Out of nowhere, a silver bolt struck somewhere ahead of the train, possibly in the wheat fields not far from the tracks. Felix startled so badly at the bright flash that he knocked shoulders with the slumbering woman beside him.

  Diffidence washed over him as she jolted awake.

  “Oh, I’m…”

  Before he could finish, the lights inside the train car quivered and died. A dozen voices rose up in answer, some amused, most not. Thunder drowned them out.

  “Damn storm,” Felix’s seatmate tittered. She had a smoker’s voice, all sandpaper and wire-brush.

  He mustered a smile, his creepy watcher forgotten.

  “You’re not afraid of a little thunder and lightning, are you? Faraday’s cage,” she added, wagging a finger. “We’re perfectly safe as long as we’re inside.”

  “Safe?” Felix repeated, plucking his earbuds out. The blood whooshing in his ears made it hard to keep up with the music.

  “If we’re struck by lightning.”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to him. He sat up, trying to peer over the darkened seats in front. Other passengers had the same bright idea, heads poking up as though in a game of Whac-A-Mole. Moonlight was scant on such a cloudy night and the security lights only revealed the simmering agitation inside the car.

  Exhausted, fearful travelers deprived of that most basic of human security blankets—light in darkness—made for a disturbing change of pace.

  Felix swallowed hard. “Good… Good to know.”

  Frantic crowds triggered stampedes, brawls. Stampedes cost lives.

  On instinct, he gathered his parka closer to himself. The impulse to flatten his back to the seat and pull his knees to his chest was almost more than he could control. Protecting the soft of his belly was no guarantee of safety.

  His seatmate remained oblivious. “Hmm, does it seem like we’re slowing down?” she asked, peering down the aisle.

  Were they? Felix looked to the window. The upward slant of the raindrops had dimmed, droplets arrested mid-trickle. As the train car gradually slowed its progress, they began to sluice down in glossy rivulets. The fast-changing reel of rugged dogwood and blackened fields settled into a more leisurely panorama.

  “This isn’t Vienna,” Felix forced out.

  “Oh, no. I reckon we just passed Weiselburg.” The traveler squinted down at her watch. “Yes, more or less.”

&
nbsp; “Then what—?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please, if I may have your attention? Ladies and gentlemen!” The conductor was a black-clad shadow in a long, toothed line of shadows. The vague air of authority in his voice was all that helped identify him.

  “We’ve stopped,” cried one of the passengers.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?”

  Felix winced. A countryman of his didn’t even stoop to attempting German.

  “Unfortunately the tracks were hit by the storm and we’ve lost power to the engine—”

  Disbelief rippled from one end of the car to the other, pocked with requests for translation, elaboration. Felix gripped the cushion of his seat and struggled to keep his breaths even.

  “We are doing everything we can to restore power!” the conductor bellowed over the growing outcry, a faintly plaintive note in his voice. “Everything we can,” he tried again, in English. “If you could please remain calm…”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Can you at least get the lights back on?”

  “We have small children here!”

  Lightning revealed the sheen of perspiration on the conductor’s brow as he shambled between the rows of seats en route to the next car. “We’re doing everything we can,” he repeated.

  If it wasn’t for the ball of tension blooming in the pit of his stomach, Felix would’ve felt for the man. As it stood, he felt only faintly seasick and vindicated. He’d known something would go wrong if he left Innsbruck. He never should have left.

  Birmingham didn’t want him back—his father had no desire to make amends.

  He should have stayed where he was. What was a weight on his chest when he was trying to sleep, or a finger wriggling around in his eye socket? He was needed in Innsbruck. He could’ve made it work.

  Heart vaulting and thudding against his ribs, Felix dug his fingernails a little tighter into the seat. This train wasn’t going back. Even if it started up again, he was eastbound.

  The door at the rear of the railcar snagged shut with a whisper. Trapped. We’re trapped.