Silver-Tongued Devil

by Lorelei James

  “Yep. Was supposed to happen last week but I just…” He knocked back another glug of booze. “Couldn’t. I needed more than a damn week to deal with losin’ one person in my life before I gained another.” He propped his boot on the lowest rung of the fence. “I’m still marryin’ her. Just not until the end of the summer.”

  “At least she ain’t in Dinah Thompson’s situation. My brother broke every promise he’d made to her and left her high and dry.” Silas tipped up the bottle and drank. “But she’s probably relieved he’s gone.”

  “You haven’t spoken to her?” Zachariah asked.

  “Not really. I’d planned on checkin’ in with her next week. There’s some stuff here Silas bought for her. Don’t know whether she wants it, but I oughta ask.”

  “I think folks are surprised she’s stayin’ around here. Mary indicated she’s the type to turn tail and run.”

  Silas tamped down his anger and offered a shrug. “No one would blame her after what Zeke did to her.”

  In a small voice, he said, “I never knew that side of him. I certainly never saw it when he was with women or I would’ve stopped it, believe me. It sickened me.”

  “I don’t believe your intended is familiar with Dinah at all if she thinks that woman would run at the first sign of adversity. She’s much tougher than she appears.”

  “You know her well?” West asked in a casual manner that wasn’t casual at all.

  This was another one of those situations where he had to tread lightly, reacting as Jonas. “Only from what Silas told me about her and the times I’d seen her assisting Doc. She knows her own mind, that’s for sure.” He took another swig. “Some recent nights…I’ve wondered if this’d all be different if I’d’ve asked to court her like I’d wanted to.”

  West choked on his whiskey. “You and the schoolteacher?”

  “Ain’t that far-fetched. I’d actually met her in Labelle before Silas had. But after she’d patched him up the first time, she was all he could talk about. I…” Silas felt his cheeks warm. “I let go of any ideas I might’ve had when she preferred my wilder-edged brother.”

  “I hear ya. Mary couldn’t stand Zeke when he was alive but now that he’s dead, she’s elevated his status.” He shook his head. “Taken to wearin’ black and explaining how we couldn’t possibly have such a joyful occasion as a wedding in the midst of my grieving. Theatrics and attention for her. In some ways…I think she and Zeke would’ve been a better match than her’n me.”

  Silas sensed that Zachariah wasn’t keen on marrying Mary, but he intended to buck up and follow through with it. After meeting her, Silas wouldn’t wish that shrew on his worst enemy—which he was starting to believe wasn’t this surviving member of the West family.

  Their conversation lulled and Silas expected Zachariah would take his leave.

  But he didn’t.

  “Six people attended Zeke’s service. Those six included me, Mary and the priest.” He swiped his hand across his mouth. “No one liked him. Hell, more than half the time I didn’t like him neither.”

  That had to’ve been painful to admit. The hell of it was Silas understood. “Don’t know if it’ll make a difference, but if it’d been Silas wearin’ a bullet, no one would’ve come to pay their respects to him neither. Since he’s been gone, I’ve been getting a clearer impression of how solitary his life was.”

  “Maybe that’s why he left. No one to vouch for his character meant he’d swing for sure.”

  Silas braced himself for a barrage of nasty observations about Silas’s character—or lack thereof—from West, but that seemed to be it. After a few moments, he sighed. “How’d we end up in the middle of our brothers’ feud anyway?”

  Zachariah sent him a sharp look. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Why Zeke hated you.”

  He shook his head. “Why would Zeke have hated me? I never arrested him. I barely spoke to him even when I’d caught him beatin’ the tar outta Silas.”

  “You are Jonas,” West muttered. “Good to know. I’d wondered.”

  Silas managed to keep his look confused, refusing to let it morph into panic. “You ain’t makin’ a lick of sense, West.”

  “You really don’t know, do you? About why Zeke hated the McKays?”

  “All’s I know is that when Silas took a job workin’ for the railroad, Zeke ended up his boss. Zeke made Silas’s workin’ hours hell. What I didn’t know until the last time Zeke whupped up on Silas was that my brother hadn’t quit his railroad job; he’d gotten fired.”

  “Did he tell you why he’d gotten fired?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed another mouthful of whiskey. “I wasn’t aware of it until right before the competition started. Then Silas said he visited Zeke in the hospital—”

  “After he’d put him there,” Zachariah interjected.

  “Zeke warned Silas if he ever touched him again, even to defend himself, that Zeke would find a way to kill me.”

  That caused Zachariah’s head to whip toward him. “What?”

  “You heard right. Apparently Zeke said ambushes or incidents could befall a deputy in Wyoming.” He tapped his hand on the fencepost. “I gotta say…it’d never made any sense to me why Silas kept losin’ fights to Zeke. For years I’d seen my brother fight for fun or if he was pissed off and I’d seen him lose maybe twice. He told me he’d never fought back again after Zeke threatened to kill me.”

  “Fucking moron,” Zachariah muttered. “My brother, not yours.”

  “So you tell me: why did Zeke hate Silas so much? They never even met until Silas started workin’ for the railroad. I doubt Zeke felt his position was threatened by Silas because Silas never hid the fact his railroad job was temporary, and ranching was his first priority.”

  Zachariah remained quiet for a long time. Then he said, “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  “Remember what?”

  “The orphan train station.”

  “What about it?” His thoughts scrolled back to the constant noise and the stench and sound of kids crying, but specifics beyond that were a blur. “Were we on the train from Boston together?”

  He shook his head. “Me’n Zeke were on a train from Pittsburgh. Our father fought in the war between the states on the Union side. Our mother nursed him back to health and they got married. Because of his war injuries he’d been told he’d likely never father children. Our mother bragged it’d been a shock and a blessing when they discovered she was with child. Only…she’d been pregnant with twins.”

  Silas’s jaw dropped. “You and Zeke were twins too?”

  “Yep. But obviously not identical like you and Silas. Anyway, our father died when we were three and our mother raised us alone. Factory work took its toll on her and she died when we were twelve. Factory management secured our placement on one of them trains they sent orphans on out to a farm community in Nebraska, but Zeke convinced me to jump trains in St Louis and we ended up on a train headed west to Denver.”

  Silas started to have a bad feeling.

  “The entire train ride, all Zeke could talk about was workin’ as horse wranglers on cattle drives. He had this idea that we’d immediately get chosen since we were twins, two workers for the price of one. We’d learn horse handlin’ skills and survival skills. Then when we were old enough, we’d follow the miners wherever the next vein of gold, silver or copper was discovered in the West and strike it rich.

  “’Cept when we got to Denver, we had to lie about losin’ our placement papers, which meant we were placed with open call orphans. Those kids only got seen after the placement kids were picked. Zeke…” He shook his head, but a fond smile curled his lips. “He’d always found a way to get information. He learned what the drovers comin’ to find horse wranglers looked for in workers. He set his sights on one company in particular that preferred brothers. They finished their cattle drive in Montana in the thick of mining country and they’d be at the open call the end of the
week. So he traded all our food rations to the kids who’d been there the longest, so we were pushed to the front of the line.”

  “How long were you in Denver before bein’ seen at the open call?”

  “Two weeks. I was starved and pissed off at Zeke for him thinkin’ he had the right to make decisions for both of us. Especially when I was the older of the two of us, and bigger.”

  “I guess your size difference is why it never crossed my mind that the two of you were twins.”

  He nodded. “Zeke was a sickly babe. Almost died several times, according to our mother. That’s why even as an adult he was so much smaller than me. When we were boys, the difference wasn’t as obvious, but it was there. So I didn’t understand why Zeke thought we’d be a good investment for a cattle company when folks warned us that life on the range was the hardest of all options.”

  “As long as we’re bein’ honest, those years on the cattle drives were brutal. Every bone in my body hurt, every damn night. For years. But Silas loved it. He never complained.”

  “Did you?”

  “Occasionally. I did the work, learned a lot. But as soon as the chance to take a different path opened to me, I took it without hesitation.” He adjusted his hat and remembered the conversation he and Jonas had about Jonas striking out with the outlaw hunters. “But when we were boys on that train, I’d been just as eager as Silas to ride the trail.”

  “That’s probably what made Jeb choose you and Silas over me and Zeke.”

  Silas felt as if he’d taken a hoof to the gut. “What?”

  “Me’n Zeke were there that day. You and Silas were pushed past us and everyone stared because you looked exactly alike. Caused quite a stir. Kids whispered. Even the people in line to view open call kids were watchin’ you. That’s when Zeke got so mad. He just kept sayin’ over and over because you two looked alike, people would think you were special, but you weren’t special because you looked exactly alike, but you’d still get chosen first. And you were. Jeb never even talked to us. Zeke blamed you both for takin’ the life he’d wanted.”

  Finally, Zeke’s accusation of you stole my life made sense. Silas gulped down more whiskey before speaking. “Okay, but we didn’t have any control over that.”

  “I know,” Zachariah admitted. “But Zeke heard your last name and never forgot it.”

  “He has—had—a very long memory if he recognized Silas when he went to work for the railroad since it’d been a decade since he’d seen him. You’re tellin’ me he’d carried a grudge that long, specifically for my brother?”

  Zachariah shook his head. “The grudge was for both of you. Silas just was unlucky enough to be the McKay that crossed paths with him first. Zeke took it to mean that Silas considered workin’ part-time for the railroad as bein’ a step down from cattle ranching. It didn’t help matters in Zeke’s mind that me’n him went to work for a sheep ranching family from the Currans area after Jeb didn’t choose us.” He grunted. “Zeke hated workin’ sheep. Hated it. Not an hour of any day went by when he didn’t complain about it.”

  “How about you?”

  “Well, I’m still in the sheep business so that oughta be obvious I didn’t hate it. The family we ended up with were good folks. But Zeke never saw what they were, just what they weren’t. Soon as he turned eighteen, he signed on with the railroad. That suited him. But even when he moved up into management and earned four times more money than I did, he harped on the life he’d—we’d—lost out on.”

  “That’s just plum stupid, blamin’ Silas.”

  “Ain’t gonna get an argument from me on that. But maybe you ain’t aware of Silas’s issues with sheep ranchers, and that also was a check against Silas as far as Zeke was concerned. Still…I didn’t condone Zeke buyin’ that land from Griffen. If he wanted to invest in land so badly, he should’ve helped me.” He glanced across the paddock. “Times have been lean. Even twenty acres could’ve made a difference in my yearly yields. He chose revenge over family.”

  Hearing West phrase it like that…Silas needed to temper his response. “Silas did the same thing at the rodeo. Entering the sheep competition because he wanted to prove his superior ranching skills.”

  “Well, I gotta say, Silas did have those.”

  Don’t preen.

  “It appears that, like Zeke, you didn’t follow the path our families were set on that day in Denver.”

  This wasn’t the first time this question had been asked, nor would it be the last. “I worked the cattle drive for six years, so it ain’t like I’m a greenhorn. When I signed on as a bounty hunter, I wanted the experience and skills. At age nineteen it’d been easy to overlook more years of sleepin’ on the ground, racin’ hell for leather to the next town on a moment’s notice because the thrill of the chase was worth it.” He paused. “Until it wasn’t. I did that for four years. I was ready to have a more settled life and stayin’ in one place appealed to me. I came here because my brother had put down ‘McKay’ on land for me, but none of it ever felt like mine because he had his own vision for it. He never listened to a damn thing I said or suggested.”

  Zachariah grunted his understanding.

  “That’s why I took the deputy job. But as much as Crook County needed a law presence in Labelle, I didn’t have any real power there. Only so much breakin’ up bar fights and settlin’ neighbor’s disputes. Until Labelle incorporates, it would’ve continued like the situation with Silas and the land: a part of it, yet not. I’d talked to Sheriff Eccleston about workin’ in Sundance as a deputy, and I might’ve done that had my brother not made me look like ten kinds of fool.” He swigged from the bottle. “How was I ever supposed to hold my head up in law enforcement around these parts? I’d always be the deputy who let his murdering brother get away—no matter how that ain’t even close to the truth.”

  “You two fought? At the jail?”

  “Like two wet cats in a burlap sack.”

  “Why didn’t you send someone to the sheriff’s office in Sundance right after the shooting happened?”

  “Who? I thought you oughta be told first. The one guy I relied on to get word to you fucked that up.” Jonas had sent Robbie to the trainyard to get word to Zachariah. Those idiots had put Robbie on a train to Gillette to tell West in person. Robbie had gotten lost so nearly twenty-four hours passed before Zachariah returned to Labelle. “I didn’t have anyone else to send to Sundance. And Silas was my brother. I never imagined he’d act so cornered.”

  “I didn’t take the news well that he’d gotten away.”

  “I never blamed you for that. I’m plenty pissed off at Silas for the chickenshit way he run off. For what he did to Dinah. To me. He even took my fuckin’ horse. Maybe your brother had a point about Silas not bein’ who he said he was.” He shifted his stance and sighed. “As family, we couldn’t see the flaws cause we’re too close to ’em and that’d force us to look deeper into our own.”

  “Christ. Amen to that. Even Mary keeps yapping on about a blood feud. Especially after I got the letter with the money yesterday.”

  Silas’s head snapped around. “What letter? What money?”

  From inside his pocket, Zachariah pulled out an envelope and handed it over. The postmark on it read Cheyenne. Inside was a folded piece of parchment paper with the word SORRY printed in big black letters across the center. Silas passed his thumb over the bills. “How much is here?”

  “One hundred dollars.”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m assuming it’s from Silas,” West said.

  It wasn’t. Silas doubted Jonas had sent it either. Outlaws didn’t do things like that, lest they wouldn’t be outlaws for long.

  Then his belly did a flip and he felt the whiskey rise up his throat.

  Dinah.

  She’d sent this to Zachariah. Out of guilt.

  “You didn’t know about this.”

  A statement. “No. I ain’t been in Cheyenne since I got snowed in back in February at a lawman’s conference.”
He looked up as he passed the envelope back to Zachariah. “Are you gonna talk to the sheriff about it? I mean…it is a clue as to where Silas has been.”

  He sighed. “I’d intended to. Then Mary pointed out the sheriff might keep the money as evidence. She said if it’s ‘blood money’ then it belongs to me and I oughta do something good with it. I’m leaning that direction. Course, I’ll have to get Mary’s promise not to talk about it outside our family.”

  “You do what you gotta. I’m forgetting I ever saw it.”

  Zachariah tucked it back in his pocket. “Blood money. Name feels right even when everything about keepin’ it feels wrong.”

  Neither spoke for a while.

  “You’re stayin’ around these parts?”

  “Yep. Several land improvement requirements will be met next year, and I’ll own the land. Me. Not Silas. I can run things my way, instead of his hard scrabble approach. Makin’ the ranch bigger—and better—would be satisfying. As would becoming involved in local and state cattle issues—another thing Silas never cottoned to doin’.”

  When West didn’t respond, Silas thought maybe he’d laid it on too thick.

  Then Zachariah lowered his foot and stepped back from the fence. “I hear ya. I’ll admit, this wasn’t the conversation I expected to have, but I’m feelin’ better for havin’ it.”

  “Me too.”

  “That said, if I ever see your brother around here again, Jonas, I will kill him. After his escape and break ain’t no one would fault me.”

  “I know that.”

  “So maybe we have us a gentleman’s agreement.” West secured his gaze. “I’ll stay outta the cattle business and you stay outta the sheep business. We needn’t ever cross paths again.” Then West offered his hand.

  Silas shook it. “Agreed.”

  There wasn’t anything to say after that.

  West mounted up and rode off.

  Silas remained out by the corral, long after Zachariah had gone.

  He finished the bottle of whiskey. In his drunken state he realized he’d meant every word he’d said to West. Silas was as good as dead. He was Jonas now.

  In order to thrive, he’d have to do everything differently.