Leaving Epitaph: The Sons of Daniel Shaye

34

When morning came, the other men in the Langer gang were still stunned by what had happened the night before. They only had to look over at the mound of dirt and stones they had piled atop Terry Petry’s body to remind themselves.

None of the men had spoken with Ethan Langer since he pulled the trigger on Petry. Ethan had told them to bury Petry, and asked if any of them had any questions for him about why he killed him.

“If you do,” he’d said, “ask them now, but remember what I told you all when I left camp. If anyone looked in those saddlebags, I was gonna kill ’em. Somebody looked inside, and I think it was Petry. Anyone else want to admit to it? Tell me I killed the wrong man?”

They had all shaken their heads.

“Fine,” he’d said, “then bury him, and somebody make somethin’ to eat. I’m hungry.”

Now, in the morning light, some of them had some questions, but they were wary of asking Ethan Langer anything. The same person who made dinner the night before made breakfast, and they all sat and ate in silence.

It was Ethan who broke that silence.

“Listen up,” he said. “In a few minutes we’re gonna head north to meet up with my brother Aaron. Petry was my segundo, and now he’s dead. Ain’t none of you fit to take his place, but a leader needs a segundo. I’ll decide later who it’ll be, maybe when we join up with my brother. Until then, you’ll all do what I say when I say it. Is that clear?”

They all nodded. Ethan had recovered the money from where he’d hidden it and had put it back in the saddlebags. Now he held up the bags.

“The money is in these saddlebags, and you’ll all get your share when we get where we’re going. If any of you wants to leave us now, you can, but you won’t get your share. Anybody got anything to say?”

They all shook their heads. There were six of them, and he was just one man. If he had been one of them, he would have made a move already. For all of them to be afraid of one man was ridiculous, but they were.

“Anybody want to leave?”

Nobody did.

“Good,” he said. “Then we understand each other. Break camp and get saddled up. We’re leaving.”

As they broke camp, Red Hackett said to the others under his breath, “He’s just one man. We could take the money from him if we want to.”

“Hackett is right,” Ted Fitzgerald said. “There’s plenty of money there for all of us, and with Petry and Langer dead, we get even bigger splits.”

“We also get Aaron Langer after us,” another man said, “and believe me, if you think Ethan is bad, Aaron is worse.”

The other men nodded their agreement.

“So we just do what we’re told?” Fitzgerald asked.

Ben Branch had been riding with the Langers for a long time. “Hey,” he said, “I joined up because I wanted to follow somebody I trusted. I trusted both Ethan and Aaron Langer to line my pockets with money, and that’s what they been doin.’ I don’t give a good goddamn when I get the money or who the segundo of this group is.”

“Don’t you want to be a leader instead of a follower?” Hackett asked.

“Hell, no!” Branch said. “You and Fitz want to be leaders? You take Ethan on. It’ll be two against one.”

“Six against one would work better,” Fitzgerald hissed.

Branch looked right at both Red Hackett and Ted Fitzgerald and said, “That ain’t gonna happen.”

They broke camp and rode out with Ethan Langer in the lead. The woman had come to him again last night, but he had come awake slowly and not with a start, like he usually did. Maybe he could just accept her as part of his life now. Maybe if he stopped fighting her, she’d go away.

He knew the men had to have had a discussion while saddling their horses about whether to take the money from him, yet while riding in front of them he had no fear of a bullet in the back. Several of them had been with him a long time—Branch and a few of the others. Red Hackett had been with him only a year, and Epitaph had been Ted Fitzgerald’s second job. If a challenge was going to come, it would come from one or both of them—but neither struck him as the type who would act without a lot of backup.

Once they met up with Aaron and his group, he needed to reevaluate who he kept in his gang. Hackett and Fitzgerald were going to go. He’d keep the other four, and while he told them that none of them was fit to be segundo, maybe he’d just give the job to whoever had been with him the longest—like Ben Branch.

As they headed north Ethan realized this was the first morning since the bank job that he felt calm. Maybe going to see his brother Vincent had been the right thing to do after all.