Showdown

Chapter Seventeen

Prine had either underestimated the length of the walk or overestimated their strength. They moved sluggishly through grazing land, their time not even improving that much when they reached the stage road. They'd had a hard thirty-six hours and it had cost them energy and resolve.

"The only thing that's keeping me going," Neville said several times, "is knowing that they're going to hang soon."

All Prine did was nod. If hatred was the fuel that kept Neville going, so be it. Prine had his own fuel. He wanted to admit what he'd done and try to put his life back together.

At midpoint in their trek, Prine saw a wagon in the distance. He put all his strength into chasing after it, shouting, waving his arms. For nothing. He never came close to reaching it.

For his part, Neville took to standing on large boulders and gazing off into the distance. He looked like a fake Indian in a Wild West show, his hand covering his brow so he could see better, his posture rigid as a pointer's when it spots its prey. It looked dramatic as hell but didn't get them anywhere.

They reached the Lattimore ranch around three in the afternoon. Dave Lattimore was just coming out of the barn, a small, quick man in a flannel shirt and Levi's, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. When he saw the two men, he started looking around for their horses.

"Afternoon," he said.

"Afternoon," Prine said.

"Lattimore, we need some horses and a couple of rifles. I'll pay you double what they're worth."

The old, familiar Neville was putting in an appearance again, and Prine wasn't happy about it.

He gave Lattimore a quick version of everything that had happened.

"You think they're still around here?" Lattimore said.

"They are if they're headed to Denver," Prine said. "They'll be settlin' in for the night pretty soon. If we go all night, we might be able to find them."

"No offense, Prine, but neither of you fellas look like you could last all night."

"We didn't ask for any of your Farmer Bob wisdom, Lattimore," Neville snapped. "We asked for horses and rifles. Now, can you set us up?"

Lattimore didn't like being talked to this way, obviously. But in order to help Prine, he nodded and said, "Yeah, I can set you up."

"I appreciate this, Dave," Prine said as they headed for a small rope corral set off from the outbuildings. The shadows were long, heavy, now that the sun was beginning its descent. Lattimore's wife was getting supper ready. You could smell it on the air. Prine had thoughts of a home-cooked meal, a leisurely one, topped off with a good cigar and some good sipping whiskey.

While Prine and Neville looked over the horses, Lattimore went up to the house for the guns. "Dave's a good man," Prine said.

"I'm sure he is."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd treat him that way."

"What? I wasn't treating him that way?"

For the first time, Prine realized that Neville here probably wasn't even aware of acting like a shit sometimes. His behavior was probably so ingrained—hell, he'd grown up rich and powerful, why wouldn't he just naturally assume that most people were put on earth to play subjects to his role as conqueror?—he didn't even hear himself. Or see the resentment in the eyes of the people he insulted.

"Just don't treat him like one of your servants," Prine said. "He's not, and I'm not, either."

"Well, hell, man, I didn't mean to insult him."

"Maybe not," Prine said. "But you did a damned good job of it anyway."

Prine took a dun, Neville a pinto. They walked them up to the barn, where they found a couple of old saddles.

Neville looked unhappy about having to set his royal ass on a saddle this worn, but at least he had the good sense not to say anything about it.

Lattimore appeared a few minutes later. He handed Prine a Winchester and Neville a Sharps that had been old ten years before.

"Best I could do," he said to Neville.

Prine fought a smile. He was sure that Lattimore had dug up the oldest weapon he could find for Neville. If Neville knew this, he didn't let on. He was behaving well since Prine had ragged on him about treating Lattimore better. He was like a dog brought to heel.

They were just ready to saddle up when Betty Lattimore, pretty and plump in blue gingham and a white apron, hurried down to them.

"Figured you boys'd be hungry," she said.

They took their food over to a small table in the backyard. Slices of beef and a boiled potato and peas, probably from her garden on the far side of the house. They ate with the innocence and fury of predatory animals. "And you're invited to sleep here overnight if you'd like."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Lattimore," Neville said in a voice so formal and polite that Prine actually quit shoveling food into his mouth for a few seconds. "You and your husband have already done plenty, and I plan to pay you back as soon as this is all done with."

"Why, we're practically neighbors, Mr. Neville. So there's no call to talk about paying us back. I'm sure you'd do the same thing for us."

Neville looked confused briefly. Somebody was turning down his offer to pay them back? He was used to paying people off. Money was the currency, not friendship. That was startling enough. But then, she'd said that he would do the same thing for her. But would he? Prine could see this thought process. It would be too much to say that Neville was having any kind of conversion to the goodwill of the common man here, but clearly he was forming a favorable impression of these people.

"Yes," Neville said, "I guess I would do the same thing for you."

He glanced at Prine as he said this. Prime gave him a doubtful look.

They left just as dusk was streaking the sky with its richest colors, the colors that only Eastern potentates were said to possess, colors that were the secret treasures handed down from ancient Egypt, colors, or so it was claimed, that no other civilization could duplicate—mauve and purple gold and green the color of a cat's eye.

Both men huddled inside their ponchos. They knew that soon enough the land would shimmer and shine with frost. Ice might even cover the creeks and the river by the time of the midnight moon.

Distant drums, having nothing to do with them, came from Ute camps scattered around the hills to the west.

Neither man said much. There wasn't much to say. Once in a while they'd piss and moan about how their asses hurt from their saddles, how the dropping temperature was beginning to test the strength of their ponchos, how when it was all over a bed would feel very good.

Neville, of course, had small moments of rage. Obviously, the man couldn't help himself. He'd start thinking of his sister and he'd go wild for a few minutes.

Their first stop came around nine o'clock when they saw the remnants of a mining town. An entire block of businesses were boarded up. Maybe two dozen tiny houses stood dark. Somebody had shot out all the stained-glass windows in the church.

The whipping and whining wind didn't exactly help Prine's sense of desolation. My God, not only had the gold boom gone bust in this place, he wondered if a plague hadn't visited it. He thought of images he'd learned about in school, how in medieval days the bubonic plague would literally wipe out the entire populations of some small towns.

They tied their horses to a hitching post in front of the saloon. The batwing doors, silhouetted against dim, flickering lamplight from inside, hung on one hinge each. A player piano badly out of sync and tune rolled through "Camptown Lady," somehow making it sound like a dirge.

Prine was so tired that all sorts of silly childhood images came to him. Ghosts, inside; or ghouls, the spirits so hideous there weren't even any names for them.

They took their rifles with them.

The way the wind was whipping, one of the batwings tore free and fell to the floor. Prine pushed on inside.

The sight before him resembled a stage set that had been deserted long enough to be shrouded with thick, dusty cobwebs. A long pine bar was on the right wall, a long dusty mirror running parallel to it. Empty tables and chairs filled up most of the space except for a small stage against which the player piano was pushed. Rats were everywhere, paying no attention whatsoever to the intruders. There must have been a dozen good-sized rats on top of the piano, scurrying about in frenzy. Needing, wanting—but not finding—food.

Only after a time did they cast their tiny red eyes on the newcomers. You could almost hear them begin to calculate what these strange upright creatures would taste like.

Neville shot three of them. The explosion of his Sharps was almost loud enough to tear the wide chandelier above them from its mooring.

"Happy now?" Prine said.

"I don't have the right to shoot rats?"

"You don't have the right to waste ammunition, is what you don't have."

In the mere, drab light, Neville's face filled with blood.

"I guess that was pretty stupid."

"You won't get any argument from me," Prine said.

Prine began to walk around the saloon. He wondered how long it had been since this place had heard and seen human revelry. The rats might dance on some spectral midnight. But it had been a long time since saloon gals had prodded old sourdoughs to drink some more of the watered-down liquor, and high-kicking dancers had exposed their frill-covered bottoms to the delight of the all-male audience.

Prine heard it first. He thought it was just one more variation on the eerie tones the winds made. But after it sounded two or three times, he recognized the gasping noise, like that of a man who couldn't catch his breath. A drowning man, perhaps.

Neville had climbed the stairs and was inspecting the second floor. Prine stayed on the ground floor, trying to find the source of the strange sound. He finally located it behind the bar, the one place he hadn't thought to look.

The old man lay on his back. From the dark circle on his filthy gray shirt, Prine assumed the man had been shot in the chest. He'd been hit in such a way that he couldn't breathe well. When he tried to speak or call out in simple syllables, the words would stop somewhere in his throat and he would clutch his throat with both hands, as if his throat had been cut.

Prine grabbed the only source of light, the ancient lantern on top of the bar, and held it down to the man. The wound, as he'd guessed, was in the chest, though further away from the heart than he'd suspected. There was a wooden box on top of the back bar. Inside, Prine found two canteens. They were both full. He untied his bandanna and soaked it with water.

He spent the next ten minutes exhausting the full extent of his medical knowledge—pulse points, eye dilation, breathing, consciousness. None was very good. The old man muttered words from time, to time but nothing Prine could understand.

Neville showed up and watched as Prine cleaned up the old man's wound so he could get a better look at it.

"They figured he was dead," Neville said. "They weren't far wrong."

"He going to make it?"

"Take a miracle."

"Didn't find anything upstairs. But this must've been a nice little place at one time."

Maybe because they were talking, maybe because the old man knew how close he was to dying and he wanted to talk to somebody—whatever, he sat up a little and fully opened his eyes.

"You ain't them, is you?" he said. His teeth were blackened stubs. His mouth was circle of scabs. He had to blink his eyes to focus. "No, I can see you now. You ain't them."

"They shot you?"

Phlegm clogged his chest and throat.

"They didn't see nobody in here except ole Midnight, so they just figured they had the place to themselves. They wanted to sleep before nightfall." He started coughing up blood. Prine held his frail upper body until the coughing stopped. "When they found me—I always sleep in the back room—they figured I might tell the law on them. Stupid bastards. Closest town is Claybank, and an old man like me ain't never goin' to Claybank and live to tell about it. The one named Tolan, he's the bastard that shot me." Then: "Midnight! Midnight!"

Prine wondered if the old man was hallucinating. There was no evidence of anybody else in the place. Maybe the old man was recalling a childhood friend.

But the old man grew more and more agitated, cried louder and louder for this "Midnight!"

And damned if Midnight didn't put in an appearance. A raven of vast proportion and eerie gaze, it didn't simply fly through the air, it smashed its way, the flutter of its wing violent as a terrible storm. It landed on the bar above the old man. Perched there, looked down at him.

"I just wanted to see him again before I passed." Then: "You been a good friend, Midnight."

The sleek, shiny, somehow supernatural bird made a sound in its own throat. A deep rumbling kind of music that was sustained for several seconds. A music dark as its feathers.

The old man said, "They said they was gonna try and make a train tomorrow morning. Junction Gap. You get 'em for me, will ya? Now Midnight's gonna be all alone."

They buried him out back.

Midnight seemed to understand what was going on.

In the moonlight, he sat sentrylike, upon the fresh earth that Prine and Neville had turned over. The raven raised its regal head once to look at the moon. The dark music sounded again in chest and throat. But this time it expelled the sound, letting it echo off the ragged rock hills and work its trembling, oddly frightening way through the night. Other animals responded in the far-flung darkness and made their own sounds. Even the horses Lattimore had loaned them joined in.

Prine said some prayers for the old man, the prayers of his childhood. He didn't say them often, so many of the words were wrong. He wasn't even sure there was a God, at least not a God as Sunday school teachers espoused anyway. But he did believe in some kind of universal spirit that was the cement of not only this planet but the entire cosmos. He was appealing to that spirit now to take the old man to a good and true place.

Ten minutes after burying the old man, they were on their way again. Now they knew where Tolan and Rooney were headed. They planned to meet the two at the Junction Gap train depot.