Only one person despised the Butchers that much.
The next body was a few yards farther. Kip had been shot in the chest, stomach, and thigh. Spent shells showed that he had fought on after he was down.
The rest made it across the clearing. Carson had dropped a few steps into the trees. A hole the size of an apple in his right temple had proved to be the fatal wound. He had been scalped.
I turned to look for more bodies. Belatedly, it dawned on me that I had not drawn my Remington. Granted, Gertrude and her cowboys were long gone, but for me not to have a gun in my hand told me I wasn’t thinking straight. I remedied my oversight and lurched deeper into the woods.
When I spotted Ty I thought he might be alive. He was sitting with his back to an oak, his rifle across his lap. His eyes were fixed right on me. “Tyrel?” I said, but not too loudly. He did not answer.
It took ridiculously long to reach him. I had to move at a turtle’s pace. Only when I was up close did I see the hole where his left eye had been.
I did not want to go on. I knew what I would find and I did not want to find her. I knew what it would do to me, and what I would do. Apparently there was no end to my foolishness.
But I did go on. I searched and searched and was about ready to give up when a whisper stopped me in my tracks.
“Parson?”
I had almost stepped on Jordy. He was on his back, his torso leaking crimson like a sieve. He, too, had been scalped. I eased onto a knee and propped an arm under me so I would not pitch onto my face as I bent over him. “Is there anything I can do?” Not that I cared, but a real parson would.
Jordy had to try twice before he gasped, “The others? My ma? My brothers?”
I could lie to him. But I responded, “Dead, I am afraid.”
“Ma too? I lost track of her when we ran from the cabin.”
I nodded.
“That bitch. That wretched, vile bitch. Sic the Texas Rangers on her, Parson. Tell them what she’s done. Make her pay.”
“Gertrude Tanner will get what is coming to her,” I vowed. Then: “You haven’t asked about your sister. Did Daisy get away?”
Jordy’s features clouded. “I don’t think so. I heard her scream. Heard them laugh. She can’t be far.”
“Lie still. I will be back to see what I can do for you.” I went past a thicket and a pine and there she was. A flattened ring of vegetation testified to the fact she had fought fiercely. I stared and stared, numb outside and in. To do what they had done to her was unthinkable. Abusing women was not done. It was worse than murder, worse than rustling, worse than stealing a horse.
I admit that, when judged by the standards most people live by, I had done some terrible things in my life. A lot of terrible things, actually. Murder, many times over. I have stolen on occasion; I helped myself to the money and sometimes the personal effects of those I killed. I was coldhearted. I was ruthless. I could be vicious when crossed. I was all of that, and more. But I had never violated a female. I never stooped to one of the foulest atrocities a man can commit. Lucius Stark, the Regulator, considered by many to be as wretched a human being as ever drew breath, never did that.
I staggered over and dropped to my knees. I wanted to touch her, but she was covered with blood from her neck to her knees. They had slit her throat after they were done.
I never hankered to kill anyone as much as I did those LT hands. They weren’t cowboys. They were vermin. I vowed to make their extermination my main goal in life. Theirs, and one other.
I clasped Daisy’s hand. In life she had been so beautiful, so warm, so full of vitality. Now she was pale and still and cool to the touch, her once lovely eyes blank slates. I let go of her hand and it fell limply to the ground. Soon that would change. Soon she would stiffen and her complexion would become waxen and her eyes would glaze and she would begin to give off the special smell of death.
“I can’t have that,” I said aloud. “I will bury you.” The others needed to be buried, too, but someone else could take care of them. I was only interested in Daisy.
Then Jordy called my name. Reluctantly, I stood. The dead could be ignored. The living were another matter. I returned and squatted at his side. “I found her,” I announced.
“Tell me.”
“You do not want to know.” I examined him more closely and confirmed the testimony of my eyes. I sat back, tired from the exertion.
Jordy’s eyes fluttered. He was having difficulty breathing. “Damn him!” he spat. “Damn him to hell for what he did to her!”
“Don’t you mean ‘them’?” I said.
“No.” Jordy licked his lips. “The others were laughing, but it was just the one. I heard him after he was done.”
“What did he say?”
“How she fought like a wildcat.”
From somewhere deep inside me boiled a surge of red-hot lava.
“How she was the best he ever had.”
The night spun but not from my wound.
“How she was better than a whore he had down in Texas.” Jordy uttered a low moan. “Oh, God. Not to her. She was the sweetest gal ever.”
I had to force my vocal cords to work. “His name? Did you happen to catch his name?”
“No. I wish I did.”
“Anything that would help me. Anything at all.” The LT hands did not know it yet, but they were all on my list. Gertrude and Phil were near the top, one rung below whoever was to blame for Daisy.
“I’m sorry.”
Jordy was quiet so long, I figured he had died. But then he spoke again.
“One thing might help you. He called her ‘little sugar.’ ”
“Little what?”
“His exact words. The ‘little sugar’ fought like a wildcat. The ‘little sugar’ was better than a whore he had once. He kept a keepsake from the ‘little sugar.’ He never called Daisy by name. Maybe he didn’t know it.”
“Or didn’t care.” But before I was through, he would. Something else Jordy said caught my interest. “What was that about a keepsake?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I heard him say.”
Again he was still for a considerable spell. When he broke his silence, I could barely hear him.
“Will you really see that they pay, Parson?”
“Of course.” He had no idea.
“You won’t turn the other cheek? You being a man of the cloth, and all, you won’t forgive and forget, will you?”
I looked at him. He was dead anyway, so what difference did it make? “Ever heard of Lucius Stark?”
“Stark?” Jordy repeated, puzzled. “Where have I heard that name before?”
I did not give him any clues. He had to earn it.
“Wait. Now I remember. Isn’t he an assassin? Goes around the country killing folks for money?”
“I’m Lucius Stark.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“But—” Jordy said, and did not say anything more for a good long while. Finally he exhaled and croaked, “I’ll be damned. Was it us you were after?”
“Yes.”
“You son of a bitch. Who hired you?”
“Gertrude Tanner.”
“But she’s the one who shot you!” Jordy chuckled, then snorted, then burst into merry laughter broken by gasps and groans. He laughed and laughed and went on laughing even as blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. I guess he couldn’t stop. He was the only man I ever saw who laughed himself to death.
I rose and would have kicked him except my legs were not steady enough. So I settled for saying, “It wasn’t that funny.”