Remorse said nothing. His revolvers were leveled at Lance’s belly.
McBride walked across the room and took the baby off Jared’s chest. Simon seemed fine, but the roar of the guns had frightened him into a hiccupping silence.
‘‘Saul, let it go,’’ McBride said. ‘‘The Rangers will deal with him.’’
Remorse’s eyes retreated into distance as he went somewhere, to a place McBride did not know and could not see. When he spoke, his voice was still strange, hollow, stripped of human emotion.
‘‘Lance Josephine,’’ he said, ‘‘a few years ago, young men just like you, rich, spoiled and heartless, destroyed the only thing I have ever loved. I pass sentence on you, not because you are like them, but for your own despicable actions, past and present.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘I can do nothing for you. I have searched my soul, seeking goodness in you, mercy in me. But I found no mercy, only damned souls crying out for justice.’’
Then he said, ‘‘The Lord will never be willing to forgive him. His wrath and zeal will burn against him. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.’’
The Remingtons bellowed and Lance Josephine took the bullets and died, his face haunted and afraid as he stared into eternity.
In the ringing silence that followed, Remorse said, ‘‘Deuteronomy twenty-nine, verse twenty.’’
The baby started to cry again.
Chapter 32
‘‘John,’’ Saul Remorse said, ‘‘I have many and varied duties to perform here, but the child must be fed. Take him to Julieta, then bunk down at the livery stable in town. I’ll join you there.’’
McBride held the squirming, squealing bundle in his arms. They were in the kitchen of the ranch house, rain pounding on the roof, the coyotes calling close.
‘‘Lance Josephine,’’ McBride said. ‘‘There was no other way?’’
‘‘He chose his way,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘He and his father took a trail that was destined to end in death. It was my unfortunate task to be the instrument of their fate, and that too was destined.’’
McBride rocked the baby in his arms. ‘‘So much death, so much killing, and for what?’’
‘‘For a mountain lined with silver,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Men have killed for a lot less.’’
The silence that stretched between them was fractured by the baby’s cries.
Remorse put his palms against his ears and said, ‘‘John, take that child to Julieta. Please!’’
McBride sniffed and his face fell. ‘‘I think he’s done something.’’
‘‘All the more reason to take him to Julieta.’’
McBride was dismayed. ‘‘But . . . but I’ll have to carry him all the way. He doesn’t smell too good.’’
‘‘You could always take him to Julieta facedown over a horse,’’ Remorse said.
‘‘Saul, I can’t do that.’’
‘‘You’ll have to carry him, then, won’t you?’’ Remorse winced as the baby’s shrieks reached a crescendo. ‘‘Please, John, just go!’’
McBride held Simon out to Remorse. ‘‘Hold him while I go back for the horses.’’
‘‘I’d rather not.’’
‘‘I can’t get the horses and carry a baby at the same time.’’
Remorse saw the logic of that, and gingerly accepted the screeching child, his face showing his distaste. ‘‘For heaven’s sake hurry,’’ he said.
As McBride stepped to the door, the reverend called out after him, ‘‘Be careful, John. Thad Harlan is out there somewhere and he surely hates you.’’
The mustang and Remorse’s gray had not wandered far, keeping to the shelter of the trees. McBride was uneasy over Remorse’s warning about Harlan. But he saw nothing menacing in the darkness, and the only sounds were the fall of the rain and the yips of the coyotes.
He led the horses back to the cabin, left the mustang out front and put the gray in the barn. When he returned Remorse was still in the kitchen, his nerves frayed by the squalling baby.
‘‘Here, take him,’’ he said as soon as he set eyes on McBride. ‘‘Then go!’’
‘‘Doesn’t this kid ever sleep?’’ McBride asked, taking the kicking bundle from Remorse’s hands.
‘‘He won’t sleep so long as he’s hungry. That’s why you must leave at once.’’
McBride hesitated a moment, then said, ‘‘Will you be all right . . . with them?’’
Remorse nodded. ‘‘Yes. I’ll take care of them.’’
‘‘Saul, be gentle with Clare. She didn’t have much of a life and she died a terrible death.’’
‘‘I know. I’ll take care of her and the other two, John. Now, please leave.’’
McBride rode away from the cabin into the night, the baby in his arms, inside his slicker. Simon cried constantly and loudly, but McBride tried to look on the bright side. If Harlan was out there somewhere, he wouldn’t come near a shrieking, smelly kid. He was a killer, but he wasn’t stupid.
The rain hammering against him, lightning flaring in the clouds, McBride rode through the darkness. He figured the only sounds to be heard for miles around were the wails of the baby. Even the coyotes had fallen silent, drowned out by the relentless racket, and the mustang was acting up, irritated by the constant noise.
But McBride was less annoyed than he’d expected. He was riding away from the horrors of the O’Neil ranch, and he felt that all the violence and dying was already fading into memory behind him. Even the baby in his arms was a symbol of life, not death, and that thought pleased him.
As he rode past the buttes and peaks of the Capitan Mountains, they were hidden in the gloom, the slopes now and then shimmering white when lightning flashed.
The baby was still crying incessantly, and McBride lifted him in his arm and asked, ‘‘Would you like me to sing you a lullaby, Simon?’’ He paused as the child howled, then said, ‘‘You do? Good, then I’ll sing you a fine old Irish rebel song.’’ He smiled. ‘‘You’ll like this, Simon.’’
McBride tilted back his head, and in his tuneless baritone hollered at the top of his lungs:
‘‘And tell me, Sean O’Farrell, where the gath’rin’ is to be, At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me.
By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon, With me pike upon me shoulder by the rising of the moon.’’
McBride looked down at the baby again. ‘‘How’s that, Simon? Want to hear more?’’
His only answer was a rending caterwauling that was still tearing apart the fabric of the night as he rode up to Julieta’s cabin and the girl came rushing out to meet him.