“I suppose you’d expect a percentage of what’s in that box in return for that kind of service, huh?” Nick asked.
“That’d only be fair.”
“Tell me where Dutch is headed,” Nick offered. “Then we’ll see about payment.”
“They’re splitting up. Some are rounding up some more boys and the rest are taking the Silver Gorge trail.”
“I’ve never even heard of the Silver Gorge trail. You’re making it up. And where will they be looking for men?” Joseph asked as he walked up to the gunman with the strongbox tucked under his arm.
The gunman’s eyes fixed upon the strongbox as he licked his lips expectantly. “One of the places is called San Trisha or something. There’s some other town along the way, but I can’t remember the name. I’ll tell you where they’re all meeting up once I get a taste of that money. After that, we can part company.”
Nick leaned down until his gun barrel was less than an inch from the gunman’s face. “You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
“No, no! I swear.”
“Why the hell should we believe you?”
“Because it don’t matter if you know where they’re at or not. Dutch’s got everything covered against anything that can go wrong. He’s also got ten times more guns than you and anyone else you know put together. Besides, I was done with them after this job, anyways. I need all the money I can scrounge up.”
“You’re not afraid of Dutch finding out how we came by this information?”
The gunman winced and sweat poked out of his brow for the first time. “Why bother telling him? We’re working together, ain’t we? I don’t even expect much money in return. Just let me go and tack on…say…five hundred dollars and we’ll call it even.”
“How about you just fuck yourself instead?”
Joseph said as he raised the gun in his other hand and pulled the trigger.
The single shot sounded louder than the gunfire that had come before. It exploded inside the room and sent an icy chill through Nick’s body.
Joseph looked down the barrel of his gun as smoke curled out and drifted up. He focused on the gunman’s open, lifeless eye before shifting his gaze to the bloody hole where the man’s other eye had been. “That was one of the men who dragged my wife out of her room,” he said.
Nick holstered his gun and watched the man’s face. “He was also the man who could have told us where those killers meant to group up.”
Finally, Joseph let out the breath he’d been holding and lowered his gun. “I would have told him about this money,” he said more to himself than to Nick. “I was going to tell them about all of it, but I didn’t get the chance. Those sons of bitches didn’t give me the chance.”
Joseph didn’t say another word. Instead, he tucked his gun away and carried the strongbox outside.
SEVENTEEN
Nick followed Joseph from the house and away from the surrounding buildings. There was a horse inside the remains of the stable, which Nick guessed had belonged to the gunman. Joseph emptied the saddlebags and filled them with things he’d collected from the house. After that, he climbed into the saddle and set the strongbox on his lap. Without looking the gift horse in the mouth, he snapped the reins and got moving.
A good portion of the grass and nearby field were burned as well, but the charred blackness spread out for less than a quarter mile before eventually giving way to the greens and browns of life. The ride was as quiet as a tomb. Nick kept a watchful eye on Joseph the entire time. All he saw from the other man was an occasional shake of his head as they moved slowly across his property.
They made it all the way to the fence line before Joseph stopped and turned around. “They’re gone,” he said as Nick came up alongside him. “All of them are gone. The whole herd, the horses, even the goddamn hands who swore up and down they’d look after this place like it was their own.”
Looking over to Nick, he added, “I didn’t expect that kind of loyalty from all of them, but a few of them…”
“They were tricked,” Nick said. “Whoever this Dutch is, he got a few men working for him on the inside and they got the others into town at the right time.”
“How?”
“By saying they were having a party for you.” Nick let out a sigh and said, “I had a word with one of the members of that gang. One of them was in jail. He told me how the gang got it to work.”
“You…weren’t going to tell me?”
“What good would it have done?”
“I could have done something about it,” Joseph said without a trace of emotion in his voice.
“And I thought I could steer you away from this before more blood was spilled.”
“Too late for that.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I guess so.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“I’m not going to say.”
Joseph’s eyes narrowed and his hand drifted to his gun. Before he could think twice about it, the pistol was in his hand and being brought up to aim at Nick.
To Nick, the movement seemed slower than molasses in the summertime. Oddly enough, when he found himself staring down the barrel, he wasn’t completely surprised.
“Tell me what was said,” Joseph demanded.
Nick didn’t twitch.
He didn’t blink.
And he didn’t make a sound no matter how vehemently Joseph demanded.
Finally, Joseph blinked and lowered his gun as if he was just now waking up. “Sorry. I…don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I do. That’s why I came to try and talk some sense into you.”
“I just don’t know how I could change my mind. Not after I…”
Nick let that sentence drift off without being finished. He knew what Joseph meant to say, just as he knew all too well how hard the first kill was. For some, it was like making love to a woman the first time and got easier and better with practice. For others, it was like breaking through a rock wall. After that, the thought of breaking through another didn’t seem as bad.
With all the thinking he’d done on the subject, Nick couldn’t decide if either one was truly worse than the other. Both roads led to the same spot. Despite everything Nick had said and done to avoid it, they were standing in that spot right now.
“They’re riding into New Mexico,” Nick said.
Joseph looked over to him and blinked. “What about the Silver Gorge trail?”
Nick didn’t meet the man’s stare, but looked out onto the stretch of barren land in front of him. “It’s an old route used by smugglers and bandits. It’s a hard ride over some rough country, but it’s fast and not a lot of lawmen know about it. At least, not the sort of lawmen that we should be concerned about.”
“We?”
Nodding, Nick said, “I’m coming with you.”
“Why would you do something like that?”
“Because you have no idea what kind of hell you’re riding into. Since you’re not about to change your mind on going, I figure the least I can do is go along to see that you don’t get killed.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why.”
Shifting in his saddle, Nick looked toward Joseph, but not directly at him. “You can change your mind and decide to go home at any time up to a certain point. With me along, you stand a better chance of getting home before crossing that line.”
Joseph chuckled to himself. It was a tired sound that ended with him seeming to have lost all his breath. “You don’t think the line’s already been crossed?”
Nick’s eyes subtly shifted in their sockets. “Like I said, you don’t have the first notion of what kind of hell is in front of you.”
Joseph reflected on Nick’s words for the first time since they’d left the graveyard. Despite that brief glimmer of hope, Nick quickly realized that it wasn’t going to last long.