A Lust For Lead (15 page)

‘I think we have a problem.’ Buchanan said.
The light in Nathaniel’s study filtered murkily through the dirt-encrusted windows. Buchanan was feeling agitated and he rubbed the stump of his right hand as he explained about the missing body. Nathaniel’s reaction when he was done made his temper boil.
‘Are you sure it wasn’t just placed somewhere else?’
‘What are you shitting me? Where else would we fucking put it?’
‘I don’t like your tone, Buchanan.’
Normally the warning in Nathaniel’s voice would have been enough to make Buchanan back down, but not this time. ‘Fuck you!’ he snapped. ‘They’ve taken one of the dead. That means they’re here, they’re awake. They’re not dormant. They’re not sleeping. They’re not in some fucking distant dimension. They’re right fucking here!’ He rounded savagely to face Whisperer. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you know that?’
Whisperer said nothing but a coolness crept into his gaze that made the hairs at the back of Buchanan’s neck stand on end. Feeling threatened, his temper got worse.
Nathaniel wisely intervened before they could come to blows. ‘The occult is not an exact science, Buchanan. We are dealing with the unknown here. You know as well as any off us that conditions in the field can never be accurately predicted; we need to be flexible and adapt our strategies accordingly. It is to be expected that we should occasionally encounter situations for which we were unprepared. Do you know who it is that’s gone missing?’
Buchanan forced himself to calm down. Whisperer was still looking at him in that cool, oddly-knowing way and he turned away to avoid seeing it. ‘It was Penn,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘One of your men. A sharpshooter. He came with me when I went to collect Shane from that bounty hunter. Your little girl shot him this morning.’
‘And he was good enough?’
‘Must have been.’ Buchanan replied sulkily. ‘I thought I didn’t like him. Now I know why.’
Nathaniel sucked thoughtfully on his cigar. ‘This is not bad news,’ he decided. ‘The Fastest Guns are here ahead of schedule but all they have done is steal scraps from our plate. We should perform the second incantation and close the seals.’
Whisperer disagreed. ‘We should wait a while longer. If we close the seals now we risk catching only a few of them, and the others will wreak havoc to free them.’
‘Fuck it!’ Buchanan snapped. ‘Close the goddamn seals, whatever that means. I don’t trust this lying fuck.’
Nathaniel sighed. He was growing weary of Buchanan’s increasing instability. ‘That’s enough!’ he snapped. ‘I trust Whisperer implicitly, Buchanan, and that is an end of it! If there is anybody here whose conduct does concern me then it is you! I understand that you have been allowing Ennis to walk around unattended.’
‘So what if I have?’ Buchanan replied insolently.
‘So, I do not think that’s wise, do you? Ennis is devil-kind. He may yet discover what we’re doing here.’
Buchanan laughed at that, his mercurial temper changing as suddenly as it had blown up. ‘I’d be very surprised if he didn’t work it out eventually,’ he said. ‘He’s sharp about things like that. He was the one who found out that Penn was missing.’
‘He was what?’ Nathaniel said. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.’
‘Relax. I’m keeping an eye on Shane. He’s not doing anything that can hurt us.’
‘I hardly think you can be sure of that.’
Buchanan stalked over to the window and used his fingers to scrape a clear patch in the thick coating of dust. ‘Let me tell you something about Shane,’ he said. ‘They say that the Devil can know your sins just by looking at you. Well, Shane can do that too. Stick anyone to watch him too closely and before long Shane’ll be jerking their strings like a puppet. He’ll be out of this town in no time. No, if you want to keep Shane on a leash then you’ve got to give him just enough slack to keep him from getting too creative.’
He peered out the window at O’Malley’s across the street.
‘Shane likes to play games,’ he said. ‘What he hasn’t learned yet is that I can play them too.’

Ben’s funeral was conducted on the same day that Lyndon Appleby and his marshals took Hunte away. The whole town turned out for a ceremony that included both Ben and his parents, each buried side-by-side in a dusty plot outside of town. Shane attended, his hands shackled in front of him and Fletcher and Grant solemn figures on either side. Behind them at the lych gate their horses were saddled with bags for the long journey to the state line. Fletcher was through with Wainsford and he and Grant were taking Shane with them. They were taking Appleby’s advice and turning him in for the ten-thousand dollar reward.
The ceremony was a bitter, guilt-ridden thing. The preacher choked on his words and the townsfolk stood with their heads bowed. When it was over, Fletcher raised his head from prayer and wiped his eyes. Solemnly, he turned and pushed Shane toward the horses. Townsfolk who had gathered to pay their respects offered Fletcher their condolences as he passed and scowled at Shane. A few spat at him but most still feared him too much to give him any cause to remember them. It was as they drew near to the lych gate that the lawyer, Boyd, pushed his way free of the crowd and caught Fletcher by the sleeve.
‘August, wait! Let’s not be hasty. I know what happened was unpleasant but we had to think of the town.’
‘The only thing you were thinking of was the money in your pocket.’ Fletcher tugged his arm free and marched on toward the horses, pushing Shane ahead of him. ‘How much did they offer you?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’ Boyd insisted.
Fletcher shook his head, unable to voice his disgust. They reached the horses and Alan Grant kept Shane covered with a shotgun while he mounted.
‘I know you feel that you’ve been betrayed.’ Boyd said.
‘Could that be because I was betrayed?’ Fletcher replied testily.
Boyd pretended not to have heard him. ‘We want you to stay on as marshal. We’ll increase your wages to forty dollars a month.’
Fletcher mounted his horse.
‘Fifty then.’ Boyd said urgently. ‘Think of the town, August. They’ll be no one here to keep the law.’
Fletcher slowly turned to face him. ‘I don’t think you understand me, Boyd. I don’t fucking care.’ He raised his voice so that everyone could hear. ‘This whole town can go to Hell,’ he said, and steered his horse away.
Boyd still wouldn’t accept defeat. ‘Sixty then!’ he called after them, but his words fell on deaf ears. Fletcher wasn’t coming back.
They rode until nightfall. Fletcher was in a dark mood and said nothing the whole journey. His silence worked well for Shane, who rode with his head bowed and his brain working, a constant eye on Grant.
Up until now, Alan Grant had been a name without a face. Shane had heard him spoken of about town and had learned that he had been marshal before Fletcher. His wife had left him suddenly for a travelling salesman and, heartbroken, Grant had turned to the bottle and damn near drank himself to death. Fletcher had hauled him off the street and gotten him to sober up, but that had only been a couple of weeks ago and Grant’s cravings still gnawed at him with obvious ill-effect. He sweated profusely, was clumsy and lethargic and sometimes looked on the verge of passing out. His hands shook so badly that Shane didn’t think he could shoot further than ten or fifteen yards and have any guarantee of hitting what he aimed at. His friendship with Fletcher seemed about the only thing that kept him going and, in Shane’s eyes, that dependence made him exploitable.
Shane drew up his plans as they rode and plotted the means by which he would win back his freedom and finish the job he was being paid to perform.
That night, as they sat around the campfire in silence, Shane turned to Fletcher and spoke. ‘Hanging me won’t change what happened last night.’
His words were met with a long and uncomfortable pause before Fletcher answered. ‘You’re right, it won’t. But it’s no less than you deserve.’
‘What happened to Ben and his parent’s was none of my doing.’
‘And you really expect me to believe that?’
Shane shrugged. ‘I could have killed you the day we met if that was how I wanted it.’
Fletcher had nothing to say to that. He knew that there was some measure of truth to Shane’s words. Wood popped on the fire, throwing up sparks that spiralled into the air on an updraft.
‘Buchanan’s the man you want; not me.’ Shane said.
‘You could have stopped him.’ Fletcher said accusingly.
‘Maybe. But I didn’t.’ Shane spoke plainly. His own feelings on the subject were irrelevant; all that mattered was Fletcher’s reaction. ‘You can curse me all you want but my not stopping him doesn’t change the fact that it was him that done it, not me. If you want justice, Fletcher, you’ve got the wrong man.’
‘I’ll settle things with Buchanan in due course.’
Shane let out a short, cruel laugh. ‘I doubt that. You’re a stubborn old mule Fletcher, but you’re no match for a man like Buchanan. He’d do you like he did Ben’s parents.’ He paused for a moment to let the thought sink in. ‘I could kill him though,’ he added softly, almost as an afterthought.
Shane and Fletcher’s eyes met over the campfire and the two men stared at each other, neither saying a word. There was a reckoning in that meeting of eyes, a judgement that passed between them, and Grant did not like that it happened at all. ‘Don’t listen to him, August. He’s just trying to save his worthless hide.’
‘Buchanan and I have unfinished business to resolve.’ Shane said. ‘I want him dead just as much as you do.’
Grant told him to shut up, but Shane ignored him. ‘If you want justice for what happened to Ben; I’m the only man who can give it to you,’ he said.
‘I said: shut up!’ Grant drew his revolver and pointed it at Shane. The way his hands were shaking it wouldn’t take much for him to accidentally pull the trigger. Shane forced himself to look unafraid and turned to Fletcher.
Fletcher sighed. ‘Put the gun away, Alan.’
Grant reluctantly did as he was told, muttering to himself as he fumbled the revolver back into its holster. Fletcher got slowly to his feet and took a few steps away from the fire, his eyes distant as he stared across the plains. ‘I’m almost tempted to take you up on your offer,’ he told Shane. ‘But I’m not that stupid. I know if I set you loose you’ll only go after Hunte.’
‘So what if I do?’ Shane asked. ‘Buchanan’ll be going after him too. I find one; the other won’t be far away.’
‘I won’t let you kill him, Ennis.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you will.’ Shane said, his voice quiet. ‘But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Fletcher turned to face him but said nothing at all. Standing there like that, Shane thought he looked older than he had seemed before, older, broken and frail. As little as a few days ago, August Fletcher would never have agreed to what Shane was offering him.
But a lot had happened since then.

The butterfly-wing doors of O’Malley’s swung on rusty hinges and Buchanan strode in, his boots clumping heavily on the wooden floor. He had Shane’s gun belt draped over his arm and held the lacquered mahogany box that contained Shane’s gun.
‘Is it that time already?’ Shane asked.
‘Like you haven’t been counting the seconds.’ Buchanan replied. He tossed the gun belt onto Shane’s table. ‘You been drinking alone?’ The way he said it made Shane think he knew that Vendetta had joined him.
‘I might as well have been,’ he replied, and slowly got to his feet. He fastened the gun belt around his waist. ‘Did you sort out that problem with the missing body?’
‘It’s dealt with.’ The lie was transparent. Sensing a little friction, Shane decided to press further.
‘What did Nathaniel have to say about it?’ he asked.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It must be hard not being able to sense them for yourself any more. Are you sure than Nathaniel’s telling you the whole story?’
He could see by the look on Buchanan’s face that it was something that had been preying on his mind. ‘That’ll all change soon,’ he said adamantly, and he set the mahogany box down on the table. Shane felt a shiver of excitement run through his body and immediately resented it, but he longed to open the box and hold his gun again. It awoke a yearning in him that reached deep into his soul, exerting such a power over his emotions that it filled him with self-disgust.
‘What can you sense, Shane?’ Buchanan asked. He tried to make it sound tough but even growling his words like a dog couldn’t hide the raw need with which he wanted to hear the answer, like a lovelorn teenager asking to know a beautiful girl’s name.
Shane cleared his thoughts and opened up his senses. He shivered as he felt a scratching at his soul. It was as if somebody had reached a spectral hand into his body and was plucking at his nerves as at the strings of a guitar. The melody they played was sweet but the song was vile.
‘They’re all around us,’ he said. ‘Watching. Waiting.’
He shook his head and broke the spell. His skin felt clammy but whether from disgust or desire Shane could not properly be sure. He tried to blank the thoughts from his mind as he reached for the box.
The gun inside had been cleaned and oiled again since yesterday and was as smooth and beautiful as a woman’s naked thigh. Its smell rose up at him, sultry like musk and poisonously seductive. Shane took it into his hands and holstered it quickly, not wanting to hold onto it for any longer than he had to, not right now while his senses were still raw from the Fastest Guns’ touch. He did not trust himself.
The room seemed too close. He walked to the door and stepped out onto the boardwalk, breathing deeply to ground himself. Outside, the invigilators were taking up their positions in preparation for the impending match. Their black hats and three-quarter length coats made them look like crows as they hunched on the rooftops and noisily cocked their rifles.
Buchanan walked him to his spot on the crossroads. It was hot and dusty and Shane tasted grit in the back of his throat. Buchanan gave him his bullet. ‘Try not to waste it now,’ he said.
The significance of his comment did not occur to Shane until after Buchanan had gone and he turned to face his opponent. In this round he had been matched against Valentino Rodrigues, the man who had fought against the Gentleman.
Given a fully-loaded gun Shane would have felt confident that he could defeat him without difficulty, but only having a single bullet changed things. It left him with no margin for error. If he fired and Rodrigues ducked out of the way again, Shane would not get a second chance to hit him.
His safest option was to sacrifice the initiative and let Rodrigues act first, then try to counteract him before he fired, but that would require perfect timing. Act too quickly and he might waste his one and only shot. Act too slowly and he might never get a chance to fire. Rodrigues knew this as clearly as Shane, and he knew that it gave him a slight advantage. He looked confident as he strutted out onto the crossroads and found his mark. He stretched his fingers like a pianist about to play a concerto and tipped his hat to Shane and smiled charmingly. Shane nodded in return. It was the last gesture by which he acknowledged the man as a fellow human being. From that moment onwards, Shane stopped seeing him as a person and viewed him solely as a threat, a danger that had to be eliminated. It drained the colours from his point of view and heightened his senses to a sharper level.
By objectifying him, Shane transformed Rodrigues into a set of probabilities. The set of his stance dictated the possible ways in which he could jump, dive or roll before firing his shot. Rodrigues was ambidextrous and wore a gun on each hip. Against the Gentleman he had drawn with his right hand and fired a .44-40 Remington but, equally, he could draw with his left and use his .38 revolver instead; a gun that was lighter and fractionally quicker to draw.
Shane looked into his eyes and tried to read his intentions, but Rodrigues had a solid poker face and he kept his thoughts locked up tight. His eyes revealed nothing.
The boardwalk creaked under Nathaniel’s boots as he moved to the edge of the porch and made ready to give the call.
In only a few more seconds, the fight would begin. Shane twitched his fingers impatiently and tried to predict what Rodrigues would do. He believed he had it narrowed down to about three possibilities. It was just a matter of picking the right one.
He heard the silence around them deepen as the crowd tensed and figured that had to mean that Nathaniel had opened his mouth to speak.
There was no more time to think. No more time to doubt.
‘Draw!’ Nathaniel shouted, and Shane drew and fired.