Leaving Epitaph (19 page)

The first thing Shaye had to do was make a good guess as to where Morales was firing from. He had to pick a spot, one he probably would have chosen to use. There was a rise about a hundred yards away that would do, another beyond that about another fifty yards. He knew that a good man with a rifle could make a shot from twice that distance. Unless Morales’s eyesight had gotten worse with age, he recalled him being a very good shot.

“James?”

“I’m ready, Pa.”

“Okay…now!”

James stood up and took off running. It also made sense for him to be the target—or the rabbit—since he was younger and could run faster.

Shaye kept his eyes on the horizon and saw a man with a rifle stand up from the spot he’d chosen a hundred yards away. He couldn’t tell if it was Morales, but the man moved quickly, took
aim and fired, then levered a round and fired again.

Shaye, wanting to give Morales—or whoever it was—a false sense of security, fired a shot of his own that fell woefully short of its mark. Then he dropped down behind his rocks and called out, “James! You all right?”

“I’m fine, Pa.” He sounded strong, though a bit farther away. “Did you spot him?”

“I did.”

“I heard you take a shot.”

“Just to give me an idea of range.”

“Do you think you can take him?”

“I don’t think I have a choice, James,” Shaye said. “I’ve got to take a shot.”

“What happens if you miss?”

“That depends on whether I miss by an inch or a mile. A mile, and he’ll just stay where he is. If I miss by an inch, he’ll probably hit his horse running and pick a new spot.”

“If that happens you’ll have to leave me behind,” James said. “We’ll never run him down riding double.”

“Not only will I have to ride him down, I’ll have to bring his horse back for you to ride. I guess I better not miss.”

“Hey, Pa?”

“Yes?”

“I just thought of something.”

“What?”

James hesitated, then asked, “Can he hear us?”

Shaye had to smile. “Don’t worry, James. He’s too far away.”

“Oh, okay. Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure?”

“The longer I stay a target, the longer you’ll have to get a bead on him, right?”

“That’s probably right, James,” Shaye said, “but don’t be a hero. When I give the word, run back to where you were before, and be quick about it.”

“Okay.”

James would be able to do whatever he wanted, because Shaye knew there was no way he could keep an eye on his son and also take a shot at Morales.

He laid his rifle across the boulder he was using as cover, sighted along the barrel, and shouted, “James…now!”

James’s heart had been pounding ever since the first shot was fired. When he’d made his first run, he had steeled himself for the impact of a bullet. When it didn’t come, he felt great relief, but it was short-lived for he knew he would have to do it again. He was happy that his father was treating him more like a deputy in this situation and less like his son.

When his father shouted again, James sprang up and began to run back to his previous cover, but he was not moving quite as fast as he had be
fore. He wanted to give his father time for a good shot, and maybe even a second.

He was halfway between the two areas of cover when the bullet hit him.

Morales was ready, and when the man jumped up and began running again, he took a split second more than he should have to try to lead him and make a quality shot.

As he pulled the trigger, the sound of his own shot drowned out any other sound, so when the bullet struck him in the belly, he was shocked. He staggered, dropped his rifle, and looked up in time to see the second man fire again. There was a puff of smoke from the barrel of the man’s gun…and then Morales knew nothing. A brief moment of respect for the shooter…

Shaye saw Morales stagger and knew he’d hit him. In fact, the shot seemed to freeze the man where he was, so he jacked another round and fired a second, more deliberate shot.

He turned then to look for James and saw him lying on the ground halfway between the two clumps of rock he’d been running to and from.

“James!”

He dropped his rifle and ran to his son’s side.

“Oh, Pa,” James said, looking up at Shaye, “I think he shot me in the butt!”

“What’s wrong, Thomas?” Matthew asked.

Thomas had dismounted and was walking around looking at the ground and then staring off into the distance. Now he walked back to where Matthew was waiting, still mounted.

“I think I lost the trail, Matthew,” he said mournfully, shaking his head.

“You’ll pick up the trail again, Thomas,” Matthew said confidently. “I know you will. And if not, you’ll figure somethin’ out. You’re smart, like Pa.”

“Yeah, well,” Thomas said, not as sure of that as his brother was, “I don’t think they’ll stop in any Kansas towns. Not with the word out about what happened in Salina.”

“So they’ll keep goin’? Back into Indian Territory?”

“Unless they head west.”

“What about east?” Matthew asked.

“Too far,” Thomas said, “too much of Kansas to ride through.”

“See? I told you you was smart.”

Thomas took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair and looked into the distance, south.

“I’ll try and pick up the trail again, but I think we should keep headin’ south,” he finally said. “That’s where he likes to work, and that’s where his other brother is.”

“The priest? I thought they didn’t like each other?”

“They’re brothers, Matthew,” Thomas said. “If Ethan decided he needed help, that’s where he’d go.” He put his hat on and slapped his brother’s tree trunk thigh. “That’s what I’d do.”

“Me too.”

“Okay, then.” Thomas remounted. “We’ll head for Oklahoma City and see if we can pick up the trail.”

Thomas hoped he was making the right choice. He didn’t want the killer of his mother to get away, but—and this he found odd—even more than that, he didn’t want to disappoint his father, or his brothers. Matthew, he thought, was giving him much too much credit for Dan Shaye–like brains.

But Oklahoma City seemed like a good bet to him. If two brothers had split up, heading for the
third brother was something a man might do. The way Thomas felt about his brothers, he couldn’t imagine not going to one of them for help.

It had not been James’s butt that caught the bullet, but the fleshy part of his hip. Shaye had packed the wound with an extra shirt from his saddlebags, and he instructed James to hold it there. Then he’d mounted and ridden out to check on Morales, to make sure the man was dead. That was something every hunt did, make sure you didn’t leave a wounded animal on the loose.

When he reached Morales, the man was almost dead, but he was holding on, for some reason.

“Shay?” he said as Dan Shaye’s shadow fell across him.

“Morales,” Shaye said. “Where is he?”

“Red Cloud,” the Mexican said. “Waitin’ for me with the money.”

“You think so?”

“If he’s not there,” Morales said, “you track him. Don’t…let him spend my money.”

“Morales…” Shaye said, but the man was dead.

He looked down at the body with a great degree of satisfaction, seeing that both of his shots had hit home.

He didn’t bother to bury Morales. He didn’t particularly care if critters made a meal of the man’s corpse. He rounded up the dead man’s horse, rode back to where James was, and made camp there.

The bullet in James’s hip was going to have to come out.

The wound wasn’t serious, but he had seen many men die from infection of a less than serious wound. A lucky break was finding a half-finished bottle of rotgut whiskey in Morales’s saddlebags. Not great for drinking, but it served well in cleaning the wound out. James tried to bite his lips as Shaye poured it on his wound, but in the end he howled like a hyena and then passed out.

Now Shaye sat beside him, keeping the fire going and listening to the animals who were being drawn to Morales’s corpse. He hoped none of the bigger ones would get brave and approach their fire.

While James was asleep, he used an extra shirt he’d found in Morales’s saddlebags as a new bandage for his own wound, and also used the last of the whiskey to clean it out. He cinched his
own bandage tight, hoping to stop the bleeding. They were alone out here, and the last thing he needed was for both of them to bleed to death.

There was no money in Morales’s saddlebags. Why had the Mexican actually allowed Aaron Langer to go on with all the money while he waited to ambush them? It made more sense to think that Aaron probably had not given his
segundo
a choice. That sounded more like the Aaron Langer Shaye remembered.

He hadn’t yet told his sons that he’d once ridden with Aaron Langer, but he was pretty sure they’d figured it out by now. It had only lasted a year, and that was not a year Shaye ever thought back fondly on. He was amazed he’d been able to avoid becoming a murderer during that time. Or maybe, having watched as Aaron murdered, he was one, just by association.

He’d discussed the subject one night with Mary early in their marriage, and she had taken him into her arms and assured him that he was not a murderer, he was not responsible for what a man like Aaron Langer did.

“He would have done it whether you were there or not,” she’d told him.

Leave it to her to always find the right thing to say.

Shaye was dozing when James suddenly came awake. Embarrassed that he had almost fallen asleep while he was supposed to be on watch,
Shaye moved eagerly to his son’s side. I’m
getting
old, he thought, old
and
tired.

“James? Can you hear me?”

“I hear you, Pa,” James said, confused. “What happened?”

“You got shot, son.”

James frowned, then said, “Oh yeah…in the ass.”

“Not quite,” Shaye said. “It’s more of a hip wound.”

“Oh, good,” James said with relief. “Now I won’t have to tell Thomas and Matthew I got shot in the ass.”

“No, you won’t.”

James tried to move, then grimaced. “It hurts, Pa.”

“I know, son,” Shaye said. “It’s going to hurt for a while.”

“How about you, Pa?” James asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Shaye said. “I rebandaged my wound and it’s fine.”

“And Morales?”

“Dead.”

“You fired twice?”

Shaye nodded. “Hit him with both shots.”

James’s eyes went wide. “Wow!”

“I was lucky.”

“Lucky with one shot, maybe,” James said, “but not with two. Wait until I tell Thomas and
Matthew. They’ll wish they’d seen it. Heck, I wish I’d seen it.”

“You did your job, son,” Shaye said. “You’re just as responsible for getting him as I am.”

“Sure…” James’s eyes began to flutter.

“James?”

He touched his son’s face, lifted his eyelids to have a look. He’d simply fainted. Maybe he’d sleep until morning. That would be good for him.

Shaye made a decision to go to sleep himself. He wouldn’t be any good the next day if he didn’t. There was little chance that Aaron Langer would stumble on them, and if he built the fire up enough, it should keep the animals away.

It was a chance he knew he had to take.

The only thing Ethan could think to do was go and see Vincent. That meant back through Indian Territory to Oklahoma City.

“We got lucky once, Ethan,” Ben Branch said. “We got through there without runnin’ into any Indians. We’re pressin’ our luck tryin’ it again, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you, Branch,” Ethan said. “You got your money, you can go your own way.”

They were camped for the night about sixty miles east of Dodge City. In the morning, Ethan intended to start traveling southeast, with Oklahoma City his ultimate goal.

“Naw, I’ll ride with you for a while longer, Ethan,” Branch said.

“Then do it with your mouth shut.”

Branch nodded, tossed some more wood on the fire.

“You take the first watch,” Ethan said. “I need some sleep.”

“Okay.”

He rolled himself up in his bedroll, not at all sure he was going to sleep. The dead woman was in his dreams all the time now. But he knew he needed sleep or he’d be falling out of the saddle.

He thought about Aaron slapping him around in Salina. He was tired of that. Maybe it was time they split up permanently. He didn’t need Aaron anyway. He’d do just fine on his own. First, though, he had to do something about these dreams. Vincent had to know something that would help, something he hadn’t told him before. After all, he was a goddamn priest, wasn’t he? Priests were supposed to help people. This time “Father” Vincent would help him, or he’d put a bullet in his brain.

Brother or no brother.

Branch poked at the fire, wondering why he was going with Ethan Langer. His own brother had had enough of him, maybe what he needed to do was get off on his own. Still, he’d never made the kind of money on his own that he’d made since joining up with Ethan. Maybe he wasn’t the smartest of the Langer brothers, but they’d done all right. Maybe now that he didn’t have to answer to Aaron, he’d get smarter. Branch was willing to give it some time to see what happened.

But going back to see his brother the priest wasn’t a good start. He hadn’t been able to help
him before, so what were the chances he’d be able to do it now? Actually, Branch didn’t even know what kind of help Ethan thought he needed, but apparently he thought he needed it from a priest.

He looked over at the sleeping form of Ethan, who did not seem to be sleeping comfortably these days. More than once Branch had seen him snap awake and then look around him, as if to see if anyone noticed. Maybe whatever nightmare he was having was what he needed help with. A priest could help with that, couldn’t he?

If they didn’t get killed by Indians first.

Branch was sleepy. He was about to wake Ethan for his turn on watch when suddenly Ethan cried out and sat up. He looked around, wild-eyed, unseeing. Branch had no idea that Ethan was still deep in a dream—a dream where a dead woman was chasing him.

“Ethan—” he said, getting up and walking toward him.

Ethan continued to look around wildly, then grabbed for his gun.

“Hey, Ethan—” Branch said, alarmed. “What the hell—”

Ethan looked up and his eyes seemed to focus on Branch. Only he wasn’t seeing Ben Branch. He was seeing a dead woman.

“Get away!” he shouted. “Get away from me!”

He pointed the gun at Branch, who made the
mistake of freezing in his tracks. He couldn’t believe that Ethan would shoot him, but before he could say a word, the gun went off. The bullet plowed into his chest, and all the strength went out of his limbs.

Jesus, he thought, as he fell to the ground, killed by a man who might not have even been awake.

The shot woke Ethan Langer up. He looked around him for the source, then realized he was holding his gun in his hand. He looked around again and saw Ben Branch lying on his back.

“Branch?”

No answer.

Ethan got to his feet, reached out toward the body, but didn’t approach. “Ben?”

Still no answer.

Ethan lifted his gun and stared at it. He realized that it had been fired, but he didn’t remember firing it. He holstered it, then walked over to Ben Branch. He saw that he’d been shot in the chest and was dead.

“Oh Christ,” he said, not loudly. “Oh Jesus, I—I killed him in my sleep?”

He whirled around, as if someone was behind him, but there was no one there. But he thought he could hear someone laughing…a woman…a woman’s laughter…coming from…where?

There it was again.

He pulled his gun and looked all around him.

“Where are you?” he called out.

This woman was going to haunt him in his waking hours now? Or taunt him?

“There’s nobody there,” he told himself aloud. “There’s nobody there.”

He holstered his gun, walked away from Branch’s body, and hunkered down by the fire. There was no way he was going to go to sleep again. He poured some coffee and drank it scalding hot.

Father Vincent had to help him this time. He had to.