The Gunslinger's Man (32 page)

“Just havin’ a rest.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, Wesley’s got this whole idea about me being the next big cheese. Glad to see you’re not gonna start faintin’ when I walk into a room.”

Romero nudged the screen door open and stepped onto the porch. “You havin’ a rest or you havin’ a drink? ’Cause only one of those is any excuse for talking drivel… What’re you grinnin’ at me for?”

“Nothing shakes you.”

Ambrose could croak, half-wild vampires from out of town could blow into Sargasso like the whirlwind, and still Romero hung on to her aloofness, glaring at Asher as if he’d just stumbled into her bar to whine about Octavian. The memory almost hoisted a smile onto Asher’s lips.

“Should it?”

“I don’t know. I just got done burying forty-eight of our neighbors. Guess I’m feeling a mite shook up.”

She sighed as though it pained her to have to listen to him. “You want a drop of liquor or not?”

Asher jerked up his eyebrows. “There’s whiskey left?”

Romero merely turned on her heel.

After a moment, Asher pinned a hand against the wall and pulled himself to his feet. Romero had mostly swept up the debris, but a few shards of glass remained, crunching underfoot as Asher made his way to the bar. The first stool he tried creaked and fell apart under him.

“Try another,” Romero said without peering up from the bottle.

He was luckier the second time around.

“You remember the first time you came in here?” she asked and slid a chipped glass along the bar.

“Sure. You said I was too young, threw me out—”

“Nah, boy. The
first
time. Back when your daddy was still around.”

Tumbler halfway to his lips, Asher froze. “I don’t remember that.”

If not for the wedding photograph Uncle Howard kept of his folks, Asher would’ve struggled to remember his father’s face. In it, Asher’s parents stood shoulder to shoulder in a fuzzy oval, the two of them wearing twin expressions of fright and disbelief. Over the years, Asher had often wondered if that was the photographer’s fault or a true reflection of their marriage.

Romero poured herself a glass and set aside the bottle. “You were four, maybe five, just a skinny little slip of a man in a calico shirt and trousers that were too long in the leg. Your daddy sat you on his knee while he played a hand of poker. Right over there,” she said, pointing to a round table near the window. One of its legs was broken and bullet holes dotted the surface, but on a good day, men would sit around it for a game of cards—at least until the vampires came in for a drink. “Said you were his good luck charm.”

Asher could picture it clearly, the low lights in the saloon, the jaunty music from a piano that hadn’t worked in years. His father holding him steady with an arm around his waist. The smell of rye on his breath.

“Yeah, well…he was wrong about that, wasn’t he?” Case in point, Asher’s father was dead, just like his mother. Just like anyone he’d ever cared about.

“When you’re done feelin’ sorry for yourself,” Romero scoffed, “you might wanna consider what you’ve done here.”

“And what’s that?”

“Used to be this town was too afraid to sneeze for fear of Ambrose and his brood takin’ offense. But last night, there wasn’t a man, woman or child who didn’t fight against ’em.”

“They weren’t fighting Ambrose,” Asher quibbled. “They’d never—”

“No, ’cause he was already dead. Him and most of his tribe. Why do you think Malachi’s been holed up in that big ole house all day, huh? Polishin’ the family china?”

The saloon windows overlooked Main Street and the ugly mansion that served both as town hall and Malachi’s home. Gaslight gleamed in the windows upstairs, peeking around the edges of tightly drawn curtains. Even if Asher didn’t acknowledge the discolored ground or scattered bullet casings surrounding it, the torn siding and broken shingles testified to the hostilities endured.

“You have a chance to do something here, kid.” Romero tipped another measure of whiskey into his glass. “Don’t squander it.”

Asher glanced at the tumbler, its contents swirling with the promise of oblivion. “Ambrose ain’t the only one who’s dead,” he said quietly.

It wasn’t safe to admit and as long as he didn’t say the words he could pretend they weren’t lurking on the tip of his tongue, but he felt no triumph in their victory. The hollow in his chest wouldn’t let him.

“To them who we lost,” Romero said and lifted her glass about an inch off the bar. Her voice remained hard, but her eyes had softened with pity.

She better than anyone in town knew that Halloran hadn’t been all rotten.

Asher clinked his glass against hers. “The ones we lost.” Whiskey burned a path down his throat as fiery as Halloran’s blood.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Under normal circumstances, Asher wouldn’t have dared bring a gun to a sit-down with the town mayor. But nothing about this was normal. Across the dining table, Malachi sprawled in his maker’s high-backed chair like a portrait of nonchalance. Only two vampires flanked him. The others had either met the true death or fled during the night. They were grossly outnumbered by Asher and the half-dozen men and women he had asked to join him at the negotiating table.

Romero was right. Six months ago, the mere suggestion that they should enter town hall voluntarily, let alone prepared to make demands of their mayor, would’ve earned Asher snickers and cold shoulders from most of his neighbors. Now, he’d been inundated with ideas. Everyone seemed to have an opinion of how Sargasso should change. Everyone was hopeful.

That wouldn’t last if Asher failed to reach an agreement with Malachi. And Malachi knew it.

“You’re aware that we’re down to whatever’s left in every man’s pantry,” Asher started, shuffling his papers. He’d brought the stock book with him so there wouldn’t be any doubt as to the findings. “We’ve made an inventory of all our grain and meat. It’s enough to last—”

“Supplies have already been sent for.”

Asher looked up from the roster. “They have?”

Malachi inclined his head. “Two of my men left this morning to secure a shipment of grain from Mesa.”

Truth or lie? Malachi’s expression betrayed nothing.

“That was…timely.”

“I care for my people. I intend to see them fed and warm this winter. And happy, of course,” Malachi added with an insincere smile.

“What about the cattle?” asked Connie. She had been the first to stand up when Asher started going door to door, looking for volunteers. Her father had tried to dissuade her, but in vain. “Without the ranches runnin’, we’ll be out of money by spring. One supply of grain won’t last forever.”

Murmurs rippled around the table.

“That’s been dealt with.”

Asher frowned. “You’ve recovered the herd? We weren’t told about this.”

“You had other preoccupations.” Malachi shifted in his seat, tilting forward to join his hands over the table. “Which brings me to my main point. Ladies, gentlemen, Sargasso has passed through the crucible. We’ve come out the other side wounded and scarred, but stronger.” He glanced from Asher to the other humans gathered around his father’s table.

Was he thinking as Asher, that in Ambrose’s day the only humans to set foot in this house would’ve been lobotomized or dinner?

“I would like to make a clean break with the past. To start over,” Malachi said, “for the benefit of our human population
and
my vampire brethren.”

“We want the same thing.” Asher mimicked the pose. “But we’ll reserve judgment until we hear your terms.”

* * * *

The sun had begun to dip in the sky by the time they reached an agreement. Exhausted but satisfied with the result, the men and women of Sargasso filed out of the dining room in chattering twos and threes, practically thrumming with the newfound power to decide their own destinies.

“Asher, would you linger a moment?” Malachi called from the far end of the table.

Connie tightened her grip on Asher’s arm.

“It’s all right.”
I’m not afraid of him.

She didn’t seem convinced, but neither did she press the point. The click of her boot heels faded down the hall.

Asher rested his hands on the back of a chair. The whole expanse of the dining table lay between him and Malachi, but they could have been standing as near as lovers for how close and intimate the moment felt.

“I haven’t forgotten, you know, what you did to my family.”

“I’m not the one who shot your sister,” Asher lobbed back.

“Didn’t realize you were so fond of her… Or Halloran.”

A muscle twitched under Asher’s eye.

“You see,” Malachi went on, rising from his seat, “I knew he was infatuated with you. But I thought it was simply one-sided. I couldn’t believe that Asher Franklin, my father’s most unlikely foe, would stoop to feel anything but hate for a bloodsucker.” His tread was nearly soundless as he rounded the table. “How would your friends feel about that, I wonder?”

“I’m not the only man in town who’s been owned.”

“Indeed. But you
are
the only one for whom a vampire nearly gave his life,” Malachi admonished. “Don’t act surprised. I know it was you who killed Ambrose. And I know it was Halloran who killed my brother.”

Asher tilted his head back fractionally, the better to look down his nose at Malachi. “Seems we’re all murderers here, then.”

“No remorse, hmm?” Peering deep into his eyes, Malachi smiled. “Good. That will make working with you so much pleasanter. I simply can’t wait for our next council meeting.”

Although dismissal was audible in Malachi’s voice, Asher made no move to leave until Malachi had glanced away. “What did you mean,” he asked, already on the other side of the threshold, “about Halloran
nearly
giving his life?”

Malachi arched his brow. “I told you. The herd’s been dealt with.”

“Yes, you mentioned…” That piece of news had set the tone for the rest of the meeting, softening the hardliners against Malachi’s subsequent proposals. But what did it have to do with Halloran?

The herd’s been dealt with.

But not by you.

Asher opened his mouth to speak just as one of Malachi’s thugs stepped into his path. The double doors swung inward, curtailing his view of the dining room. Just before they snagged shut, Asher saw Malachi sink into Ambrose’s chair, his bony frame dwarfed by a tall backrest.

* * * *

The hammer struck a single, dull note, the thud only growing louder as Asher neared the farm.

It was a bruising dawn, the eastern sky shot with pinks and oranges, his shadow stretching long over the cracked dirt. Asher hopped out of saddle, dusty hoof prints crumbling underfoot.

His horse, a borrowed mare with a placid temperament, let herself be tugged along by the reins for the last ten yards. She sniffed along the edge of the wooden fence for grass, but the cows had already been at it.

“You gonna come down from there?” Asher called out, nudging the brim of his hat with a fingertip.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Guess that’s a no.” Asher sighed and squinted at the ground around him. He found what was looking for about three feet from the gate post.

The stone was jagged and heavy in his hand but not so heavy that he couldn’t lob it at the high barn wall. It smacked the edge of the roof and ricocheted uselessly onto a patch of dirt in the yard.

The hammering stopped. Relief flooded like sunlight after heavy rain, and just as quickly morphed into anger.

“You’re a mean son of a bitch, you know that, Halloran? I thought you were pushing up daisies, you
fuck!
And here you are…playing carpenter!”

The earth echoed with a muffled thud as Halloran hit the ground. He’d used no harness and no stepladder to climb up to the roof of the barn. The upper ledge had been enough to hold him up.

Damn vampire agility.

“Thought you of all people would be pleased,” Halloran said. His gruff, familiar voice dispelled any lingering fears that Asher had conjured him out of forlorn hope.

“
Pleased?
”

“You’re free now. I ain’t gonna bother you no more.”

Mere nights ago they’d been pulling at each other’s clothes in a desperate quest to make the most of their final moments together. It might as well have been another life. They’d certainly been different people.

Asher sucked in a breath. Was that what Halloran wanted?

He was starting back at him as if he was a stranger, wariness in the slant of his shoulders, hostility in his cold, brown eyes.

“You’re gonna turn cowherd instead, is that it?” Disbelief made Asher mean. “Pretty big change for a gunslinger…”

“Wasn’t always one,” Halloran answered, shrugging.

The faint puffing of animal breath echoed through the open barn door. Malachi had been telling the truth when he’d said the cattle were taken care of. Halloran could well be telling the truth now.

It wasn’t enough to get Asher back on his horse.

“What about me, then?”

“What about you? Ambrose’s gone. Malachi’s as weak as he’s gonna get.” Halloran hooked the hammerhead around the topmost board in the fence. “Now’s the time to leave Sargasso, if that’s still what you’re after.” His eyes searched Asher’s. “Is it?”

Asher considered it. Leave the valley, hop on a train in Mesa and see the rest of the country before the years caught up with him or his prosthetics broke down. Maybe ride as far as Yukon and see the places he’d read about in the papers. The Red Horn Riders had traveled far and wide doing harm and robbing folks from one border to the other. Retracing their footsteps ought to be easy. Asher had kept all the clippings.

But the Riders were no more. Maud had left town. The others were dead. And Halloran was in hiding. Asher would have to go alone.

“Look, what happened to Blackjack—”

“If you’ve come here to twist the knife, spare me,” Halloran growled. “I don’t need to hear it.” He wrenched the hammer free with a brutal yank and started back for the barn.