Bladestay, p.4
Bladestay, page 4
After his curated stretch of silence, the man ended it. “I have a job for you.” He neither looked up nor specified whom he was speaking to, but they all knew whom he addressed.
Oddly, Theo’s heart had quieted in the man’s presence. Despite the horrors she already understood about this outlaw, she saw his dangerous ability to influence a room to his liking. People were scared when he wanted them to be; people were the opposite when he saw fit.
“I think you mistake me for the employable type,” Theo said.
“I think you mistake that for an offer.” The man tossed something over Brody Boone’s head, and it landed at the base of the bars with a clang and a clatter.
Theo eyed the ring of keys not with the apprehension she felt, but with the irrelevance she wished she did. As she dragged her gaze back to the broad man in the doorway, it snagged on Brody Boone, whose finger was now on the trigger, the fluidity of his stature somehow calcified.
Appropriating all the self-control that lived within her, Theo made neither a move for the keys nor graced them with a second glance. She simply leaned back, crossed her arms over her flattened chest, and asked, “What’s the job?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As soon as Theo was alone in the stables, she slid behind a stack of hay and vomited. She’d been forcing out images of the sheriff, a man she’d known her whole life, with half his head missing. The ferocious tightening inside had torn her raw and left her nauseous, leaving her convinced there was no possibility she could maintain this ruse. She’d given everything in the jailhouse performance, yet it had barely been enough. Men like August Gaines and Brody Boone can sense evil like a scent on a breeze—she knew this to be true.
Already, August had left her with a test. A trial of evil. An assessment of depravity.
She hadn’t yet thought her way out of it. But she was working on it.
Theo hadn’t dared touch the keys until August had walked out of the jail, but before he did, he’d left her with a brief but straightforward ultimatum: tend to the horses and be at the saloon in a half hour’s time. Should she choose to not come back, Patrick would earn a bullet in the skull.
As far as Theo was concerned, Patrick had already earned one of those, but the thing that worried her was what he might give up about her under the threat of said bullet.
Up until the ultimatum, Theo’s vision of what came next had been clear: she’d foist her way out of jail time, then make a run for home and get her family the hell out of Bladestay. Central City was the obvious choice, the nearest city large enough for anonymity. But that had its own problems: if it was obvious to her it would be obvious to August Gaines, and August didn’t strike her as the kind of man who let things go very easily. Digressively, the point was moot—she couldn’t safely connect the dots from here to Central City, or anywhere for that matter. Theo didn’t know exactly what August Gaines was after, but she did know that August reeked of revenge, as tangible as liquor on the breath.
So, Theo went back to the basics. The most important thing was to stay alive and keep as many people around her in the same fate. The trick, she knew, would be to project the opposite.
While August saw this ultimatum as a test of character, Theo saw this as a test of wits.
By the time Theo made her way to a trough, a plan began to take shape. She splashed water on her face and raked her hands through her cropped hair. Her mother had sheered shorter on the sides, above the ears, to make it as symmetrical as possible after Patrick had left her lopsided. The top of her head had loosened in volume, the subtle waves of long hair transforming nearly into curls without the weight of length pulling it straight.
She placed her hands on the metal lip of the trough and leaned over the water, waiting for it to calm. The water wavered, sending her a rippled reflection of herself. She stared at her reflection for nearly a full minute, willing herself to cry so she could get it out of her system. But as she glared at herself, she saw more and more not a girl who was sad or scared, but angry and determined.
Not a single tear came forward.
Sniffing sharply at the blond boy staring back at her in the water, she turned and headed for the row of horses who needed their tack removed and bellies filled.
By the time she was done, her stomach was aching with hunger and her mouth was sour with bile. She emulated a man’s walk as she headed for the saloon, not daring even so much as a look in the direction of home. Theo forced her motions to be loose and slow as if she hadn’t a care in the world, as if this was her ideal Wednesday morning. She glanced at the disarray of Main Street with an air of amusement, strolling down the road with hands shoved in her trouser pockets as if she were on her way to a picnic. She kept a slight slouch in her shoulders to hide any betrayal of curves and mimicked the crude tendencies of a man in his element—essentially, she did everything that was diametrically opposed to the ways she was taught to carry herself as a woman.
Her life now depended on her ability to control every single nuance.
“Time’s up, Youngblood.” August had said a sum of thirty-four words to Theo, but she knew the rumbling drawl of his voice as if she’d heard it her entire life, was as familiar to her as her own father’s, an odd recognition that made her feel like a cube of ice had been drawn down her spine.
“Oh?” Theo said, squinting up at the sky as if to assess the time the sun told. She slipped her hands back into her pockets—one of her most worrisome attributes, slender and dainty and well-manicured—as her gaze settled on August. He sat upon the stairs, the batwing doors of the saloon behind framing him like angel wings. The placement of the sun above his head was an equally bizarre exposition of supernatural proportions.
“Come,” he said. He pointed at the stairs with his pipe, something Theo was learning to be as much a habitual accessory as it was an addiction. “I want to talk at you for a minute.”
In her panic, Theo stilled. She didn’t want anyone to see her subterfuge up close. They might see how delicate her nose was. How soft the angle of her jaw was. The petiteness of her chin.
Her legs carried her up the stairs, where she lowered herself as far away from him on the top step. Slouching, she let her knees recline away from each other.
“Why are you here?” Theo asked.
“Hm.” It sounded like a growling purr. “Just the thing I wanted to discuss.” He looked up the street one way, then down the other. “Does the name Lucas Haas or Heath Mansford mean anything to you?”
The foul scent of revenge rose around Theo like an aura.
She shrugged. “I doubt this Podunk gets a plethora of visitors.”
August gave her a sideways look, the corner of his mouth tipped upward. “You ain’t from here?”
“What, do I not look like I belong here?”
August’s half grin deepened. “I doubt you belong much anywhere.”
Theo felt a stab of something heavy and familiar. She couldn’t rightly place what it was, but August was talking again, and Theo forced herself to focus.
“Where you from?”
“Taos.” She remembered reading about the town in some piece of literature and figured she knew enough about it to bluff her way through, should it come to that.
August nodded as if that answered all the questions in his head. “You don’t like it here.”
She gave him a disgruntled snort. “What gave me away?”
Despite her sarcasm, he responded with a calm seriousness. “Indifference is illuminating.”
“Indifferent?” She stood. “You don’t know me. Indifference is an indulgence for the unscathed.”
August chuckled. “Sit back down, Youngblood.”
In her continued defiance of him, August said, “I’d prefer not to remind you of your place.” His eyes flicked to the stair.
Theo sat, but with a mellow snarl on her face.
“Why were you in jail, Pine Needle?”
Theo felt this was a very heavy question. The kind that’s less about information and more about aptitude. “They say I ‘solve my problems with violence.’” She put air-quotes around that.
August took out a leather satchel of tobacco. “Why does that not surprise me.”
She looked down Main. “So who’s this man you’re after?”
August packed his pipe. “You’d’ve been real young when this man came to town. This Lucas Haas would likely be going by another name. He has an accent. Tall. Good looking. Self-assured. Wealthy.”
Her mouth went dry. Blacksmith. “You sure you ain’t looking for yourself, Mr. Gaines?”
The sun-leathered skin around his eyes bunched in a sly smirk. “I wonder that myself from time to time, Youngblood.” He lit his pipe and puffed it gently.
“What kind of accent?” Theo asked.
“He’s good at sounding as he likes.” He spoke around the pipe in the corner of his mouth, his teeth lightly snagging the briar wood. “But he’s German.”
“And you know he’s here?”
“Knowing ain’t the same as believing, but that don’t make much of a difference when it comes to doing.” August rose to his feet and smoked until the tobacco lost its light. “We have wicked business to attend to, Pine Needle.” He smiled kindly down at her as he tapped spent ash from his pipe.
Theo’s heart galloped at the insinuation of we, knowing he wasn’t talking about his already established posse.
“Well, Mr. Gaines, I reckon I’d choose wicked over jail time any day.”
“Yeah,” came his guttural drawl. “I get the feeling we might be cut from the same cloth, you and I, Youngblood.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bladestay’s church was a simple but attractive stucco square with a modest steeple and baby blue trim, absent of stain glass and any superfluence. The windows gleamed on a clear day, its emerald accents boasting of someone’s investment and care. Where Main Street ended and sloped gently to the east was where the house of God sat, standing above all structures in the valley.
Theo could hear somebody inside suppressing sobs, but otherwise, the gathered folks of Bladestay were terrorized into silence.
Despite the mild warmth of the day, Theo felt cold all over. Her family was either inside or already dead. Her heart raced. Her mouth was filled with cotton. Her palms were slick with sweat.
August took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair, and returned it to his head as he stepped away from his gathered gang. Theo saw ten of them grouped in front of the church, but she had counted six others so far, and she wouldn’t be surprised if more were on the perimeter. Although many of the gathered ten took to sitting on boulders or leaning against the trunk of a tree, all of them were quiet and attentive.
Theo stood off to the side with as much distance as she dared without calling attention to herself, leaning against a tree with her arms crossed. Brody Boone, damn him, had followed her and was now standing too close to her. To Theo, Brody was the epitome of a gunslinger. A six-shooter resting on each thigh, two reams of ammo slung above, and a handmade buckskin jacket that looked like he may have inherited it from the broader shoulders of his father. Brody’s eyes were expressive and inquisitive, unlike the eerie calm found in August. He’d still not cleaned the blood from him, and he now wore the dried stuff like a prize.
Theo tried not to visualize what he’d done to another human to earn such a prize. It wasn’t difficult—she was consumed with the fate of her family.
With his back to the church, August’s hypnotic baritone words began to ooze from his mouth. “Thanks to Hadley for securing the Bladestay census of 1860.” He held a canvas ledger in his left hand that he now lifted to make it the center of attention.
Theo scanned Gaines’s crew to find a man whom she presumed to be Hadley when he tipped his hat in August’s direction.
“This next part is a little tough to do without it.” He chuckled as if recalling a time he’d been there, done that. “Now let’s get this over with.” He tucked the ledger under his arm and said, “Sixer. Pine Needle. Flea. Shiner—you four with me.” He pointed at them, and Theo’s legs nearly buckled from under her. Theo hadn’t even considered that August would take her into the church with him, and now she was about to enter a congregation where, at any time, any one of them could recognize and expose her.
The gang dispersed toward the church, assuming their flanking positions.
Trailing the gang, the appointed four followed August. Theo was lightheaded as she put one foot in front of the other. Her stomach gnarled tighter with each closing gap. A scowl hid the fear.
At first, Theo didn’t understand why all those in the church had stayed put. There had been plenty of time where they had been left loosely guarded. When August swung open the front door, Theo understood. About half the town was here: all the men.
Fracture the family, cripple the fight.
“Choose your corners, kids,” August muttered to the four before he strode down the center aisle. The pews were filled, not uncomfortably, so when August moved down the center, those nearest the aisle shifted and scooted away, splitting the already appointed divide. Some heads swiveled; others kept eyes forward. August neither hurried nor took his time, taking off his hat as if in reverence for the holy ground upon which he stepped, but quickly snuffed that illusion by returning it to his head after sweeping a hand through his chestnut hair.
Theo shuffled quietly to the right for a back corner, parlaying her chances of invisibility.
Brody followed, then continued past her. He walked the length of the wall and settled in the corner to the right of the pulpit.
August placed one hand on the edge of the pulpit, the Bladestay census in lieu of Scripture. He thumbed open the ledger.
Flea and Shiner settled their backs into their respective corners. Brody unholstered a revolver and held it in his hand. Fiddling with it, he scanned the congregation as if daring anyone to make eye contact with him. Looking at the back of people’s heads, Theo couldn’t tell if anyone did. Besides, she was too preoccupied searching for her father or any of her brothers among the throng.
“Abide carefully,” August said. His voice was such that he needn’t raise it for all to hear. “When you hear your family name, stand and approach.” He regarded the congregation, nodded at himself, then said, “Let’s begin.
“Abbot.”
Tentatively, an elderly man stood to his feet, holding a weathered hat to his chest, and began to scoot down the row toward the aisle. Those in the way made more than enough room for him to pass.
Abbot was one of the town’s original founders, skilled with his hands, father of four girls, grandfather of eight boys. Theo knew these things because Abbot often worked with her father at Creed Carpentry when Creed’s perfectionist pace stacked his work.
Theo’s stomach turned to iron, her lungs to lead.
The church was silent aside from Abbot’s slow march to the pew.
“Full name,” August said, looking down at the white-haired man.
Abbot gave it, and August lifted his gaze behind him. “Sons?”
“Four daughters. Are they safe? And their babies?” Abbot’s voice hitched on babies.
August made several marks on the page, and without looking up, he said, “You’re cleared.”
Theo couldn’t see Abbot’s reaction, but August responded to it by jabbing his quill in the direction from which he came.
Abbot slowly turned, giving August several untrusting double-takes, before shuffling back down the aisle. He was about to return to his seat, but Flea called to the man, “This way, pops.”
Theo darted her eyes to her left and found Flea pushing out of his corner and beckoning Abbot.
At this point, Theo had found her breath, but it only came in shallow bursts, and she did what she could to hide the jerks in her chest. She kept her spine nestled in the ninety-degree, her arms crossed firmly across her breast, her shoulders hollowed around her, and her chin dipped low, watching this unfold from under her pale eyelashes. She hated how much her body wanted to betray her in every way.
Abbot’s eyes found hers, and for a horrifying moment, Theo felt her legs turn to spaghetti.
Abbot frowned slightly, as one does when hitching on a recognition they can’t firmly place.
By the time Abbot was back out under the cloudless day, August had the next name announced.
A terror settled deep into her bones, the dread of having to do this one-hundred and eleven more times. Not to mention, she couldn’t rightly place any member of her family from her vantage.
Between A and C, Theo thought she might have developed an ulcer.
When Bram Blacksmith’s name fell from August’s lips, Theo held her breath.
August looked up, first at the congregation, then squinted across his left shoulder at Boone where something passed briefly between them.
“Thirteen,” August said to him. Theo didn’t know what that meant.
Brody shook his head and August made a mark on the ledger.
August moved on to the dreaded Cs.
Theo would discover, then, when nobody stood to claim her family’s name, that it was possible to feel two opposite emotions with equal depths.
Her family was gone.
Her family was gone.
