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Nathan had said Ella Gaines was running crazy.
Well, crazier than she was before. Buck imagined her pulling at her hair, rattling the bars of her jail cell, yowling and foaming at the mouth. Something like that.
He thought about it all the way on the train. About those things he reckoned were his fault, like not seeing where this was headed, and then those that were Chris’s very own. How, unbelievably, Ezra had made things worse, with his fool plan that sure enough tempted Ella out from under her rock, but might just have gotten him killed into the bargain.
Buck fretted hard over that, the succinct description in Nathan’s first wire. Ezra’d taken a bullet to the side of the chest.
‘Chest’.
The single word kept Buck on his feet pacing the back four cars most of the journey. Hell knew how Chris was dealing with it all. If he even was.
Then, because he was worrying about Chris, he thought about Sarah. Couldn’t help himself. Heard her voice and her laugh, saw the tilt of her head as she looked at Chris, loving him so damn much. And somehow he thought about Hilda, too. Saw her standing at the piano that evening, black feather bobbing in her curls as she sang so nice it near tied his heartstrings in a knot. Then busting out on to the porch at Ella’s house with the gun in her hand to protect him. Every time he conjured her a spiteful spike of grief lanced right through his gut, left him nearly breathless. He saw the blood pulsing from that obscene hole in her chest, soaking through her dress, the light going out of her eyes. And with that he was back to Ezra again.
He didn’t like being on the train alone with his endlessly circular thoughts, wished to God the others had come too.
But town hadn’t been peaceful enough for J.D. and Josiah to risk leaving as well. After Vin and Nathan had gone and the next wires started coming – first downright wild from Chris, then more considered from Nathan – the three of them debated who should be on the next train. Only for Buck there really was no debate.
“We’ll follow on when we can,” Josiah conceded in the end. “You just keep those wires coming.”
Buck hadn’t done too much traveling on the railroad but he’d always found it more restful than the stage. Just as bone-rattling and noisy, but with a rhythm that could lull you to sleep if you found a corner seat and pulled your hat over your brow. This trip out he’d hardly even shut his eyes, not since climbing aboard in Ridge City. Neither his body nor his mind would give him any respite at all. Soon as the whistle blew, signaling they were coming in to their destination, he was out on there on the steps of the back car, hanging on to the rail with one hand. Ready to leap off before the train had even rolled to a halt.
Searching through the smoke and the hubbub of people at the station Buck saw Vin waiting for him. He wasn’t leaning for a change, but standing straight as a post by the ticket office. More than that, he had a tense, hunted look about him and Buck’s breath caught for a second in fear.
“I ain’t too late?”
Vin shook his head no and Buck almost sagged to his knees in relief.
They fell into step with no more preamble, Buck hoisting his bag on to one shoulder, holding it place with a hand. “Tell me then,” he said.
Vin took a breath but didn’t seem able to say a word at first. Then he jumped right in at the middle, or so it seemed, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. “Hotel made ‘em move out. Said they didn’t want Ezra dyin’ in there. Wanted Chris to pay for all the mess.”
Blood-stains and bullet-holes. The back of Buck’s neck grew hot with outrage.
“So where do they want him damn well dyin’?”
Vin gave him a side-eye. “Boardin’ house. Chris is with him, and Nathan. He ain’t awake too much.” He put his head down, stride lengthening. “Can’t settle to breathin’ right.”
A sigh rumbled through Buck. He didn’t know where Vin was taking him, wasn’t sure, now he was here, where he wanted to go and who he wanted to see first. Vin seemed to have his own plan, though. They walked on through the early evening streets, busy with travelers and folk going in and out of stores. It was a fine enough town.
“Sheriff’s taken Chris’s guns,” Vin said out of nowhere. “Says he’ll let her go free by the end of the week iffen we can’t give him reasons not to.”
Buck nearly stopped in his tracks. “She fuckin’ shot Ezra didn’t she?”
“Says he just got in the way. Says it was self-defense and that Chris was tryin’ to kill her. Sheriff’s inclined to think that’s the truth.”
“Hell, we can give the sheriff a whole bunch of good reasons to keep her locked up.” He was thinking of all the things – incriminating things – they’d unearthed in Ella’s house after Chris took that bullet. Some of them were in his bag – letters, photographs, statements – some were with the Judge. Even when they hadn’t been able to trace her, they’d found good leads on some of her hired guns in Red Fork, already knew not all of them would stay loyal to the end.
“Well,” Vin said, dogged. “Sure as hell don’t need her back on the street tryin’ to finish the job. Best you tell him soon as you can. Think he’s tired of listening to me and Nathan.”
Buck didn’t like the sound of that. If it hadn’t been Chris himself raising hell and rubbing the sheriff’s nose in all the shit they knew about Ella Gaines, then things must be bad. He must be sitting vigil, Buck thought, just eating himself up into nothing with guilt. The need to go see him, right away, was overwhelming but then they pitched up outside a jailhouse and Vin came to a halt.
Tanner extended his hand, spoke in a soft tone, but with a certain assertiveness that was all his own. “Boarding house is three blocks down on the right. Next to the doc’s. I’ll take your bag, tell Chris you’ll be right over.”
Vin clearly thought the priority wasn’t for Buck to see Chris or sit by a sickbed. He wanted Buck to play lawman, go back up their story with the sheriff right away. Help plug the gaping holes Ella had shot in everything. Which to Buck’s mind underlined more than anything that Chris’s freedom was truly in the balance, not just his state of mind. What it meant about Ezra’s true condition he didn’t dare guess.
He might have appreciated a drink right now, but knew it wasn’t time yet.
“You mentioned the Judge?” he asked, rooting in the bag for a moment, pulling out a roll of papers.
A wry little smile came to Vin’s face. “Ain’t hardly stopped.”
“Well guess it won’t harm to say it again. Think I about feel like makin’ him listen.” Buck looked at the papers in his fist, then passed over the bag.
Vin settled it on his shoulder, tipped his hat. “Damned good to see you, Buck.”
*
When he first clapped eyes on her in the jail, Buck was disturbed to find Ella Gaines seemed perfectly sane. And perfectly at home.
She was sitting demurely in the corner of a cell on a straight-backed chair. Her dark hair was coiled around her head, a few tendrils touching her shoulders. One arm rested in a tidy sling, the bandaging brand-new and meticulously wrapped. They’d given her a curtain to hang up around the slop bucket and crammed into one side of the cell was a narrow little table on which lay a stack of loose pages topped by a stubby pencil.
Buck had a cautious eye on her as he came in, told the sheriff where he was from.
“Another one?” The sheriff, a smart, wily-looking cuss, was caustic. “You fellers ever gonna stop turnin up? What in the hell kind of a town needs seven lawmen anyhow?”
Buck ignored that and deposited his papers on the desk in front of him, Judge Travis’s letter on top. “You need to look at this.”
The sheriff peered at the offering, evidently recognizing some stamp of judicial authority.
“Guess I can do that.”
“Can I see the prisoner?”
“Well, you ain’t goin’ in. Can talk at her from out here – five minutes. And no threats or cussin’.”
That order made Buck hope Vin and Nathan had cut loose in some style when they’d been here. He wondered what Ella had made of that. Holding up his hands in mock surrender, he moved round the desk and towards the outer bars to get a good look.
“You,” Ella said. She seemed neither frightened nor surprised to see him. More like intrigued. Buck had been ready to pity her for her raving insanity. That or about want to rip her head off for all the lives she’d cost. Seeing her behind bars, dressed sober as a nun, demeanor so calm and proper was… not what he’d expected.
She knew who he was anyhow. Buck looked at the stack of paper on the table in the cell. The top sheet had been covered in close handwriting and his eyes narrowed.
Ella fingered her bandaged arm, pulled the sheets toward her. “I have my testimony too. All the things he’s ever done to me.”
Buck blinked. “He ain’t done nothin’ to you!” He didn’t add ‘you fuckin', goddamned lyin' bitch’ even though it was in his mouth. Vin, who’d seen him lose his head more times than he could count, was trusting him to step up to the plate with this one, and Buck didn’t want to let him down by getting thrown out.
Her eyebrow rose in a delicate arch at his words. One side of the generous mouth twitched up, and there was that little, arrogant tilt of her pointed chin. The eyes that held his were clever, dark with thought.
Chris’s words from years ago came back to him again, about being with Ella.
Like walking on the edge of a sharp knife.
Hell, and now they all knew how deep it cut if missed your step on that edge, the swift, bloody incision it made, the scar it left behind.
“He tried to kill me.” The lack of doubt was palpable in her voice. “And he’s tried before. It’s an obsession.” A pause. “I feel sorry for him.”
Buck kept his loathing of her in check somehow. “You keep feeling sorry,” he said, motioning at the stack of loose sheets. “And keep writin’. Won’t change nothing, what you did to his wife and child. You’ll hang for it soon enough.”
“It won’t be me hanging.” She tapped her good hand lightly on the paper. “My lawyer will tell you.”
Buck nearly couldn’t speak. “Your lawyer,” he repeated.
She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. “He’s coming to get me out of here.”
Buck guessed if he existed he’d be a good one. Paid a small fortune by Culpepper Mining probably.
“We’ll see,” he said.
As he was about to turn back to the sheriff, he heard the scrape of her chair on the floor of the cell. She rose to her feet, elegant and poised even in the confined space and with her arm strapped up.
“You’re his friend.” Her tone was almost curious. “Aren’t you concerned he’s losing his mind?”
“Now that’s a peach, comin’ from you.”
Her eyes flashed. “He has been here in this town with a man dressed as a… masquerading as his wife!” There was something a little less calm about her now, something altogether disturbing in the way she said ‘wife’. “He pretended they were married! On a honeymoon! What kind of a strange, perverted thing is that to do, iust to make me come here? And he actually seemed to believe it. They were seen… being intimate on street corners. Touching and… not just play-acting. It isn’t just me who can tell you that, although I was the one who saw what they were doing in that room… having relations.” Her eyes widened in memory, her lip curling half in repulsion, half in disbelief. “Did you know it? Did you know it was true about them, those two friends of yours?”
A crawling sensation bothered Buck’s gut. Nathan was right. Under the quiet surface Ella Gaines was running crazy. And most of the words that came spewing out of her mouth had about as much truth in ‘em as pigs that could fly.
Only, he suddenly wasn’t sure about this.
Yes, he’d told Chris, how half-baked and downright lunatic the impersonation plan was. And while it wasn’t exactly out of character for Ezra to come up with eye-wateringly crazy schemes, Buck had found it hard to believe Chris would go along with him.
But he had. He certainly had. Risked losing Vin over it. And Ezra had put his head on the block, run a hellish dangerous con without even a financial reward as incentive. What in the hell were either of them thinking?
Buck looked back at Ella, the way her mouth was smiling and her wide eyes weren’t.
Running crazy all right. But she couldn’t be right about Chris and Ezra. She just couldn’t. It was just that Chris had to get her, for all she’d taken from him. Had to bring her down. Whatever it took.
Dissatisfied and confused by his own explanation, Buck pulled away from the bars, walked over to the sheriff’s desk and leaned over it. The man sat back in his chair, not liking the challenge.
“Judge Orin Travis is going to be wiring you,” Buck said, trying heard to tamp down the threat in his voice. “I left him only yesterday and he’s collecting more deputations and evidence. Ain’t no cause for you to be letting that… letting her out until you and her goddamned lawyer’ve seen everything we got and decide whatever you decide.”
“Hell, I just do what I’m told.” The sheriff was sour. “I don’t know your Judge Travis. We got our own lawmen, and they suit us just fine. If they tell us she can go free, she goes free. Tomorrow, the day after, the end of the week, whenever it is. So. You finished throwin’ your weight around in my jailhouse?”
Buck dug deep to dredge up one of his smiles that wasn’t really a smile. “For now.”
“Tell him I forgive him,” Ella said at his back as he got to the door. “Tell him I’ll be there when he needs me.”
An icy finger dragged down Buck’s spine, almost froze his feet to the floor.
He set his jaw and walked heavily out, let the door bang shut behind him.
*
Buck followed Vin’s instructions, his steps increasing in speed as he went. Down the street, three blocks, people and buildings passing in blur. The doctor’s surgery Vin had mentioned had a sign outside, and next door was a squat two-story house. Buck knew he’d arrived. He was tired and hungry, felt unbalanced and sick at heart. It was getting darker now and there were lights burning in an upstairs window of the house. Outside on the porch he could see two figures.
Buck slowed as he reached them. It was Chris and Nathan. Chris was sitting on a bench, feet apart and elbows on his knees. His shoulders were rounded and Nathan had a hand on his back. They both looked up as Buck drew near.
“Buck,” Nathan greeted him, withdrawing his hand from Chris and holding it out. Buck was more glad than he could say for the contact. His friend seemed glad to see him, too, punctuated the firm press of his hand with a faint smile and a nod.
Chris, though. He stared at Buck but he didn’t speak. His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, hair unkempt, face hollowed-out and chin rough with stubble. It was a look Buck knew well. He reckoned Nathan must have about dragged him away from the sickbed before he collapsed. Hell, Chris hadn’t long recovered from his own wound. Son-of-a-bitch didn’t need this.
Damn Ezra and his damned dress.
“Stud,” he said, and sat down on the bench next to him, close enough their shoulders touched. Chris still didn’t say anything, so Buck looked back to Nathan. “Vin?”
“Watching Ezra.”
The tone was cautious. Buck took a small breath. He wondered what Vin knew. Or Nathan. If there really was any truth to know about Chris and Ezra, like Ella claimed, or if it was all just a stupid, breathtaking piece of deception that went wrong.
“Doin’ any better?” He was willing Nathan to nod again and say yes.
“Beating the odds so far,” was all Nathan managed.
Chris exhaled then like he’d been holding something in. His shoulders remained slumped and he still didn’t speak. But damn. He didn’t have to. Buck had seen men with gunshot wounds to the chest plenty, seen their stomachs sucking in and out as they struggled to draw breath, all the color leeched from their lips. He knew how awful hard it was to keep the warmth in their bones however much care you took of them, how they’d drift away from you in the end, unless Josiah’s God happened to be around handing out miracles.
He pressed his knee into Chris’s, hard.
“The sheriff?” Nathan asked.
Buck wished he had better news. “Says if he gets the word, he’ll let her go.”
“I’ll kill her.” Chris’s voice was surprisingly strong. He spoke in a plain monotone, though, as if the others weren’t even there, as if he was talking to himself. “Soon as she sets one foot on the street.”
Buck clenched his hand, alarmed at the disconnect. “Don’t go getting yourself hung for her, Chris,” he said. “She ain’t worth that.”
Chris’s face twisted. “I won’t get hung for her.” His head turned slightly, angled towards the upstairs room where the lights were burning. “I’ll get hung for my family.”
And Buck saw that, crazy as she was, Ella knew one thing for sure.
It hadn’t just been the stupidest cockamamie plan you ever did hear. The stupidest fuckin’ con. There’d been a truth to it as well as a lie, and damn if Ezra hadn’t taken a bullet to the chest for both. The fear of what awaited Chris in that upstairs room turned Buck’s guts to ice-water.
Not again.
The unspoken prayer twisted itself around his heart. Dear God, please not again.
He pushed himself suddenly to his feet, felt Chris flinch at the movement, the loss of contact.
“Buck?”
“It’s all right.” He reached to curl a hand around Chris’s shoulder, settle him again. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere. Just figure it’s time I went up to see our boy.”
Chris’s eyes had turned to the street, were staring fixedly in the direction of the jailhouse.
Buck exchanged a glance with Nathan, realized then how strained he looked, recalled the fierce tension written all over Vin.
At the front door of the boarding house he turned to them before he let himself inside.
“She ain’t goin’ to win,” he said gruffly. “She just ain’t.”
As it swung quietly shut behind him, he stopped still for a moment to get up his courage.
Across the hallway a soft light spilled down the staircase, shadows flickering on the wall. It was the warm, vivid light of a lamp that would burn through the night, and Buck knew he shouldn’t be afraid.
Moving forwards, he began up the stairs.