Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 827(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
“This is for my mother,” Ned rasped through clenched teeth.
The hoarse grunt Tom gave was the hint Ned needed. The next stroke opened the dastardly throat and flavored the cool air with copper and iron.
“And this is for my father, you shit-eating bastard.”
Ned was heaving as he held the dying weight in his arms. It brought him such relief to not only know but feel that Butcher Tom, the boogeyman from his childhood, was just a man. Flesh and blood. Vulnerable to violence like anyone else.
And Ned, like any other man, was capable of meting out death. He could sense it in the sticky dampness covering his hands. His temples throbbed with heat as Tom bled out, no longer fighting. Ned wasn’t sure if the monster could hear him, or if a soul existed to hear Ned’s grievances in the first place, but he still spoke.
“After what you did to my family, I should have gutted you like a pig. Consider this mercy.”
He dropped the bleeding sack of flesh to the dirt, and as it sagged across the grave, the weight of ten years of sorrow left Ned’s shoulders.
Chapter 27
It was fitting to leave Butcher Tom’s body slung atop Scotch’s grave, his dirty blood soaking between the stones. In the frenzy of his first murder, Ned had left his father’s razorblade in Butcher Tom’s throat. He’d regretted it when he first realized his blunder on his way to Cole, but then decided that maybe it had been his father’s soul that guided his hand. By making the cut so deep the blade got stuck, Father told Ned that this kill would be his last. He still had the hat, and that memento would stay with him on the long road ahead.
Despite having dreamt of this moment for so long, Ned had expected to feel guilt and shock over taking a life, but perhaps he wasn’t as good of a man as he’d believed himself to be.
The Pinkertons didn’t need to know that.
His heart soared in triumph, to the point where he was regretful over having to change out of red-stained clothes and wash his hands, but he’d keep the bloodied fabric and one of Tom’s six-fingered gloves as a souvenir.
Cole was the only person who mattered now.
Sweet, loyal Cole, who waited for him at the desert pond, by the tree that bore their initials. Once Ned sent the Craigs a telegram about the gang’s location and what they’d done in Three Stones, his work for justice would be over. From then on, his loyalty would only lie with Cole.
So he put on fresh clothes and rode into the night, toward the distant lights put on by whoever had survived the massacre in town. Even Nugget seemed happier than usual and trotted with a lightness in his step, as if he too sensed that something had changed for the better. That his master was finally free.
But as they approached the town, which had been lit more brightly than on Ned’s one night there, it occurred to him that many hours had passed since the train’s planned arrival. Whoever had come at midday must have called for reinforcements.
The streets smelled of rot, and mint oil used in an effort to make the air breathable to the crowd of lawmen, local ranchers, and miners arranging the bodies on porches and along the street. With not enough of it to kill the growing stench of bodies left in the scorching sun all day, the cool aroma of mint only hung in the air, flavoring the sickening odor rather than making it more bearable.
Ned stiffened when a man in a bandana waved at him, but in the light of a lantern held up by a young man nearby, he soon recognized the stranger as Doctor Dawson.
“Mr. O’Leary? I’m so glad to see you well. You weren’t affected by the poisoning?”
“Nah, I live away from town.”
The doctor took a deep breath and shook his head. “A tragedy of enormous proportions. I don’t think it’s truly hit me yet, but a man has a job to do, and life goes on, doesn’t it? The medicine for your wife has arrived, so visit me tomorrow. I’m going home to rest now. There’s only so much one man can do.”
“You won’t help anyone, doctor, if you collapse of exhaustion. Have a good night now,” Ned said and rode on, toward the station. By the church, men were hard at work digging graves for friends and strangers alike, but Ned ignored them, turning his head away from all the death he’d unwittingly caused, and focused on the goal ahead.
He couldn’t do anything to help those who died at the gang’s hands anymore, and guilt never helped anyone either. Cole had been the one to teach him that.
Cole, who still waited for him by the tree.