“Yeah,” Sheffield said. “Maybe Toole and the others shot each other all to pieces. Their sort does such things.”
Conn grunted at that. It was a thing to hope for.
He and Sheffield rode at the front of the posse, moving slowly but surely across the shadowed land toward their appointment with death.
The nature of that appointment seemed to be coming clearer to a few of the men. When Conn glanced back at them, theirfaces looked pale and sober. He reckoned the whiskey had worn off, and they were finally understanding the reality of what they’d signed up for.
To their credit, however, none of them turned back. They swallowed their fear and kept riding through the darkness.
That’s a funny thing about men, of course. Most, once committed to action, would rather get shot than turn away and be branded a coward by their peers.
Conn hoped he could count on them when the lead started to fly. As long as they stood their ground and fired back, it would be okay. He just hoped they didn’t buckle and retreat.
Nothing invites blood madness more than a retreating enemy.
He said none of this, committed to his course of action and knowing he needed their rifles.
Clouds thickened overhead, creating longer stretches of pitch darkness, slowing them further.
When they reached the foot of the mountains, the road split. Sheffield pointed to the south, and they rode on.
A short distance later, a dark shape came into view beside a mountain stream. It was the abandoned cabin.
The men reined in, waiting for the clouds to break up and shed some light on the situation.
When shafts of moonlight broke through, they illuminated a squat, dark building with a tin roof. There were no horses hitched outside, no lights burning inside, and no smoke rising from the chimney.
Which didn’t mean much.
The outlaws could be in there, maybe sleeping, maybe lying in wait. Their horses could be hitched in the back out of sight.
Conn rode slowly forward, gripping the reins in one hand and the shotgun in the other.
Sheffield rode beside him, a lever-action rifle balanced across his lap. Moonlight hollowed his bony face and gleamed in his hard eyes.
They followed the tracks up to where a bunch of horses had approached the cabin. In the shifting moonlight, Conn saw that those tracks had, indeed, hooked around behind the building.
He stopped his horse and raised a fist in the air.
The others stopped and waited silently.
Conn swung down and landed light as a cat. Then he walked slowly forward, creeping toward the house with his shotgun at the ready.
All was silent. There was no movement anywhere. Even the wind had stopped, as if the whole world was holding its breath.
Reaching the house, Conn put his ear to the door and listened.
Nothing. Not even the scampering of mice.
From there, he went to the small side window, moving silently as a ghost.
Again, he listened. Again, silence reigned.
Walking around the back of the house, he heard nothing and saw no one, unless you counted the man lying dead upon the ground. His lifeless face gripped a shocked expression, as if the last thing he expected was to die this night.
He was a young man, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and he’d been shot in the chest. His arms were flung out. The blood glistened, black in the moonlight. There was a lot of it.
Beyond the dead man, Conn could see where the horses had ridden off.
