I shoot him in the right knee. He screams and goes flat on the concrete. I shoot him in the left knee. He screams again, louder, more blood curdling.
Roan, behind me, low: "Spur."
"He doesn't get a clean kill, Roan. He tormented Dakota, and now his sorry ass gets tormented."
I shoot him in the right elbow, then the left.
He's screaming and writhing on the concrete and the blood is pooling under him. The dust turns dark, not a crimson per say, but a maroon.
I know I’m not going too far, because Phantom doesn't stop me.
I crouch down next to him. He's breathing wet. His eyes are rolling. His mouth is moving and no sound is coming out. "Asher."
His eyes find me.
"Look at me. You hear me? Fucking look at me."
He looks.
"I want you to know what's happening. I want you to know what comes next. The men in this barn are going to wait for you to bleed out. Then they're going to chop you into pieces with the saws you keep in this barn. Then they're going to feed you to the hogs you keep behind the barn. The same hogs you were going to feed an hour from now. The same hogs that are going to be processed for slaughter in about two months. By August, you're going to be in a freezer in a feed store outside Big Spring. By Thanksgiving, somebody's going to be eating you for dinner."
His mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
"You don't get a grave, Asher. You don't get a marker. You don't get anybody mourning you. You get eaten. That's what you bought yourself when you came formywoman."
His eyes are still on mine.
I stand up.
Phantom hands me his pistol. Mine still has rounds. His is a forty-five. Heavier round. "Finish him."
I put the forty-five against the center of Asher Addison's forehead, look him in the eyes, and I pull the trigger.
His body goes still on the concrete.
The barn is quiet for a long second, then Phantom puts his hand on my shoulder. Once. Squeezes. "It’s done."
Roan walks over to the body, looks down at it, and doesn't speak for a while.
I haven’t really taken a moment to think how this is for him. Kane used to be his friend, or Asher, or whatever the fuck we should call him.
Then he crouches down and closes the dead man's eyes with his thumb. "Goodbye, Kane."
Banshee, at the back door of the barn: "Cash is on the radio. The wife's been dealt with. Cash's man is in the kitchen with her now."
"Tell Cash to take his time," Phantom says. "Make sure she hears him. Make sure she knows what happens if she opens her damn mouth."
"Yes, Prez."
Cash himself walks in through the front door of the barn a minute later.
He looks at the body on the concrete. Looks at me. Looks at Phantom. "Hogs are out behind the barn."
"How long do you need?" Phantom asks.
"Two hours. My boys have done it before. We'll process him here, run him through the chipper out back, feed him in pieces. The hogs'll do the rest by morning. She’s already called his crew and told them not to come in, that Asher died in an accident. I watched her do it and then took her phone."
"And the property?"
