“if this isn’t crazy as all hell.”
They looked at each other for a few minutes longer, sometimes making to whisper to one another before becoming embarrassed and giving up.
“Rolls are done,” said Connelly, and reached forward and lifted the food off the flame. “You all going to eat or what?”
“What do you want from him?” Lottie asked them.
“Nothing good,” said Connelly.
“Would nothing good be killing?”
He looked at her a long, long while. “It would,” he said.
The other group considered this, then sat and began eating. Pike and the others followed, still watchful.
“I think it’s sort of funny,” said Connelly.
“What is?” said Lottie.
“How surprised we are. I mean, we met our own already. The folks we traveled with before this. So there’s no reason to be upset if we meet more, is there. Makes sense that there’s got to be more who’s after him, and for the same reason.”
“I don’t think that’s very funny,” said Lottie. “That’s not very funny at all.”
“No,” said Connelly. “I guess it isn’t, is it.”
The two groups looked at each other. Then they sat and began eating and did not speak for some time.
Once they were done eating they shared their stories. The other party spoke of lost kin, of dead friends, of loved ones slain. Lottie would not tell hers, merely shaking her head. All the stories were familiar, all the tellers quiet and broken-eyed. How far had they all tracked him? Were they to put their separate paths end to end Connelly would have guessed it would stretch across the country. A line of crimson footprints, twisting through the desert flats…
Connelly shook himself.
“And what’s the most recent thing you heard of him?” said Pike softly.
The other party exchanged looks. “You haven’t heard?” asked Lottie.
“No. Heard what?”
Monk leaned in. “You know that town up ahead? Wide spot in the road?”
They nodded.
“We hear there’s an odd fella set up there for the night. Face all messed up. Heard it not more than four hours ago, from a man off the road.”
A deafening silence fell over all of them. Hammond got to his feet and stood staring down at Monk.
“You mean it?” said Roosevelt.
“I surely do.”
“Good God…” whispered Hammond. “He’s here. He’s here. He’s right over that fucking field over there, is that what you’re telling me?”
Roonie nodded. “Would be. We’re going to wait ’til nightfall. Going to sneak up on him. Get him that way.”
“What? You’re
“We are,” said Monk.
“No! No, the hell with that!” he shouted. “Come on! He’s right over there! We got one shot at this and we’re going to sit around a damn fire eating fucking tinned
“Waiting’s smart,” said Roonie, but he looked ashamed.
“You’re cowards,” Hammond said. “Cowards is what you are. You’ve come all this way and now you’re afraid.”
Roonie got to his feet. “You say that again. You say that again to me.”
“If you had an inch of spine,” said Hammond softly, “you’d have done it already.”
“What about you, boy?” asked Monk. “You killed a man? Are you a killer?”
Hammond faltered and made to turn away. He quivered and lashed out and kicked a nearby log, sending it flying.
“Hammond!” Pike said loudly. “Sit down! These folk talk sense.”
“What’s sense is going over there right now and putting a bullet in whatever brain he’s got,” said Hammond.
“That’s not sense, that’s idiocy. What we do is right, but no lawman knows that. You shoot that man in broad daylight and you’re liable to get shot yourself.”
“That doesn’t matter and you know it,” Hammond said, his voice smooth and quiet and deadly.
There was a moment of quiet.
“You don’t think we want the same?” said Monk. “You don’t think we said the very words you’re saying now? Yes, we do have one shot. And I don’t aim to mess it up.” But Connelly noticed how he turned bright red as he spoke, and how he mopped sweat from his brow.
Hammond shook his head and did not respond.
“Come on,” said Roosevelt. “Sit down, Hammond. Don’t lose your head now. If you do you’ll do it wrong and he’ll just wind up laughing at you again. And you don’t want that, do you?”
“No. No, I don’t want that.”
“Then sit.”
He did. He wiped at his face, hiding his tears and smearing dust over his cheeks and eyes. In the fading light he looked like some child of war, face painted and awaiting battle.
“Make no mistake,” said Monk. “We mean to kill him, yes. We need to see this thing dead. And we will. We’ll come in at night. Find him. We’ll all get him, make sure he can’t escape. Then we move. And… and we take all the time we need.” Again the chubby hand rubbed sweat away from his eyes.
“And we need a great deal of time,” Hammond said.
“Yeah,” said Lottie, her voice trembling. “Yeah, we do.”
Connelly looked at her, then at the others. They did not look much like killers. They spoke the words but he saw desperation in them rather than resolve. These were not monsters or machines but anguished people clinging at a chance to put things right. But here at the penultimate moment a trickle of doubt worked into them, one by one. All except perhaps Pike… And then Connelly wondered about himself.
We’ll figure it out, he reasoned. We got to.
Monk said to them, “We have just met, yet we know each other.”
Pike said, “Are you inviting us to join you? For the moment?”
“Don’t see why not. We get more folk we got a better chance of getting him.”
“That’s so,” said Pike. And he spat in the fire and watched it sizzle and gripped his heavy walking stick and began to wait.
As evening fell their purpose weighed more heavily upon them. Their eyes grew flat and in that instance all of them were one person, one grieving heart and one vengeful hand. Yet each also felt they were alone in their suffering, for they had endured a loss that made the world a gray and silent place, barren and unpopulated.
“When should we go?” said Roonie softly. “When should we go?”
Monk looked at the sky overhead. “Don’t know much about killing. It’s almost night. I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“I would suppose,” said Pike.
They did not move at first. They sat still until the sky was dark, like a dome had fallen across the country, trapping them and blocking out all light. Then they dumped dirt on the fire and stood without speaking and walked west, like ghosts passing through the empty fields, simply obeying the red song inside of them without thought.
