'You tell 'em, Sally. You tell I didn't mean no harm. It was all just a little fun, weren't it… I didn't hurt you none. You even told me you liked it; you said you wanted it that way.'
The poor girl turned a bright shade of red before blanching nearly white and falling into the woman next to her, all but fainting away. Sofia scowled fiercely at the condemned man and hurried over to Miss Gray to see what assistance she might lend. Miguel suspected that if his daughter still had the Remington at hand, the one he had taken from her after last night's violence, she would have put a round through the man's heart.
We need to get through this, he thought.
He prodded his horse forward again and rode up next to the youngest agent.
He spoke in a low voice but with great power. 'If I were you, I would be looking to make this as painless a leave-taking as possible, senor. If I were you, I would shut my mouth now, unless I wanted to die with my neck stretched and my insides hanging out over my belt, swinging in the air for the crows to pick.'
He casually drew the knife with which he had killed two men the previous evening, stropped it slowly on his jeans, and gave the road agent his stone face.
Tears were leaking from the young man's eyes, and his lips were quivering with the effort of not crying.
'Why don't you shut up and die like a man?' growled the bearded monster beside him.
'Why don't you show me?' the boy spit, and lashed out with his boot, catching the other agent's horse in the flank.
It leapt forward with a shriek. The rope securing the giant to the tree went taut, his massive legs shot forward as he jerked back, and the animal sprang away. Every branch in the massive old elm seemed to shake as his weight pulled the rope tight. Miguel grimaced at the sound of his neck snapping, and a few of the women screamed and turned away in horror. The substantial corpse twitched and kicked a few times before finding its rhythm, a long, swinging pendulum ride.
'Goddamn you, Billy,' said the gang boss before clamming up again.
Miguel shook his head sadly, although not too sadly. 'Another murder to account for when you reach the other side, boy.'
'A murder?' the young man wailed. 'But you were fixing to do the exact same thing to him!'
Aronson, who had stopped in shock, resumed his prayers. A baptism for the dead, he'd told Miguel it was, which seemed to have things quite ass-ended around to the cowboy, but he was not one to interfere in the worship rights of others. Only the sound of the young man's whimpering and his urine dribbling down his pants legs into the dirt could be heard as Aronson spoke.
'Willem D'Age, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you, for and in behalf of this man we shall call John, who is just now dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.'
He sprinkled water from a canteen on the heavily bandaged head of his comrade.
'What are they doing?' the boy asked, sniffling up a runny nose.
'Baptizing you,' Miguel explained. 'So you might have a chance in the next life, since you are shit out of luck in this one.'
'But I been baptized. As a proper Baptist, too,' he protested. 'Tell them no. I don't want their stupid heathen god interfering with me.'
Miguel shrugged. 'Let them be, boy. It is the same God. And believe me, you have bigger problems today.'
Without further preamble he smacked the lad's horse sharply on the rear, and it whinnied in distress before bolting away.
'Hey!' the lad yelped, but whatever protest he might have wanted to make was cut short by the snapping thud of the rope. His body added its fresh rhythm to the dying swing of his comrades.
Aronson splashed more canteen water, this time on Adam's head, and repeated the prayer. 'Adam Coupland, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you, for and in behalf of this man, we know only as Billy, who is just now dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.'
The last of the road agents, the boss of the crew, drew in a deep breath as Miguel rode over, but he seemed composed enough now that his time had come.
'Will you tell them your name so that they might baptize you properly?' Miguel asked of the man.
The agent seemed to ponder the matter for a few moments. He took a deep breath of cold Texas air through his nose and held it for a few seconds before slowly letting it out. Then he looked Miguel straight in the eye.
'No,' he replied, allowing his gaze to drift away from Miguel to the peaceful vista they enjoyed from the gentle rise overlooking the forested hills to the southwest. 'No, I really do not think I will give you or anyone else the satisfaction.'
'Satisfaction be damned,' Miguel said, letting his anger show through. 'You have your orders from Fort Hood, do you not? You have your orders, your mission, your blood money, everything from Blackstone.'
The agent smiled.
'Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe neither. You've got my life, puta. You can't have my name. And you can't have my country, neither. But rest assured, I will be sure to give your regards to the devil.'
And with that, he spurred his own horse out from beneath him and dropped into eternity. 'I would not advise staying here long,' Miguel said as they walked away from the freshly mounded graves.
'You think there will be more road agents?' D'Age asked.
'Possibly not. From what I hear, they have their own territories. But there are TDF patrols about, and if they were in contact with these men, they will soon notice that they have gone.'
The morning was cool despite the late hour. It would be time for lunch soon, but Miguel wondered whether the Mormons would have any appetite after the foul passage of the day so far. At first light they had buried the dead from the gunfight with the help of the three survivors, laying them down in soft ground near a small water hole not far from the football field. Then they had buried the other three in the same place after hanging them. Three of the camp whores had survived their wounds, and Miguel understood that an intense debate was under way within the Mormon ranks over what to do with them. The smart thing would be to silence them, too, but he had no stomach for that, and the Mormons would not hear of the suggestion. Taking them or leaving them seemed to be the only options, and both were beset with problems.
He wiped his sweating brow. A few wispy strands of white cloud stretched across otherwise hard blue skies, and the sounds of cattle mustering drifted over the tree line.
They had buried Peter Atchison, their horse wrangler, who had been killed by an agent's bullet, under a chestnut tree some distance away. The tenor of the small party was subdued, and their leaders were of a mind to move both cattle and people to the far side of town for a few days' rest before breaking trail again.
Sofia, who had been walking a few yards ahead with Adam and Orin and a fully recovered Sally Gray, dropped out of the group of youngsters and stood waiting until Miguel, Aronson, and D'Age caught up with her.
'I need a moment with my daughter,' Miguel said.
Aronson and D'Age nodded. 'Of course.'
Sofia still seemed stiff, cold, constantly searching her surroundings. Miguel remembered a better time when his little princess had taken an intense interest in anything new, always curious. He placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her off to the side. She came along willingly enough, something Miguel did not take for granted these days.
'Are you all right, Sofia?' he asked in Spanish. He did not want anyone to overhear this discussion.
After clearing her initial surprise at the change in language, Sofia responded in kind. 'Suppose so.'
This morning was not the first time she had seen death, of course, but it was the first time she had seen men killed in a detached and calculated fashion, if one could call the messy execution that.
'I am sorry about what I did last night,' Miguel said. 'I lost control of myself.'
'I understand,' she said in a tone that lacked any warmth or emotion.
'Do you?' he asked. 'Do you really understand? You are all that is left to me. You are the future to me. But also my past. Every one of us who has ever lived lives on in you. All of our family. You are everything. For that reason, in small measure, but mostly, almost entirely, because I love you more than anyone or anything in the world. How could it be otherwise? Do you understand how important it is to me that you reach safety?'
She cocked her head to the left, another new tic she had picked up. 'Where is it truly safe, Papa? Can you answer me that?'
'Kansas City, of course,' he said.
