Nick was in his early twenties and barely more than a kid. He’d tried to make amends for the hell he’d raised, but found himself with a group of vigilantes who were worse than any gang Nick had ever joined.
One of those men stood over him after beating Nick within an inch of his life. His name was Red Parks and he’d just finished slicing off several pieces from Nick’s hands. The smile on his face was just as wide now as it had been when he’d done the cutting.
“Your days as a bad man are over, all right. I promise you that,” Red told him.
The next thing Nick heard was a quick series of pops.
Each pop was a shot from Red’s gun.
Each bullet blew off the mutilated remains of Nick’s middle and ring fingers like bottles being shot off a fence.
Once those shots died away, the men who’d called themselves the Vigilance Committee watched Nick squirm until he finally passed out. Their eyes were still glaring down at the young man when a sound from outside the old barn caught their attention.
“Someone’s coming,” said one of the men.
Red reached behind him to find a burlap sack that had been tucked under his belt at the small of his back. Pulling the sack over his head, he adjusted it until two holes cut in the rough material lined up with his eyes. The rest of the men in the barn followed suit.
“Let’s go,” Red told his men. “We’ve done plenty for one night.”
Most of the hooded men nodded and filed out the door like a parade of scarecrows. Two of them lingered over the bloody kid curled up on the floor. Their eyes glared down at Nick through the holes in those burlap sacks and seemed unable to look anywhere else.
“What about him?” one of the masked men asked.
Red looked over as if to admire his handiwork one more time. “Leave him. He’ll probably never even wake up.”
“And what if he does?”
“Then he’ll serve as a warning, just like I said before. He’ll show all his murderous friends what happens to their kind if they come near Virginia City.” Red walked out of the barn to address the locals who’d gathered outside.
The one man left behind stared down at Nick with his gun in hand. Since he wore a long brown coat, heavy boots and gloves along with the mask, his eyes were the only part of him that was exposed. Those eyes stared down at Nick the way they’d stare down at a wolf caught in a trap. He started to lift his gun and aim at Nick’s temple, but hesitated. If anyone else but Red had set that trap, he wouldn’t have hesitated to put the boy out of his misery. The hooded man knew all too well he might be the next one in such a predicament if he went against Red’s orders.
Reluctantly, he holstered his gun and left the barn.
Outside, Red had already convinced the locals that there wasn’t anything in the barn for them to see. Some of the locals took Red at his word. The rest knew how unhealthy it was to question him.
Nick woke up with the stench of blood filling his nostrils. He tried to straighten up, but that sent a wave of pain through him that nearly dropped him right back into unconsciousness. As he started to keel over, he caught himself with his hands against the floor. For a moment, he thought he’d slapped both hands against a red-hot grill.
A scream worked its way up from the back of his throat, but was muffled when it reached his tightly shut mouth. Nick’s jaw tightened reflexively and he flopped over so he wouldn’t have to use his hands again. As he lay there on his back, the memories of what had happened rushed back to him.
He couldn’t stay in that barn.
Red couldn’t find out he was alive.
He had to get out.
Nick started to crawl toward the barn’s rear door when he heard voices coming from outside. The surge of blood from his panicked heart was like a fresh load of coal shoveled into a steam engine. He got to his feet and charged toward the back door without a moment’s hesitation.
When he got to the door, he tucked his hands against his body and slammed his shoulder against it. The door had been latched shut, but gave way easily under the young man’s attack. Nick bolted into the night and kept running until Virginia City was behind him.
Along the way, he spotted a few shocked faces trying to get a glimpse at him, but none of them was covered in burlap. Nick’s lips curled into a feral snarl as he used the pain churning inside of him to fuel his steps. He ran into the darkness before he stopped to think about where he was headed.
After a few seconds of squinting and filling his lungs with air, he guessed he was headed toward the mountains. Anything more than that was beyond his ability to grasp, so he kept on running until his legs felt close to collapsing under his weight. Even then, he managed to run for a few hours more.
Feeling something warm on the back of his neck, Nick jerked awake and pulled in a mouthful of dirt. His legs were pumping as if still running, and he reached out to turn himself over. His mangled hands still hurt, but the pain had become Nick’s only companion. He pushed through it and forced himself up.
Nick was crawling on the ground with trees surrounding him on all sides. His eyes darted back and forth, searching for anything to let him know which direction he should go in when he managed to stand up and start running again. All he had to go on was the direction his head was already pointing. Guessing that was the way he’d landed when he was running the night before, Nick pulled himself up and kept moving.
The sunlight hurt his eyes when he tried to look over his shoulder. Once his brain cleared a bit, he figured he was running south or southwest. After a while, his legs started to cramp and every breath was almost too much of a labor for him to accomplish. Cursing his own body for being so weak, Nick dropped to one knee and pressed the back of one hand against his mouth.
He didn’t know how long he stayed in that spot.
It seemed like his feet were rooted there for hours.
When he tried to move again, Nick felt as if he’d only rested for half a second.
The sounds of feet crunching against fallen leaves and twigs made Nick’s next breath catch in his throat. His could only see two blurry figures moving toward him. One of the figures was bigger than the other, so that was the one he chose when he attacked.
Nick lunged off of both legs with his hands held in front of him. Working off of pure animal instinct, he tried to grab the bigger of the two’s throat to show that he wasn’t weak. His bloody hand made it to the man’s neck, but the pain from his mangled fingers was too much to bear.
Blackness flooded through Nick’s head and his legs turned into straw, crumpling him to the ground as his hand snagged upon the other man’s collar. Using his last bit of strength, he reached up with his other hand to try and finish off the job he’d started.
The man in front of Nick was slightly shorter than him and at least thirty pounds lighter. His short, brushy hair was a subtle mix of light brown and some red. A neatly trimmed mustache covered his upper lip and a pair of small, round spectacles sat on his short, rounded nose. The eyes behind those spectacles were wide with shock and fear.
The second of the two figures was a woman. She was slightly shorter than the man and slender in build. Her long brown hair came almost down to her waist and was tied into a single thick braid. She rushed over to the man, but stopped short of getting within Nick’s arm’s reach.
“Don’t come any closer,” the man said. “He’s a wild one.”
“I can see that, Doug! He might hurt you!”
Doug waved to her and slowly eased his other hand around Nick’s wrist. He was able to peel Nick’s grip from his collar without much effort. “He’s hurt. Pretty badly by the looks of it.”
The woman stepped closer. She moved tentatively at first, but then relaxed when she saw Nick was practically hanging off of Doug’s arm. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “Look at his hands.”
“I know. There’s plenty of other wounds as well. We’d better get him back to the house.”
“What?”
“We can’t just leave him here, Sue. He’ll die.”
“You don’t know that.”
