Leaving Epitaph

“Me too,” James said.

Matthew looked panic stricken and confused. He wasn’t sure he agreed with the rest of his family, he wasn’t sure he even knew what the word “committed” meant, but he knew that he could not turn back on his own.

“Matthew,” Shaye said, “no one wants to force you into anything. You could stay here and wait for us to come back—”

“I ain’t never been on my own, Pa,” Matthew said. “I wouldn’t know what to do. I gotta come along.”

“Well then, you and I will have to keep talking about it along the way, Matthew,” Shaye said. “You’ve got to be absolutely convinced you’re doing the right thing, or I don’t want you to do it.”

“The right thing is for me to come with you.”

“Son,” Shaye said, “that’s just not a good enough reason to kill someone, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”

Thomas reached over and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We’ll all talk about it, Matthew.”

“We’re not gonna leave you behind,” James assured him.

“Damn right you’re not,” Matthew said. “You guys would get in too much trouble without me.”

“And we know it!” James agreed.

“Like that time…” Matthew went on, and Shaye was happy to see the conversation take a new course.

He had to make sure that by the time they caught up to the gang, they were all ready to do what had to be done. The slightest hesitation on any of their parts could end up being a disaster for all of them.

Matthew’s face was still a little pale even as he started to banter with his brothers.

“How about some pie?” Shaye asked.

Matthew smiled and said, “Now you’re talkin’!”

38

With Petry dead, Ethan Langer actually started to miss having someone to talk to, even if it was just to tell him to shut up. For that reason he decided to start talking to Ben Branch.

As they crossed into Kansas he said, “Ben, I’m actually thinkin’ of making you my segundo.”

Branch was surprised. “But you said none of us was good enough.”

“Well, maybe I was wrong,” Ethan said. “Maybe you’re good enough. What do you think?”

“I been real happy just following you along these past few years, Ethan,” Branch said. “I ain’t really got no hankerin’ to give any orders, myself.”

“You wouldn’t have to give no orders, Ben,” Ethan said. “That’s still my job.”

Branch remembered what happened to the last segundo when Ethan left him in charge for just a little while. Terry Petry earned himself a real shallow grave. Branch was sure that a bunch of critters had already taken care of Petry’s remains.

“Whataya say, Ben?” Ethan asked. “Want the job or not?”

“Well, Ethan—”

“There’s an extra share in it for you,” Ethan said. “Petry’s share.”

Well, if there was extra money in it for him, that was a whole different story.

“Sure, Ethan,” Branch said, “I’d be happy to be your segundo.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Then you ride back and tell the rest of the men about it, and then come back up here.”

“Right, boss.”

“He made you segundo?” Hackett asked.

“That’s right.”

“Did you ask for the job?” Ted Fitzgerald asked suspiciously.

“Hell, no,” Branch said. “I saw what happened to Petry.”

“So why’d you say yes?”

“How could I say no?” Branch asked. He didn’t want to tell them about the extra share. “I didn’t want to get blown out of my saddle.”

“So what’s he want you to do?” Hackett asked.

“Just ride with him,” Branch said, “and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Well,” Hackett said, “if he asks you for any advice, why don’t you suggest we stop off in Dodge City? It ain’t far from here.”

“He ain’t gonna ask,” Branch said, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”

When he rode back up to ride alongside his boss, Ethan asked, “How did they take it?”

“They took it fine.”

“Anybody mention Dodge City?”

Branch looked surprised.

Ethan laughed. “We ain’t far from there. I figured somebody would suggest it.’

“Somebody did.”

“Dodge is a dead town,” Ethan said. “Besides, we ain’t stoppin’ anymore until we get where we’re goin’.”

“Where are we goin’, Ethan?” Branch asked, and then hurriedly added, “Uh, I mean, if I can ask.”

“Aaron and I agreed on where we’d meet, and when,” Ethan said. “We’ll be a little late, but he’ll wait for us to get there.”

“I know he will,” Branch said. “Think we got more from our bank than he got from his?”

“That’ll burn his ass if we do,” Ethan said. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

“Uh, get where, Ethan?”

“Salina, segundo,” Ethan said. “We’re goin’ to Salina.”

39

They stopped in Blackwell, just before the Kansas border. Prior to that they had a small run-in with a Cherokee hunting party. There were six braves, and they were looking for food. Shaye calmed his sons, who had only seen Indians before one at a time, and the tame variety at that. Shaye satisfied the braves with some beef jerky, and they all went their separate ways. Thomas, Matthew, and James talked about that encounter for hours afterward.

They stopped in Wellington next, soon after they crossed into Kansas, but there was no sign that the Langer gang had ever stopped there. The next day they headed toward Wichita.

“They’re haulin’ ass,” Shaye said the morning they broke camp to head toward Wichita. “Means they’re likely to be late meeting up with Aaron. They’re trying to make up for lost time.”

“Because of the stop they made in Oklahoma City?” Thomas asked.

“Most likely,” Shaye said.

“What about Wichita?” James asked. “Could they be meeting up there?”

“My guess is Wichita’s too big,” Shaye said. “They’d want something not as busy. My best guess is Salina.”

It wasn’t that much smaller than Wichita—eleven or twelve hundred people, probably—but it certainly wasn’t a place that brought in outsiders. Largely a farming community, it catered mostly to locals, even though the Union Pacific had a stop there. Its claim to fame was the steam-powered wheat mill that was built when wheat began to come into the town in large quantities in the 1870s.

“So should we stop in Wichita?” Thomas asked.

The last good rest they’d had was in Oklahoma City. If the Langers were hauling ass, then Shaye figured they should too, but they might as well ride through Wichita since it would cost them some time to deliberately go