He picked up the mug and took a bigger drink this time. Roland saw that the man’s hand was trembling the tiniest bit, and wasn’t surprised. It was all bluff and blow, of course. The Sheriff would have understood that Jonas, Reynolds, and Depape were beyond his authority as soon as he saw the small blue coffins on their hands; after tonight, he must feel the same way about Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath.
He could only hope that all would see where their self-interest lay. Roland did. So, apparently, did Jonas, for even as Roland got up, Jonas did the same.
Avery recoiled a little bit, as if expecting Jonas to go for his gun and Dearborn for the knife in his belt, the one he’d been holding against Jonas’s back when Avery came puffing up to the saloon.
There was no gun or knife drawn, however. Jonas turned toward Roland and held out his hand.
“He’s right, lad,” Jonas said in his reedy, quavering voice.
“Yes.”
“Will you shake with an old man, and vow to start over?”
“Yes.” Roland held out his hand.
Jonas took it. “I cry your pardon.”
“I cry your own, Mr. Jonas.” Roland tapped left-hand at his throat, as was proper when addressing an elder in such fashion.
As the two of them sat down, Alain and Reynolds rose, as neatly as men in a prerehearsed ceremony. Last of all, Cuthbert and Depape rose. Roland was all but positive that Cuthbert’s foolishness would pop out like Jack from his box—the idiot would simply not be able to help himself, although he must surely realize that Depape was no man to make sport of tonight.
“Cry your pardon,” Bert said, with an admirable lack of laughter in his voice.
“Cryerown,” Depape mumbled, and held out his bloodstreaked hand. Roland had a nightmare vision of Bert squeezing down on it as hard as he could, making the redhead yowl like an owl on a hot stove, but Bert’s grip was as restrained as his voice.
Avery sat on the edge of the stage with his pudgy legs hanging down, watching it all with avuncular good cheer. Even Deputy Dave was smiling.
“Now I propose to shake hands with yer all myself, ‘n then send yer on yer ways, for the hour’s late, so it is, and such as me needs my beauty rest.” He chuckled, and again looked uncomfortable when no one joined in. But he slipped off the stage and began to shake hands, doing so with the enthusiasm of a minister who has finally succeeded in marrying a headstrong couple after a long and stormy courtship.
9
When they stepped outside, the moon was down and the first lightening in the sky had begun to show at the far edge of the Clean Sea. “Mayhap we’ll meet again, sai,” Jonas said. “Mayhap we will,” Roland said, and swung up into his saddle.
10
The Big Coffin Hunters were staying in the watchman’s house about a mile south of Seafront—five miles out of town, this was.
Halfway there, Jonas stopped at a turnout beside the road. From here the land made a steep, rocky descent to the brightening sea.
“Get down, mister,” he said. It was Depape he was looking at.
“Jonas…Jonas, I…”
“Get down.”
Biting his lip nervously, Depape got down.
“Take off your spectacles.”
“Jonas, what’s this about? I don’t—”
“Or if you want em broke, leave em on. It’s all the same to me.”
Biting his lip harder now, Depape took off his gold-rimmed spectacles. They were barely in his hand before Jonas had fetched him a terrific clip on the side of the head. Depape cried out and reeled toward the drop. Jonas drove forward, moving as fast as he had struck, and seized him by the shirt just before he went tumbling over the edge. Jonas twisted his hand into the shirt material and yanked Depape toward him. He breathed deep, inhaling the scent of pine-tar and Depape’s sweat.
“I ought to toss you right over the edge,” he breathed. “Do you know how much
harm you’ve done?”
“I… Jonas, I never meant… just a little fun is all I… how was we supposed to know they …”
Slowly, Jonas’s hand relaxed. That last bit of babble had gone home. How was they supposed to know, that was ungrammatical but right. And if not for tonight, they might not have known. If you looked at it that way, Depape had actually done them a favor. The devil you knew was always preferable to the devil you didn’t.
Still, word would get around, and people would laugh. Maybe even that was all right, though. The laughter would stop in due time.
“Jonas, I cry your pardon.”
“Shut up,” Jonas said. In the east, the sun would shortly heave itself over the horizon, casting its first gleams on a new day in this world of toil and sorrow. “I ain’t going to toss you over, because then I’d have to toss Clay over and follow along myself. They got the drop on us the same as you, right?”
Depape wanted to agree, but thought it might be dangerous to do so. He was prudently silent.
“Get down here, Clay.”
Clay slid off his mount.
“Now hunker.”
The three of them hunkered on their bootsoles, heels up. Jonas plucked a shoot of grass and put it between his lips. “Affiliation brats is what we were told, and we had no reason not to believe it,” he said. “The bad boys are sent all the way to Mejis, a sleepy Barony on the Clean Sea, on a make-work detail that’s two pans penance and three parts punishment. Ain’t that what we were told?”
They nodded.
“Either of you believe it after tonight?”
Depape shook his head. So did Clay.
“They may be rich boys, but that’s not all they are,” Depape said. “The way they were tonight . . . they were like . . .” He trailed off, not quite willing to finish the thought. It was too absurd.
Jonas was willing. “They acted like gunslingers.”
Neither Jonas nor Reynolds replied at first. Then Clay Reynolds said, “They’re too young, Eldred. Too young by years.”
“Not too young to be ‘prentices, mayhap. In any case, we’re going to find out.” He
turned to Depape. “You’ve got some riding to do, cully.”
“Aww, Jonas—!”
“None of us exactly covered ourselves with glory, but you were the fool that started the pot boiling.” He looked at Depape, but Depape only looked down at the ground between them. “You’re going to ride their backtrail, Roy, and you’re going to ask questions until you’ve got the answers you think will satisfy my curiosity.
Clay and I are mostly going to wait. And watch. Play Castles with em, if you like.
When I feel like enough time’s gone by for us to be able to do a little snooping without being trigged, mayhap we’ll do it.”
He bit on the piece of grass in his mouth. The larger piece tumbled out and lay between his boots.
“Do you know why I shook his hand? That boy Dearborn’s damned hand? Because we can’t rock the boat, boys. Not just when it’s edging in toward harbor. Latigo and the folks we’ve been waiting for will be moving toward us very soon, now.
Until they get into these parts, it’s in our interest to keep the peace. But I tell you this: no one puts a knife to Eldred Jonas’s back and lives. Now listen, Roy. Don’t make me tell you any of this twice.”
Jonas began to speak, leaning forward over his knees toward Depape as he did.
After awhile, Depape began to nod. He might like a little trip, actually. After the recent comedy in the Travellers’ Rest, a change of air might be just the ticket.
11
The boys were almost back to the Bar K and the sun was coming over the horizon before Cuthbert broke the silence. “Well! That was an amusing and instructive evening, was it not?” Neither Roland nor Alain replied, so Cuthbert leaned over to the rook’s skull, which he had returned to its former place on the horn of his saddle. “What say you, old friend? Did we enjoy our evening? Dinner, a circledance, and almost killed to top things off. Did you enjoy?”
The lookout only stared ahead of Cuthbert’s horse with its great dark eyes.
“He says he’s too tired for talk,” Cuthbert said, then yawned. “So’m I, actually.” He looked at Roland. “I got a good look into Mr. Jonas’s eyes after he shook hands with you, Will. He means to kill you.”
Roland nodded.
“They mean to kill all of us,” Alain said.
Roland nodded again. “We’ll make it hard for them, but they know more about us now than they did at dinner. We’ll not get behind them that way again.”
He stopped, just as Jonas had stopped not three miles from where they now were.