Chapter 39
Rafe sat alone at the table of the rented room, catching up on the news and feeling sick as a dog.
The girls were gone. He and Toby had blown through their money, and the women had abandoned them.
Soon, the old man and his wife would ask them to leave.
Toby lay in the corner, snoring.
Rafe went back to the newspaper.
A lot had happened since they holed up here.
Of the eleven men who’d ridden out to the Sullivan farmhouse that night, only six remained, counting Toby and him.
That didn’t seem possible.
It was just the other night.
Danny was dead. They’d known that. They’d seen Toole gun him down.
What they didn’t know was that this Sullivan had a brother. A twin brother, according to the paper.
And to Rafe, that felt like some kind of black magic or curse or something. Twins weren’t natural. As far as he was concerned, twins were the mark of witchcraft or something. All twins should be drowned at birth. Probably save a lot of trouble in the long run.
Like this Conn Sullivan, the twin brother who had vowed to avenge his brother.
Rafe wished someone had drowned the both of them at birth. Especially this Conn.
Because while the gang was busting up at the abandoned cabin, Conn Sullivan was busy killing the fellas who’d gone to town.
Bo and Arthur had taken Tripp to the doc because he wouldn’t wake up after that other twin, the one they’d hung, had punched him.
Well, according to the paper, this Conn killed Tripp right in the doctor’s office. That was a low thing, right there, killing a man seeking treatment from a doctor. Talk about kicking a fella while he was down.
Then he’d gone across the street to the saloon and faced Bo and Arthur at the same time and killed them both.
The paper said he’d used a shotgun, which mostly explained how he’d done that, but still, this Conn Sullivan must be a cold-blooded killer to take out Bo and Arthur at the same time.
Especially Arthur. He was quick. Not as quick as Jesse Turpin but quick enough to get her done and not afraid to pull the trigger.
Well, whatever Arthur had been, now he was just plain dead.
So was Blake.
And that was a shocker.
Because Blake had ridden off, just like Rafe and Toby. He’d told Toole he didn’t want nothing more to do with a gang and all that, and then he’d skedaddled just like them when Toole shot Danny.
Blake went one way.
They went the other.
They would’ve thrown in with Blake if the three of them had had a chance to talk about it.
He wasn’t a bad guy.
But now he was dead.
And if they had thrown in with him, they might be dead now, too.
That thought chilled Rafe and made his head hurt even worse.
And this Conn Sullivan didn’t just kill Blake. He killed two of his brothers, too. It was like he was trying to wipe out the whole bloodline or something.
There was something wrong with a man like that. In fact, Rafe figured there was something wrong with just about the whole world these days.
Folks were killing people left and right.
A man couldn’t feel safe anywhere. At least not out here.
Maybe it was time to head back to Georgia.
Toby wouldn’t want to. Not at first. He had left a girl high and dry back there, and she had some brothers that would be waiting on him, but at least Rafe and Toby knew the lay of the land in Georgia.
Besides, they didn’t have to go all the way home.
Just get back to where folks had sense. Not like out here in the West, where everybody was looking to put a bullet in your back.
It was all too easy to picture this Conn Sullivan coming through the door with that shotgun of his.
What would Rafe do?
Nothing.
That’s what.
He’d maybe beg a little and try to talk his way out of it, but it wouldn’t do any good.
That’s when he remembered the other twin, Cole Sullivan, telling them not to kill him, saying if they did, they would unleash a man who would show no mercy.
Rafe had thought he was just running his mouth at the time, trying to save his neck, but now he understood the warning had been real.
He’d been talking about his brother, this cold-blooded Conn Sullivan, who was now apparently hunting them down one by one.
Or two by two…
He glanced at the door.
Where did those women get to?
He went to the peg on the wall and pulled his revolver out of the gunbelt and carried it back to the table to finish reading the papers.
The newer paper made Rafe feel like puking. Because it said U.S. Marshal Clayton Mayfield was on their trail, too.
Just like that, he was sweating bullets.
He glanced over to where Toby lay with his mouth open.
He looked dead.
Rafe shook his head, hating the image, and went back to reading the paper.
Mayfield was quoted saying he’d get them all, no matter how long it took. And there was Rafe’s name, listed right alongside the rest of them.
Mayfield was a heartless killer. Everybody knew that. And he always got whoever he set after.
Yeah, it was time to get out of here. Head back to Georgia, steal a boat, and go live in the swamp for a while. Way back there.
Because right now, they had three heartless men gunning for them: Toole, Conn Sullivan, and the most feared marshal in the United States.
He didn’t like those odds one bit.
But hopefully Sullivan and Mayfield were after Toole and them right now. Because the paper said Toole had stopped at another farmhouse on the way to Poncha Springs and killed a man and hurt his wife and burned their house.
There was something seriously wrong with those boys. And not just Toole. Duncan was just as bad. Worse, maybe. And Dog was about half an idiot. Then you had Jesse Turpin, who was bound and determined to be known as the fastest gun in the West.
Well, maybe Rafe would get lucky. Maybe all these bloodthirsty killers would come together in Poncha Springs and kill each other off.
Maybe. But he doubted it. And he sure couldn’t count on it.
He did suspect, however, that Sullivan and Mayfield would both head south after what Toole and them did to those farmers.
That would buy Rafe and Toby a little time.
“Toby!” he called across the room. “Quit snoozing. We gotta get out of here.”
Toby sputtered and woke up and blinked at Rafe and said his head hurt.
Rafe would’ve told him to shut up and get his boots on, but that’s when his eyes fell on the end of the article he’d been reading.
The reporter interviewed the Sullivan widow. Her name was apparently Mary, and the paper made her sound like quite a lady.
She was the whole reason they’d gone out there. Him and Toby, anyway. Well, her and the money.
But mostly her. Because everybody said she was the prettiest woman they’d ever seen. Blond hair and blue eyes and a perfect figure and a real pretty face. The prettiest.
So yeah, he’d been looking forward to a turn with her.
Then everything had gone sideways.
Apparently, she was responding like a true frontier woman.
The reporter said that and called her a “brave woman who won’t be run off her land.”
Mary Sullivan vowed to stay and rebuild what she and her late husband had started.
Which meant she was probably all alone there, maybe living in a tent or that little stable.
Of course, maybe she was just talking, or maybe she had folks there, or maybe she was staying in town and hiring the work done.
He didn’t know. But there was one way to find out.
Fairplay wasn’t exactly on the way back to Georgia, but it would be easy enough to ride that way, steer clear of town, and just have a little look before they headed east as fast as their horses would carry them.
“Get up, Toby,” he said. “I got a new plan.”