Chapter 34
Vin took a small measure of satisfaction in Sean’s gaping horror at his survival. His mouth was actually hanging open in utter disbelief as Vin marched out of the Native crowd like some otherworldly ghost sent to enact unholy vengeance.
“How are you alive?” Sean croaked, sounding more like a frog that a human at that moment. “I watched you die!”
“You watched me get shot,” Vin said, glaring through the morning sunlight. “Of course, that’s easy to do when you’re the one pulling the trigger.”
“No, this isn’t possible,” he said, shaking his head back and forth.
Vin took a measure of satisfaction in that.
He remembered what it had been like to lay on the ground feeling the life bleed out of him as the hot desert sun beat its oppressive rays down upon him.
There was a horror in that helplessness, and now it seemed as though Sean was sharing in a different kind of dread.
But still, it felt good.
“I didn’t have a…” Sean looked around at the Chain Gang members who stood behind him.
Many of them were murmuring among themselves and looking accusingly at Sean.
No doubt, word of Sean’s impressive feat had spread far and wide through the members of the Chain Gang.
Vin had been a longtime thorn in their side, and Sean would have been something of a hero to them for taking him off the board once and for all.
“Didn’t have a choice?” Vin asked with an eyebrow raised, staring down Sean and all ten of the men he had marched in here with. “Is that what you’re about to say to me? You put four bullets in me because you didn’t have a choice?”
“It was for Deb and Jimmy,” Sean spat, a tear visible in the corner of his eye as he gestured emphatically at Vin. “To keep them safe! I thought you’d understand! You’d welcome it even!”
“You thought wrong,” Vin replied, with an angered curl of his lip.
“You selfish fuck,” Sean said, his face turning red as anger quickly replaced his surprise.
“What did you have to live for anymore anyway? To sit alone in the desert in that fucking bunker of yours? To know that I was back at the ranch lying next to Deb, that Jimmy was calling me Daddy? What kinda life did you have to cling on to?”
“I had to come back to protect them,” Vin said slowly, making sure his words sunk in.
“That’s what I’m doing!” Sean insisted loudly, his voice echoing around the small village.
“I had to come back to protect them from you,” Vin said, his words stabbing Sean in the heart. His would-be killer looked at him as though he were totally wounded, as though this were the most hurtful and horrible thing Vin could have possibly said.
Of course, Vin had known this, but he was no longer interested in sugar-coating his feelings for Sean.
“How dare you?” Sean asked, reaching for the handle of his pistol but stopping just short of it.
He knew Vin was watching him, that he was on high alert.
He also was a realist who knew Vin was a faster draw than him and that if they were to have an old-fashioned shootout, it would end with Sean on the ground before his gun had even cleared the leather of his holster.
“How dare I?” Vin called out with a humorless laugh. “How dare I? How dare you, Sean! You let that animal onto the ranch. You spit on everything we ever believed, everything Deb believes. You spit on the old man’s legacy.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up about the old man’s legacy!
” Sean called out, cutting Vin off. “I’m so sick of hearing that bullshit.
You know it’s a load of crap, Vin. You always did!
But you nodded your head and yes’d the old idiot to death along with the rest of us while we understood how the world actually worked. ”
“You took the place he poured those ideas into and turned it into everything he hated and stood against,” Vin said, ignoring Sean’s statement and focusing more on his grievous crimes.
“You took from Deb the one major thing her father gave to her. You took Jimmy’s inheritance from him!
You don’t have the right to even look at them anymore, let alone be with them! ”
“And you do?” Sean screamed, his tears now fully falling down his sunburned cheeks. “You think you have that right? After you walked out on them? After you left me there to pick up the pieces?”
“I left those pieces for you, and you threw them into the fire,” Vin said. “I never thought you’d be so stupid.”
“I’m not the stupid one!” Sean exclaimed, losing his temper to an extreme degree.
“When Chainz wants something, he takes it!” Sean gestured wildly around the reservation as if drawing a parallel between his situation and the scenario he had just laid out for the Natives.
“What I did saved lives! It saved Deb and Jimmy! If it weren’t for me and the deal I struck, he would have taken it, and we’d all be dead! ”
“Keep telling yourself that, Sean,” Vin said with a slow shake of his head. “You took the coward’s way out. I think you’re pathetic.”
“I don’t care what you think!” Sean spat in a fury.
“Yeah, you do,” Vin said back, keeping his voice level. “And so does Deb.”
“You stupid son of a bitch!” Sean said, his hand twitching for his gun. But he stopped when he saw Vin move for his as well.
“Oh, enough!” a voice called out from behind Sean.
The dark-clad form of Maverick pushed his way out between them, pulling up the brim of his hat to glare at Vin with icy hatred.
“As fun as it has been to listen to the two of you hash out your personal drama, there’s a lot more going on here than your issues,” Maverick said while facing Vin but clearly also talking to Sean.
“Namely, these people need to clear out of our land before Chainz wipes them all out.”
“That isn’t going to happen!” a voice said from behind Vin. Jolon walked up to stand beside his friend, staring down Maverick with determined fury. Vin looked over at Jolon with some concern.
“Oh, what’s this?” Maverick taunted. “Vin, I think you’ve started to inspire them. I can’t even begin to tell you how bad of an idea that is.”
“We’re not afraid of you,” Jolon said, pointing at Maverick.
The killer chuckled in amusement. “I don’t think your friends here got that memo,” he said, pointing at the gathered crowd.
Vin looked around to see the worried and horrified faces of many of the Native observers.
He didn’t blame them for their fear. They weren’t warriors.
And while many of them armed themselves with guns, it was purely for protection from desert wildlife or for hunting.
They weren’t prepared for a long-drawn-out military battle.
“Some may be scared,” Jolon said, his eyes not leaving Maverick. “But we’re not giving up our land without a fight!”
“Jolon, calm yourself,” Uncle’s voice said as he approached to lay a wrinkled hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Please.”
“Uncle, I,” Jolon started to say, turning back to face the elder. As soon as his attention was diverted, Maverick drew his gun with incredible speed, pointing it at Jolon and opening fire. Uncle, who saw this as it was happening, pushed Jolon roughly as two shots rang out.
Vin watched helplessly as the first shot ripped into Jolon’s shoulder as he pitched off to the side. The second one, however, hit Uncle square in the center of the chest.
The elder fell back as a collective scream sounded from the entire community. Vin moved quickly, drawing his gun. Maverick was turning to him now, and the two of them had one another locked in their sights.
Sean and the rest of the Chain Gang started to draw their weapons, but Maverick held his free hand up, gesturing for them to stop.
“Hold on,” he said, giving Vin a confident sneer. “I’ve been wondering something for a long time, Vin.”
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice positively quaking with rage as both Uncle and Jolon bled on the ground beside them.
Adriel had rushed forward and was now crouching beside his father, attempting to place pressure on the gaping wound in the elder’s chest.
“How good you really are, man to man,” Maverick said, showing Vin the palm of his free hand. “How about we find out?”
“You’re a sick fuck,” Vin said. “You shoot an old man and now all you can think about is a damn fist fight?”
“How about it?” Maverick said, taunting Vin with a cruel smile.
He pointed his gun up toward the sky and slowly threw it down while motioning again for his companions to do nothing.
Vin could take him down right now, could shoot him like a dog in the street.
He would deserve it for what he had just done to Uncle.
He was a kind old man who wanted nothing to do with violence. And now here he was, bleeding in the street because Chainz wanted some more land to add to his growing kingdom. It was beyond maddening. It was horrifying. And it frustrated Vin to no end.
And he decided at that moment that he needed to work some of those frustrations out.