Unbury Carol(71)

Carol did not move.

Soon she heard the unmistakable exhale of a satisfied man. And she believed that whatever she had done to alert him, to bring him to the coach, was no longer his sole concern.

Then he was off again, as though needing to address much more than Carol herself.

Or as if he understood that, no matter how hard Carol tried to move, to wake, to live, she would not succeed.

And the moment he was gone, Carol tried to do all three again.





It was evening, not dark yet, and the Kellytowners were either leaving their homes for the taverns or eating dinner as families inside. Kellytown, like Harrows, was one of the wealthier towns on the Trail. Bankers, tradesmen, and horse owners called the fancy nook home, but the thing Kellytown was best known for was oil.

Edward Bunny witnessed the destruction Smoke wreaked at the schoolhouse. He’d heard many stories about the hit man’s anger, but seeing it in person was something different. Watching from the woods near the junk-littered yard of the man who used to run with James Moxie, Bunny thought the triggerman was more demon than madman. The killing of the hermit was ghastly, but Bunny had seen a lot of gore in the towns on the Trail. The fire, though, the flames curling out the schoolhouse windows, black smoke coming out the chimney and doors, and Smoke standing before it like an insane child: Bunny couldn’t stop the hairs on his arms from rising.

He knew Smoke hadn’t caught up to James Moxie yet, and that’s really what Lafayette wanted to know. Bunny guessed that whoever hired the hit man was worried lest Moxie make it all the way to Harrows. When Bunny first heard the story, through the greasy grapevine of the Trail, he imagined Smoke would kill Moxie the same day he was hired. Moxie hadn’t ridden in a long time and, no matter the myth, the man’s bones had to be tired, his body slower, his mind a little loose. But Lafayette, or whoever Lafayette was asking for, was right to worry. From where Edward Bunny watched, it looked like James Moxie’s lead on Smoke might not lessen. At least not before the legendary outlaw reached Harrows.

Too many stops, Bunny thought, sitting by a window in a tavern in Kellytown. Too many distractions. Too crazy.

He frowned and sipped from a glass of lemonade. Yes, it was a very different thing to witness the Trail tales in person. Bunny had personally seen more than one average occurrence rendered big myth by word of mouth. He thought most outlaws had names they didn’t deserve, and most triggermen were less dangerous than the lawmen. The Trail needed a man like himself. A smart man who saw the truth of the Trail. If not for Edward Bunny, every baby-faced pig-shitter would be a legend and all men entering saloons would do so with the cocky stride of an epic.

But Smoke at the schoolhouse. This was the real thing.

He sipped his lemonade and watched quietly out the window as the tavern grew louder behind him. He didn’t recognize any outlaws and he thought that was good. Tracking a man on the Trail was easy work, and he wasn’t in the mood for excess chatter. The rich Kellytowners didn’t know who he was. If they were told he was a man of the Trail, he would probably be asked to leave. Bunny, like the outlaws and hit men he despised, was not without his own hyperbolic history.

Smoke needed to stop in Kellytown because Smoke was low on oil. This, Bunny thought, was silly. The Cripple could have made ground on the outlaw had he not stopped to burn the schoolhouse down. And now he had to stop twice because of it.

Bunny tailed him to a Kellytown depot and decided to wait in the tavern until Smoke was done. He was interested to know how those legs were refilled, but the safety of a cool glass of lemonade in a slightly distant saloon won out.

And now Bunny was restless. It’d been near twenty minutes and he looked about the tavern for a game he could get into. He knew the Kellytowners were high rollers compared with most residents of Trail-towns, and he saw it as a chance to make a lot of money. Sipping his drink, he observed some games and decided on the one he’d join. As he rose from his seat, planning to introduce himself with a false name to the pig-shit bankers seated at a four-top, he saw Smoke limp by the front window at last. He finished his lemonade and set it on the wood counter. The bartender asked if he’d like another and Bunny didn’t answer, already slipping through the saloon doors.

Outside he did not see Smoke. He couldn’t be far, Bunny knew, not with those legs, and the hit man’s powerful horse—no doubt stolen—was hitched near the entrance to town. Yet the pebbled road was empty.

He continued in the direction he’d seen Smoke going. He glanced casually into storefronts and taverns, looked long down side streets and alleys. When he got to the edge of Kellytown’s Orchard Road he smelled something that made him stop.

Burning oil.

Bunny looked up and saw a thin column of black smoke rising above the green treetops. He wiped his forehead with his brown jacket sleeve and shook his head. Smoke was a little mad, yes, but he was just like all the other pig-shit toughers who let every little distraction stop him on the way to doing a job. What was he burning now? These men were dumb, Bunny thought, and their dumbness made them easy to track. He would tell Lafayette that Smoke was too busy torching meaningless trifles to catch James Moxie, no matter how long it’d been for the legend. Lafayette could tell whoever’d hired him he had every right to worry. James Moxie might be rusty, but hell’s heaven he was more mobile than Smoke.

More focused, too.

Shaking his head, Bunny took a small road running alongside the heavy foliage that hid the source of the fire. A strong wind passed, and Bunny could smell that he was closer. He stepped to the border of trees and split the branches with his bare hands. He couldn’t see for the shadows and the black smoke, but this was certainly where it was. Good at hiding, Bunny walked a little farther ahead and slipped into the woods.