Page 49 of Hell and Gone
“You working with the boys campin’ at Whiskey Gulch? Helpin’ drive stock down the mountain to Heart’s Rafter?”
Connor nodded. His eyes were still closed.
“This is going to hurt.” Everett held a thick bandage, soaked in alcohol from the medical kit. He pressed a clean towel to Connor’s back, and then pushed the soaked bandage against the shattered flesh on his shoulder.
Connor shrieked, fighting Lawrence’s hold, kicking the air over the table. His mangled arm waved, dead fingers flapping against Everett’s thigh. “Fuck you!” he spat.
“It’s this, or you die.” Everett kept pushing. “Pass me the duct tape.”
Lawrence held Connor down while Everett taped the towel and bandage around Connor’s shoulder, and then taped his destroyed arm in a towel sling to his chest. Connor clenched his teeth and cursed the whole time, and tears began to flow from the corners of his eyes. But when Everett stepped back, he rolled his head toward him and croaked, “Thanks. You fuckin’ asshole.”
Lawrence and Everett helped him sit up. He shivered, his sweat-soaked body trembling so hard his teeth chattered. “Let’s move him to the den. I’ll make a fire,” Lawrence said.
They carried him together to the couch, and Everett wrapped Connor in a blanket while Lawrence built a roaring fire in the stone hearth. “Now,” Everett said, kneeling in front of Connor. “Tell us everything. Why were you rustling? Who was at the camp? Who shot you and the others?”
Connor’s words came slowly, stuttering between shivers and quakes. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide with his body’s agony. He rocked on the couch in the blanket, leaning into the warmth from the fire.
“We was told we were gonna make trouble. We was gonna bother up all the ranches. Make it hard to live here, you know?”
“Why?” Lawrence sat on the hearth, hands clasped, watching Connor. He’d fought with Connor over the years, bar room brawls and backwoods bare knuckle fights when they were spitting mad, cussing each other out and hurling insults and fists. Connor was a lazy son of a bitch, and he’d always wanted the fast and easy way instead of the hardworking way. He had rubbed Lawrence wrong every which way every time.
Connor shrugged. “I dunno. I was just paid to rustle up stock from every ranch.”
“You and the guys in the gulch?”
Nodding, Connor swallowed. “We was picked from Endless Sky. Current guys and some old ones, guys who’d been fired. We was told we was hand-picked, and we was special. That we’d been evaluated or somethin’, and we was exactly what was needed.”
The only thing Connor O’Donnell was hand-picked for was an ass whooping. He was special in his loafing. Lawrence’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah right. That’s a load of horse shit.”
“It’s true!” Connor snapped. “That’s what he said!” Fire burned in his eyes and his jaw was set, a hard line to his jaw.
For a man who had been told he was a fuck up his whole life, who had his ass beaten for being lazy and a smartass, being told he was picked for something special must have been like taking a hit of the best drug there was. Lawrence rocked back and sucked on his teeth. Shook his head and looked away.
“Who?” Everett asked. “Who picked you? Who told you that?”
Connor hocked a bloody wad of spit on the carpet. “Fucking Old Man Burke, that’s who!”
“What?” Lawrence jumped to his feet. His jaw fell, and the ground seemed to shift, slide to the left, the world falling off its axis. He shook his head, snarled. “Jim Burke?”
“Who is Jim Burke?” Everett asked. His eyes bounced between Connor and Lawrence, a frown creasing his forehead and pulling his lips down in a scowl.
“Endless Sky’s foreman,” Lawrence breathed. “He’s been in these mountains for fifty years.”
“He’s a fuckin’ murderer!” Connor shouted. “He told us to camp in the gulch! He said we was gonna be safe there! We just needed to hide there when we wasn’t out rustlin’! He’d bring us supplies, give us free booze when we’d done good!” His voice choked, and hot tears ran down Connor’s cheeks. He wiped them away, glaring at the fire. “And then he came back and he got us all drunk. Told us we’d all done good, and we was gonna make the cattle drive soon. And then it was a fat payday for us all.” Connor sniffed. “Then he shot us! Every one of us, one by one. While we was runnin’ away. While we was beggin’ for our lives. He shot us in our damn backs!” Connor shouted. Another tear fell down his cheek. He let it run.
“Were Dell and Aaron part of your outfit?” Everett asked softly. “Were they in the gulch with you?”
Connor nodded. “Burke made ‘em leaders. They was in charge of some of the rustlin’ teams. Told us what to do and when. How.”
“They were there when Burke shot everyone?”
Connor nodded again. He was a miserable heap of blood and tears, snot and shivers. He slumped forward, the fight, the fury, ground out of him. Lawrence tried to swallow, couldn’t.
Old Man Jim Burke was like a father to a hundred cowboys in the mountains. Nearly everyone had done time at the Endless Sky through the years and had trained under Burke. He had been like a father to Carson. He’d been a man Lawrence wanted to be, once.
Connor had worked for the man, had been told he was special by Burke. That Old Man Burke had hand-picked him.
The pride Connor must have felt. He’d probably never worked harder, or better, than he had on the rustling outfit.
