Page 31 of Hell and Gone
Six of them, he guessed. Moving across the lot on the other side of the hotel. Moving to the door.
Lawrence grabbed his elbow. “Let’s go!”
Everett stared him down. This was the moment, he knew, when stories could go either way. When the end went from rescuing someone and talking them through the terror they’d endured over a cup of coffee and taking their statement, or finding their body, the mangled, battered corpse.
Which way was he headed?
If it came to it, could he take Lawrence on? Lawrence had him beat in strength and in size. He didn’t like his odds.
He heard the hotel door creak open. Soft orders drawled in a voice he didn’t recognize. Drug runners? Rustlers?
Did it matter?
“Lead the way,” he whispered.
Lawrence stayed low and jogged across the parking lot, running from the shadows of pickup trucks to a low embankment, a drainage ditch behind the hotel gravel lot. He slid into the ditch on his ass, lying low at the bottom.
He caught Everett when he slid down, two hands on his waist. Helped him stand.
Behind them, they heard a door get kicked in, wood splinter. Heard gunshots, the crack of a shotgun and a rifle splitting the night. Shouts. Curses.
“Follow me,” Lawrence whispered. “And move fast.”
Lawrence led him through the ditch as it veered into a wide farmer’s field. They waded through the run-off from the field. Crops rose on either side of them, wheat shafts swaying in the night breeze. Their boots sloshed in ankle-deep muddy water. Sirens sounded in the distance, and Lawrence picked up the pace.
The crops dead ended at a tree line, the start of a spreading woods that ran up into the foothills of the Crazies. Lawrence scrambled out of the ditch at a culvert, crawling up the embankment. He held out his hand for Everett, helping him up the slick sides, the mud and muck from the forest and farm. “This way,” he said softly, guiding Everett into the woods.
A hundred yards in, two horses waited, picketed to a tree. They munched on grass and snorted as Lawrence approached.
Everett slowed. He hadn’t seen these horses on the Lazy Twenty-Two. Were they horses his hands had rode before they’d quit?
No, these horses were smaller than what Lawrence said they’d had on the ranch. Work horses, he’d said. Rugged. Large.
These were slender horses, slight. Delicate. Young. They were small horses with narrow hooves. He searched for the horses’ brands.
There were none.
Everett stared as Lawrence untethered both horses. Another constrictor knot looped their leads to the tree. “Where did these horses come from, Lawrence?”
Lawrence kept his back to him. He spoke over his shoulder. “Mustangs. Picked them up wild and tamed ‘em.”
One of the horses nuzzled Lawrence’s palm. She snuffled for a treat, the exact same way Trigger and Lantana had. Lawrence rubbed her nose up to her forelock, scratched her neck with his gloved hands. He whispered to her, and she whickered.
Everett grabbed Lawrence and spun him hard. He shoved him against the tree trunk, both hands pinning Lawrence’s shoulders to the rough bark. “That is thelasttime you lie to me, Lawrence Jackson. Where did these horses come from?”
Lawrence’s eyes flashed. He saw Lawrence’s fists clench, felt him tremble beneath his hold. Everett pressed, pinning him down. He bared his teeth.
If it came to it, he could take a punch or three before he got his gun. He didn’t see a pistol or revolver on Lawrence, and the saddles didn’t have rifle scabbards. He could take him, like this. He could put a bullet in the man if he had to.
Lawrence looked away. He sagged into Everett’s hold, the flight bleeding out of him. “I have a stable,” he said softly. “No one knows. I been raisin’ and breedin’ horses, sellin’ them far away. These are some of mine.”
“Why don’t you keep them at the ranch?”
“Because this ismine,” Lawrence hissed. “I saved for it, I bought the pasture and the horse barn. It’s got my name on the land, and these horses belong tome. Not a God damn person expects a fuckin’ thing out of me here, but Ididthis little bit, damn it! I’m savin’ up my money. Tryin’ to make somethin’ of myself!”
Deposits in the bank. Cash. “How much do you sell them for?”
“Five thousand each. I sell them in pairs. They’re registered. Everythin’ is clean and above board. Their unbranded so whoever buys ‘em can put their own brand on.”
