Her breath barely touched my ear. Marshal, I keep my word. Dupre lives. But what you will see now is not your law. Do not mistake it for your law.
Before I could answer, she made a sound like a nightb bird. And her sisters were gone. The first man never knew. He was reaching for the bottle when a shape rose behind him out of the dark. And then he was lying face first beside the fire and the bottle was rolling, gurgling into the sand.
The second and third went at the same moment on opposite sides of the fire. Kane from one side, Dashka from the other. Two men who had been laughing a heartbeat earlier simply stopped, folded, and were still. Then the camp woke up. Five men lunging for the rifles by the boulder.
Too far, too drunk. Isha came out from behind the horser and cut the picket line and eight panic horses stampeded straight through the middle of camp. Scattering fire, scattering men, scattering everything. Yona was a blur at the edge of the light. One man went down clutching his leg.
Another threw his hands up so fast his hat flew off. And Tavana walked into the firelight. Walked, not ran. Knife low in her right hand. Firelight running along the blade like water. like a woman crossing her own kitchen.
You remember me, Clee? Dupre remembered. I watched the remembering hit his face. He grabbed for the pistol in his belt. I wouldn't.
My Winchester was on him from the edge of the dark. Deputy United States Marshal Clee Dupre, you're under arrest for murder, kidnapping, robbery on the public road. He laughed. Even then, gap-toothed, wild-eyed, he laughed. Halleran, they said you'd come.
They said you'd be a fool about it. Who said? asked the [ __ ]. Tavana moved. I have seen fast men. I've seen gunmen in tombstone who could clear leather before you finished blinking.
I'd never seen anything as fast as that woman crossing those last 6 ft. The knife was coming up under Dupre's ribs. And I don't know how I got there. I only know I did because the barrel of my Winchester came down across her forearm and the blade went wide and buried itself in the log beside him instead. She spun on me, eyes black with it.
You promised. So did you. Alive, you said. Alive. For one long second, I truly did not know if she would kill me.
Her hand was on the knife handle in the log, her chest heaving. Mine, too. Then she let go of the knife. Dupre had gone gray. All the laugh out of him now.
He was staring at the blade in the log, a hands width from his belly. Get her away from me. Then talk. I talk. I hang.
You don't talk. She finishes. Pick around us. The fight was done. Two of his men still alive on their knees, hands on their heads.
Kane's sharps on one and Dashka's knife at the other's neck. The others not moving. The fire had settled. The stampeded horses were somewhere down the canyon, screaming at the dark, and from the back of the camp came a sound I didn't expect. Boots in gravel, heavy breathing.
Wesley Pickering, hands free. A rope burn on one wrist. The picketing string chewed through, swaying, gripping a rock in his good hand like it was a weapon I heard shooting. I thought he stopped. Looked at Dupre.
Looked at the scar, the missing teeth. You, Dupre, squinted at him. I heard you laugh on the road when my brother Nathan was lying in the dirt. I heard you laugh like that. Lot of men laugh, boy.
Not like that. I pushed the Winchester's muzzle against the hollow of Dupre's throat. Who sent you after the Pickering Wagons, Cle? Who told you to dress it up Apache? Who sent you after these women?
His eyes went from me to Tavana to Wesley to the dark canyon rim above us. Back to me calculating, running the numbers on what kind of man I was. Ror, Sheriff Ror, it's his job, his show. Them women know where something is, and he wants it bad. And and he ain't the top of it.
There's a man in Tucson. A big man. Where's your same badge, Marshal? He's the one who The shot came from above. Off the rim, Dupre's head snapped sideways and he went over backward into the fire and the sparks went up into the dark like a flock of birds startled off a field.
Down we hit the sand. A second shot took one of the kneeling prisoners. The third wind off the boulder where Cana had been a heartbeat before. Then silence. Somewhere up on the rim, a horse moving away fast.
Nobody spoke. Wesley was flat on his face, both hands over his head. Isha was cursing in a long continuous whisper. The last of Dupre's men was weeping. I crawled to Dupre and pulled him out of the fire by his boots.
Too late. Of course, too late. I went through his coat because there was nothing else to do. A pouch of coins, gold, fresh minted, and a letter folded small damp with sweat. The fire light was enough to read by.
Dupre half now as agreed. Half when the women give it up. You will not touch the marshal unless he forces your hand. If he does, it was Apache. Burn this.
A P. I knew the hand. I'd known it seven years. That slanted capital A with the little hook at the top. I'd seen it on every warrant I'd ever served.
On the letter of recommendation that got me my badge on the Christmas card he sent every year with $10 folded inside and a note that said, "Buy yourself some cents." Amos Puit, whoever they are. The ground went out from under me, not the real ground. The other one, the one a man stands on inside himself. Wesley had crawled over beside me.
He was reading over my shoulder. I let him AP. Who's AP? My chief. The man who sent me after you.