Kindle refused. I held out my hand. Enloe ignored my crooked, knobby fingers, foreign to me even now, weeks later, and turned his attention to Kindle. I drank from the bottle and held the rotgut in my mouth, barely resisting the urge to spit it into the fire. It was whisky in name only. The liquid scorched my throat as I swallowed, burned a hole in my stomach. I held the back of my hand to my mouth and saw Enloe watching me with a knowing smirk. Keeping my eyes on him, I drank another swallow, did not wince as it made its way down, and kept the bottle. I only hoped it would numb the pain before Enloe tried to kill us.
Kindle didn’t move, flinch or take his eyes from Enloe. His rifle lay on the ground next to him, barely out of reach. Neither moved. “You’d think the massacre and hanging Injuns would be enough to be going on with, but that ain’t even the most interesting story outta Jacksboro,” Enloe said.
“No?”
“Jacksboro was overflowin’ with people there celebrating, wanting to see those two redskins hang. Gov’nor killed their fun, staying their execution. I imagine they’ve turned their attention now to the fugitives.”
“Fugitives?”
“The Murderess and the Major, that’s what the newspaper’s calling ’em. Catchy name, at that.”
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Woman who survived the massacre, turns out she’s out here on the run. Course, she ain’t alone in that, is she? Heh-heh. Supposed to have saved the Major right after the massacre, but we have it from his nigger soldiers so it’s probably a lie.”
I bristled and drank more of Enloe’s whisky to avoid speaking.
“Just like a woman, lured the Major into fallin’ in love with her. He threw his career away to go off an save her from the Comanche and then sprung her before the Pinkerton could come take her back to New York.”
Enloe put a finger against one nostril and shot a stream of snot onto the ground. “Some think they headed north to the railroad, or maybe south to Mexico. The Pinkerton thought they stayed in the tent city sprung up outside a Jacksboro for the trial. Tore it to pieces one night, searching. Torched a few nigger tents for the hell of it. He’s mad cause he was in town that night.”
“What night?”
“The night they escaped. I heard tell he decided to go whoring instead of taking the Murderess into custody, as he shoulda. He tore through the tent city like the devil. ’Course, nothing came of it. The Major ain’t stupid.”
“You know him?” Kindle said.
“Nah, but I heard of him. Has a scar down the side of his face, said to be given to him by his brother in the War.”
“The Pinkerton go back East?”
“Can’t very well without his prisoner, now can he?”
I glanced at Kindle, whose expression was closed. Enloe pulled a plug of tobacco from his vest pocket. He tore off a chunk and chewed on it a bit, his gaze never wavering from us. He spit a brown stream into the fire. The spittle sizzled and a log fell. “Wouldya lookit?” He laughed up and down the scale again. “Kinda hot out for a fire.”
“Thought I’d make it easy for you to find us.”
“Didja now?”
“You’ve been shadowing us for three days. You aren’t as good as you think you are.”
“Well, I found you, didn’t I?”
“Oh, you weren’t the first,” Kindle said. Enloe’s smile slipped. “And, you won’t be the last.”
In a smooth, easy motion, Enloe leveled his gun at Kindle. “I seem to have caught you without your gun handy.”
“True. What made you come into Indian Territory? Alone.”
“Who said I’m alone?”
“My scout.”
“What scout?”
“The one who’s been shadowing you for three days. Where’s the Pinkerton?”
“I—”
I heard the tomahawk cut through the air the second before it cleaved Enloe’s skull cleanly down the middle. Blood ran crookedly down his scarred head, like a river cutting through a winding canyon. He tipped over onto his side.
I drank his whisky, and watched him die.
By Melissa Lenhardt
Laura Elliston Novels
Sawbones
Stillwater
Jack McBride Mysteries
Stillwater
The Fisher King
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
PART ONE: TEXAS CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PART THREE: PALO DURO CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Meet the Author
Bonus Material
By Melissa Lenhardt
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Melissa Lenhardt
Excerpt from Blood Oath copyright © 2016 by Melissa Lenhardt
Reading group guide copyright © 2016 by Melissa Lenhardt and Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Cover design by Wendy Chan
Cover image © Arcangel Images, Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ebook ISBN: 978-0-316-38672-2
E3-20160411-DA-PC