Ned could have bested him in a fair fight, but just as his hands squeezed into fists, tickling with the itch to feel bone break, Cole let go of him and stepped closer to Tom, a wide grin showing off the whiteness of his teeth.
Behind Tom stood Zeb, who looked exactly like in the posters, down to that permanent frown that made his pale eyes seem darker than they were.
If Ned acted on his pent-up fury now, he might have got Butcher Tom, but Zeb and Scotch, and every other no-good bastard in this camp would walk free. He could not have that, even if Tom was the grisliest of them all. Better to wait.
He’d waited ten years, and he wouldn’t allow his temper to fuck things up.
“Another mongrel. Didn’t we learn anything after the last one?” Zeb hissed while Ned focused on an unusually wide bed that stood in the back of the canvas interior on legs as short as a dachshund’s. It was topped by a pile of embroidered pillows laid out on a Navajo blanket.
Unlike the basic tent Ned slept in when outdoors, this one was not only much larger but set up like a real room, complete with a wooden floor, two dressers, and a desk. A rocking chair filled the corner, and the sight of yarn and knitting needles in its seat spoke of the presence of a woman in Tom’s life. Were the flowers in a vase atop one of the dressers hers as well?
How did a man this cruel, this ruthless, get away with having a comfortable life, even when evading the law?
Anger buzzed in Ned with the force of a hornet swarm, but it was extinguished when the tent entrance let in cool air, and another man strode in. He’d seen a few black men in his life, mostly cowboys drinking away their wages in the Beaver Springs saloon, but he remembered this face well, since William ‘Doc’ Love was known to ride with Butcher Tom.
While lean, he was taller than both Zeb and Tom, but looked younger than the mid-forties claimed by the wanted posters. His black hair and beard were cropped short, but their coiled texture gave his otherwise narrow face width.
In contrast to Butcher Tom’s black outfit and the bedraggled clothes worn by Zeb, at first glance Doc’s exterior was well put together, like that of an office clerk—taupe pants, worn yet clean, with a matching waistcoat and a white shirt. But the dark green bandana that completed the outfit hung low under his throat, revealing a twisted, raised scar running under his Adam’s apple and ruining the illusion of civility in his appearance.
“What is this?” Doc asked, standing between Cole and Tom, large brown eyes narrowed. Like the other two men, he spoke with an accent that was foreign to Ned’s ears and seemed to resonate high under the palate.
“Just more bullet fodder,” Zeb grumbled.
“He knows how to handle a shotgun,” Cole interjected and offered Ned a discreet wink of encouragement, as if the process of being accepted into a gang of criminals were as difficult as getting into one of them fancy universities back east.
“Everyone in this country knows how to shoot. Even the women, so that’s not a special skill,” Tom said, watching Ned with calm interest.
“The last recruit said the same thing, but when it came to shooting at people rather than wolves, he shat his drawers. And now he’s worm feed,” Zeb said and stomped two times, as if it weren’t clear enough that said man was dead.
“Tell me how you found him. I don’t have all night for this,” Tom said, finally taking the cleaver from Ned’s skin. He shoved the knitting supplies off the rocking chair and sat in it, placing one ankle on the knee of his other leg as if he were a king about to listen to the plight of his subjects with the shiny weapon in his hand in lieu of a scepter.
Cole pulled Ned another step forward and stood alongside him, hands on his hips. “We met playin’ poker in a saloon all the way in Beaver Springs. We was cheating, and I might have overreacted when one of the players called me out on it.”
Tom’s lips opened, and he let out a guttural laugh, slowly rocking back and forth in the wooden chair. “Never let anyone call you a fraud, even if you are one,” he said and moved his gaze from Cole to Ned, who stiffened, mistrustful of Tom’s amusement.
“So the man’s greedy for money. How do we know he won’t run to the law to fill his wallet?” Zeb asked in a dark voice.
Tom sighed, and when his brown locks obscured his face, it sunk into shadow. “Do you know who we are, boy?”
“I do now, Mr. Teach. Cole’s been vague, but I’ve seen the posters.” The polite words didn’t sit right on Ned’s tongue, and neither did the butcher’s surname, but he guessed it was expected by someone who called him boy. He looked back at Zeb. “Wouldn’t be here if I wanted to run to the law. Do I want to make some money? Sure, but Cole’s told me y’all live free and unrestricted. Sounds like ingredients for a fine time, because I sure as hell never got to taste freedom living with my uncle. Toil day and night, church on Sunday, and a lick of the belt for no reason.” Exaggerating his suffering at the ranch would surely paint him as more desperate to stay with the gang, so he took Cole’s example and lied with no regrets.