The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

Pearl gave an ecstatic cry, but few followed her example, standing in the middle of the town that had become a cemetery overnight. Butcher Tom’s fingers twitched, and he lowered his cleaver in silence, his gaze like a wordless threat.

Zeb jumped off his horse and stood by Tom’s side. “All that you find is yours to pillage.”

It told Ned a lot about the character of the men next to him when those words spurred them to leave their horses, even if without much enthusiasm. Craw caught his gaze and spread his arms, as if he felt singled out by Ned staring at him.

“What? They’re already dead,” he whispered and turned without waiting for an answer.

Next to him, weighed down by the stares of his seniors, Cole dismounted, his face stiff. Ned knew what he was thinking. Had Tom been slighted ten years back, when Cole had still lived here, he and his mother would have been as dead as the sandwich board boy, despite having done absolutely nothing wrong.

The men dispersed, running for buildings they believed might hold the most valuables. As Ned tried to keep control of the nausea gnawing at his insides, a loud bang made everyone freeze.

Pearl stumbled out of an alleyway between the whorehouse and a gaming den, hand clutched to her stomach, where her shirt was quickly turning red. She fell to her knees and stared at a young woman clad in a night dress, who must have somehow avoided the poison, because she was still standing.

The girl screamed in horror but held on to the shotgun that seemed too big for her hands. “Stay back! Stay back!”

“That’s my wife!” Tom roared, storming at her as if he couldn’t see the firearm in the girl’s hand. Zeb shot into the air, drawing her attention to him.

“You know how to handle that, little girl? You’ll be regretting your choices!”

She gave a frantic wheeze and faced him, ready to defend herself from the man aiming at her, but Tom slashed the cleaver at her form so fast she didn’t get to turn toward him. The impact threw her at the wall, and the blade hacked into her throat, cutting it all the way to the spine. Her eyes widened as blood gushed down the front of her dress, but no sound came out as she opened her mouth in the last effort to scream. She collapsed into the dirt the moment Tom pulled the cleaver out of flesh, leaving her behind as if she were trash.

“Goddamn it! Told you not to come,” he said, kneeling next to Pearl, who laughed into his face despite the pain she surely felt, and said something that had him shake his head.

Zeb took a deep breath and left Tom tending to his woman. “Do your jobs!” he said, taking over as the star in this spectacle of gore and cruelty.

Half the men didn’t bother to stay and check on Pearl, too busy looting to worry about one of the people they supposedly owed loyalty to.

Ned dismounted, half-convinced this was a nightmare, and he hadn’t yet woken up. The other option was that Zeb had slit his throat in the night and he was now in hell.

He knew he needed to move, but his body was so stiff he could hear his own joints crack. So many souls lived in Three Stones when he’d visited the town a couple of days ago, but they were now all dead or still suffering because of Scotch’s unfortunate end. Most of the inhabitants hadn’t even been there to witness it. If Ned hadn’t been so slow to act, so selfish, the Pinkertons could have arrived here by now, maybe brought U.S. marshals with them, and put an end to the gang. But he wanted more time with Cole, without the need to deal with the inevitable fallout.

If Ned had thought beyond his hard prick and soft heart, he could have prevented this massacre.

He could sense the scorch of Zeb’s eyes on him, so he approached the nearest body, of a man who’d died clutching at his throat, and stabbed him once. Twice. The poor sod’s flesh was so blue Ned almost expected his blood to match that hue. His muscles ached, as if he’d walked through the desert all day and all night, without any water to wet his parched throat, and the heat of the sun had affected him already, turning the edges of his vision fuzzy.

He continued down the road, stepping away when Craw ran out of the general store, chased by a new member they’d only picked up a week back. They tripped over the lifeless corpse of the shopkeeper, screaming about who’d gotten to the valuables first, but Ned walked on, to the very middle of the street, struggling to breathe.

He recognized the Red Lily by the red lanterns at the porch and the empty lounging chair by the entrance. The older woman he’d briefly spoken to just days ago was gone.