The Man Who Hated Ned O'Leary (Dig Two Graves 2)

Something deep inside warned him that touching Ned might stir unwanted feelings, so he took a deep breath and thought of the canned food they’d be eating soon. It had been a mistake, because now there was nausea crawling up his throat instead of hunger.

Why? Why now? Why did Ned have to be there?

He’d initially planned to tie him to a tree, but in this weather the bastard might die without the proximity of the fire, and Cole would not allow that before he got some answers out of the stinking blood sack. In the end, he settled on locking Ned’s neck in an iron collar attached to a chain Lars fastened to the nearest trunk. Their captive couldn’t free himself from it with hands pulled back, yet he’d be close enough to the flames to survive the night.

Cole refused to pull off his gloves as he unbuttoned the collar of Ned’s fur coat to expose his throat. He didn’t want to sense the warmth of his flesh ever again. Ned had to share the sentiment, because he went as far as closing his eyes when Cole was near him.

Unaware of the dense tension hanging in the air, Lars picked up the fallen compass from the snow, and Cole itched to take it from him, jealous of someone else touching the stupid piece of brass Ned had given him all those years ago. Lars chuckled despite still rubbing the new lump on his forehead. “It’s at least a two day ride to Beaver Springs, Mr. Wolfman. How about you tell us what you were trying to achieve by scaring travellers, huh? I need to know what to tell the papers.”

Lars’s idle chatter usually helped Cole take his mind off things. Whether annoying or amusing, it kept demons at bay. Now, Cole wanted him to shut the fuck up for once so he could think.

Ned just snarled in answer.

“Shut the fuck up,” Cole hissed and kicked Ned in the thigh, below his family jewels, which Cole remembered in too vivid detail. This was a disaster. His fingers itched to claw into Ned, but he couldn’t go through with it when Lars was around. Not the way he wanted to at least.

“Cole will be fine… He knows the way…” Ned mumbled, shaking his head.

He made no sense, and that only infuriated Cole further. He slapped Ned’s stupid head. “I said shut up!”

Ned O’Leary would not hang. He would slowly bleed out through the many punctures Cole made in his flesh. He would perish knowing the full extent of Cole’s hate for him and go to hell fearing the moment his scorned lover joined him there.

Lars loved fame and money and would have been furious if he knew of Cole’s intentions, so he needed to be kept in the dark.

Cole made himself sit by the fire again and scowled at the pot where the tomato sauce had reduced too much, becoming a thick paste around the beans. It was only fitting. Yet another stain of shit on this terrible evening.

*

Night turned into day, and as they made their way down the mountain through thawing snow, accompanied by the scent of pine and tweeting of birds, Ned’s presence still felt like a bad dream. The bright sunlight made him more real, and each glance his way hurt Cole’s eyes.

Unlike many of their captives in the past, Ned didn’t try to haggle for his life or make an attempt to befriend them. Maybe he knew that with Cole present, it would have been futile. Every now and then, the green eyes strayed to him though, full of silent questions. Ned looked older and more tired, with reddened eyes and sunburned cheeks, but his gaze was so familiar Cole’s heart stung when it scratched him.

There had been a time when Ned’s eyes had invited Cole as if they were a patch of dense grass in the sun, the kind one wanted to rest on naked and just savor the heat on bare skin. But the intense color had faded, like undergrowth after a whole winter of snow.

The more time he spent in Ned’s company, the more he realized Ned had become a different man—hunched over, unkempt, with a long matted beard and a bush of hair carelessly chopped off in a few places. Ned had been a chunky man when they’d met. He hadn’t gotten any taller, but he did seem larger, sturdier, no longer a boy. He used to have a softness about him, but that was all gone now. The bare forearm that peeked out from between the folds of fabric that were left of the cut sleeve was all muscle, but where there had previously been freckly skin was a mangled mess of flesh.

He was nothing like the man Cole used to love with a fervor only a young man could feel. Back then, he’d have stepped into a burning building for that bastard, naive, and too elated to notice warning signs, like that time Ned had tried to shoot Zeb and claimed it to be an accident, or when he’d sabotaged the initial plan of the train robbery. Or how he’d watched Scotch die in Three Stones without even trying to plead on the poor man’s behalf. Had Cole not been so blind, he’d have seen the truth beneath the lies instead of trying to excuse Ned’s actions every single time. But he was foolish no more.