Like P.T. Barnum entering the stage to introduce yet another wild animal to a curiosity-starved public, Lars tipped his hat at anyone looking his way, and basked in both sunshine and interest, smiling as if he wanted to boast about the whiteness of his teeth. He must have taken lessons when they’d visited a circus last year.
“All will be revealed soon!” he promised to a stranger who hadn’t asked him anything.
“Who is that scarecrow?” a young man inquired, smoking a cigarette on the porch of the stagecoach depot as if he had no work to attend to.
“None of your concern,” Cole said and rode up to Lars, taking Ned’s lead from his hand.
His hat sat low on his brow to overshadow the face someone might by chance recognize, but he’d had more than enough time to settle into his fugitive status. The reason why the underside of his skin simmered, and his back beaded with sweat despite the March cold, had nothing to do with danger and everything with this being the end of the line. The moment he gave up Ned to the sheriff, he’d lose his chance to find out the true motives behind Ned’s betrayal.
Ned O’Leary might hang for crimes both against society and the Gotham Boys, but his death would leave Cole in the dark, with no answers, robbed of the closure he so desperately needed. He wanted to be the one to pull the trigger or push a rusty blade into Ned’s guts and watch him bleed out for days.
Lars urged his horse closer to Cole’s. “Listen, take him behind the shop nearby. I’ll go see the sheriff first and drum up some Wolfman fever to get us a better payout.”
Cole’s throat pulsed with excitement, but he was set on keeping the extent of his animosity toward Ned secret from Lars. It was too private to share with anyone. Too painful.
“Fine. Take your time,” he said, struggling not to be overly enthusiastic in the way he slid off Carol’s back.
Ned met his eyes with a bloodshot glare. Maybe he looked like a man about to go mad because he hadn’t gotten his daily dose of booze, maybe he was furious over the gag in his mouth. It didn’t matter, because his comfort wasn’t anyone’s priority.
Cole led both the horse and Ned along the wooden building, already thinking about the creek behind it. At a small distance from people’s houses, the stream was surrounded by little patches of leftover snow where the sun didn’t reach, and appeared peaceful with only birds to witness what Cole was about to do.
He left Carol at the hitching post and glared Ned’s way. He needed to show the bastard that he wasn’t afraid of what Ned represented. That he’d moved on, even though in his heart Cole was so painfully aware that he had not. With it being so much warmer down in the valley, they’d been forced to take the fur coat off Ned, which left him in an old set of buckskins with large, unskilled stitches where the clothes had ripped from use. Now that he no longer wore a hood, the dense tangles in his hair and beard were impossible to miss, and Cole found himself wondering whether Ned didn’t have bug nests in there. It would have been fitting.
“Follow me,” he said, looking away from the bloodshot gaze and led his prisoner down the slope, away from curious ears and prying eyes. They’d still be within the vicinity of the town but at a comfortable distance for what Cole intended. Now that he finally had his chance to be alone with the man he’d hated for the past seven years, the everyday hustle and bustle of Beaver Springs was like a splinter in his eye. People meant anyone might walk in on the interrogation Cole had in mind, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
The bright rays seeping through tree tops painted nature with a gold sheen, overlaying the lush greenery of spring. Were Cole a different man, the man he used to be seven years ago, he’d have used this opportunity to enjoy the heat and watch the stream while birds sang in the trees above, calling out to him.
Ned used to call out to him too, making the most thrilling noises, even though his mouth and tongue didn’t seem any different from any other man’s. They used to have a secret code to communicate among people who shouldn’t know the true nature of their relationship. Cole had never learned to make those sounds correctly, and ended up using bird language with the same efficiency he read and wrote.
So many fond memories poisoned with venom that had been brewing all along just under Cole’s nose. If he hadn’t dismissed the concerns he’d had about Ned’s behavior, his found family would have been still together, and his almost-father alive and well.