Second part of the story of how Elias Crowe received his scar, during The Ruthless Gang’s attack on Vincent Voss’s stagecoach.
The Scar: After Crazyman
Crazyman jerked his chin toward Bones. “Open ’em up. Let’s see what Mr. Voss brought us.”
Bones pried one of the crates open and just stared down into it. “What the hell is this?”
Crazyman walked over. I looked too.
Books. Whole damn crates of them.
Books and little glass bottles, all wrapped careful so they wouldn’t break getting knocked around on the road. Moss opened another crate on the far side of the stage and dug through it with one hand.
“More of the same,” he said. “Books, bottles, little boxes.”
Crazyman didn’t answer. He just stood there looking over the cargo for a few seconds, and I knew that was bad. When he got mad all at once, he was dangerous. When he went quiet first, he was worse.
Then he turned slow toward Voss. “Where is it?”
Voss looked at him like he didn’t understand. “That is the cargo.”
Crazyman backhanded him across the face. The girl cried out. Voss stumbled but stayed on his feet.
“I didn’t ask what’s in the crates,” Crazyman said. “I asked where the valuable stuff is.”
“There isn’t anything else.”
“Don’t waste my damn time.”
“I’m telling you the truth. It’s books and medicine.”
Crazyman hit him again, and this time Voss went down on his knees.
I looked back at the crates. I couldn’t read whatever was printed along the spines of those books. They could’ve been full of secrets, sermons, or recipes for cooking rats and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to me. But I knew medicine when I saw it, and it sure as hell didn’t look like treasure.
Voss raised his head. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. “It’s bound for a mission,” he said. “Supplies. I’m carrying no gold, no money, no hidden merchandise. If you were told otherwise, then whoever told you was wrong.”
Crazyman gave a short laugh. “You expect me to believe Vincent Voss rides out here himself for a wagonload of books?”
“You can believe whatever you please. There’s nothing else.”
“A man like you don’t climb aboard a stage just to look after a few bottles.”
“I’m not looking after bottles. I’m traveling with my daughter.”
Crazyman cocked his head a little. “Oh.”
Just one word, but something changed. I saw it in his face. I’d seen that look before. It was the look he got when somebody pushed back one time too many and he decided he wasn’t trying to get something out of them anymore.
He was fixing to punish them.
Crazyman grabbed Voss by the hair and yanked his head back. “Now you listen real careful. I’m gonna ask you one more time. Where’s the real cargo?”
“There is no other cargo.”
The girl took a step toward them. “Let him go.”
Bones stuck out an arm and stopped her.
Crazyman looked over at her, then let Voss go and walked toward the girl. “Come here.”
She tried backing away.
“Don’t touch her,” Voss said.
He started to rise, but Crazyman pointed the knife at him. “On your knees.”
Voss stopped. Crazyman caught the girl by the arm and hauled her back against his chest. She started fighting him, all the color draining out of her face.
“Let go of me.”
“Hold still,” Crazyman said, tightening his grip. “Ain’t gotta end bad for you.”
Voss lifted his head. “Leave her out of this.”
“You brought her into it when you decided to lie to me.”
Up till then, Voss had kept his voice low and near enough calm, like a man who knew one wrong word might get somebody killed. Not anymore.
“Please. She has nothing to do with this. Whatever you want from me, do it to me.”
Crazyman laid the edge of his knife against the girl’s throat, and the whole world went strange. Not quiet. Strange. I could still hear the horses shifting in their harness, the wounded guard breathing hard, a loose stone tumbling somewhere down the slope. I could hear Moss moving around behind me and a fly buzzing near the blood in the dirt, but it all sounded far off.
The girl quit struggling and Voss stayed on his knees.
“I’m telling you,” he said. “There’s nothing else. Search every crate. Take the horses, take the stage, take whatever you find. Just let her go.”
Crazyman pressed the blade a little closer. “Then your daughter’s gonna die over a bunch of books.”
Voss broke. “No. Please. Please don’t hurt her. I swear to you, there’s nothing else.”
I’d never heard a man beg like that.
I looked at the girl. I didn’t see the dress anymore. Didn’t see the shoes. Didn’t think about what any of it cost. All I saw was a scared girl trying not to move her neck against a knife, eyes wide and breathing so careful it looked like she was afraid even that might get her killed.
Crazyman tightened his arm.
I didn’t think.
I DREW MY REVOLVER AND FIRED.
Crazyman twisted with the impact, and the girl dropped away from him. Somebody yelled my name, though I couldn’t tell who. For half a heartbeat I looked for Mate through the dust without knowing why, then I aimed at a shape moving near the stage and fired again.
Everything went to hell.
Shots came from damn near everywhere. The guard who’d been on his knees lunged for his gun. Bones turned on him, and Moss yelled something from higher up the slope. Powder smoke mixed with the dust till the whole pass turned into a brown-gray cloud, shapes moving inside it without faces.
I saw Mate with his revolver stretched out toward one of the guards.
That was the last time I knew where he was.
I fired again at something moving through the dust. A shot answered from somewhere behind the stage. One of the horses screamed and tried to break loose, the reins snapping tight as the coach groaned behind it. Somebody went down near one of the wheels.
Couldn’t tell who.
I pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Tried once more.
Click.
Shit.
Crazyman came at me.
There was blood all down the side of his shirt where my first shot had caught him, a dark patch spreading wider by the second, but he was still moving fast.
Too damn fast.
I dropped the revolver and drew my knife. He hit me before I could get my feet under me right, and we went down hard in the dirt. His elbow caught me in the mouth, then I had grit and blood between my teeth and the weight of him crushing the air outta me. I slashed at him from too close and hit nothing.
He didn’t miss.
Pain ripped across my face. I didn’t even know what he’d done till hot blood ran into my eye and down my cheek.
I screamed.
Crazyman grabbed a fistful of my shirt and hauled me up toward him. “You son of a bitch!” he roared. “After everything I done for you, you shoot me over some damn little girl?”
His teeth were smeared with blood. I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine. I saw the knife flash again and tried to pull away.
The blade cut across my face a second time.
The pain went white.
For a moment I couldn’t see a damn thing. I kicked, swung, tried shoving an arm between us—anything I could. Crazyman slammed me back into the dirt. He was stronger. He’d always been stronger.
He hit me with the butt of the knife and I felt something split open inside my mouth.
“I fed you,” he said. “Nobody else gave a damn what happened to you, but I fed you. Gave you a horse. Gave you a place to sleep. And this is how you pay me back?”
Don’t know why I remember that. Of everything he yelled, that’s what stayed with me.
I fed you.
And it was true. He had fed me. He’d also called me useless, coward, idiot, and Pretty Boy so many times I’d quit counting. Made me sleep outside for mouthing off. Kicked me when he was drunk. Had Mate stepping between us more than once just to get him off me.
Always Mate.
Sometimes all it took was him showing up beside me for Crazyman to decide he’d had enough fun. I’d never asked him why he did it.
Crazyman had fed me. And now he was gonna kill me.
He raised the knife. “Look what you made me turn this into, Elias.”
I threw my own blade up. Didn’t aim worth a damn.
Got lucky.
The edge caught his wrist.
Crazyman yelled and his hand opened. The knife dropped into the dirt. We both saw it. He went for it.
I went for Crazyman.
I drove my knife into whatever I could reach. Once. He jerked back and tried grabbing my wrist. I stabbed him again. He shoved me. I kept going.
I didn’t know where the blade was landing.
Chest.
Side.
Arm.
Crazyman stumbled and went down, and I went down on top of him. I kept stabbing.
Once.
Again.
Again.
I wasn’t thinking about the girl. Wasn’t thinking about Voss. Wasn’t thinking about anything. All I knew was if Crazyman got back up, he was gonna kill me, so I didn’t give him the chance.
I raised the knife and brought it down again.
And again.
Somebody was screaming. Might’ve been me.
Then I saw his face. Crazyman wasn’t trying to cover himself anymore. Wasn’t reaching for me. Wasn’t looking for the knife he’d dropped.
He wasn’t doing anything.
I stopped. The knife slipped outta my hand.
I tried to breathe. Couldn’t.
I got to my feet. Or tried to.
The dust still hung in the air around me, like the fight was hiding somewhere inside it. The smell of gunpowder was bitter and thick. The horses were still worked up, harness leather creaking whenever they pulled, and somewhere close by a man was groaning.
Crazyman was at my feet. Bones lay farther off. Moss was down near the road. One of the guards wasn’t moving either.
The other one was still alive, slumped against a wheel of the stage with his legs caught up in Mate’s bolas. The cords had wrapped around his calves several times, and one of the leather-covered weights still rested in the dirt not far from his boots. Must’ve tried to make a run for it during the fight, and Mate had brought him down before he got far.
Voss was alive.
The girl too.
I looked for Mate. I couldn’t see him.
I turned toward the last place I remembered seeing him, revolver aimed at the guard. Nobody there. I looked toward the rocks, up the slope, down the way out of the pass. Nothing.
For a moment, none of the rest of it seemed to matter.
“Mate...”
Don’t know if I said it loud enough for anybody to hear. I waited for him to come out from behind some rock. Waited to hear some fool remark about Pretty Boy, or that piece of meat I’d thrown at him.
Anything.
Nothing.
I tried taking a step and my legs gave out under me. I dropped to my knees, then rolled onto my side with the hot ground pressed against my face.
I heard movement. Somebody running toward me.
The girl came into view. Voss’s daughter. There were tears running down her face, and she looked near as scared as she had with Crazyman’s knife against her throat. That expensive dress I’d noticed when she climbed down from the stage was covered in dust now, dark stains ground into the knees.
She dropped down beside me and said something I couldn’t make out, then I felt her hands on me.
I heard her father’s voice somewhere behind her.
“Is the boy alive?”
The girl answered, but her words got lost beneath the sound of my own breathing.
I tried opening my eyes.
Couldn’t.
Then there was nothing.