First part of the story of how Elias Crowe received his scar, during The Ruthless Gang’s attack on Vincent Voss’s stagecoach.
The Scar I: Before Voss
There were about two hours left before the stagecoach was due when Mate decided to waste what little yerba he had left. I was sitting on a flat rock, working on a strip of dried meat tougher than saddle leather, watching him pack that green crap into his gourd like a man fixing up some high-priced medicine.
The sun wasn’t straight overhead yet, but it was already baking the rocks and making the air shimmer over the road. There wasn’t much around us but dry dirt, yellow scrub, and stone. The pass narrowed between a steep hillside on one side and a low shelf of red rock on the other, and from up there we could see a long stretch of pale, dusty road. Good place for an ambush. We’d see a stage coming long before anybody aboard had a prayer of seeing us.
Mate poured the water slow. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms and his hat sat pushed back a little on his head. Beside him, next to his rifle, he’d left his bolas neatly coiled, the cords wrapped tight around the leather-covered weights the way he always kept them when they weren’t hanging off his belt.
“I still don’t know how the hell you drink that stuff,” I told him. “Smells like wet grass and tastes worse.”
Mate didn’t even look up. “That’s ’cause you got the taste of a dog.”
“Dog wouldn’t drink that shit.”
“Dog’s got better taste than you, Elias.”
I laughed, and he did too. It was strange seeing him like that around the others. Mate didn’t say much most times, and when he did, it was usually ’cause he had something worth saying. With me, he was different. His face loosened up, he smiled more, and sometimes he even looked the age he really was.
He pushed the bombilla down into the yerba, took a sip, and twisted his mouth. “Hell, this ain’t even good. Yerba’s old.”
“Then throw it out.”
Mate looked up at me like I’d just told him to burn down a church. “Throw it out? You know how damn hard this stuff is to find out here? Ain’t nobody selling yerba. Half of ’em don’t even know what the hell it is. I gotta ask around every town like some fool.”
“Maybe that’s ’cause nobody wants to drink it.”
“Back home, everybody drinks it.”
“Then your whole damn country’s full of fools.”
Mate bumped me with his shoulder. “Keep eating. You get hungry tonight, don’t come begging me for mine.”
I kept chewing, though for a spell I caught myself watching him drink again. There was something easy about seeing him do the same things he always did, like nothing alive could hurry him much: fixing that awful drink, checking his revolver, looking over a saddle, working knots loose from the cords of his bolas when they got tangled. Mate could do just about anything slow, even when everybody else was wound tight. I looked away before he caught me staring.
From where we sat, we could see a piece of the road below. Moss had picked the place, or maybe Crazyman had. Hard to tell who came up with anything before Crazyman decided it’d been his idea all along. My hands were cold even though the day sure wasn’t, and Mate noticed.
“It’ll go fine,” he said.
“I know it’ll go fine.”
“Sure don’t look like you know it.”
“I’m eating, ain’t I?”
Mate pointed at the meat with the gourd. “You’re trying to kill that thing twice.”
I looked down at the strip in my hand. “It’s tough.”
“It’s dried meat, Elias.”
I took another bite just to prove something, though damned if I knew what. I’d done jobs before, more than one. I’d been riding with them a little over a year by then, and I already knew the sound of a horse being hauled up hard, the scrape of a man reaching for iron when he shouldn’t, and the look folks got when they figured out whatever they were carrying didn’t belong to them anymore. I’d learned to sleep outside, eat when there was food, and not ask too many questions about where it came from. Learned, too, that a revolver could settle an argument a hell of a lot faster than talking.
But this one was different. The stage belonged to Voss, and Vincent Voss himself was riding in it. Crazyman said no rich bastard hauled his own ass across country for cargo that wasn’t worth something, and I reckoned he had a point. Most things Crazyman said made sense right up until he kept talking.
“You planning on puking before the job or after, Pretty Boy?”
His voice came from behind us, and Mate stopped smiling. That change in him was always quick. All it took was hearing Crazyman’s voice and something in him shut tight.
Crazyman was coming down the slope, buckling his gun belt as he walked. He was broad, weather-beaten, and hard to look in the eye for long, not because there was anything especially ugly about him, but because you never knew when one of his jokes was fixing to turn into a fist. Bones followed with his rifle slung over one shoulder, while Moss was farther up the slope checking one of the two rifles he carried everywhere, like he expected a whole damn army to come pouring over the next ridge.
“I ain’t gonna puke,” I said.
“Good,” Crazyman said. “Got enough trouble making sure you useless bastards don’t foul this up without having to watch where I step.”
Mate drank from his mate without looking at him. I knew that way he had of going still. Crazyman knew it too.
Crazyman stopped in front of me and looked down at the meat still in my hand. “You still need yourself a name.”
“I got one. Elias.”
“Elias ain’t no bandit’s name.”
“It’s still mine.”
Crazyman grinned. “Then we oughta fix that. Pretty Boy’ll do till you come up with something better.”
Bones laughed behind him.
“Don’t call me that.”
Crazyman’s grin got wider, which was worse. “Then find yourself a proper nickname before I do it for you. Now get your useless asses moving. That stage ain’t gonna sit around while you two finish your little date.”
I felt my ears go hot. Mate got to his feet before I did, and as he passed Crazyman he gave me a quick pat on the shoulder.
“C’mon, Pretty Boy. Best not keep the boss waiting.”
I stared at him. Mate held a straight face for maybe two steps before he started laughing. I couldn’t help grinning too.
I threw the meat at him.
We took our positions well before the stage showed. I had my revolver and my knife, nothing else. The others carried rifles along with their sidearms, and Moss, like always, had two. I tucked myself in behind some low rocks where I could cover a good piece of the road. The heat had started coming down hard by then, and every time the wind kicked up it put dust in my mouth. The whole place smelled of dry earth, horse sweat, and hot leather.
Mate was across the pass, half-hidden among the rocks. I could barely make him out from where I sat, but when our eyes met he gave me a small nod. Didn’t smile. He wasn’t the same young fool who’d been laughing with me a little while before, and somehow that settled me some.
The sun was high when the dust cloud showed in the distance. At first it was no more than a smudge trembling over the road, then we made out the horses, and finally the stage itself, lumbering heavy between the walls of the pass. I felt that old pull in my gut that always came right before a job.
Crazyman raised one hand. We waited. The stage kept coming. I could hear the wheels rattling over stone and the horses blowing before I could make out the faces of the men riding up front. It rolled into the narrow stretch of road.
Crazyman dropped his hand.
Everything happened fast. Bones came out first from behind the rocks. Moss showed himself higher up with one rifle braced against his shoulder, aimed straight at the driver’s box, while Crazyman stepped into the middle of the road and hollered for them to stop. Mate and I closed off the far end.
The horses hauled up hard. One wheel struck a rock, and the whole stage lurched sideways before settling back down. There were two armed guards riding with it, and one of them did exactly what Crazyman had told us not to let happen.
He went for his gun.
A shot cracked. I didn’t see who fired. The man slammed back against one of the wheels, clutching his arm as blood started soaking through his sleeve almost at once. The other guard threw both hands up. The horses snorted against their harness, and one of them pawed at the ground hard enough to kick up little bursts of dust.
“Everybody down!” Crazyman hollered. “Slow and easy! Next bastard reaches for iron won’t live long enough to regret it.”
The driver obeyed. So did the guard who hadn’t been hit. I kept my revolver trained on them, though I doubt the barrel was holding all that steady.
Mate’s was.
Mate was always steady.
Crazyman pulled open the stage door and stepped back. “Come on out, Voss. You first. And don’t go doing anything stupid.”
The man climbed down first. Vincent Voss. I knew him because Crazyman had told us what he’d be wearing, and because no other man for twenty miles would’ve been dressed like that on a road full of dust. Even after the ride he still looked too clean for the place. His boots were dirt-covered and there was a fine coat of dust over his shoulders, but it wasn’t near enough to make him look like one of us.
Then his daughter stepped down. First thing I thought was that her dress had to be worth more than everything I had on me. Maybe more than my horse.
Fourteen, we’d been told. She looked it. Her hair was still fixed neat despite the ride, her clothes were clean, and her shoes looked like they’d never once known real mud.
She kept looking from one of us to the next, trying to figure which one was the most dangerous. Spoiled little rich girl.
Envy was the first thing I felt.