Chapter 6
Persuasion
No Vacancy
LIFE had been less than genial this past year. Uncountable nights of half sleep strung out, one after another, to be followed by endless days of hunting a trail so thin as to be composed mostly of supposition. The glance of a stranger, the snap of a twig, a whisper in the night, all could indicate danger— and a man riding alone had to be doubly careful. Gideon’s past had tangled with his future like two blackberry vines until his entire life had become one solid Gordian knot.
“Seb?” Amos Rivers said from the wagon’s bench seat. “Are you ready?”
Not missing a beat, Gideon responded to the false name.
Why not? We’ve had practice ‘nough.
True for you.
“Whyn’t y’all gimme a minute in there alone?” he said aloud.
“We promised to help,” Amos replied, laying an encouraging hand on Gideon’s shoulder, “and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Gideon took a breath to vent his feelings regarding that hand and the attached helpfulness, but bit it back. He had to get to Neilly. Rivers could be set straight later.
They were admitted into the sheriff’s office by the same dark-haired boy Gideon had tackled on the ridge, the one who no better than to look into bright flames but not how to avoid bullets.
Funny how ya keep a-gettin’ guarded by the same folks whose lives ya done saved, ain’t it?
Hilarious.
“How’s it going, Lee?” said Amos, embracing the young man.
“Fine, Pa.”
Oh good. Another son.
“You din’t mention he were no kin a-yourn,” Gideon accused Aspen, who merely grinned.
Ya know, with our current run-a luck, even the sheriff’ll end up bein’ some brand-a kin to these folks.
Heaven help us.
“Most folks have gone home,” the sheriff volunteered, coming out of the lockup. “It’s just a few hotheads now. Hello, Amos, boys. You come to check on us?”
“Well, Luke, we need to talk to you,” Amos answered, with a nod at Gideon.
Luke led them to his quarters, barely more comfortable than a cell, and heard his visitors out.
“Sentencing is up to the judge these days, but I don’t see why you can’t have a chat,” he agreed.
The sheriff fetched the prisoner known to some as Jim Neilly and deposited him on the room’s only chair.
“What is this? What do you want?” Neilly demanded.
The skinny little man resembled a rabbit that couldn’t decide which threat was worse: the sheriff, Amos, or why the door had been closed against witnesses. Gideon pulled himself from a corner and shifted into the flickering lamplight. Winding this one up would be easy, he’d already done half the job all by himself.
“Hello, Tom. Been a while.”
The prisoner flinched. “It’s Jim. Jim Neilly.”
Gideon nodded. “Yep. I’d've changed my name too. Fast.”
“Who says I changed anything? Who are you?”
“Think back a year an’ more. Up north a-ways, real north, Elk River country.”
Impossible. Who would know him from way out there? There couldn’t be— and then the man who couldn’t decide who he was took a good look at the scrawny fragment of memory standing in front of him.
“Wait. . . you’re that kid from the Harris place.”
“That’s right,” Gideon said, soft and easy like. “You’re sure in a sight-a trouble, Tom. I don’t mean petty thievin’ neither. That there ain’t nothin’ compared to murder.”
Neilly’s eyes widened and his instant denial required no thought whatsoever.
“I didn’t do anything. And I told you, it’s Jim Neilly.”
Gideon put his hands in his pockets, slouched against the stone wall and drew one foot up casually.
“Funny,” he said, taking his time, “Tarlston sure swears you’re guilty as sin. To hear ‘im talk, you were part of-a, lemme see, a ‘gang-a ruthless crim’nals’ I do b’lieve were his very words. You and that other fellah, what’s-his-name.”
“He’s lying!” Nelson jumped up. Gandy pushed him back down and Neilly’s attention locked on the lawman. “I swear I never murdered nobody.”
“There’s eight men’d climb out-a their graves an’ call you a liar,” Gideon asserted.
“I didn’t want no part of that. It wasn’t right.”
“Ya done rode with ‘em, Nelson. You an’ blondy.”
“It wasn’t right,” Nelson repeated, with the passion of the trapped.
It wasn’t right? Three simple words had never sounded so grossly offensive to Gideon. How could Nelson have the temerity— the unmitigated gall— to sit there and try to erase everything away as if nothing had happened?
Easy, boyo. Keep your head.
“Mebbe,” Gideon forced himself to shrug, “but it’s you they’re a-fixin’ to hang.”
“It was too long ago,” Nelson squirmed.
“Not where murder’s concerned,” the sheriff replied.
“They can’t make it stick.” Nelson’s eyes flicked from man to man and he swallowed hard. “There’s no proof.”
Gotcha.
Gideon picked up the hint of desperation Nelson handed him, levered it against the fear Tarlston had done such a fine job of instilling, and pushed.
“C’mon, Tom, ya know that ain’t how this works. Tarlston owns that there town. There ain’t ‘nough-a nothin’ nor nobody to tell ‘im diff’rent neither. Worse for you, his bought-an’-paid-for lawman’s the justice-a the peace too. One word from Tarlston an’ you’ll swing. Man like that can’t a-fford to look bad, but it don’t mean spit to ‘im if’n you do. An’ you can take it from me, mister, ain’t nary a soul in that whole terr’tory gonna lift a finger to help ya.”
Same as they din’t do nothin’ to help Harris.
Nelson-become-Neilly was looking downright panicked. Gideon had drawn him a pretty good picture, only Nelson didn’t need it; he knew Tarlston’s influence firsthand.
“I-I tried to stop it,” he sputtered.
Did ya stand up? Did ya even bother to get off-a your infernal knees?
Men were dead. Better men than Nelson could ever hope to be. How dare he sit there mumbling about how it wasn’t right. Gideon fought a burning desire to beat Nelson into an unrecognizable speck of a grease stain. Unfortunately, he still needed the spineless, milk-sop excuse for a man.
“Look—” Nelson tried.
“It’s Tarlston ya gotta worry ’bout,” Gideon explained, before Nelson could say anything more. “An’ I can help ya.”
Nelson's stared stupidly. “You’d speak for me?”
“To who? Tarlston ain't gonna bother askin’ no questions. He ain’t gonna let nobody else ask none neither. We have to take him. Then you’ll be safe.”
The reassuring words fouled Gideon’s mouth. He felt like he was trying to talk around a mouth full of congealed cooking fat.
“How?” said Nelson hesitantly because, in his experience, that kind of offer always came with a price, usually one not payable in cash.
“Give a full statement to Sheriff Gandy,” Amos cut in. “Include everything you know about how Tarlston operates. We’ll see to it every western man who can read gets a copy.”
We? Whenall did Rivers become part-a nothin’?
Were you as said settin’ ‘im straight could wait.
I din’t know he were gonna turn this into no ‘we’.
He ain’t. Now listen up afore Rivers ruins ever’thing.
“That’s right,” Gideon agreed, schooling his voice to its most mellifluous. “Folks’ll ask themselves if’n they oughta do business with the likes of Tarlston.”
“He’ll kill me,” Nelson countered, with absolute and terrible conviction.
“No one’ll work for ‘im.” Gideon wasn’t entirely sure this was true, but it sounded good. “No one’ll kill for ‘im again.”
What ‘bout Mordaki?
&nb
sp; The others, their loyalty to Tarlston, or any man, had a direct correlation to the size of their pay packet. Mordaki couldn’t spell loyalty with a brick-thick dictionary and he didn’t care about money. The reason he did his job, the actual dirt sifted out reason he took any job, was for pure malevolent pleasure.
“He’ll find a way,” Nelson was saying, and his whole body resonated fear. “He’ll kill me.”
“Suppose he believed you were dead?” Amos suggested.
Gideon came off the wall. If Nelson found out he was already long forgotten to Tarlston, Gideon’s leverage would be smashed to bits.
Wrong card, boyo.
Right. Right. ’Course. I done forgetted.
The hazard of weaving deceptions was that you could get caught up in your own momentum. If Gideon wasn’t careful, Rivers would steer matters right out of his hands. Then where would he be?
Standin’ in the middle of-a lie an’ nothin’ to show.
Ain’t likely.
“Hear me out,” Amos said smoothly, as if to Nelson. “Suppose we could arrange for Tarlston to believe you had already been caught and hanged, then would you do it?”
Nelson worried at the handcuffs encircling his wrists. He was not accustomed to gambling against the capricious temperaments of dangerous men.
“We could say there was an outstanding warrant on you,” Sheriff Gandy added. “One of my deputies could set you on your way to the States, or wherever, and run an advertisement that you’d been executed. It’s up to the judge of course but, as it stands, you’re lined up to hang twice.”
“Twice?” Nelson squeaked.
“Murder and rustling,” Gandy smiled. “I know it sort of piles up on a fellow, but we keep a list.”
“This here’s your out,” Gideon coaxed. “The world’d think Jim Neilly were dead an’ Tom Nelson right ‘long with ‘im. Call it your deathbed confession— a chance to wash away your sins afore ya move on.”
The phrasing was a dirty trick but, if it served the purpose, Nelson was welcome to believe it. He squinted at Gideon, worried eyes searching.
“You would do this? After—”
“Help me get Tarlston. That were my—” Gideon stopped himself from saying a thousand different things, at least half of which he had rehearsed a million times over. It had filled a lot of empty nights. Gideon forced himself to say what Nelson needed to hear. “Help me get Tarlston an’ you go have you a nice, long life.”
Gideon didn’t give buffalo spit for Tom Nelson’s life, acid swirled in his gut at the suggestion, and at the truth he had nearly let slip. Watching Nelson mull it over, his heart felt like a sledge hammer against his chest.
“Convince the judge and I’ll do it,” Nelson agreed.
It was the least he could do and with that Gideon could not have argued– it was indeed the very least.
Voices intruded on them from outside, agitated and growing louder. With a quick glance at Amos, the sheriff went to investigate.
“I’m sorry, Gideon—”
“Reckon that pal-a yourn were hard to refuse,” Gideon said, neatly cutting Nelson off.
“I tried, I swear.”
“Next time, try harder.”
Did that feeble excuse help Nelson sleep nights? What good was it to men left dead? Gideon crammed his hands into his pockets because he really, really wanted to pummel Nelson. Unfortunately, folks had a hard time talking when they were unconscious and there was something Gideon still needed to know. He slanted a peek at Rivers, who innocently stood there listening to every word.
G’wan.
“What were that fellah’s name, that pal-a yourn?”
“You mean—”
“Amos?” The sheriff’s call was accompanied by the sound of a shotgun being loaded. “Get that prisoner secured.”
A moment later, the answer Gideon had been hunting for months-blurred-into-more-months was locked away in a cell. Gideon cursed silently and did a pretty good job of it. He had been getting a lot of practice lately.
A deputy and the four Rivers had positioned themselves at loops in the office windows, guns ready. Aspen nudged Gideon behind an oak desk and told him to stay put. Gideon had no intention of obeying, not when he was this close to the best news he’d heard in ages.
“Stay!” Aspen repeated. He grabbed a pair of handcuffs from a peg and secured Gideon to the base a heavy filing cabinet. “Or I’ll knock the daylights out of you.”
The jumble of rough voices outside grew louder. Should the half-drunk press of men manage to advance their argument, they would break in and drag the prisoners to a party all their own. An incredibly inconvenient prospect for Gideon, who would lose a year’s worth of work and have no way to start over. Death was rather final that way.
He tugged angrily at the handcuffs, but nothing doing. This blasted sheriff was well stocked; the iron bracelets actually fit, leaving no room to shimmy free. And the cabinet was much too heavy to lift without yanking out every last locked drawer— an activity that lacked all subtlety. Without a pick, Gideon was staying put. Did he have a word or two for Aspen Rivers. Whilst he added them all up, he heard Gandy order someone to back off.
“Funny,” the sheriff remarked, as he came back inside and barred the door, “a mob is only a mob until you start calling out names. After that, it’s nothing but a bunch of men with a dozen interesting reasons why they really should be somewhere else.”
So much for bein’ the guest-a honor at our very own necktie party.
Funny, ain’t it? Most folks only get one chance at somethin’ like that.
Nelson sure looks to be a-breakin’ a record there.
Good men lay dead, but Tom Nelson would live. Despite the fact that it was a means to an end, there wasn’t much justice to be found in that.