When Point came to, he was in a place he had never seen before.
Looked like a hotel bar but not one that he had ever been in—polished mahogany counter, brass fixtures catching light from somewhere, the smell of whiskey and wood polish thick in the air. Had they hit him over the head that hard that he'd forgotten what he was doing, and where he was doing it? There was not a soul around but he could tell that the building was not empty. Floorboards creaked overhead. Somewhere a door closed. The weight of other people pressed on the silence.
Just as he started to snoop around, a large man walked behind the bar and said, "You're alive? When those Pinkerton boys dropped ya off, I half expected I'd have to call the undertaker. You want a drink?"
Point checked his person—and all his things had been given back to him. Gun belt, knife, even the crushed cigar in his vest pocket. Everything.
"Yeah. Whiskey," Point said.
He walked to the window first, his boots heavy on the worn floorboards, and saw that even his horse was tied up outside, saddled and waiting like nothing had happened. He went on, turning back to the bartender, "You said Pinkertons dropped me here?"
The bartender nodded as he washed a glass, slow circular motions, not looking up.
Why would a private police team from back east have him? Why would they care where he was or where he went? This bit of information fit into his puzzle about as well as a Lego in a Duplo set.
He downed his shot, the whiskey burning clean down his throat, and said, "Is there anythin more you can tell me about how I got here?"
The man behind the bar said, still not meeting his eyes, "Ask one of the boys that dragged you in here." "They haven't left town yet?" Point shockingly asked.
Without waiting for an answer Point spun around quick and headed for the door. The late afternoon sun hitting him hard when he stepped outside. Once out on the boardwalk he looked through his saddlebags to see if anything was "misplaced." Everything looked fine. Even his extra guns were holstered on his horse, right where they should be.
There were about ten men dressed in suits that had a gun bulge—the telltale distortion under the left side, or right side of their jackets, depending on the relationship their mothers had with Satan, all standing at intervals like sentries. They weren't hiding. They weren't pretending to be something else. They were just waiting.
He walked over to the nearest one and asked, "Why did you bring me here!?"
The man said nothing. Just looked at him with eyes hollow like a log in the woods, empty and carved out. Point could faintly see chipmunks chasing one another behind those eyes and he wanted to know what the hell that was about.
Point stepped back and asked, his voice rising slightly, "What kinda nonsense were ya up to on the way here? I can't remember a thing. I wake up on a strange floor with my pants loose and my butthole hurting. Was that you or one of your friends?"
Point could see the man's chest inflate like a hot air balloon, his face flushing red beneath his hat brim.
"Mm-hmm, you're the one that daddy hugged a little too much and now ya have an interest in guys. Is it all guys or just ones that are helpless and unconscious?"
The man went for his gun but before he could pull it out, Point broke his nose with a right cross—a sharp crack of cartilage—and took out two of his teeth along with it. Blood sprayed across the man's white shirt. Point quickly took the man's gun from him and spun his body around as a human shield, one arm locked around his throat while the other pressed the barrel against his temple.
The other men that were dressed the same as this one came running, boots pounding the dirt street, hands reaching for their weapons.
Point pulled the man's billfold from his inside pocket, flipping it open with his thumb.
"Charles… Darby. 2713 Cambria Street. Homestead, Pennsylvania. I know where you live now, Charlie. I see anyone of y'all attemptin to crawl up my ass, yur family is the first place I visit." Point was only posturing, he had to say something to make him hesitate any idea of a pursuit.
Point stuck his gun out in the direction of a shorter man with glasses and said, "WE CLEAR? What's gonna happen if anyone follows me?"
The short man began to shake, his hands trembling at his sides. He looked at the other men he was with and they simply looked back, stone-faced and waiting. He focused back on Point and said, his voice cracking, "You are going to do unspeakable things to his family?"
"Give the man a prize! At least I know one of y'all were listenin."
Point walked around the outside of the men and over to his horse, dragging Charlie with him every step. He put the man's billfold into his own jacket and walked the man along with his horse in the direction of the town line, using him as a shield against the others.
The Pinkertons began to follow, spreading out in a loose formation.
Point fired a shot at their feet—the bullet kicking up dirt and making two of them jump back—and then he stopped cold in the street.
"How'd y'all get jobs like you got and none of y'all have the ability to recall what we just talked about fifteen seconds ago?" His voice echoed off the buildings lining the street. "Next step you take, I will put a bullet in his head and then shoot his family dead. IS THERE ANY MORE CLARIFICATION NEEDED?" The power and authority in his voice would have made God bend a knee.
Point waited for what felt like five minutes just to be sure there were no shy little boys in the group that couldn't speak up right away. The sun beat down. Sweat ran down his back. Charlie wheezed against his arm. Point was far too calm and focused for anyone to assume jest.
Once he had gotten about three blocks away—about a block from the town line where the buildings thinned out and gave way to open desert—he jumped on his horse and rode hard, releasing Charlie who stumbled and fell into the dirt. The other men started to shoot at him but when the man he had held hostage was hit in the arm by one of their own, the shooting stopped. Charlie screamed. The Pinkertons froze.
Point didn't look back.
He did not forget to look at the town sign as he rode past. It said "St. George." Where the hell was I, Point asked himself. The landscape was unfamiliar—red rock formations, scrub brush, nothing he recognized.
He rode for about fifteen miles or so and passed a sign that said "Virgin City." This was a city that he knew of but had never been. At least he knew he was going in the right direction now—southeast, back toward Arizona Territory.
Point took in the landscape of the area for the next twenty minutes or so until he found a high bluff to the west from which he could get a great vantage point. Sheer rock face, flat top, perfect sight lines in every direction. Point knew he could charm people and get most things that he was after. He also knew that charming was the last thing the Pinkerton boys would use to describe Point after what just happened.
Once he had gotten to the top he settled in and waited, lying flat on his stomach behind a cluster of rocks. He knew that those men would not just let him get away.
There was a good chance that he was cast out so he would not get in the middle of something—dumped somewhere remote to keep him from interfering. Point also guessed that the Pinkertons were told to stay behind and babysit for a while. He speculated that Cyrus thought he was only snooping around because he was in the area. If he were in a new area, he would find something else to occupy his attention with and leave Cyrus alone to go about his business.
One thing that he had not planned on was Point being a man who kept his word no matter what.
Sure enough, the Pinky boys came around the bend and stopped dead. Point had covered his tracks—brushed them out with a branch, ridden over rock when he could—so the Pinkertons were no longer sure what direction they should go. They split up in groups of two. Each group went a different direction, fanning out like fingers on a hand.
If they were able to sniff Point out, two men were much easier to get past than six.
As Point watched and waited to see how hard they were going to look for him, his mind went back to the cellar and Jupiter and Whisper. He knew they were nowhere in sight when he had woken up. They may have been in another building and that was why the boys had been outside and not with Point. It may have been easier to watch the street together than to split up and cover each of them separately. That would be foolish. It would also be easier to team up and take them all out if they were together.
Point came to the conclusion that Jupiter and Whisper must have ended up in a different location altogether. He was not sure how much ambition they had to stay on the path that led them to Point to begin with. The stories they traded had been in haste and many vital details had been left out. If they ever crossed paths again Point was sure to get clarification on why Jupiter and Whisper ended up in that cellar with Point in the first place, outside of tailing his brothers killer.
After the Pinkerton boys reached the bluff they did not look up. They held tight to the bluff face and rode around it, then continued on westward until they were clear from sight, disappearing into the heat shimmer on the horizon.
Carefully Point came down from the bluff and rode southeast as not to be seen by anyone. Point rode in that direction and slowly listed cardinal south until it got dark, the sky turning from blue to orange to deep purple. He made camp but did not make a fire as he knew that if the Pinkerton boys saw it, he would be in Dutch for sure after the events that had taken place that day. He ate jerky and slept with one hand on his gun.
Point had woken up early as he normally does unless he had to sleep one off.
With the amount of sleep that he had gotten from the crack on the head—or more likely the CRACKS that he had gotten—he did not need as much sleep as normal. He did wonder if he'd had anything knocked out of his head that he had wanted to keep. Only time will tell on that front, he thought, rubbing the tender spot behind his ear where the worst of it seemed to be.
He was able to ride the rest of the way back to Heedonville with no further contact with the Pinky boys. The landscape shifted from red rock to scrub desert to the familiar territory he knew, each mile bringing him closer to whatever mess was waiting for him.
He was able to get back into town just as the sun got low enough in the sky to make it easier to hide—long shadows stretching across the street as they ran from the sun, the light turning everything amber and forgiving. Point didn't hide. He did take precaution as he got into town. There were several eyes in this town that were connected to mouths that seemed perpetually open.
He rode through the back of town to the sawmill, taking the long way around past the tannery and the dried-up creek bed. He thought that was an ironic place to tie off his horse—slim chance they would look for anything there for the simple fact that the Mayor's brother runs the damn place. He made it to the Tsavorite on foot, moving through the alley that ran between the buildings and trees, staying in the shadows.
There was a chance that Rex would be in there but even if he was, there was still a chance he would not even notice him walk in. The man had never been particularly observant unless money, sex or violence was involved.
He greeted Conor who was playing poker in the back, cards fanned in his hands and a pile of chips in front of him, and gave a nod to Cletus as he passed the bar. There was no sign of Clem. He was easy to miss as he was asleep most of the time unless he was in the back doing God knows what. Point headed up to Addy's room, taking the stairs two at a time. He hoped that she was still vacant with customers as per his request until this gets wrapped up.
The rooms all sounded empty—no voices, no creaking beds, just the ambient noise of the saloon below filtering up through the floorboards. Point knocked on Addy's door.
Point was greeted with watery eyes and a bright flash of light accompanied by a sharp pain to the face.
It was a gift from Addy that accompanied the right jab to the nose that she delivered when she saw who it was. There seemed to be no blood but he was sure that any customer that had ever crossed her did so only once. Her knuckles were small but they landed with the force of someone who'd been fighting her whole life.
Addy, who did not shy away from a discussion, grabbed Point by his shirt collar, pulled him inside her room and said, "You son of a bitch! You promised me that you would stop in each day. Update me so I wasn't worried! Where the fuck have you been, you son of a bitch!?"
Point sat down on the edge of her bed and opened his mouth to apologize—and Addy shut that down quick.
"Thinking about yurself. You're just like every other piece of shit son of a bitch that walks in that door! Ya say what you think I wanna hear and I never see ya again. How do you think that makes me feel, you son of a bitch!?"
Point paused this time as he was not sure if she was actually done. Her chest was heaving, her face flushed, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes.
"Well, you got an answer or you just gunna stare at me?" Looking Point up and down tenaciously, pretending to take his measure.
Point began, keeping his voice even, "Addy, I was completely careless and I never thought about how ma actions would affect you. I will make sure nuthin so thoughtless ever happens again."
Addy's eyes softened a little with a hint of unexpected confusion and said, "Well…, good. See that it don't."
She thought she was done but then— "Or, ...or that pop in the nose will only be the start of things to come if you do. Am I clear, Mr. Sparkly Eyes Cowboy!?"
Point fought back a smile when he realized how cute Addy was attempting to pull herself together, with her ability to have total faith in her strength and position while looking so teeny tiny at the same time. She couldn't have been more than five foot two, a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she stood there like she could take on the whole territory.
Point had been so lost in his head from her disposition and the pulse in his nose throbbing up and down that he had no idea what she had asked. He could read her face though—still angry, still waiting, but the edge had dulled just enough. He filled her need for clarification as best he could while attending the "gift" she gave him at the door.
Point said, keeping his tone careful, "Listen darlin, I met a fella that was real nice to me and I am afraid that somethin may have happen to him. Have ya heard about anyone comin through here? A black fella about my height with a black lady with funny hair? She'd be about your size."
Addy looked puzzled at Point and said, her anger deflating into confusion, "Oh, you mean the ones Rex got locked up in the jail?"
Point's eyes narrowed along with his focus as his nose faded into background static. He figured the odds were fairly good they were the same people he had met. He nodded.
Addy kept on after Point nodded to her question, "Yeah, Rex was in here today. He said that they're set to hang at noon tomorrow."
Point's stomach dropped. Tomorrow. Noon. Less than eighteen hours from now.