Doctor Who_ Peacemaker - James Swallow [2]
‘Looking,’ said the rider, after a long moment. His voice was thick with an accent that Matthew couldn’t place. ‘Looking for a thief.’
‘Is that right?’ Matthew moved slowly, putting himself between the house and the pair of longriders. ‘Well, you’re lookin’ in the wrong place. We’re law-abiding folks here, Mr, uh. . . ’ He trailed off.
The man on foot seemed to think about it for a moment, as if he needed to draw the information up from a great depth. Finally, he pressed a thumb to his chest. ‘Kutter,’ he said, by way of introduction.
He nodded at his companion on horseback. ‘Tangleleg.’
The farmer forced a smile. ‘Well, Mr Kutter, might I be correct in 3
assuming you all are both regulators or of a like, in search of the bounty on a man?’ When neither one spoke, he pressed on. ‘I can assure you, there’s no outlaws in these parts. The wife and me don’t have any truck with lawbreakers.’
Tangleleg spoke for the first time, and his words were sharp and dry, like the sound of bones snapping. ‘Where is the healer?’
Matthew’s blood chilled in his veins. ‘Who?’
Kutter’s left hand brushed the grip of his pistol and the homesteader saw something glitter there on the weapon, like tiny glowing embers.
‘We know he was here,’ said the longrider. ‘We can see his track.
Where is he?’
‘Where is he now?’ added Tangleleg. ‘Answer.’
His hands bunched into fists and Matthew took a breath. Who were these two highbinders, to come on his land and make demands of him?
Anger took the place of his fear. When he thought of all the things he owed the stranger who had helped his wife, he was damned if he was going to give him up to the first roughneck who demanded it. ‘I don’t know no “healer”,’ he snapped, ‘and if you know what’s best for you, you’d be on your way, or else –’
Kutter’s gun came out of its holster in a flicker of steel, almost as if it had leapt from the leather into his waiting hand. The weapon blurred toward Matthew and he recoiled. Kutter aimed the barrel at the farmer’s chest, the muzzle never wavering even a fraction of an inch.
Matthew blinked, standing his ground. The gun was huge. Bigger than a Colt .45, thickset and cut from fluted sections of steel and brass and what might have been bone, it looked utterly lethal. Kutter held it without concern, but it seemed so dense and weighty that Matthew wondered how the man could hold it without using both hands.
‘Answer,’ repeated Kutter.
From behind him, Matthew heard the well-oiled lick of a shotgun hammer; and then the voice of his wife. ‘You heard my husband. This is Belfield land. You’re not welcome here, so get yourselves gone.’
He used the moment to step back, turning. Celeste was at the door, the long ten-gauge shotgun at her shoulder. She was shaking slightly.
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Kutter spoke as if he hadn’t heard a word she had said. ‘This is the last time we will ask you. Where is the healer?’
‘He ain’t here,’ said Celeste. ‘Been gone for a couple of weeks now.’
Matthew nodded. ‘That’s the size of it.’ He put his hands on his hips, trying to show a little backbone. ‘That there fella? We don’t care what he mighta done to incur your displeasure. Fact is, the man saved my wife’s life! We don’t know where he’s gone to, and if we did, then we sure as hell wouldn’t tell you!’
Tangleleg shook his head slowly. ‘You are lying. We can see it in your face.’
Kutter mimicked the other man’s actions. ‘We can hear it in your voice.’ He moved again, another sudden rush of motion from complete stillness.
Celeste saw this and with a start she jerked the twin triggers of the double-barrelled shotgun. Thunder spoke across the homestead and Matthew heard a cloud of buckshot whistle past him. Kutter was blown off his feet and into the dust. He dropped, but the big pistol never left his grip.
Matthew expected Tangleleg to draw, but he didn’t. He remained motionless, sitting high in his panting horse’s saddle, watching them.
And then Kutter got up.
Not without pause, but he got