Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [87]
Jez slapped and punched at Cordwain, but he was a big man, much stronger and heavier than she was.
“As I thought,” he said, fending her off. “In on it too, aren’t you?”
Jez landed a fist on his jaw, surprising him. But the surprise lasted only a moment. He backhanded her hard across the face: once, twice, three times in succession. Then he flung her away from him. She tripped headlong, flailing as she went, and cracked her forehead against the low stone wall of the pool.
The terrible sound of the impact took all the heat out of the moment. Cordwain and Crake both stared at the small woman in the pretty black dress who now lay motionless on the ground.
She didn’t get up.
“What did you do?” Crake cried from where he lay. He struggled to his knees.
Cordwain drew his pistol and pointed it at him. “You calm down.”
“Help her!”
“I said cool your heels!” he snapped. He moved over toward Jez, crouched down next to her, and picked up a limp hand, pressing two fingers to her wrist. After a moment, he let it drop, pulled her head aside, and checked for a pulse at her throat.
Crake knew the result by his expression. He felt a surge of unbelievable, irrational hate. “You son of a bitch!” he snarled, getting to his feet. Cordwain immediately thrust his weapon toward him.
“You saw what happened!” Cordwain said. “I didn’t mean for that!”
“You killed her! She wasn’t anything to do with us!”
Cordwain advanced on him. “You shut your damn mouth! I told you I could take you in dead or alive and I meant it!”
“Well, you’d better take me dead, you bastard! Because even a Shacklemore doesn’t get to kill innocent women! And I’m going to make absolutely sure that everyone knows what you’ve done.”
“You need to stop your talking, sir, or I will shoot you like a dog!”
But Crake was out of control. The sight of Jez lying there had freed something inside him. It unleashed all the rage, the guilt, the horror that he kept penned uneasily within. He saw his niece, still and lifeless, her white nightdress soaked in red, her small body violated by vicious wounds. He saw the bloodied letter knife in his hand.
That was the day he began to run, and he hadn’t stopped since.
“Why don’t you shoot?” he shouted. “Why don’t you? Save me the show trial! Pull the trigger!”
Cordwain backed off, his gun raised. He was unsure how to deal with the red-faced, spittle-flecked maniac who was stumbling toward him, his hands cuffed behind his back.
“You stay back, sir!”
“End it, you murderer!” he screamed. “End it! I’ve had enough!”
And then something moved, quick in the night, and there was a terrible, dull crunch. Cordwain’s eyes rolled up into his head and he crumpled, folding onto himself and falling to the ground.
Standing behind him, a rock from the drystone wall in her hand, was Jez.
Crake just stared.
Jez tossed the rock aside and took the keys from the Shacklemore man. She walked over to Crake, turned him around, and undid his handcuffs. By the time they’d fallen free, he’d found words again.
“I thought you were dead.”
“So did he,” she replied.
“But he … but you were dead.”
“Apparently not. Give me a hand.”
She began to tug Cordwain toward the trees. After a moment, Crake joined her. As they manhandled him over the drystone wall, his head lolled back, and Crake caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were open, and the whites were dark with blood.
Crake turned away and vomited. Jez waited for him to finish, then said, “Take his legs.”
He wasn’t used to this merciless tone from her. He did as he was told, and together they carried him out of sight of the path and left him there.
They returned to the clearing, where Jez replaced the rock in the wall and threw Cordwain’s gun into the undergrowth. She dusted her dress off as best she could.
“Jez,