When his cartridges ran out, he holstered the revolver. He didn't have time to react when he burned his hip in the process. He was saddled and full-stride north, the gelding beneath him responding as if he knew the man's intentions before he even knew them for himself. He'd rode this trail hard for the last two days and nights, only stopping to rest the horse at certain intervals. The seven men that pursued him were reduced to four. He laid a marshall to rest in Salinas. It was a fever that had latched hold of him after she passed.
You see, she didn't belong to him, but to one of his pursuers. And it was the unexpected nature of her death that brought the fever. She kissed him under the shade of a cottonwood one day, was dead the next, and was buried the following. The doctor went on about natural causes. Typhoid is what he said. But it was impossible, if so, he would've had it too. And these two fevers were nothing similar. The fever he'd contracted was akin to a cornered animal realizing there was no more room to give.
The four men were closing in on him as the gelding wore down. He pitched his feet sadistically at the horse's side but if the horse felt it at all, he didn't show it. As the horse went down he reached to unsheath his knife. And the horse cried loudly and sorrowfully as it collapsed to the cracked ground. The four were upon him quickly, pistols drawn, one toting a lasso he kept at his hip.
Her husband was the one to speak,
"Cass, go on drop that fuckin knife. Is' not gonna get you anywhere right now."
The marshall pulled the hammer back on his revolver. Cass dropped his knife.
His pursuer continued,
"There ya go. Now we arent really interested in your defense from here on out. Seeing as you're a fuckin grave robber, and added three murders to that in the last couple days, we been advised aint no need for you brought in alive. "
Cass spat his truth through blood, his mouth cut open during the overtaking of his horse.
"I ain't no goddam grave robber. I saw her. I saw what you did. You broke her neck, you sorry piece of shit."
"You had no right, Cass. I saw yall out underneath that tree. I saw yall, Marshall's men did."
His pursuers never needed to hear a word. They knew Cass Jordan had stolen her from the moment they'd met four months before. The lasso was cast and for 2 days he was provided the luxury of riding bound facedown alternating amongst their saddles.
It wasn't Cass that laid under that cottonwood south of Salinas, the one they met under when they wanted to meet. It wasn't her. It surely wasnt her husband, the crooked marshall that backed him, or any of his men. The last 10 miles of the trail, Cass was dragged behind her husband's horse. What now layed under that Cottonwood wasn't quite human. A red rag sack of obscure bones and purple, sunburned flesh, even the coyotes turned around when they met Cass under the cottonwood.
