Nunslinger - The Second Omnibus

by Stark Holborn

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The year is 1864. Sister Thomas Josephine, an innocent Visitantine nun from St Louis, Missouri, is making her way west to the promise of a new life in Sacramento, California. When an attack on her wagon train leaves her stranded in Wyoming, Thomas Josephine finds her faith tested and her heart torn between Lt. Theodore F. Carthy, a man too beautiful to be true, and the mysterious grifter Abraham C. Muir. Falsely accused of murder she goes on the run, all the while being hunted by a man who has become dangerously obsessed with her. Her journey will take her from the most forbidding mountain peaks to the hottest, most hostile desert on earth, from Nevada to Mexico to Texas, and her faith will be tested in ways she could never imagine. Nunslinger is the true tale of Sister Thomas Josephine, a woman whose desire to do good in the world leads her on an incredible adventure that pits her faith, her feelings and her very life against inhospitable elements, the armies of the North and South, and the most dangerous creature of all: man.

Release date: September 11, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 480

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

And the tenth I will utter to men with my tongue

 

My death met me with darkness and agony, as I had feared it would. A moment’s gasp of terror and the rope snapped taut; my feet left the wood and a violent jolt snapped through my body, ripping soul from flesh, to bring me at last into the presence of my maker.

 But heaven was not bliss, it was not peace eternal and freedom from a blemished human form. It was dirt and a bursting in my lungs. It hurt.

And pain is the lot of the living.

I opened my eyes. The gallows yawned open above me: a square of high blue framed by the platform through which I had fallen, the frayed end of a rope twisting uselessly. For one, awful moment I gasped emptily, then air flooded my lungs, blessed air, and I drank it in.

The noise of the crowd filtered into my ears, slowly at first but building like a river, angry and white. Still wheezing, I rolled onto my knees. There was one thought that claimed me then, before prayer or Lord or questions: if I lived, what of him?

I spun around, terrified of what I might find. Abe lay six feet away. For one moment he was still, then his chest was heaving with breath. A gunshot rang out and the dirt before me exploded. Roped wrist and neck, I could barely breathe, let alone move, but I crawled towards Abe through the dust and the noise and carnage. He was fighting his way towards me, bruised and battered though he was. We came to a stop eye to eye, just as we had been barely a minute before, at what we thought would be our worlds’ end. His smile was as wild as my own, unbelieving that we lived.

But the bullets were still flying, men still lunging to fire under the scaffold and Abe yelped as a charge clipped the heel of his boot. He dragged me away, using his body to shield mine. A stack of lumber protected the steps of the gallows. We crawled towards them on raw knees.

Macclehorse cowered there, white and gasping. I reached out to him when the broken noose about my throat was snapped taut. Someone had the rope in his hand; was dragging me backward. I kicked out, choking.

Puttick’s face appeared above me, blood vessels spidering his eyes red and yellow. His face was savage as he fumbled with the rope, his bound hands clumsy. I finally managed one stifled cry for Abe.

Muir lunged forward but it was too late. Puttick released me, and I scrabbled away only to find myself pulled up short. The outlaw had tied the end of my noose to his own, roping us together like a pair of cattle.

‘What have you done?’ I cried, even as the bullets thudded into our shelter.

‘Need the Lord on my side,’ he yelled, baring his teeth behind bleeding gums. ‘Or the devil, don’t care which. You got the ear of both, ma’am. If you live, so do I.’

‘Bastard!’ spat Abe, but before he could move there was a great splintering: the stacks of lumber were being blasted away.

‘We got to move!’ Puttick yelled, but all I could see was Macclehorse, pale on the ground, his broken leg thrust awkwardly before him.

‘Go,’ he told me, eyes swimming with pain.

Puttick heaved upon rope to drag me away, near cutting off my air. Rage took me, and I spun around, driving a knee into the outlaw’s groin. He spluttered and retched at the end of the rope, but this time it was I who dragged him toward the old hunter.

‘Mr. Macclehorse,’ I said savagely, ‘I will not leave you behind.’        

The old man looked as though he would object, but I grabbed his shirt in my roped hands and pulled, until he stood along with me.

Splinters were flying, the dust kicked up into chaos. The whole town seemed to have opened fire; it was only a matter of time before those bullets would catch us.

‘There!’

Ten paces away stood the undertaker’s cart, a pair of horses rearing and snorting in the harness. Four rough coffins rattled behind them, propped open and ready to receive our lifeless bodies.

‘We’ll never make it,’ shouted Puttick, as a shot ricocheted past his head. ‘We’ll have a pound of lead in us before we take a step.’

‘We must try!’ I was staggering under Macclehorse’s weight. My head was reeling with prayers, but in my heart I feared that the outlaw was right. We had escaped one death only to land in the jaws of another.

‘It’s true,’ said Macclehorse, sweat rolling from his brow, ‘I’m all done in.’ He turned his eyes to mine, wind-toughened skin crinkling at the corners. ‘Never thought I’d bite the ground in the grace o’ God, Sister. Guess he might forgive me after all.’ He wrenched himself from my hold. ‘Tell the boy!’ he bellowed over his shoulder and staggered out into the line of fire, roaring curses at the crowd.

I couldn’t cry out, couldn’t see anything save for the dust before me as we ran, four paces, five, while shots whistled all around. Then Puttick was pushing me upward into cart. I caught one glimpse of Abe, clawing himself into the driver’s seat like a man possessed.

The cart shot forward, but too late. Pain slashed across my flesh, white hot and burning, sending me tumbling into the coffin that should have been my final resting place.

CHAPTER TEN

All the days of thy unsteady life

 

We had no answers for the trappers, though their speculation was rife. Eventually, Abe saw that I was tiring and put an end to the matter by snapping that it was not the first time I had been falsely accused, and that if everyone kept their heads better, perhaps I would have more chance of living in peace.

The men looked abashed at that, and apologised for troubling me, but the harm was long done. Someone was murdering in my name. Darkly, I remembered the child in Little Rock, how his sisters played at being me, slaughtering sinners as a game. In that moment, all I wanted was to ride into the wilderness alone, to find some secluded place and stay there forever, beyond the reach of the world.

The trappers had other ideas. They were horrified and fascinated by my bullet wound, the hanging scar around my neck. I politely declined their offers of bear grease and river mud to help soothe my skin, and settled upon plain water from the creek. The wound was inflamed still, pulling at the stitches, but I gritted my teeth and cleaned it, determined that it should heal.

That evening, before we shared their meagre food and swallows of whiskey, nothing would do for Timothy but that I demonstrate my legendary ‘handiness’ with his pistol. I obliged with my good arm, and put a hole in the lad’s beaver hat, which he had balanced on a tree. He gazed at it in delight, told me that he would treasure it to the end of his days, and tell all his friends that it were the Six-Gun Sister who put it there for him.

They had little extra to spare, but the next day they stuck to the outlaw’s code and outfitted us as well as they could. An ancient rifle and a pair of knives, worn thin as paper, were the only weapons they could offer. Puttick and Muir fought over the gun until it was settled by a coin toss. The outlaw won, leaving Abe to grumble about cheating.

Reluctantly, I once more gave up my habit. Coot was the smallest, and gifted me a pair of calico trousers – his best, he mumbled, and though they had been darned to within an inch of their life, I thanked him graciously. I was forced to hack what remained of my habit into a shirt. I hoped God would understand that, not for the first time, necessity outweighed sanctity. I used the strips that remained to wrap my brow and head, covering my hair beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

Finally, with great reverence, Burley unfolded a fine buckskin coat. He stroked the fringing and told me that it had “belonged to Peter”. He did not say who Peter was, but from its size, it appeared that the coat had once been worn by a youth.

Abe and Puttick fared worse than me. Puttick’s new wardrobe consisted of a crumpled leather duster while Abe wore a jacket of mixed, hanging skins. His hair had grown long and tangled once more, threaded gold at the ends from the sun, and with his wind-browned face, he looked very wild indeed.

‘Injun Abe,’ I greeted him with a grin. He grimaced and surveyed my get-up.

‘Whatever you wear,’ he shook his head with amusement, ‘it never takes. Y’always look like Thomas Josephine to me.’

His smile was warm, and for a moment I returned it. All at once I remembered that cliff top above San Diego, in the glory of the sunrise and the rush of freedom, standing so close to Abe that I could see the blood beating in his veins.

Thought it might make you smile…

‘Hate to interrupt,’ Puttick was smirking nearby and I turned away abruptly, squinting up at the sun as if its heat could force away my agitation. ‘But we best be leaving, unless you wish to stay and await the law.’

Burley knew of the hidden outlaw trail, and gave us instruction on how to ride for its start across the Colorado border, two days hence. He promised to keep the law from our heels, if he could. I blessed him for his kindness and he held onto my hand until he was obliged to bustle away, claiming to have some grit beneath his eyelid.

Timothy handed me up to the saddle and I settled the reins in my good hand. The horse I rode was one we had liberated from Forth Smith, a bony, cowed creature, but it sniffed the air as if recalling distantly what it felt like to run after an eternity pulling coffins. I urged it into a gallop.

With the wind on my face, trousers on my legs and a knife at my waist, a strange rush of elation took me: not happiness exactly, but a fizzing through my bones, like the air a moment before a thunderclap.

I am alive, I thought, as we flashed through sun-dappled pines. I breathed deep their ancient resin. Why would the Lord have intended for me a life of seclusion, an unruly thought whispered, when I could ride, and run, and fight in His name?

That night, we reached the prairie. The trees dropped away, land yawning outward. In the evening air, the endless grass rippled, like the spine of a great creature, bristling.

We spoke little, and only of practicalities. If there was an idea of life beyond the near tomorrows, it was too fragile to speak of.

The breeze pushed at us from the west, smelling of dust and grass and emptiness. I slept that night as well as I ever had on my hard bed in the convent: rolled in a blanket on the edge of a wasteland.

CHAPTER TEN

And vows are to be paid

 

I soon discovered that the editor of the Denver Rancher was right: once Templeton took an idea into his mind, he was not to be dissuaded. Reluctantly – for it seemed the most promising way to gain access to Windrose – I agreed to his plan. I would abandon my rough trousers and buckskin coat for a gown and bonnet.

The newspaperman offered his credit to pay for my clothes; an apology he said, for the falsehoods he had written about me. I did not know from where he had obtained the funds, and I feared their source was less than honest.

If Muir had been there, he would have snorted with laughter and told me to bide myself; that such things as unscrupulous creditors were upon Templeton’s own neck. I had not seen Abe for more than a day, not since our quarrel at the bar. His absence troubled me.

Meanwhile, Templeton had procured the garments I needed, arguing that he had greater experience of a lady’s wardrobe than I. I allowed him to choose what he would, so long as it was modest.

When the time came, I shed my shabby clothes. The rough calico and hide from the plains had become my habit, I realized; they had shielded me, sustained me. The new garments felt like a costume. When I first donned them and turned to the looking glass, I did not recognise myself.

A demure blue dress with voluminous sleeves covered me from ankle to wrist to my neck, there secured by a silk scarf to conceal the scar that circled my throat. There was a bonnet, decorated with pink false flowers, and Mr. Templeton had instructed me to comb out my short blonde curls so that they fell upon my temples and hid the scar there, too. Lastly, he had helped me into a pair of lace gloves and dusted my face liberally with a pot of powder, tutting that I was ‘too sunburned for a lady.’

He was delighted with his efforts, and once he was satisfied he begain scribbling in his notebook, glancing up at me from time to time, telling me that he always suspected I was a great beauty until I was forced to ask him to refrain from speaking. He too had made himself presentable, his whiskers finely trimmed and waxed one again, a new shirt beneath the old plum waistcoat.

‘We shall take a turn about the town,’ Templeton reassured me, setting his arm beneath my gloved hand, ‘so that you might accustom yourself to your costume, ma’am.’

As we descended the stairs, my feet, encased within tight, buttoned boots, trembled. The scent of the powder he had applied was overpowering, until I thought that I would not be able to breathe through it.

Templeton dragged upon my arm as we walked, chiding me for striding so boldly, telling me I should not stare about me so, as though I was being hunted.

‘It is a difficult custom to break,’ I muttered through gritted teeth, as we crossed the thoroughfare.

‘Templeton!’ a voice shouted and my heart began pounding. It was Abe. I did not know what to do with my hands as I heard his familiar steps approach. ‘Templeton!’ he said again, bounding up onto the sidewalk, ‘I have been askin’ about, and have found–’

He stopped dead at the sight of me. I struggled to meet his eyes.

‘Mr. Muir,’ Templeton hissed, glancing about him, ‘if we are to speak in public then I must insist you greet the Sister as one might a lady. We cannot know who is watching.’

With a black look, Muir inclined his head stiffly.

‘I found them two hard cases,’ he said to Templeton, ‘Buxton and Hayle, what the Sister said were at the ranch. Saw them loiterin’ around Main Street, by this fancy lookin’ carriage. Th’ man in the stables were indisposed to let on who they were, but I persuaded him some.’

There was a graze upon his cheekbone, I noticed, and his knuckles were swollen. He tried to hide them behind his back as he surveyed me. ‘Thought we might’ve taken them on ‘stead of prettying up, but I see I am too late.’

‘Was it Miss Windrose’s carriage?’ I demanded, flushing at his tone.

Muir nodded. ‘That’s what the man said. But I don’t see–’

Before he could finish, I ducked away from Templeton and hurried out onto the street. My heart was pounding in my ears as I stumbled past horses and barrows, hampered by the dust and my skirts. Upon the next street, a fine four-wheeled carriage stood near the sidewalk, pulled by a pair of sleek bay horses, its black lacquer shining beneath a sprinkling of dust.

A woman was emerging from a building, her hands busy with a pocketbook. She was immeasurably elegant, a dark blue bonnet and veil shading her face, a silk dress that rustled as she stepped onto the running board of coach. I felt a strange surge of envy as I looked upon her. The two men Abe had mentioned were already in position, one perched upon the back, the other in the driver’s seat.

With deep breath I tripped up to the window of the carriage, dragging a handkerchief from my pocket at the same moment.

‘Miss Windrose?’ I announced, ‘I believe you dropped this.’

CHAPTER TEN

Besides what is hid within

 

‘Matthew Hopkins,’ the farmer told me, coming forward to shake my hand. ‘That there’s my wife Susan, and our girl Kitty.’

I reached out to take the proffered hand, only to find that I still held the pistol. Flushing to the roots of my hair, I shoved it back into my waistband and clasped his hand with my own. It was strong, despite his age, and rough with calluses.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Puttick exploded, glaring about the room. He held the rifle before him. ‘Where did she come from?’

‘Hello, Colm Puttick,’ Owl greeted calmly, blood still dripping off her knives. ‘I thought you did not like him?’ she asked me.

I leaned around to look at the pair of men they had captured. Hayle was groaning and cursing, blood coursing from the side of his head. Buxton glowered, his teeth gritted. There was a ragged hole in his upper thigh, surrounded by scorch marks and leaking gore.

‘I did not think it would fire,’ Kitty told me shakily, hefting the old musket. ‘It were my granddaddy’s. I packed it with buckshot…’ she leapt back as Hayle lunged. Hopkins struck him with the butt of the rifle. Once Hopkins had subdued Hayle, Puttick and I kept the pair in the sight of our weapons while Owl and the others set about tying them, hand and foot. When they were finally secured, Puttick swore, lowering his gun.

‘Now will someone tell me what in Sam Hill is going on?’

‘Better fetch Templeton,’ I sighed.

By the time darkness fell, we sat comfortably within the farmhouse. Outside, a cold breeze rolled down from the mountains, making the stars shiver like crystal. The family shared what they had, and we drank tea, ate bread and lard before the hearth. It would have been cosy, were it not for the loaded weapons beside each plate; the pair of wounded ruffians tied in a corner, letting out a curse or a groan every so often.

‘I followed them,’ Owl chewed, gesturing to Buxton and Hayle with her spoon, ‘after the Patterson ranch. You run off, back to town but these two I follow. It was not difficult. They are lazy. All the way to that big house in the mountains, I watched them. Like a hawk,’ she grinned, and Hayle snarled, thrashing in his ropes. He fell still when three weapons were levelled at him.

‘Many times, I could have killed them when they slept,’ she told me, ‘but I thought, they will go after others. And when they do…’ she shrugged.

‘What she is not saying,’ Hopkins said matter-of-factly, ‘is that she rode ahead of them, when they stopped at noon. Damn near flogged her horse to death doin’ it, damn near got a bullet in her gut as well, ‘til she took off her hat. We was expecting you to attack, see,’ he said to me, and I felt my face begin to burn with anger, ‘but she warned us, told us what was what. That it weren’t you coming, but these two.’

‘Mr. Windrose made an offer for our land,’ Susan told me, ‘a few month back. It were generous enough, but this is our home. Matthew worked ten year to get enough money for these acres, an’ near another ten farming them. We ain’t leaving. We told him as much.’

‘Then came the stories, ‘bout other settling folk gettin’ killed down south, but we never thought–’

‘That they had refused to sell, too,’ my head sank to my hands. ‘Five hundred miles of land to be cleared of homesteaders, and only one person in the country who could kill so many without motive.’ In the silence I listened to my hearbeat, to the shifting of ash in the grate. I raised my head to look at Miss Windrose’s men. ‘All to be certain of her claim. She will not stop, will she?’

Hayle only sneered at me and spat.

I was on my feet, had the gun to his head before I even knew what I was doing. I stared at him, pale and bloody beyond the pistol’s length. All the fragile cheer of the hearthside was gone as I barked out that one question which plagued me, drove me.

‘Where is Muir?’

Hayle’s lips lifted into a smile.

‘You won’t do nothing,’ he said. Confidence oozed from him as he settled back against the wall, blood stained as he was. ‘You never killed a man in your life,’

‘I asked you a question.’

Hayle only snorted up a ball of mucus and spat again.

I raised my eyebrow.

‘Owl,’ I called over my shoulder, ‘did you cut off his ear?’

Stony faced, the woman nodded, brushing strands of black hair back from her face. ‘You want me to cut off the other one?’

I opened my mouth to respond when a force struck my shins, sending me tumbling to the floor. The pistol flew out of my grip, and in an instant, Hayle attacked, pinning me to the boards with his shoulder as his bound hands grappled for me, thumbs plunging toward my eyes.

A flash of silver, a dark shadow above and warm blood exploded onto my face. Hayle’s body went limp as he opened and closed his mouth emptily, life draining from the sundered arteries of his neck.  

Hands grasped my shoulders, and Puttick dragged me free from under his body. I swiped the blood from my eyes. Templeton and the Hopkins family looked on, grim-faced. Susan offered me a rag.

‘Did you have to kill him?’ I asked Owl, scrubbing at my face.

The dark-haired woman pursed her lips and began to clean her knife.

‘We need only one of them to tell us where to go.’

Every pair of eyes turned towards Buxton, who was gazing in alarm at Hayle’s lifeless corpse.

‘North,’ he blurted, ‘up near Stout. I do not know if Muir is there,’ his eyes were fixed upon Owl’s knife, ‘but that is where she will be. It is to be the start of the railroad.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

There is no remembrance of former things

 

The prairie took no note of borders or distance. Switchgrass rose as tall as the horses’ shoulders, on and on, until I thought I would go mad with it. Without Puttick to guide the way, we might have been lost forever in that labyrinth of stalks.

The wide spaces seemed to soothe Muir, for he was in a rare good mood. Once, I turned to find him gone, vanished so completely and silently into that tall grass that my heart leaped into panic.

Just as I called for Puttick, Abe reappeared, not ten feet away, grinning like a schoolboy who has played a great practical joke. I could not help but laugh. Puttick asked grudgingly where he had learned such a skill, and Abe told of his early years, tracking and hunting with the Sioux. The outlaw only grunted in reply, but I thought I saw a flicker of respect cross his sharp face.

The tall grass receded and we found ourselves within a narrow canyon. A constant wind howled down its length, and I missed the long, tickling stems that had kept some of the dust from our faces.

We camp. . .