CRYERS Read Free Page B

blade,
hard enough to make the man jump clear out of the cloth around his feet.
    “Run!”
    Trot moved. He circled the tree
once at a fast, jerking walk. Lode hit his rear again, harder, and Trot began
to run. His knees shot out to the sides comically and the crowd roared. But
Trot wasn’t finding it funny. He bawled harder as he loped around a second and
third time, his knees popping out and his dirty toes kicking the air.
    And the lawman watched.
    From his perch, Lawson watched them
all—Trot trotting, the filthy residents of Burn leering and heckling, Lode
licking the tip of his sword clean with a thick, diseased tongue, Elward losing
his struggle with the rope—and more than that. He’d seen the two boys arrive
half-an-hour before. He’d watched the older one lead his one-armed brother
through the mass of jostling limbs to the circle’s inner line of murderous
onlookers. Lawson had watched as they slowly worked their way back through the
crowd again, towards the town outskirts, after Elward had started his climb out
to the branch’s end.
    It wasn’t a hard thing to do. Burn
wasn’t that big. It was a ramshackle collection of a few dozen buildings
organized in a somewhat circular fashion and surrounded by a centuries old twenty-foot
high stone wall. The majority of Burn’s four-hundred residents lived in mud
huts and tents pitched where there was room in the narrow, shit-caked,
piss-puddle alleys. All those residents were gathered in the town center this
morning, clustered about the one tree that had been ancient and dying before
the town was established.
    Lawson spotted the boys as they climbed
to the roof of the tannery. He watched them jump from the roof to the rope
ladder hanging down from the town’s outer wall. He watched the older boy help
the younger boy up the ladder to the western watch point. He watched them
disappear over the edge. He spotted them a minute later, running across the
gray plains. At first, Lawson thought they might head north, along the banks of
the dirty river, towards the town of Rudd, over twenty miles away. They
continued west instead.
      The lawman looked beyond the fleeing figures
to the bleak, gray hills and the heavy gray clouds rolling in. His hand reached
down to the revolver holstered at his side. He reconsidered and went for his
rifle instead. The revolver packed a lot of wallop at close range, but accuracy
was key here. He had to be sure.
    Two shots fired out. Their heavy
rumble echoed off into the distance. Two plumes of dust rose into the air
directly in front of Trot. He stopped running. Lode quit licking, and the town ceased
laughing.
    Lawson leaned out over the wooden
parapet with a notable creak. All eyes were on the old lawman. “No more
runnin’. We’re gathered here to see justice done, and nothin’ more.” His voice
was deep and authoritative; the roughness of it sounded like words forced
through a throat packed with dry gravel.
    Trot was the first to move. He fell
to his hands and knees and crawled for his pants a few feet away. He rolled
onto his back and shoved both legs in at once, never tearing his gaze from the
lawman’s wrinkled, leather-tough face. His eyes were as gray as the sky and
filled with little forgiveness.
    Lode was the first to speak. “Stay
out of this, lawman. Your part in this is done.”
    The rifle was placed back down on
the floor by his odd-looking boots. He went slowly for the revolver again and
held it above his head. The circle of people gasped and spread out some. “This here says my part is never done. Until
the punishment has been seen through to its finish, I will keep a semblance of order to proceedins.”
    Lode wiped a trickle of drying
blood from his chin and considered. “You overstep your authority at times,
lawman. If you weren’t so old, I’d be tempted to make an example of you as
well.”
    “If I wasn’t so gawdamn dangerous,
you mean.” Lawson pointed the gun at Lode. “Ain’t no one else in Burn has