“Better there than in here,” he says with a shrug. “Don’t really care if they end up killing each other, so long as I don’t have to clean it up.”
“Right,” I say back, able to see his point, though I’m not sure I share the same indifference on whether or not they keepbreathing. Well, at least one of them.
It’ll really eat at me if Cypress dies without me having a chance to figure him out first, to at the very least understand his motives even if I likely won’t have a prayer of ever really understandinghim.
Although, maybe thisishis motive. Maybe all of it was just to get us right here. So that when this very thing happened, I’d be the fool pointing at Maddock instead of at him.
My arm starts to drop, the pistol moving from aiming at my employer to aiming at the floor, so that by the time Maddock pivots toward the bartender while leaving his gun on Cypress, it looks like he’s far more ready to shoot than I am.
“I mean it,” the bartender says while I keep my eyes on Cypress, feeling guilty for some reason for the way his smile falls with uncertainty as he watches me finish lowering my weapon. “I’ll call for the law.”
“A fine idea,” Maddock agrees, the brightness in his tone undercut by the desperation in his eyes. “Let him come and arrest the criminal.”
“You really think anyone will agree with you on that charge?” the older man argues from near Cypress. “Everyone here saw him play a fair game. Just as they saw you lose.”
“They will,” Maddock says, glancing and nodding at his men for the first time since he stood from the table. “That’s the word of five—” He seems to remember again that I’m here. “No, six men. Against the word of two.”
“No judge is going to take the word of men you’re paying as gospel.”
“That right?” Maddock replies, gesturing with the gun between Cypress and him. “And what’s he paying you? How much did he offer you to go along with this? Once a servant, always a servant, hm?”
For a moment, I worry if Maddock might be on to something,if perhaps I’m not the only one who received an attempt at a bribe. I’m not sure why it bothers me. A lot more than it fucking should.
“There are worse things…” the man mutters, giving Maddock a glare that would be enough to kill if there were any real justice in the world. “Far worse.”
Maddock sneers back at him, then turns to the bartender. “Go on. Call the sheriff. He’ll have an opportunity to weigh the evidence, same as everyone else in here.” He looks around, meeting the eyes of more than a few men who are still barricaded behind tables and likely prepared to reach for their own pistols if they need to. “Everyone can determine if they want to be on the right side of this. If they’re going to allow some pathetic thief to rob a Douglas right in front of their eyes. If they’re ready for the type ofretributionthat might come about as a result.”
All around us, I can see a few people exchanging looks at the name, and the power, it holds in this state. Even the older man, who has been so outspoken up until now, seems to falter as the tide of the room shifts. But Cypress? He only laughs, shaking his head before he replies, “If your only hope here is calling on your daddy’s name, then I’m not sureI’mthe one they’re going to find pathetic.”
In confirmation, there are a few low chuckles, but they fall silent as soon as Maddock’s lip curls. He cocks his gun, still aimed right at Cypress’s chest, and it’s all the provocation Cypress should need to pull the trigger. But he doesn’t. He only stares at me. And though his guns are raised, I see that expression in his eyes again. The one he’d worn in the alley when I’d put a knife to his throat. Like it’s not really death he’s afraid of, because there’s something else he fears more.
I shouldn’t care. I’ve seen plenty of men afraid. I’ve seen plenty killed.Innocentmen killed for far less, and I doubt there is a single definition of the word that would apply to Cypress.
All week he’s been playing these men. Letting them win, tricking them into thinking he’s not a threat, only to finally turn the tables on them now. This is his game, and he ought to have planned for when it would end.
Heisa thief, and I…
My left hand strays to my coat pocket, to the watch that’s still there wrapped in black fabric, to the bribe that I still haven’t bothered to give back because…maybe we both have things we fear more than death.
“Any last words?” I hear Maddock ask, and even though Cypress says nothing, I hear him in my head.
I’ll have to kill you.
You know, wolf, I think I’d let you.
Is he really…is he really not going to put up a fight? I glance around for something that will prevent this, forsomeone, but of course, not one of them moves. Not one of the people that were cheering and lifting their drinks to him only the night prior lifts a finger for him now. No one speaks for him. He has no one.
No one else he’s looking to but me.Goddammit.
“Maddock,” I bark, stepping forward without fully knowing what I intend to do beyond carefully studying my employer for any ideas he might have about turning his gun on me.
He warily watches me approach, and I wait until we are side by side and I’ve turned my back on Cypress before I drop my voice and say the only thing I can think of that might get Maddock to hold. “You’ll never get your money back if you shoot him. Not right away. The lawwillget involved. And when they do, you’ll wind up stuck here until things are resolved.”
He regards me with contempt. “You can’t be suggesting that I let him—”
“What I’msuggestingis you take this out of here like the man said. And that you let me handle it when you do.”
“You?” he asks as his eyebrows rise, clearly not expecting theoffer but also interested by it. “Why? You decide to finally do your job?”