Outlaw's Prayer (ch. 20)
Title: Outlaw's Prayer (20/22)
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: R
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), Kradam (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: I really appreciate everyone who's stuck with this fic and I'm so glad people are enjoying it; I had a lot of fun writing it as well. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
Chapter 7, part two
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15, part one
Chapter 15, part two
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
"I can't see how a fellow like him can expect any clemency from me." - Governor Lew Wallace, on Billy the Kid's request for amnesty for his crimes
Kris didn't like how damned quiet it was up there.
He leaned against the exterior wall of the house, the shadows and the cloudy, moonless sky hiding him from prying eyes stumbling to their own homesteads after another raucous night at the Lambert Inn. He wondered if any of those merrymakers, one of the inn's colorful residents or a well-paying visitor, had noticed that the owner of the inn, usually at the very center of the festivities, had been missing all evening.
After ensuring Andy's treatment by the deputy at the shack, David had asked Kris to guide the Kings along the outskirts of town towards Danny Gokey's homestead, though Kris perceived it as a request and not an order, their earned respect for one another more powerful than their mutual distrust. Still wary that a heavily-armed ambush could await them, the outlaws insisted on the deputy's escort until they reached the house, a newly constructed two-story home far too large and imposing on Hope's horizon for only one man to reside. Working on what shreds of good faith David retained, Kris promised he would leave once the outlaws entered, returning to the old miner's cabin for a quick exchange once the deed was done. Danny would be gone or going; Andy would be rightfully back with the Kings. But Kris wouldn't ease his worry until all was right with his town.
Making sure the Kings lived up to their agreement and did the job without bloodshed--and that they did it at all--Kris lingered outside once the others disappeared inside the house. He made not a sound as he waited, his ears attempting to glean any information from the thick silence of the night, not nearly as skilled an observer as he discovered Hope's prisoner to be. The past few days had skewed his stringent perceptions of the evil and goodness in every soul he thought he understood: lawmen were good people, willing to fight and die to enforce order, just as outlaws were evil men below morals, deceitful and vicious with no regard for human life. But then one of those good men shot someone for his own interests, a sympathetic young man whom Kris befriended before he knew he was an outlaw. His world was no longer about blindly upholding the law, and perhaps it never should have been; Adam, a gleeful conscientious objector himself, always said morality was a gray area, and a man's reputation should never take precedence over what was in his heart.
Not every lawman was as principled as he, and not every outlaw without virtue or merit. Kris kept repeating this to himself in his head, expecting to believe it well enough to leave the Kings to their own devices and make their infamy work for them.
His breath caught in his throat as he heard the sound of a door bang against its hinges, followed by the tinkling of broken glass and the unmistakable, cowardly cry of Danny Gokey from an upstairs window. Kris waited for the inevitable but it thankfully never came; he finally let the breath out in a relieved sigh when he heard mumbles, unintelligible words he assumed would be threats, but no gunshots at all. He could rest easy on his journey back to the cabin; the Kings had kept their word.
Returning to his horse and beginning the trek, hoping the outlaws would not notice his delay, Kris reconsidered his wavering levels of trust in the Kings, reminding himself that unlike his facetiously virtuous boss, David Cook had yet to deceive him. He left Gokey's fate in their hands, wondering if David would ever let slip the sheriff's role in nearly killing Andy to the rest of their gang, never sticking around to realize from Danny's screams that Neal already knew.
***
Wake up. Neal's sneer was only inches from the sleeping face, who had no idea what trouble awaited him once he opened his eyes. Not making a sound, Neal waited impatiently for the sheriff to awaken on his own; he wanted to see the split second of peace and cockiness in his eyes before Gokey believed he was about to die. But it didn't mean he wanted to wait long for it. Come on, damn you. Wake. Up.
The slamming of the bedroom door as the Kings moved into position finally jarred Gokey awake, his head stirring, sleepy and disoriented, until he felt the hot growl of breath on his face and realized he wasn't alone.
Danny let out a startled shout as he opened his eyes to the intruders, his vision blurry without his glasses but his memory compensated for what his eyes could not see. The blond head before him, invading his personal space, was not an unknown. The stretched holes in his earlobes and the silver rings threaded through his lip, glinting menacingly even in the dark of night, were recognizable to any lawman paying attention to the wanted posters circling for years throughout the West. But what stayed in Gokey's mind were the piercing blue eyes that stared him down outside Hope's bank doors, cold and ruthless, eyeing Gokey and determining his fate. Those eyes had scrutinized him the morning of the robbery, allowed him to live as the outlaws walked away; the same eyes stared at him again now, a barely-contained fire behind them, and Gokey knew this time he wouldn't be so lucky.
He felt a pressure at his neck, one tattooed hand of the Dr. holding him down against the bed by the shoulder joint, the other gripping like a vice against his right wrist. Danny couldn't struggle, couldn't move even if he wanted to. Neal warned him with a low, even tone, something dark and ugly hiding in his mind, behind gritted teeth, that made Kyle and even David lingering at the back of the room fearful of what he might do. "Don't. Scream."
Naturally, Gokey being a good and obedient man who knew when to keep his mouth shut, shrieked in terror and looked to rouse the entire town with just his screams to come to his aid. "Help! Help!" he shouted over and over, not realizing he was too far from town for anyone to hear his cries. Gokey was not thinking, couldn't possibly begin to think with an outlaw in his face, eyes narrowed with rage and lips curving into a sneer that could not hide his disgust. He wished he could call for his deputy to fix his dilemma, or possibly even call for his mother.
Neal's jaw clenched, revolted at the pitiful cries for help coming from underneath him; he thought that the sheriff would at least have an ounce of self-respect to take this punishment and die like a man. But from what David had told him, perhaps that was too much to ask. With a grim determination and a complete lack of remorse--hell, Neal had to stop himself from grinning in satisfaction--the hand at Gokey's wrist inched downward, making a firm grip on the index finger, Gokey too occupied with his own screams to notice. A squeeze, a twist, and a sickening crack of bone that resounded louder in the bedroom than Danny's shouts, and the sheriff finally did take notice, falling silent and heeding Neal's first warning a few moments too late.
"Fine, scream all you want," Neal compromised with a dark irony to his tone, feeling the mangled trigger finger in his grip, nerves twitching, joints turned the wrong way. He might not have prevented Gokey from shooting his first victim, but he certainly stopped him from being able to shoot anyone ever again. "It's not gonna do you any good."
The pain shooting up Gokey's arm and coursing through his body worked as an effective paralyzer, shocking him still for fear of what else Neal Tiemann might break if he crosses him again. His eyes darted to the rest of the room, his familiar, isolated, happy homestead invaded by outlaws, two others flanking the bedroom door with faces as stony and unforgiving as the Dr.'s. He would find no help here. He was at the complete mercy--a term not without its ironies that night--of the Kings.
He tried to look away, tried to squeeze his eyes tight enough so he could block out the pain, wake up to find it was all a dream. But Neal shook Gokey back to attention, refusing to let him succumb to the pain, to block out the terror he was about to inflict. He never gave Andy the privilege to ignore what Gokey had put him through; Neal would only treat him in kind. Danny whimpered as Neal glowered over him, finally acknowledging his due fate.
Pathetic, Neal thought with disgust, remembering how he had spared Gokey when they had faced each other that one morning, believing without a revolver and without any courage in him the sheriff would be harmless. Neal underestimated him; they all had. It was a pity David had made that goodwill compromise with the deputy not to kill Danny Gokey that night; had he not expressly forbid Neal from murder, it would have been the Dr.'s pleasure.
"I...I know who you are," Danny finally eked out, a fearful, wavering rasp of a voice, a stark contrast from his earlier screams.
The look he received from Neal was less than encouraging; his blue eyes grew dark with rage, tempering his anger with a tighter grip on Gokey's shoulder joint, a thumb digging in only inches from his windpipe. This visit to the sheriff wasn't supposed to be personal, but every time he looked at Gokey Neal thought of him pulling the trigger on Andy, his Andy, and he wished he could make this as personal and painful as it could get.
He growled his response, his temper controlled only by the promise he had made to David that, so long as Danny Gokey left Hope alive, Neal could be in charge of the confrontation. "Then you know why we're here."
Looking on with a permissive expression on his face, David waited patiently at the back corner of the room with Kyle, standing prominently enough in what dim light the evening provided for Gokey to still perceive him as a threat, but far enough away from the sheriff's bed to give Neal a wide berth. Though both Kris and Andy had told David not to reveal Gokey's involvement in the shooting to Neal, fearing the Dr.'s rage would get the best of him, it would have been impossible to keep that secret to himself; not when Neal was hurting, not when his best friend was begging for answers. David not only wanted Neal to know exactly who and why they were in this mess in the first place; he relished the thought of unleashing the Dr. on Danny Gokey, to make him pay for what he did to Andy with the passion and rage only a wounded man's lover could muster. He gave a silent note of gratitude to fate for allowing only David to see the extent of Andy's injuries, wounds and weakness he did not dare relay back to Neal before their confrontation. If the Dr. had known the damage Gokey's bullet had done, the sheriff would have never stepped out of that bedroom alive.
As it were, Danny knew of no such agreement to merely scare him, not kill him, and was quite convinced that the outlaws were in his bedroom that night to conduct the latter. His heart pounded in his ears as his pulse began to race, his eyes filling up with terrified tears. "Pl-please don't kill me," he pleaded, his lower lip quivering as he begged for life from three men who had no problem taking it. Gokey knew he had almost no chance of being spared, the malice in Neal's eyes alone dangerous enough to kill. But he just couldn't accept his death like this; not now, when Santa Fe was just about to bring its bevy of lawmen and newspaper reporters to make Danny an instant star and a hero. The Kings were going to make Danny Gokey famous if he had his way, but now the same men were going to take it all away. "I'll do anything, please..." The tears ran freely down his face, blurring his vision until all he saw was Neal's anger in his eyes and the sneer on his lips. "I don't want to die..."
It broke something inside of Neal, hitting him suddenly and releasing the anger like a geyser, erupting to the surface in hot, violent bursts. "Is this what you expected him to do?" He gave Gokey another shake, harder than before, his free hand clamping around Gokey's other shoulder, threateningly close to gripping his throat.
"Did you want him to cry and beg for his life? So you could feel fucking superior?" Neal's voice grew louder, shouting into Gokey's face with abandon, not giving a damn about stealth or Gokey's well-being. The images from his tortured imagination kept haunting him, picturing Andy wounded, dying, the painful thoughts attacking his mind since the moment the Kings had heard the news. That night David gave Neal a face to the pain, a name to the perpetrator who had so quickly and easily threatened to tear the Kings apart. His grip grew tighter, hands inching closer towards each other, Gokey's neck in between Neal's palms; Danny's eyes grew wide with fear, too terrified to even breathe. "Did you want him to suffer, to be afraid to die? 'Cause I can make you suffer, too--"
A hand fell onto Neal's shoulder, its presence a silent reminder that he promised not to take this confrontation too far. When Neal looked back he spied David standing next to him, the hand acting both to stabilize the sharpshooter as well as warn him. He knew he was passing the point of intimidation but he didn't care, his anger stoked and blazing, his need for revenge stronger than his desire to keep his word. It took a tighter grip of that hand on his shoulder, David's quiet insistence that Neal not strangle the sheriff, for Neal to finally heed the warning, loosening his grip but keeping his hands on Danny's shoulders, reminding him the threat was still very real.
"You should die," Neal spat the words at Gokey, the sneer still on his lips, but the reality of those words was abated for now, Gokey's life spared by a plot and a promise. If they were going to complete this agreement, the sheriff had to merely be scared, not murdered. Neal wanted revenge, could taste the blood and smell death waiting in the air...but he wanted Andy back more. After what he had realized last night, he needed him back. "You should be dragged out of this town by your knees; tied to the back of a stagecoach, dropped in the desert and left to rot. Bet the buzzards wouldn't even eat your yellow hide."
He leaned in again when David returned to his position near the door, allowing Neal to once again take the reins so long as he did not cross that line from intimidation to murder. A broken finger was collateral damage in their line of work; a broken neck would be more difficult to explain. "You're no sheriff," Neal seethed. "You don't give a damn about this town, only what you can leech from it." If there was one element of this grudge between Hope's sheriff and his deputy that Neal could understand, it was Gokey's lack of loyalty to the town, the responsibility he held, the trust he had squandered. He couldn't imagine what kind of a man one could be if he was not loyal.
"So we're giving you one chance," Neal heard the clicking sound of guns being cocked behind him, David's trusted revolver and Kyle's twin pistols readying themselves for a firefight. They had said they wouldn't kill Gokey, and they didn't plan to; but Kyle, who felt more like an outlaw and an adult in the past few days than he had been his entire life, reminded Neal and David there was nothing more intimidating than staring down the business end of an outlaw's gun. Just as the Kid had predicted, Danny let out a squeak at the sound, the undignified noise the loudest he would allow himself in current company. "You better get gone...while the gettin's good."
Gokey hesitated, shallow breaths catching in his throat, darting, desperate eyes stilled as they stared at Neal. Even the beads of sweat on his forehead seemed to fight the will of gravity, remaining at a standstill as they dripped down his face. He couldn't leave, not now; not when he had sent for the best judge in Santa Fe and all the journalists he could rouse from their inked bylines. Danny knew that stranger lying in the jail cell was going to be his ticket to fame in New Mexico, even the entire West, and this terrifying clandestine meeting was proof of it. Danny couldn't imagine packing up and leaving town when praise and popularity were about to be showered down upon him.
That hesitation cost him dearly.
Yanking him up by the collarbone, Neal pulled back his arm, balling his hand into a fist and let it fly, punching Gokey squarely in the jaw, dislodging a molar and shooting pain through Gokey's skull. Neal could accept letting the sheriff flee town, but it certainly wouldn't be a painless journey. "Oh, you're gonna leave," he divined Danny's thoughts as the sheriff let out a pained groan, an instinctive right hand reaching up to nurse his wounded jaw a second before his nerves reminded him of the injury Neal had inflicted there as well. "We'll make sure of it. You wronged us once; you won't cross us again."
The dark tone of Neal's voice should have been enough to convince Gokey to take the Kings's advice and leave. But still there was hesitation in his eyes, the ego boost he had received from his first successful arrest telling him to ignore Neal, that once the legal and media circus came into town there would be no way for the outlaws to make good on their threat without being captured themselves. Neal leaned in, seething through clenched teeth; he did not like being ignored. "If you don't," he warned, wishing he could do more than merely threaten the sheriff into submission. "This house; burned to ashes. The bank, your precious sheriff's office...everything. Every man, woman, child in your damned town, we'll throw them into the pit. We'll burn this town right off the map. Make the Alamo look like a fucking tea party."
A sadistic smile spread across Neal's face as Gokey's eyes widened; the sheriff was less affected by the threat of a massacre in Hope, of destroying the town and killing all its inhabitants, as he was affected by Neal's next condition. "And we'd make sure every soul in the West knew...it was all because one stubborn, stupid sheriff wouldn't get when the gettin' was good."
Danny gasped; he'd have a target on his back as large as if he himself had perpetrated the massacre. He couldn't decipher if the Kings were bluffing but he had not the stomach to test it. He scrambled up to a sitting position in bed, desperately inching himself away from Neal and his threats. By shooting the retreating outlaw that night Danny had made this grudge personal, and while he had heard the many stories of lawmen cut down by the Kings, it had all been business as usual; he had no idea how ruthless they could get once the threat was personal.
"And if you breathe a word of this night to anyone," it was a stipulation Neal decided on the fly, realizing the attention-grabbing Gokey would probably tell any ears that would listen about how he confronted the Kings and survived. David Cook wasn't the only King who could make snap decisions in the heat of the moment. "And we will know if you do..." He took hold of Danny's right hand again, adding pressure onto the already shattered bones of his index finger; the morbid satisfaction of watching Gokey's face contort in pain, a silent scream as his eyes squinted shut, was only a fraction of the torture Neal truly wanted to put him through. "Then you'll find out how it feels to have the rest of your bones broken, too."
The moment Neal released his grip on the sorry sheriff, stepping away from the bed with a glower that could still ignite timber into flames, Danny rushed to his feet, the pain fueling his instinct for survival. He saw now the only way to get out of this alive was to get out--and the quicker, the better. Whimpering all the way, Danny rushed out the bedroom door and down the stairs in nothing but his woolen longjohns and boots, fortunate enough to grab his glasses on the way down. He escaped into the night, wishing to get as far away from the deadly, vengeful Kings as he could, knowing he was lucky to ride out of town with his life.
"Wow, look at him go!" exclaimed Kyle, peering out the window at the retreating man on horseback, Gokey letting out a gruesome, painful wail he had held in during the confrontation. "Bet he never rode so fast in his life."
He received no response; this had been a grim deed, and they learned over the years it was indecent to gloat over another man's life when it could have so easily been the life of one of their own. Neal had no intention of watching the disgraced sheriff flee; he wanted to wash his hands of him, get the stink of Gokey's ambition off his boots as soon as possible. He was the first one down the stairs and out the front door, eager to return to the miner's shack, his task incomplete until Andy was with him again. He wouldn't waste another second, another useless breath in this town until they were together.
Following his lead, Kyle quickly left his perch at the window, with David securing the rear. He gave one last look at Gokey's bedroom in the dark shadows of night; they had only been in there less than five minutes but what David had witnessed, the passion and ferocity with which Neal attacked, were unparalleled, more dangerous than he had ever been in heists. He had something he was fighting for now; it wasn't for fortune, not for his loyalty to the Kings, but for the love he held in his heart, the overwhelming desire to be with Andy again, no matter what the cost. David couldn't decide if what he had just witnessed was noble or scary, but he did know he was glad not to be on its receiving end.
As he moved to exit the bedroom and return to the shack to retrieve their missing member for good, something glinted in the corner of his eye, catching David's attention. Hanging upon the back of a desk chair was a leather vest, with a small tin star pinned to its front, tarnished but still shining. Badges like that only meant terrible things to David, attached to evil men with vicious intentions and less remorse than the worst of outlaws; they signified greed, corruption and ambition, just as Danny Gokey wielded its tarnished shine. But he had met one lawman who was the exception to the rule, who lived up to the standards that star was supposed to signify; a man who would bring that badge's value back to sterling, pristine condition.
With a soft smile playing on his lips, David picked up the vest and the badge along with it, figuring it might soon be put to good use.
Chapter 21
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: R
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), Kradam (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: I really appreciate everyone who's stuck with this fic and I'm so glad people are enjoying it; I had a lot of fun writing it as well. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
Chapter 7, part two
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15, part one
Chapter 15, part two
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
"I can't see how a fellow like him can expect any clemency from me." - Governor Lew Wallace, on Billy the Kid's request for amnesty for his crimes
Kris didn't like how damned quiet it was up there.
He leaned against the exterior wall of the house, the shadows and the cloudy, moonless sky hiding him from prying eyes stumbling to their own homesteads after another raucous night at the Lambert Inn. He wondered if any of those merrymakers, one of the inn's colorful residents or a well-paying visitor, had noticed that the owner of the inn, usually at the very center of the festivities, had been missing all evening.
After ensuring Andy's treatment by the deputy at the shack, David had asked Kris to guide the Kings along the outskirts of town towards Danny Gokey's homestead, though Kris perceived it as a request and not an order, their earned respect for one another more powerful than their mutual distrust. Still wary that a heavily-armed ambush could await them, the outlaws insisted on the deputy's escort until they reached the house, a newly constructed two-story home far too large and imposing on Hope's horizon for only one man to reside. Working on what shreds of good faith David retained, Kris promised he would leave once the outlaws entered, returning to the old miner's cabin for a quick exchange once the deed was done. Danny would be gone or going; Andy would be rightfully back with the Kings. But Kris wouldn't ease his worry until all was right with his town.
Making sure the Kings lived up to their agreement and did the job without bloodshed--and that they did it at all--Kris lingered outside once the others disappeared inside the house. He made not a sound as he waited, his ears attempting to glean any information from the thick silence of the night, not nearly as skilled an observer as he discovered Hope's prisoner to be. The past few days had skewed his stringent perceptions of the evil and goodness in every soul he thought he understood: lawmen were good people, willing to fight and die to enforce order, just as outlaws were evil men below morals, deceitful and vicious with no regard for human life. But then one of those good men shot someone for his own interests, a sympathetic young man whom Kris befriended before he knew he was an outlaw. His world was no longer about blindly upholding the law, and perhaps it never should have been; Adam, a gleeful conscientious objector himself, always said morality was a gray area, and a man's reputation should never take precedence over what was in his heart.
Not every lawman was as principled as he, and not every outlaw without virtue or merit. Kris kept repeating this to himself in his head, expecting to believe it well enough to leave the Kings to their own devices and make their infamy work for them.
His breath caught in his throat as he heard the sound of a door bang against its hinges, followed by the tinkling of broken glass and the unmistakable, cowardly cry of Danny Gokey from an upstairs window. Kris waited for the inevitable but it thankfully never came; he finally let the breath out in a relieved sigh when he heard mumbles, unintelligible words he assumed would be threats, but no gunshots at all. He could rest easy on his journey back to the cabin; the Kings had kept their word.
Returning to his horse and beginning the trek, hoping the outlaws would not notice his delay, Kris reconsidered his wavering levels of trust in the Kings, reminding himself that unlike his facetiously virtuous boss, David Cook had yet to deceive him. He left Gokey's fate in their hands, wondering if David would ever let slip the sheriff's role in nearly killing Andy to the rest of their gang, never sticking around to realize from Danny's screams that Neal already knew.
***
Wake up. Neal's sneer was only inches from the sleeping face, who had no idea what trouble awaited him once he opened his eyes. Not making a sound, Neal waited impatiently for the sheriff to awaken on his own; he wanted to see the split second of peace and cockiness in his eyes before Gokey believed he was about to die. But it didn't mean he wanted to wait long for it. Come on, damn you. Wake. Up.
The slamming of the bedroom door as the Kings moved into position finally jarred Gokey awake, his head stirring, sleepy and disoriented, until he felt the hot growl of breath on his face and realized he wasn't alone.
Danny let out a startled shout as he opened his eyes to the intruders, his vision blurry without his glasses but his memory compensated for what his eyes could not see. The blond head before him, invading his personal space, was not an unknown. The stretched holes in his earlobes and the silver rings threaded through his lip, glinting menacingly even in the dark of night, were recognizable to any lawman paying attention to the wanted posters circling for years throughout the West. But what stayed in Gokey's mind were the piercing blue eyes that stared him down outside Hope's bank doors, cold and ruthless, eyeing Gokey and determining his fate. Those eyes had scrutinized him the morning of the robbery, allowed him to live as the outlaws walked away; the same eyes stared at him again now, a barely-contained fire behind them, and Gokey knew this time he wouldn't be so lucky.
He felt a pressure at his neck, one tattooed hand of the Dr. holding him down against the bed by the shoulder joint, the other gripping like a vice against his right wrist. Danny couldn't struggle, couldn't move even if he wanted to. Neal warned him with a low, even tone, something dark and ugly hiding in his mind, behind gritted teeth, that made Kyle and even David lingering at the back of the room fearful of what he might do. "Don't. Scream."
Naturally, Gokey being a good and obedient man who knew when to keep his mouth shut, shrieked in terror and looked to rouse the entire town with just his screams to come to his aid. "Help! Help!" he shouted over and over, not realizing he was too far from town for anyone to hear his cries. Gokey was not thinking, couldn't possibly begin to think with an outlaw in his face, eyes narrowed with rage and lips curving into a sneer that could not hide his disgust. He wished he could call for his deputy to fix his dilemma, or possibly even call for his mother.
Neal's jaw clenched, revolted at the pitiful cries for help coming from underneath him; he thought that the sheriff would at least have an ounce of self-respect to take this punishment and die like a man. But from what David had told him, perhaps that was too much to ask. With a grim determination and a complete lack of remorse--hell, Neal had to stop himself from grinning in satisfaction--the hand at Gokey's wrist inched downward, making a firm grip on the index finger, Gokey too occupied with his own screams to notice. A squeeze, a twist, and a sickening crack of bone that resounded louder in the bedroom than Danny's shouts, and the sheriff finally did take notice, falling silent and heeding Neal's first warning a few moments too late.
"Fine, scream all you want," Neal compromised with a dark irony to his tone, feeling the mangled trigger finger in his grip, nerves twitching, joints turned the wrong way. He might not have prevented Gokey from shooting his first victim, but he certainly stopped him from being able to shoot anyone ever again. "It's not gonna do you any good."
The pain shooting up Gokey's arm and coursing through his body worked as an effective paralyzer, shocking him still for fear of what else Neal Tiemann might break if he crosses him again. His eyes darted to the rest of the room, his familiar, isolated, happy homestead invaded by outlaws, two others flanking the bedroom door with faces as stony and unforgiving as the Dr.'s. He would find no help here. He was at the complete mercy--a term not without its ironies that night--of the Kings.
He tried to look away, tried to squeeze his eyes tight enough so he could block out the pain, wake up to find it was all a dream. But Neal shook Gokey back to attention, refusing to let him succumb to the pain, to block out the terror he was about to inflict. He never gave Andy the privilege to ignore what Gokey had put him through; Neal would only treat him in kind. Danny whimpered as Neal glowered over him, finally acknowledging his due fate.
Pathetic, Neal thought with disgust, remembering how he had spared Gokey when they had faced each other that one morning, believing without a revolver and without any courage in him the sheriff would be harmless. Neal underestimated him; they all had. It was a pity David had made that goodwill compromise with the deputy not to kill Danny Gokey that night; had he not expressly forbid Neal from murder, it would have been the Dr.'s pleasure.
"I...I know who you are," Danny finally eked out, a fearful, wavering rasp of a voice, a stark contrast from his earlier screams.
The look he received from Neal was less than encouraging; his blue eyes grew dark with rage, tempering his anger with a tighter grip on Gokey's shoulder joint, a thumb digging in only inches from his windpipe. This visit to the sheriff wasn't supposed to be personal, but every time he looked at Gokey Neal thought of him pulling the trigger on Andy, his Andy, and he wished he could make this as personal and painful as it could get.
He growled his response, his temper controlled only by the promise he had made to David that, so long as Danny Gokey left Hope alive, Neal could be in charge of the confrontation. "Then you know why we're here."
Looking on with a permissive expression on his face, David waited patiently at the back corner of the room with Kyle, standing prominently enough in what dim light the evening provided for Gokey to still perceive him as a threat, but far enough away from the sheriff's bed to give Neal a wide berth. Though both Kris and Andy had told David not to reveal Gokey's involvement in the shooting to Neal, fearing the Dr.'s rage would get the best of him, it would have been impossible to keep that secret to himself; not when Neal was hurting, not when his best friend was begging for answers. David not only wanted Neal to know exactly who and why they were in this mess in the first place; he relished the thought of unleashing the Dr. on Danny Gokey, to make him pay for what he did to Andy with the passion and rage only a wounded man's lover could muster. He gave a silent note of gratitude to fate for allowing only David to see the extent of Andy's injuries, wounds and weakness he did not dare relay back to Neal before their confrontation. If the Dr. had known the damage Gokey's bullet had done, the sheriff would have never stepped out of that bedroom alive.
As it were, Danny knew of no such agreement to merely scare him, not kill him, and was quite convinced that the outlaws were in his bedroom that night to conduct the latter. His heart pounded in his ears as his pulse began to race, his eyes filling up with terrified tears. "Pl-please don't kill me," he pleaded, his lower lip quivering as he begged for life from three men who had no problem taking it. Gokey knew he had almost no chance of being spared, the malice in Neal's eyes alone dangerous enough to kill. But he just couldn't accept his death like this; not now, when Santa Fe was just about to bring its bevy of lawmen and newspaper reporters to make Danny an instant star and a hero. The Kings were going to make Danny Gokey famous if he had his way, but now the same men were going to take it all away. "I'll do anything, please..." The tears ran freely down his face, blurring his vision until all he saw was Neal's anger in his eyes and the sneer on his lips. "I don't want to die..."
It broke something inside of Neal, hitting him suddenly and releasing the anger like a geyser, erupting to the surface in hot, violent bursts. "Is this what you expected him to do?" He gave Gokey another shake, harder than before, his free hand clamping around Gokey's other shoulder, threateningly close to gripping his throat.
"Did you want him to cry and beg for his life? So you could feel fucking superior?" Neal's voice grew louder, shouting into Gokey's face with abandon, not giving a damn about stealth or Gokey's well-being. The images from his tortured imagination kept haunting him, picturing Andy wounded, dying, the painful thoughts attacking his mind since the moment the Kings had heard the news. That night David gave Neal a face to the pain, a name to the perpetrator who had so quickly and easily threatened to tear the Kings apart. His grip grew tighter, hands inching closer towards each other, Gokey's neck in between Neal's palms; Danny's eyes grew wide with fear, too terrified to even breathe. "Did you want him to suffer, to be afraid to die? 'Cause I can make you suffer, too--"
A hand fell onto Neal's shoulder, its presence a silent reminder that he promised not to take this confrontation too far. When Neal looked back he spied David standing next to him, the hand acting both to stabilize the sharpshooter as well as warn him. He knew he was passing the point of intimidation but he didn't care, his anger stoked and blazing, his need for revenge stronger than his desire to keep his word. It took a tighter grip of that hand on his shoulder, David's quiet insistence that Neal not strangle the sheriff, for Neal to finally heed the warning, loosening his grip but keeping his hands on Danny's shoulders, reminding him the threat was still very real.
"You should die," Neal spat the words at Gokey, the sneer still on his lips, but the reality of those words was abated for now, Gokey's life spared by a plot and a promise. If they were going to complete this agreement, the sheriff had to merely be scared, not murdered. Neal wanted revenge, could taste the blood and smell death waiting in the air...but he wanted Andy back more. After what he had realized last night, he needed him back. "You should be dragged out of this town by your knees; tied to the back of a stagecoach, dropped in the desert and left to rot. Bet the buzzards wouldn't even eat your yellow hide."
He leaned in again when David returned to his position near the door, allowing Neal to once again take the reins so long as he did not cross that line from intimidation to murder. A broken finger was collateral damage in their line of work; a broken neck would be more difficult to explain. "You're no sheriff," Neal seethed. "You don't give a damn about this town, only what you can leech from it." If there was one element of this grudge between Hope's sheriff and his deputy that Neal could understand, it was Gokey's lack of loyalty to the town, the responsibility he held, the trust he had squandered. He couldn't imagine what kind of a man one could be if he was not loyal.
"So we're giving you one chance," Neal heard the clicking sound of guns being cocked behind him, David's trusted revolver and Kyle's twin pistols readying themselves for a firefight. They had said they wouldn't kill Gokey, and they didn't plan to; but Kyle, who felt more like an outlaw and an adult in the past few days than he had been his entire life, reminded Neal and David there was nothing more intimidating than staring down the business end of an outlaw's gun. Just as the Kid had predicted, Danny let out a squeak at the sound, the undignified noise the loudest he would allow himself in current company. "You better get gone...while the gettin's good."
Gokey hesitated, shallow breaths catching in his throat, darting, desperate eyes stilled as they stared at Neal. Even the beads of sweat on his forehead seemed to fight the will of gravity, remaining at a standstill as they dripped down his face. He couldn't leave, not now; not when he had sent for the best judge in Santa Fe and all the journalists he could rouse from their inked bylines. Danny knew that stranger lying in the jail cell was going to be his ticket to fame in New Mexico, even the entire West, and this terrifying clandestine meeting was proof of it. Danny couldn't imagine packing up and leaving town when praise and popularity were about to be showered down upon him.
That hesitation cost him dearly.
Yanking him up by the collarbone, Neal pulled back his arm, balling his hand into a fist and let it fly, punching Gokey squarely in the jaw, dislodging a molar and shooting pain through Gokey's skull. Neal could accept letting the sheriff flee town, but it certainly wouldn't be a painless journey. "Oh, you're gonna leave," he divined Danny's thoughts as the sheriff let out a pained groan, an instinctive right hand reaching up to nurse his wounded jaw a second before his nerves reminded him of the injury Neal had inflicted there as well. "We'll make sure of it. You wronged us once; you won't cross us again."
The dark tone of Neal's voice should have been enough to convince Gokey to take the Kings's advice and leave. But still there was hesitation in his eyes, the ego boost he had received from his first successful arrest telling him to ignore Neal, that once the legal and media circus came into town there would be no way for the outlaws to make good on their threat without being captured themselves. Neal leaned in, seething through clenched teeth; he did not like being ignored. "If you don't," he warned, wishing he could do more than merely threaten the sheriff into submission. "This house; burned to ashes. The bank, your precious sheriff's office...everything. Every man, woman, child in your damned town, we'll throw them into the pit. We'll burn this town right off the map. Make the Alamo look like a fucking tea party."
A sadistic smile spread across Neal's face as Gokey's eyes widened; the sheriff was less affected by the threat of a massacre in Hope, of destroying the town and killing all its inhabitants, as he was affected by Neal's next condition. "And we'd make sure every soul in the West knew...it was all because one stubborn, stupid sheriff wouldn't get when the gettin' was good."
Danny gasped; he'd have a target on his back as large as if he himself had perpetrated the massacre. He couldn't decipher if the Kings were bluffing but he had not the stomach to test it. He scrambled up to a sitting position in bed, desperately inching himself away from Neal and his threats. By shooting the retreating outlaw that night Danny had made this grudge personal, and while he had heard the many stories of lawmen cut down by the Kings, it had all been business as usual; he had no idea how ruthless they could get once the threat was personal.
"And if you breathe a word of this night to anyone," it was a stipulation Neal decided on the fly, realizing the attention-grabbing Gokey would probably tell any ears that would listen about how he confronted the Kings and survived. David Cook wasn't the only King who could make snap decisions in the heat of the moment. "And we will know if you do..." He took hold of Danny's right hand again, adding pressure onto the already shattered bones of his index finger; the morbid satisfaction of watching Gokey's face contort in pain, a silent scream as his eyes squinted shut, was only a fraction of the torture Neal truly wanted to put him through. "Then you'll find out how it feels to have the rest of your bones broken, too."
The moment Neal released his grip on the sorry sheriff, stepping away from the bed with a glower that could still ignite timber into flames, Danny rushed to his feet, the pain fueling his instinct for survival. He saw now the only way to get out of this alive was to get out--and the quicker, the better. Whimpering all the way, Danny rushed out the bedroom door and down the stairs in nothing but his woolen longjohns and boots, fortunate enough to grab his glasses on the way down. He escaped into the night, wishing to get as far away from the deadly, vengeful Kings as he could, knowing he was lucky to ride out of town with his life.
"Wow, look at him go!" exclaimed Kyle, peering out the window at the retreating man on horseback, Gokey letting out a gruesome, painful wail he had held in during the confrontation. "Bet he never rode so fast in his life."
He received no response; this had been a grim deed, and they learned over the years it was indecent to gloat over another man's life when it could have so easily been the life of one of their own. Neal had no intention of watching the disgraced sheriff flee; he wanted to wash his hands of him, get the stink of Gokey's ambition off his boots as soon as possible. He was the first one down the stairs and out the front door, eager to return to the miner's shack, his task incomplete until Andy was with him again. He wouldn't waste another second, another useless breath in this town until they were together.
Following his lead, Kyle quickly left his perch at the window, with David securing the rear. He gave one last look at Gokey's bedroom in the dark shadows of night; they had only been in there less than five minutes but what David had witnessed, the passion and ferocity with which Neal attacked, were unparalleled, more dangerous than he had ever been in heists. He had something he was fighting for now; it wasn't for fortune, not for his loyalty to the Kings, but for the love he held in his heart, the overwhelming desire to be with Andy again, no matter what the cost. David couldn't decide if what he had just witnessed was noble or scary, but he did know he was glad not to be on its receiving end.
As he moved to exit the bedroom and return to the shack to retrieve their missing member for good, something glinted in the corner of his eye, catching David's attention. Hanging upon the back of a desk chair was a leather vest, with a small tin star pinned to its front, tarnished but still shining. Badges like that only meant terrible things to David, attached to evil men with vicious intentions and less remorse than the worst of outlaws; they signified greed, corruption and ambition, just as Danny Gokey wielded its tarnished shine. But he had met one lawman who was the exception to the rule, who lived up to the standards that star was supposed to signify; a man who would bring that badge's value back to sterling, pristine condition.
With a soft smile playing on his lips, David picked up the vest and the badge along with it, figuring it might soon be put to good use.
Chapter 21