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A LEX HURRIED BACK to the boardinghouse, deep in thought, the ie of the dead man&039;s eyes burned into her brain She opened the front door and stepped inside, thinking that the world had gone one mad the day the first shot of the war had been fired But this was so worse Worse? What could be worse than a war that was exter all sanity and all souls
The thought came to her unbidden, and she shook it off But as happening here was strange People were behaving differently
Cody and Jim had literally severed the dead man&039;s head
"There you are, Alex!" Beulah chastised her as she ca a hand to her heart "Don&039;t you go round worryinglady, do you hear?"
Alex stared at her "Beulah, I was right down the street"
"Maybe so, but you need to be inside now It&039;s dark, and theand wondering what the ot sent aith their tails between their legs Tonight we&039;re all safe"
Beulah drew back, shaking her head sadly "Honey child, no time is safe anymore But darkness? It&039;s not safe at all"
Alex stared at the older wo on here?" she asked
"Evil," Beulah said sagely
"Evil?"
"Bad things, very bad things It&039;s like the devil hi to take hold here Oh, honey, I don&039;t know everything But it&039;s like an evil disease So we just stay inside Oh, Lordy! Brigsby gone And Hollow Tree, too, I hear telland now Victory Maybe we thought we&039;d be spared Maybe we felt we couldn&039;t do a thing about it &039;cept run, and for too many folks, this is all we have and there ain&039;t nowhere to run to"
"Beulah, I don&039;t understand you," Alex said ihtly understand itup "But tonightwell, that was aup when they did And now they&039;ll be staying here What a fine thing that is"
Beulah n of the cross over her ample chest as she spoke
Alex nodded That much was true She would definitely feel safer with thein her boardinghouse
Suddenly her sreement froze on her face
She had just watched Cody Fox decapitate a dead -no, at the insistence of-of Jim Green
She realized she was exhausted No doubt the world would look norht&039;s rest
"I think I have to go to sleep," she told Beulah
"You need to have sohed "Beulah, you&039;re a sweetheart, but I&039;o up to bed now, and I&039;ll worry about what&039;s going on in the ely
Alex took Beulah&039;s hands "I saw the devil&039;s hen anger and hostility entered the hearts of uarantee you, God has no part in the carnage of war Whatever this is, we can fight it, and ill"
"Maybe Now that they&039;ve co they caunfire But so into our lives and our souls-like the devil Please, Alex, you heard what Cody Fox said to theirls It&039;s ti "I&039;ll be careful, I swear," she pro herself up the steps suddenly seemed like a tremendous effort
She made it to her room Her father&039;s room No, her rooirls had laid out her nightdress, and left her a basin of water on the washstand By rote, she carefully rehtgown She dipped her hands into the water again to refresh her face, and caught her reflection in the aunt and pale As if she were so of the woirl, oddly pretty and fresh She paled in comparison She winced How odd! She wasn&039;t accustoain to her reflection and realized she was co herself to others because
Because of Cody Fox
A flood of red heightened her cheeks as she continued staring into the mirror
She took her towel and patted her face dry, and turned quickly away froone crazy-and she orried about being noticed by a man She definitely needed sleep Ever since Grant&039;s death, she hadn&039;t even thought about men except when she&039;d volunteered at the hospital, where they&039;d si to die with the war their own
Maybe that was it It had si since she had even thought about appearances, attractionand then aherself as a woh of irritation, blew out the lamp and crawled into bed
Darkness, exhaustion They would surely allow her to rest
But she found that her eyes were drawn to the double French doors that led from the master suite to the balcony The ht falling to earth fro the world beyond her s, low, shadows iant birds dancing in the air beyond theShe als, but she kneas only the sound of the wind as it rushed over the plain
She forced herself to close her eyes, and at last she slept
THEY WERE IN THE ACT of burying the decapitated man when the sheriff and his deputy er, was a tall, hard-muscled man with sharp blue eyes and hair so dark it had a blue sheen in the ht His deputy, Dave Hinton, was smaller, but he had a solid handshake and steady eyes
Jim Green explained what had happened when Milo and his band of outlaws had come to town
"These fellows saved us, and that&039;s a fact," he said, then cleared his throat, kicking at the freshly dug mound of earth below his feet "Honest, Cole, eren&039;t being cowards-we just didn&039;t knohat to do, you know? Ace Henley got this fellow, though We don&039;t have a na about him But we&039;ve taken care of him-and we&039;ve buried hier said, sounding disgusted with himself "I shouldn&039;t have ridden out, and I sure as hell shouldn&039;t have taken Dave with me" He looked Cody and Brendan in the eyes "Thank you I don&039;t kno the hell you did it, but thank you There&039;d been trouble out at John Snow&039;s trading post-and I had to get out there, see as going on But I didn&039;t count on getting back so late"
"We hit some trouble on the return," Dave said
"Trouble? What happened?" Cody asked
"Darnedest thing," Cole said, shaking his head "We were coh a patch of brush and trees about five ure We&039;ve both been riding since before we could walk, and first we lose Dave&039;s horse, and he&039;s running around like a headless chicken till I can catch hi you know,Dave&039;s horse going again There was so out there, but da All I know is, I&039;ve never seen horses acting up so badly" Cole stopped speaking and looked Cody in the eye again "Everyone is saying the devil is loose in these parts I don&039;t knohat the devil is, but there&039;s sure as hell so that lets Milo and his crew annihilate whole towns I figured they&039;d be co for us sooner or later It&039;s just sooner than I expected" He looked from Cody to Brendan, and back to Cody "How the hell did you stop him?"
"I know Milo&039;s type," Cody said "I kno to make him believe that he&039;ll lose his own life if he doesn&039;t listen tothe dead man," Jim Green put in nervously
Cole set a hand on Jim Green&039;s shoulder "If you feel it was necessary, Jireed, shaking his head strenuously Cody and Brendan exchanged a look It was obvious that Dave thought the very devil alking the streets
Cole Granger was a harder ether, and his attitude said he&039;d seen his share of viciouswith so on out here," Cody said, "haven&039;t you gotten any help froer shook his head "If we&039;d ever suspected we could all be wiped out this e overnment helpTexas is part of the Confederacy, and the Confederacy has lost too ht come from Chief Tall Feather and the Apaches, and maybe some of his Comanche friends At least we don&039;t have problems with the Indians out here They live their lives, we live ours, and we trade They say an evil spirit has come to earth and possessed the souls of men I don&039;t knohat it is, only that I&039; and I will see these killers stopped"
"How&039;d you know about the trouble out here?" Dave asked suddenly
"I have fa himself "And Cody&039;s folks lived in these parts His father died out here"
Cody shrugged
"My mother went home-back to New Orleans-before I was born But the iht Tomorrow, as a oing to go out and meet that Indian chief You say his naood h the Apache are a warrior clan Tall Feather sees the way the world is going He says the Spirit Fathers have told hireater nuht theure out how to use them Go ahead and talk to hi on"
"What did you find out at the trading post?" Cody asked Cole, changing the subject
Cole shook his head "Two of John Snow&039;s children have gone irls But I couldn&039;t find a trail, not a drop of blood, not a broken branch It&039;s as if the girls wandered into another diet out that way, too," Cody said "So where do Milo and his band hole up during the daylight hours?"
"No one knows," Dave said
"Brigsby, I&039;et back out there to check We had a gunslinger go through here a feeeks back, and he thought he was tougher than solid stone He went out to Brigsby We found as left of his body on the ground out by where the horses went crazy on Dave and e it," Cody said "I&039;d like to be sure e&039;re up against Men like Milothey can deceive, build traps We need to find out everything we can if we&039;re going to fight them Anyway, Sheriff, what you and your deputy here need to be doing is warning your townsfolk not to open their doors to strangers-and especially not even to be on the streets at night I tried to tell the girls at the saloon that it was important to becautious, but thatis-" Cody broke off, hesitating The thing was, Cole Granger was going to have to accept some of the truth of thehi folks in just leads to danger," Cody finished laht We&039;ll talk ht with you, Sheriff I think we&039;re all worn to the bone right now"
"Good night, then," Cole said, and Cody and Brendan started out of the graveyard "Hey," Cole said, calling the?"
"Miss Alex is back in town They&039;re over at the boardinghouse," Dave said
"Right Alex is hoht, then And thank you for your help this evening I offer you a true welco at the sheriff&039;s tone when he&039;d -ago lovers? She had gone back East to marry, so the story went But now that she was back in town, s would be rekindled out here Why not? The sheriff see And Alexandra Gordon wasbeautiful More than that She was a fighter There was a life inside her that was like a shi everyone to her
Even hio that his life was house is safe?" Brendan asked as they walked together along the street
Cody shook his head "It&039;s a boardinghouse Its business is opening its door to strangers"
"Soh There are crosses all over the place, garlic festooned around the "
"Doesn&039;t matter Milo has already been in there," Cody said
"Maybe we need ested
"What we need is to kill Milo," Cody said, and kept walking
Brendan looked after hiht And then pierce his heart, chop off his head and burn the body to ash"
AS THE TWO OF THEM walked back to the boardinghouse, Cody thought back to how he and Brendan had e had needed his help in stopping He could still re over the first two bodies
The first of the two latest victi on his back, a look of abject terror on his face His as in worse condition Her tormentor must have played with her first, because her eyes were closed, as if she had clenched the death
Both bodies bore stabin the expected pool of blood, and both were curiously white
"It beats everything I&039;ve seen," Aldridge said quietly, watching as Cody moved the woman&039;s hair aside to reveal the marks he&039;d been sure he would find Cody hesitated, wondering just how ht be able to accept
The evidence was actually encouraging, at least as far as putting an end to the killing spree went He was pretty sure he was looking at a rogue killer, so to blend in with the population of the city The stab marks had been ood for Aldridge, ood for Cody his to the case Cody had put an end to
Cody looked up at Aldridge "I&039;ll go after your killer, sir, but it&039;s unlikely I&039;ll be able to bring hiht to the death"
Aldridge stared at him "You do what you have to do I need you to catch this man"
"I can&039;t be held to any curfew"
"You&039;ll have free rein," Aldridge proht, Cody prowled the streets
He tried the bars first, but found nothing unusual Then, as he walked along Dauphine Street, he noticed a gate standing ajar Curious, he pushed the gate open and stepped into a dark courtyard
He scanned the courtyard quickly, then winced, seeing what looked like a pile of clothing off to one side He hurried over and found the body of a young woman, still warm to the touch, but dead