It was as good a day to die as any. After so many false starts, Nick had come to realize that it could be any day, and every day was available to him. All he had to do was let go, and the door would open, pulling him through. It had been so tempting, and Nick realized now that even if he had taken the low road and done just that, Cornelius likely awaited him on the other side, too. Alive or dead, he would face the man, and, given the option, he had at least a remote chance of success if he was alive.
After parking the Porsche, he walked directly up to the loft, opening the door to his room of memories. Nick walked slow and purposeful toward the back, stopping every so often to pick up something, one of Agatha’s dolls, or a coin from Joshua’s collection. He brought up their images, getting dusty and faded with age, recalling the times long past, far simpler times, when the world was a vast, wide-open place, and justice came in the form of a badge and a pair of six-shooters.
Nick picked up the box of matches next to an antique brass candleholder on the small, quilt-covered table and lit a candle for Gwen, staring for a long moment at his painting of her until he could hear her dying voice fresh in his mind once again. He then picked up the painting and moved it away from the wall, revealing a polished, wooden trunk behind it set against the wall. He did the combination on the lock and opened the chest to reveal that which he had stored away for this particular time.
From inside the chest, Nick pulled out the beaten and dusty leather overcoat he would wear riding the range on those cool, fall Wyoming days when the wind would be sharp enough to sting your face. Beside that lay his hat, and Nick had the absurd notion that it would be too small now, shrunken with age, but it fit snug to his scalp, and he took a moment to roll the brim between his fingers, setting its angles and curves to just the proper position. Beneath those lay the oak case carrying his old six-shooters, and Nick laid it down gently on the table beside the candle, breaking the wax seal with his pocketknife and smiling when he saw them, the cherry handles still gleaming with polish, and the metal still shiny with oil from the last time he had removed them to ensure they were still in working order.
He grabbed the leather belt from the bottom of the chest and strapped the guns on, feeling for a brief second like the man he was of old. At least if Drake showed up now, Nick could go down like he had once already, six-shooters blazing in an abysmal, stormy downpour of water and blood. At least this time there was nothing else left for Drake to take.
“Just me this time, you miserable old bastard,” Nick said and walked out of the room.
After making a pot of coffee, Nick took his mug out onto the deck and sat in his chair, polishing the old guns and sipping the hot brew until it was gone. He was covered in a fine mist by then, the night skies growing more saturated by the hour. It would be a nice, solid rain before long, he figured.
Nick’s thoughts turned to Shelby. In the end, she had done what he could not, and it still was not enough. If both of them had, would the results have been any different? Would that have been something Drake would have not guessed? Did he plan his actions around Nick’s rigid, moral code?
“Pigheaded, obstinate, stupid fucking code, more like,” he said, repeating Shelby’s words. The woman had never been afraid to express her feelings toward him about anything. For him, against him, or just in plain disagreement, she had always been straightforward and honest. That directness had been one of the main reasons he had fallen in love with the woman. It still amazed Nick that she stuck around, and now she had died because of him. Twice.
Jackie was like her in a lot of ways. Straightforward, a no-bullshit kind of woman. Not the stunning beauty Shelby was, and in fact, nearly the opposite, having a definite tomboyish quality to her. But it was that attractive, rumpled, stumbling-around-in-your-flannels-with-a-mug-of-coffee look that hit a soft spot for him. Shelby had known better than he, but it was too late for that. It was better to get rid of those thoughts before he became even more morose than he was already.
Nick picked up one of his pistols from his lap and aimed it at a distant fence post, imagining it could be Drake’s head, standing there with that thin, bloodless grin. His shot caught the corner of the post, and Nick grumbled to himself. How had he gotten so rusty?
He took aim again, this time with more focus, and caught it square, blasting off the top two inches of the post in a shower of splintery debris. He smiled. It felt good to hold his guns again, and, better still, the crack of gunfire took his mind off things better left unthought of. Lifting up the other gun, Nick took aim and fired again at the next post.