Vermijo

By Nelson Hunter

When their no-good brother was killed in a gunfight with a young drifter who was just passing through, the sheriff and deputy of Vermijo, Arizona Territory, gathered a posse together and went after the killer. But they weren’t interested in justice. They didn’t even want vengeance. No—they figured to use the drifter as an example to keep the rest of the town in line. Unfortunately for them, an old man had other ideas ... and when a startling secret was revealed, so did Vermijo itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Sep 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370474752

Book preview

When their no-good brother was killed in a gunfight with a young drifter who was just passing through, the sheriff and deputy of Vermijo, Arizona Territory, gathered a posse together and went after the killer. But they weren’t interested in justice. They didn’t even want vengeance. No—they figured to use the drifter as an example to keep the rest of the town in line.

Unfortunately for them, an old man had other ideas … and when a startling secret was revealed, so did Vermijo itself.

Nonrev Studios

In association with

Piccadilly Publishing

Present

Adam Gold ● Noah Woods ● Raymond Scott

In

Vermijo

Hayden Wilson ● Tyler Burke

and

Sarah Berg

as Eve Lockhart

Heather Woods ● Jay Gammons

Brandon Gomez ● Richard Calvert

Music by

Gregoire Lourme

Sound by

Jovany Hernandez

Written by

Ben Bridges

Produced by

Paul Vernon and Adam Gold

Executive Producers

Mike Stotter and David Whitehead

Directed by

Paul Vernon

One

Eve Lockhart saw the raised fist too late.

Her husband stepped through the cabin’s gloom, pushing aside the table and chairs, scattering the plates and cups she had set out for breakfast, and was upon her in a second.

His fist connected with the side of her head. It was the kind of punch meant for a man, not a man’s wife. But Ace Lockhart didn’t give one goddamn care. She deserved it.

The blow produced a moment of dizziness, where her entire world spun around her out of focus. Her legs threatened to give away but her husband grabbed her by the shoulders to prevent her from falling. He wanted her on her feet. His fingers dug deeper into her shoulders, pushing hard down to the bone. He seemed pleased that it pained Eve, and he was smiling when he followed up with an equally vicious backhander.

She saw the blow coming and moved her head slightly to avoid full contact. Even so, his knuckles drove hard against her mouth and the blow split her bottom lip. Then came the familiar taste of blood in her mouth. Then the tears she tried to mightily to contain.

‘Now, I’m tellin’ you again, Eve, an’ I’m tellin’ you for the last time…forget about hangin’ that damn laundry and go fix my breakfast, like I told you.’

His voice filled the small cabin with rank viciousness. Eve put out a hand and laid it gently on his wrist.

‘All right, all...right, Ace... just don’t hit me again.’

He didn’t respond. Just stood for a second looking into her eyes and then down at her hand on his wrist. ‘If you did like you was told, I wouldn’t have to,’ he said.

Ace shoved her away from him and she stumbled, almost hit the stovepipe, just avoided it but slumped down against the wall, hugging herself. Her weakened legs gave way and she dropped to the floor. She stayed down with blood dripping from her mouth onto her skirt. She had to shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see his face.

He turned and set an overturned chair back to rights. He dropped heavily into the seat, letting loose a loud, whiskey-smelling belch followed by a self-pitying moan. He buried his head in his hands as if it would help his hangover.

Four years of marriage, living in a cramped cabin and a wife who was quickly becoming a nag and useless in bed. Is this what my life has come to? he thought. He was only twenty-three, right at the beginning of his life; it should have been the start of the good times he had always wanted. He was still lean, good-looking in a rugged sort of way…enough to turn the heads of one or two women in town. But that might have been down to his name. Some were attracted to power, or so he had been told. He’d never had any luck in that department.

‘It was awful late when you got in last night,’ she said, almost apologetically.

‘What of it?’

‘Nothin’. But it’d be nice, sometime ... if you could spend as much time with me as you do with your drinkin’ buddies.’

He snorted as if the very idea were ridiculous. He lifted his head from out of his hands and looked at her.

Eve sat with her knees tucked beneath her, her cotton calico skirt flowing about her. The blood was already drying to a deep brown against the grayness of the once-white material of her apron. She was a small woman with her hair tied back in a severe bun, her skin and her eyes dull and devoid of all hope. She looked far older than twenty. But even now she managed to radiate an energy, a sense of spirit, she shouldn’t have rightly had.

He turned his eyes on her and said, ‘Isn’t it enough that I married you?’

‘As you say,’ she replied with resignation.

But Ace, feeling sorry for himself, wouldn’t let it end there. ‘It’s a sorry state when a man can’t come and go as he pleases.’

Eve held back a sigh. It was a scene they’d been through before and she had no wish to antagonize him further. But today she didn’t want to be browbeaten. She gently touched her bottom lip and took her fingers away. The tips were smeared with blood.

‘I never said that,’ she said. ‘All I said was …’

Lockhart leaped from the chair, took a fistful of her hair and jerked her head back. He leaned in close enough that they were almost touching noses. She smelt his sour breath, the stale alcohol, as he breathed heavily into her face.

‘Look, I married you, all right?’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I knocked you up, an’ I did the right thing, I stood by you. Don’t blame me if you lost the little bastard!’

The words brought tears to her eyes. Why did he always have to bring that up? She pushed away his hand and said, ‘And what if I hadn’t? Would things have been any better between us?’

Ace said nothing.

‘I wasn’t just marryin’ the father of my baby, Ace. I thought I was marryin’ a husband, as well.’

‘Well, you thought wrong,’ he snarled. ‘Now get over it.’

He had not expected Eve to answer him back. He stepped away and looked around him. The early morning sun was weak and just about made an impression on the interior of the cabin. A sense of depression and disappointment weighed heavily on him.

Eve struggled to her feet, took time to brush out her skirt and apron. She glanced at Ace, then turned around and headed to the range. Halfway there she stopped, turned back around, and took a deep breath.

‘Why does it have to be this way, Ace?’ she asked.

‘What way?’

‘Like this. The two of us always fightin’?’

He shrugged. ‘How the hell should I know?’

She stood still and listened to the wind as it blew in off the prairie. It was strong enough to whistle through the growing spaces between the plank walls. The whole place was falling apart around their ears and Ace was just too damn lazy to do anything about it. He’d rather spend his money on whiskey and beer than a pound of nails and some lumber.

She said, ‘Well, you better get washed up while I fix your vittles. You show up late for work again an’ Jim’s like to…’

He came towards her and in two fast strides was in front of her. His body was coiled tight again, his hands held in fists at his side. She flinched away from him. She retreated until she could go no further.

‘What’s Jim like to do, Eve?’ he demanded. ‘You tell me that. We’re brothers. I can do whatever the hell I like.’

‘Maybe you can, in your own home. But Jim, well, he don’t like you bein’ late …’

‘Jim, Jim, Jim!’ The anger was back in his voice. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of sayin’ that name? Or is that why you’re so all-fired keen to send me off to work today … so Jim can pay you a little call of his own?’

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It seemed like something had poisoned his mind and the words dripped with venom. She said, ‘Don’t talk crazy. Jim’s family ... well, as much family as any of you Lockharts are likely to be.’

‘You don’t like this family, Eve, you walk, damn you.’

He raised his hand ready to strike her again. Eve was trapped, couldn’t move any further back, so lifted her arm across her face for protection, and waited for the blow.

Then…

‘You runnin’ a mite late today, Ace?’

The low voice froze all movement in the cabin.

Ace still had his wife in a one-handed grip; his other held high, palm opened. He turned his head toward where a man stood in the doorway dressed in gray pants and a dark town coat over a white shirt with a string tie knotted at the throat. He held a Stetson hat in his large hands. He looked big and bony, someone used to the rough life. A marshal’s tin badge sat proudly on his lapel.

‘Brother,’ Ace said.

‘Ace.’

The newcomer looked past Ace to Eve. Relief was clear in her eyes.

Ace shrugged and released his wife. He said, ‘It was a late night, Jim.’

‘I believe it,’ said Jim. He twisted the hat brim between his hands before adding, ‘You smell like a drunk Indian.’

Not wanting to cower before his brother, but finding the instinct almost too much to resist, Ace said, ‘I was jus’ leavin’.’

‘Oh, is that a fact?’ He stabbed at finger at Ace. ‘Outside.’

Eve watched them. Though they had been born to the same parents, they couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried. Despite Ace’s bravado, she knew he was clearly scared of Jim. Jim’s short temper was renowned in Vermijo. The brothers had argued and fought before, but Ace had never gotten the better of his older sibling yet.

She waited until they left before she released her pent up breath. Then the pain came like a crushing wave that swept over her. She wished he was dead. The thought came with the pain that filled her head and she slowly slid to the floor and cried.

~*~

Jim dragged Ace out of the cabin and across to the outhouse. He spun Ace around and threw him hard against the building.

‘Now you remember somethin’, brother,’ he said in a soft tone. ‘We got this town set up just the way we want it, y’hear? These folks, they’ll take a lot, but like folks every which way up the country, they’ll only take so much.’

Ace followed Jim’s glance back at the cabin. He understood clearly that he was talking about Eve. At the same time, his younger brother, Carl, appeared. The contrast between him and Ace