Lord of Order by Brett Riley (the reading list book TXT) 📕

a month before Jevan Dwyer arrived. Tetweiller took out the cork and swigged. The liquor burned his throat and set fire to his stomach. He should not have been drinking. His guts often pained him and sometimes sent a little blood to garnish his stool. He needed a stiff belt, though. It had taken all his self-control not to shoot Benn when the son of a bitch showed up with a cadre of guards and demanded Tetweiller’s sidearms.

If you was a man, you would have come by yourself, Tetweiller had said.

Benn’s face had been blank, his round body soaked in sweat. I don’t have to prove anything to you, old man. Turn those pistols over or draw them. Let’s have done with this.

Benn had not particularly seemed to enjoy the duty. If he had, Tetweiller probably would have drawn and gotten himself killed. He did not like the deputy envoy, but Benn was better than the other one, that Clemens. Solid as a cypress stump, Benn is. Might be he ain’t the worst swingin dick the Crusade could have sent, but it don’t stop him from lickin Royster’s boots like a trained dog.

When Benn held out his hand, the ex-lord turned over his guns and came inside, wondering if anyone would notice how the pistols looked a bit too old, too worn. If they got an eye for such things and they ain’t too full of their own hot air, they might wonder. But I think they’re pretty damn sure they got us right where they want us. Why pay close attention to bugs you done squished? The guns he surrendered had been his worst pair, confiscated from his first-ever arrested Troubler nearly fifty years ago, and they had been in pretty poor shape even then. That Troubler lived in a drainage culvert. The only thing wetter and rustier than them guns was the man himself.

Tetweiller had cached most of his weapons around the city, along with his share of the other supplies they had prepared in anticipation of Royster’s arrival. He had kept one extra pair of six-guns, his favorites, and a good supply of ammo hidden beneath the floorboards under his bed. Even if the Crusade quartered as many as three guards in the house, he believed he could take them out and fetch those guns, for he knew the layout even in pitch darkness, the location of every object he might weaponize. He knew where he might hide for a few moments and where he would be vulnerable.

Jack ain’t part of Royster’s little circle either. I wonder what’s happened to him. If they try to arrest him, will he let em? Are they crazy enough to gun him down in front of God and everybody? Maybe they’ll take him—us—across the river, like they did with Gordy. And Gordy came back different.

Then there was Laura Derosier and Antoine Baptiste. Troy had said those two were recruiting for the Conspiracy. Had they just happened to be walking across the street when Benn showed up, or had they come to witness? Derosier had not made eye contact. She just passed by, head bobbing on the end of that long neck like a pigeon’s, but Tetweiller had seen the bulges in her pockets and under her shirt. She probably had more knives on her than a porcupine had quills. Baptiste had nodded to Tetweiller as they passed.

The old man took another drink of the moonshine and grimaced. It was powerful stuff, even to someone more used to alcohol than any Crusader should have been. Maybe I should save the four bottles stashed in the icebox. They’ll make fine incendiaries if it comes to that. I’d hate to burn this house down, though. Too many good memories. He thought of Gabriel Troy, whose own house had been burned to the ground on Royster’s orders. Tetweiller had gone to see it and came home to find Benn and his lackeys. Where you at tonight, Gabriel? Did that bitch Stransky shoot you in the goddam back as soon as you cleared the city, or did she really show you her nest? So much was uncertain. Stuck here, he might know nothing until the floodwaters came or the guards out front burst in and shot him.

He took one more drink and recorked the bottle. Then he set it on the end table beside the lamp and settled back, feeling the alcohol work its magic. Perhaps in the light of morning, things would seem clearer.

22

Before dawn, Santonio Ford rode to the sisters’, hoping for a word with Sarah Gonzales. Gabe always seemed more at peace after talkin with her. Maybe she can do somethin for me. But when he arrived, the sanctuary doors were locked. That had never happened before. He knocked four or five times. No one answered. He circled around and tried the back door. It was locked too. Ford waited until the sun came up, but no one stirred. He mounted up and rode through the neighborhood, stopping at Catholic residences. No one answered. They had cleared out overnight.

Later, as Ford tended his crops, the sun shone brighter than it had any right to, given the suffering under it. At least we’ll die on full stomachs. The work helped him focus on what had happened during that chase. Troy in his sights, the old thrill of the hunt, his blood singing, a perfect clarity of mind and senses, the exhilaration when he aimed, the triumph when his bullet grazed one of his oldest friends. He had shown more loyalty to Gabriel Troy than to any other earthly man, but hunting him had still been hunting, what he had been made for, what he loved.

Until that moment, he had known in his heart that Troy was right. He still wanted to believe it. He intended to meet his trusted lieutenants, to have them recruit. He even planned to reach out to Hobbes’s and Tetweiller’s people, now