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Buchanan, returning to taunt and threaten him some more, but instead it was the man from O’Malley’s Saloon. He leaned himself in the shed’s open doorway and glared at Shane through slitted eyes. ‘I heard you’d be competing this time,’ he said. ‘I had to kill three men before I got an invite, just so I can finally be the man to put you in your grave.’
Shane unbuttoned his shirt. ‘What’s the matter, Sullivan? You like me so much you’ve come to watch me undress?’’
‘No, I just come to look you in the eyes, tell you I’ll be seeing you in Hell real soon.’
Shane turned slowly away and finished undressing. ‘You’ll have to save me a seat,’ he said. The man swore at him and left him to his bath. It had been a good long while since Shane had bathed and the hot water felt good against his skin. He scrubbed himself clean. After a while, Buchanan returned with a razor and clean clothes.
‘I heard you had a visitor.’
‘Nobody special.’
Buchanan leaned his back against the wall and grinned. ‘David Sullivan. I heard he was looking for you a while back. You the man that killed his brother?’
Shane didn’t answer. He had killed lots of people.
    After he had washed and dressed, Shane was taken back to the crossroads where a cell had been prepared for him in Covenant’s jailhouse. The building was a squalid brick extension added onto the side of the town hall and courthouse. In it, eight years ago, Jacob Priestley had shot three prisoners through the bars of their cells and the bullet holes remained, the mortar surrounding them coloured brown where the dead men’s blood had splattered. Only one of the cells had been empty on August Third, and that was the one that Shane was now put in. Some work had been done to strengthen it: the bars were set in fresh stone and the lock on the door was new. Buchanan produced the key from a chain around his neck and locked him in.
A guard was stationed in the next room and Buchanan spoke to him as he left. ‘No visitors. Anyone wants to speak with him, you send them to me.’
Shane walked over to the bars and tested them for strength. He was not surprised to find that they were properly secure. If he had any notion of escaping then he had left it far too late to put into action now. Feeling wretched, he sat on the edge of his bunk and put his head in his hands. He had always known that he would end up in a situation like this. For six long years he had known it was inevitable, but had run from it nevertheless. Now, the weight of his fear, all his certainty, bore down on him and crushed him with despair.
What made it worse, what really made him hate himself, was the joy he felt deep inside: that this was where he wanted to be. That finally he was where he belonged.
A noise outside made him cross to the window. His cell looked out into an alleyway, down which it was possible to see out to the front porch of the Grande on the opposite side of the street. Three riflemen had drawn up outside the hotel. Shane recognised them as the men from Saddle Horn Rock. Tethered in a line behind them were five horses that had once belonged to Noonan and his men, and a sixth that carried the money boxes containing the twenty-thousand dollars that Nathaniel had paid for Shane’s capture.
Nathaniel’s servant met with them and Shane overheard one of them refer to him by his name: Whisperer. He had them carry the boxes inside, then the horses were taken away to be stabled. Shane returned to his bunk and sat down to brood.

Chapter 4
    It had all started when a Chicago newspaper printed a story exposing a list of senators who had been receiving bribes from members of the Prosperity Union Investment Company. Congress had formed a special committee charged with investigating the allegations and bringing those involved to justice. It was to blossom into the biggest political scandal since Credit Mobilier.
The year was 1881.
Shane lay atop a low rise in the southern plains, spying on a