Shotgun at the death-dealing ready, Boz circled the wagon.
I stood near the dog and swept a piercing gaze from one side of the campsite to the other. Hissed, “Can you make any kind of sense from all this, Glo?”
Johnson pushed a sweat-stained, gray flop hat to the back of his head, then scratched a spot over one ear in puzzlement. “As you see, Mistuh Dodge, these poor folks been shot slap to pieces. Done bled slap out right where they fell. Just like them poor defenseless mules.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Damned sorry business all right. Damned sorry.”
“Looks to me like whoever done fer ’em wanted to make certain sure they didn’t get up once they ’uz down. Both these poor folk been drilled through the head bone several times—least twice, maybe more. This here pitiful feller’s skull’s splattered all over hell and yonder.” He paused, then as an afterthought added, “Woman’s, too. Top of all that, they’s bullet holes in the dirt all around ’em. ’Pears near half a dozen men stood over these unfortunates and just blasted the by-God bejabbers out of ’em.”
“What about them as done the deed?”
“Gone, Mistuh Dodge. Leastways, near as I can tell. Ain’t been gone long, but them as done this sorry deed come and left in a mighty big hurry. Five, six, maybe seven of ’em. Made such a mess right here around the wagon it’s hard to tell exactly.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, can say for sure as how the killers rode their animals right up from the river. Got down, walked up here, caught these folks unawares. Shot ’em dead, then lit a shuck away from their crimes. Didn’t waste a single second from the looks of it.”
“Uh - huh.”
A visage of sadness and regret flashed across Glo’s strained, ebon face. “Most like them raids we done made when me’n Mr. Boz ’uz rangerin’ and trackin’ them Messican killers down in Coahuila out on the Rio Salado. ’Member as how we used to storm right into their camps, whilst they ’uz sleepin’, pistols a-blazin’. Kilt ’em all. Learned the method from the Comanche, back when I used to go out and slaughter them folks, too.”
I watched as Boz drew to a halt near the wagon’s tailgate and shot a troubled glance at the ground beneath the back axle. A separate, substantial pool of near-black, gooey, congealed blood had accumulated atop the grass near the wagon’s back entry. Blood that obviously didn’t belong to either the man or woman. Thumb-sized droplets dribbled from cracks in the Studebaker’s wooden bed and splattered atop the still widening pool.
He eased up to the tail flap and pushed the canvas aside with the barrel of his shotgun. Stood for several seconds, staring into the vehicle’s dark, musty interior until his eyes adjusted enough to take in the horror that lay waiting in the vehicle’s rank darkness.
Of a sudden, my friend made a smothered retching sound. “Sweet merciful mother of Jesus,” he said and stumbled backward as though slapped across the cheek by an invisible hand.
“What is it?” I called out, then rushed to my ashen-faced amigo’s side. “What’s in there, Boz?”
Grabbed the heavy canvas cover and flipped it aside. Took a second for my own light-dilated eyes to adjust to the central gloom. The wagon’s horrific contents brought on a stunned feeling not unlike being struck in the chest with a closed fist the size and weight of a blacksmith’s favorite anvil.
Despite a level of self-control most men would never know, or even aspire to, my eyes flashed wide in awestruck horror. I yelped, “Damnation,” and took a step backward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Boz.
Swear all the air tried to rush from my compressed lungs at the same instant. Felt as though my heart and brain had locked themselves into a struggle to disconnect for several seconds. Intellectually, I could acknowledge the ghastly truth of what lay inside that benighted vehicle. But oh, my friends, a heart made tender by an inability to understand such butchery refused to concede that the hellish, unspeakably evil scene was real.
Felled into a hideous, twisted pile, not unlike seedlings caught in a cyclone, the deformed, broken bodies of three bullet-blasted children lay one atop the other amidst piles of dolls in a misshapen, bird’s-nest-like mass. Given the quick, stomach-churning examination I allowed myself of the grisly, macabre scene, there were two boys and a girl.
Blasted nigh to shreds by a hot curtain of concentrated lead, whatever features of youthful beauty that might have existed a few hours prior to our arrival had been effectively obliterated. I kept thinking as how, perhaps, the stack of bodies was just three young girls. Nigh impossible to tell, really. But continued examination revealed the error of my hurried, horrified, initial observations.
When confronted by the surprise and unspeakable terror of certain death, the youngsters appeared to have covered their eyes with tiny hands, as though in denial of the reality facing them. Their childish faces had vanished, for the most part. Legs and arms lay splayed and twisted in monstrous, unnatural ways. Atop thin, childish chests their hands lay shattered beyond any practical use, even if they had managed to, somehow, survive the fiery onslaught. The blasting was so intense it appeared as though hell-sent imps had painted the entire interior of the grisly vehicle with gallons upon gallons of human blood. Not a single inch of available space had been spared the gory coating that seeped through the wagon’s floor and onto the ground below.
Grim-faced, I jerked the flap back into place, took two stumbling steps, then grasped the wagon’s wooden tailgate to steady myself. I coughed, toed at the dirt, and coughed again. Snatched my hat off and slapped a trembling leg with it. Then I rubbed a flushed, dripping face against the sleeve of my shirt.
Jammed the hat back on before I was able to say, “Swear ’fore Jesus, Boz, figured as how, between the three of us, we’d seen just about everything godless men could do over the combined years we’ve shared as Rangers. But, with sweet Jesus as my witness, it’s been a damned long time since any of us has had to look on a scene as appalling as this one.”
Boz swung a misty-eyed gaze toward the tops of the swaying, murmuring cottonwoods overhead then turned teeth-gritting attention onto the toes of his boots. He picked at a frayed spot on his vest. “My, oh, my, Lucius, but ain’t that the Lord’s truth. Truly hoped I’d seen the last of such as this. Makes my heart hurt just to think on it.”
Then, within a matter of fleeting seconds, it suddenly felt as if an iron bar had been inserted into my spine. I straightened and turned. Shook a finger at Glorious Johnson.
Like an angry animal, I growled, “Get after ’em, Glo. Take Bear. Set the dog on these monsters’ trail. Find ’em. Find which direction the bastards who did this came from and where they’re headed. Only a few places men who’d commit such an atrocity can go from a spot as remote as this.”
Glorious Johnson nodded and, as though distracted, mumbled, “Sho ’nuff, Mistuh Dodge. I’ll find ’em. You know I will.”
I continued thinking aloud to myself. “Figure the men responsible for this sorry deed are gonna need a stiff drink and damned quick. Bet all I’ve got, and all I’ll ever have, they’re headed for the nearest cantina.”
Boz toed at the ground beneath his feet. “I agree, Lucius. Men as would murder a woman and three little kids are gonna need a tubful of strong liquor to wash memories of this massacre away. Once you’ve got a bead on these sons a bitches, Glo, get back here quick as you can. Don’t let ’em see you. And whatever you do, don’t try and take ’em alone.”
I gazed into Glo’s strained face. The man appeared to have aged a thousand years in a matter of seconds. He slowly rose to his feet and stared into my hardened visage. He, Boz, and me had ridden together on dozens of other raids and searches. Both men had seen that same grim look on my face before. Hard-eyed, jaw clenched, back teeth grinding against one another.