Will walked perhaps a mile before he crouched down to make himself less obvious against the horizon. There was a gentle mound between him and the camp, and Will crawled up it like a snake. At the top he was able to look down at the gathering of outlaws. There were more of them—many more than he’d expected—and the Indians in the crew were dancing around the fire. Bottles of booze were circulating rapidly from hand to hand. Will grinned.
Damned fools.
A lookout passed in front of him not twenty yards away. The man was mumbling to himself and seemed barely able to keep his seat in his saddle. There was another pair on horseback on the side of the camp beyond Will. They were circulating, but they were much too far apart to do any real damage in case of attack. Will grinned again and watched the camp.
Either One Dog has me set up somehow, or he’s a bunch dumber than I thought he was. Seems like I could ride a elly-phant in here an’ they wouldn’t notice.
Their weapons, Will noticed in the light of the fire, were all over the place: a few rifles here in the dirt, gun belts tossed to the ground like trash, bows and quivers of arrows scattered here and there.
Will watched as the circulating lookouts came past him. Most wore Union or rebel jackets or pants, and the majority rode pancake military saddles rather than stock saddles. For whatever reason, Will Lewis was waiting for an Indian to pass.
One did. He was riding bareback, his pony obviously fatigued, dragging his hooves. The rider carried a spear and had a rifle strapped across his chest, military-style. He sat comfortably on his pony. He wasn’t drunk or drugged, but he wasn’t paying a ton of attention around him, either.
Will eased in behind the pony. When he was the farthest point from the camp, he tackled the rider, brought him down, and hurled his rifle off into the prairie. The spear dropped next to the pony.
Will holstered his pistol and switched his knife to his right hand. The Indian drew his knife and faced Will.
“Looks like you an’ me, outlaw. You scream all you want—they ain’t gonna hear you over their dancing an’ singin’, now are they?”
The Indian showed no fear. “You die now,” he said.
“I doubt that.”
They circled one another, neither making a move, both deciding on the other’s skill in a knife fight. The Indian parried; Will easily stepped to the side and swept his blade across his opponent’s stomach. It was a shallow cut—little more than a scratch. The Indian stepped back . . . and then lunged forward, slashing Will’s right arm below the elbow. Will caught the Indian’s knife hand with a deep cut that flowed blood.
“White pig,” the Indian grunted. He shifted his knife to his left hand, as if his right would no longer work, and then switched it back as Will closed in. Will missed, as did the Indian. They backed away from one another, both crouched, both knives extended.
The Indian charged again and Will ducked down, the blade hissing over his head. With his left hand he scrabbled up a handful of dirt and rushed his opponent, throwing the dirt in his face, in his eyes. The Indian instinctively raised his right hand—his knife hand—to clear his eyes. As he did so, Will drove his blade into the man’s chest, twisted it, pulled it out, and drove it in again.
Will watched the life flee from his opponent’s eyes. At first they were chestnut, filled with hate, but the hate diminished as the life drained. The chestnut turned slightly gray and then a curtain seemed to drop, indicating the last act—the end of all that this man was.
Will found the spear easily enough and brought it back to the Indian’s body. He started twice to hack the man’s head off—and he vomited both times. Finally, he finished his grotesque task. He carved HW into the outlaw’s forehead and jammed the long, razor-sharp spearhead into the ragged opening of the Indian’s head and stuck it into the sandy ground. He nudged it a couple of times to make sure it wouldn’t topple. The spear and head stood well.
It seemed like a terribly long walk back to where he’d tied Slick. Will had killed before, but this was savage killing, satanic killing. Maybe we’re even for what was done to Austin. Maybe not. But I done what I had to do and I damn well showed One Dog what I plan to do with him and the rest of his killers. Justice? Shit. It was revenge, an’ that’s what it’ll be until all of them are dead.
Slick snorted as he heard Will coming to him. This man had meant food and water and good care to him and he was frightened by the thick, coppery scent of blood that surrounded Will. It was a different man to his feeble equine mind—his instinctual fear—but when he heard Will’s voice, he associated that with good things: with sweet grain and brushing and spurless boots.
Will climbed on and settled himself in the saddle. He still held the knife with which he’d done his work. He hurled it out onto the prairie and wiped his hand on his denim pants. He rode at an easy pace back to town, checking behind him, as the dark of the night began to give way to the coming day.
I never thought I could do nothin’ like I did to that Indian, but they done the same thing to a good man, a tight friend. There was no damned reason for ’em to do it—none. It was a war. Ya don’t hack up an’ cut the head off . . .
An uneven circle of vultures barely visible against the sky, with one or two dropping to the earth as if they forgot how to fly, caused Will to put his heels to Slick.
Austin’s horse had an arrow behind his ear and his body was spotted with gunshot wounds—and the widespread but equally deadly splatter of shotgun pellets. Vultures were pulling at the corpse, tugging, fighting one another away, digging their claws into the horse’s gut.
Will asked Slick for all the speed he had, at the same time drawing his Colt. They were long shots—from horseback—but he dropped two of the birds. Three of the vultures were dragging intestines from the horse. Will and Slick hit them hard, pieces of the disgusting birds, feathers, and parts of Austin’s horse dropping to the ground.
One of the vultures was a little slow. Will grabbed a leg as it flapped its wings and slung it in front of Slick’s galloping hooves. The vulture writhed for a moment and then was still.
Chapter Six
“Now look here, you two: this rifle was made by Confederate hands, an’ it was made to shoot straight an’ to kill what she hits. You miss, it ain’t the fault of the Maynard—she took down more bluebellies than you two can count. I’m ’a give you both two ca’tridges an’ I want you each to bring back two fillin’s for the pot or there’ll be hell to pay—I’ll guar’tee that.”
Pa doled out a pair of .50-caliber rounds to each of us, as if he was dropping diamonds into a queen’s hand. He was drunk already, an’ the sun was hardly up. “Y’all can take my hoss,” he said.
“Shit,” I mumbled, “I’d as soon ride a goddamn hog.”
“Wazzat, boy?”
“I said, ‘Maybe we’d better walk. Quieter that way.’ ”
“Walk ’r ride, I don’ care. But you bring back grub. Hear?”
Hiram an’ I walked out past the barn an’ over the hill. I had the beat-to-shit ol’ Maynard over my shoulder. Hiram handed over his two cartridges. I took ’em without sayin’ nothing. Hiram, he wouldn’t shoot a animal to save his life. An’ he couldn’t hit the ground with the rifle if he threw it down. When we butchered a pig or cow he always rode off an’ didn’t come back ’til the next mornin’.