“Sure does, ’specially when they’re drunk or driftin’ with them mushrooms they like.”
The men unsaddled their mounts and staked them out to graze on the sparse grass. They drank from a hat-sized sinkhole of water. Will sent Wampus out and the dog returned with a bleeding, still-twitching jackrabbit between his jaws. Will sent him out again. This time Wampus was gone maybe a half hour and came back with another jack and a four-foot-long bull snake.
“I ain’t eatin’ no snake,” Ray said. “But he sure is hell on rabbits, though.”
“He is. The jacks are for us an’ the bull snake is his own dinner.”
Ray, crouched, arranging pieces of mesquite for the fire, said, “Funny thing. I never seen a dog—I mean a full dog, not a wolf cross—eat a snake. But the crosses seem to like ’em.
“I’d ’preciate you sendin’ him out a bit. Watchin’ an listenin’ to a critter like Wampus chow down a snake kinda stirs my innards.”
“Sure,” Will said. “I’ll admit his table manners are none too good.”
The men waited until it was dark to start their fire, in order to hide the smoke. Meanwhile, Will gutted and skinned the jackrabbits. Ray sat cleaning his weapons, with the entire arsenal spread out in front of him on his saddle blanket. Will looked on for a few minutes and then asked, “You fire all of them today?”
“Nope. Nary a one. Thing is, a weapon is like a good horse. Ya gotta look after it so’s you can trust it—an’ if you can’t trust it, it’s no damn good, horse nor gun.”
They lazed about until it was full dark, and then Will started the fire and skewered the rabbits on his knife. The fat dripping on the coals sizzled like bacon in a frying pan and every once in a while flared up, and the scent of the cooking jacks had both men salivating. They ate hungrily, thoroughly enjoying the crisply seared yet tender flesh.
Will belched and tossed a leg bone out into the darkness. “Damn. I’d give my right leg for some coffee right now. It don’t seem right to finish up a meal like we jus’ had without coffee, ya know?”
Ray smiled broadly, looking for a quick moment like a Halloween pumpkin in the flickering light. “You keep your drawers on for a few minutes an’ I’ll give you coffee so strong it’d melt a anvil. I make the best coffee in the West, an’ you can take that to the bank.” He scuffled about in his saddlebag, taking out a scorched and obviously well-used quart tin can. Then he carefully opened a fat cloth sack and dropped three handfuls of rough-ground coffee into the can. He added water from his canteen and set the makeshift coffee pot on the coals of the cooking fire.
“You got a mess kit or cups or anything?” Ray asked.
Will snorted derisively. “Sure. I got a silver tea service and a goddamn tablecloth as well.”
Ray looked at him for a long moment. “You’re a right feisty sumbitch, ain’t you, Will Lewis?”
Will thought it over for some time and then nodded. “Yessir,” he said, “I suppose I am.”
When the can was barely cool enough not to raise blisters, Ray and Will passed it back and forth.
Will smacked his lips. “Best coffee I ever had,” he said.
“You bet it is.”
Afterward they sat watching the coals of the little fire dim and eventually die. Will smoked; Ray worked one of his knives with a whetstone.
Will sighed.
Ray sheathed his knife. “This sure is excitin’, settin’ here doin’ nothing,” he said.
“I’m glad you said it before I had to. Wanna take a peek at Olympus? See what One Dog an’ his li’l friends are doin’?”
“Damn right I do.”
Riding was easy: the moon showed half its face, giving adequate illumination for the horses, at least at a walk. On the way, Will explained his rationale for holding off on attacks for a couple of days.
Ray reluctantly agreed. “But,” he said, “I purely hate to let them vermin live any longer than I have to.”
They began hearing gunshots when they were a mile or more outside the town. The throaty roar of a shotgun sounded every so often, making pistol and rifle fire seem puny.
“Sonsabitches are all worked up ’bout somethin’,” Ray said. “I suspect it’s ’cause they brought in a new bunch of gunsels an’ crazies to replace the ones we killed. Dog has a shitload of rebel gold he stole after Sherman busted up Atlanta. That’s how he pays them.
“Another thing One Dog likes is to impress his recruits with somethin’ so goddamn outlandish it’ll stick with them.”
“Like what?”
“Couple years ago he torched a little church with thirty, forty folks in it on a Sunday morning. He chained the doors shut and posted a man at each window with instructions to shoot to kill. Like that.”
Will shook his head in disgust. “What the hell makes him that kinda man?”
“Beats me. But it don’t matter. That’s the way he is. Look—let’s leave our horses here an’ go closer on foot. Wampus’ll let us know if there’re riders about.”
The men walked together while the wolf dog swept the territory in front of and around them. He returned to Will frequently, grinning, and after a few scratches behind his ears set off on patrol again.
“Damned fools don’t have riders or night guards out,” Will said.
“Prolly figure they’re safe in town—an’ they’re no doubt soused, too.”
As Ray and Will drew closer, raucous, braying laughter, whoops, and rebel yells reached them. “Somethin’ unusual goin’ on,” Will said.
When Wampus next returned Will kept him at his side.
Olympus had been established in a slight dish in the prairie, which was fortunate: the terrain allowed rain and snow melt to drain downward to replenish small ponds, streams, and water tables. As the men approached the lip they crouched down to keep their silhouettes out of sight of the town.
They gut-crawled the last few yards and looked down at Olympus. Both men were silent for a moment, almost unable to believe what they saw in front of the outlaw saloon.
There were two tall fence posts planted midstreet, maybe ten feet apart. Renegades wandered about, tearing boards, slats, and doors from buildings and piling them at the bases of the fence posts. Lengths of logging chain rested in front of the posts in the dirt of the street.
A large fire—a farmer’s wagon that must have been loaded with lumber from the mercantile—burned powerfully, tongues of flame reaching toward the sky and casting their eerie light up and down Main Street.
“Nah,” Ray whispered, unbelieving. “Nah, they can’t be planning . . .”
“ ’Course they can. And they are.”
Two outlaws carrying cans of kerosene stumbled and weaved their ways to the posts and saturated the wood around them. One Dog, standing between the posts, arms folded, his face hard, gestured toward the saloon. The cheers and laughter of the crowd grew yet louder.
Four renegades dragged and carried two Negro men, punching and kicking them to keep them moving. Both blacks were shirtless and their backs and shoulders showed fresh welts and deep cuts from a horsewhip.
“Where’d they get the niggers?” Ray asked.
“Look: don’t call them niggers. Niggers are slaves. Ain’t no black people who are slaves since Appomattox. I celled with a black at Folsom an’ he was one of the finest men I ever come across. Know what he was serving eight to ten for? Gawkin’ at a white whore.”
“I didn’t mean no harm, Will.”
“I know that. But don’t you say it again.” He paused for a moment. “That could well be the black men’s wagon burning. Lotsa freed slaves came to be settin’ up little farms, building houses, out on the prairie.”