“John,” said the man. “Do you have the money?”
John raised the manageable rock. He looked for any unique features to the man who was aiming the pistol at him. His spurs were rusty, but not remarkably so.
From the window, Martha saw John freeze, raise his arm, then fall. Then she heard the shot. She stepped into the living room and out through the front door where the man who had shot John was turning his horse back to the business at hand. She fired and he fell. She shot the horse as well. It fell upon the rider. Two other men turned back to her after the shot and she fired on them both. One fired his own shot, but it was redirected toward the sky as her bullet landed. The last of them, though she saw him only as the sixth, fired at her from a good distance. The bullet broke the wood of the banister at her left. She walked toward him steadily and he fired again, blasting a hole in the dirt just behind her. He wrangled his horse and tried to still it. She reached what seemed a reasonable distance for her trembling arms, raised the rifle, and placed a bullet in his chest. He received the bullet, hunched forward, dug his heel into the horse’s side, and moved past Martha, forcing her back a few steps but not down. She fired several more times but failed to meet the moving target.
Dust held in the air. There were no sounds from outside, only the fire cracking the walls. Bird wet himself and began to cry. He cursed himself and demanded that he get out from under the bed. He told himself again and again, get out from under the bed, but he did not move.
The gunshots that echoed throughout the valley sounded almost patient. Inexplicably, the birds in the trees lining the graveyard were still singing. Or chattering. Gossiping. There were no more horses. No more yelling. Just gunshot, gunshot, gunshot. Then nothing but birds. Mary was pacing between the headstones and pulling up dandelions not aligned to a particular plot. She’d pieced together a bouquet. She was not fully ignorant to what was happening, and there was a flood of emotion for each imagined possibility. There was joy and pride at the thought of John rescuing Martha and Bird and the farm, and of them obtaining several new horses to break and befriend. There was sadness and fear for a handful of other, darker, reasons. She kept herself busy and did not allow herself to settle on any particular thought for very long. The birds flitted from tree to tree as if to spread the news of her bravery, her stoicism. She was like a historical person, going up against the difficulties of the world and working to change things through her survival. She had not known this grandmother. She was not a blood relation. Mary set the dandelions on the grave and asked her grandmother what she thought about the whole thing. Her grandmother said nothing, or she blew through the grass and chirped in the trees — Mary hadn’t decided how she felt about it. Mostly when she talked to her grandmother, she imagined she was speaking into a well.
Martha grabbed Bird by the wrist and pulled. He yelled stop and reached for the edge of the bed to counter her yanking. No arm rose to meet the impulse and he slid out from under the bed. When he would not stand, Martha dragged him through the doorway, into the living room, and out the front door. She paid no mind to the fire and Bird somehow made it out without a wound. She dragged him through the dirt and over a rock and out to the barn where she finally loosed her grip and released him into the dirt. She had traced an enormous S in the dirt with his back, avoiding the fallen bodies.
“Get up,” she said.
Bird turned his belly to the ground. He was crying and could not stop.
“Stand up,” said Martha.
He was in the long johns that had once belonged to Mary. He was without footwear.
“Go to the barn,” she said. “You’ll find John’s boots there and a pistol.”
The house was burning, nearly half-consumed by flame, and she had no plan or desire to stop it, it seemed.
“They won’t fit,” he said.
“They’ll cover your soles. Now get up.”
She scanned the perimeter for anything — another man, Mary. She saw nothing but bodies and a little Bird crying in the dirt.
“Up,” she said, “we’re moving.”
She headed to the barn and got the boots from beside the door. She found the pistol with the rest of the various tools near the back of the barn. She also found a rifle.
When she stepped back out from the barn, she found Bird had hoisted himself into a sitting position.
“I said up,” she said.
She gripped him by his armpits. It felt loose and awkward where the stump was, like she was hurting him.
“What are we going to do?” he said.
“We’re going to find Mary,” she said.
“Where is she?” he said.
“We’re going to look for her,” she said.
He was up finally. She brushed him off and handed him the boots. They were indeed far too large. They were comically large on him. She nearly grinned when he took his first few steps. He started crying again and she fired a shot into the air with John’s pistol.
“No,” she said. “Cry all you want once we’ve got Mary and we’ve set rangers on those marauders.”
“Were they marauders?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they take anything? What did they want?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Why?”
He was crying again.
“Because we are always in the wilderness. Beneath everything is the wilderness and there is no end to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean, and that is why you’re scared.”
“Are they going to come back?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because we won’t be here.”
They searched for Mary near the well and did not find her. They searched for her in the fields and found only the plow. They followed tracks that led away from the house and into the woods. There were two trails. One led to the cemetery and the other led deeper into the woods and on into town.
“She’s in the cemetery,” said Martha, “or she’s gone.”
Bird was kicking stones and dragging his feet behind her. He was no longer really crying but only because he was exhausted and spent. He was dripping pathetically and running at the nose. He knew he had failed in every way you could fail in such a situation. He had been afraid and miserable and had acted as such, which only made him feel more afraid and more miserable.
Mary was kneeling on a grave and arranging dandelions into a cone shape.
Martha lifted her and held her up and examined her. Then she held the girl against her chest and shut her own eyes.
Mary asked what had happened.
Martha did not speak.
Mary asked Bird what had happened.
He was crying, and said nothing.
“We’ve got to go,” said Martha.
“Where is John?” said Mary, because it felt like the right thing to ask.
Sugar’s delivery had to be overseen by several of the town’s deputies, partially because the doctor had spoken out so strongly against it.
The doctor was a committed drinker. He had steady hands until around 3 o’clock and then he was more than worthless.
Since Sugar’s arrival, the doctor had committed himself to enfeeblement. He would sit in the bar and drink, then he would drink in front of the bar, and then he would drink in the alley off to the side of the bar, and all the while he was calling Sugar an abomination and a creature and the devil. He said Sugar was pregnant with his own cock and if he, the doctor, were to squat before him while he was birthing that cock, it would be more or less the same thing as inviting the animal, Sugar, to fuck him.