“We won’t find ’em by standin’ here.” Royce looked up at the dark gray sky. “Maybe it’ll rain, put the flames out. Come on,” he said impatiently, “we’ve got to move.”
“Don’t like that fire,” Barrows said, angling his good eye at the others. “Wind’s pickin’ up, too. Not sure we ought to—”
He was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying, off to their right. Instantly all firearms were aimed in the direction of the dense thicket, but nothing alive could be seen in there. The crying noise went on for perhaps five or six seconds, ending with what sounded like a harsh sob of despair.
There was silence, but for the noise of the distant fire eating its way through the wilderness. All the men were frozen in place. Then Magnus heard something coming through the woods…something big and heavy. “Listen!” he said, and heard his own voice tremble: “Listen!”
Whatever it was, it was crashing through the underbrush and coming fast. Royce retreated, standing behind and to Gunn’s left with his musket raised and ready. Foxworth backed up until his spine met a tree. Barrows’ single eye had widened. Stamper and Bovie both stood their ground, as smoke swept past and the devil’s dry wind blew toward the River of Souls.
Magnus’ finger was on the trigger of the rusty pistol. He hoped it wouldn’t explode in his hand…but whatever was coming, it was going to need more than a pistol ball to stop it.
From the dark, smoke-swept woods burst into the torchlight not just one beast, but three.
Magnus fired. So too did Gunn, Barrows and Stamper, nearly at the same time. Bovie, armed with only the sword, let out a holler and slashed at the first creature that came through…a large buck with a spread of antlers, followed by two does. In the clouds of blue gunsmoke, the buck staggered under the impact of the shots but kept going past the men.
Perhaps two seconds later, Royce’s musket went off. Joel Gunn’s forehead blew out as the ball that had entered the back of his head made its exit.
“Christ, man!” Stamper shouted. Gunn’s knees were buckling, blood streaming down the wreckage of the face. The torch fell from the left hand and the body pitched forward into the brush, shuddered a few times and was still. “Christ!” Stamper shouted again. His face had gone as pallid as gray clay. “Are you crazy? You killed him!”
“My gun misfired!” Royce shouted back. “I was aimin’ at that thing…pulled the trigger and the pan didn’t flash! Then he stepped in the way just as it went off! You all saw it! Didn’t you?” He looked around with wild eyes, his chest outthrust as if to dare them to disagree, and Magnus Muldoon realized that it might have happened as Royce said, but it was a mighty good way for Royce to take advantage of the moment. With Gunn dead, so had died someone who knew too much.
Stamper started to protest again, but a man who’d already killed another one on this jaunt didn’t have much room for indignation. “Damn!” he said, and he took his hat off to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a dirty sleeve. “Royce…I don’t know about this…Fitzy dead…that fire comin’…now this…I don’t know.”
Royce was already reloading his still-smoking musket. He had poured an amount of black powder down the muzzle and was now using a ramrod to drive the ball home. “Somebody get Joel’s musket,” he said, his voice tight. “Bovie, it’s yours.”
Bovie reached down and retrieved the weapon. Then he had to get Gunn’s leather bag of powder and shot from where it had been slung around the man’s shoulder. He worked at this for a moment, grimly, as Foxworth shambled forward to get the torch before it could burn up any more brush. He stomped out the fire on the ground, but the fire in the trees was gaining on them. They could begin to feel some heat within the smoke, which was becoming thicker.
From the woods that had expelled the deer came the crying sound, closer now. It again went on for a few seconds and once more ended in the harsh, eerie sob.
Magnus did not believe in curses nor spirits, vengeful or otherwise, but even he felt shaken. He reloaded the pistol, which had performed admirably in spite of its rust, and everyone else with an empty firearm also hurriedly reloaded with powder and lead ball down the muzzle, then a small measure of powder in the firing-pan to prime the weapon.
Stamper had put his hat back on. The raven’s feather was crooked. Sweat glistened on his face as he lifted his torch and stared into the wilderness from which the crying had come. His musket was aimed and ready, but his nerve had broken with the second cry. He said, “Royce…I’m clearin’ out. It’s not worth it…” He was already backing away. “Not worth it, to die out here.”
“He’s right!” said Barrows, the white eye shining. “I’m clearin’ out too…gettin’ back to the river.”
“Hold on!” Royce protested, but even so his voice had weakened and he too had the tightness of fear on his face.
The smoke was making eyes water and bringing up coughs. “We can’t go any further,” Stamper said. “I ain’t goin’ any further. Royce, it’s got to be given up. The skins are likely dead by now. If not…they will be soon. Anybody wants to go with me, come on. Findin’ Corbett and gettin’ out of here, ’fore this fire spreads and full dark falls.” He turned and started walking to the southwest, toward the river. Barrows followed, then Bovie, Magnus and at last Foxworth.
“Stamper!” came the shout.
Magnus turned, as did the others, to see Royce holding the musket aimed at Stamper’s belly.
“We can’t give it up!” Royce’s face had reddened and seemed swollen by blood, and in the drifting smoke he appeared a green-eyed devil from Hell. “We can’t let those skins just get away! Nossir! They’ve got to pay for what they’ve done! Abram the most! Stabbin’ her down like she was a damned dog, and her such a fancy lady too good to hardly speak to anybody! And flouncin’ around there to draw all the attention and all those black eyes lookin’ at her, and wantin’ her! You could smell that they wanted her!” His mouth was twisted, his face contorted into a picture of utter, raging hatred. “Teachin’ him to read, they say! To read! That wasn’t what they was doin’ in that barn, night after night! Well, that sweet innocent little girl wasn’t so damned sweet and innocent! I watched her, the way she teased! Readin’, they say! Those animals want only one thing from a white woman! One thing! My Pa found that out, too! And then he paid for it with a cut throat!” He blinked suddenly, realizing something had spilled out from a deep wound. “I mean to say…” He hesitated, not knowing what to say. He tried again, with an effort. “It’s that…you’ve got to be strong with ’em. Keep ’em whipped and scared. If you don’t, they’ll rise up…burn your house…and everything gone.” He looked from one man to another. “Don’t you understand that?”
A silence stretched. Then Stamper asked quietly, “You gonna shoot me too, Griff?”
Royce looked down at the musket as if it were an object from another world. He lowered it. “No, Stamper,” he said with a hideous grin. “I’m not gonna shoot anybody.”
“You can come with us if you like or stay out here. Your choice.”
They could hear the trees burning now, a dull roar, and hear the popping of pinecones like little explosions. The dry wind blew and smoke billowed through the woods.
“I’ll come with you,” said Royce, and he walked past Magnus to the front of the group. Magnus turned to follow them, and saw that Foxworth had gone over to kneel beside Gunn’s body. Foxworth was scavaging Gunn’s knife in its sheath from the dead man’s waist. The others were moving on, and only Magnus saw it happen.