Bad Medicine (16 page)

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.

“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'.

We hadn't walked real far into the woods when we came
upon a doe heavy with a fawn. She was suckin' water at a little eddy where a stream had dug into soft soil. I raised the Maynard.

“Nah, Jesus, Will, she's carryin' a . . . ,” Hiram said, real loud.

'
Course the doe's head snapped up an' swung toward us. I dropped her clean as can be, puttin' one of them fat an' stubby .50-caliber slugs into her left eye. Hiram pushed the rifle out of the way an' punched me in the mouth, hard 'nuff to loosen a couple teeth an' get my nose runnin' blood . . .

“Will? Will? My eyes are heavy. You need to take your watch, no?”

Will swam up from his dream and sat up at the table where he'd rested his head on his arms. “Yeah, sure, Jane. Anything goin' on out there?”

“Many of the men are drunk. There was a gunfight where a very fast gun killed a farm boy. Other than that, very little. They drink, they shoot over here when they care to. I have fired back, but my skill is with the pistol and the knife—not the rifle. Missing by an inch or so is as bad as missing by a mile, no?”

Will stood. “You get some sleep, Jane. I'll take the watch 'til dawn.”

“Will they attack at night?” Jane asked.

“Who the hell knows?” Will sighed. “If One Dog tells 'em to, they will. If they get hopped up on them mushrooms again, there's no tellin' what they'll do.”

“Well. Is one good thing to tell. You know Berdan Sharps?”

“The double-trigger model? 'Course I do, Jane. Been the best rifle in the world since fifty-nine—nothin'
come close to it. I know a Reb sharpshooter who picked off near a hundred blues, mostly officers. That sumbitch rifle—”

“Come here.”

Jane led Will back to the storeroom. “I was looking about here to see what we could use. This case was hidden under sacks of grain. Of course, I have heard of the . . .”

Will drew his knife from his boot and began prying the nails out of the long wooden box, the top of which was stenciled
SHAR—BER
. He was as anxious as a kid unwrapping a Christmas gift. The box was stuffed with straw, and under the straw was a bison-skin bag, flesh side out.

“Holy God,” Will mumbled as he brought the buffalo skin out and unwrapped its contents.

It was, in fact, a Sharps rifle—the Berdan '59 model with the dual triggers that fired a slug as fat as a man's thumb and was accurate—deadly accurate—for damned near three-quarters of a mile. Some buffalo hunters said it'd shoot farther with the same accuracy. Buffalo Bill Cody dropped thirteen woolies from at least a mile away with a Berdan Sharps.

At both ends of the wooden packing crate were two boxes containing twenty cartridges each. Will picked up the rifle and put it to his shoulder. It smelled of good wood, gun oil, and steel. “The storekeep, he said he didn't have a Sharps—that the wooly hunters had cleaned out his stock.”

“I know why the store man would not have sold. The longer he held onto this gun, the more valuable it would become.”

“I got her now, though. Damn, Jane, feel the way it fits to a shoulder, lookit the quality of the fittings.”

“A weapon is a weapon. Does it matter how long the viper's fangs are? I think not. The target will be dead either way.”

“You're one cheerful sumbitch,” Will said, sliding cartridges into the Sharps. “You gotta realize that—”

There was a loud crash from the back room where the horses were being held. At the same time, a man in a Union general's uniform left the saloon across the street with a white flag attached to a broomstick. He marched as if in formation, waving the flag. “We will talk,” he shouted.

Will hustled back to the horses. Slick was on his side, eyes closed, legs twisted under him, in a puddle of blood. Gentle Jane's Partner was slumped against the far wall, gouts of blood spurting from his throat, doing his best to raise a forefoot to fight back—and not doing well at all. When he fell, it seemed the entire building shuddered.

“They've killed our horses!” Will yelled. “They killed our horses!”

Will ran to the barricade just in time to see Jane trigger both barrels at the man carrying the white flag. The two blasts hit his upper body squarely, hurling him back six feet with a gaping hole in his midsection. The flag and broomstick vaulted into the air and then dropped to the dirt of the street.

“Both are dead?”

“Yes—throats cut.”

“My Partner . . . he was a fine horse.”

“So was Slick.”

Will looked above barricade. “Shit. Here they come with fire arrows.”

Across the street, men were firing torches—fire
arrows—at the mercantile. Both Will and Jane began shooting, Jane dropping his shotgun next to him and working the rifle Austin had left for him.

Will cranked his .30-30, rarely missing a shot.

“The roof!” Jane called. “It's on fire. They'll burn us out!”

“I ain't gonna let that happen. Keep on shootin', Jane—scare 'em or kill 'em. I don't care. I'll go up on the roof an' I'll—”

It was then that the flimsy, dry-wood roof caved in, showering Will and Jane with charred wood, snippets of flame, and years of accumulated dust that sparkled like tiny Chinese firecrackers as it ignited. A couple of renegades toppled in with the collapse. Will shot them both before they hit the floor.

“If Austin had been up on the roof . . . ,” Will roared stupidly, needlessly.

“And if hogs could fly, they would nest in trees. We must get out of here before the whole place caves in on us!”

The smoke was bluish gray, and acrid, difficult to breathe, making the men feel as if their lungs were filled with searing pebbles and burning shards of glass. They both hurriedly tied their bandannas over their mouths and noses. The ladies' garments section of the mercantile was fully ablaze, as was the fabric department. Fingers of flame sprang up from the goods and from the floor, spreading quickly into sheets of fire.

The barrage from the street remained intense, nonstop, slugs whistling through the smoke and flames. Will and Jane held their positions behind a
pile of plows and farm implements at the window, firing, coughing rackingly, eyes tearing copiously. A round careened into the action of the Sharps, tearing it from Will's hands. He didn't bother to pick up the rifle; the damage to the mechanism would never allow it fire again. “Sonsabitches,” he cursed.

Will put his face close to Jane's. “The back's our only way out,” he choked. “They're either gonna fry us or shoot us—an' I'll take a bullet 'stead of burnin' to death!”

“The fire—the damned fire! All my life I've feared fire . . . ,” Jane coughed.

The two men rose and ran, trippingly, almost blind from the smoke, parting walls of flame with their bodies, gagging, throats thick and constricted by the heat and smoke.

The outlaws had smashed their way through the siding, making a hole large enough to allow a crouched man through to get to the horses, their noise covered by the fusillade from the street. Jane was a few steps ahead of Will. He performed a running dive through the hole, cranking his rifle as he did so. Will followed and crashed into his now-staggering friend—blood brother—who had two blazing arrows protruding from his chest, his beard, hair, and clothing aflame, screaming in agony. Will pushed himself up from the ground, where he'd fallen after slamming into Gentle Jane, the ungodly screeches of Jane's pain louder than thunder in his ears.

The arrows were well-placed, deadly, in Jane's chest. Will immediately saw that his friend had no chance at life. He drew his .45 and put a slug between Jane's eyes and then turned his pistol on the pair of mounted Indians who'd skewered and torched
his friend. He blew the nearest one off his horse with a single shot, but when he attempted to fire at the second, the hammer of his pistol clicked on an empty cartridge. Will's right hand slammed his .45 into its holster and continued downward to his boot. He was already in a run as the renegade nocked another arrow. He hurled his body at his enemy, tackling him, plunging his knife up to the hilt in the man's guts, hot blood spurting onto his hand, carrying them both off the horse's back.

Even over the roar of the fire and the shooting into the front of the mercantile, Will heard hoofbeats, whoops, and war cries alongside the building. He vaulted onto the renegade's horse, grabbed the single rein, and put his heels to the animal's side. He'd barely gotten the horse into a full gallop when there was a tremendous crash behind him and a stinging rush of hot air and red, smoking bits of wood swept over and past him. He looked over his shoulder: the entire structure of the store had collapsed to the ground, freeing hungry flames to reach twenty and thirty feet into the sky as the conflagration sucked at and fed itself with the fire-feeding air.

Will One Dog assume I'm dead, my tomb a burned mercantile? The two dead Indians and Gentle Jane's body won't tell One Dog much, nor will the missing horse—and more than likely the first renegade down's horse ran off, too, its instinctual fear of fire easily overcoming any training it may have had.

He asked the horse he was riding for yet more speed.

Now it's not only Hiram and his family's revenge I'm seeking. I'll draw blood for both Austin and Jane, or I'll die trying.

The horse Will had taken from the Indian he killed with his knife must have been a recent steal by the renegade. Will felt some fat around the animal's withers, and the horse seemed willing enough to cover ground. He was shod; Will could tell that from the ringing sound of hooves striking bits of rock. The horses One Dog and his crew rode were unshod.

Will reined down to a fast walk after a couple of miles at a lope, figuring the gang wouldn't be able to track him in the now-full dark. The battle in memory seemed a speck of time, but in reality, it had covered several hours. Images of the fight cluttered Will's mind, clashing with one another, out of sequence, an amalgam of gunfire, flames, blood, and death.

The faces of Austin and Jane floated in front of him like mirages, one on either side of Hiram's face.

The side of Will's head tortured him—it felt as if he were still in the mercantile, forcing his way through smoke and flames. He explored the painful area with his fingertips and encountered what felt like minute strands of strings. He grasped one between his thumb and forefinger and tugged it free, puzzled. Then it struck him: the stitches! The fire had singed the exposed parts of the sutures, parting them. Within a few minutes, Will had removed the entire line. He probed where his eyebrows had been. Now there was nothing but seared flesh. He found his eyelashes were gone, as well. His Stetson was burned all the way around and it smelled strongly of scorched felt. He put his palm on the grips of his Colt: it felt fine. He wondered about his gun belt: he was carrying, he thought, thirty rounds of volatile
.45 cartridges. But as he ran his hand around his waist he found many of the leather loops were empty—he'd loaded and reloaded automatically, without realizing what he was doing. Will reached back to his saddlebag for a fresh box of Remingtons and realized that he was riding without a saddle—without his own saddle and supplies—and that the horse he was riding wasn't Slick.

The pain struck suddenly. His face felt as if it were on fire, his arms screamed for relief from the heat, and his gut, upper body, and back felt as if he'd been horsewhipped. The crazy hot blood of the battle, the Sharps . . . and his two friends, Austin and Gentle Jane, were gone—gone for good. Will was dizzy with pain. His left hand let go of the single rein and it dropped on the horse's neck, giving the animal free choice as to where he was going.