The Crossings (9 page)

"I'd like my Winchester back now if it's all the same to you, ma'am. And if I could borrow your knife."

I think we all knew what he was thinking by then and Elena looked reluctant to accede to his wishes. I didn't blame her one bit.

"You've still got Bell's rifle. And his sidearm."

"A pistol's not good for much of anything at this range, Hart," I said. "You know that."

"Be that as it may."

He held out his hand.

She handed him the knife which he slipped into his belt and then the rifle. He checked the load and placed it down next to the one he'd taken off the guard and stripped off his shirt. He propped the Winchester up against his chest and tied it in place with his shirtsleeves and then picked up the other rifle.

"See you," he said. Then stood up and started walking. Not hurrying, just walking — and I thought of the story about Hart and the stolen cattle and felt something leap inside me that was at once glad to know that I had lived to see this man this day and fearful for its outcome.

"Give me your pistol, Bell," Elena said and I did.

I don't know what it was that made them turn, some intuition or some signal from the other guards which they were able to see but we didn't but Fredo and Gustavo whirled on him nearly as one. It was too late all the same. Hart pumped two bullets into Fredo's fat belly and a third into Gustavo's chest before they could get off a single shot and then walked to where Fredo lay rolling on the ground and put a fourth bullet into his ear.

He moved to Mother and cut him down and laid him gently on the ground.

I heard Ryan yelling something from the porch, standing with his hand in the air, telling his people to hold off.

Hart knelt there mostly obscured by the wagon and reloaded.

Then he was up again and walking into what my heart told me was going to be a vicious line of fire like he was taking a stroll on a sunny day. The moments seemed to stretch and expand, time all out of whack. He was waging a war of nerves here. It was a war that the man standing at the well lost first, his shot going wide. Hart aimed and fired and the man went down. Then all hell broke loose, Hart still that slow-moving target, bullets kicking up muddy dirt all around.

I'd already picked my man, exposed in the corral over by the horses. I fired at him and missed the first and second time but not the third.

There were horses between me and the other two men so I looked for a better target and saw Hart moving toward the outbuildings, taking one of the men down at the first building and then whirling and firing toward the second and I had a clear shot at one of the guards there too so I fired and Hart fired and have no idea which of our bullets cut him down.

The remaining two men at the outbuildings had hidden behind wooden water barrels when the shooting started but Hart kept marching toward them. I saw him throw away the first rifle and tear the Winchester off his chest and fire into the nearest barrel over and over again while I followed suit with the second, aware suddenly that Elena was not beside me — Celine was, but not her sister — and for a moment I thought she'd been shot though that was hardly likely and then I considered it no further but concentrated on the man behind the barrel.

I saw Hart take a bullet in the thigh and side almost simultaneously. They staggered but didn't stop him and he was nearly on top of the first barrel when the man slid away limp behind it under his fire. He turned toward the second. I needed to stop to reload. As I fumbled with the cartridges I saw him toss down the Remington and pull out his pistol as a bullet hit him low in the shoulder and spun him down to the mud.

I saw Ryan smiling from the porch, the heavy oak door his cover.

His shot, his bullet
.

Hart was like a bull in a corrida now, managing only to get to his knees as still another bullet took him in the thigh again and I thought,
Christ, it's not a corrida it's a goddamn slaughterhouse
as another slapped into his chest and yet another into his upper arm, that arm his gunhand so that he could barely raise the gun enough to switch it to the other hand but switch hands he did and fired into the corral and I could see one of the men fall beneath the panicked horses' hooves and I went back to my barrel again and finally the man behind it was aware of the angle and direction of my fire and ignored Hart for a moment and turned to aim at me and when he did I put a bullet into his chest.

Hart had turned to fire at Ryan and now I saw why. The third man in the corral lay as dead as the other two and that left only Ryan. There was a puzzled look on Hart's face that told me it wasn't Hart who had shot the man.

I did as he did, slamming bullets into the old oak door until it barely even looked like a door anymore, just a tall dark rectangle of ruined hacked wood but my rifle was about as ineffective penetrating the thing at this range as Hart's Peacemaker and Ryan wouldn't show his face and finally I had to reload again.

And realized that so did Hart.

I don't know why I did what I did then.

As I've said, I'm not a brave man.

And I am not generally given to foolish endeavors.

But suddenly I could no longer stand to see Hart out there on his knees while I remained in cover. I stepped out of the scrub and concentrated on reloading and not the pain shooting through my leg or even Ryan for that matter aware only that for the moment at least the firing had ceased on both sides as I stumbled limping toward him and managed to get one bullet and then two into the rifle and I was no more than ten feet away when the firing started once again and I felt something slap my head like I'd run into the limb of a tree and it whirled me away to the ground and then I was tasting mud in my mouth and blood and then the next thing I saw was Hart take still another shot to the chest throwing him down, the two of us lying practically side to side.

I looked up and saw Ryan come off the porch smiling, wearing the look of a man happier to kill than eat, saw him glance first dismissively at me and then walk up to Hart with his pistol raised and I heard Hart say
you worthless piece of horseshit, you're dead, you know that?
and you could see it suddenly dawn on the man that against all odds or reason it was true just as Elena who had come out from behind the outbuilding and was now only three or four steps behind him blew out the back of his head, shattering his face and pitching him into the mud.

I attempted to move.

"Stay still," she said. "You're head-shot, Bell." She went to Hart and knelt beside him.

"You might have let me help right from the beginning," she said.

"You did help."

"You know what I mean."

"It's all right. There's nothing I'd have wished to do differently."

"You're a fool, Hart."

"Not a kind thing to say to a dying man, Elena."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I was only just beginning to like you, Hart."

"I don't know why you would," he said. "But thank you, ma'am."

FIFTEEN

We crossed this time at Gable's Ferry. That meant we had to travel north a ways but we didn't want to risk the river with our burden. Old Man Gable had hired help by then and the boy who ran the ferry wasn't happy to see us wounded as we were and bearing two shot corpses. A few of the girls from the compound were with us. He seemed to like their company much better.

I wasn't hardly fit for digging, nor was Celine, so it was Elena who buried them out behind our corral. A shady spot on a little hill where the wind would whistle by on an autumn afternoon and we marked their graves with two crosses cut from wood off the corral itself since it was Mother who had built it. Again it was Elena who pushed and then hammered them deep into the fresh-turned earth.

"Want to say something, Marion Bell?"

I thought for a moment. "I don't know what to say. They were my friends. The best I ever knew. Best a man could want, I think. So I guess that's what I'll say. They were my friends."

She looked at Celine.

"Brave men. Kind men and generous. I won't forget them."

Then Elena did a surprising thing. She produced a small tattered Bible from the folds of the skirt she'd made for the occasion. I recognized it to be Mother's.

I had never seen him read or even open it.

"'
Ye are the light of the world
," she read. "
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' Book of Matthew. Amen
."

I wept and later, as they left me, sat down to write.