He heard the scratch of a match and then the whip of flames soaring from the wood. When he turned around he could barely see the fire. His stomach rumbled with hunger and he licked his lips, thinking of the coffee that Clare would soon have boiling. He welcomed that first whiff. The air was chill and just thinking about coffee warmed him some.
And then he smelled it, the coffee, and he heard footsteps on the bridge they had built across the creek. The boys on the other side had smelled it, too, and they were coming over to sit by the fire and be sociable.
Dan stood up.
He turned and walked up to the fire, wisps of fog clinging to him like pearly white cobwebs, then evaporating against the heat of his body.
“It's going to be a beautiful day, Clare,” Dan said. “And how's little Alice this morning?” He tousled his daughter's hair.
“I'm not little,” she said. “I'm helping Mama.”
“You sure are, little darling. Oops, I don't mean little darlin'. Just darlin'.”
Clare laughed and the sound was like music to him. He put his arms around her and pecked her on the cheek, just as the other men emerged from the cloud bank and headed for the logs they had laid out to sit on at mealtimes.
Above, at the mine, it was silent, and he wondered when Johnny and Ben would come down. It was very quiet up there. Dan shrugged.
Once they smelled the coffee or the bacon, they'd come down those stairs. No need to call them. They knew where breakfast was.
“How much gold did you find in that pan, Dan?” Gary asked as he sat down on the log.
“Maybe an ounce or more.”
“Heck, you can retire then.”
All of the men laughed.
Life was good.
And tomorrow they would all head for Pueblo and cash in their dust and nuggets. They would enjoy a short vacation back in civilization.
Clare smiled at him as if she could read his thoughts. And the coffeepot sang, its steam cutting through the mist and becoming part of it. It was just like watching miniature clouds forming right before their eyes on that red-sky morning.
4
A THIN SCRIM OF MIST STILL LINGERED JUST ABOVE THE CREEK, like some ghostly ectoplasm one might see in an old tin-type where light had leaked onto the negative through the sides of a camera. Jays chattered in obstreperous squawks as they quarreled over scraps of flapjacks little Alice was throwing joyously into the air like parade confetti on a holiday morning. The aroma of coffee hung in the air, mingling with the scent of fried fatback bacon and aromatic fir trees releasing their fragrance with the evaporating dew.
The eight men in Hobart's gang started blazing away with rifles and shotguns as soon as they emerged from the woods on the other side of the creek. Jays flapped off like blue streaks of light, got sucked into the trees like magnetized filings of cobalt, vanished into bristling green shelters that rose in staggered phalanxes to the blue, cloud-pocked sky. Bright orange flames spewed from angry black and brown muzzles, spitting leaden death at those in Dan Savage's camp who were sitting on logs eating their breakfasts, sipping coffee, laughing, smiling, breathing the cool, fragrant mountain air.
Gary Whitman was just starting to rise from the log when a .44/40 bullet from Army Mandrake's pistol ripped into his left temple at nearly one thousand feet per second. Gary's brains exploded into mush as the projectile passed through his skull, tore half his right ear off, and sprayed Rick Savage with a mist of blood and tissue.
Luke Wilkins found his target in Rick, who started to get up from his perch on the log when he heard the first shot. Rick caught the bullet just below his left armpit. The .50-caliber ball ripped the aorta, mangling his heart. He collapsed in a bloodless heap, dead before he hit the ground.
Hobart shot Dan Savage in the throat just as Dan was opening his mouth to yell out a warning. Blood splashed on Clare's dress like flung ketchup. Hobart shot her in the face and the back of her head flew off like a broken bowl of clabbered milk.
The outlaws splashed across the creek, firing above the splash and spray. The men in Dan's camp began dropping, spinning, sprawling in a macabre dance of death as bullets tore into them like grapeshot, ripping through flesh, gouging through bone.
Little Alice screamed.
That was the last sound the little girl made as a shotgun blast at close range from Pete Rutter's sawed-off double-barreled Browning sprayed her with double-ought buckshot, turning her into a bloody rag doll that fell like a pile of red clothes onto the ground next to the fire. She lay there, her white legs jutting obscenely from her dress, her heart pumping blood from a half dozen holes as her small heart continued to beat.
They called out each other's names, while they were killing. They called each other by name as if they had nothing to fear. They called to each other as if they were shooting milk bottles at a carnival.
“Good shot, Fritz.”
“You got him, Ollie.”
“Get him, Dick.”
The names flew back and forth with each shot.
Dick Tanner and Fritz Schultz downed two men at close range with accurate pistol shots from less than ten yards away. Dale Snider did a half twist, his arms flung straight up over his head, and fell into the cook fire, knocking over the large coffeepot and scattering ashes and coals over the stones around the fire ring.
They all went down: Lou Finley while trying to run away, Jesse Ward as he rushed to pull Mandrake from his horse, and Pat Jensen, who threw his pewter plate at Red Dillard. Ollie Hobart dispatched those who were still twitching with single shots to the head from his Colt .45. The others in the band began to dismount and run toward the tents. They yanked stakes out of the ground and jerked the heavy tarpaulin away, exposing what was inside.
“We found some gold here,” Red cried out, after blowing the lock on Dan's strongbox. He held up long burlap sacks, one in each hand, while Mort Anders pulled more sacks out.
“Take down every tent,” Ollie shouted, as he put a bullet into Leland Russell's brain just to make sure the man was dead. Donny French tried to crawl to his sister Clare. He was moaning, but still alive. Pete Rutter blasted him at point-blank range with both barrels of his scattergun, turning Donny's chest into ground meat.
“Should we burn everything?” Luke asked.
“No, you damned fool,” Ollie said. “You want to bring the town down on us? Just get the gold and let's get the hell out of here.”
The outlaw gang ransacked every tent, looking for gold. They turned out the pockets of the dead men, and Pete found the sack of dust Dan had panned that morning and stuck it in his shirt pocket.
“That all of 'em?” Ollie asked, looking around at the dead sprawled there like broken mannequins.
“We got ever' last one,” Mort said.
“Then, let's light a shuck,” Hobart ordered.
The outlaws splashed across the creek, vandalizing the tents on that side. It only took a few moments. They found no more gold, and disappeared into the pines, leaving a scene of carnage on the opposite bank as the sun blazed down on blood and body parts. Flies swarmed over the bodies and, high up in a pine tree, a jay screamed and took to the air, a flitting blue light against the green of the trees.
Â
Ben heard the gunshots and at first he thought they came from some kind of celebration with Chinese firecrackers popping off. He was chiseling around the streak of gold on the wall, while John was breaking open a chunk of rock on the floor of the cave that was flecked with gold and showed promise.
“What's that?” John asked, looking up at Ben.
“Damned if I know. Wait here.”
Ben threw down his hammer and chisel and rushed to the mine entrance. He stepped outside and stood peering through the trees at the slaughter below.
John came rushing up, then, and stood by Ben.
“My God, Ben. We've got to get down there.”
John started to run around the trees when Ben grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back into the trees.
“You go down there, you'll wind up dead as them, Johnny.”
“But they're killing everybody.”
“I know,” Ben said softly. “And we don't have so much as a slingshot between us. Just wait. Look at their faces. Study them.”
“I can't just stand here.”
John saw his mother go down, then saw his sister hurled to the ground by a blast from a shotgun. Tears rushed from his eyes, flowed down his cheeks in hot freshets. He began to shake with fear and rage.
The voices of killers floated up to them like disembodied fragments of sound on a gramophone record.
“Get him, Lukey. Shoot his ass.”
“I got him. Boy, I got him good.”
“Hey, Pete, you done good on that one.”
“Look at the men doing this,” Ben said softly. “Don't look atâat them you love and know, Johnny.”
John saw his father, saw the big man ride over and shoot him again. He forced himself to look at the killer's face.
“Listen to their names, Johnny. Remember their names. Put the names to their faces.” In a soft voice, Ben said these things as Johnny stared at the murderers. He felt as if he were in a kind of trance, that none of what he was seeing was real but the loud explosions of the guns, the white smoke, the sparks like a thousand fireflies in the harsh glare of daylight, the falling bodies, the blood; all these things brought reality hammering into him like a boxer's fists, and each death tore at his heart, wrenched it from its moorings until it hurt so deep the pain was part of him as tears streaked his cheeks, falling unchecked from wide-open eyes.
“Hey, Red, how'd you like that shot?”
“Mort, you got a dead eye, whooeee.”
He heard their names and put their names to their faces as they slaughtered his friends and his family and he screamed out silently for justice, for some force to come down from above and kill all the killers, slay all the slayers, blow them to pieces, smash them to bits for what they were doing, for the enjoyment they showed on their pasty brutal faces. The men appeared vivid to him, with dirt rings on their necks, sweat stains at their armpits, their wrinkled, slept-in shirts and trousers, their worn galluses, their scuffed and grimy boots, the clinking rowels on their spurs, the flash of gunmetal on their pistols and rifles.
He observed them as they tore down the tents and winced when the lock was blown off his father's strongbox, felt his stomach collapse when he saw them snatch the bags of gold up and display them like beheaded trophies, or dead ducks blown from the sky in a cloud of lead.
He saw them stalk the shore, ripping, pulling, jerking, snatching all the tent stakes and throwing the canvas down like dirty laundry, saw them kick and knock over every standing thing as if bent on destruction for destruction's sake. And their guns went silent, slipped back into holsters and scabbards, and still he stared at every face, memorized every movement of their hands, studied their faces for any sign that they might have human souls somewhere inside their sweating, oily bodies.
John stopped trembling when the men splashed across the creek and disappeared into the trees. But the sound of gunfire still echoed in his mind and he could smell the burnt powder as if it had been rubbed under his nose. He could still see, somewhere in the darkest shelves of his mind, the falling men, the friends stopped from running, from calling out, from screaming in pain, from breathing. And he could smell the blood, too, smell it like spilled wine on a table coated with candlewax and crushed peaches, the pulp of mashed pears and the decayed meat of persimmons.
The silence filled up all the space around Ben and John as they stood there behind the trees, dumb witnesses to horrible, almost unmentionable crimes of humanity since time immemorial. The silence was like a leaden weight on the morning, a hidden element of sunshine, the silvery glisten of the softly sobbing creek, the overpowering scent of blood and pine sap.
He stared at the scattered debris where the tents had stood, the woolen blankets, the leather saddles and saddlebags, the stringy remains of bridles, the ropes, and all along the shores, the broken sluice boxes and rockers, the shovels lying like broken sticks, the picks, hatchets all strewn as if an army had passed by and cast off its weapons and accoutrements on a deserted battlefield. It was all so desolate and austere, like a landscape left behind a passing plague that took all life with a single breath of wind.
“Ben, my God, look at that down there,” John said, a dazed look in his eyes, a numbness of disbelief in his toneless voice. “Theyâthey're all dead. All of them. Dead.”
Russell sniffed the air as if to test John's words on the breeze that sighed through the pines and the spruce and the fir. The sun was midway to its zenith, the air warming even the cool shade of the place where they stood, holding back the dankness of the mine at their backs. He shook his head, blinked his eyes, fisted them shut tight, then opened them again to stare in bewilderment at the broken bodies strewn over the garbage that had once been their living quarters, their homes, their peaceful night beds.
“We've got to go down there, Johnny. We're going to have to look at them and lay them to rest, God bless their eternal souls and damn those who took their breaths.”
“I-I can't,” John said.
“Then I'll go. You stay here.”
John recovered some of his senses and said, “No, Ben, I mean I can't believe they're all dead. Maybe . . .”
“We must go and see, Johnny.”
“Yes.”
They walked out of the trees like men stumbling from the epicenter of a terrible storm, Ben in the lead, John following close behind. They climbed down the steps in slow motion, filled with a dread in their hearts that weighed them down, turned their feet into useless slabs of heavy stone.