The Winter Family (41 page)

Sam came up from under the counter with the shotgun and handed it to Braun, who was out the door in an instant.

“Don’t you fucking move, boy!” Braun said. “I mean it!”

“Sergeant!” Sam called from inside. “You forgot the ammunition! I don’t keep it loaded!”

Johnson and Braun looked at each other, frozen in surprise. Then Johnson charged with his head lowered like a bull. Braun was a veteran of the Indian Wars and he struck with the butt of the shotgun, hard enough to crack a skull. Johnson did not avoid the blow; he tucked his head into his shoulders so it glanced off, taking scalp and hair with it. Then he dug his fingers into Braun’s eye sockets. Braun let out a dismayed wail that sharpened into a shriek as they toppled over and Johnson got in deeper.

After it was over, Johnson stood, his hands darkened with blood, and picked up the shotgun. Sam fumbled along the back wall, tripping over his things, unable to take his eyes off the horror in front of his store.

“Where the fucking shells at, old man?” Johnson asked.

“Please …”

“I said where those fucking shells?”

“There’s a box of them under the counter. Jesus, mister, don’t hurt me.”

Johnson swept everything off the counter with one muscular arm and then reached under it for the shells. The telegram briefly caught his eye as it fluttered to the floor. He broke the shotgun and fed two rounds into the breech and then snapped it shut.

“Get up against the wall,” Johnson said. “Turn around.”

“Don’t hurt me,” Sam said, sobbing and shaking. He put his hands up on the wall.

Johnson held the rifle by the barrel and swung the shotgun like a club and smashed the butt end of it into the back of Sam’s head. The old man went face-first into the wall and then slid to the right, leaving a streak of blood behind.

Outside the sergeant was still screaming.

“I’m blind! He’s here! The Negro from Winter’s gang! They’re coming! They’re all coming!”

Johnson went outside.

“I’m blind!”

He gave the sergeant one barrel in the face. The recoil kicked the shotgun back in his arms.

Two tall men rushed out of the saloon to his left, each of them carrying a pistol, both of them shooting at him. They shot wildly and missed, even at the short range. Johnson leapt back into the general store.

One of the hands came up to the window and Johnson let loose with the other barrel. The buckshot shattered the glass and burrowed into the wood. The hand shouted and dived away.

Through the window Johnson could see soldiers appearing at the gate to the fort. They started shooting too, and Johnson retreated behind a shelf, taking the box of shells with him.

How many were there? Too many. Perhaps ten still in the fort, perhaps three or four in the saloon. How he hated this, the terrible fear, the physical exhaustion and pain. Living on the ragged, bleeding edge. In hindsight it appeared better than it was: simple and clear and exhilarating. When it was happening everything was muddled and uncertain and awful. Why had he done this for so long? He could not remember, and he hated Bill for making him do it again, for driving him back into the blood of things.

“Where are you, Winter?” Johnson said. “You always used to ride in at the last minute.”

He tipped over the box of shells, loaded the shotgun, and stuffed the spares into the pocket of his overalls. Tins of chewing tobacco were within easy reach so he opened one and jammed a pinch between his lower lip and his gums. The taste of it numbed his mouth. Nothing to do but wait for them to try to get in here.

After the first gunshot, Quentin said, “Now you are down to twelve,” and smiled one of his ghastly smiles.

Lieutenant Graves took his boots off his desk and ran out into the cold air. Two of the privates were at the main gate, firing their weapons outside. Graves couldn’t tell whether anyone was shooting back.

“Hold your fire!” he shouted.

The other sergeant, a slender bespectacled man named O’Connor, ran over from the barracks. “What’s going on?”

“Braun just went out to get some coffee,” Graves said. “Is everyone else accounted for?”

“Corporal Shaw went out on patrol with Denton and Williams,” O’Connor said. “If Braun is out there too, that leaves nine in the fort.”

The privates had not stopped shooting. The lieutenant ran up next to one of them and shouted, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s a Negro in the post office and he’s killed Braun.”

“Killed him?”

“Yes sir,” the private said. “Then O’Shea’s boys came out of the saloon and started shooting at the Negro.”

A shotgun blast tore into the wood next to the private’s head. He flinched and swore.

“Come on out and get some,” Johnson bellowed from across the road. “Come and get me!”

The other private climbed up a ladder. At the top, he shouted, “I can see them, Lieutenant!”

“You can see who?”

“Shaw and Denton and Williams. They’re coming up the road fast!”

Graves drew his pistol and cocked it.

“Let me know when they’re close,” he said. “And then I’ll lead the charge.”

“Yes sir,” O’Connor said.

Everything was perfectly silent. No gunshots, or voices, or even birdsong. And then the private at the top of the wall called, “Now!”

Graves bolted through the gate, firing his pistol at the store’s shattered window. A flash and a bang came in response and Graves felt something rip into his knee like a swarm of angry bees. He shouted and fell.

O’Shea’s two men were crouched under the window of the store. One of them reached up and blindly fired his pistol inside. The rest of the soldiers were sprinting across the road. The shotgun fired again and hit nothing.

“That’s both barrels!” Graves shouted. “Get in there before he can reload!”

No one watched the approaching riders, assuming them to be soldiers by their uniforms, and so the Empire brothers got among them before anyone noticed.

“Yeehaw!” Johnny shouted in his moronic child’s voice.

He had a Winchester rifle and he was firing and grinning. Charlie had a pistol in each hand. They were both guiding their horses with their knees and wearing the uniforms of murdered soldiers.

One of O’Shea’s boys got inside the store, but Johnson knocked him outside with the butt of the shotgun. Then he put his back to the wall and broke open the gun and reloaded as fast as he could. The other hand came inside just as he snapped the shotgun shut. Johnson didn’t have time to raise his gun; he just struck out with his tremendous head, old and gray, and smashed the young man in the nose and mouth. The hand fired his pistol into the ceiling.

Outside, Johnny shot like a man too stupid to have any doubts, taking his time as his horse danced around in a panic, pumping the lever and carefully drawing aim. Charlie was blasting everywhere and now he was singing: “In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone.”

Someone shot Johnny’s horse and it stumbled, screaming, pitching Johnny face-first into the mud. But then Johnson came out of the store, calm and collected, carefully taking everything into account. One barrel roared and then the other and two men tumbled over. Then he stepped down on the neck of the first of O’Shea’s boys and swung the shotgun down like an ax and staved in the boy’s skull.

The horse was still screaming and the sound was awful.

It was over now, pretty much. Those left alive were rolling around in the mud or trying to crawl away. One or two had fled. Charlie Empire dismounted and reloaded his pistols and Johnny reloaded his rifle. Then they walked among the survivors, finishing them off.

“God damn,” Charlie said, “but it feels good to be back in uniform.”

Lieutenant Graves was still alive. He stood up uneasily, his weight on his good leg.

Winter came up on his horse, wearing a corporal’s uniform that was smeared with blood.

“Charlie,” Winter said. “Get the key from the lieutenant and turn Quentin loose.”

Charlie Empire walked over to the lieutenant and held out his hand. Graves didn’t do anything, more shocked than defiant. Charlie struck out with his fist and hit the lieutenant in the side of his neck, knocking him over.

“Give me the fucking keys.”

Graves felt around in his pocket and held them out. Charlie snatched them and walked into the fort.

Where is everyone? Graves thought. Where are they all?

“What the fuck are you doing here, Johnson?” Winter said.

“Bill Bread,” Johnson replied.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He was right behind me with a posse. I’m a little surprised he’s not here already. I guess he stopped to write a telegram.”

Johnny laughed, a lunatic sound.

“Please,” Graves said. He was horrified to find himself begging. “Please don’t. You don’t have to. You don’t. I won’t … I won’t. Please.”

Graves pulled himself up to his feet just as it began to snow. No blizzard, it was calm and tranquil, fat flakes coming down.

“Please. You don’t have to do this, any of this.”

Johnny laughed. Then he shot his horse. Pumped the lever and shot again. It finally stopped screaming. The lieutenant realized that it had been screaming all this time.

Winter looked at Graves from atop his horse. The uniform he was wearing fit him like a glove. Graves saw that he was unarmed.

“Please,” Graves said.

He started to cry.

“Just don’t. Just don’t do it.”

Behind him came the footsteps of Quentin and Charlie.

“Ah, Augustus,” Quentin drawled, “you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“I need a drink,” Johnson said.

“Please,” the lieutenant said.

He turned to look at Quentin.

“I gave you coffee,” he said.

Then he looked back at Winter on his horse. Winter’s face was impassive.

“Look into my eyes,” Winter said.

“What?”

“Look into my eyes and tell me what you see.”

“What?”

“What do you see?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what you see.”

“Please,” the lieutenant said, sniveling, snot coming out of his nose, “please don’t do this.”

“I want you to look into my eyes and tell me what you see.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly.”

Winter nodded and then glanced at Quentin.

After Winter and his gang rode out of town, the snow laid a blanket over the corpses.

The ride home was long and cold for Bill Bread, with the sight of the young lieutenant’s broken body in the snow hanging before his eyes the whole way. The hands called to him in surprise when he rode past O’Shea’s house. Bill was beyond caring. When he opened his door and saw the crucifix on the wall, he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Why do you love him more than me? You always have.”

He lay down on his bed but did not undress. It was less than half an hour before the knock.

Outside an elderly hand was waiting. “He wants to see you,” he said.

“I’ll bet,” Bill said.

Colin O’Shea lived on an enormous farm. Mostly they grew corn, but they also had pigs, and O’Shea owned the distillery. The house was large but uninhabited save for O’Shea and a single servant. The gardens were mostly barren and the furniture was rudimentary.
O’Shea didn’t like to spend his money on finery, and since his wife and daughter were both dead and buried (the daughter in childbirth, the wife of influenza) there was no one to push him in that direction.

O’Shea watched through the bay window of the study as Bill and the hand came up the laneway. When they got to the front door, Bill heard a distinctive laugh coming from upstairs, like the croaking of a young frog.

“Is the boy back from school?” Bill asked.

“Got throwed out of another one,” the elderly hand said. “Now Mister O’Shea’s trying to ’prentice him with the goddamn Pinkertons, if you can believe that.”

At the word “Pinkertons,” Bill’s hand froze on the knob.

“Yeah,” the hand said. “Shakespeare’s here. He don’t look nothing like he does in the papers.”

The front door opened from inside, revealing O’Shea. “Why you didn’t stop by as soon as you got back?”

“I was tired.”

“Tired.”

“Yes sir.”

“So you didn’t think you should tell me what happened?”

“I figured someone else would.”

O’Shea shook his head.

“Is Matt Shakespeare here?” Bill asked.

O’Shea’s gaze was steady and shameless. He said, “Come in, Bread.”

It was a working room, not a library. Only a few books sat on a small shelf beneath the window, and they were works of history and economics, not literature. The rest of the room was dominated by shelves and shelves of paper, logs and accounts. A small desk was tucked in the back corner, and it was at this desk that Matt Shakespeare was eating his dinner. His long red hair was tucked a little behind his ears and he was unshaven. A pair of pistols sat on the desk in front of him. While he ate from a large plate of sweet potatoes and bacon, his eyes never left Bill. Something in that watchfulness, somehow lazy and wired tight at the same time, reminded Bill of Lukas.

“Hello, Bill,” Matt said, as he wiped his mouth.

“You don’t look like him,” Bill said.

“We had different papas.”

“You seem like him, though,” Bill said. “I knew it when I saw you in Arizona. You have the same … I don’t know what it is.”

Matt pushed his plate away and put a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and lit it. The sweet odor of Indian hemp filled the room.

Bill glanced at O’Shea, who was uncharacteristically quiet, then turned back to Matt.

“What are you going to do to me?” Bill asked. “I know there’s a bounty on me.”

“Oh, we’re all on the same side now,” Matt said. “Mister O’Shea has seen to that. Been quite generous to the agency. And to myself. You ought to thank him for that, I suppose. The price on your head wasn’t all that much, but it wasn’t nothing either.”

Bill shifted his weight from foot to foot and again he glanced at O’Shea.