Now this is really going to hurt bad.'
With that, she applied some kind of astringent. It stung like holy hell.
'Owl'
'Ow yourself. Now get back in the fight, sir. No time for lolly gagging-'
Elmer skootched over with his rifle. The girl slipped away. Wasn't she a heller! That one had some damn grit!
The flames of the burning Store illuminated the scene. Shots came from his left; that had to be Bill. Farther away, it was now the Whipping House that blazed in the night. The whole scene was lit by the lusty flames; the odor of fire and meat filled the air.
Elmer took up his rifle, a Winchester '92 in.38–40. Now and then a figure would appear in an upstairs window with its own rifle, and Elmer was so quick and accurate, he knocked three down in as many minutes. He cranked the lever behind each shot. Then a man emerged, and Elmer drew to him.
But he could not fire.
The man had a woman in front of him, a Negro gal constricted both by his strong arms and by her own terror. She was too far gone to scream much.
In the firelight, her eyes shone brightly, all white.
'Y'all come to set the niggers free? Well, we goin' kill ' all if you don't back away, goddamn your race traitor hides. We goin' to?'
Elmer couldn't get a shot. He slithered sideways, glad that no blood would be filling his eyes, though perturbed at the ruination of a good hat. That hat upset him. It had cost seven dollars in Medicine Bend, Montana, a specially big Stetson that climbed a full six inches above the top of his head. It would be hard to replace, but then it occurred to him that blood-spattered and with a nice hole in it, it would make an excellent souvenir. He'd hang it off the bison head in the dining room.
He had found the angle. Now quickly, he drew the rifle to him, finding the tiny blade of the sight, and pressing it sideways until he lost it against his antagonist's head behind the Negro woman, pressed trigger with ball of finger, and fired. He hit the yelling man under the left eye. What a big soft chunk of.38–40 lead does to a human head at that range is not a pretty thing to see, and skull emptied and tattered, this fellow slipped softly to the earth and went limp, and the colored woman ran away.
'Nice shooting,' Bill called.
'Believe I hit him right square.'
'Believe he won't be no problem.'
The next event was the approach of a horse, driven hard by a rider who knew his business well. Reinforcements? Elmer quickly loaded a passel of.38-40s into the rifle, cranked the lever and watched, hoping he wasn't about to be trapped by shooters on two sides. But of course it wasn't reinforcements: it was Charlie Hatchison, cackling madly, his face lit red by the fire. Charlie seemed to have come straight from hell; he was jabbering as he dismounted his animal and gave it a smack to drive it away. He raced to Elmer.
'Yee haw, ain't this a goddamned picnic. You get any?'
'I got some.'
'How many?'
'Charlie, I done what I had to do. Didn't stop to count. We got a batch of ' in there. Bill's off on the side.'
'You been hit?'
'Yes, I have. But where it don't matter. The head.'
'Me too. In the ribs.'
'Get that girl to look at it. She's good with wounds.'
'Hmmm, think I could sneak a kiss?'
'You try, and I'll shoot you, only I'll put it between the eyes and that's an ache that won't go away.'
'You are an ornery bastard, Elmer. It was a joke. Say, got any more them firebombs? I say we light ' off, then gun the boys as they flee. But sometimes them bombs don't work so well and?'
'That's too much like murder to me,' said Elmer.
'Hell, son, murder's what we come to do. Cover me as I get closer and toss a few. Though sometimes they don't work too good. That Earl isn't quite the genius he thinks he is.' He turned and yelled, 'Bill, don't you shoot me. I am going to light up these boys mighty fine.'
'You hold on there, you old bastard,' said Bill. 'I got a play to make.'
Bill now did an amazing thing. Ramrod straight, with all his guns holstered, he stood out clear and bold in the firelight and approached the smoky building. No shots rang out, though he was now easy pickings.
'It's that goddamn face of his,' Charlie said. 'Nobody got the sand to shoot at a fellow looks so scary.'
Lanky, Western, his long arms hanging free, his hat set square on his head, Bill walked like a movie gunfighter to the barracks and stood outside. No shots rang out.
'We got you outgunned and overmatched and outmaneuvered. We can shoot the tits off a cow at a hundred yards a hundred times out of a hundred.
We have firebombs that can fry you up crispy like catfish. You are already dead. Now you have two choices. You can play it out and be dead in just a little while. Or you can come out buck naked and lie face down in the mud. Don't make no never mind to us.'
He stood there.
There was some scurrying inside and then, one by one, they began to file out. Three or four Negro women came out, too, and raced off in the darkness.
'Y'all git nekkid,' Bill commanded, 'and if you don't move fast enough, I got a crazy redneck over there kill you just as soon as spit on you.'
There were eight of them, and they commenced now to pull clothes off, then go prone.
'You, all the way nekkid. You could have a gun in them under drawers.'
The last pants came off, and the guards lay flat in the mud.
'Anybody left inside with fight in '?'
'No, sir,' came the call.
'Hope not, ' we now going to burn her out. Charlie, light the bonfire.'
'You do it, Elmer,' said Charlie.
So it was Elmer who unscrewed a canteen cap, pulled the cord, and tossed the fizzing thing through a window. It worked perfectly, as did the one that followed and landed on the roof. So Charlie tried one, and when it didn't fizz like it should, he just threw it through Elmer's window so those flames would light it off.
'I musta got all the duds,' he said.
The barrack began to fire up, and in moments it was ablaze.
'We should kill '.'
'Don't you dare, Mr. Hatchison,' said the young woman, stepping out of the shadows. 'They've surrendered, you can't kill them.'
'Girl, what world are you from?'
'The one you'd never understand. Anyhow, let me have a look at that hole in your side.'
'It's okay. Say, you're all right, out here in all this, a girl.
You're a little bit of just fine.'
'Don't think a compliment will git you a kiss, Mister. If I can't see your wound, then you have to get back in the fight.'
'We're going to cook, lying here nekkid,' one of the fallen men yelled.
'Crawl on your hands and knees then. We got other places to go, other men to kill. Count yourself lucky, boys, you fought so poorly, wasn't interesting enough to kill you all. You crawl to the trees and hide there. In two days a boat comes, there's your way out of here. In a bit, all them Negro men are going to be free, and if they run into you, by God, what we'd have done to you will seem like a picnic. Now crawl, damn you, crawl.' by the time Earl got to the barrack, the flames had eaten it almost to the foundation. He heard shots ahead, in the fields, and knew it to be Audie and Jack finishing their play. He assumed that the others had moved on to join them.
He crouched by the trees. Fires raged everywhere. A few bodies lay flat in the dirt, where the others had potted targets. He checked and by his own vision could sense that none was Bigboy.
