center of the plain and began circling around. He wasn't sure how large the militia was, but their horses kicked up enough dust to blur the rising sun, and soldiers encircled the hundreds of workers with only a few feet between each.
At the general's command, rifles were raised.
And fired.
The noise was deafening, and smoke from the rifles joined the dust in the air to create a haze as deep as fog that temporarily obscured everything. Several Chinks bolted from between the horses, figuring they had a better chance outside the circle on the open plain, but they were quickly shot down. A few small figures attempted to crawl away, and in the dust and chaos a couple actually got pretty far, but eventually they, too, were hunted down and killed.
The slaughter was not quick. An hour later, the soldiers were still reloading and firing, although by that time most of them had come down from their horses and were walking over broken bodies to stalk wily bands of survivors. The smell was overpowering, a sickening stench that not only made Williams gag but had several of the younger soldiers vomiting onto the chaparral. Emulating some of the older, more experienced fighters, he pulled his shirt higher, buttoning it over his mouth and nose so the cloth acted like a filter. He smelled dirt and his own sweat, but it was vastly preferable to the disgusting scent of blood and death.
Sometime later, the general came to him and said the deed was done: the Chinese were no more. He invited Williams to come with him and tour the battlefield.
He went in with his knife.
And helped finish off the ones who were still moving.
It was a new day.
After their success at Promontory Point, Williams followed the line east. He heard through friends that the righteous slaughter of the heathen Chinee had been kept quiet, that the president himself had arranged for the site to be cleaned up and the bodies burned, and had decreed that no one was to know what had happened in Utah. Williams took a grim satisfaction in knowing that his adversaries were so highly placed, but what the president said did not affect him. He did not have to abide by any presidential order. He was Chester Williams, man of means, and he would still be so when Ulysses S. Grant was once again a retired drunken general.
And while the newspapers might be persuaded not to report what had happened, he himself was bound by no such constrictions. He could say whatever he wanted.
And did.
His words incited a riot in the ordinarily peaceful town of Spellman, Wyoming, encouraging citizens to ignore the namby-pamby police chief and take matters into their own hands when the chief declared that the Chinese family living in a tent by the Baptist church was entitled to full protection under the law. The townspeople stormed the jail, locking the chief and two policemen in a cell; broke the windows of a grocer who had sold fruit to the Chinks; smashed the printing press and equipment in the newspaper office; and, finally, set the Chinks' tent on fire. The family attempted to escape, the mother carrying a baby and the father pushing two other children out in front of him, but they were beaten back with sticks and rakes, brooms and pitchforks, forced to return to the fiery tent. When they tried to dash out the other side, where flames had already destroyed the canvas, they were again beaten. This time, the baby, its clothing already burning, was knocked out of the mother's hands and flew onto the hard ground, where it remained still and lifeless. The mother refused to be deterred by the blows rained upon her, attempting with single-minded determination to reach the body of her infant even as a hoe cracked open her head. The rest of the family were battered as they endeavored to escape the growing flames, and one by one they fell. In Stanton, Nebraska, three Chinese men were brought bound before Williams almost as soon as he'd entered the town. They'd stayed behind after the railroad crew had passed through, and had been captured
over a month ago, kept in captivity in the mayor's basement until someone could decide what to do with them. Williams toured the basement and noted with approval the leg-irons, the tin of drinking water, the filthy straw. The men were animals and had been treated as such. He followed the mayor back upstairs and looked over the emaciated Chinks. He could see collarbones and ribs, joints in the legs and arms. The oversized heads with their sunken cheeks, long teeth and narrow eyes looked positively inhuman.
'String them up,' he said.
He watched with satisfaction as the three strangled to death in the air.
His journey was long, and on the way he began taking souvenirs: ears, noses, fingers, toes. The Indians did that, he was told, to frighten their enemies and savor their victories, and some of the veterans of the Indian wars with whom he came into contact had adopted the practice as well. It was in the town of Sycamore that he first took knife to flesh and sliced off an ear, and the exhilaration he felt when he sawed through the gristle was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Later, traveling, knowing that the ear was wrapped in a leather bag carried with his personal effects, he was filled with a sense of power. He felt better, stronger, more successful than he ever had, than all of his money could make him, and he began to think it was because of this talisman, this ear. He knew the thought was superstitious, but it felt true to him nevertheless, and he decided he needed to collect even more talismans in order to amplify this euphoric sensation.
He returned to Selby, Missouri.
It was here that he'd been headed all along. Although left unspoken, this had always been his ultimate destination, and he'd been savoring the prospect of returning, even going so far as to draw it out, taking side trips to other locales merely for the sake of prolonging the delicious sense of anticipation.
Orren Gifford greeted him like a long-lost brother. The carpenter-cum-preacher had not heard of the events at Promontory Point, but Williams filled him in, and the eyes of the other man gleamed. 'We chased out six Chink families from Selby, tarred and feathered five men since you was here. But there's still twenty or so living in the woods, on the outskirts. I count at least fifty head in the other towns in the county: Waterbury, Cottonville and North Newsom.' He grinned. 'The pits are still waiting.'
They rode by night, a posse of nearly a hundred men, bearing torches and weapons, hunting Chinee. Some were burned; some were shot; some were dragged by the horses through rough ground until dead. Those were the ones who had put up a fight, the ones who might have caused trouble. But the rest were captured and brought along, and well over two dozen stood bound, bruised and battered in front of the mud pits the next morning.
In the bright light of day, some of the men were clearly having second thoughts. They were brave under the anonymity of night, but when it came time to stand up and be counted, they did not have the courage of their convictions. It was up to Gifford and himself to set the example, and they threw the first one into the mud pit themselves. With the preacher at his side, Williams grabbed a scrawny young man by his queue and pulled him to the ground; then the two of them picked him up and swung him into the boiling earth. There was a split-second scream of unbearable agony, then silence as the body sank into the thick white mud.
One of the brutally beaten fellows awaiting his fate began chanting something very loudly in Chinese. There was a cadence to it that seemed unlike their normal babble, a rhythm that sounded almost poetic, like a nursery rhyme. Others chimed in at what had to be specific cues, for they spoke in unison, and it occurred to Williams that the heathens believed this was some sort of prayer. Or spell. It was nonsense, though, and he moved forward and grabbed that man and, again with Gifford's help, dragged him to the edge of one of the pits.
The Chink looked at him. There was fear in those slanted eyes, but beneath that was calm and a knowledge, a certainty, that frightened him. Williams turned his head away, looking instead at the bubbling mud. The infidel had been chanting the entire time, the others still chiming in, but now the doomed man stopped. His English was broken and heavily accented but still understandable: 'We come back. How long it take. Get your children and their children-'
Williams had heard enough, and he threw the bound man into the pit. Only Gifford didn't know he was going to do so and continued to hold the Chink's feet, so only his head and shoulders dropped to earth and fell into the mud. He should have been screaming, crying out in terrible agony, but in the last few seconds before his face was eaten away, the man said clearly, 'Be back.'
Then Gifford tossed in his feet and the whole body rolled into the mud and disappeared.
It had been a curse. And though he was a Christian and had no truck with any pagan religions, he believed it. Deep down, where it counted, he thought the curse was real.
They all did.
As cowardly as it might be, he was glad at that second that he did not live in Selby, that he did not live
