mother always warned her that most men were either horny fools or unfeeling blocks of ice. It was best to have nothing to do with them. Magdalena started to cry, but not wanting any of the nosy people standing around to see how sad she was, she brushed away her tears.
At this moment, like a little child, she wished her father were there.
Jakob Kuisl slid down the bank until his feet came into contact with the first rung. An iron railing ran along the rock face before disappearing into a fissure after about fifty feet. For a moment, the hangman considered lighting the torches he’d brought along, but he decided against this, lest he warn the bandits. Inside the fissure, everything was black, but soon his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Above him, daylight was cut off briefly as each of the men squeezed his way through the crevice. There were only five of them, but Kuisl knew he could count on each, particularly Andre Wiedemann, who had fought with him near Augsburg in the battle against the Swedish invaders. But the blacksmith and the two other men looked like seasoned veterans, too.
After another fifty feet, the railing ended at the foot of the rock chimney. In one corner, Kuisl could make out a narrow passageway and hear the sound of muffled voices and laughter inside. The men slipped to the ground carefully on both sides of the passageway, and the hangman ventured a quick glance.
Behind the knee-high entrance, a short tunnel opened onto a large cave a few feet away. Over a crackling fire, a few rabbits sizzled on a spit. Now and then a ragged figure walked past the fire. Jakob Kuisl could see more men sitting on the other side of the flames, huddled in fur and rags against the cold. Someone belched loudly, others laughed, and two others still were quarreling loudly. Jakob could also hear the whine of a small child and smell sweat, gunpowder, and burning meat in the air.
Smoke stung Kuisl’s eyes; he blinked. He had been right. They had found the winter quarters of the Scheller gang, and it looked now as if most of them had returned in the evening from their daily forays. The hangman smiled grimly. There could hardly be a better moment to put a stop to their game. From the voices, Kuisl could only guess how many there were-perhaps around thirty, among them many women and children.
He nodded to Wiedemann, Kronauer, and the others; then he cut off six of the twelve wooden powder flasks from the chain around his shoulder. In each, there was enough powder for one charge. With a leather cord, he tied six of them together so tightly they could all fit in one hand.
He squinted, estimating how far away the thieves were, and raised his arm. With one smooth gesture, he tossed the self-made bomb through the tunnel and directly into the fire.
The explosion was so strong it threw Kuisl back a full yard into the tunnel. The blast reverberated from the rocky walls of the caverns and corridors, a thundering echo so loud it seemed the mountain might collapse. Jakob Kuisl felt a faint tingling in his ears, and it was a while before he could hear the screams, coughing, and cursing coming from the robbers’ den. He gave a sign to the four other men, and they crawled through the low tunnel, entering the inferno with their sabers drawn.
The explosion had blown embers and burning logs throughout the cave and caused rocks and boulders to fall from the ceiling. Ragged men and women crawled around, trying to get their bearings despite the heavy smoke. A few lifeless figures surrounded what was left of the fireplace, and agonized screams and the cries of children resounded through the smoke-blackened cave.
The hangman hesitated. Deciding against an attack, he shouted in a loud, deep voice that could be heard everywhere in the cave. “It’s over, you dirty thieves. Now put down your weapons and leave, nice and easy, with your hands up. There’s a small army of well-armed citizens waiting for you outside, and if you behave and surrender, then-”
A dark shadow flew at him. At the last moment, he ducked and the blade only brushed his cheek. The man in front of him was at least a large as he was, and though his face, framed by a shaggy beard, was blackened with soot, his eyes flashed like glowing embers.
Kuisl’s voice sounded deep and threatening. “Put down your weapons and go outside. You’ll only make this worse.”
“Go to hell, you bastard,” the man snarled, and raised his saber again. This time the hangman was ready. He jumped back, pulling out a loaded pistol and pressing the trigger in one motion.
The bullet hit the robber in the shoulder and threw him back against the wall. As he stared in disbelief at the bloody mass where his right arm had once been, the hangman took out his larch-wood cudgel and struck the giant so hard that he tumbled to the floor against the rock wall.
“I warned you,” Kuisl grumbled, wiping a trickle of blood from his cheek.
Out of the corner of his eye, the hangman could see Wiedemann fighting one of the robbers, too. The other three men had run outside behind the fleeing highwaymen.
Wiedemann’s back was to the wall, and despite the cold, pearls of sweat formed on his brow. The man in front of him swung at him with a jagged saber as if he were splitting wood. The veteran was struggling to fend off his opponent, and it looked as though he was about to collapse under a hail of blows.
Outside, shots could be heard. Jakob Kuisl hesitated. What was going on out there? Hadn’t the scoundrels surrendered?
“Surrender!” the hangman shouted at the robber fighting with Wiedemann. “You’re the last one!”
But the man didn’t even seem to hear him. He kept slashing away at Andre Wiedemann with a look in his eyes that reminded the hangman of a wild beast, a mixture of hunger, desire, and naked fear. The boy was probably not even twenty years old.
Jakob Kuisl kicked the boy in the side with his right boot. When he fell to the ground, panting, Kuisl pointed his second loaded pistol at him.
“Now get out, and be quick about it! Then nothing will happen to you.”
The young robber seemed to be thinking it over. He looked the hangman up and down, then threw the saber away and ran toward the exit with his hands in the air.
“I’m leaving,” he shouted. “Don’t hurt me, I’m-”
As he crossed the cave entrance, a shot rang out.
The boy’s body was thrown back inside, and he landed on the ground, quivering. Once more, he raised his head and looked at the hangman in disbelief, then collapsed.
“Damn! What’s going on out there?” Kuisl shouted. “The man surrendered!”
He hurried to the exit, which was framed on both sides by icicles so big they looked like columns. When he looked outside, he saw the flash from a gun to his right. He ducked behind one of the icicles and, at the same moment, felt a dull pain in his left upper arm.
“You damn fools!” he cried out. “It’s me, the hangman! Stop at once!”
He leaned against the rock face, looking for cover. When he heard no further shots, he poked his head out carefully and saw a gruesome scene outside the cave.
A wave of anger came over him.
The Schongau men formed a half circle around a pile of dead bodies-young, old, men, women, and children. Blood flowed in streams over the white snow.
Several muskets were still directed at the entrance, and only gradually did the citizens lower their weapons. Hans Berchtholdt’s musket was still smoking. With a mixture of confusion and bloodlust, he stared at the hangman, who emerged from the cave now looking like the devil incarnate.
“I…I…” Berchtholdt stuttered.
“You dirty bastard, you almost killed me!” shouted Jakob Kuisl. Then he ran to the baker’s son and grabbed the barrel of the musket with his right hand. With a loud curse, he rammed the butt of the gun into Berchtholdt’s stomach so hard he sank to the ground, gasping.
“And what is this?” the hangman roared, pointing to the pile of corpses. “You were supposed to disarm and arrest them, not slaughter them!” For a moment, he was tempted to hit Berchtholdt over the head with his own musket, but Kuisl broke it over his knee instead and threw it as far as he could.
“They…they just started shooting.” Jakob Schreevogl stepped forward now. His face white, he was trembling and looking down sheepishly. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“How many?” Kuisl whispered.
Schreevogl just nodded. “We were able to capture a dozen, and the rest are dead, shot down like dogs.”
Berchtholdt stood up and spoke again, groaning. “You ought to be glad-that saves you work; you won’t have to string up so many.”
“It…was very simple,” Sebastian Semer added, a kind of fire burning in his eyes that the hangman knew all
