Bad Medicine

then switched it back as Will closed in. Will missed, as did the Indian. They backed away from one another, both crouched, both knives extended.

The Indian charged again and Will ducked down, the blade hissing over his head. With his left hand he scrabbled up a handful of dirt and rushed his opponent, throwing the dirt in his face, in his eyes. The Indian instinctively raised his right hand—his knife hand—to clear his eyes. As he did so, Will drove his blade into the man’s chest, twisted it, pulled it out, and drove it in again.

Will watched the life flee from his opponent’s eyes. At first they were chestnut, filled with hate, but the hate diminished as the life drained. The chestnut turned slightly gray and then a curtain seemed to drop, indicating the last act—the end of all that this man was.

Will found the spear easily enough and brought it back to the Indian’s body. He started twice to hack the man’s head off—and he vomited both times. Finally, he finished his grotesque task. He carved HW into the outlaw’s forehead and jammed the long, razor-sharp spearhead into the ragged opening of the Indian’s head and stuck it into the sandy ground. He nudged it a couple of times to make sure it wouldn’t topple. The spear and head stood well.

It seemed like a terribly long walk back to where he’d tied Slick. Will had killed before, but this was savage killing, satanic killing. Maybe we’re even for what was done to Austin. Maybe not. But I done what I had to do and I damn well showed One Dog what I plan to do with him and the rest of his killers. Justice? Shit. It was revenge, an’ that’s what it’ll be until all of them are dead.

Slick snorted as he heard Will coming to him. This man had meant food and water and good care to him and he was frightened by the thick, coppery scent of blood that surrounded Will. It was a different man to his feeble equine mind—his instinctual fear—but when he heard Will’s voice, he associated that with good things: with sweet grain and brushing and spurless boots.

Will climbed on and settled himself in the saddle. He still held the knife with which he’d done his work. He hurled it out onto the prairie and wiped his hand on his denim pants. He rode at an easy pace back to town, checking behind him, as the dark of the night began to give way to the coming day.

I never thought I could do nothin’ like I did to that Indian, but they done the same thing to a good man, a tight friend. There was no damned reason for ’em to do it—none. It was a war. Ya don’t hack up an’ cut the head off . . .

An uneven circle of vultures barely visible against the sky, with one or two dropping to the earth as if they forgot how to fly, caused Will to put his heels to Slick.

Austin’s horse had an arrow behind his ear and his body was spotted with gunshot wounds—and the widespread but equally deadly splatter of shotgun pellets. Vultures were pulling at the corpse, tugging, fighting one another away, digging their claws into the horse’s gut.

Will asked Slick for all the speed he had, at the same time drawing his Colt. They were long shots—from horseback—but he dropped two of the birds. Three of the vultures were dragging intestines from the horse. Will and Slick hit them hard, pieces of the disgusting birds, feathers, and parts of Austin’s horse dropping to the ground.

One of the vultures was a little slow. Will grabbed a leg as it flapped its wings and slung it in front of Slick’s galloping hooves. The vulture writhed for a moment and then was still.

Chapter Six

“Now look here, you two: this rifle was made by Confederate hands, an’ it was made to shoot straight an’ to kill what she hits. You miss, it ain’t the fault of the Maynard—she took down more bluebellies than you two can count. I’m ’a give you both two ca’tridges an’ I want you each to bring back two fillin’s for the pot or there’ll be hell to pay—I’ll guar’tee that.”

Pa doled out a pair of .50-caliber rounds to each of us, as if he was dropping diamonds into a queen’s hand. He was drunk already, an’ the sun was hardly up. “Y’all can take my hoss,” he said.

“Shit,” I mumbled, “I’d as soon ride a goddamn hog.”

“Wazzat, boy?”

“I said, ‘Maybe we’d better walk. Quieter that way.’ ”

“Walk ’r ride, I don’ care. But you bring back grub. Hear?”

Hiram an’ I walked out past the barn an’ over the hill. I had the beat-to-shit ol’ Maynard over my shoulder. Hiram handed over his two cartridges. I took ’em without sayin’ nothing. Hiram, he wouldn’t shoot a animal to save his life. An’ he couldn’t hit the ground with the rifle if he threw it down. When we butchered a pig or cow he always rode off an’ didn’t come back ’til the next mornin’.

We hadn’t walked real far into the woods when we came upon a doe heavy with a fawn. She was suckin’ water at a little eddy where a stream had dug into soft soil. I raised the Maynard.

“Nah, Jesus, Will, she’s carryin’ a . . . ,” Hiram said, real loud.

’ Course the doe’s head snapped up an’ swung toward us. I dropped her clean as can be, puttin’ one of them fat an’ stubby .50-caliber slugs into her left eye. Hiram pushed the rifle out of the way an’ punched me in the mouth, hard ’nuff to loosen a couple teeth an’ get my nose runnin’ blood . . .

“Will? Will? My eyes are heavy. You need to take your watch, no?”

Will swam up from his dream and sat up at the table where he’d rested his head on his arms. “Yeah, sure, Jane. Anything goin’ on out there?”

“Many of the men are drunk. There was a gunfight where a very fast gun killed a farm boy. Other than that, very little. They drink, they shoot over here when they care to. I have fired back, but my skill is with the pistol and the knife—not the rifle. Missing by an inch or so is as bad as missing by a mile, no?”

Will stood. “You get some sleep, Jane. I’ll take the watch ’til dawn.”

“Will they attack at night?” Jane asked.

“Who the hell knows?” Will sighed. “If One Dog tells ’em to, they will. If they get hopped up on them mushrooms again, there’s no tellin’ what they’ll do.”

“Well. Is one good thing to tell. You know Berdan Sharps?”

“The double-trigger model? ’Course I do, Jane. Been the best rifle in the world since fifty-nine—nothin’ come close to it. I know a Reb sharpshooter who picked off near a hundred blues, mostly officers. That sumbitch rifle —”

“Come here.”

Jane led Will back to the storeroom. “I was looking about here to see what we could use. This case was hidden under sacks of grain. Of course, I have heard of the . . .”

Will drew his knife from his boot and began prying the nails out of the long wooden box, the top of which was stenciled SHAR—BER. He was as anxious as a kid unwrapping a Christmas gift. The box was stuffed with straw, and under the straw was a bison-skin bag, flesh side out.

“Holy God,” Will mumbled as he brought the buffalo skin out and unwrapped its contents.

It was, in fact, a Sharps rifle—the Berdan ’59 model with the dual triggers that fired a slug as fat as a man’s thumb and was accurate—deadly accurate—for damned near three-quarters of a mile. Some buffalo hunters said it’d shoot farther with the same accuracy. Buffalo Bill Cody dropped thirteen woolies from at least a mile away with a Berdan Sharps.

At both ends of the wooden packing crate were two boxes containing twenty cartridges each. Will picked up the rifle and put it to his shoulder. It smelled of good wood, gun oil, and steel. “The storekeep, he said he didn’t have a Sharps—that the wooly hunters had cleaned out his stock.”

“I know why the store man would not have sold. The longer he held onto this gun, the more valuable it would become.”

“I got her now, though. Damn, Jane, feel the way it fits to a shoulder, lookit the quality of the fittings.”

“A weapon is a weapon. Does it matter how long the viper’s fangs are? I think not. The target will be dead either way.”