“Sonsabitches are all worked up ’bout somethin’,” Ray said. “I suspect it’s ’cause they brought in a new bunch of gunsels an’ crazies to replace the ones we killed. Dog has a shitload of rebel gold he stole after Sherman busted up Atlanta. That’s how he pays them.
“Another thing One Dog likes is to impress his recruits with somethin’ so goddamn outlandish it’ll stick with them.”
“Like what?”
“Couple years ago he torched a little church with thirty, forty folks in it on a Sunday morning. He chained the doors shut and posted a man at each window with instructions to shoot to kill. Like that.”
Will shook his head in disgust. “What the hell makes him that kinda man?”
“Beats me. But it don’t matter. That’s the way he is. Look—let’s leave our horses here an’ go closer on foot. Wampus’ll let us know if there’re riders about.”
The men walked together while the wolf dog swept the territory in front of and around them. He returned to Will frequently, grinning, and after a few scratches behind his ears set off on patrol again.
“Damned fools don’t have riders or night guards out,” Will said.
“Prolly figure they’re safe in town—an’ they’re no doubt soused, too.”
As Ray and Will drew closer, raucous, braying laughter, whoops, and rebel yells reached them. “Somethin’ unusual goin’ on,” Will said.
When Wampus next returned Will kept him at his side.
Olympus had been established in a slight dish in the prairie, which was fortunate: the terrain allowed rain and snow melt to drain downward to replenish small ponds, streams, and water tables. As the men approached the lip they crouched down to keep their silhouettes out of sight of the town.
They gut-crawled the last few yards and looked down at Olympus. Both men were silent for a moment, almost unable to believe what they saw in front of the outlaw saloon.
There were two tall fence posts planted midstreet, maybe ten feet apart. Renegades wandered about, tearing boards, slats, and doors from buildings and piling them at the bases of the fence posts. Lengths of logging chain rested in front of the posts in the dirt of the street.
A large fire—a farmer’s wagon that must have been loaded with lumber from the mercantile—burned powerfully, tongues of flame reaching toward the sky and casting their eerie light up and down Main Street.
“Nah,” Ray whispered, unbelieving. “Nah, they can’t be planning . . .”
“ ’Course they can. And they
Two outlaws carrying cans of kerosene stumbled and weaved their ways to the posts and saturated the wood around them. One Dog, standing between the posts, arms folded, his face hard, gestured toward the saloon. The cheers and laughter of the crowd grew yet louder.
Four renegades dragged and carried two Negro men, punching and kicking them to keep them moving. Both blacks were shirtless and their backs and shoulders showed fresh welts and deep cuts from a horsewhip.
“Where’d they get the niggers?” Ray asked.
“Look: don’t call them niggers. Niggers are slaves. Ain’t no black people who are slaves since Appomattox. I celled with a black at Folsom an’ he was one of the finest men I ever come across. Know what he was serving eight to ten for? Gawkin’ at a white whore.”
“I didn’t mean no harm, Will.”
“I know that. But don’t you say it again.” He paused for a moment. “That could well be the black men’s wagon burning. Lotsa freed slaves came to be settin’ up little farms, building houses, out on the prairie.”
“We can’t let them do this,” Ray said grimly. “Hell, no man deserves to die that way.”
“You’re right, Ray. But look on down there. There must be twenty-five new riders.
“They’d chew us up an’ spit us out if we attacked—Wampus or no Wampus.”
“So what do we do?”
“You know that as well as I do,” Will said quietly. “It stinks, but we got no choice.”
Will began to push himself back from the lip, Wampus quivering beside him.
“Where ya goin’?”
“To fetch my rifle from—”
“Screw your rifle,” Ray snapped. “Jus’ stay put.” Ray slid his buffalo gun off his back and checked its load.
The outlaws had chained the two black men to the posts, taking several wraps around each man, binding them tightly. The fire in front of the saloon reflected its sharp yellow-orange light from the sweat-covered chests and arms of the captives. Each had obviously worked the fields in their former lives; thick muscles pushed at the skin of their arms and forearms and their guts were flat. There probably wasn’t an ounce of fat between the two of them.
A ragged, drunken cheer arose as a pair of Indians stumbled out of the saloon with flaming torches in their hands.
“You want them two?” Ray asked.
Will nodded.
Ray handed over the .50-caliber weapon. “Drop the rear sight a notch an’ leave the front one alone.” After a moment, he asked, “You ever fired one of these?”
Will didn’t answer.
“OK,” Ray said, “here’s the thing: the recoil’s a pisser. Keep your face a hair away from the stock. Otherwise you’ll end up with a busted jaw or lose a slew of teeth.”
“OK,” Will said.
The cannonlike bellow of the buffalo rifle was louder than thunder, louder than dynamite—louder than anything.
So powerful was the rifle that the massive slug passed directly through the renegade closest to the post’s chest, leaving a gaping hole the size of a large man’s fist, without knocking the man down. Gushets of blood pumped from the aperture for half a minute and then slowed and, finally, stopped. It was then that the Indian went down, but he went down slowly, as if he were dozing off. He fell a bit forward and his bare chest pressed the flaming torch into the grit of the street, but by then, he was well beyond pain—or anything else.
Will took the second renegade with a hurried, sloppy shot that hit the Indian between his neck and right shoulder. He spun a few times from the impact of the three-quarter ounce of lead, tangled his feet with one another, and went down.
“Sumbitch was dead while he was twirlin’,” Ray said, “but it wasn’t that bad of a shot, all in all.”
A barrage of useless pistol and rifle fire dug divots of dirt out of the lip, but accomplished nothing else. The outlaws were shooting simply to shoot. They knew they couldn’t put a round into the men beyond the lip.
What started out as a fistfight between an Indian and one of the new men captured the outlaws’ attention. The Indian was getting his ass kicked: his nose was broken, both his lips were split, his front teeth were gone, and his eyes were so swollen that his vision was reduced to what he could see from between a pair of narrow slits. The white man danced around the Indian; he’d been in the ring before and he knew what he was doing. He moved smoothly about on the balls of his feet, bobbing, weaving, never still. He landed a few more punches to his opponent’s face.
A fat renegade moved between the fighters, holding up his hands in front of the white man. Will and Ray couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was obviously conciliatory, declaring the white man the winner. The white man, grinning broadly, held his arms up in victory.
The fat Indian slid a dagger between the white fighter’s ribs, puncturing his heart.
“Maybe that’ll—”
“Bullshit. That fight was business as usual. Gimme the rifle.”
As Ray spoke, two renegades pushed through the batwings of the saloon, each with a flaming arrow nocked and bows drawn.
Their aim was good. The kerosene-saturated wood exploded into flame.
Ray stood, buffalo gun to his shoulder, regardless of the silhouette he presented, and fired twice, quickly—so quickly, the reports sounded like a single round.
The heads of both black men tipped forward loosely on their necks. Blood seeped rather than poured from the neat, oblong holes between each of their eyes. The backs of their heads, of course, were a different story.
