head and shoulders of the gray man and soaking the ground around it.
The gray man kept the knife in place until the bull lay still, its sides heaving with breath, and then he dipped his head down to the wound. What he did there they could not see but when he lifted his head it was smeared with blood, black-red and glistening. He shut his eyes and moaned softly as though pained, then brought his hands to his face, trembling. He touched the red on his forehead and rubbed madly at it like it either pained or exhilarated him. He pushed his fingers into his mouth and then when he seemed on the verge of tears he spread his arms wide and lifted his face to the sky and screamed, long and loud.
They had never heard a scream like it. There was fury in it, terrifying rage, a cry of dominance and power that could not be ignored. But there was also sadness in it, a sense of futility, like he was a lone man screaming his curses at a sky that would not listen. His scars appeared to open wide until they were no longer a disfigurement but instead were a part of his enormous mouth, a jaw that stretched to such a size that it could swallow the world. He held out his hands as though beckoning the stars to come and hear his plea. For a second Connelly believed there were invisible strings that ran from the ends of his fingers to every star, and though he felt there was a great tension there he could not tell who was pulling whom.
The gray man howled again, holding his bloody hands before him, and then dropped them to his sides. A cloud passed over the moon and the field darkened again, like a curtain covering a stage. He stood still for a moment, drawing his strength. Then he snapped his head around and stared right at them. Connelly felt that the man’s eyes were for him alone but before he could be sure the gray man turned and sprinted into the trees with a speed they never knew he had.
The spell broke. “Goddamn it all,” said Hammond, and they began trudging through the field after him, no longer sure why they had sat still at all.
As they entered the scrub Connelly heard a snap somewhere and something buzzed by him. He leapt and tackled Pike and Hammond and dragged them to the ground. Hammond began to curse him but Connelly held his hand over his mouth.
There was another crack and something whizzed through the tall grass. Connelly motioned across the clearing toward the barn and pointed at the black smoke from the town burning below. Pike and Hammond looked back across the scrap of pasture. Someone was moving in the far trees.
Connelly pointed at himself and Pike, then at the path of the gray man. He pointed at Hammond and then pointed to the trees and mimed firing. Hammond nodded. They got to a crouch and silently counted one, two, three.
Connelly and Pike raced up the hill while Hammond opened up on the moving shadows on the side of the clearing. No more than three shots, carefully placed, then he turned and began running as well.
“You sons of bitches!” screamed an anguished voice. “You goddamn sons of bitches!”
Crystal-white flashes lit up across from them and shot and bullets rained here and there. Connelly and Pike threw themselves behind a large outcropping and Hammond knelt down behind a tree, arm carefully poised, his aim steady. Their surroundings snapped and popped and whined but they did not move.
There was a gap in the shots and one man awkwardly stumbled out of the treeline and made for the cover of the barn. Hammond squeezed the trigger and the man spun around and fell. More furious screams from the trees. Another hail of shots. Hammond smiled grimly as he reloaded and sucked his fingers when they burned.
Pike took out his revolver and took aim. Connelly counted again, one, two, three, and he and Hammond scrambled up the rocks while Pike fired across the field.
“How many do you think are there?” said Hammond as they ran.
“Five or six,” said Connelly. “Few rifles, one or two pistols. One shotgun, from what I heard.”
Hammond laughed harshly and took cover behind a boulder. “Goddamn townies,” he said.
A shot whined by and Connelly felt a heat in his shoulder. He ignored it until Hammond said, “You’ve been hit.”
“What?” he said.
“They hit you.”
He looked at his shoulder and at the spreading blotch of red. He pushed the torn clothing apart and saw a nick on the mass of his shoulder, about an inch long. He clucked his tongue and rolled his sleeve up to stanch the bleeding.
“You good?” said Hammond.
“Yeah,” Connelly said.
By the time they protected Pike’s retreat they were well up the hill. The mountain started honestly a little over a quarter mile away. Connelly and Pike climbed up over the bluff and Connelly called to Hammond to come on. He emptied his pistol and turned and began to follow, grabbing stones and heaving himself up.
Behind him the townspeople broke cover and began to run after them. Pike raised his gun and squeezed off three shots, hitting one in the neck. His target clapped a hand to his collarbone but his partner took a knee and fired.
Hammond cried out from below. Connelly moved to look. He saw Hammond leaning against the rock face, a dark red patch growing just beside his spine. He pawed at it uselessly, unable to bend his shoulder. Someone whooped happily and Pike fired his gun empty and began to reload.
“Shot!” cried Hammond. “I’ve been shot! Goddamn… goddamn townies sh-shot me.” He choked and made a sob, rolled over to look at his wound. “Connelly?”
“I’m here,” he said.
“They shot me.”
“I know.”
“Right in the back.”
“I know.”
Pike began firing again, letting shots fly wherever. They rained on the pasture and one of them found a home in the back of the dead bull.
Connelly said, “You got to get up, Hammond. You got to get up and climb up.”
“My God, Connelly!” he shrieked. “I can see my insides! I can see them!”
“You’ve got to get up and climb up to us, Hammond! Just get up and we’ll help you!”
He heard shuddering breaths from below. Pike fired another round and someone squawked.
“Hammond?” called Connelly.
“I’m… I’m trying.”
Connelly rolled to look below. Hammond was extending one deathly white hand toward a tree root. His fingers clutched at it but could not grab hold. “I’m trying,” he said softly. “Going to pull myself up. Pull me up. Far as I can go.”
“Come on, Hammond.”
The boy’s head lolled into his upper arm. He coughed. A bullet caromed off of a stone above him.
“Connelly?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m dying.”
“I know.”
“I’m dying here, Connelly.”
“I know, Hammond.”
“This… this is an awful place to do it in.”
“Yeah.” He stared down at the boy. Rubbed the sweat from his head with his coat. “We’ll get him for you, Hammond,” he called down.
“Get who?”
“Shivers. We’ll get him.”
“Oh,” he said weakly.
“It’s his fault. Bastard trails death behind him, and… and…” He left off. All words of justification and purpose sounded pathetic against the silence of the boy dying below.
“Connelly?”
“Yeah?”
“I want to go home.”
