the floor, silently clawing at the blade. Kanazuchi took the rest of the stairs in three steps without making a sound, put a foot on the guard's neck and snapped it.
This guy really knows his stuff, thought Frank.
Frank followed him up. They entered the first door to their right off a central hall. Kanazuchi closed and locked the door behind them. Brighter light. A lived-in feel, more than the other rooms they'd seen. Book-lined shelves. Work on a desk. A large globe. A Bible, open on a reading stand.
'Reverend Day,' said Kanazuchi.
Frank knelt down to examine dark stains on the carpet.
'Blood here,' said Frank. 'Fresh; maybe two hours.'
'Jacob,' said Kanazuchi, looking at broken glass littering a corner.
'Looks like he put up a fight. They dragged him out... this way,' said Frank, following the smeared trail of blood; it stopped abruptly before a blank panel of wall.
Both men studied the wall.
Shouts from the back of the house, relaying quickly around to the front, an alarm; someone had found the bodies.
Frank and Kanazuchi looked calmly at each other. They heard footsteps pounding up the stairs outside but neither man hurried. Frank traced a barely visible seam running parallel to the line of the rose-colored wall paper. Kanazuchi discovered a discolored spot on the paper, slightly darker from an accumulation of skin oil. He touched his finger to the spot and pushed; a catch released and the wall panel swung open along the seam, revealing a narrow passage.
The doorknob to the office behind them rattled; the lock held. They heard a jangle of keys. As a key was inserted, Frank dropped to one knee, fanned the handle of the rifle, and emptied the fifteen shots in the Henry's chamber through the door in under five seconds, followed by six from his Colt. Kanazuchi ran to the door and opened it.
Four black shirts dead in the hall outside.
This man is good, thought Kanazuchi.
More shouts outside and below, reacting to the gunfire, the alarm spreading beyond the House. Frank followed Kanazuchi into the concealed passage. Scuffed bloodstains led them down a flight of stairs, through a short corridor, and out a one-way door into the pantry of the House's kitchen. They paused in the darkness; Frank calmly reloaded. Footsteps and raised voices multiplied around them.
'The Reverend is not here,' said Kanazuchi.
Frank snapped the filled chamber back into the Colt. 'No shit.'
'They took Jacob out that door.' Kanazuchi pointed to the door where the stains ended. 'I could not see it from my position.'
'Well,' said Frank, hearing movement upstairs in the passage behind them. 'We can't stay here.'
They stepped silently across the kitchen and out the door, through a small storage room and into a narrow alley on the north side of the house. Bloodstains and footprints ended, impossible to track farther in the dark. There was no one in the alley, but they heard a mob running toward the House of Hope from every direction. A bell started ringing at the top of the black church.
Kanazuchi led them into the tangled shanties, and they ran from the rising commotion until they left it in the distance. The huts were empty; most of the town was in the theater watching the show. The two men ducked under a shabby tin lean-to.
'Good news is,' whispered Frank, 'they don't know what we look like.'
'Every one of them will search for us,' said Kanazuchi, his expression never changing. 'We don't know where Jacob is.'
'That's the bad news.'
Moving as steadily through the rough terrain as Lionel's riding skills would allow, they found The New City road shortly before seven o'clock. Innes took the lead, reading their map flawlessly; Walks Alone guided them through two uncertain stretches. Doyle watched Jack throughout the ride for any signs of life beyond subsistence. None appeared. He gave no response to Doyle's questions, eyes focused on the horizon, face emptied of expression.
Open desert stretched out before them, and as the moon rose in the clear sky, they accelerated their pace to a steady gallop, Lionel clinging to the lip of his saddle for dear life. Two miles along, the horses shied severely, nearly throwing Innes; something spooking them off to the right. Doyle saw dark wings circling above them in the moonlight.
'Night owls?' he asked.
Walks Alone shook her head. She dismounted and moved through a narrow path in an outcropping of rock to their right. A call came for them to follow; the party dismounted, walked their horses in through the passage. Fifty yards on, the horses balked at the final opening. Jack and Lionel stayed behind; the others crept through the rest of the way, weapons drawn.
The full force of the smell hit them as they cleared the rocks. Three dozen vultures scattered.
An afternoon in the hot sun had ruined the thirty-eight corpses in the clearing beyond the terrible outrages already committed on them. Most of the men had been shot; a dozen had suffered under knives. Carrion birds had done the rest of the damage.
Glad we got here after dark, thought Doyle; the blood looked black in the moonlight, abstract.
'Don't touch any of them,' said Doyle.
Doyle looked to his left. Jack had come through the rocks and was standing off to the side, staring at the mangled bodies. His features contorted, animated by the beginnings of thought and, Doyle thought, the first stirring of rage. Something fierce in him, triggered by the smell of blood.
Doyle stepped forward and picked up a badge lying in the sand.
'Deputy,' he said, reading the badge. 'Phoenix.'
'They're all wearing them,' said Walks Alone, wading in farther.
'Lionel, stay where you are,' said Doyle, kneeling to examine a body and seeing him appear in the opening.
'What is it?' Lionel asked.
'Just stay there.'
'Most of them middle-aged, obviously sedentary,' said Doyle.
'Does this make any sense to you?' asked Presto.
'They don't look like lawmen,' said Innes.
'They're not. They're volunteers,' said Doyle, studying a bloodstained piece of paper he had plucked from inside one victim's coat. 'A posse; I believe that's what you'd call them. Looking for this man.'
Doyle held out the flier, Presto lit a match, and they saw a crude pen and ink sketch of a diabolical-looking Asian man above a brief, lurid description of his alleged crimes.
' 'Chop-Chop the decapitating Chinaman,' ' read Innes. ' 'Wanted for ten terrible murders throughout the Arizona Territory. Suspected in countless other dastardly crimes.' '
'Busy little bugger, isn't he?' said Presto.
' 'The most dangerous man alive,' ' read Doyle, darkly amused. 'At least they resisted the impulse to hyperbolize. And a five-thousand-dollar reward. That explains the volunteers.'
'Good God, could one man have done all this?' asked Presto, looking out at the slaughter around them.
'Not by himself. These men were caught in a crossfire,' said Doyle, pointing to two sides of the clearing. 'From here and there, behind the rocks. Four men, at least.'
'With repeating rifles,' said Innes, from behind the rocks. 'Shells all over the place.'
'And they all still have their heads,' said Presto. 'Hardly this Chop-Chop's traditional
The flier was snatched out of his hands; Jack had walked up behind them and now held the paper, staring at the picture intently.
'What is it, Jack?' asked Doyle softly.
