“Need a cup here,” Charlie called to McMannaman.
The latter tossed it, Charlie grabbing it out of the air with one hand. He reached for the bottle and poured Billy a full cup of whiskey. Billy, continuing to grin, took a swallow and recognized alcohol seasoned with tobacco juice and hot peppers for color and taste.
Charlie said, “Now that we got that settled, tell Billy where you been.”
“Down to Brownsville,” Danny said. “Heard that a fella could make a good fortune in the contraband trade. Ended up in Bagdad after Rip Ford drove the Yankees out. Met a fella there that really taught me how to play poker. Made me a small fortune. Nigh onto a hundred bucks. Greenbacks, not Confederate.”
Danny’s expression changed, thinning. “Then I run into a fella who really knew poker. He proceeded to teach me a thing or two about cards, like how he spotted my bottom deal. Then he taught me about hideout guns. Like the one he had up his wrist when I went to pull my belt gun.”
“Guess you crawfished your way out of it?” Billy sipped his whiskey again, enjoying the warmth building in his belly.
Danny shrugged. “Won’t make that mistake again.”
“What?” Charlie asked. “The bottom deal or the hideout gun?”
“Both.” Then the grin faded. “So, reckon I’m headed back to Arkansas. Got nothing else to do.”
“Want a job?” Billy asked.
“What kind?” Danny lifted his whiskey, taking a swig.
“The kind that pays you twenty-five dollars a month. And if you prove yourself, and I don’t have to shoot you, it goes up.”
“Doing what?” Danny asked. “Waking you up from them damn nightmares you get?”
Billy narrowed his eyes, thankful Danny didn’t know the extent of them. Of how Sarah rose naked, something foul growing in her womb, her long blond hair blowing around her body. Or how his cock popped its load when the demon grasped it.
“First off, Danny Goodman, you keep your damned mouth shut. About anything having to do with me. Second, you care for the stock, sometimes hold the horses. Cook along the trail, see to keeping the outfit in top-notch shape, and sometimes you ride in and get information for me. Like a sort of scout.” He paused. “Might be times when there’s hard riding. Maybe some shooting.”
Charlie was watching Billy through veiled eyes. To forestall him, Billy raised his palm, attention still fixed on Danny. “It would be just like it was when we run Dewley’s bunch down.”
“Twenty-five a month?” Danny frowned, trying to figure the catch. “And just keep the camp?”
“I mean it, Danny. I know you. If you got a fault, it’s like tonight with that old duffer. You get likkered up, start wagging your tongue and bragging? I swear to God, and on Maw’s bones, I’ll kill you dead on the spot.”
“Thirty a month,” Danny said, obviously shaken by the intensity of Billy’s cold blue stare. “And I promise I’ll be worth every penny of it.” He grinned, as if to defuse the tension, and added, “Hell, ain’t nothing in Arkansas I need to see again anyway.”
Billy then turned to Charlie. “So, what’s the job?”
Charlie glanced uneasily at Danny. “Yankee captain and a bunch of Negro cavalry. Word is he’s never alone. Five hundred to the man who drops him.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Killing him is gonna be like throwing coal oil on a fire. They’ll be looking long and hard fer the killer.”
“Why, Charlie, they might even find me. God help the hindmost.”
“You worry me at times, Billy Hancock. It’s like you got a death wish.”
“Yep. Maybe.” He thought about the Sarah demon. “’Cept the Devil’s already claimed me for his own. Longer I string it out on earth, the longer I keep that son of a bitch waiting.”
57
July 6, 1865
Lightning flashed white and hot in the inky storm. The crashing bangs that followed left Butler shaken as he crouched on the spring wagon seat. God had become the Lord of Battle: blasts of light, sound, and battering gusts of wind betrayed His fury as He tore the storm-filled sky asunder.
From Butler’s mind came spinning images of Shiloh, of Prairie Grove and Chickamauga. In the afterimages of lightning, visions and faces flickered and faded. The gutted Yankee captain at Shiloh, Amos Kershaw at Chickamauga. Hogs fed on half-burned corpses at Prairie Grove.
Terrified, and on the point of weeping, Butler huddled as another blast of wind tried to rip his hat away and tumble him from his seat. Then the rain beat down in a savage fury. Balls of hail mixed with the pounding rain, while unrelenting wind ripped his blanket loose from his shoulders.
“For the love of God!” Butler cried, his voice lost in the earth-shattering crack of thunder as lightning splintered a cottonwood tree in the creek bottom not two hundred yards from the road.
He hated Kansas.
The panicked mule kicked and bucked in his harness, adding a squealing bray of fear to the tempest’s howl.
Squinting, wincing, as hail balls the size of walnuts beat on his head and shoulders, Butler fought to control the frightened mule. White lightning showed that they were still on the Fort Scott Road, though the rutted depression was filling with water and floating hail.
Not an hour before, Butler had been sweating, worried sick. Doc had been raving in the heat as he fell deeper into delirium. Now Butler’s breath glowed white and frosty each time the lightning flashed.
The hail came harder and faster. Butler hunched in misery, one arm over his head, the other clamping the reins. In dull anguish he endured. Cold water leached through his blanket and clothes, running icy into his pants and down around his testicles.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” he kept whispering, half prayer, half whimper.
The transition to hard rain was warmer, almost a relief.
Butler opened his eyes. The mule had stopped, defeated, head down and hunched. Around them the world
