A Congregation of Jackals Page 25

  With the toe of his boot, T.W. lifted the lid off of the shoe box. He glanced down and saw the shawl, beneath which laid his revolver. He knew that Goodstead would follow through on his part of the plan; he prayed that Kenneth John would have the courage to do what was required of him.

  The last member of the congregation sat down; the second trunk was full. The sentries closed the doors to the church. The diminutive Frenchman climbed the ladder and awaited the next man to be hanged.

  Rubbing a purple weal on the side of his scarred scalp, the malformed boss said to the twin, “Hang him.”

  The twin shut the lid of the trunk; the slam reverberated throughout the church. He turned around, ascended the pulpit steps and walked across the dais toward Richard Sterling. The handsome man was hunched and dripping with pain.

  The twin grabbed the fishing line that ran into his mouth; the hooks that jutted from his cheeks glinted. The New Yorker’s gurgling shriek was the sound of a drowning man. Members of the congregation gasped; a man cried out angrily and several children wept. People were not built to witness a thing like this, the sheriff thought.

  The captor punched his captive in the stomach; Richard doubled over, squirting a crimson signature upon the floor.

  The New Yorker’s shoulders began to convulse; his body was seized by three violent paroxysms; he dropped to his knees. Vomit sprayed from his nostrils and past the fishing lure in his mouth. He moaned in dire agony, liquefying.

  The twin grabbed the fishing line and yanked his captive back to his feet; the protruding hooks glinted. T.W. saw one of Richard’s molars, exposed through a rent in his right cheek, and looked away. The sheriff had seen a lot of darkness throughout his life—the frontier savages he had helped make peace with had some abominable practices—yet this was the first time he felt that he stared directly at the work of the devil.

  The New Yorker, his cheeks, chin and neck bearded with gore and excreta, teetered. The twin grabbed the fishing line, yanked Richard around, and walked him toward the stepladder. The captor’s back was to the congregation.

  T.W. reached into the shoe box, withdrew his gun, thumbed the hammer, fired a shot into the twin’s ribs and lunged sideways, ignoring the pain in his hip. He slammed his free hand into the bottom of the sawed-off shotgun held by the startled man in the aisle, jammed his revolver into the soft flesh beneath his bearded chin, thumbed the hammer and squeezed his trigger, sending the man’s brains up through the roof of his skull like a fountain.

  Goodstead collided into the other shotgun wielder; the Texan shoved the deadly barrels toward the ceiling where one load was discharged with a thunderous boom.

  Kenneth John and his father charged the sentries at the door. The son impacted and wrestled one of the sentries to the ground; a revolver flashed and the mayor’s beeline was reversed; the side of his face erupted with gore as he flew backward; his frail wife shrieked. T.W. fired a shot into the neck of the man who felled the mayor.

  Goodstead slammed the butt of the shotgun he had just snatched into the jaw of its former owner; the crack sounded like a tree branch breaking. Kenneth John pulled a pistol from the man he subdued. Somebody screamed and pointed to the dais.

  “Drop your guns,” Quinlan said.

  T.W. and Goodstead turned to the dais. Shagawa had taken Tara Taylor hostage and pressed a gun to her neck. Alphonse sat on the piano bench beside Beatrice; he had a tiny pistol in his left hand, pointed to her temple. She was still unconscious.

  The fallen twin stood up; blood leaked from his mouth into his prickly beard; he had a gory, dripping revolver in each hand. The man had been shot twice in the torso—the front and the back—and still he raised his pistols.

  To T.W., Quinlan said, “Drop your guns or I will have these girls sodomized right in front of you.”

  A poisonous silence filled the church. The sheriff’s heart pounded so hard his ribs hurt.

  Quinlan said, “Throw down. Now.”

  “No,” T.W. replied. That lone syllable was the most difficult thing he had ever had to say in his entire life. “I am not giving you the reins.” He pointed his gun at the malformed man’s face and thumbed the hammer—the metallic click underlining his threat.

  It was clear to T.W. that Quinlan had not expected this response.

  As sedately as if he were ordering a drink in a saloon, the Irishman said, “If they fire, execute the girls first and start shooting into the crowd. Murder as many people as you can.”

  T.W. did not put down his weapon . . . but he could not fire either. If he squeezed, Beatrice and a lot of other folks would die for certain. Quinlan looked at the little Frenchman; the two exchanged some secret communication.

  The Irishman said to the congregation, “We’re leaving. We’re taking our trunks and these hostages. Clear the aisles.”

  T.W., his heart slamming in his chest and his face dripping with cold sweat, kept his gun on Quinlan; the sheriff stamped down his fear and said, “No. If I let you take them, I know how I’ll find them.”

  The Irishman ruminated for a moment.

  “Put down your guns,” T.W. demanded.

  T.W. saw the Frenchman shut his eyes; Quinlan fell to the ground; Shagawa and the twin dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

  For a quarter of a second, the sheriff was confused.

  The rear wall of the church exploded. Slats of wood, floes of plaster, shards of stone and grit filled the entirety of the enclosure, rendering everyone who faced forward—the entire congregation excepting the villains—momentarily blind and deaf. The blast knocked T.W. sideways into a pew and then onto his back.

  The sheriff understood instantly that the robbers had put dynamite on the outside of the church. Lying upon his side, stones and dirt raining upon him, ears ringing and his lungs struggling with the filthy air, a terrible thought came to him: these scoundrels might have rigged the entire church with explosives.

  A choir that was the sound of a hundred confused, frightened people sounded all around the sheriff; above them, the lawman yelled, “Get out of the church,” and then coughed out grit. He shoved a woman into the aisle, inhaled dusty air and shouted, “Get out of here! Evacuate, evacuate!” He shoved more people into the aisle.

  Dim pops sounded to his left; it took him a while to recognize the sound as gunfire. Bullets whistled through the smoke and dust; people shrieked as speeding rounds found, pierced and killed them.

  Goodstead materialized beside the sheriff, yelling, “Everybody get out of here! Get out, get out, get out!”

  The lawmen crawled up the aisle, toward the exit, through which the congregation was draining. A few gunshots sounded in the distance, though the rounds did not seem to impact the church.

  On their hands and knees, T.W. and Goodstead surveyed the enclosure: nobody was standing in the pews—those who could exit had done so already. The sheriff glanced behind him. The church’s front wall was sundered, as if a giant boulder had been cast through it; swaying left and right, dangling from the rafters against the blue sky were the hanged men, one of whom was supposed to become his son that day.

  The surviving criminals, Tara Taylor and his daughter were gone. Racing toward the eastern mountains, T.W. saw a rapidly diminishing beige and green stagecoach.

  The pain in the sheriff’s hip screamed the moment he stood up; he limped forward, outside into the clear air. He put distance between himself and the church, but each step was agony.

  Once he was twenty-five yards from the edifice, T.W. looked at Goodstead’s dusty blank face and said, “Get strong horses, five. And ten guns. Binoculars. And a spyglass.”

  The deputy said, “You okay?”

  “I’m not talking about that right now. Fetch that stuff.”

  Goodstead careened toward a horse and deftly swung himself atop it. He rode off.

  The sun was not long past noon, though it felt to the sheriff as if he had lived an entire decade in the pews today.

  “Big Abe,” T.W. said. The large m
an walked over; the laceration on his round face bled so much that he could not keep his right eye open.

  “Take a horse. Send a wire to Billington with a description of these men. Make sure they’re prepared. Tell them to watch the trains and also the telegraph station and post office in case they try to send off a message. Let Westland know too.”

  Thunder shook the world; T.W. stumbled forward; Big Abe caught his shoulder and kept him upright. The confused citizens of Trailspur screamed.

  The sheriff turned around and looked at the welter of smoke and splinters and airborne stones that had just replaced the church. A rock struck the top of his head; pebbles rained down from the sky.

  “Turn away from it and shield yourselves,” T.W. called out. The members of the congregation hunched forward; stones pelted their backs, ribs, necks and skulls. A rock struck the sheriff’s right kidney; another pebble smacked painfully upon his clavicle. A spinning plank slapped Big Abe’s neck. The hail of detritus bruised the townsfolk for thirty seconds and then ended.

  “I’ll send the wires,” Big Abe said in the same stentorian voice that had called out the steps for dances last night. He ran off toward a confused mare that walked in circles.

  Behind the church, a gray horse with stones embedded in its side and a shaft of wood lodged in its neck folded up its legs, curled its head forward and stopped moving.

  T.W. surveyed the remainder of the congregation; a quick count yielded a total of eighty-three people. The church pews had held one-hundred-and-twenty guests.

  “You okay?” he asked Meredith, whose face was bleeding and bruised.

  “Do not worry about me right now.”

  The sheriff saw Deputy Kenneth John hug his frail mother; she wept into his shoulder. Mayor Warren John was absent.

  T.W. saw Smiler, standing alone in a sea of strangers. No grin creased his beard: the sixty-three-year-old marshal simply stared in disbelief at the pile of rubble that had been the church. The sheriff had to look away.

  “Let me help you.”

  T.W. turned around. Oswell Danford stood in front of him. Stones and splinters jutted from his bleeding left cheek; the ear on that side looked as if it had been chewed by a wolf. His hands were still bound behind his back.

  The sheriff punched the man across the jaw; the bone cracked. The rancher spat blood into the dirt.

  “Please let me help,” Oswell said.

  T.W.’s fist throbbed from the blow, which only made him angrier.

  “They got my daughter!”

  T.W. punched Oswell in the stomach, doubling him over. The rancher stood there, gasping and coughing.

  “If something happens to my Beatrice . . . if something happens to her . . .” This was not a sentence T.W. was able to complete.

  “I can help you. I rode with Quinlan and have some idea how this’ll go. And he wants me dead, so you might be able to use me for barter.”

  T.W. knew that there was truth in what the rancher said.

  Oswell continued, “You can hang me afterward—all I want to do is stop him. You heard his threats.” In a quiet voice that sounded almost like a child’s, he said, “He’s going after my wife. My kids. He’s going after them. My family. They don’t even know what I did all those years ago.”

  T.W. said, “You do what I say, without argument. And I will hang you afterward.”

  “Okay.”

  “Turn around.”

  Oswell faced his back to the sheriff. T.W. untied the knot that bound the rancher’s wrists and had turned the man’s hands purple. The cord slid off. Oswell rubbed his palms together, restoring circulation; he could not yet move his fingers.

  Richard Sterling, a handkerchief red with blood hanging from his mouth, walked toward the sheriff. He had a revolver in his left hand, pointed at the ground.

  “Drop that weapon, Richard Sterling,” T.W. said.

  The New Yorker set the gun upon the ground and continued forward.

  “You want to help us get Quinlan’s crew before I hang you?”

  Richard nodded. He winced; the motion apparently caused him internal pain.

  “You can ride like that?’

  Richard Sterling nodded.

  “He’s a good shot. And fast on the draw,” Oswell added.

  T.W. said, “You’ll follow my lead.” For the exact same reasons the sheriff had allowed the rancher to join, he accepted Richard’s help.

  “Deputy John,” T.W. called across the plain. The man, twelve yards off, kissed his mother’s cheek and walked past a score of stunned and grieving people before he reached the sheriff.

  “You are in charge until we get back.”

  “I want to go after them,” the young man said.

  “You stay here. We need some law in this town.”

  Kenneth John did not argue, which was atypical. It was clear to T.W. that the day’s events had straightened the wayward man.

  “You put guards on the telegraph station here. A few on the bank and post office too. Get volunteers and arm them.”

  “I will.”

  “You and your father made a big difference.” T.W. pointed to the smoking mountain of tinder and broken rock that had been the church. “We could’ve all been in there. You did good.”

  “Thank you,” Kenneth John said. He went back to his mother, hugged her, walked her over to Big Abe’s wife for companionship, climbed onto his horse and spurred it into action.

  Deputy Goodstead, atop a white mare tethered to four other horses, rode past Kenneth John toward the church grounds; he stared at the dusty heap that had replaced the holy edifice since he departed. The beasts behind him were strong, fresh steeds.

  Roland Taylor walked toward the sheriff.

  “You can have my horses, but I want to come.”

  “Stay here with your family.” The sheriff doubted that Roland had ever fired a gun at a living creature, much less a man.

  “They took Tara. I have a right to come,” he bristled.

  “You’ve never been in a gunfight in your life. This isn’t the time to learn how it goes.”

  Roland pointed at Oswell and Richard, smoldered, and said, “You’re taking them? Those outlaws?”

  “They know how to shoot. And if they get killed, nobody’ll care. You should be with your son and your wife.”

  The belligerence in the man’s face was replaced by fear when he said, “I haven’t seen Jack since the explosion. I . . . I didn’t see him get out of there.” The man’s eyes filled with tears.

  T.W. could not watch the man break and so said, more brusquely than he meant to, “Go to Vanessa. Now.” In a softer voice he added, “She needs you.”

  Roland, his mouth trembling, turned away from the sheriff and walked back to his wife.

  Smiler walked up to T.W. and proclaimed, “I’m comin’.” The man was older than T.W. by six years, but he would not panic in a showdown, and he was a good shot. Additionally, he was a lawman and had no family, two facts that made him a preferable choice over most Trailspur townsfolk.

  “I’m comin’ and you can’t never talk me out of it neither. They got Smith. I’m comin’.”

  “You’re the last one. I’m only taking five on this.”

  “You can’t talk me out of it,” Smiler said, refuting a comment he had anticipated but not heard.

  Goodstead reined his horse beside T.W.; the four tethered steeds halted behind him.

  “Get on a horse,” T.W. said to Oswell, Richard and Smiler.

  The Texan observed the chosen men and said, “Is this the posse?”

  “It is,” T.W. said, limping to a black mare.

  Goodstead looked at Oswell and Richard and said, “Nice to have a couple of guys to duck behind when the shootin’ starts.”

  The deputy rode up to T.W., leaned down and helped hoist him onto the black mare. The horse whickered. The pain in the sheriff’s left hip made his thigh muscles twitch and burn.

  “You got guns?” Smiler asked Goodstead.

  “Yup.
Bullets too.”

  T.W. looked at Goodstead, Smiler, Oswell and Richard, all of whom were mounted; it was clear that the New Yorker was weakened from his blood loss, but he held himself in the saddle capably.

  The sheriff snapped reins; his black mare surged forward. The other four riders followed.

  As they tore off, Goodstead called out to the Yardley girl, “Annie!”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell Lilith Ford I’m takin’ her to dinner when I get back!”

  “She got killed.”

  Goodstead had no ready reply.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The Hammer of Halcyon

  Beatrice, wearing a brown dress and beige boots, her hair pulled back in two neat braids, sat on her father’s living-room couch, where a little more than one year ago Jim had spilled tea on her the night before they were to be married. She took the Philadelphia Chronicler and the New York Observing Eye from the table beside her and set the newspapers in her lap. Both prestigious publications had been running her serialized article for the past three months: the bride’s detailed, first-person account of the harrowing event known to the people of America as the Trailspur Wedding Massacre. The conclusion of the series was printed in these issues, pressed on the one-year anniversary of the actual event. Beatrice had delivered the final installment two weeks before it was due, satisfied with her work . . . and very, very relieved that the painful and cathartic experience of detailing the tragedy was over.

  She opened the Chronicler—she preferred the thicker type that the Philly paper used—and began to read the article.

  “Did they make any mistakes?” her father asked, using his cane as he came down the stairs, wearing a plaid robe and weathered slippers that scuffed the steps noisily.

  “I just now sat down with the papers.” She lifted the New York Observing Eye from her lap and proffered it to her father.

  “You know I won’t read it.” He had supported her decision to write about the event, but he had never once read an episode in the series.