“We’ve been blessed with ten children, all healthy,” Dale said, in as neutral a voice as she could manage.
“That’s a passel of blessing,” Tailcoat said pleasantly. “I’d advise you to get ’em out of the house promptly, so they can keep their health.”
“Why?” Tuxie asked, puzzled. “It’s barely sunup. Most of them are still asleep.”
“Hush up, Tuxie, do as the man says,” Dale said. Then she went on in the house and began to gather up the children. Tuxie followed her inside, flustered. He wanted to grab the shotgun and fight, but when he had the gun in his hands, Dale yanked it away and told him just to get the children and not forget any—she knew they must not forget a single one of them.
By the time they were all back outside, the marshals had already fired the house. The man with the split-open forehead had revived and was on his feet, wandering around by the well, moaning that he was blind.
Dale noticed that one of the raiders was missing. She could only count nine. She hoped the other one was too slow to catch her Lyle. The colt was fleet, at least; if Lyle had not pussyfooted too long about leaving, she considered that he had a good chance of making it to Ned’s.
Tuxie was stunned when he saw that his house was afire. He knew white law could be capricious, but he had not expected a bunch of marshals to ride up in the morning and set fire to his home. He and Dale had built the house themselves, with the help of Ned and their neighbours. He had expected to live his life in this house, and someday, die in it. Now it was blazing, sending smoke high into the heavens. The tall man who was so expert at pistol-whipping sat watching, a cigar in his mouth.
“Why, hell, I never even had breakfast, and now you’ve burned me out!” Tuxie said.
The man with the cigar just glanced at him, cold as a January dawn. The children were all whimpering. Dale took Tuxie’s arm, and shook it hard. She had counted the children three times, to make sure they were all safely outside. She wanted the men in their long coats to go, while all her family was still alive. With the children outside, her only worry was Lyle.
“Hush, I said,” she whispered. “Don’t talk. Let it burn, then maybe they’ll go.”
“It’s our house, Dale!” Tuxie protested. “I guess I can cuss the man that burned it down, at least.”
“Mind me, now,” Dale demanded, in a fierce whisper. “Don’t cuss him . . . don’t say a word. You saw him nearly kill two of his own men, over Lyle’s colt. That tall man ain’t just crazy, like Davie Beck. He’s a pure killer. He won’t bother sawing at your leg—I expect he’ll kill you, and maybe our children, too, if you cuss him.”
Tuxie was restive, snorting through his nostrils, something he rarely did.
“Tuxie, be still,” she said. “What’s burning is just a house . . . it’s just lumber. You and me built it once, and we can build it again. Hold steady, and maybe none of us will get killed. That’s the main thing.
“We’re all alive, and we’re healthy—that’s the main thing,” she repeated. She made Tuxie look her in the eye. She did not want him doing anything fatal, just because he was in a bad temper.
Tuxie looked at the tall man in the dusty black coat—looked at him, and held his tongue. He wanted to cuss the man, and cuss him hard, but he held his tongue. He knew his wife was right: the house was just lumber. They could build it again. They were all healthy, and alive. That was the main thing.
The children continued to cry and wail, but Tuxie did not say a word.
While the house was burning, the men in long coats rode off along the trail toward Shady Mountain, and Ned Christie.
34
NED AND JEWEL WERE IN THE BARN, CUTTING A SHOAT, WHEN THEY heard the horses running.
Ned was not fond of cutting pigs. He tended to put the task off until the shoats were big enough to have developed a fearsome squeal. Jewel was holding the shoat’s head, and Ned was working between his legs.
“They say a pig can squeal high enough to scare off bears—hurts their eardrums,” Ned said, trying to get a good grip on the young pig’s slippery little testicles.
“Hurts mine, too, Ned. I’ll be deaf for a week if you don’t hurry,”
Jewel said. She wished there were some way to squeeze her ears shut, but there was no way.
It was when the pig was catching its breath between squeals that they heard the horses running. The sound took them by surprise, for the shoat had been squealing so loud and so long that they were braced for pig squeals and did not at once know what to make of the running horses. It was all the two of them could do to hold the squirming shoat, so they could not easily go take a look.
“Now who’s that coming so fast?” Ned asked, a little vexed. If he let go of the slippery testicles, the pig would suck them back up into his body and he would have most of the work to do over again, coaxing them out. Jewel was sitting on the pig’s head. If she stood up to go look, the shoat would get up despite him, and they would have to chase it around the pen for half the morning just to catch it and complete the job.
Still, two horses running had to mean something. They were coming from the direction of Tuxie Miller’s, which could signify an emergency of some kind. Tuxie was accident prone, due to clumsiness.
“Maybe Tuxie fell out of the loft, or let the plow run over him. It’d be just like him,” Ned said.
Then they heard a gunshot, and another. To Ned, it sounded like a .44 pistol being fired. He shot .44 pistols himself, and knew the sound.
“Ned, there’s shooting!” Jewel said, just as the pig caught its breath and began to squeal again.
There was no talking over the squeal, but Ned and Jewel both knew that gunshots could not be ignored. Ned’s rifle stood nearby, propped against a wheelbarrow. He looked at Jewel, and Jewel looked back. Jewel jumped up, as Ned released the shoat. He took the rifle, and hurried outside.
“Why, it’s Lyle,” Ned said immediately. “Lyle on his colt.”
The boy was riding bareback, bent low, clinging to the colt’s mane. Fifty yards back, a man in a long, brown coat, well mounted on a tall bay gelding, was trying to overtake the boy. He held a heavy pistol, and as they watched, fired a third shot at Lyle—it went wild.
“Ned, why would he shoot at Lyle?” Jewel said.
Liza popped out of the house just then, having heard the shots, and stood in the doorway, watching the chase.
“I guess he’s a posseman, or some kind of villain,” Ned said, raising his rifle. Lyle’s colt was spent from the race. Though young and fleet, he was no match for the posseman’s bay. The posseman was rapidly closing the distance between himself and the boy. He had missed with three shots, but he might not miss with a fourth. A heavy .44 bullet would do dreadful damage to a skinny boy like Lyle Miller, even if it only struck him in the shoulder or the leg. And the posseman was pulling closer with every stride to the boy on the exhausted colt. Ned started to shoot the man’s horse, but decided it was too risky. Unless he made a perfect shot, the bay would keep on coming, as White Sut Beck’s big gelding had, enabling the posseman to get off a fatal shot.
Ned saw the posseman cock his big pistol, preparing to shoot at Lyle Miller a fourth time. The colt was stumbling now, and the posseman was not more than thirty yards back.
Without further hesitation, he swung his rifle and shot the posseman clean out of his saddle. Lyle Miller jumped off the winded colt, and came running for the barn. Ned levered another shell into the chamber, waiting to see if the posseman would rise and make a fight of it.
But the posseman did not move. He lay dead where he had fallen. Lyle Miller was so badly scared when he got to the barn that he could not talk, at first. His eyes were wide with fear, and his teeth were clenched. Jewel talked to him soothingly, and Liza came down to help, but it was a few minutes before Lyle could unclench his young jaw enough to talk.
While the women were calming him, Ned walked over and looked down at the dead posseman, a sallow fellow with a long scar along his jawline. He wore a ni
ckel badge. That fact did not surprise Ned, but it saddened and sobered him. All he had been doing was attempting to castrate his shoat. Then, the white law had chased an innocent boy right into his hen yard. He had shot to protect his neighbour’s son, as any fair man would. What it meant, he knew, was that the battle had been joined between himself and the Arkansas law. It had been joined—and who knew where it would stop?
Ned’s bitter regret was that Zeke Proctor had taken himself off so prematurely in the middle of the night. Zeke would not have been involved with castrating a shoat, and he might have been able to run out and deflect the posseman before matters had reached a fatal juncture. But that opportunity was lost. Zeke had left, just when he might have been helpful.
When Ned got back to the barn, Lyle Miller was past the worst of his fright and was able to give a fair account of his morning.
“I was goin’ to poke crawdads, but Ma sent me off,” Lyle said. “There was lights in the hills. It was men coming.”
“Yes, and one of them got after you,” Ned commented.
“I was nearly here before he caught up with me,” Lyle said. “I was scairt of bears, but I didn’t see no bears.”
Lyle looked anxiously across the hen yard to where the man who had chased him had been, but he did not see the man—only the man’s horse, grazing.
“He got after me back at the turn,” the boy said.
Then a new anxiety struck him. He turned his eyes to Ned.
“I hope they didn’t shoot Ma and Pa,” he said. “There was lights in the hills. Ma told me to go out the back of the barn and come tell you.”
“They wouldn’t shoot your ma and pa,” Ned said, hoping he was right. “I expect they saw that nag I left with your folks. Somebody might have told them it was mine. It’s me they want, not your ma and pa.”
He saw Jewel watching him with fearful eyes. Liza had even stopped yapping, from the shock of seeing the man in the long coat shot down.
“You should run, Ned,” Jewel said. “Run before they get here.”
“They won’t find you, once you’re on the Mountain,” she added. Suddenly her worst fear was for Ned. A man had been killed in her hen yard—a lawman, maybe. The whites would want a death for his death. It was not fair, for Ned had only shot to protect a boy. But the whites would want a death, fair or not. Her fear of being alone and at the prey of men was a small fear compared to her fear of losing her husband forever.
She wanted Ned to go. If he was on the Mountain, he would be safe. The whites would never find him in the woods and rocks. She wanted him to go, and go quick, before the men came who had made the lights in the hills above the Millers’ farm.
Ned knew Jewel was giving him good advice. He ought to go while he still could. He had no way of knowing how large the posse was; all Lyle knew was that there had been lights in the hills. But Dale had sent the boy to him, knowing that there was risk to her child. Dale Miller was not a woman who would be apt to risk the safety of one of her children unless she felt the matter to be desperate to the extreme. And if Dale thought it was desperate, then Jewel was right: he ought to go on the scout and go at once. On the scout, he could survive. The posse might be too big for him to beat back. If he stood and fought them, he might not survive.
Yet it felt wrong, leaving. He was on his home ground, with his pregnant wife and her sister. He had killed in the courtroom only to protect innocents. He had not even seen, much less killed, Marshal Dan Maples. And he had killed this morning only to protect his own neighbour’s ten-year-old son.
Bad men sometimes rode for the white law, men who took the law’s money but practiced whatever lawlessness took their fancy, and did it under the name of the law. If he left, he might be leaving two women and a boy at the mercy of such men. The possemen would surely be enraged that the prey they sought had escaped them. They might vent their fury on the women—beat them, outrage them, even kill them. Jewel’s worst fear might come true on this bright, sunny day. She might find herself in the hands of rough men—merciless men.
Though Ned wished he knew how many men he would have to fight, he knew he could not leave. He had better stand with his woman, on his own ground. If the posse only numbered five or six, perhaps he could turn them back. Then he could take Jewel and Liza to Zeke’s, leave them where there was a chance they would be safe, and prepare himself for a long time on the scout.
“It’s too late to leave, Jewel,” he said. “There’s a dead man laying in the hen yard, and I expect the rest of the posse’s on the way.”
He saw protest in her face, and spoke firmly to quell it.
“Don’t fight me on this,” he said. “Our best bet now is to turn them back. If it ain’t but four or five of them, I expect I can do it. Then we’ll go to your ma and pa’s, where you and Liza will be safe.”
“What if there’s more than four or five?” Jewel wondered. “What if you can’t turn them back?”
“Why, I can’t say—I don’t know the answer to everything right now,” Ned admitted. “I just know I ain’t leaving. Take Lyle and get to the house. I’ve got to tend to this dead man, and quick.”
Jewel was both scared and glad. Maybe Ned’s way would be best. If anyone could turn back an Arkansas posse, it would be her husband.
Lyle Miller, meanwhile, was over his scare, and he was hungry. He was confident Ned Christie could take care of the bad men if they showed up.
“Got any flapjacks this morning?” he asked Jewel. “I ain’t et breakfast. I sure would like some flapjacks.”
Ned laughed—a boy had to eat, even if there was going to be a war. The fact was, he could use some flapjacks himself. The shoat they had started to castrate was standing over by the trough, eating slop. Maybe there would be time for a little breakfast before the posse came.
Jewel looked at him doubtfully, but Ned gave her a smile.
“Fix us some flapjacks, Jewel,” he said. “We might as well eat while we wait. Liza, you gather up a few eggs, if you can find any, and bring a hen or two into the house. If they try to lay siege to us, it would be nice to have a chicken on hand.”
Liza went off and soon filled her apron with eggs. Jewel and Lyle went to the house, and Ned found an old wagon sheet to wrap up the dead marshal.
The shoat kept grunting at Ned. It had cleaned out the slop, and wanted more.
“Don’t be grunting at me,” Ned said to the pig. “Just because you got away today don’t mean you’ll get to keep your nuts. You ain’t hefty enough to be no boar.”
Then he took the wagon sheet and went back to the hen yard, to wrap up the dead killer from Arkansas.
35
TAILCOAT JONES WAS LECTURING HIS TROOP WHEN THEY SAW Everett Dane’s big bay horse come trotting up the trail toward them. They were within three miles of the Christie farm when the bay came trotting back with Everett Dane’s body. Tailcoat was in a foul mood, and did not trouble to hide it.
“Dern, there’s a body roped to that bay,” Jerry Ankle said. “I expect it’s Ev.”
Beezle could not talk, due to a badly swollen mouth. He loped over and caught the bay. The body roped to the bay was indeed that of Everett Dane, the man Tailcoat had dispatched to catch the missing Miller boy, a mission that had obviously failed. All Ev Dane had caught was a bullet, and upon inspection the bullet turned out to have been well placed.
“Right in the heart,” Jerry Ankle said nervously. “I expect he was shot at close range.”
“This fool wasn’t shot at close range, but you will be if you don’t improve your tactics,” Tailcoat informed him. “Some of you other marshals will be shot at close range, too, if you keep stumbling around in the morning, shining lights for people to see.”
He had his pistol out, and was clicking the hammer in vexation. The men hung well back, and kept their eyes down. They only had to look at Jerry Ankle’s forehead to see what could happen when Tailcoat Jones grew vexed enough to click the hammer of his gun. The six-inch slice across Jerry’s forehead had be
en hastily stitched up with a darning needle and some heavy thread. Jerry himself had stopped complaining of blindness, and now complained of double vision. It did not require double vision, however, to tell that Tailcoat Jones was in a dangerous mood.
“I’m glad somebody shot this lagging imbecile,” he said, after a brief inspection of the wound in Everett Dane’s body. “He couldn’t even catch a boy on a colt.”
“I guess the boy had too much of a start,” Jerry ventured.
“Yes, a fine start,” Tailcoat said. “You boys lit up the hills like Christmas with your damn lanterns and your coffee fires. That damn impudent woman saw the lights and slipped that boy off. Christie’s probably gone on the scout by now—we may have to chase him for a month, and he still might get away.”
Tailcoat proceeded on at a high lope. If at all possible, he wanted to catch Ned Christie at home. The prospect of having to pursue him deep into the woods and thickets did not appeal to him.
When they finally came in sight of the Christie farm, Tailcoat called a halt. The Miller boy’s colt was grazing in plain sight, but the boy was not in plain sight, nor were any other humans.
“All right, now, watch what you do,” Tailcoat instructed. “They say Christie’s such a fine squirrel hunter that he don’t even hit the squirrel when he shoots—he hits the limb under the squirrel, and just picks the varmint up when it falls. Saves meat. All you boys are a lot bigger than squirrels. If he sees you, I expect he’ll hit you—if he chooses to fight, that is.”
“Why wouldn’t he fight?” Dick Sabine asked. Dick hailed from Little Rock, and had hair the color of straw. He carried a shotgun rather than a rifle. He was so shortsighted that he had once shot his own horse by mistake, after which he gave up trying to use a rifle.
“Why, he might believe he’s innocent and prefer to take his chances in a courtroom,” Tailcoat said. “Otherwise, the odds are nine to one.”
He angled off into the woods above the farm. Ned Christie, from what he had heard, was the most formidable of the five men he had been sent to arrest, which was why he had come after Ned first, before his force became depleted in battle. Now the depleting had already begun.