Shotgun (5 page)

White Fox twisted, angling her back to the flames as she was dragged through the burning kerosene pool, the rawhide lasso biting her throat. She tucked her muscular legs in, bending at the knee, and then sprung forward with all of her strength, pushing herself closer to the two cowboys who were pulling her, forcing their line to slack.

She could hear Creed's voice above the shouts and cries of his men. “You've done well! Tend the wounded, then take a moment to enjoy victory.”

The rawhide loosened, and White Fox clawed, pulling it over her head as Creed's men bulldogged her around the waist before tossing her into a small, slushy snow bank away from the cave's mouth.

“You ain't goin' no place,
nésé'kêhá'e
!”

White Fox's neck whipped against the frozen ground as she rolled into the snow, keeping her face away from Creed's men. Her long black hair shielded her movement as she turned her head just enough to see everything in that moment when the shooting finally stops—pools of fire and blood, hired killers lying wounded, and others dead.

She wasn't yet twenty-five, and couldn't count how many like these she'd left bleeding.

Creed brought his horse a few steps closer to the cave's mouth; smoke poured from it like a grey scream. His men kicked snow onto the still-burning flag piles while, feet away, another died with his buckshot-ripped stomach pouring through his fingers. Nobody gave their dead amigo a glance, even as they stepped over him.

Creed used his saddle as a pulpit, calling out to his flock, “You've earned your pay and my respect, but remember why we're here!”

Someone said, “Long as we get ours.”

Creed adjusted his glasses and said to anyone close, “Did the dog-eater survive?”

The one with the lariat said, “Squirrelly as hell and took some of yours with her. Turn your head, you can spit in her face.”

“That won't be necessary.”

White Fox raised her eyes, meeting Lariat, who thought he was clever misusing “bitch” in Cheyenne. Wobbly on his feet, he was coiling the rawhide, red spreading from the wound he'd gotten above the knee. His hands were shaking, and his smell stung her nose.

Creed said, “Where's the prisoner? Where's Dr. John Bishop?”

Lariat said, “Close.”

Lariat smiled toothlessly, cocking his head toward Bishop, who was lying in the snow beneath the Rocky Mountain birch where the painted and the bay had been tied.

White Fox saw that Bishop's right arm was almost behind his head, with the double-barrels of the rig leveled naturally at his temple, so that if he moved his shoulders hardly an inch, the triggers would be pulled.

But he wasn't moving, at all.

White Fox couldn't help whispering, “Bi-shop.”

As if in response, Fat Gut bellowed, White Fox's arrow still protruding from his leg. He grabbed his Winchester and aimed it at her, pumping off an empty chamber, and then bellowed some more, because she refused to react.

Instead, White Fox kept her eyes on Bishop, waiting for him to stir, or speak. There was nothing. For a moment, she felt relief that the rig wouldn't go off accidentally, and then fear that Bishop was still as death. Her hands stayed around her neck, massaging the feeling back into it, but ready to grab the next lariat they tried to slip over her or a knife from the boot of one of the
mé'anéka'êškónes
, if he got close enough. She counted how many of Creed's “bastard sons” were left, and figured which ones to kill to get to Bishop and a horse.

Lariat checked the pockets of the dead for cash, pried guns from their hands, and inspected their boots, yanking off two pair that caught his fancy. He kicked at Bishop's boots, waiting for White Fox's reaction before throwing his head back in a Georgia howl.

That's when Bishop's left hand moved, barely making a fist. Barely.

White Fox saw his fingers closing, and drew herself in, muscles tightening. She thought Bishop had murmured something, his lips just parting, forming a word. She couldn't hear him, but watched for another sign of life, while slipping both arms out of her buckskin jacket without notice. She sat up, arms out of the sleeves, palms flat against the ground, ready to spring.

Creed called, “Where's the boy?”

The youngest of the bunch, all straw-white hair sprouting over a wide face, ran from the cave and dumped Bishop's field medic kit, blanket, and some ammo onto the wet ground in front of Creed.

Smoke from the fire smeared him, and he coughed, “Right in front of you, sir.”

“Ragtag?”

“They really killed him, sir. I never seen worse.”

“What did you find?”

“There weren't no gold, but I think I got the valuables you wanted.”

Creed looked down from his mount, sensing the boy's expression. “You're a good man, follow orders. You understand this is about a lot more than money.”

Lariat yelled, “What about this fancy gun rig?”

Creed said, “Bring it to me.”

White Fox watched Lariat draw a blade and crouch next to Bishop. Blood soaked his pant leg and the knife wasn't steady as Lariat cut through the straps holding the shotgun in place. White Fox bit her lip as the trigger lines caught on the knife before being sliced. First one, and then the other; Lariat hadn't checked the breach and didn't know what the hell he was fooling with. He yanked Bishop forward roughly, his head lolling, before pulling the rig away from his half-arm.

Bishop flopped back onto the ground, as Lariat struggled to his feet, pockets bulging with the other guns he'd stolen, holding his shotgun trophy in the air.

Lariat was weaving when he crowed, “Bastard won't be usin' this again!”

The buckshot wound was bleeding Lariat dry, and he managed a few steps before his leg gave way, dropping him dead. The shotgun fired, blasting the rotting top of a tree stump. Creed's men ducked.

White Fox sprang from the snow bank in a burst of ice 'n' white, as she leapt for Bishop's leather medical bag. Her moves were whip-fast, her body a blur, as she grabbed the bag, swinging it wide to smash one of Creed's men in the temple with its hard corner. Dazed, he stumbled backwards, even as she took two gigantic strides toward Bishop. Pure grace and speed.

Creed shouted, “Tell me what's happening!”

White Fox jumped over Lariat, grabbing one of the stray pistols around him. She turned about, and dropped to one knee, leveling the Colt on Creed.

The boy said, “Sir, she's set to kill you.”

One of the men said, “Ride like hell, Cap'n. We'll punch ten holes in the bitch before she gets off a shot.”

“I might be blind, but I know our dead belong to her. Nobody makes a move, unless you want to join them.”

Creed let his words echo for a moment, before calling out to White Fox, “You think you're going to get out of this? You're not. Savvy?”

White Fox stood, her skirt torn almost to the waist, the gun perfectly leveled from her naked hip. Blood and melted snow had pasted the shreds of her blouse to her body, outlining her flat belly and the curve of her breasts.

Creed's men traded snickers and made gestures, shrugging off how many of their own she and Bishop had just killed.

White Fox let the fools be fools. “Bi-shop is mine.”

Creed said, “You're both my prisoners. I know you understand.”

White Fox took two steps to the side and one of the men fired. The shot ripped the mud at her feet, but she only turned and knelt by Bishop, dumping his medical bag. One of Bishop's eyes opened.

Creed said, “Is she hit?”

The boy said to Creed, “No sir, didn't even flinch. She's doin' somethin' to the prisoner, like a doctor would.”

Creed wiped the grit from his eyes. “I wonder if she'll leave him blind.”

Creed heard one of his men cock a hammer. “The next man that shoots without my order'll be executed! We came for prisoners, not corpses.”

The device White Fox placed on Bishop's face was made of yellow celluloid shaped like the breast of a rooster, and it fit snugly over his mouth and nose, sealing them. The mask was attached by rubber tubing to a small brass and wooden cube, with a music-box-style cranking mechanism on its side. She attached a small leather bellows to a nozzle on the side of the cube, and cranked the handle, expanding the bellows and pumping air through the cube and into the mask.

Bishop's eyes struggled, the lids sticky with soot, as his lungs heaved, and he spit charcoal-streaked phlegm into the mask. She reversed the crank, drawing the fluid out of the mask, then pressed the bellows to force air in.

One of Creed's men said, “That's a long way 'round just to kill somebody.”

Creed said, “You're a fool.”

More brackish fluid erupted from Bishop's mouth as White Fox worked the small machine, until Bishop's lungs swelled with new air and released. White Fox tore the mask away, and pushed hard on his chest, forcing out the pockets of smoke still trapped inside him.

The boy said, “I've never seen no miracle before.”

Creed kept his head locked toward Bishop and White Fox as if he could see them, and said, “This is no miracle, boy.”

Blood sprinkled Bishop's chin as his chest racked. White Fox pulled him forward, and wrapped her arms around him and clamped them together in a fist in the center of his back. She yanked her arms inward, forcing more smoke from his lungs.

Bishop gulped for air, struggling for breath, his lungs burning.

White Fox called, “Water!”

Fat Gut screamed out, “They almost killed me, Cousin! Why the hell you helpin' 'em?!”

Creed said, “Because we're not finished.”

Creed handed the canteen from his saddle to the boy. “Give him all he wants.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy tried a salute, his hand tangling in his stalks, before taking the canteen. He hitched up his tattered pants and stepped around two bodies, trying not to look at the faces with mouths and eyes locked open. He stopped a few feet away from White Fox, before looking around at Creed's men, their guns aimed right at him. A couple of them were smiling.

The only sound was the hack ripping from Bishop's chest.

Creed said, “Give him the water!”

White Fox snatched the canteen from his hands. “Hold him.”

The boy slipped an arm around Bishop, propping him up. “I swallowed some smoke in the cave myself. It's god-awful.”

Bishop drank, coughed, drank some more. He looked to White Fox, managing, “
Eametanéné
.”

Resurrection, Wyoming, was the kind of place that Chaney loved and Lem Wright hated. It was a new border town, being built from the mud up. For Chaney, that meant rail workers and teamsters who could be stupid-drunk with their pay, and ladies who had set themselves up to take as much as they could.

Fresh-cut lumber, glass, and wet paint were everywhere you looked, and the air was full of the noise of saws, men, and working animals. To Chaney, it was music: the sound of cash being made.

But for Lem Wright, Resurrection was something blank, with no tradition or history. The kind of place “that might be something someday,” but wasn't yet, and likely he wouldn't live to see it. New places reminded him of his own mortality.

So it was all right that Lem and Chaney guided their horses past the freshly painted porch of a feed store, to Gutterson's Funeral Parlor. The name was scrolled on the front window, with a discreet crucifix and Jewish star tiny in the corner of the glass.

Lem tied his horse and went for a close look at the symbols. “Wonder who buries the Chinamen?”

The window, backed by purple drapery, bloated Lem's face, but was kind to his wandering eye.

Three old women in mourning black stepped from Gutterson's, and Lem moved aside, taking off his hat in elaborate fashion, and half-bowing his head. One of the women was crying, with the other two at her elbow, offering comfort.

The crying woman stared at Lem's face long enough to get out some words. “My Edward was injured in the war, too. Thank you for your brave sacrifice.”

“You're welcome, ma'am.”

She began sobbing again, guided off by the other two. Chaney watched all this, flicking his tooth with his thumb, thinking what he could do with a widow's bank account, when Lem's voice snapped him back. “Ready to take care of some business?”

Chaney joined Lem by the front door. “Haven't said a damn word in four hours. I got distracted.”

“I've been deciding if we should stop or not.”

Chaney slipped his hand inside his jacket, an obvious move for a weapon, before asking, “Why this place?”

“So you can meet another one of your partners.”

Lem opened the door to the funeral parlor, gesturing for Chaney to proceed. Chaney held back, keeping his hand out of sight, ready to draw. Their words were steam in the air.

The pretense meant nothing to Lem. “Your gun belt's comin' apart, partner. Better take care of that.”

“In case I haven't told you, thanks for your brave sacrifice.”

Lem stored his response for later. Chaney kicked the snow from his boots before going in.

The sun sliced the dark of Gutterson's in long slivers, landing against a small wooden pew, a rude coffin set up on a pair of saw horses, and paper flowers knitted into a wreath. What Chaney could make out in the rest of the room was unfinished: bare walls waiting for paint, against which there were two new rugs neatly rolled, floor planking, and some nail kegs. Ten raw coffin lids were stacked against the opposite wall, with prices scrawled on each. The prices had been crossed out several times, replaced by higher ones.

Lem said, “Howard! Show your worthless ass!”

The response was a dog barking up the street. Lem started for a small door at the back of the parlor, with Chaney following. Chaney regarded the empty pews and coffin, and Lem said, “That's what you have to look forward to.” He continued into the backroom, adding, “Me too.”

The back room was less finished than the rest of the place, with tools, scrap wood, and several bodies lying in rows on the dirt floor. The bodies were wrapped in heavy cloth, with lengths of rope securing the necks, arms, and feet like so much packed meat.

There was a slapped-together box in the middle of the floor, with a man laid out inside, his huge arms folded on his chest. His mouth was smothered by a drooping moustache that laced into muttonchops along his jowls, covering most of his pitted face.

Lem Wright looked into the box, which was just slightly smaller than a piano crate, then turned to Chaney. “You know a dead man can still break wind?”

The man in the coffin sat up. “You want me to show ya?”

“I think you already did. Jesus, Howard.”

Howard said, “Those boys are just going a little ripe. Get me the hell out of here.”

“You could stuff a family in that thing.”

“All of them, or maybe just me.”

Howard held out his tree-trunk arms, as Lem shouldered him from the crate. Lem bellowed in pain as Howard's weight almost pushed him to the floor. Howard swung his legs over the side, with Chaney steadying it as best he could. The wood buckled.

“Jesus is crying, hurry up!”

A couple of bent nails tore into Chaney's hand, prompting Howard to say, “I ain't much of a carpenter.”

Lem said, “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

“There's so many killin's, with all the crews comin' in. The coolies and the Micks and the Jews all want a piece of each other. Old man Gutterson can't keep up, so he hired me on.”

Chaney regarded Howard's work, sucking the blood from his thumb and forefinger. “A gunny'd be nicer.”

“Pulled up the floor for the boards, got a stack of bags for when we run out. One more team of railroad men, and we're good for at least five shootings. That's money, man. I gotta finish this one and two more before tomorrow.”

“What about those fellas?”

Howard nodded toward the five on the floor. “Teamsters got ambushed outside of town. Nobody's claimed 'em, so we'll dump in the same hole. I'll give ya each ten if you help me dig it.”

Lem said, “Sounds like you're doing all right.”

Howard held up a pair of iron pliers and a small chisel. “Between their teeth fillin's and whatever Gutterson misses in their pockets, yeah, I'm stayin' out of jail.”

Lem said, “Better that than dead.”

Chaney said, “Especially if you're handling the funeral.”

“It's probably a toss-up.”

Lem looked at Howard and said, “We're going to see Beaudine.”

“Why tell me? I don't got to do nothing with that crazy son of a bitch. Ever.”

“Howard, Chester Pardee got himself killed.”

“That's no surprise. Good riddance.”

“By John Bishop.”

The chisel hit the floor, and Howard knelt to pick it up. Lem was right beside him. “Bishop survived, and he tracked Pardee down and shot him.”

Chaney said, “He ain't lying.”

Howard crossed himself, then pulled a crooked, square-head nail from the side of the coffin crate, tearing through the wood planking like it was paper. He spit.

Chaney said, “I was with Pardee, read Beaudine's letter.”

“That letter meant squat then, and means double-squat now.”

Chaney said, “It might mean a hell of a lot of money, if it's true.”

Howard looked up from the coffin, leveling on Chaney. “But it ain't. You don't know shit about this, mister.”

Lem said, “Don't get riled. He's riding in with me.”

“I don't like guys who flap their gums. You two do what you want, I got men to bury.”

“Who's gonna bury you?”

“I ain't too worried.”

“About dying?”

Howard said, “We make our choices in this life, and I'm at peace with whatever happens. I brought it on myself.”

Lem smiled, “That's straight from the prison preacher.”

“Go to hell.”

Chaney said, “I'd rather die rich than poor. But you've got guts to face what Bishop's carrying—a double-barreled shotgun, like it's growing right out of him. If I've ever seen the Angel of Death, it's him.”

Howard said, “Then you ain't seen shit,” before bringing the hammer down on the square head, missing, and pounding into the coffin's side, splitting the green pine in half. He hollered from his guts, grabbed two pieces of the crate and hurled them across the room with amazing force. The wood broke apart, crashing into the pile of corpses and tearing open their burlap shrouds.

Chaney took a step back, and Lem reached up to put hands on Howard's huge shoulders. “This is the time to think, right? Hear me, Howard? Calm down and listen to what we're sayin'. We need you. If John Bishop's coming, let's take care of it together, and not have him pick us off when we're not looking. Doesn't that make sense?”

Howard looked to Lem. “You scared, Deadeye?”

Lem said, “No, but I hate unfinished business. Beaudine got us into this.”

Howard nodded. “Uh-huh. The Raiders. Just a gang of thieves.”

“Yeah, shitty ones. Thieves and fools.”

Chaney said, “Maybe Beaudine was right about all that gold.”

Howard moved on Chaney. “You keep talkin' like an expert 'cause you read a letter? I was there when it was written so don't tell me shit! If Bishop's alive, then he's coming for us for what we done. And we deserve it.”

Lem got Howard to sit down before Chaney said, “Or maybe he's out to protect what's his. You boys could have been right all along.”

Howard barked, “There's no gold, no payroll, no cash.”

Lem said, “Either way, we've got to finish this. You want to stay here, building coffins, waiting for death to come through that door? Or ride to Cheyenne, maybe cut it off? If nothing else, you really wouldn't like a chance to drop Beaudine?”

Howard said, “I'm trying to keep peace in my heart, and you're tempting me.”

“Maybe you could finally break the Major in half with your bare hands? You'd like that, Howard, I know you would.”

Howard spit again, kicked away the remains of the box, moving to the pile of bodies. He regarded the corpses for a moment, and then looked to the heavens for a sign, a message. The dog down the street started barking again.

Howard said, “The end's comin' no matter what I do. Might as well enjoy it, I guess. First, help me bury these fellas.”

Chaney said, “They're dead. What difference does it make what happens to them now?”

Howard threw one of the corpses over his shoulder. “That's what I've been sayin' to
you
, jackass.”