A Congregation of Jackals (31 page)

From the first moment of violence, one fact heightened the terrible dread T.W. felt: these brigands had not bothered to conceal their identities. The sheriff knew that there were three reasons why they would not wear scarves over their faces. The first possible explanation was that they intended to leave the country after this setup was completed. This hypothesis had some merit (the leader and the little man were clearly from overseas) but for T.W. that idea did not seem sound—it was unlikely that they would all vacate America. The second possible explanation was that men this deep in darkness did not fear being apprehended; they welcomed the challenge of lawmen, courted violence and relished their own infamy. This was more likely than his first guess, but still did not fit alongside the rest of Quinlan’s meticulous machinations. The third possible explanation—the one that had made T.W. unswerving in his desire to act—was that these foul men
did not intend to leave any witnesses alive. Considering the violence and psychosis he had observed thus far, he thought it was entirely possible that these morally decayed men intended to massacre the entire congregation once they had their take.

The lawmen of Trailspur could not draw straws or flip coins to determine the safety of their charge—they had to act. Deputies Goodstead and Kenneth John understood and agreed with the sheriff.

T.W. had returned to the church with his valuables after a twenty-one minute absence. He was brutishly searched for weapons at the door (as were Goodstead and Kenneth John) and his suitcase was taken from him. The vessel’s contents—two necklaces and a brooch that had belonged to Lucinda, his wedding band, the contents of Beatrice’s jewelry box, three hundred dollars, three timepieces (all gifts from his daughter), the golden star he had received in Arkansas and a silver letter opener with seven sapphires in it (a gift from the mayor)—were emptied into the trunk by a brigand.

When he looked at the dais and saw his daughter keeled over on the piano bench, her gown spattered with gore, his stomach sank. Smiler told T.W. that his girl was okay—there had been a shooting and she had fainted.

The sheriff returned to his seat, saw Lingham’s long corpse (a sight that elicited equal amounts of anger and pity), and watched Godfrey Danford hang. T.W. summarily noticed a twin and the minister laid dead on the dais, near his daughter. The sheriff did not know precisely what had happened during his absence, but there were two fewer dangerous men in the church, and he surmised that his chances had just got a little better.

He watched the deformed man promise to kill the
families of Oswell Danford and Richard Sterling. Horror penetrated the remainder of the Tall Boxer Gang as their misdeeds spread like spilled ink to far-off loved ones they thought safe . . . more innocents who would be imperiled if T.W. did nothing to stop Quinlan and his crew in Trailspur.

The misshapen boss turned to the small Frenchman and said, “Set it up for Dicky.”

“Oui
.”

The New Yorker did not at all react to the declaration of his death sentence—his mind was on whatever relatives his gambit had just inadvertently killed.

T.W., seated in the front pew, brought the heels of his boots together until they touched either side of the box beneath his bench. He slid the package forward.

The diminutive Frenchman dragged the stepladder three yards to the right, to the empty noose that dangled beside the second sagging corpse. The urine that had pooled within Godfrey’s boots found holes in the toes and dripped to the rug below.

T.W. furtively glanced at the aisle: two men with shotguns stood one row behind him, each pointing their dual-barreled weapons at opposite sides of the church. The sheriff glanced at the door and saw two sentries standing there with revolvers in all four of their hands, muzzles pointed down. The surviving twin (who had not spoken since T.W.’s return, but seemed like the one who used to talk) stood behind the open trunk, monitoring the deposits the last few stragglers made.

Upon the dais, the misshapen boss leaned against the lectern and watched the little Frenchman erect the stepladder for the third time. Standing between the boss and the two captives was the Indian who wore a
vest made out of wolf skins; he held a lever-action rifle in his left hand and seemed oddly peaceful.

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 man 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.