The Arrow Keeper’s Song (50 page)

There was law in Cross Timbers after all.

Father Kenneth kept up a steady stream of entreaty, hurrying to keep abreast of the volatile group of men who had left the mercantile armed with guns, torches, and a lynch rope and were marching a straight path among the cabins and houses on the south side of town. Frightened residents hurried to close and fasten their shutters and bolt their doors so as not to have a part in what was about to transpire. This was justice meted out frontier-style, as harsh and cruel as the crime that had been committed.

“Luthor, stop them!” the priest cried out, attempting to shoulder his way past Ned Scalp Shirt and his sons. Matt held the lynch rope, a rough hemp cord with a proper noose at the end. Little Ned, bathed in torchlight, had already drawn his gun and was ready and anxious for trouble. Liquor burned in his gut, giving him the raw, senseless courage fools are made of.

“Eye for an eye, Kenneth,” Luthor called out. His vision had narrowed until all he could see was the act of vengeance he hoped would heal his tortured soul. Willem had to die, and maybe then Luthor might be able to expiate himself of the blame he felt, the responsibility he bore for all the misfortune that had befallen him. “Blood for blood and life for life!” he shouted. “I read that in your books, priest.”

“You cannot take the law into your own hands. Do so and you will forfeit your almighty soul. In God's name I demand you turn aside.” Father Kenneth glanced around at the men, many of whom he recognized, for he had baptized their children and nursed their sick in the days before Joanna Cooper. “Joshua Mule Ride … Andrew Sharp Horn … and you, Dolph Landers … I know you to be good men. It's whiskey that's clouded your thoughts. I know you … every man here. And so help me … oooohh!”

Curtis felled the priest with a sharp, quick blow to the back of the head. Luthor heard the man cry out and altered his course to work his way over to the priest's side. Father Kenneth lay sprawled in the street, a trickle of blood oozing from a lump on his scalp. Curtis grinned and holstered the revolver he had used to club the priest. “That put an end to his chattering.”

Luthor slapped Curtis across the face hard enough to knock the man on his backside. Jerel rode up on is gelding and put the horse between Luthor and Curtis. Pete Elk Head and John Iron Hail rushed to help Curtis to his feet.

“Let me alone,” he snapped, pulling free of their hands. “You crazy old bastard.”

“He was only trying to help, Luthor. We all are.” Jerel had to fight to keep his horse under control as lightning crackled and thunder rode the sky.

“Go to hell! I curse the day your path ever crossed mine,” Luthor snarled. His voice quivered as he spoke; his hands whitened where he gripped the Winchester rifle in his hands.

Jerel leaned over. “If it wasn't for me and my money, you'd be just another shiftless red nigger from Rabbit Town, and don't you forget it.”

“C'mon, Luthor!” one of the men carrying a torch called out.

“Ain't no time to fight among ourselves, Luthor,” said Ned Scalp Shirt. “Any man wants to see justice done is welcome.” He tilted a bottle to his lips and rained the last drop of whiskey. “And any man tries to stop us …” He tossed the bottle in the air and then drew, but Little Ned was the first to snap off a shot, followed by a half-dozen guns in a ragged volley. The bottle exploded in midair, and a cheer rose from the mob. The men started forward again, sweeping Luthor along at the forefront, in a tide of bloodlust and righteous anger. An innocent girl had been cruelly murdered. The killer had no right to live, to see another dawn while she lay cold and lifeless in her grave.

Like a vengeful beast with a single mind the mob surged forward, crossing the final stretch of open ground between the last few houses and the jail itself, the solitary fortresslike structure now besieged.

From horseback Jerel recognized Clay in front of the wagon, with Tom Sandcrane at his side. Now, that was unexpected. What kind of game was Benedict's son playing? No matter. There was Tom, defiant, a sitting target. And the lynch mob was heavily armed and as easy to ignite as a powder keg. Jerel nodded to Pete Elk Head and Curtis, who began to fan out through the crowd. John Iron Hail appeared to balk at Jerel's unspoken command, as if at the last minute he was rethinking his options and had become uncertain of his own loyalties. Jerel mentally noted he would deal with the man at some later date; he slowly drew his revolver from his belt and thumbed the hammer back, all the while keeping the Colt out of sight.

Tom glanced over his shoulder at Seth, who was standing behind the wagon, a rifle balanced on the wooden siding. Abram and Benje were standing on the porch. Lanterns hung from every post, their glare mingling with that of the oncoming torches.

“Keep your head down, old one,” Tom called to his father.

Seth frowned. “Ha. Old. You be wary. The Maiyun come and may call your name this night.”

“And I will answer,” Tom replied.

Clay studied the man at his side. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. “I never thought we'd be standing together for anything,” the lawman said to Tom. “Hell, I don't even know you. Not really.” The sky shimmered with a lurid bone-white glare. A moist wind, thick with the smell of rain, moaned as it gusted through the alleys. Heaven was poised to unleash its torrent. A single heavy drop spattered off the iron-rimmed wagon wheel behind the two men. Others followed, increasing in number as the clouds dissolved into a downpour. Lightning forked down and struck a tree on Council Hill, limbs burst into flame, the trunk split and twisted with a terrible crash.

“There have been steep gullies between us, yet our shadows crossed over. Now we walk the way of the Great Circle together.” Tom stared down at his gloved hand. Rainwater funneled off the brim of his hat as images of Cuba flooded his thoughts, of the friends he had led to their deaths, of the horror and the dark and bloody ground. He drew his revolver, the long-barreled Colt thirty-eight, a double-action weapon that fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. A second gun, also a thirty-eight, with a shorter barrel, bulged in his right coat pocket.

“If you say it's a good day to die, I may shoot you myself,” Clay grumbled. Yet he had begun to understand some of Tom's remarks. Indeed, confession was good for the soul. It was as if he had unburdened himself of a terrible weight. Bitter times might lie ahead, but he would meet them head-on.

“No problem, Sheriff,” Tom said. “That's one of the old ways I can do without.”

The lynch mob massed before them, the hostile faces taking in the fact that there were several well-armed men blocking the path to the jail.

“Stand aside!” a voice called out. “We aim to have Willem Tangle Hair and will not be denied.”

“Go on home, men. Disperse, I say. Cross this road and it will go badly for you.”

“We've no quarrel with you, Sheriff,” a figure in the rain bellowed.

“There be some of your friends and neighbors here, Clay. Would you shoot us down?”

“I have no friends in a lynch mob.”

“And is that Tom Sandcrane with you? Trust him to turn on his own kind!” another voice cried. Tom thought it sounded suspiciously like Curtis Tall Bull, but he could not locate the man among the torchlit crowd.

“You've come to do harm to an innocent man,” Tom shouted, striving to be heard above the downpour. The road separating the mob from Willem Tangle Hair's defenders was swiftly being transformed into a quagmire. Tension was as thick as the electricity in the air. Luthor's men, already rattled by the storm's violent display, were primed and skittish as a herd of cattle.

“Willem is an innocent man,” Tom added.

Lightning flashed. Squinting through the rainy curtain, Tom saw Jerel Tall Bull on horseback behind the throng, raising a long-barreled pistol. “The time for talk is over, boys. Get the murderin' bastard you came for!”

“No!” Tom yelled as Jerel took aim. A tongue of flame spat from the gun barrel, and Clay winced and jerked to the right, his fingers inadvertently tightening on the shotgun's trigger. With a roar the weapon discharged low, crippling a couple of men with its load of buckshot. Deadly blossoms of orange fire flowered in the night; the mob opened up with their guns as Tom dropped beside the wounded lawman. Clay cursed and clawed at the bloodstain spreading across his right sleeve.

“Dammit to hell!” the sheriff groaned. Both men ducked as bullets fanned the air overhead. The jail's defenders replied in kind. Seth levered shot after shot. Abram and Benje, each with a carbine, and Willem, standing in the doorway, joined in the furious exchange that lasted no more than half a minute. Separated by a dirt road, the men fired point-blank at one another; lead slugs flew thick as hail through the soaking rain. And men began to die.

The crack and bellow of gunfire cut with unmistakable authority through the storm. Fathers and husbands paced their rooms, mothers hurried to calm their children. The drenching rain failed to wash the stench of death from the sodden air.

Seated at his desk in the library, Allyn Benedict heard the gunfire drifting through the window he had left open for the purpose of hearing what transpired. Emmiline appeared in the doorway of the study, her features pale. She was dressed in solemn tones of gray and black, her hair pinned high off her neck.

“You should be in bed on a night like this,” Allyn said.

“Do you hear?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It is your doing,” she said.

“Yes,” came his tired reply. He had no patience for a scolding.

“Why? Father … why?”

“You wouldn't understand,” Allyn said. Suddenly he was standing in the priest's stable with Charlotte White Bear limp in his arms.
What have I done? What have I done?

The horrid image faded and allowed him to return to the study, book-lined walls shimmering into focus. He saw his daughter staring at him as color slowly crept back into his features.

“Leave me now, there's a good girl.” He forced the guilt and the enormity of his crime from his mind. Money would buy him a new conscience. There was no better salve than gold. He eased back in his chair and waited, confident of the outcome of his plans.

Tom rose in front of the wagon as slugs whined past him, thudding into the wagon bed, glancing off the iron-rimmed wheels.

“Stay down!” Seth shouted to his right, blasting away with his rifle.

But the son as deaf to his father now, for an old bloodlust was upon him, the same soul-numbing fury Tom had known once before. If the mob had come for a killer, so be it. Damn them for fools, for
they
had unleashed this dog of war. Now let him slake his thirst. Tom loosed a shrill war cry as the Colt bucked in his hand. A figure on the other side of the rain yelped and sank to his knees. Someone charged him through the storm. Tom fired. Pete Elk Head flew backward, his face a mask of crimson, a hole where once an eye had been. He was dead before he hit the ground. Tom fired again and again. Another man stumbled and sank to his knees in the mud, hands clutching his belly. A blur of motion off to his side, too late to turn. Then Seth's rifle cracked twice, and Curtis Tall Bull screamed his brother's name—“Jerel!”—spun in a slow arc, and emptied his revolver into the muddy furrows until a second blast from Clay's shotgun flung him aside like a discarded rag doll. Tom squeezed off the last two rounds, tucked the pistol into his holster, and drew his second gun from his coat pocket. At close range and blinded by the rain, he methodically fired every time he glimpsed movement. Torches fizzled, landing in the puddles. Rifles and carbines thudded in the dirt.

Willem was busy shoving shells into his carbine when Joanna brushed past him. He tried to catch her but she tore free.

“No,” she snapped. “Not again!” She carried her black bag and darted out onto the porch. A bullet smacked the wall a few inches from her head. Abram leaned against the wall, firing his pistol with one hand and trying to stanch the flow of blood from a painful wound in the fleshy part of his thigh. He started to protest, but Joanna told him to shut up and went to work.

Whiskey courage ran shallow that night. The men at the rear of the lunch mob had taken off at the first gunshot. The others in the forefront held long enough to empty their weapons, but as their friends and neighbors began to drop, and Tom Sandcrane, seemingly impervious to harm, advanced through the downpour, his gun blazing, the unruly mob lost its collective stomach for the confrontation. They broke and ran, disappearing into the night as quickly as they had materialized, leaving behind seven of their number either wounded or dead.

Tom pressed on through the rain, his gun centered on a silhouette in the storm. John Iron Hail tossed his rifle aside.

“I never fired a shot. Jerel started it, on Allyn Benedict's orders. Then he took off with the others.” John indicated his weapon in the mud. “The chamber's full and the barrel's cold, Tom. You gotta believe me.”

“If I didn't, you'd be dead,” Tom snarled. “The killing isn't over yet. Make yourself scarce.”

John did not need to be told twice.

Tom heard another moan of agony and spied Little Ned Scalp Shirt cradling Luthor White Bear's head in his lap.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so help me I am.” The youth looked up at Sandcrane standing over him. “I shot him in the back. It was an accident. Everyone just started blasting away, and I joined in. I couldn't see a damn thing. He must have stepped in front of me. Papa! I never meant to.”

Ned Scalp Shirt sat close by, his left knee shot through. He crawled through the mud toward his son, who was unhurt save for his stricken soul. “You young fool, what is this? Oh, no. God, no!”

Tom knelt by Luthor, removed his hat, and shielded the older man's face. Luthor opened his eyes, and a look of recognition lit-his pained expression. He motioned for Tom to lean forward, and the younger man complied.