Chapter Thirty-six
Clark’s Raiders gallop out of the hemp fields howling like demons, ride up to the main house, and throw lighted torches onto the roof. When Mrs. Hulett tries to escape the flames, they shoot her and leave her dead on the veranda. They capture the old men—not worth much, but worth taking alive. They ride down Jane’s daughters, throw them to the ground, and tie their hands behind their backs.
As Teddy stands in the middle of the yard screaming in terror, they break into two groups and ride around him. He’s too little to go anywhere, and they have their orders. You’re not to harm a hair on the little brat’s head, Clark has told them. He comes up with one scratch, and—Clark rarely needs to finish his sentences these days.
Clark rides past the main house, stops, pulls back on the reins, and forces his horse to rear up on its hind legs. The red light of the sunset turns his hair to bronze and for an instant he looks like a monument to the violence that is tearing Kansas apart. “There’s the clinic,” he tells Deacon, pointing to the last unpainted cabin in the row. “There’s where you’ll find your wife.”
Deacon opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Are you deaf? I just said that’s the clinic.” Clark grabs a lighted torch from one of his men and thrusts it into Deacon’s hand. “Burn it down. Smoke them out.” Deacon takes the torch, holds it for a few seconds, then drops it.
“You’re a pitiable excuse for a man.” Clark grabs another torch. With a high, yipping yell, he gallops up to the clinic and tosses it onto the thatched roof. “Come out, you abolitionist bastards!” he yells. He rides back to Deacon. “Take aim, man. This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Reassured, Deacon recovers his senses, pulls out his pistols, and points them at the door of the clinic. Smoke is billowing from the windows and flames are consuming the thatch. Deacon inhales burning grass and wood and coughs on the ashes.
Come out, you stubborn bitch! he thinks. Don’t burn to death in there!
But it is Jane, not Carrie, who runs out of the door screaming for her children. William runs after her, throws himself on her, and tries to shield her body with his. Jane trips and falls to the ground, and William falls with her.
Perfect targets, Deacon thinks, and discharges one of the pistols. He has never been an especially good shot, but this time luck is with him. He hears William yell, and sees him grab at his leg. Only lamed. Not dead. Too bad. But Deacon has shot him. He looks around for Clark, wants him to see this moment and approve it, but Clark has gone off somewhere.
A few seconds ago, Deacon would have been terrified to discover he was alone, but his stepbrother is wounded and unarmed, and what can a wounded, unarmed man do against a man with loaded pistols and a knife?
The female slave William has been shielding gets up and begins to run toward the main house. Deacon lets her go. Clark’s men will catch her. Kicking his horse into a slow walk, he rides toward William to finish him off.
He is just taking aim when Carrie charges out of the burning clinic holding a double-barreled shotgun. Deacon sees her point the gun at him.
“Don’t!” he yells, but his plea is drowned out by the sound of the shotgun going off. The next thing he knows he is flying through the air, knocked off his horse with his chest on fire. The pain is terrible and the fall to the ground seems to take an extraordinarily long time. When he finally hits the dirt, he screams and thrashes like a beached fish.
Looking up, he sees Carrie bending over him. She puts the shotgun to his head.
“Don’t kill me,” he begs.
“Why not?” she says.