FRANK AND THE OTHERS knelt over Crockett. He’d died so fast. So much blood. It was everywhere, all over the dirt and stones and weeds. All over Frank’s hands and arms and chest, still hot. His face. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tasted it, red-metallic on his lips.
His muscles quaked over his bones. His veins felt full of blasting powder. He wanted to jump down the face of the spur and bolt across the field and smash through that machine-gun bunker like a human ram, killing every man inside. He wanted to show them what hands that worked a coalface twelve hours per day could do, how he could rip their shoulders from their sockets and crush their throats like soup cans, twist their skulls from their necks and stomp their noses flat. He was every inch more man than them, and yet that was just what they wanted from him. Such a display. So they could shoot him dead in that field, a train of gunfire driven straight through his heart.
The others looked ashen, their lips colorless. Like men coming down with a sickness. Hot fear splintering through their veins, running amok. One of them shook his head. “I never thought it would be Crock. Him out of everyone.”
Neither had Frank. But he knew Crock would’ve scoffed at that notion. The fuck it won’t. Frank looked at the others. Their blanched faces and huddled shoulders. The spirit flying out of them. The fight. If Crockett could be killed, they thought, anyone could. That idea could spread like a contagion through the ranks.
Frank shook his head. He couldn’t let that be Crock’s legacy.
He said it straight at first, without song: “Davy Crockett’s spirit has arisen from the grave.” He looked to the men around him, nodding the words into them, putting them to the tune, meeting each man’s eyes until his voice joined in …
Davy Crockett has arisen from the grave,
Devil Dog is he in an army of the brave,
Davy Crockett has arisen from the grave,
And he’s got him a Gatling gun!
As they sang, Frank took the only paper he had in his pocket—one of the Presidential leaflets—and unfolded it on his knee, turning it over to the blank side. He found the nub of a weigh pencil buried among the pocket lint and tin scrip and jammed it into a cartridge case to write with.
When he finished, he refolded the leaflet and slipped it into the bib pocket of Crockett’s overalls, leaving one corner dog-eared over the hem—a message to ride down with the body. Around him now, the hillside was taking up the song.
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! The Rednecks are march-ing on!
One of the ammo boys handed Frank a fresh magazine. One hundred rounds. Staying low, Frank reached up and fit the clip into the receiver. The sun was getting low, the hills turning gold.
He began to crank the firing handle of the gun.