Chapter 18

The desert air was as motionless as a closed room. Brush around us stood so still the dark plants didn’t seem real. I had to pinch my arm to feel alive.

Morning gray in the East was broken only by saguaro cactus that looked like men standing sentinel.

Ryan and I pressed south. My footsteps sounded unfamiliar, a crunch of gravel and sand different than the rich loam of the Dakota Territory. The grass and brush in the morning gray felt as if I had traveled to the moon.

Birds welcomed the morning, tired and vague, as if scratching out an existence was so exhausting that singing was a chore. Or perhaps that was my imagination. I would have to return when my attitude had changed, probably when the promise of gunplay was over. The desert could be beautiful.

The sky took on a shade of purple and pink, and instead of cactus, low buildings and three towers broke the eastern horizon. If I were to build a small village for a child with haphazard structures made of blocks strewn across the field of play, I would imagine the view something like what lay before us.

“I’ll keep going.” I held out my hand to him. “Be careful, Ryan.”

He took my hand and shook it in his big grasp.

“And Ryan,” I said, taking a step back. “You’ve proven yourself, time and again. I was wrong about you. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

He gave a nervous laugh. “I’m a good guy.”

“Remember, go in when you hear the sound of shooting. And meet back here if you run into much resistance.”

Ryan reached across his belt and pulled a Bowie knife. “You might need this.”

The thought of stabbing a man was intolerable. Odd. As if shooting him made him less dead.

“No thanks, Ryan. I’ll use this.” I tapped the revolvers. “And I’ve already a knife.” I thought of the blade in my boot.

He slid the knife into its scabbard. Without another word, he walked toward the low silhouettes as if Sunday had arrived and he just stepped out of church.

Gunfire ripped through the morning calm.

I ducked, trying to calm my heart.

The sound was distant. Scott fought on the other side of these buildings. God, keep him safe.

I ran southeast, Smith and Wesson in hand. The first building loomed above me, a charcoal shadow.

Closer in, I could make out shapes of rain barrels under gutters and sagebrush piled in corners. Windows were high and glassless, blocked by bars.

The smell of filthy humans settled like a mist in the morning air.

I peered around the edge of the building toward the center of the compound. Buildings encircled a dry fountain, the front doors all facing toward the middle. This resembled something of Running Deer’s map.

This end of the small village wasn’t built quite like the side the others attacked, more circular here than the straight streets to the east.

Going in blind. Reckless, Anderson. Completely reckless. But the girls, and justice, waited. And in a few hours, with light, would come enemy reinforcements to take the girls further south and possibly out of our reach. Forever.

I kept my hands free of weapons but ready to draw if needed.

The gunfire was distant. The boys must be fighting maybe half a mile or even a mile away.

I watched for motion. Not a soul could be seen, but I could feel them. These buildings weren’t empty. Did they hear the fighting? Would they run to support the growing volley of shots? Or were they drunk?

I stepped onto the first ramp and reached for the door. My courage waned.

Pull my gun? Or leave it?

I opened the door as if I had every right to be there.

The smell of dust and old wood assaulted my senses. My vision was already adjusted to the dark, and I saw a large room with nothing inside. I quickly closed the door and started for the next building.

Before opening the next door, movement across the circle caught my eye. I stood still.

Two men started in the direction of the gunfire, but they seemed unsteady on their feet.

The door near me opened and five men rushed out, all heavily armed and steady on their feet. I pressed my back against the wall as they sprinted down the lane that cut the circle’s center. They followed the road between two low buildings and out of view.

Marshal Hill and the others were doing their job. Keep doing mine.

Before I could start again, another movement across the way caught my attention. This time I made out Ryan’s size. I motioned and he lifted his shotgun, then lowered the barrel. He faced a nearby door and went in.

Keep going, Anderson.

My knees knocked as I kept moving.

I reached for the door to the building just vacated by the men, using my left hand.

Cans and broken bottles littered the floor. Bedrolls lined the walls—five, I noted after a quick count.

Three more buildings, and I counted nine more bedrolls. From the firing and the bedrolls, I was sure there were far more than two dozen men.

How long would I go undetected?

I neared the road when a flash and thunder sounded from inside a building across the way. I pulled my gun, and the door slowly opened. A man stepped out, his face pointed to the sky, eyes glassy. I held my fire.

He took another step forward out from under the porch covering.

Blood covered his chest.

He fell face-first in the dust.

Ryan stepped out of the shadowy interior and stepped over the body. “He almost got me.”

I looked around. Nothing else moved.

“Good work. Can you clear that last building in this circle? I’ll keep going. I saw a church to the right. You take the buildings on the left when you’re done.” I pointed down the lane.

He opened his shotgun, pulled out a smoking shell, and let it fall. Reaching to his bandoleer, he pulled out another and thrust it into the gun. With a snap, he closed the barrel. “I’m going to find Rachel.”

“I know. Let’s go.”

I left the circle of buildings and hurried down the lane toward streets bordered with single-story adobe huts. In a large open space to the right, the church loomed like a lighthouse over the desert.

I stopped behind a barrel. The narrow church’s bell tower, topped with a broken cross, was circled by a platform. Three men with rifles kept up a heavy fire toward the opposite direction.

From their vantage point, Scott and the others had to be easy targets.

I lifted my revolver but knew the tower was too high for accuracy.

I whispered a thankful prayer their backs were to me. Then I charged the closed church doors.

Many a foot had packed the hard ground I now ran. I doubted men such as these came to pray. The building with the broken cross was used for other reasons, and I was about to find out what.

I lowered my shoulder to crash into the paneled wood. The instant before hitting, I wondered if the door was barred from the other side.

The door smashed open with a loud crack. Sickening smells of alcohol and vomit hit me like a train. If it weren’t for threat of death, I would cover my face. Instead I stepped inside, pointing the Smith and Wesson everywhere I looked.

Pink light flooded through stained-glass windows through the long room. Benches may have created rows at one time, but now they were strewn like logs after a storm. Cans, dirty rags, broken bottles, the carcass of a dog, books filled with bullet holes, and rotting trash I couldn’t identify with a quick glance saturated the church. To my left was a closed door. To the right a spiral staircase, broken.

The far end of the church was too dark to see.

I pressed on, stepping over the charred remains of a Bible and smashed candles. My boot landed close to a crumpled bedroll.

Shots rang out from above and ahead, the men on the tower still trying to kill my friends. The thought propelled me forward.

The front of the church came into view. An opening to one side revealed another spiral staircase that probably led to the tower. I pointed my gun at the other side. The lectern was broken in half.

Another step forward and I paused.

The altar came into view.

Amid the rubble was a human form.

Another gazing sweep around me, I started forward.

Her knotted hair was plastered to her face, and her dress was in tatters. Mouth open, eyes glazed.

Mrs. Johnston.

They had used and killed their least valuable woman.

I gulped air, despite the fetid smells. These men weren’t human.

My gun rattled in my hands.

A vision of Anna passed through my mind. Was her fate similar? My heart brought first a choking cry, and then the same feelings at the death of my own mother.

And now Mrs. Johnston.

For every second that passed a new thought filled my mind, like a box opening. The first that opened was the love of Anna, the innocence of Beth, and how I wasn’t able to protect either.

I questioned my own survival in that moment. I stood in the center of a church on the edge of a gun battle. A stray bullet could find me. But wild shots weren’t my only worry. I was a marked man.

Another second went by. The fastest gun in the Dakota Territory was south of the border, pitting himself against outlaws who used guns to kill, raid, and kidnap.

The last box opened, and I saw a man in the center of a discarded Catholic sanctuary, hat with a wide brim tilted down as he looked at the corpse of a good woman. His duster looked weighted down with extra shells in the pockets. He was lean, his cheeks gaunt from a long ride, skin dark from birth but darker from the sun. His eyes were as haunting as a wolf’s eyes.

He had the look of a killer.

He’d lived a clean life, as honest as he could, attending Sunday meetings and helping others when he was able. He wanted nothing more than peace.

But an anger swelled inside him that flowed red-hot from his fingertips.

He was witness. He was judge. He was jury. They were guilty of crimes unspeakable.

My hands steadied. I held the Smith and Wesson as motionless as a stone.

I lifted my head and turned to a sound to my right. A man rose to his elbows from the debris, pushing an old hat from his face. He managed to stand. He weaved for a moment then looked at me. I stared back.

His gaze turned to the rifle on a bench, inches from his fingers.

I gave the slightest shake of my head.

He went for the gun.

My Smith and Wesson’s blast, so familiar to my ears, sounded like thunder in the church.

He fell to his side.

I cocked the hammer back but didn’t need a second shot.

Firing from overhead stopped.

Three long strides, and I stopped beside Mrs. Johnston. “I’m sorry.” I eyed the opening to the tower staircase. “I’ll save Anna and Beth.”

Holding my gun ready, I marched to the opening and looked up. Each stair stretched from a vertical center beam to the tower wall, spiraling, so the only view was the bottom of the staircase as it wound its way up.

One step at a time I climbed, circling higher and higher.

I heard arguing coming from above now, sure they were preparing for someone to attack them from behind, but I didn’t care. Some men would keep hurting people, no matter the discipline. Death was the only way to exact justice and end the horror.

Even now, I justified my actions to myself.

Silence from above didn’t slow my ascent. Higher and higher, until the staircase narrowed to shoulder width. I couldn’t duck to the right or left. There was no way to miss me here. I kept on.

Rounding the last turn, an archway let to the outside. A few steps higher and morning light shone in my eyes, but I forced them open.

I burst onto the tower’s top.

And there the men waited, three shadows against the bright gleam, barely visible behind cover, their rifles pointed at me.

They should by rights have killed me.

But I had my gun drawn. And the world moved slowly around me, so slowly, my three shots sounded as one.

Two men fell, while the last grasped his neck and stumbled forward.

I fired again.

Shielding my eyes, I looked down. Toward the sunrise, rifle fire from enemies on rooftops kept Scott and the men trapped.

Shots to the left kept Ryan pinned as well.

I dropped all but one cartridge from the chamber and the spent shells fell to the stone floor with a clatter. Should I try to fight from here, using their rifles?

If I did, I’d be trapped.

As I descended, I reached into my pockets and pulled out a handful of bullets. I shoved them home then clamped the cylinder shut.

Every step I took down the staircase sent sparks through my body, adding heat to the inferno that raged through my very essence. My soul propelled my body on, setting fire to every footprint, splitting the air just before I passed through.

At the bottom of the steps four men stood in a semicircle, as if they’d just roused. Two rubbed their heads, and the others looked wobbly on their feet.

Did I let them draw? Did they all face me as I gunned them down, these men who slept after their night of reverie?

That I was the hands of justice or the grim reaper I gave just a fleeting thought.

The gun’s metal burned my skin as I reloaded. Pain. A welcome feeling.

I crossed the church and stepped into the sunlight.

Beyond the lane, Ryan’s shotgun blasted at three men behind barrels. They ducked as the wood splintered and exploded. He fired again, the blast lifting a man from the ground and throwing him back. Ryan leapt over a broken wheel, shotgun held high like a club, and he charged the remaining two men.

They rose as one and fired, both quick shots. One flew high, and the other made Ryan’s left shoulder jerk back but didn’t slow him.

The two turned and sprinted toward their fellows in the fight against Marshal Hill.

I fired at both, nearly thirty yards. The first crumpled in the dust. The second man’s head whipped back and his feet flew high before slamming into the ground. They didn’t move.

Ryan slowed and walked toward me.

I reached up and tugged at the hole in his sleeve, peering inside. A little blood.

He tried to turn his thick neck enough to see the wound but couldn’t.

“You’re okay.” I reloaded. “They killed Mrs. Johnston.”

Even now, his face was unreadable but for a deep frown and a narrowing of his eyes.

Ryan’s chest heaved, and I heard his gasps over the sound of gunfire. After a moment, he snapped open his shotgun and flung the spent cartridges toward the church.

He reloaded.

His every breath came as a growl.

The Sioux called me Miya Ca, or Prairie Wolf. My eyes. But more than just a chance physical characteristic, I felt a bloodlust rush through my veins. I’d just killed, and my anger and hatred fueled a hunger for more.

Forgiveness and justice were washed away in the river of pulsing blood. I was an animal. A wolf.

Visions of the battle in the Badlands washed over me. I’d flanked outlaws and gunned them down. My first kills.

Not my last.

Pulling myself out of the Dakota canyons and into the Mexican village, I surveyed the buildings where my friends were locked in a struggle of life and death. Even though there was no wind, I felt fury blow around me like a gale.

I pointed to the left of the lane with my gun. I started toward the right, toward the heaviest gunfire.

Between two walls ran a narrow gangplank. Four men fired to the East, a small adobe barrier between them and Marshal Hill.

But no barrier between them and their deaths from behind.

As they toppled from their posts to the ground and seeped their blood into the desert, I started down the narrow passage.

The world around me moved slowly as I walked past their bodies. Flies buzzed over the forms, as if they’d kept hidden in pockets, aware this moment would come.

I had given them as much a chance as Mrs. Johnston. I reloaded.

Pull your gun. Defend yourself. And let God decide who lives and who dies.

I squeezed between the two buildings and found myself on a wide boardwalk, and the street that passed in front of me bordered the desert.

To my immediate right along the boardwalk tipped wagons, bags of flour, crates and barrels lined the street. Rifles thrust through the cover and fired at invisible targets in the desert. I didn’t take time to count the men in view before I glanced to the left and saw the mirror image stretched along the street.

Retreat would have been an option. Mercy as well. But their evil had to be stopped.

And one more bullet could kill any of my friends.

I was center and parallel to the line of men, like a keystone in a poorly built arch. The man to my immediate right must have seen I wasn’t one of them. He brought his rifle to bear.

The black muzzle drew a straight line to my heart and threatened to split me in two.

I was a fraction faster.

The man beside him turned to see his fellow outlaw fall. He glanced at me. Before he had a chance to lift his rifle, he exploded into fire.

My Smith and Wesson did its work.

I heard a yell.

I spun.

To my left, they’d noticed me.

I fired, not chancing precise hits, but blasting each man in the chest—one shot, two, and a third man fell.

Two bullets left in the Smith and Wesson. But I needed to fire in the opposite direction. I spun my whole body, and as I did I pulled the Colt with my left hand.

Both arms extended, I blasted away, standing like a star and using my peripheral vision. A man screamed and grasped his belly. The man behind him was aiming at me. I dropped him. Thankfully, the single action was in my left hand. My weak thumb wouldn’t pull back the hammer without error. My right hand, however, was strong, the thumb powerful enough to pull the hammer and dispense death.

My Smith and Wesson dry-clicked, so I dropped to a knee and swept the Colt across my body and fired, finishing off the last rounds, killing the last man.

Vapors hung in the air around me like a death shroud. Bodies made a line from right to left. I’d killed them all.

Overhead, the thatched awning deadened the whistling guns.

I cracked the Smith and Wesson in half and let the cartridges drop, then slipped in another six fresh shells. Snapping the Colt’s chamber to the side, I reloaded my second revolver.

One step back, and another. I lifted my arms and pointed both guns high, my duster loose and rustling in the hot wind. I kept walking backward until I broke from the roof’s shadow. Every step back revealed more of the adobe front protecting the outlaws on the building’s roof.

Did they expect death from where it came? I only saw their heads and rifles, but it was enough. I aimed to the right, fired. Then as I pulled back the hammer I sighted down the Colt and fired. Back and forth, dropping men just as they noticed me and tried to cheat death.

Sweat trickled in my face.

When the last man slumped forward and crashed through the awning, all fell silent but the ringing in my ears.

I kept my guns aimed high, arms spread wide.

Nothing moved.

Footsteps thumped behind me and I spun, guns ready.

Scott and Jackson slid to a halt, their hands held high.

Jackson’s face was as red as Scott’s hair. “Gah, have you ever—” He lifted his rifle over his left shoulder. “I must shake your hand. Never have I . . .” He opened his gloved hand and held it out to me.

I stared at it for a moment. “There’s still another building!” I pointed at the far end.

“No.” His grin was absurd. We were in the middle of a fight. “Running Deer.”

Scott bumped my arm. I shook my head and felt as if I woke from a nightmare. “Running Deer cleared the men from the building?”

Jackson extended the hand farther, the smile still plastered across his face. I holstered the Smith and Wesson and grasped his hand.

“Incredible. Incredible.” Jackson shook his head. “Honored to see it.” He snorted and wiped his nose. “No one will believe me.”

Scott tapped the Colt with his Winchester. “You never told me. Double action.” He looked behind me, surveying the bodies. “I don’t believe I’ll speak to you again.”

I rubbed my head to massage away the fog. “We’ve got to find Ryan. He was going to find the girls. There’s still more buildings back that way.”

Jackson’s stupid smirk finally hardened. “Where?”

I pointed down the way I’d come. “But we go together.”

Marshal Hill’s slow gait reminded me of a mule as he closed the distance over the lane and onto the boardwalk. “They aren’t all yours,” he said, pointing on either side of us. “These boys accounted for some too.”

“Marshal,” Jackson said, cutting him off. “Ryan’s going after the girls.”

His face looked grim. “Lead on.”

I started down the narrow alley.

“I’ll find Running Deer,” Marshal Hill said, and after taking a few breaths regained his strength as he marched off to the right.

Jackson on my left, Scott on my right, both gawked at the bodies that had fallen from the catwalk. They followed, their faces filled with a grim determination that mirrored my own focus.

At the building’s edge, Scott lifted his rifle, pressed his back against the wall and peered around the corner. “I don’t see a soul.”

“Let’s go.” I led them back toward the center cluster of structures.

Guns at the ready, we kept walking.

A lean-to on the right stretched from the stone building. Three bodies lay under the ragged shade—bodies I hadn’t put there.

These had arrows in their chests.

Jackson whistled. “Running Deer’s been here.”

Gunfire erupted ahead of us beyond a scattering of hovels, and I heard the blast of a shotgun.

Ryan had found the girls.