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SERGEANT NATHAN MCPHERSON stood to attention as Major Parish marched toward him across the dusty corral. Parish clipped his boot heels together, coming to attention crisply, but he avoided his eyes.
“I have signed the orders,” Parish said in brisk, military tones while saluting. He handed out the scrolled document.
With a returning salute, Nathan took the document. “By the order of Major Parish, on this day, April 7, 1875, we are to execute Clam Maxwell, Jack Town and Abe Mountain for gun-running, their deaths by firing squad.”
Parish saluted. He swiveled on his heel and marched to the side. Nathan turned to the prisoners. Ten miles out of Fort Riley in a windswept corral, the three prisoners stood. Thick ropes bound their arms and legs to firing-posts, and their chests were bared for the bullets that would end their lives. Nathan marched ten yards to stand in front of the first prisoner.
“Clam Maxwell, do you have any last words?” he said.
Clam’s eyes were wide and protruding. His grime-lined face masked the patchwork of scars his lengthy career had earned him. Clam spat on the ground and then licked his lips and held his chin held aloft. In relief that Clam hadn’t spat at him, Nathan nodded.
“All right, no last words. Do you want the blindfold?”
Clam sneered, revealing a wide expanse of yellow teeth. Then, with the barest movement, Clam nodded. Nathan waved for Trooper Drake to complete his request and marched to the next prisoner.
“Jack Town, do you have any last words?”
Jack snuffled and rubbed his dribbling nose on his shoulder. The effort didn’t stop the wetness running over his mouth.
“There’s no point,” he said between wheezes. “I don’t reckon you’ll want to hear from the likes of me.”
Nathan shook his head. “You’re wrong. A condemned man can say whatever he wants to say.”
So Jack did. Despite hearing several choice and physically impossible actions Nathan could do to himself, which he noted for future use on errant recruits, Nathan maintained a fixed smile. When a burst of violent coughing ended Jack’s tirade, Nathan nodded.
“Thank you kindly. Do you want the blindfold?”
Jack spat on Nathan’s boots, but then his shoulders slumped and he nodded. As Drake blindfolded Jack, Nathan marched to the last prisoner. Although Nathan was of average height, he faced the center of Abe Mountain’s chest.
Even though Abe was tied, with three times the bonds of the other well-secured prisoners, a flurry of alarm shook in the pit of Nathan’s stomach while he was within this man’s substantial reach. Two weeks ago, they’d captured Abe.
They’d used twelve men to hold him down. Afterward, every man had bruises from head to foot and they’d regretted that they hadn’t brought more men. To preserve dignity, Nathan stepped back three paces.
“Abe Mountain, do you have any last words?”
Although his voice was robust enough to holler orders across a fort, whenever Nathan spoke to Abe his voice sounded light and airy. He felt as if he were talking to a giant redwood.
Just as Nathan decided that Abe wouldn’t acknowledge him, his vast, bristling red beard and shaggy shock of hair dropped down. Inch by inch the head descended until the piercing blue eyes were on him.
Nathan smiled – he’d discovered something about Abe. Whenever possible, he acted slowly to lull people into thinking he always moved slowly. This trick had fooled many people as, when he wanted to, Abe could move with a speed that defied belief.
“I have something to say,” Abe boomed. “I’m holding you responsible for my arrest. You’ll regret your actions, as will everyone who ever crossed me. The time has come to right wrongs.”
Nathan nodded. He’d received the three standard forms of last words when prisoners faced death: surly silence, abuse and threats.
“Thank you for the warning. Do you want the blindfold?”
Abe regarded the barren wilderness. “When death catches me, it’ll have to sneak up on me when my eyes are closed or I’m not looking. Otherwise it couldn’t get the better of me.”
“All right,” Nathan said.
Many prisoners couldn’t admit they needed help at the end. This obtuse way of asking for a blindfold wasn’t unusual. He gestured to Drake to bring the blindfold, but Abe chuckled, the sound like boulders thundering in a landslide.
“So I won’t need the blindfold. Death won’t catch me today. Not when I can look straight at it.”
Nathan shrugged. He came to attention, marched to the side and did an abrupt right turn.
“Burial duty, report at the double,” he called.
The burial duty quick marched into the corral, dragging behind them the burial cart on which they’d move the dead men. They stood beside the line of firing-posts and to Nathan’s orders, removed their hats and stood at ease with their heads bowed.
Nathan marched ten paces, did another right turn and then marched until he stood beside his firing duty. He counted to ten.
“Firing duty, present arms,” he said.
Rifles and hands clapped together.
“Ready,” Drake said.
Nathan exchanged salutes with Drake, unsheathed his sword and raised it high above his head.
“Firing duty, take aim.”
His firing duty thrust one leg forward and swung their rifles up, aiming two at each prisoner.
“All ready,” Drake said.
“Firing duty—”
One man screeched and staggered back a pace, breaking the line. Nathan advanced a long pace to command him to get back in line, but then the rest of men moved back a pace, too. A deep crunching sounded behind Nathan.
He turned around. With his huge legs set wide apart, Abe had ripped the firing-post from the ground. Nathan tried to order his men to fire, but his own surprise paralyzed his throat and he just croaked indistinctly while he waved his sword in a vague circle.
With the post still attached to his back Abe bent over and swung it in an arc, scything through the equally surprised burial duty. When the post splintered in two over the third man’s head, Abe threw it away, ripping away his bonds in a shower of rope.
Then, with a lunge of his thick arm, he hit the last member of the burial duty in the stomach. The man flew backward to wind around Jack’s firing-post. As if this was the final proof Nathan needed that this wasn’t a nightmare, he ordered his firing duty to open fire. The men took aim, lowered their guns and then took aim again.
“Fire,” Nathan said again.
“They might hit our own men,” Major Parish said, stepping forward.
“Just do it, but aim well!”
Rifles swung toward Abe and gunfire ripped across the corral, arcing through the two prisoners who were still tied to their posts, but when the gunfire reached Abe, Abe hurled himself behind the burial cart.
The firing duty kneeled and trained their guns on the cart, waiting for Abe to emerge, but two great clawing hams of hands appeared from behind the cart and dragged two of the pole-axed burial duty away. Abe tossed the men on to their fronts and when he rose to his feet, he had a gun in both hands.
Gunshots blasted across the corral. In a ripple of sudden movement, Mayor Parish and then the firing duty stumbled back with their chests pitted red. Then Abe turned to Nathan. Nathan cried out as a gunshot clipped the sword from his hand.
The gunshots echoed away to nothing, leaving the body-strewn corral shrouded in eerie quiet. While Abe hurled the cart aside and stormed toward him, Nathan fell to his knees and scrambled for one of his men’s rifles.
His hand slapped on a weapon, but pain sliced through it. The gunshot, which had torn his sword away, had ripped clean through his palm. He tried to force his shaking fingers around the rifle, but his fingers wouldn’t move. A vast shadow blotted out the sun, as Abe loomed over him, his guns held high, a smile breaking his great shaggy beard.
“Like I promised, death will need to catch me unawares, and your men were nowhere near sneaky enough,” Abe boomed.
“You promised to hold me responsible for your arrest,” Nathan babbled. “You had no reason to kill my men.”
The sound of boulders crunching filled Nathan’s mind as Abe chuckled.
“I’ll take those for your last words. Do you want a blindfold?”
Nathan shook his head and Abe’s two guns swung toward him.