The sound of that voice was all it had taken to bring back the entire awful scene in Turner’s mind: the beaten body of Lysander Smith, the arrogant bastard who organized the lynching, the bent tree, the single shot. But instead of the numb despair that had overtaken him the first time, Turner was now overcome by something new. It was a pure, simple hatred. He wanted to kill the men who had killed Smith, kill them all, kill them any way he could. It was a new emotion in his heart, and it felt strange. But it was there, and he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. He felt like a coward for having hidden behind a corner of the house while they spoke to Charlotte, and wondered what he would have done in different circumstances.
He did not have long to wonder. Sometime in the night—midnight or later—the front door banged open. Turner and Charlotte woke with a start. Turner threw on some clothes and lit a lantern. In the front room, the one-armed man was sitting on the floor just inside the door, which he had not bothered to close. He held a pistol at Turner.
“Fix me a place to sleep,” he said. “And put my horse away. I need rest.” Turner lifted his lantern. The man’s face was scratched and he was dirty and sweaty, but he did not appear harmed otherwise. Through the open door he could see the horse, lathered, its reins tied to the hitching rail.
“Don’t worry,” said the man. “I ain’t being chased, not tonight anyway. Hurry up, I’m tired.” He showed no sign of recognizing Turner.
Charlotte had put on a dress and stood in the bedroom door, her hair down. She looked at the man and began to spread some quilts on the floor.
“We don’t have any extra pillows,” she said.
“That’s all right. I’ll use my boots.”
“Where’s your friend?”
“My friend met with misfortune,” the man said. “Lesson learned. Always travel with someone who makes a bigger target than you.”
He waved the pistol at Turner. “What are you waiting for? Brush down my horse and cool him off.”
Turner put on his boots and stepped out the door. “All right. I’ll put him in our barn.” He paused in the doorway. “What’s your name, anyway, sir?”
“My name is Mr. None-of-Your-Business, but you can just call me Fuck-You,” the man said. “Treat that horse good or there’ll be trouble.”
Turner stepped out, closing the door behind him, his mind racing. He untied the horse’s reins from the rail. The horse was too tired to fuss; it followed Turner to the barn, where he unsaddled it, brushed it down, and gave it a pail of water. The horse appeared to have gone through some rough brush, but otherwise it was unhurt.
He returned through the back door, took off his shoes, and lay on the bed. Charlotte lay beside him; he could tell she was awake. She started to whisper something, but he put his finger over her lips. They lay there, silent, for a few minutes, until the sound of snoring could be heard from the front room. Then he let himself out the back door as quietly as he could, his shoes in his hand.
He put on his shoes in the yard and walked through the darkness to Cabot’s house. He let himself in without knocking and made his way to Cabot’s bedroom. He shook his shoulder gently.
“It’s me,” he whispered to the startled Cabot. “Be quiet.”
Cabot wiped his face and tried to clear his eyes. In the dim light of his room he could see Turner pacing beside the bed, his big frame looming over him. The stars were bright and there was little moon. Turner leaned close.
“One of the men who killed Lysander Smith is sleeping on my front room floor,” he said. “And I mean to kill him.” He stuck out his jaw as if daring Cabot to disagree.
“Here and now?”
Turner paused. “No. This cannot be connected to Daybreak. Everyone in the county thinks we’re a Yankee town as it is.” He resumed pacing. “Something like this could get us burned out. No. It has to be done somewhere else, and on the quiet. Not even Charlotte can know. All right?”
“I don’t like the sound of this. Is that how this war is to be fought? Killings in the dark of night?”
“This isn’t war, my friend. This is a private killing. I’m sorry if it seems less honorable than a killing in broad daylight.”
Cabot considered, then decided. “All right.”
Turner reached out and patted his shoulder in the darkness.
“What are you thinking?” Cabot asked.
“This man is a stranger here, and he’s on the run. He’ll head south before daylight. We will be waiting for him down the road a ways. And no gunshots to attract attention.” He thought for a moment. “All right, I’ve got it. Meet me at the barn. Make no noise.” And then Turner was out the door, closing it softly behind him.
Cabot dressed in the dark, troubled but impelled by Turner’s urgency. So it had come to this. He had endured all the battles and humiliations of Kansas, he had traveled to Daybreak, all in the hope that there was a better way for mankind than strife and subjugation. He had wanted them to be a light unto nations, a sign that the human race was capable of overcoming history through intelligence and good will, and here he was preparing to ambush a total stranger in the dark of night. And what about Charlotte, alone in the cabin with this man? Who was not to say that harm might befall her?
No time to think about that now. Turner would not wait long, and whatever else he might think, Cabot did not want him to enter this fight alone.
In the barn, a tall black horse was sleeping in a stall, and Turner was waiting with a couple of axes and a thick loop of rope. He handed one of the axes to Cabot.
They walked out the back end of the barn and went south through the fields, circling behind Harp Webb’s empty house, until they reached the road. They followed it south until they reached the bluffs where the river bent back in toward the mountain. The road ran hard against the bluff along a narrow ledge of ground, with nothing between it and the river but a few cottonwood and sycamore trees and a little underbrush. Turner looked over the ground a while, then tied the rope around the base of one of the trees and laid it across the road. He gathered leaves from the roadside and covered the rope with them. Cabot watched but did not ask questions.
“In daylight this would be obvious,” Turner said when he had finished, keeping his voice low. “But our man won’t wait till then.”
He took the trailing end of the rope and led it off behind a boulder at the base of the bluff. He motioned Cabot over.
“I’ll be behind here,” he said. “You get behind one of those trees. When they reach this spot, I’ll snap the rope, and we’ll come at him from both sides.”
He disappeared into the shadow of the boulder without another word. Cabot crossed the road, looking for a pool of deep shade under one of the big trees, and picked out his spot. It was good. He could see a long way up the road, almost to Webb’s house. He squatted down to wait.
In the predawn darkness he listened to the sounds of the forest. He heard mice or chipmunks rustling in the undergrowth and once, possibly, the whoosh of an owl’s wings as it swooped down on something. He rested his shoulder against the trunk of the tree, hefting the axe. When his knees began to ache from squatting, he let one knee rest on the ground instead, and then shifted to the other one after a while. Something splashed into the river behind him; it sounded big, a beaver maybe, but he realized that all sounds seemed magnified in the silence. Could have been a mink or a muskrat.
He had to admit, it was a perfect spot for a bushwhacking. The horse would rear, the man would be thrown, and it would all be over in an instant. He hefted the axe. He’d gotten pretty good as a tree feller over the years, no expert to be sure, but good enough to keep pace with the rest of the men. Of course, a tree was not a moving target. Could he do it? He had no idea. What if it all went wrong? They would both be killed, then or later, no doubt about that.
It was barely daylight when they heard the sound of hoofbeats on the road. Cabot lifted himself onto the balls of his feet and waited.
The black gelding was coming along at a slow pace, its rider peering into the darkness ahead of him to see his way. When the horse reached the concealed rope, Turner yanked it up in a swift wave directly under its nose. The horse reared and let out a wild neigh, throwing the one-armed man neatly over the back of his saddle, then trotted down the road.
They ran out from their hiding places. The man had landed hard on his back in the middle of the road with a groaned curse. Turner swung his axe high over his head and brought it down, but the man was quick enough to put up his hand and duck his head. Instead of a clean hit through the neck, the blade caught him on the side of the hand and slid down his arm, peeling back the left side of his jaw.
The man reached for the pistol in his belt, but Turner stomped hard on his bloody hand, pinning it to his belly.
Cabot stood over him, hefting the axe, and in the instant he was about to swing he locked eyes with the man on the ground. The man’s expression was not one of hate or fear, but rather intense concentration, as if he were trying to remember a name or add numbers in his head. The surprising ordinariness of his look stopped Cabot for a moment; he wondered if he appeared the same, focused and thoughtful. Then the moment was over as the man jerked his hand free from Turner’s foot just as Turner struck him a second blow square to the side of the head. Cabot heard the thwack of the blade in the man’s skull as a spray of blood spattered his face.
That did the trick, he thought, and relaxed his grip on his axe.
To his surprise, the man rolled over and tried to rise. But with only one arm, he could not rise up and pull his pistol at the same time. He got to his knees, his head held low to avoid a sideways blow, but his position gave Turner time to pull his arm back and then, with a full swing, bring the axe down hard on the back of the man’s head. With a moan, the one-armed man fell face down in the road. Turner stepped to one side and swung one more time, cutting right through the neck bones. The man’s legs quivered for an instant and then stopped.
Turner stood in the road, panting. Cabot’s heartbeat drummed in his ears.
“Just like butchering a damn hog,” Turner said. He looked at his bloody axe and then at the man at his feet.
Cabot said nothing. He could no longer hear the sounds of the forest, just the blood rushing in his ears. He was sweating heavily. “I’m sorry,” he finally stammered. “I just couldn’t.…”
“That’s all right,” said Turner.
Cabot stepped up to the body of the one-armed man. “You’re sure this is him?”
“Oh yes.” Turner squatted beside the body and rolled it over. The man’s eyes were open and sightless, and his jaw hung slack. Part of his cheekbone was exposed, a shiny white, where Turner’s first blow had hit. “I didn’t get to see his face the time before, but this is him all right. I’d like to say something to him, but I don’t know what that would be.”
“What’s his name?” Cabot said.
Turner shrugged. “Don’t know. Man Who Killed Lysander Smith.” Bile rose in Cabot’s throat and tears welled up in his eyes, but he swallowed hard and blinked the tears away. There was more to be done.
“Well, let’s get this man out of here.” Turner looked around. “We can toss him in the river.”
“No,” Cabot said, his mind finally engaged. “He’ll get snagged somewhere. And even if he floats downstream, somebody will spot him at French Mills. Or Jewett, or Shelton’s Ford, or somewhere. We have to bury him.”
“You’re right,” Turner said. They looked around. Obviously they couldn’t take him back toward Daybreak or drag him up the bluff. Their gazes turned to Harp’s land across the river.
“That’ll work,” said Cabot. “The ground over there is soft. Let’s float him across, leave him somewhere, and then come back after supper.”
They picked up the corpse and carried it to the river. It was heavy and clumsy to maneuver, and the two men struggled to get it into the water. But it floated easily; they were able to pull it across with little difficulty. By the time they reached the other side, the gray light of dawn was giving way to a filtered yellow. They dragged the body up the bank and into the flat scrubland.
“This would make a fine farm,” Cabot said as they dragged the body in. “Too much work for Harp, though.”
About forty feet into the woods, they decided they had gone far enough and laid the body under a big cedar tree. “Don’t guess we need to mark the spot,” Turner said.
They waded back across the river and scattered dirt over the bloody spot in the road. “Better rinse off that axe,” Cabot said. Turner took it to the river’s edge and immersed the head. By now it was almost full daylight, and they could see themselves better, wet and bespattered like a pair of hunting dogs fresh from bringing down a deer. “Am I as big a mess as you are?” Turner said.
“A bigger one, I expect.”
“We’re pretty bad, then. We better get cleaned up.”
They left the axes behind one of the cottonwood trees and looped up the rope, then walked home in silence. What was there to say? They had just killed a man. No conversation seemed to measure up. Their pants and shoes were wet; they squeaked as they walked. Turner slipped into his house quietly; Cabot thought he had made it home without meeting anyone, but just before he reached his door, Emile Mercadier came around the corner of his house, back from an early morning trip to the woods no doubt.
“What happened to you?” Mercadier said.
“Slipped and fell in the river,” Cabot said, ducking his head and turning away. Emile gave him a look but said nothing. The weight of the deed—and the need to keep it secret—was heavy on him. He wasn’t sure how long he could go without telling someone. He tried to tell himself that this was war now, and war would call him to tasks he had not imagined before; but it felt a lot more like simple murder.
Inside his house, Turner changed out of his wet clothes and dropped them into the washtub out back. He could feel Charlotte’s eyes on him and resented her gaze, but at the same time was grateful for her silence. The world seemed to be moving at a faster speed than he was.
They had been in the cornfields for two hours before Turner remembered the man’s horse, which had run off at the first moment of the attack; and as if thought could spawn existence, he looked up from his hoeing and there it was, coming up the valley at a slow, aimless walk, the empty stirrups flapping gently as it walked. The other men in the fields caught his gaze and straightened up to watch it.
“Looks like somebody’s got thrown,” said Wilson, in the row of corn next to him.
Cabot was closest to the road. He stepped in front of the horse, which had lost most of its spunk since morning, and took its bridle in his hand. The horse made no effort to get away. Cabot patted its neck and led it to the fence.
“What do you think, Turner?” Wilson said. Turner said nothing. He didn’t know what to think. He wanted the horse to disappear. “What do you think?” Wilson repeated, and Turner looked around. The men were all looking at him, and he realized that they were waiting for him to give them guidance.
“You’re probably right,” he said to Wilson. “Probably threw somebody. Let’s tie it to the fence rail. The owner will be along soon.”
By lunchtime, no rider had appeared. “I think we ought to unsaddle it and put it in the barn,” Cabot said to the group. He led the horse to the barn.
“Maybe we ought to walk down the road a ways, see if the fellow got hurt,” Schnack said.
Turner tried to think of what to say, but his mind couldn’t seem to work fast enough. “Good idea,” Cabot called out over his shoulder. “Turner and I’ll walk down and take a look.”
Turner was surprised at how quick Cabot’s mind was working. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said once they were out of earshot.
“It’s all right,” Cabot said. “It’ll do us good to see the place in daylight anyway.”
They had reached the place in the road. The dirt they had scattered had concealed most of the blood, but even a casual eye could see that something had happened there. Flies had gathered on certain spots, which though covered with dirt, still had a disturbed look.
“Not much to do about it now,” Cabot said. “It’ll be dry by the end of the day.”
They walked on, another hundred yards or so, and then returned to the colony.
“No sign of anybody,” Cabot said to the rest of the men. “I tell you what,” Schnack said. “I think some fellow’s got himself bushwhacked and the horse just run off.”
“Didn’t hear any shots,” said Wilson.
“Hell, he could have got bushwhacked ten miles down the road, or day before yesterday,” said Schnack. “I sure don’t recognize that horse. It’s a fine one, though.”
“If I was to bushwhack somebody, I’d make sure I caught their horse,” Wilson said. “Plenty of money in a horse like that.”
“I don’t want to hear this kind of talk,” Turner said. “Bushwhacking and killing.” He walked away from the group and returned to his row of corn. He hoed and hoed, chopping up the weeds, focusing his entire self on the next weed, the next tuft of grass. The men could stand and palaver all day if they wanted.
He reached the end of his row and started up the next. A few feet down it, he stopped and looked up. The men, shamed by his action, had all returned to work. Turner walked through the rows to Wilson.
“Saddle that horse and run it on up the road,” he said. “Take it across the river so it won’t come back. If anybody comes along and sees it in our barn, they’ll think we’re the ones who bushwhacked its rider. And then there will be hell to pay from somebody. Rebels, Federals, somebody, you can bet on it.” He looked around. All the men had gathered around him.
“He’s right,” said Schnack. “That there horse is bad luck for sure.”
“Do it now,” Turner told Wilson. “And if it turns out it’s just a rider got thrown, well, his horse went thataway. He can chase it to the next county as far as I’m concerned.”
They heard the bell ringing for lunch. Turner was glad. He was hungry.