This is really fucking long. Don't read it unless you've got spare time to burn.
49.
Allen Paisley was praying. Not very loudly, his voice scarcely higher than a whisper, he was asking God why He had put him in such a situation. Outlaw had torn him from the path of righteousness with all the ease of a man swatting a pesky fly. And even now he and his deputy were probably having a good laugh at his expense.
The doctor too…
Paisley had never trusted Joseph Frost. Frost who had served in the Army of Northern Virginia, fighting for the slave powers. Frost whose father had occasionally ridden with the local regulators, looking for escaped slaves. Frost who palled around with Wyatt fucking Outlaw. His reasons for disliking Frost probably wouldn’t have been entirely out of place in the mind of…say, Lily Fowler, but Paisley was not aware of this. Instead he sat quietly on the swaying back of his horse, Holt some distance behind him, Colt Navy aimed steadily at the back of the reverend’s head.
“I expect you’re in on it too.” He said finally, ceasing his prayers, deciding that God was on other business at the moment.
“In on what?” Holt asked warily. Holt seemed to have had a more visceral reaction to Paisley’s guilt than Outlaw or even the brothers who had found Paisley in the first place. Outlaw hadn’t been surprised, he had just accepted Paisley’s guilt with the weariness of a man climbing a hill he’d been up a thousand times before. Holt seemed angry instead. Paisley supposed that the hulking deputy had held hopes for his innocence…only to be proven wrong. And that had upset him.
“Framing me.” Holt said nothing for a few moments.
“You honestly believe anyone gonna think that you telling the truth reverend?” He asked pointedly. Paisley looked down at the manacles on his wrists and couldn’t entirely suppress a shiver of cold dread at the thought of what lay ahead.
“I have God behind me.” Paisley said.
“You got blood on your hands.” Holt growled in quick response. “Negro blood. You killed your own people reverend,” his tone was darkening, growing apocalyptic, “and for what…?” The question hung in the air, like the sword of Damocles, ready to fall and impale anyone who dared answer. Paisley remained silent.
“Thing is,” Holt continued, pulling alongside Paisley, pistol still aimed, “I thought you was innocent. I thought Wyatt was being unfair, going after you. But I was wrong…” He shook his head. Paisley chewed the inside of his cheek. They weren’t too far from Graham now. Another twenty minutes and Holt would be putting him into a cell. Then Magistrate Harden…pompous, white son of a bitch he was, would come strutting in, ready to go to bat for his friend Wyatt Outlaw. The thought was infuriating.
“Outlaw is going to lead the Negroes of Alamance off of a cliff if he gets his way.” Paisley said stiffly. Holt stared, eyes darkening disconcertingly. It was exactly the sort of look that one should never see on the face of a person with authority.
“You best not talk that way about Wyatt Outlaw.” Holt said ominously, and Paisley could see the deputy’s fingers tightening on the grip of his pistol. That sent a new shiver of dread through him.
“He aint who you think he is,” Paisley said, frightened but still angry enough to get the words out, “he aint even really black, half-breed is what he is. Consorting with whites, putting the fate of our community in the hands of a roomful of crackers off in Raleigh!” Holt reached out with philosophic deliberation and raked the barrel of his pistol across Paisley’s face with a brisk snap of the wrist. The reverend toppled from his horse, shouting in confused pain. Holt stopped and swung down from his horse, letting the animal stand still. He strode a few paces back up the road, to where Paisley was flopping agitatedly in the dirt, like a wounded chicken taking a dust bath. He was even squawking a little like a chicken, Holt thought distractedly, and then rammed the point of his boot into the reverend’s stomach. Paisley squeaked.
“I told you not to talk about Wyatt Outlaw like that.” Holt said grimly, and hauled Paisley to his feet by the torn collar of his shirt. He’d raised a welt across the man’s left cheek, and small tears of blood were beginning to sweat through the skin. Paisley gasped helplessly for breath, eyes wide with terror and a coal of indignant fury that Holt didn’t much like the look of.
“You…” Paisley gasped, but couldn’t muster the air to say whatever it was that he had been trying to voice.
“Aint got enough air in you to talk?” Holt asked rhetorically, a savage sort of satisfaction threading through his words, “let me help you with that.” He hit Paisley hard in the gut, right on top of where he had kicked him, and the reverend folded back into the dust, sobbing for breath, legs kicking spasmodically.
The whole episode had awakened a hideous rage in Holt, of the sort that he hadn’t felt for a while. And it was all the he could do not to put the reverend’s neck under the heel of his boot and press down. Until he heard the air strangled from the traitor’s body and his vertebrae starting to separate. Instead he threw Paisley across the saddle of his horse, dust stained and disheveled, tied him there, and continued on into town.
Some distance behind Holt, shielded from sight by a screen of trees that overshadowed the path, Outlaw watched his deputy take Paisley away. He would need to talk to Holt about this later.
_______
Someplace else Lou was having serious reservations about Lily’s plan to ambush the Union League meeting. He’d gone along with it at first, still stunned over just how wrong everything was going, but now that he’d given it some thought…
“Are you sure that we have enough people?” He asked as they crossed the Haw, horse’s hooves drumming on worn wooden boards. Lily glanced back at him, eyes flat with slow burning hatred. Lou was reminded of a collapsed coal mine he had once been taken to by his father. The ground had cracked all around where the old shafts had once been sunk, and smoke trickled from those cracks, sulfurous and evil smelling, like vapors drifting up from the pits of hell. The mine was on fire, his father had explained to him, and would continue to burn until Judgement Day. When the Lord returned the mine would still be smoldering away, isolated entirely from the happenings of the world.
“Do we need more?” She asked, and Lou instinctively got ready to flinch back from some barbed remark before realizing that she was genuinely asking.
“I think so.” He said. She wheeled her horse around without a moment’s hesitation and passed him by, heading back across the bridge.
“Let’s go see Long then,” she said, “even if he’s a nigger lover now, he’ll know where everyone is. Where we can find reinforcements.” Lou followed her, a little regretfully. He’d meant to instill doubt in her, and maybe get her to back away from the chasm of violence that they were rapidly speeding towards. But that obviously hadn’t happened. He followed silently along.
When they reached the long path that led up through the fields to Long’s plantation house, Lou got a strange feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Something was off, incrementally wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the feeling refused to go away.
“Lily…” He said, and she slowed down. There was a Negress advancing down the path towards them, skirts flapping as she hurried along. Lily’s eyes had narrowed and Lou could see her scanning the fields.
“Nobody’s working today.” She said, and suddenly Lou realized what had been bothering him. The fields, usually buzzing with activity from Long’s sharecroppers, were completely empty.
“Miss Fowler, Mr. Davis,” the Negress called from some distance away, “there’s been a tragedy. Mr. Long is dead!” Lou felt his heart skip a beat, and judging by the look on Lily’s face, something similar had happened to her too.
“Explain.” She said. And the Negress did.
_______
“How doesn’t this bother you Dr. Frost?” Addison asked as he watched Frost sprinkle the pair of corpses with lime, keeping his distance from the fly blown bodies. Josiah and Curtis had been left in the flat heat of the cabin for some time and they were beginning to swell up, buttons bursting from their clothes. Frost hardly seemed to notice the beastly smell rising from the dead men.
“I’ve shared battlefields with thousands more dead men than just these,” he said, giving Addison a cursory glance as he did so, “after a while it becomes a matter of scale.” Addison watched Frost hop down from the lime whitened bed of his wagon and make a quick sweep of the area to ensure that he hadn’t left any of his belongings behind.
“What was the war like Dr. Frost?” Addison asked before he could stop himself, “if…uh, you don’t mind me asking.” Frost remained silent, straightening his reins before giving them a brisk snap. The horse drawing his wagon started forward, the corpses wriggling obscenely with each bump the wagon passed over.
“You never asked Outlaw?” Frost asked, his tone slightly testy, “he was in the war too.” Addison nodded slightly as he kept his horse alongside Frost’s wagon, keeping his eyes carefully away from the grisly burden in back.
“He said your war was different though.” Another period of silence, Frost staring straight ahead, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“I guess it was,” he said after a few moments had ticked inexorably past, “but it aint anything that you’d ever understand. You have to be there if you ever want combat to really make sense to you. And I’m guessing that you aint ever so much as struck a blow in anger, huh?” Addison looked hastily at the ground, a hot blush of embarrassment rising to his cheeks, setting his face aflame.
“No.” He admitted. Frost looked at him with a sort of idle curiosity, almost as if he were measuring the deputy up.
“You were born free, right?” He asked, “you talk too well to have been brought up in chains.” Addison nodded. He supposed that all of the white men he met could determine a Negro’s origin based upon how he talked. It was vaguely intimidating.
“I was…”
“From around here?” Addison got the feeling that Frost was questioning him mostly so that the topic of the war could be left behind, but didn’t stop the doctor. Frost was white, and while he didn’t seem to mind Negroes very much, Addison had learned at a young age that white men were not to be trifled with. He had no idea how Outlaw and Holt could so easily go toe to toe with the worst that Alamance had to offer. It all made him want to sink into the ground and hide.
“I was born in Raleigh but my father died when I was ten and my mother passed me off to the care of my uncle Silas. He had a place near Greensboro, not too far from here really…” Frost glanced sharply over.
“He was a Negro?” Addison nodded, reluctantly.
“A Negro slaveholder.” Frost raised an eyebrow but didn’t seem too surprised. He had grown up in the antebellum, Addison supposed, he knew all about the banal evil of slavery and what it had done to so many men and women in Alamance County.
“Cant imagine that he was a very kind man then,” Frost said, “betraying his race like that.” Addison said nothing for a few moments.
“Being a Negro slaver is low,” he said, “lower than being the head house nigger, lower than being an out and out Uncle Tom. My uncle Silas was hated by the slaves he owned, and he hated them right back. Once, when I was eleven, I was walking the fence when I met this boy about my age playing marbles by himself. I asked to play with him and we got to talking. We were getting along just fine when uncle Silas came up behind me and drug me away, yelling at the boy to clear off. He sat me down and dug his fingers into my arm and said to me, ‘look at your skin, and then look at that nigger’s.’ The boy was darker than me and ‘cause of that he was worthless but for picking cotton, hewing wood and drawing water. That was how my uncle Silas saw people. How he decided what you were worth. He had a son, my cousin Rodney, who turned out black as charcoal…and ‘cause of that my uncle Silas always disliked him. He treated Rodney awful…’til one day when Rodney was fourteen and Silas started in on him and he beat the old bastard down with a piece of firewood. And after that uncle Silas never really did anything to Rodney. ‘Cause my cousin Rodney forced Silas to respect him.” Frost listened to this in silence, the rasping call of cicadas punctuating Addison’s words.
“My father…” Frost said at last, voice quieter, “he was a practitioner in Graham before me, a real pillar of the community. And he took himself real serious ‘cause of it. I was an only child…had a sister but she died as a baby from scarlet fever…so did my mother. So my father decided that I was gonna become a doctor too, I was gonna be a pillar of the community too, I was gonna be just like him no matter what. ‘Cause that was my duty as a son according to him. He never hit me, I never missed a meal…we were well off compared to a lot of others. But whenever I mentioned anything, any aspiration that protruded beyond the carefully defined parameters of his plan for me, he’d spend time shooting it all down in detail. Telling me why I was wrong to have those dreams and why following in his footsteps and accomplishing his milestones were more important. And I did it for a long time, I went to school for medicine and practiced under my father. But all the while he was still breathing down my neck, making sure that I was still wedged completely under his thumb. So when the war started, and my father told me that I was gonna stay home, I decided that I’d had enough. I enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia, not out of any desire to protect the south, not ‘cause I wanted to preserve slavery like Jeff Davis and his boys in Richmond. I just wanted to get the hell out of Graham, out of my father’s vision of life for me. I thought that the war would be a great adventure, something to fully detach me from my father. And I was right about that second part…less so about the first.” Frost smiled sadly and shook his head. “But none of it mattered anyway…my father’s mind is failing, he sits up in his room in Greensboro asylum, staring at walls and drooling. He doesn’t recognize me when I visit, he doesn’t know how to talk much anymore. Instead of him deciding everything about my life, I’m deciding every aspect of his now. But it just feels bad. I’m never gonna be able to say anything to him ever again…nothing that he’ll understand anyway. I went away to the war to escape him, and when I came back he could hardly remember his own name. There was no grand return, no truth to the visions I entertained where he said that he was proud of me for striking out on my own path. Nothing. It’s all gone now.” He sighed and fell silent, watching the road ahead of him with unhappy eyes. Addison wasn’t sure what to say. It sounded like Frost had been sitting on that for quite a long time.
“I’m…I’m sorry to hear that.” He said lamely, keeping his eyes on the ground.
“Not sure why I said all of that,” Frost sighed, “guess it doesn’t matter.” There was a distinctly awkward silence, “you ever belt your uncle Silas with a chunk of firewood or anything?” Frost asked at last. Addison shook his head, reconsidered, then shook it again.
“When I was fifteen he whupped me for calling him a hypocrite since he owned slaves. I picked up a garden spade and raised it up, ready to brain that son of a bitch…but he just stood there and dared me to do it. And the more I thought about it the more scared I got, until I dropped that spade and ran away. I’ve never been a brave man Dr. Frost…a lot of the time I think that Outlaw made a mistake in hiring me on as a deputy. I aint like him and Holt, I cant stand up to the night riders or…or anyone really.” The last few words were delivered in a defeated tone that made Frost frown sympathetically.
“Not sure what the hell I’m doing having a talk like this with a Negro that I hardly know,” he said, half to himself, half to Addison, “but you’re one of the good ones. You, Holt, Outlaw…hell, most of the folks that go to Outlaw’s church…you’re alright. You helped me load them dead folks into my wagon, didn’t you? A lot of people wouldn’t have done that.” And wasn’t that the truth. Frost had known more than one man during the war who would gladly blaze away on the battlefield, helping to create the corpses. Yet once the fighting was over, they were nowhere to be found to help with the cleanup.
“Because Outlaw asked me to.” Addison said, a little miserably. Frost smiled wanly.
“I suppose I’ve been caught in that trap as well. Drawn into these damnable regional politics that threaten to drag Alamance straight to hell. All I want is for things to be halfway normal. I don’t much care if my constables are black or white, my President Radical or fire-eater…I just want some peace. That’s what Grant said when he was elected, right? Let us have peace? I didn’t count on having to help create that peace myself.” Frost looked rueful, perhaps regretting having involved himself in the situation, but knowing that there was nothing to be done now that he was mired.
“We live in tough times.” Addison said. He could think of nothing else to say. Frost nodded.
“Amen.” They rode onwards in silence.
_______
Jacob Long was indeed dead, having been wrapped in a white sheet that was stained with crimson. Lily looked down at Long’s cotton swathed corpse, where it had been set into a crude wooden box hammered together by one of the house niggers.
She kept her discomfort in check, but it was almost impossible when there were so many goddamn niggers crowding around her, as if hoping that she’d have some answer to the quandary they were faced with. Lou hardly looked any better. He’d gone pale faced again and was pacing the back of the room. There was no question, he needed bolstering. Ignoring her fiancé for the moment, Lily turned to the plump Negress who had told them the news out front.
“What’s the situation with his family?” The Negress, her name was Camomile or something unimportant like that, looked down at the partially entombed Long. She didn’t seem all that sad, nor did any of the other darkies. They were probably just worried about where their next paycheck would come from. Such blatant disregard for the generosity of a white man (even if that white man was a goddamned nigger lover) struck a rosy flower of rage deep within her. She had noticed that her hand kept straying down to the butt of her Colt Navy at odd moments, as if itching to fill the air with powder smoke and the very inside of her soul with the discordant melody of nigger screams.
“Mr. Long had no wife or children,” the Negress said, “his closest kin is a sister who lives in Raleigh. I had Mr. Custis tap off a telegram to Company Shops letting them know what’s happened, since he’s a learned man and knows Morse code. Miss Long, bless her heart, should receive the news by tonight.” Lily nodded stiffly.
“And he ended his own life?” She asked, struggling to bite back an ugly description of Long’s cowardice.
“Yes Miss Fowler,” the Negress said, “he shot himself through the breast with a revolver.” She tapped the swell of her own bosom to demonstrate. Lily looked down to the sheet wrapped corpse once again and had a strong, momentary urge to tear the cotton away and strike Jacob Long fiercely across the face for abandoning his post even more than he had in life. But instead she forced a tight little smile onto her face and nodded briskly.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Now…this Custis you mentioned, who is he?” The Negress glanced over to an adjoining room.
“A longtime servant and friend of Mr. Long’s,” she said, “he ran the house here for Mr. Long’s father. He’s been here almost forty years now.” A house nigger. Thank God. They tended to be suitably subservient and meek.
“Would he know anything about the night riding?” Lily asked. The Negress blinked, slightly surprised.
“I’m not sure Miss Fowler.” She said with a smile that was unquestionably forced. Lily’s own smile on the other hand had become quite genuine. And sharp toothed. Like the corners of her mouth would keep spreading further and further apart until she could unhinge her jaw and swallow the beholder whole.
“Then go find out you dumb nigger bitch.” Lily said sweetly, venom coursing beneath the facade of politeness icing the ugly words. The Negress looked like se would stand her ground for a moment but instead headed off, perhaps dissuaded by the disconcerting dance Lily’s fingertips were doing on the butt of her pistol.
She felt much better now, now that the niggers were looking at her with undisguised fear. Long had a bullwhip mounted on the wall, coiled tightly and flanked by old Confederate unit flags that he had served under during the war. Lily thought about climbing atop Long’s coffin, standing on the corpse of the man her father had ridden with only a few years before, and yanking that whip down. She had learned to crack a whip before, as a young girl, tutored by her father, who had deemed it an unimportant but entertaining bit of knowledge for anyone to have.
Lily felt a flush of tingly warmth as she considered this, cracking the whip upon the slovenly darkies milling throughout Long’s home. Like some ancient gladiator prowling the blood spattered sands of the Roman colosseum, like a valkyrie purging this place of the impure. It made her knees feel weak with longing for some spectacular carnage, her cheeks flush with desire for violence and her breath come just a little bit faster. She looked over to Lou, who looked back and recognized well the expression on her face. Was that reluctance that flashed through his eyes? Momentary rebellion?
How exciting. She held out her hand.
“Darling,” she purred, gripping his hand tight as extended it to her, “we should burn the world down.” Lou stared at her with growing fear in his eyes, but that fear was alloyed with longing. She could feel it in the subtle tremble that ran through his hand, the way he didn’t let go even as she poured all of the lovely ravings of her mind through that physical link.
“Lily…” Lou said, and Lily reached for her hip, where the dependable form of the Colt Navy met her fingers.
“Out goddamn you!” She roared, eyes glowing with delight, and fired a shot into the ceiling. The staff stampeded from the room and Lou stared up at her, from where he’d sunk into a chair. It was, Lily realized, the very same one that Long had shot himself in, adorned with browning stains, the carpet around it ruined for some distance. Long had not died clean.
In Lou’s eyes Lily could see terrified reverence, like a hard shell Baptist staring into the face of the Old Testament God. He was going nowhere. She worked away at the buttons to her dress, the scene completed itself.
Lily kept her eyes fixed upon the blood, fingers digging into Lou’s shoulders. There would be more, she told herself. More. More. More.
_______
Caroline Fowler had been left alone inside of Frost’s clinic, and while she told herself that she would be leaving soon to change clothes and maybe get something to eat, the thought of setting foot back inside the blood drenched halls of her home made her shiver. Something truly evil had happened in there between her and Lily. Something that Caroline didn’t want to get close to again.
She had always had the sense that something wasn’t quite right about her daughter. But it had always been subdued and almost unobservable. Like the flitting of a shadow across some far corner of the room. Quick enough that it left the observer doubting if they’d actually seen it.
Caroline knew that insanity ran in her family, like it did in many of the old name southern aristocracies, but somehow that had never come to mind. Not when Lily’s kitten went missing when she was eleven. Not when she discovered Lily patiently scrubbing rust colored stains from the hem of her skirt. Not…
Lily had never seen things though. Had never been reduced to wandering the streets muttering about voices like clouds of locusts in her head. Not like Caroline’s sister Mercy, who had gone away to an asylum in Raleigh when she was nineteen. The same age Lily was now.
No…whatever was wrong with Lily ran more deeply. Like the blade of a knife hidden in the hem of a skirt.
Caroline had thought that Lily being engaged to the nice Davis boy from down the block would be good for her. Yet, it only seemed to push her more off kilter. Not enough to be expressly noticeable…but even before John Fowler had been shot, Caroline had seen some things. Small things. Shadows scudding through the dimness of a half lit room. Yet warning signs all the same.
Lily left at night sometimes. Caroline was sure that she was visiting Lou Davis. Yet whatever they did left the boy close mouthed and pale the day after. She didn’t want to speculate. She wanted to ignore it. Push it away so that whatever fractured illusion of a family life she had could withstand the isolated probes her mind sometimes threw against it.
She stood up and went to the back room, where her husband lay wrapped in a thick comforter, muttering and shivering, even in the flat heat that baked off of the walls. Frost had instructed her to burn off John Fowler’s fever before going to deal with some mess out on the old main road. As she looked down at him, hair flat against his skull, skin glossy with sweat, something occurred to her.
She could run away. Turn around and walk out the door, go to the train station and purchase a ticket. She had a dollar that she kept in a little pocket in her dress, just in case she found herself in need of extra spending money. A dollar would buy her fare to Raleigh. There she could go to a bank and…
The thought of freedom swelled within her like the globe of a balloon being filled with hot air. It pressed against her heart with tight, agreeable excitement. Then her husband’s eyes slid suddenly open, like window shades. He blinked and blinked again, looking confused.
“Why…am I…?” He managed to ask, then his features slackened and he fell unconscious once again. But the ecstatic sensation of possibility within Caroline Fowler’s breast had been pierced, and suddenly the doubts of the world began to crowd in on her once again. As they always did when times of decision came upon her.
John was alive. And she was sure that if she were to check his temperature then she would find it slightly reduced. He was going to recover, and the thought of that put a great chill through her. Walking to the train station suddenly seemed immaterial and hopeless. He would find her if she did so. And he would do something awful to her. Worse than the myriad patchwork of slaps and punches and kicks she’d endured over the years. If she went to Raleigh, or anywhere else in the whole wide world, and John Fowler found her…
“Water…” He grunted, voice raspy, and Caroline jumped back, fright hammering through her in a hard, ugly shock. She folded her hands together, almost as if she was going to drop to her knees in prayer, but instead backed away and fetched her husband a glass of water.
Most of it dribbled down his chin when she put it up to his mouth, her hands were shaking so badly, but he didn’t complain. John Fowler didn’t say another word that entire day.
_______
In the end Mr. Custis, the learned man who had run Long’s affairs, proved to not know anything about the night riders. This provoked a complex stir of emotions in Lily as she listened to Custis speak, chewing the inside of her cheek again, unaware that blood was once more sliding down the side of her chin.
“Mr. Long, God bless him,” Custis said with a brief glance to the coffin in the corner, “was very particular about the details of his own operations. I knew nothing about them.” He seemed ill at ease even being in the same room as Lily, and that was just how Lily liked it. Niggers were designed to be scared of their betters. If they weren’t…if whites offered them any room for advancement, then things like Wyatt Outlaw happened.
“You don’t talk much like a nigger Cuspid,” Lily said, “why is that?” Custis blinked, seemed momentarily taken aback, but decided that it was in his best interests to humor Lily’s question.
“I was born a free man Miss Fowler,” he said, “I was never a slave. Mr. Long’s father hired me on as a personal secretary because it was cheaper than taking on a white man. The Longs have always been thrifty men.”
“I can see that.” Lily said, giving the rude coffin the corner a pointed glance. Custis seemed aggrieved but said nothing. Lily was thinking, her opinion of Custis dipping ever lower the longer she considered what he’d said to her. He was a free man, he had said. He was never kept in bondage. The depths of Long’s nigger sympathy grew more and more disgusting the more she learned.
“Is there anything else that you would like to discuss Miss Fowler?” Custis asked, perfectly polite. Though Lily could sense a certain icy dislike lurking beneath.
“Do you like to rub talcum on your skin when nobody is around?” She asked. Custis blinked, perfectly confused.
“Pardon?”
“So that you look as white as you act,” she leaned closer to Custis and hissed, “but you don’t fool me nigger, you’re just like the rest.” She stood suddenly and seized Lou’s wrist, practically dragging her fiancé behind her. He gave Custis a look of remarkable helplessness, then they were gone.
Custis let out a long, shuddering sigh and felt, for some reason, like he’d just dodged a bullet.
_______
Outlaw caught up with Holt as his deputy exited the jailhouse, Paisley locked safely within. Slowing his horse to a walk, he looked down to Holt and said nothing for a few moments.
“Nothing else on the agenda, right?” Holt asked.
“You shouldn’t have beaten Paisley.” Outlaw said in lieu of an answer. Holt stiffened and looked up at Outlaw, sharply concerned but also oddly guilty.
“You saw that?” He asked, alarmed.
“Yeah. He’s getting a noose anyhow…it don’t serve a purpose knocking him around.” Holt stopped and Outlaw got off of his horse, moving slowly, painfully. Holt helped him to the ground.
“It’s just…I feel…you know…responsible for parts. ‘Cause I didn’t think you was right when you said that Paisley was behind the McMillan raid.” Outlaw smiled thinly and put a hand on Holt’s shoulder, digging Harden’s cane out of his saddlebags.
“And I said that there was no way the night riders would ever attack an officer of the law. Everyone fouls up sometimes. Point is, don’t compound it.”
“Compound?” Holt asked.
“Make it worse.” Holt nodded and the two of them walked over to get Magistrate Harden. As they approached city hall, Holt looked over to Outlaw.
“I can deal with this Wyatt,” he said, “you were wanting to go see Eli and Albright, weren’t you?” Outlaw thought about protesting, but truth be told he really did want to see his family, now that he wasn’t quite the rasping wreck they’d last seen in Frost’s clinic.
“Promise not to beat on Paisley when you take him in for questioning?” Outlaw asked. Holt nodded solemnly.
“I’ll go get you if Harden needs anything.” And with that the two men went their separate ways. Outlaw mounted his horse once more, pain jangling through him with every motion, and went on, face tight with discomfort, towards Albright’s house.
“Mr. Outlaw, hey, Mr. Outlaw!” A voice called from up the street, by city hall, and Outlaw saw a man come pelting down the steps and out into the street towards him. He pulled the horse to a halt and realized that the figure making its way to him was none other than Isaiah, the Union League volunteer from Greensboro.
“Isaiah,” Outlaw said, watching the man catch his breath, “what’s happening?” But Isaiah didn’t seem to be bearing bad news, instead he was smiling, almost giddy.
“I just got news from my wife,” he said, “we gonna have a baby!” Outlaw smiled, relaxing slightly as he realized that this wasn’t local news at all, but just a man excited to be starting his own family.
“I’m very happy to hear that Isaiah.” He said.
“If it turns out as a boy I’ll name him Samuel…after my father,” Isaiah’s family was certainly Biblically focused, Outlaw noted, “and…and Lozenge if she’s a girl.”
“Lozenge?” Outlaw asked, mildly bemused. Isaiah nodded happily.
“Yes sir,” he said proudly, “I got a cousin named Lozenge, and I always did like that name.” Outlaw couldn’t keep himself from smiling more broadly, even if it hurt his mouth.
“Your family is lucky to have you Isaiah, good luck.” And he took his leave, continuing on down the street. Isaiah went back to city hall, with a definite spring in his step. Outlaw could remember himself acting in such a way when Maria was first with child and the possibilities of the world seemed infinite. Those memories were tinted with melancholy now, a curious filter that interspaced the joy with quiet reminders that she was gone.
“Wyatt,” Albright said as he opened his door, peering out, surprise replacing the suspicion on his face, “you’re walking.” Outlaw nodded wearily. The ride to and from the old main road had exhausted him. He felt sore and distinctly tired. Perhaps he had bitten off more than he could chew when he had decided to officiate that evening’s Union League meeting.
“There was work to be done,” he said with a shrug that sent jolts of agony singing through his ribs, “…hell, there still is work to be done. But I want to see you first.” Eli’s head poked out from under Albright’s arm and a smile lit the boy’s face.
“Papa!” He said, just as surprised as Albright to see his father up and about. Had it really only been a few hours since he’d first woken from his drowse?
“Eli,” Outlaw stepped across the threshold and into Albright’s house, “how’s Uncle Will treating you?” Eli smiled and pointed back into the living room where a chessboard had been set up on a coffee table. Whoever was playing white was getting mauled.
“I’m practicing my chess,” Eli said, taking Outlaw’s free hand and leading him over, “Uncle Will’s still learning.” He laughed, a high, bright sound, and Outlaw felt like he could finally relax. Even after all of the ugliness that the day held, he could still set it aside for a few moments.
“He’s good,” Albright confirmed, “keeps reminding me that bishops go diagonal, not the horses.”
“Knights Uncle Will, not horses.” Eli said, and Albright chuckled. But behind that good cheer was definite strain. Outlaw sat down on one side of the chessboard with unhidden relief and sat back, letting Harden’s cane rest against one leg.
“Eli,” Albright said, “could you give your father and me some privacy for a few minutes?” Eli looked slightly surprised not to be spending time with his father, but Outlaw nodded slightly.
“Head up to your room, see if you cant find a book to read. I’ll come get you when we’re done talking.” Eli didn’t move.
“Is it ‘cause you’re talking about the night riders?” He asked, and Outlaw could see his son’s eyes darkening with fear. Outlaw nodded.
“Yes.” Eli’s shoulders slumped, he surveyed Outlaw and Albright with round, frightened eyes.
“Are you gonna have to go fight ‘em again?”
“I hope not Eli,” Outlaw sighed, “but that’s why we’re having this meeting tonight at city hall…so we can figure out what to do.”
“Can I go?” He asked. Outlaw nodded.
“You and Uncle Will both. Everyone from church will be there, it’ll be safe.” Eli seemed reassured by the potential presence of his friends from church and headed upstairs. Outlaw heard the door to his room click softly shut and looked over to Albright.
“He’s scared Wyatt,” Albright said, “and so am I. This whole thing is spiraling in a very dangerous direction.” Outlaw nodded slightly. He didn’t have to be told twice.
“Allen Paisley killed some folks out on the old main road. Wanted to blame it on night riders.” Albright was silent for a long time, face frozen in shock.
“Jesus. I knew you said he might’ve been the one to raid the McMillan place…but killing is a whole different thing.” Outlaw was silent. It was always ugly, having to deal with a Negro killing another Negro. But Allen Paisley’s case had transcended realms in terms of how awful it could get. Paisley was popular, charismatic, and had practically every Negro in Company Shops in support of him.
“I think the men he killed were accomplices in the McMillan raid. Not sure why he murdered them, but he was sloppy in trying to cover it up.”
“I take it Harden wants to hang him?” Albright asked. It wasn’t even really a question. When it came to killings Harden was usually a fan of the death penalty, regardless of skin color.
“It’s likely. He also wants to hang John Fowler.” Even as he said that Outlaw remembered that Albright and Eli had been insulated from the events of the morning. Albright wouldn’t know that Fowler was now in custody, just like he hadn’t known that Paisley was now behind bars, awaiting a trial for double homicide.
“Fowler is…?”
“I got Frost to go poke around at the Fowler place this morning. He’s in custody in Frost’s clinic right now.” Albright nodded slowly, visibly stunned.
“All of this in a morning Wyatt?” He asked, still surprised. Outlaw smiled humorlessly.
“Both of them were sloppy. Fowler was shot in the elbow and being cared for by his wife…and Paisley…less said about him the better. They’re in custody, but I’m not too concerned about them right now. I’m concerned about who might turn up in support.” Albright’s hand had dropped to one of his own elbows, almost in reflex rather than sympathy.
“Still,” he said, “at least you know where the danger’s coming from.”
“I wish it were that simple Will,” Outlaw sighed, or at least tried to, an alarming rattle came from his throat instead, “I don’t know just how Paisley’s congregation will take it when they hear that their reverend is in jail for murder. And I also don’t know who exactly will be spearheading efforts to replace Fowler. That and I don’t even know who shot Fowler in the first place.” Albright was very quiet for a few moments. Then he spoke quietly
.
“It was me.” Now it was Outlaw’s turn to be surprised. He stared.
“You?”
“Yeah. I thought they were gonna ride around and make a scene, but when they started breaking into your place, I grabbed my rifle and found a corner. I didn’t think I hit anyone when I fired that shot…I just wanted them to run off. Even if it was John Fowler I shot…it makes me feel kinda sick Wyatt, knowing I just about blew a man’s arm off.” Now that Outlaw thought about it, Albright being the shooter made a whole lot of sense. He had shown up to take care of Eli mere minutes after the night riders had scattered.
“You saved my life Will,” Outlaw said, awed, “again.” Albright smiled distractedly but shook his head.
“Not sure where you’re getting a first time from Wyatt,” he said, “but can I get a promise from you that this stays off the books?” Outlaw nodded without hesitation. It was the least he could do.
“You know when the first time was.” He said, and stood up, deciding that it was high time he spoke to his son.
“Is Mr. Harden gonna be there too?” He asked as Outlaw sat down on the edge of his bed. Eli’s room in Albright’s house was spacious, having once been a study before Albright had converted it some years before. There was a great big window on the northern wall and Outlaw could see a wagon trundling by below, burdened with coal destined for the railroad terminus.
“He’ll be speaking for me, since my voice is the way it is right now.” Outlaw said. Truth be told his throat was feeling considerably better, even with all of the talking he’d done since first waking up. It was the rest of him that felt worse. Perhaps Frost had told him something to that effect at some point, Outlaw had forgotten.
“I like him,” Eli said, “he showed me a magic trick last time we were at city hall.” That had been a week earlier, when Outlaw had had to deliver some papers to Harden. Harden had produced a nickel from behind Eli’s ear and then entrusted the boy with the coin. Eli had used it to buy a bag of peppermint sticks, and so far as Outlaw knew was still working away at them.
If they hadn’t been smashed or stolen when the night riders had come for them.
“Have you had lunch yet Eli?” Outlaw asked, and Eli shook his head. Outlaw hadn’t noticed until now but he felt astoundingly hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything during his time awake, and while going without food for entire days wasn’t something unfamiliar for him (or many men who had gone through the war), it still wasn’t especially pleasant.
“No, we were gonna have some after our chess game.” Outlaw hobbled down the stairs after Eli, thinking about what Albright had told him. The man had saved his life. Had probably saved Eli’s too. Again.
How could he possibly repay him?
_______
“We’re gonna have to do the ambush tonight with what we’ve got,” Lily said as they rode away from Long’s plantation, leaving the assorted niggers there in a deep and hopefully frightened sort of shock, “we aint got a choice.” She sounded annoyed, but also excited. Her tone was light, scaring the old head nigger had evidently put her in a good enough mood that their setback didn’t matter so much.
“Are you sure?” Lou asked, gripping his reins perhaps a little too hard as he kept pace with Lily. His eyes kept wandering to the delicate constellation of dried blood on the neck of her dress, and the line of red that led from the left corner of her mouth down to the side of her chin.
She’d always had a habit of chewing her cheek like that. When she was thinking, when she was anxious. She’d done it so much that her mouth bled almost continuously now. His lips were traced with scarlet whenever she kissed him.
“What choice do we have?” She asked blandly, and Lou dropped any attempt that he might have made to dissuade her from this path. She had decided already. There was no way to get her to change her mind. And if he didn’t go along with it…the consequences would be unwelcome.
He kept quiet. Lily pulled her horse closer to him and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a blotch of blood on the side of his face. He could feel it there, growing colder and colder as time went on. Like something dying.
_______
Paisley had curled himself into a dejected little ball, nursing the throbbing hurt that pulsed continuously through where Holt had hit him. But deeper than even the bruises and cuts he’d taken, was the depth of the rage smoldering in his heart. Outlaw had pierced his veil of untruths without even trying. Holt had beaten him. And now he was locked into the very same cell that Jed March had recently occupied, before being taken up to Greensboro for a trial.
The indignity stung. His apparent rejection by God opened a howling void within him. And within that void swirled doubt. Had he done the right thing? Had he misinterpreted what the Lord wanted him to do? Had he sinned so grievously that he was now damned eternally to the deepest pits of Hell?
But even if that were true. Even if he had sinned, Paisley could not see how Outlaw and Holt deserved to come out of this on the winning side. They had sold their race down the river, rested its continued well being upon the shifty goodwill of whites.
“Allen,” he reminded himself out loud, the jailhouse was empty, he felt no shame in speaking to himself, “who suffered for his deeds but Jesus Christ? What if this is the Lord testing your devotion?” Those words made him feel a little better. Christ had been brought low by the Romans, he reasoned. Christ had been scourged and crucified and stabbed in the side with a lance, had he not? Christ had died in agony, in apparent failure…yet had he really?
Was he a Christ for this new age? It seemed entirely possible in that moment, his desperation giving fuel and flame to this new theory…which meant that he had not sinned after all. Not significantly anyway… He stood slowly up, wincing at the deep seated agony in his gut (let me help you with that, Holt had said before ramming his fist into Paisley’s stomach) and spread his arms, nearly scraping his knuckles against the rough wooden walls of his cell.
He apologized fervently for doubting in the intention and grace of God. He told himself that even Paul had doubted before. That even Paul had been forgiven upon repenting his momentary lapse of faith. A tear trickled down Paisley’s cheek, gratefulness filling him like some miraculous elixir, washing away the strain and hurt and ugliness of the past few days.
He would take whatever punishment the Lord decided was fit for him. He had sinned after all. And would be absorbing the sins of his brethren as well, just like Christ had nearly two thousand years before. After that…after that he would be a martyr. He would look upon the face of God. And God would be smiling.
_______
Outlaw, Holt, Eli, Albright and a handful of others arrived at city hall early for the meeting. It would be a full house, and Outlaw was expecting it to run late. Albright had agreed to take Eli home at nine thirty, for he was going back to school the next day and needed his rest.
It always amazed Outlaw how resilient children were, and seeing his son now, sketching a horse on a sheet of discarded paper with one of Harden’s pencils, filled him with hope for the future. If Eli could bounce back from a horrific experience like the attempted lynching of his father, then perhaps the nation could heal from the ugly stain of slavery and racism as well.
Isaiah and David, the two Union League volunteers from Greensboro, were present as well, hauling in a quintet of battered crates packed with army surplus rifles. These had been hidden away in the basement so far, and while Outlaw hadn’t intended to distribute them quite so soon, events had forced his hand.
He had been given one hundred rifles by the Freedmen’s Bureau (ninety eight now, he’d given two to the McMillans to bolster their arsenal in the event of another raid) and intended to distribute them evenly between men from Graham and Company Shops, in order to quell any rumors of regional favoritism that he was sure would be scudding around. Especially when the inevitable subject of Paisley’s arrest was discussed.
“Isaiah,” Harden said as the last crate was set down in the back of the room, close to where Outlaw would be sitting, “I’d like you to go to Dr. Frost’s clinic and keep an eye on John Fowler.” Isaiah nodded briskly, hiked his rifle up onto his shoulder and set out the door, spring still firmly in his step. David stayed behind, straightening one of the crates, looking at the rows of rifles with interested eyes.
“Mr. Outlaw?” He asked. Outlaw glanced over.
“Hmm?”
“You gonna give any of these to white folks?” He asked. Outlaw shrugged.
“If they’d like to join the militia then they get a rifle. That’s the deal.” David pursed his lips momentarily, perhaps in light disapproval, but said nothing. It wasn’t his place to criticize Outlaw’s handling of the situation. Besides, he did work with a white man, how critical could he be without coming off as a bigot or a hypocrite?
“I’m looking forward to this,” Harden said, striding into the lobby, ruffling Eli’s hair as he went, “this meeting could be a real chance to present a unified strategy when it comes to the night riders.” Outlaw admired Harden’s optimism, but felt apprehensive about dealing with Paisley’s congregation when they came through the door. He doubted that the night riders would show up, not with so many upset Negroes packed in one place, but Paisley’s folks definitely would. And he couldn’t even arrest them or shoot at them like he could with the night riders.
“Deputy Addison around anywhere?” Albright asked from next to Eli. Holt shook his head.
“I’ve got him guarding Paisley right now, he’s sitting in the jailhouse with my repeater.” Outlaw nodded approvingly. Hopefully the fearsome weapon he held would inspire his deputy to some courage should trouble appear.
“I think he’s improving,” he said to Holt, “he helped Frost deal with those dead folks today.” Holt nodded, with begrudging approval.
“So long as he don't get no one killed I’m content.” That was a definite improvement in attitude. Satisfied, Outlaw limped over to Eli and crouched next to his son, looking at the half formed horse taking shape on the boy’s paper.
“What kinda horse is that?” He asked.
“Your horse papa,” Eli said, “I haven’t colored it yet.” Now that Outlaw looked closer he could see that Eli had captured his mount quite well, from the starburst of white on its nose, to the proud way it held its head upright, as though it were marching in a parade.
“What’s that in the background?” Outlaw asked, tapping a scribble that hid something behind the horse.
“I was gonna draw someone cutting that tree down. The one in the town square that…” That Outlaw had nearly been hung from.
“But you scratched it out.” Outlaw said. Eli nodded.
“It wasn’t the tree’s fault that the night riders are so mean. So I scribbled it.” That was surprisingly perceptive for an eight year old. Outlaw smiled and held Eli close.
“I’m glad you’re alright Eli.” He said, and Eli giggled.
“Papa, your beard tickles!” At that moment Harden called out from across the room.
“Wyatt, I see people coming. Lots of ‘em.” Outlaw glanced over, through the broad front windows, and saw that Harden was right. There were throngs of Negroes walking along, folks from Graham that Outlaw recognized, others from Company Shops that he didn’t. People from all over Alamance were showing up, and fear (well hidden on some faces, all but overwhelming on others) was ever present.
“They gonna look to you for answers,” Holt said as Outlaw stood up, “so stand strong Wyatt. I got your back.”
“Thank you Harry.” Outlaw said, and looked down to Eli.
“Do you have to go papa?” Eli asked, though he knew the answer already.
“It’s time for the meeting Eli. Stay close to Uncle Will.” Eli nodded dutifully.
“Mr. Harden said I could go to his office if it gets too loud.” That was another good place.
“Remember not to touch any of his papers if you go in there.” Outlaw reminded him, and Eli nodded, like a man taking a solemn oath.
“I wont.” He promised, and went back to his horse sketch. Leaning on his cane, Outlaw limped to the front of the room, where the first attendees were streaming in.
_______
Addison was sitting on the front porch of the jailhouse, repeater held across his knees, all but shaking with fear. There were a lot of Paisley devotees going past, and occasionally some of them would give him filthy looks or tell him with religious certainty that he was going to hell for aiding in the arrest of their reverend.
Addison said nothing back to the faithful, just averted his gaze and kept a tight grip on the repeater that Holt had loaned him. He’d always had the impression that Holt didn’t like him very much, but perhaps he had been mistaken, for Holt had given him the Spencer repeater he had brought back from the war, which wasn’t a weapon that he lent out to just anyone.
It made him feel better, but fear still coiled within him like a restless serpent, baring fangs dripping with corrosive venom.
“You aint never gonna be white,” a young man yelled cruelly from the other side of the road, “no matter how hard you try, traitor!” Addison sighed to himself and glanced back through the doorway, into the jailhouse. Paisley was being quiet. Had been almost completely silent ever since Addison had arrived. He had found that to be a relief at first, but now the silence (broken only by the occasional jeers and taunts of Paisley’s passing flock) felt oppressive. He wished Paisley would say something. Even something ignorant so that he could feel angry rather than scared.
Just then he saw something curious. A solidly built white man, wearing a Colt Dragoon on one hip and a baton on the other (though he hardly looked as if he’d need either if it came down to a fight. Addison had the idea that if the man wanted to he could rip a person’s arms off with all the ease of a farmer shucking corn), striding down the street. The jeers quieted noticeably as he walked past, nobody seemed brave enough to yell something rude while the man was present…even if it wasn’t directed at him.
He looked over at Addison for a terrifying moment, then his eyes slid away and he continued down the street.
The worst thing was, Addison recognized him. It was Stanley Turner, director of N.C. Railroads in Company Shops. And he looked furious.
_______
The sun had gone almost completely down, leaving the sky a uniform shade of dark blue that was slowly fading towards midnight. Lily glanced over to Lou, then to the others. They had gathered near the bridge that led over the Haw, waiting for the Union League meet to get underway before they started into town. Better to have the niggers all bottled up in city hall rather than scattered out on the streets, where they could run away.
“Y’all ready?” She asked, eyes roving around her picked men. A chorus of grim assents met her ears. Most of them were wearing bandannas, like train robbers out west, but Lily had elected to keep her face uncovered. She wasn’t sure why, but it just felt better. It made her feel invulnerable.
“Gonna kill us some niggers.” Harmon Schultz said, savage glee in his voice, and Lily saw Lou checking a pocket watch.
“It’s almost eight.” He said, and Lily could see her fiancé’s hand shaking as he put the watch back. That was alright. He’d get over it. She’d make sure of that.
“We ought to go take a look at the place,” one of the other night riders said, eyes glittering above a red and black checkered bandanna, “see how many coons we’re up against.” That was a sound plan, and they set off, radiating bloodlust as they went, like the glow surrounding an ember.
_______
“You better have you have answers,” a young man (the very same one who had recently jeered at Addison outside the jailhouse) said stiffly, anger burning in his eyes, “for why you got our reverend locked up.”
“And a man with a repeater sitting outside…intimidating us.” Added another. Outlaw stood back near the crates of rifles, flanked by Holt and Magistrate Harden, confronted by a swarm of angry Negroes from Company Shops.
“Reverend Paisley is guilty of murder,” Outlaw said patiently, “I will explain the details once the meeting is underway, there’s no use in pressing for them now…” That drew an buzz of angry invective from the cluster of men, but before it could grow any more intense somebody cleared their throat from the doorway, and suddenly the noise in the crowded lobby had dropped by half.
“Outlaw,” Stanley Turner said from the doorway, voice inspiring a frightened and almost awed silence from the attendees, “you got one of my men in your jail. I thought we agreed that Company Shops was not your area of jurisdiction.” The young men, so full of bluster and religious conviction only a moment before, slid silently out of the way of their boss, like the Red Sea parting for Moses. Outlaw watched the approach of his former boss, leaning on his cane. Holt’s face twitched with barely concealed dislike, Harden’s eyes had grown wary.
“Fact is Mr. Turner,” Outlaw said, Turner glanced over Outlaw’s injuries but didn’t seem too concerned for his former employee’s wellbeing, “reverend Paisley committed a double homicide outside of Company Shops. Additionally, the matter was brought to me…making it my responsibility since your railroad police would have nothing to do with it.” Turner’s upper lip curled.
“That man is an employee of N.C. Railroads,” Turner said stiffly, “who apparently murdered two of my men, making it an issue that N.C. should be dealing with, not some isolated burgh like Graham.” Turner sounded upset, his hands had dropped to his hips, and he almost looked like he was about to launch himself at Outlaw. The Union League faithful watched with mingled fright and interest. Turner was not a man to trifle with, and seeing Outlaw stand up to him was sort of…inspiring.
“Mr. Turner,” Harden interjected, “as the Magistrate for Alamance County, I would like to say that I intend to keep ahold of reverend Paisley, rather than hand him off to your railroad police. Yes, the crimes may have involved employees of N.C. Railroads, but they took place within Constable Outlaw’s area of jurisdiction. He’s ours Mr. Turner.”
“Don’t you go messing with my Negroes Peter,” Turner said ominously before turning his attention back to Outlaw, “do you have any idea the sort of chaos you’ve caused me this afternoon?” He asked, “I’ve got Negroes running around like chickens with their heads cut off, ‘cause their reverend just got arrested for allegedly murdering some folks. You threw water on a grease fire Outlaw, and productivity, not to mention railroad profits, have suffered because of it. If you hand him over then it will be easier on the both of us…you won’t have to deal with this bunch trying to shout you down while you’re officiating your meet here, and I wont have to deal with goddamn regional Negro politics.” Outlaw shook his head without hesitation, ignoring the curling surge of pain in his neck that resulted.
“Sorry Mr. Turner,” he said, taking care to remain not the least bit apologetic, “I am going to obey the laws of the land and keep ahold of reverend Paisley until such time as he can be either tried here or taken up to Greensboro…whichever is a fairer environment to draw a jury from. You will have to deal with your politics, just as I will have to deal with mine. Now, as I believe you said to me once, please get the hell out of my town.” The silence was deafening. Turner eyed Outlaw truculently, cast a baleful look over his employees, and then smirked.
“You always were an uppity little shit Outlaw,” was that a hint of grudging respect in his tone? “but this aint the end.” He turned to the door.
“Go back to Africa niggers!” Somebody shrieked from outside, and Outlaw had just enough time to realize that something was seriously wrong before the windows at the front of the room blew in, and they were under attack.
_______
Frost found himself watching Caroline Fowler out of the corner of his eye as he tidied things up, getting ready to close the clinic down for the night. He could hear the last few stragglers making their way to the Union League meet, and wondered how Outlaw was doing. From a medical standpoint the man would be fine in another few weeks, but the stress of the situation had to be taking a toll, even on someone as unflappably cool as the Head Constable. Especially since Allen Paisley had been thrown into the mix.
Frost had stuck Paisley’s victims out back, where they were covered in lime and draped with bloody sheets. He had decided to let the autopsies wait until morning. Besides, he knew what had killed them both already, that much was obvious. Both had been shot in the chest at close range, with what Frost believed to be a Colt Navy.
“Are you doing alright?” He asked, deciding to break that train of thought. He didn’t want to think about work at the moment, it just kept looping around to the possibility of the night orders coming after him, something that filled him with shrill, desperate terror. Caroline was sitting in a chair, fiddling with a newspaper but not reading it. She looked horribly nervous.
“Yes…I…I’m fine.” Something had apparently happened while Frost was away, dealing with the Paisley situation, but he hadn’t asked what. It wasn’t his place. He was just a practitioner, prying into a person’s personal life was not polite. Besides, Caroline looked fragile again, very much a porcelain doll a half inch or so from taking a long dive off of a high shelf.
“Your husband’s fever is breaking,” he noted with false cheer, but that didn’t seem to improve Caroline’s mood. She looked down at the floor.
“I should have left.” She said after a few moments had passed. Frost paused in what he was doing and looked over at her.
“Left?” He asked, though he had an idea of exactly what she meant.
“I should have gone to the train terminus and gone to Greensboro, or Raleigh…somewhere other than here.” She said this wearily, with no particular longing in her voice. Like she had fought so long and hard for that realization that she no longer had the energy to act upon it.
“You still can.” He said, and just then there came a brisk knock on the door. Frost looked over, to see Isaiah, the Union League volunteer that Outlaw had sent over to guard his clinic, poke his head inside.
“Would it bother you if I came inside for a bit? Kinda humid out there right now…” Frost hesitated, wanting to continue his conversation with Caroline, but Isaiah was already walking in, cheerfully mindless of Frost’s silence.
“Yes…” Frost sighed as Isaiah closed the door behind him, “I guess you can come in.” Isaiah sat down heavily in the chair next to Caroline, sending a few loose feathers from the stuffing whirling lazily through the air.
“Say Doc,” Isaiah said, shifting his rifle between his knees, “you ever delivered a baby before?” Frost shook his head.
“No, can’t say that I have.” Isaiah nodded, Caroline closely examined something deep in her newspaper, looking harried, even though she wasn’t the one being spoken to.
“I was asking ‘cause my wife’s pregnant, she just told me this afternoon via the telegraph. And I guess childbirth and all that is kinda on the mind.” Frost nodded diplomatically, wondering if it would be rude to tell Isaiah that he’d be better served in his guard duties by staying outside.
“Well…congratulations.” He said. Isaiah beamed.
“I’ve got some names in mind already,” he said, “gonna name him Samuel if he’s a boy, and Lozenge if she’s a girl.” Frost blinked.
“Lozenge is a lovely name.” Caroline said quietly and Isaiah smiled.
“You got any children ma’am?” Isaiah asked, turning his attention to Caroline. She nodded, a little hesitantly.
“I have a daughter,” her voice trembled as she said this, “her name is Lily.”
“That’s a nice name,” Isaiah said with honest admiration, “and set me straight if this is too personal, but where is she?” Frost went back to straightening and reorganizing his supplies. Caroline shook her head.
“I don’t know.” She said.
Unbeknownst to any of them Lily was less than fifty feet away. And closing in.
_______
The windows exploded inward in a sparkling kaleidoscope of color, and Outlaw felt something snatch the air away from his left ear with a hard snap sound. He ducked down, falling to his knees, cane clattering to the ground next to him. Holt was next to him, arm wound protectively around Outlaw’s shoulders, Colt Dragoon held in his free hand. He was shouting something but the roar of gunfire and the whirl of panicked screams was simply too loud. Outlaw could see people falling over each other, holes being punched in the front doors, splinters flying.
They were being attacked, he realized through the surreal syrupy confusion of the situation, there were people outside shooting into city hall. He drew his Colt Army and looked to Holt.
“Where’s Eli?!” He shouted, and Holt stared back, unsure. Moving out from his deputy’s grip, Outlaw stood and hobbled through the chaotic mess. A bullet pinged off of a sconce on the wall and Outlaw heard a trio of shots echo from inside of the lobby. People were firing back at the attackers.
“Wyatt!” Somebody shouted, and Outlaw caught sight of Albright, clutching Eli close to him, eyes wide with terror.
“Go to Harden’s office!” Outlaw yelled, throat afire once more. But the pain seemed distant and immaterial now, he stood straight and stared over the scene. The floor was matted with men and women desperately trying to take cover, broken glass glittering on the floor, intermingled with…
Blood. A truly disturbing amount of blood, running across the grooves and imperfections of the floor in trickles. He stepped forward, seemingly in slow motion, heart thudding heavily in his chest, pistol held at the ready.
He could see a few men scrabbling for the rifles in the crates at the back of the room, but those would do them no good. The powder and bullets aren't in the building! He wanted to shout, there's no use in grabbing those!. But instead he stepped over the prostrate form of a young woman sobbing into the pine floor, and limped back over to where Holt was.
“We have to get outta here!” Holt yelled, and Outlaw nodded. He felt oddly numb in this situation, fear a distant concept that no longer seemed entirely real.
“Gather those men who have guns,” he ordered, “have them pour fire out those front windows.” Holt nodded and Outlaw kept moving. A young man, bleeding from a gash on his shoulder, shoved past Outlaw, heading for the back. But even as he did so Outlaw could hear the booming reports of rifles from behind city hall. The night riders had more men back there, shooting any potential escapees as they filtered through the lone set of doors at the back of the building.
“Turner!” He shouted, and from near the front, where he was leaning against the wall, one cheek cleanly flensed away by a spike of flying glass, Stanley Turner stared back.
“The fuck are you doing Outlaw?” He demanded, “get down!” But Outlaw stayed standing, not especially caring if the night riders could see him. He pointed to Turner.
“Organize your men! Clear the front!” Turner had drawn his Colt Dragoon and nodded grimly, even as blood trickled down his neck.
At least a dozen of the Company Shops men had come to the meeting armed, perhaps hoping to intimidate Outlaw into letting Paisley walk free. Whatever their reasoning, Outlaw was grateful for their weaponry now. He could see men forming up by the windows, firing out of the splintered front doors, fogging the front of the lobby into a fug of powder smoke.
As Outlaw stood, trying to see where exactly everyone was, a terrible thought came to mind. Eli and Albright had fled to the back of the building, where Harden’s office was. And that was dangerously close to the fire of the night riders out back. He turned and looked to where Holt had joined Turner by the front window, speaking urgently to him. Turner wiped roughly at his wounded cheek and fired his pistol out the shattered window with conclusive boom that sounded more like an artillery piece than a handgun.
“Turner, can you handle the front?!” Outlaw shouted and Turner gave him a weird, carnivorous smile, teeth red with blood.
“What do you think?!” Taking that as a yes, Outlaw beckoned for Holt to come join him. His deputy did, keeping low, skirting the center of the room. Outlaw could see corpses now, given a strange, ephemeral quality by the smoke that fogged the lobby. He didn’t take the time to see if he recognized any of them. That would have to wait.
“We need to secure the back…give these folks an avenue of escape.” he said, practically shouting into Holt’s ear. Holt nodded and moved ahead, shouting for anyone with weaponry to follow him. A handful of frightened men, some knives and makeshift clubs, moved after him. Outlaw hurried down the hall, body singing with pain, gunshots hammering his ears.
Albright and Eli were huddled behind Harden’s desk, which they’d overturned. With them were a half dozen others, practically all the office could hold.
“Papa!” Eli cried in relief, and Outlaw could see the crumpled sketch of the horse still held in one small fist.
“Stay here and keep low until the shooting’s over!” He shouted, and headed back out into the hallway before he could stop himself. Behind him he heard Eli shout something, but whatever it was was erased by the continued cacophony of the battle.
He could see bullets making little runnels through the smoke, and he crouched low, leaning heavily on Harden’s cane, Colt Army held at the ready.
Up ahead he heard the heavy boom of Holt’s Colt Dragoon and couldn’t help but smile grimly. They were fighting back.
The back door of city hall had been riddled with bullets and hung sadly off of one splintered hinge. Holt crouched next to it, eyeing Outlaw as he approached.
“I see two back there,” he said, jerking his chin at the broken door, “one’s got a scattergun, the other got a pistol.” Outlaw joined Holt and took a look out into the dark street. He could see a silhouette dashing for a corner, just across the street. Holt took a shot at him but missed, the figure dove out of sight. a moment later the scattergun roared and the door gave up the ghost, falling from its hinges entirely with a weary crash.
“Give me covering fire on the man who just took cover on that corner,” Outlaw said, “I’ll deal with the scattergun. You follow me out if I’m still alive in five seconds.” Holt opened his mouth to protest but Outlaw shook his head. “I’m already hurt Harry, you’re still fresh. Wont be a loss if I get gunned down. Now go!” Holt, concern twisting his face, put the barrel of his Dragoon through the window and fired a quick trio of shots, blowing splinters from the corner that one of the night riders had hidden behind. Outlaw launched himself forward, pushing his aching legs to their limits. The man with the scattergun, caught in the middle of reloading, stared up, eyes wide and surprised. He was wearing a red and black checkered bandanna and Outlaw could see the fabric sucking in against his mouth with every breath his took. The scattergun snapped shut, and Outlaw raised his pistol, arm shaking with fatigue, the cane slipping out from under him as he pulled the trigger.
For a dreadful moment he was sure that he’d missed, then the night rider was yanked to one side, upper thigh exploding into blood. It was, Outlaw thought crazily, the exact same spot where Jed March had been shot, entire eons before. The scattergun bounced harmlessly off of the dirt and Outlaw crashed down, entire nebulae of stars flashing before his eyes as he yelped in pain. Bruised and cracked ribs were jarred, bruises disturbed and cuts reopened…yet he was still alive. The night rider shrieked, clutching his wounded leg, and Outlaw rolled halfway over, putting a shot into the battered corner where the other night rider had gone. There was no reply…perhaps the second attacker had fled.
Holt pelted out from the door and slid to a halt next to Outlaw, looking him over.
“You alright? Nothing broken?” Outlaw managed to smile, even through the tremors of fatigue and shock that were rattling him.
“Nothing new.” Holt smiled with relief and helped Outlaw to his feet, moving over to the wounded night rider, who was sobbing gently into his bandanna, leg glistening with scarlet from crotch to ankle. One of the men who had accompanied Holt to the back of city hall strode briskly forward and kicked the wounded night rider hard in the side of the head. Outlaw didn’t stop him. Instead he reclaimed his cane and looked back to city hall.
They had created a little island of peace back here, but the battle was still raging towards the front. Holt picked up the scattergun and checked to make sure it was loaded. Satisfied, he snapped the breech shut and moved up next to Outlaw.
“What now?” He asked.
“We keep moving.” Outlaw answered grimly, and they did just that.
_______
The attack on city hall landed at almost exactly the same time as Lily and Lou reached Frost’s clinic. They had watched the guard, some scrawny simpleton from Greensboro, walk inside and decided that they weren’t going to get conditions more favorable than that. Lou trailed behind Lily a little bit, sweat slicked hands shaking as he gripped his pistol. Lily was trembling too, but not out of fear. She felt excited, like she’d just been dosed with some fabulous new medicine that erased all of the doubts and inhibitions in the world.
“We are going to kill them all.” Lily said solemnly as they approached the front door. Behind them came a sudden cascade of gunfire, flashes and drifts of powder smoke illuminating the empty street in front of city hall, and Lou yelped, flinching away from the sudden noise. Lily gave him a look of cool contempt, then opened the clinic door.
Inside she could see three people, all easily visible from her place in the doorway. There was the guard, mouth hanging open in shock, groping for the Springfield rifle he had clamped between his knees. There was Frost, holding a cardboard box of something medicinal. And…and her mother.
Of course.
Lily raised her pistol and fired. She missed, shattering the glass of a mirror just above Isaiah’s head. He ducked but didn’t try to jump behind his chair or anything, just kept fumbling for his rifle, raking back the flint with one hand and trying to raise it to his shoulder with the other. Lily held back the hammer of his pistol, taking a step forward as she did so. On her face was a slight frown of self reproach. She was ordinarily such a good shot…but her hands had been shaking. She supposed that she would get used to it.
Isaiah’s head exploded into a fountain of gore, spattering the back wall, the shattered mirror, the ceiling. Lily caught a fleck of blood on her chin and blinked, looking surprisedly down at her smoking pistol.
“Oh God.” She said mildly. Behind her Lou made a weak mewl of horror. Isaiah…or the thing that had once been him, slithered bonelessly from the chair, Springfield rifle clattering impotently to the floor. Lily looked over to Frost, who had dropped the box and was now reaching for something underneath his counter. If he was anything like her father (and Lily heartily doubted that, but better to be safe than sorry) then there was probably something high caliber down there. She fired and Frost was knocked backward, shoulder a bloody ruin. He shouted and then crashed to the ground. Caroline Fowler shrieked, a high piercing noise that set Lily’s teeth on edge. She tried to raise her pistol but accidentally discharged a shot into the floor. Splinters flew and Lily cursed herself quietly. But at very least it shut her mother up.
“Oh Lily…” Caroline said, voice high and tremulous, “what have you done?” For a moment Lily didn’t understand the question. She opened her mouth to answer but had to spit a gobbet of blood out first. She’d nearly bitten through her cheek in the excitement.
And what excitement it had been! Staring down at the corpse of the Union League man, she felt as though she’d fall to joyous pieces, her heart let wildly in her chest, a blush rose to her cheeks. It was all so wild and pure and good. How she had ever lived without this sensation she did not know.
From behind the counter she heard Frost make a strained rattling noise but ignored that. She could deal with him later. Once she…
What was she going to do with her mother? The question was unexpected, and took a great deal of the joy out of the carnage she had just committed. On the one hand, Lily knew that killing one’s own parents was generally frowned upon. But then again, so was murder, and she’d just murdered the fuck out of some useless simpleton from Greensboro. On the other…on the other Caroline Fowler was a traitor and almost entirely responsible for her father ending up in this place.
Caroline Fowler raised her hands up slowly, some ancient instinct deciphering the look on her daughter’s face for her. She tried to speak but only made a weak whimpering noise. Lily stared, still thinking.
“I’m rescuing daddy.” Lily said at last. Caroline shook her head slightly, heart pattering away in her chest. She had the distinct feeling that if it went any faster then it would start skipping beats and grind to a halt entirely, like a steam engine pushed too hard by some overzealous engineer.
“How did you end up this way?” Caroline asked, not entirely sure where the words came from. This caught Lily by surprise. She wrinkled her brow, looking at the blood spattered room, the glittering shards of mirror glass and the gobbet of gray oatmealy brain caught in her mother’s hair.
“What way?” She asked, but had an idea of what her mother meant. Most people weren’t like her. She’d always had an inkling of that fact, but never had it seemed so blatant and ever-present than now.
“Lily…” Caroline said, and Lily raised her pistol. Behind her Lou said something weak and quiet, probably a plea for her to stop, but she tuned it out.
“Yes?” Lily asked, voice dripping with faux sweetness.
“Lily, I love you.” Caroline whispered.
“I know.” Lily pulled the trigger.
_______
Lily’s entrance had caught Frost entirely by surprise. As had the fact that she’d actually started shooting. Somehow he hadn’t expected that, even after all of the bizarre behavior he’d seen her display, he hadn’t expected murder to be on the girl’s agenda.
Yet…here he was, bleeding on the floor of his own clinic, agony shooting through his ruined shoulder like a swarm of wasps, poking gleefully at each exposed nerve ending they could find.
He’d been reaching for a sawn off scattergun that he kept beneath the counter (in that respect he and John Fowler were exactly alike) when Lily had shot him, and thoughts of that gun tormented him. If only he could sit up and reach over the two or three feet that separated him from it. Then he could teach the psychotic monster that he had once known as Lily Fowler a lesson or two.
He had made some progress, scooting back a little bit, having to rest for a few moment between each exertion, multicolored sparks shooting around the corners of his vision. But not enough. Lily was going to come over and finish him off at any moment. Either that or her chickenshit fiancé, the one that Frost could hear occasionally trying to tell Lily to back off, to no avail.
He reached out his good hand and felt the tip of one finger scrape the butt of the scattergun. A sensation of pins and needles shot through his fingers and a flash of derealization forced him to stop for a moment.
This was bad. He had been seriously hurt. For a moment he tried to deduce just how severe his injuries were, but realized after a moment that he didn’t really care. The only thing that mattered to him now was getting ahold of the scattergun and using it to blow Lily Fowler’s head off. Just like she’d done to poor Isaiah.
He leaned over more, head swimming, fingers gaining a slightly more solid grip on the scattergun. Lily said something final that he didn’t quite catch and the flat report of a gunshot erased the world for a hideous moment. He flinched and for a second was surprised to still be alive. Then he realized what had happened.
Lily Fowler had just shot her own mother.
A powerful horror ran through him, a sort of existential terror that briefly trumped even the pain shooting down his arm and side. He shuddered at the thought, at the mere notion of a child being callous enough to end the life of the person that had brought them into the world. He tried to quantify it and failed, feeling nausea rise within him instead. He gripped onto the butt of the scattergun and squeezed it with all of the strength he had left, like a swimmer clinging to a life preserver in stormy, unfriendly seas.
“Go get him.” Lily said, voice distracted and breathy, and for a terrible moment Frost was sure that she had just ordered her fiancé to murder him. But instead Lou, pale and shaky, passed by the end of the counter without giving him so much as a second glance. He was out of it, as focused and scared as a devotee to some pagan cult. The world around him might as well have stopped existing.
He came back out a moment later, staggering under the weight of John Fowler, who moaned something incomprehensible, blankets and sheets trailing off of him. Lily padded closer and Frost saw her head make a brief appearance. She kissed her father on the forehead, then turned toward Frost.
She looked, Frost realized through a thunderclap of disgusted horror, like a woman who had just enjoyed a really good session of lovemaking. It was this horror that gave him the strength to swing his body around, arm out straight, scattergun pointing straight ahead.
“Bitch.” He growled, and squeezed the trigger. The scattergun erupted, both barrels, spewing an eruption of smoke and sparks that seemed to fill the entire clinic. The blast seemed, to Frost’s ears at least, to be entirely reminiscent of the smiting hand of God.
The shot went mostly high, but enough pellets found their mark that Frost’s scattergun was able to neatly sever Lily Fowler’s left ear from her body. The rest of the pellets carried on, spreading out, and finding a target in the unconscious form of John Fowler.
Fowler’s head exploded in a very similar fashion to Isaiah’s, showering Lou and Lily both with gore. Frost stared, awed, as Lou fell backward in stunned silence, his arm peppered with shot, face spattered with scraps of skull and brain. Lily no longer looked happy. No longer looked even the slightest bit pleased.
She clapped one hand to the spurting wound where her ear had once been and staggered sideways, making an odd yipping sound that was half laughter and half shrieks of pain. Her pistol came up again and found Frost in its sights. He shut his eyes, but heard only a hollow click in lieu of a shattering blast.
Lily stared. Her mouth opened in indignant horror, then she looked to the ruined form of her father, pinning her poor, gray faced fiancé to the floor.
“No.” She growled, and pulled the trigger again. But was once again met with nothing other than that same impotent click. “No!” Frost started to laugh.
He was still laughing when Lily tugged Lou’s pistol from his belt and shot Frost in the forehead.
_______
Addison had been on the verge of dozing off when the first shots sounded down the street. He jumped, nearly spilling out of his chair, and held the repeater at the ready. There were flashes and roars of distorted sound pouring up the street towards him and for a confused moment he was unsure of what was going on.
Then it all clicked into place. The night riders were attacking the Union League meet. He stood up and backed away, to the door. Fumbling for the handle, he placed himself in the jailhouse and stood there, in the dark, shaking.
“I told y’all this would happen.” Paisley said from behind him, sounding as self assured and righteous as ever.
“Shut up.” Addison said, but Paisley continued to speak.
“I said to you that the night riders would come for Wyatt Outlaw and everyone around him, and I was right!” Addison turned and pointed the repeater into Paisley’s cell, gunfire crackling and booming behind him. He aimed down the sights at Paisley, who took a step away from the bars, upper lip rising into a snarl.
“Shut up, murderer!” Addison said, and Paisley stalked back to his cot and sat down, staring vindictively up at his jailer.
“Me being here is just another step down the road of righteousness,” he said, “because just as Christ was imprisoned and mistreated by the Romans, I am imprisoned and tortured by wannabe whites.” For a moment Addison had trouble believing what he had just heard, then he shook his head slowly, in awe at the delusion being produced by the man in front of him.
“How dare you compare yourself to Christ.” He said, and shook his head again.
“It’s true!” Paisley insisted, sounding hurt, “God is with me!” Addison remained silent for a few minutes, wondering if he should go down the street and see if he could help.
Paisley ranted on and on. He told Addison that he was the only thing keeping the Negro community in Alamance from complete destruction, that his word was the word of God and that anything else was heresy. His delusions seemed to be feeding into each other, becoming stronger and wilder with each passing sentence. After a while it didn’t even sound like words anymore, just a mad buzz of angry wasps frothing from their hive.
“Forget this,” Addison said to himself, and put his hand on the doorknob, listening to a rattle of gunshots sound from down the street (had these ones been closer? He didn’t know), “I cant listen to this anymore.” He stepped back out onto the porch and Paisley stopped preaching, shocked that his audience had moved away.
“Come back!” The reverend shouted plaintively, but Addison had no plans to oblige. He put his forehead against the cool wood of the door and tried to collect himself. He was scared, but somehow not quite as much anymore. He would stay out here on the porch, he decided, and keep watch for night riders. If they decided to come up here then he would-
The click of a pistol hammer being drawn back crystallized his thoughts, ran fine little fractures through them before blowing them to panicked pieces entirely. He stood, a cold sensation of dread flooding through him, like ice water through his veins. Behind him somebody spoke.
“Drop the gun nigger.” He dropped it, nerveless fingers letting the repeater clatter to the ground. He started to turn around and was suddenly dazzled, deafened, a pistol shot driving splinters from the wood mere inches in front of his nose. He fell backwards and tried to scrabble away. Another shot seared a hot line of agony across the back of one thigh, then people were shouting.
“Goddamnit! We don’t have to kill him!” Whoever was speaking had a high, quavering voice and Addison curled up against the railings of the porch, unable to retreat any further, watching as a bandanna wearing figure strode up onto the porch, aiming a LeMat revolver at him. He looked jittery and afraid. Kept glancing back down the street, to where the gunfire was starting to slacken. The night riders were evidently breaking off their attack, getting ready to retreat.
“And why not?” The man aiming the LeMat at Addison asked indignantly. He was accompanied by three others, one of whom was…was that Lily Fowler in the back? Her white dress had been spattered from hem to neck with gore and she wore a blank look of shock on her face. Next to her was her fiancé, clutching his right arm, which was dripping blood. The third figure was not one that Addison recognized, but whoever it was didn’t seem keen on killing him.
“We need leverage,” the figure replied patiently, “someone to use as a hostage if things get hairy.” The man aiming the LeMat stared incredulously but made no move to finish Addison off.
“Things aint hairy already?” He asked pointedly, but then Lily Fowler spoke, her voice vacant and blank. Somehow that made her even scarier than usual.
“Take him. I’ve got some questions once we’re out of here.” And with that any argument over Addison’s fate had been settled. The man with the LeMat started forward, stuffing his pistol into his belt, and dragged Addison off the porch by the collar of his shirt, throwing him into the dirt in front of his empty horse.
“I aint riding with no nigger,” said the man with the LeMat distastefully, “and we cant really drag him…not if we want him alive anyway.” The casual way that he spoke of dragging sent a fresh spike of dread through Addison’s heart. Lily Fowler looked over to the other rider with her, the one who had initially argued for Addison to be taken alive.
“Tie him up, put him on the back of your horse.” She said, and started to canter off in the direction of the train terminus. She didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, but rode stiffly all the same, as if expecting the worst thing in the world to land upon her at any moment.
Or perhaps it already had.
_______
Outlaw half sat, half collapsed onto the front steps of city hall, each breath he took sending new waves of exquisite agony through his bruised ribs. Frost would not be happy with what he had done, he decided. Not one bit.
The night riders had made their escape down the street, and but for two corpses, one produced by Outlaw, the other by Turner or one of his men, they might as well have not been there at all.
He felt numb, sitting there, the panicked and wounded and distraught victims of the attack streaming past him. He could see men with rifles patrolling the streets, some gray with powder smoke, others wide eyed and so shaky it was a wonder they managed to stay upright. Holt came to a halt next to him, and put a hand on Outlaw’s shoulder.
“Wyatt…” He said, and in that moment Outlaw knew that something was terribly wrong. He stood, slowly, wearily.
“What?” Holt just jerked his chin at the bullet pocked front doors of city hall in silent answer. The stream of refugees, fragments of glass sparkling in their hair, powder residue gummed onto their sweat streaked faces, parted around Outlaw like the Red Sea. He stepped inside the hazy ruin of the lobby.
The wounded had largely been removed, but the dead still remained, scattered, sprawled like abandoned scarecrows that even the birds took no interest in anymore. For a moment Outlaw looked over the half dozen limp forms and then it hit him.
These were people he knew. The man with his chest caved in by a rifle bullet had played the organ sometimes at church. The man with the cracked glasses, leant halfway up against the front wall of the lobby, surrounded by a fine mist of blood, he had been one of Paisley’s devotees. Had probably been gunned down waiting for Turner and Outlaw to settle their business so that he could know who to petition for his reverend’s release.
And in the back, lying crumpled next to the line of rifle crates, Outlaw saw a horribly familiar figure.
“Oh no…Peter.” He said, and fell to his knees next to the corpse of the Magistrate of Alamance County.
Harden had been shot in the hollow of his throat and from what Outlaw could see had probably died instantly. That took away none of the pain though, erased no aspect of the deep sense of dreadful loss he felt. Harden had been a friend and an ally. He had stood resolutely with the cause of liberty and equality, even upon pain of death. He had died standing up for his friends.
“How didn’t I notice?” he asked himself, voice a painful croak. Holt, who had followed Outlaw in, shook his head.
“You was standing in front of him,” his deputy said, “there aint no way you’d have seen or heard what happened to him in all of that noise and smoke.” Some rational part of Outlaw knew that that was true. Even now the air was acrid with smoke, and the noise of the battle had been fantastic. Yet…
“Whoever shot him had to be aiming for me,” he said grimly, “we were…we were so close together.” Holt sighed.
“Aint no point in dwelling on it now Wyatt,” he said, and gently raised Outlaw back to his feet, “we got night riders to kill.”
_______
Harmon Schultz felt indignant and upset. The raid had gone really well for maybe the first two minutes…then things had started going wrong. He had been shooting at the back of city hall with Liam Cooper (the very same man whose name Lily had been puzzling over recently) when his LeMat jammed and he had gone behind cover to clear it out.
Then, several frenzied moments later, Liam had been shot and the niggers were boiling out of the back door like ants from a fucking nest. He had run, looping back around to the front, only to receive some garbled news that John Fowler was dead and they would be making a measured retreat of some sort. Before the niggers organized and swallowed them all up.
And to cap the whole night’s array of fucked up events, he had somehow missed twice at point blank range shooting some cowardly nigger deputy. Lily Fowler had had her ear shot off, Lou Davis’ arm was in tatters, at least two of their number were dead (that Schultz knew of) and now they were keeping niggers alive rather than killing them outright. What in the hell had happened?
He disapproved strongly of taking the nigger deputy along as a hostage, but knew better than to speak out against what Lily Fowler wanted. Instead he opened the door of the jailhouse and stared into the gloomy interior.
“What’re you doing Harmon, we gotta go.” Came a voice from behind him, but Schultz ignored it for the moment. He stepped inside, and heard a scuttle of movement from one of the cells.
“Who’s in here?” He demanded, and stepped forward, squinting into the darkness. The first cell was empty, nothing but a mattress and a tin bucket, but the second was occupied. And by a nigger no less.
“Oh Christ.” The nigger said, and Schultz cocked his head slightly.
“Who the hell are you?” He asked. From out front he heard another demand that he hurry, but for the moment he ignored it.
“Reverend Allen Paisley,” said the nigger, “I’ve been falsely imprisoned here by Wyatt Outlaw.” He was well spoken for a nigger, and that didn’t sit well with Schultz. It scared him when blacks could speak better than him, made him feel stupid and slow. He thumbed back the hammer on his LeMat and watched Paisley throw up his hands, eyes widening.
“Wait!” The nigger shrieked, “I’ve got a proposal for you, an…an alliance of sorts. If you let me out of here then I will do everything I can to inconvenience Wyatt Outlaw and his people. Alright?” Schultz frowned.
“The fuck does ‘inconvenience’ mean?” He asked, and without waiting for an answer shot Paisley in the stomach with the under-barrel of the LeMat, which was loaded with a single twenty gauge buckshot charge. Paisley was flipped onto his back, where he started screaming and kicking, his blood just as black as him in the moonlight.
Losing interest, Schultz turned and walked out of the jailhouse, mounting his horse and kicking it into a canter. There were people watching the departure of the night riders, from around curtains and through half opened doors. Nobody quite dared go out into the open. That was just the way Schultz liked it.
_______
Outlaw was halfway to Frost’s clinic when he got the feeling that something was terribly wrong. A small crowd of Negroes had gathered around the building and looked over to Outlaw as he approached. None of them seemed to want to go in, even though most were injured.
“There are dead folks in there.” One old man kept on repeating, dabbing at a gash across the bridge of his nose. Outlaw, Holt close behind him, drew his Colt and opened the door.
The front room of Frost’s clinic was bathed in blood. For a horrible moment Outlaw was sure that he was going to faint, give in the awful light headedness that nearly consumed him. Then it passed and he stepped forward, to where he could see a pair of corpses, drenched in gore and contorted. They hadn’t been dead long, no more than ten minutes, the blood hadn’t even congealed yet.
“That’s Mrs. Fowler,” Holt said, voice fraught with horror, “why you think they killed her?” Outlaw holstered his Colt and shook his head.
“And there’s Isaiah.” He said, looking at the ruins of the Union League volunteer’s head.
“Jesus…he was gonna have a kid.” Holt turned sharply and moved back to the doorway, taking a deep, jagged breath. The whole clinic smelled like blood, the scent so strong that Outlaw wondered if he was ever going to stop smelling it, even if he walked out right there and then.
Then he saw it. A ragged bundle in the far corner that he almost didn’t recognize as a human being. Whoever it had been had been shot in the head at close range, just like Isaiah. But why? Who was it and…
“Oh.” Outlaw said, taking an instinctive step back. For he was looking at the ruined corpse of John Fowler. He turned to collect himself but instead found himself looking into the glossy eyes of a very dead Dr. Frost.
Frost had died propped up against a mountain of fallen medical supplies, an empty scattergun clutched in one hand. He had been shot twice, once in the shoulder, once in the forehead. The wall behind him was pasted with slowly drying brains and scraps of skull.
Shaking his head at the sight, trying to keep his heart from flopping out of his chest like a landed fish, Outlaw retreated to the doorway, where Holt was collecting himself.
“Four dead in there,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “Caroline Fowler, Isaiah the volunteer, John Fowler and Joseph Frost.” He stopped and took a deep breath, almost relishing the sparks of pain it ignited in his throat and chest. They seemed to clear away some of the horrors that he had seen in there.
“Fowler? Frost?” Holt asked, Outlaw nodded.
“The night riders were trying to rescue Fowler. That’s why they came here in the first place, why they attacked our meeting. To keep us pinned down while they took Fowler back. Doesn’t look like any night riders other than Fowler died…or if they did then their fellows drug ‘em away.” Outlaw looked up to the assembled crowd of walking wounded. People who had been cut by glass, shot, trampled…
“Our doctor is dead,” he said, feeling for a surreal moment like he was in a dream, like none of this was at all real, “he was killed by night riders. We’ll be organizing emergency medical care with what resources we have…but if your injuries are not serious I’m gonna have to ask that you go to Company Shops and see Dr. Worth there.” The crowd buzzed for a moment, but everyone was simply too demoralized and unhappy to protest.
“Travel in groups,” Holt advised, “keep your eyes open!” Outlaw stepped away from the clinic door, feeling shaky and ill.
“We need to start deputizing folks. Go get Addison from the jailhouse, we need everyone right now.” Holt started off and at that moment Outlaw caught sight of Turner, the right side of his face caked with blood, making his way up the street toward him.
“Outlaw,” he said, “you need some serious help here.” Outlaw nodded.
“The Magistrate is dead, the town doctor is dead…we’re very short handed right now Mr. Turner. I’d like you to organize your railroad police to start escorting the wounded to Company Shops so that they can get proper treatment.” Turner nodded.
“I’d like to offer myself up as a deputy as well,” he said, “‘cause whatever damage you’ve done me with the whole Paisley debacle…that pales in comparison to the shit that the night riders just pulled. You may be an uppity little shit Outlaw, but you aint a night rider, and that’s all that matters to me right now.” Outlaw nodded, quietly relieved that Turner was calling their feud quits for the moment, and extended a hand.
“Welcome aboard.” Turner looked over to the railroad terminus.
“I’ll call for an emergency freight to come here and load up all these hurt folks,” he said, “and I’ll get some railroad police and volunteers to come down here as well.” Outlaw felt relieved by this. His manpower issues were solved for the moment, but he still didn’t know where the night riders had gone off to or if they’d done any other damage that he didn’t yet-
“The motherfuckers took Addison!” Holt cried from up the street, and Outlaw’s heart dropped into his stomach.
_______
Allen Paisley was beyond any sort of help by the time Outlaw and Turner reached the jailhouse. He squirmed in a pool of his own blood, moaning thinly, stomach ripped open by a blast from what looked like a shotgun.
“What did you see?” Turner asked brusquely, not seeming to care one bit that the man he was questioning was torn nearly in half.
“Help…me…” Paisley moaned. Turner sighed.
“I aint gonna do that unless you tell me what I need to know. Who took Outlaw’s deputy, and where the fuck did they go?” Paisley bared his teeth, which were flecked with blood. Not a good sign, it meant that the reverend was suffering from massive internal bleeding. He wouldn’t last long. Outlaw and Holt hung back, knowing that Paisley wouldn’t answer any of their questions no matter what.
“Night…riders,” Paisley hissed, eyes wild with pain, “only saw one.”
“Yes…?” Turner pressed impatiently, fresh blood trickling down his cheek with every question he asked. The railroad director didn’t seem to notice.
“He…he had a bandanna.” Paisley groaned and then looked to Turner helplessly. “Please…you gotta help me.” Turner stood up and turned away, looking back to Outlaw and Holt.
“Well…that was useless.” He said with a shrug. Outlaw stepped forward and looked down at the dying reverend.
“Can you tell us anything else Allen?” He asked. Paisley coughed weakly, flecking his chin with bloody spittle.
“For Christ’s sake, help me.” Outlaw unlocked the cell door, Turner watching his actions skeptically.
“Aint no need to do that Outlaw,” he said, “that murdering little shit’s gonna die anyway.”
“Which way did they go Allen?” Outlaw asked, “you tell me and I’ll get you some water.” Paisley’s eyes lit up greedily.
“…North,” he said slowly, “toward the old main road.” Outlaw moved to fetch a tin cup, which he filled with water. Kneeling down, he raised Paisley’s head gently and let him sip at the water. The reverend coughed and then looked up at Outlaw, suddenly frightened.
“I don’t wanna die.” He said, eyes brimming with tears.
“Tough shit killer,” Turner growled from just outside the cell, “maybe should’ve thought about that before you caught that scattergun charge.” Paisley scowled weakly at Turner.
“Wasn’t…wasn’t a scattergun.” Outlaw raised an eyebrow.
“What was it Allen?” Paisley looked troubled.
“A…a pistol. I don’t know how he…how he shot me so much…he only fired once.” He coughed again, spasming in Outlaw’s arms, fresh blood trickling from his mouth. Outlaw was silent for a few moments, letting Paisley sip some more water. He could feel the reverend’s heart thrumming wildly away, like a trapped bird…but it was definitely beginning to slow down. Another few minutes and the reverend would be dead dead dead.
“A LeMat?” He asked, and Turner nodded approvingly.
“You know your firearms Outlaw, I’m impressed.” He said fondly, but Outlaw wasn’t paying attention to that. The LeMat wasn’t exactly a popular weapon, it hadn’t been produced in large numbers during the war, though J.E.B. Stuart and a number of other prominent Confederate officers had sworn by it. But Outlaw did know one person in Graham who used a LeMat. After all, he had nearly had the thing pulled on him while attempting to arrest John Fowler some days before.
“It’s Harmon Schultz,” Outlaw said, “Harmon Schultz shot Paisley with a LeMat.” Holt nodded grimly.
“That bastard.” He said with real venom in his voice. Turner nodded slightly.
“Any idea where he lives?” Outlaw nodded.
“Up north someplace, pretty close to Jacob Long actually,” he looked back at Turner and Holt, “I think I know where they’re going.”
_______
Lou stared down at the mane of his horse, shaking, pain radiating dully from his buckshot peppered arm. He kept the limb still, didn’t want to find out what would happen if he were to move it in the wrong way.
Lily had shot her own mother. That was the thought that kept coming back to him. He had just watched his fiancé carve through a clinic full of people with the shaky joy of a coca addict who'd just taken too high a dose. She had shot her own mother. She had killed Dr. Frost…she had…
He felt sick. He felt hurt. He felt ugly for standing just behind her and not doing a goddamn thing to stop her. All of the things he’d seen her do so far, all of the bizarre terrors and nightmares he’d seen her partake in…all of that paled in comparison to the reality of the triple murder that she had committed.
How could you kill your own mother? How?! He wanted to ask, but kept his mouth shut. The four of them kept on riding. They’d meet up with the others later, once they’d found somewhere to stash the nigger deputy and hole up until things quieted down.
“Why’d we take the deputy?” Lou asked instead. Lily glanced back at him. Bruising was beginning to spread across the side of her head, around the ugly stump where her ear had once been. She had a pad of cloth held over it, but it had been completely saturated and Lou could see blood running down her jaw, dripping from her chin. Her eyes were completely blank, personality erased by shock.
“He knows some things that I want to know too.” She said quietly, and turned back around in her saddle, facing ahead.
They had taken a backroad, in order to avoid the rush of lawmen that would doubtlessly be coming down from Greensboro and Company Shops at any moment. The trees pressed in around them, and other than the quiet clop of hooves and the warm bluster of horse’s breath, the night was entirely silent. Even the insects seemed to go quiet as Lily Fowler and her dread armada approached.
In the back, riding just behind the tied up nigger deputy, Harmon Schultz was rapping his fingers on the butt of his LeMat, thinking of the nigger he’d shot in the Graham jailhouse. Since when did niggers try and ally with night riders? It bothered him. Did the jailed nigger really hate Outlaw so much that he’d put in with the Klan sooner than remain in jail?
“Any of y’all heard of Allen Paisley before?” He asked. There was silence in reply. Then the deputy spoke, from where he’d been tied to the back of the horse. His voice was quiet and hesitant.
“He’s a reverend in Company Shops.” Schultz scowled, drawing his LeMat and aiming it at the deputy’s head.
“Aint no one interested in hearing what you got to say nigger.” He growled, and the deputy whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut, like a child hoping to blot monsters from existence by removing them from sight.
“Stop it,” Lily said from ahead, and Schultz looked up, realizing with a nasty shock that Lily was actually wheeling her horse around, heading towards him. He hastily holstered his LeMat.
“I…” He started. And then Lily was aiming a Colt Navy at him, the bore enormous and full of awful potential. He tried to say something but words failed. No one moved to protect him. Crossing Lily Fowler was not a good idea.
“I have some questions to ask him,” she said, voice still entirely blank, “and you are on the verge of fucking that up. Try not to Harmon.” And with that her pistol was back in its holster. The group rode on. Harmon Schultz found that his hands would not stop shaking.
_______
Turner’s railroad police were rough men, clad in burlap and denim, armed with clubs and pistols. Arriving in Graham on a flatbed towed by a locomotive, with a somewhat tipsy Dr. Worth in tow, they gathered before their director.
“A Union League meeting here was attacked by night riders,” Turner told his men grimly, “at least ten people are dead, and twice that number wounded, mostly employees of mine. I want you to organize the wounded, help set up a mobile clinic for Dr. Worth and aid Mr. Outlaw and Mr. Holt over there with anything they may need.” He paused, then nodded slightly to himself, “oh. And any night rider you see. Shoot him.” That gained a murmur of assent from the railroad police, who fanned out around the crowd of wounded, who had conglomerated near the train terminus.
Dr. Worth, Company Shops’ primary practitioner, was a corpulent man with silver hair and a spectacular set of muttonchops. Lumbering off of the flatbed railcar, two assistants in tow, he demanded that triage be performed. Outlaw left him to his own devices. He didn’t know much about medicine, that was the preserve of men like Frost and Worth.
“Holden gonna have to declare martial law now.” Holt said bitterly. Outlaw nodded. People were beginning to trickle from their homes now, some carrying scatterguns or pistols, others unarmed but scared stiff by the sight of so many injured, unhappy Negroes.
“Wyatt,” Outlaw turned to find himself face to face with Emmanuel Reed, the schoolmaster, “I got down here as fast as I could, is there anything I can do to help?”
“I want you to go help Dr. Worth, we need people doing triage right now.” Reed hurried off, Outlaw leaned heavily against his cane. God was he tired. He wondered if he would have left Frost’s clinic had he known what the day was going to be like.
“Outlaw!” Turner shouted from his huddle of railroad police, “we’ve got us a posse, let’s go kill some night riders!” There was a ragged wave of assent to this from the Company Shops men, and Outlaw nodded before catching sight of Albright and Eli shakily making their way towards him.
“You go ahead,” Outlaw said to Holt, “tell Turner to give me a moment.” Albright was holding Eli, who looked frightened but otherwise unharmed. Both had bits of broken glass sparkling in their hair.
“You alright Wyatt?” Albright asked, eyes wide and voice shivery with leftover adrenaline. Outlaw nodded and Eli looked over to him, eyes bright with frightened tears.
“I’m fine. You and Eli alright?” Eli’s lower lip began to tremble.
“Please don’t go papa,” he whimpered, and Outlaw’s heart dropped into his stomach, “you don’t have to…” Outlaw forced a brave look onto his face, even as his son’s words scored his soul.
“Just this one last time Eli,” he said, gently wiping a tear from Eli’s cheek, “I’ve got to go rescue deputy Addison, he’s been taken by night riders.” Eli’s face crumpled in concern.
“He’s always so nice to me…” He said, and buried his head in Albright’s chest, overwhelmed by the situation.
“Take him home…I’ll have Turner assign one of his railroad police to act as a guard,” Outlaw stroked Eli’s hair, “I love you Eli, and I’ll be back soon.” He forced himself away and limped over to where Turner, Holt and a half dozen railroad police were standing, with a small collection of plow horses and mules.
“We’ve been repossessing horses to serve as mounts for our posse,” Turner explained, “you don’t need to worry, these are all Company Shops horses.” Outlaw nodded slowly and laboriously climbed into his saddle. Holt had seen fit to fetch his horse for him and Outlaw was glad for that.
“Gentlemen,” Turner addressed his men, “this is Wyatt Outlaw, Head Constable for the town of Graham. It was his deputy that was captured by the night riders, and we aim to get that deputy back and kill his captors. We’re going to a little farm up north, a couple miles south of Company Shops. Be careful, and be ready. Alright?”
“Alright!” Answered the railroad police in unison. A few of them eyed Outlaw and Holt with something akin to suspicion, but none of them said anything.
“Mr. Turner,” Outlaw said quietly, taking the director aside, “could you assign one of your men to guard Will Albright’s home? He’s caring for my son right now.” For a moment Turner looked almost baffled by the request, then his visage softened.
“Declan!” He shouted, and an older man with a scar across his cheek and a wiry built trotted forward on a mule, a pair of Colt Navy pistols stuck in his belt.
“Sir?” Declan asked. He had a musical sort of accent and Outlaw supposed that he had gotten his scars in the war.
“I want you to guard a man named William Albright. He’s caring for the Head Constable’s boy.” Outlaw supplied the address and Declan headed off, looking mean and determined. That made Outlaw feel better, and they rode off into the night, heading north.
_______
“Reverend…reverend, can you hear me?” Paisley only just managed to open his eyes. He felt so numb…like he had been chilled in a great big tub of ice water until the only sensation left was one of encroaching coldness.
“…You…” He managed to say, wasn’t entirely sure why. In some foggy corner of his mind he recognized the men sitting on either side of him, staring down with obvious concern. They were members of his church. Devotees.
“Who shot you reverend? Was it Outlaw?” Paisley tried to speak but couldn’t. His throat was too dry. He made a vague croak and felt something shift uncomfortably in his abdomen where the night rider’s strange pistol had torn him up.
“Get him some water.” One of the men said to his fellow, and the man hurried wordlessly off, returning a few moments later with a dipperful of cool, clear liquid. It was blessedly cool, but turned to a dull, incessant throb once it reached his stomach.
“Where…?” Paisley asked.
“Triage,” explained the man with the water dipper, “you gonna be alright reverend.” His voice cracked as he said this, and Paisley could tell immediately that he was lying. That realization shot a powerful dread through him.
“I don’t wanna die.” He said.
“You aint gonna die reverend. Not tonight.” Another lie. Paisley squeezed his eyes shut.
“Who shot you reverend?” The first man asked again, a little more insistently now.
“Outlaw.” Muttered his fellow.
“Night riders.” Insisted another, “Outlaw aint gonna shoot another Negro, no matter how white he think he is.” Paisley accepted another sip of water and tried to clear the fog from his mind. Tried to think of consequences. He was dying, he knew that much, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the results of whatever he said…but that didn’t prevent them from happening.
“It was…” He stopped just short of saying Outlaw’s name. Did he really want to do that?
Yes! Shrieked one part of his mind, God has ordained you for this mission, to bring down Wyatt Outlaw, to destroy the false prophet! And with that came a fiery blaze of anger, throwing off multicolored sparks in every direction.
No. Came a tired voice in the back of his mind, from around the roaring anger and fear, you’ve perverted your mission. Your duty is to protect your fellow Negroes.
“Reverend?” Asked the first man, voice shrill with concern. Paisley squeezed his eyes shut once more, and suddenly felt ashamed of himself. More than ashamed…he felt guilty.
In the face of the great blank wall of death, what did the politics of anything he’d done matter? He’d killed Curtis and Josiah. He’d tried to make a deal with the night riders…and they’d shot him like a dog in response.
Outlaw was wrong in his methods, Paisley was still certain of that, but suddenly he found that he couldn’t hate the man anymore. Outlaw had never beaten him like his thuggish deputy, Outlaw had never sat back to watch him die like Turner had. Instead he had knelt down next to his dread enemy and offered water.
“Night riders.” He said at last, “it was night riders.” And something within him let go. A moment later the reverend Allen Paisley was dead.
_______
Harmon Schultz lived in a modest house that sat in the center of a half acre of partially cleared land. He’d tried for some time to scratch a vegetable garden into the soil, but under his policy of general neglect the garden never produced much outside of weeds and the occasional stringy carrot that vermin and other pests didn’t carry away.
In the daylight it was nothing special, a shabby tarpaper roofed building with a metal stovepipe sticking up through the roof and the windows grimed with pipe smoke. But after the disappointments of the night, it looked almost divine to the weary night riders.
“I aint got but one bed,” Schultz said as he slid down from his horse, “…and I figure that Miss Fowler should get it, what with her being a lady and all.” He added quickly with a hasty glance over to Lily. The nigger deputy was hustled rudely from where he’d been tied over the back of a roan horse and collapsed to the ground, shivering in silent terror. Lily didn’t move to get off of her horse.
“Are we safe here?” She asked finally. Schultz nodded fervently.
“Of course we are!” He said, a little sharply, all too ready to bunker down and not move for a good long while. Lily stared down at him, face unreadable.
“You were in the Red Bird when Outlaw tried to arrest my father, right?” Schultz nodded slowly. That was a story that he had told proudly many times in the days since it had happened. Him standing up to the powers of the nigger sympathizers in Washington and Raleigh.
“I was.” He confirmed.
“Then Outlaw knows that you’re a night rider,” came the gruff voice of the man who had had the captured deputy tied across his horse, “and this place aint safe if that’s the case.” Addison wheeled around, unhappy to find himself being ganged up on.
“And who are you exactly?” He asked brusquely, voice sharp and more than a little frightened, “I don’t seem to remember you very well.” The night rider hooked a finger into his bandanna and lowered it, revealing a sharp, bony face stubbled with the beginnings of a beard.
“Israel Keens,” the rider introduced himself with no fanfare, “from Company Shops. I rode with John Fowler and Nathan Bedford Forrest in the war, and I’d like it if you showed Mr. Fowler’s daughter some more respect when answering her questions.” Keens’ voice never rose above its original, flat, vaguely threatening tone. Yet Schultz couldn’t help but nod.
“Fine…” He said, “fine. Outlaw probably knows that I’m a night rider…but he don’t got no evidence that I was out riding tonight.” He glanced wistfully back at his cabin. Lily leaned forward on her horse and cocked her head, the slab of blood soaked bandages covering her mangled ear dripping onto the ground. It was like the beat of a liquid metronome.
“We aint staying here.” She decided at last, and Keens looked back to where the nigger deputy was lying silently on the ground. The sight reminded Schultz of a fawn he’d seen in a thicket once, lying quietly on the ground, half hidden amongst shrubbery, remaining all but completely still.
“Where we going then?” He asked, dismayed, “we need to stop and rest…get medicine and shit so we can fix ourselves up. We got all that here!” Keens glanced over, realizing that Schultz had a point when it came to the medicine.
“Then bring it.” He said, and Schultz stalked off to his cabin, muttering unhappily under his breath.
Once inside he snatched a bag and swept some things into it. Whiskey for cleaning wounds (and minds, so he hoped), some clean shirts that could be torn up for bandages, a pot to boil water in, a scattergun that he used for hunting ducks in the fall…
Stopping, juggling many items in his arms, he set the scattergun down and wondered for a moment if Lily and Keens were right. Would Outlaw come chasing after him? Would he dare track a night rider to his home?
When Schultz left his cabin a few minutes later and kicked off in pursuit of his group, who had gone a few hundred yards down the road already, he still wasn’t entirely sure. But he was ready.
_______
They were moving at a light canter, and for the first time all night Outlaw began to wonder if he would make it. Adrenaline had kept him moving for quite a while now, adrenaline and sheer determination. But now the former was wearing off, and even if the latter remained just as strong as ever, he felt tired and hurt, absolutely drained.
And the railroad police were grumbling.
Outlaw had picked up their names from listening to them talk, and of the three men accompanying Turner, Holt and him, he thought highly of only one. Garner.
Garner was maybe the youngest man in the group, a lanky youth from Company Shops with square features and a thatch of messy straw like hair. He seemed to be new to the job but hadn’t mouthed a word of complaint or doubt, instead watching the proceedings, seeing what Turner had to say about it all.
“This aint N.C. business sir,” one of the riders said, “that’s all I’m saying…” This was Hunt, an older man with sallow, sagging features that made it look as though his face were constructed of slowly melting wax. He was Turner’s lieutenant, and seemed skeptical of their mission. To say the least.
“We’re hunting night riders,” Turner said, glancing impatiently back at Hunt, “night riders that opened fire on me and my employees. This is absolutely N.C. business.” Hunt was silent for a moment. Then one of his fellows piped up. Beebe. Maybe thirty years old, scrawny, wore suspenders that held his pants up but made them look like sails on a mast.
“I think they was just shooting at the niggers.” Holt bristled at the slur but Outlaw put a hand on his deputy’s shoulder. They were riding at the back of the group, with something of a gap between them and the N.C. men.
“Those niggers are my employees.” Turner said stiffly and for a moment there was silence.
“I’m just saying,” Beebe spoke again, “it aint like any of these pickaninnies out here are indispensable. We ought not to mess with the Klan…you know?” Turner fixed Beebe and his fellows with a truly malevolent glare.
“Then turn around. And don’t bother coming back to Company Shops when you do, ‘cause there certainly aint gonna be a job waiting for you when you get there.” Silence grew and eventually melded into the hum of mosquitos, the chirp of cicadas and the squeak of bats. Outlaw decided to break the silence.
“I’d like to thank all of you for coming along. You’re helping save the life of a good man…and hopefully many others.” Beebe shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. Hunt stayed determinedly silent. But Garner glanced back and nodded quickly at Outlaw before tucking back into himself. Holt gave Outlaw a strange look.
“What’re you doing?” He asked quietly.
“Reminding them there’s a life at stake. That we’re out here for something more than hunting down Klansmen.” Holt sighed.
“You think they gonna care about some kidnapped Negro? You think Turner’s in this for anything more than revenge for getting his cheek cut open?” Outlaw was silent for a long moment.
“I’m hoping to prove you wrong.” Silence resumed.
_______
The throb in the side of Lily’s head was appalling. Like a dull chisel being hammered into her ear canal. Like acid being injected and spreading through veins and capillaries. She could see it each time she shut her eyes. A spreading geometric web of lines, branching and branching and branching out from the point of impact. Throbbing a dull, angry red.
And from between them she could see her father. Wan, sweat glossy face, stump of an arm swathed in bloodied bandages. How her heart clenched in reflexive sympathy for him. How it stopped when his head blew apart in a hail of crimson.
Shooting Frost had done nothing to soothe the hurt inside of her. It had only added to it if anything. Because Frost had been laughing. His face bore none of the terror and surprise of her mother, or the idiot guard she had killed. None whatsoever. Frost had known damn well that he was going to die, and he had gone out laughing. It tore at her like the paws of a jungle cat, claws jagged spikes of poisoned glass.
And yet…somehow it had released her from something. From a surreal spiral of continuing excitement and exhilaration that had only been growing more and more intense until…
Until Frost had blown it all away.
She felt numbed. The hurt raging within her contained only by a glossy layer of veneer. Like if she were to scratch away the skin that covered her it would all come roaring out and lay waste to the world. That thought excited her, but only for a moment. Then it faded away…like a butterfly in the cold, colorful wings dimmed by snow and ice.
She did have one plan though. And it was a good one. It gleamed gold and calm from the turmoil of her mind.
“We’ll stay in the woods for a little bit,” she decided suddenly, looking to an overgrown track that led off the road and into the forest, “until I know what I need to know.” She had drawn her Colt Navy but couldn’t remember doing it. That frightened her in some distant way, but also didn’t. Perhaps she’d had it out the entire time.
There was no word of dissent against her plan and they turned onto the track, a pair of old wagon ruts worn into the ground. The woods were sprinkled with old paths like this, some that led nowhere. Others ended at old graveyards, clearings where crumbling bricks told of long ruined houses, other scenes of decay and neglect. Lily had not seen this one before. She decided that it had been placed there specifically for her.
Above them the moon was full and silver, highlighting the blood dripping down onto Lily’s shoulder, saturating what remained of her dress. She looked like some nightmare version of a fairy queen, leading a gaggle of bewitched humans further and further away from help.
“Where does this go?” Lily heard Schultz ask quietly from somewhere behind her.
“Dunno.” Came Keens’ quiet reply. Then silence.
Then they were there.
A ruined cabin stood before them, dirt floored, door gone entirely, roof only half there. It had not seen occupants for a decade at least, and out on either side Lily could see the stumpy remains of fence posts, sticking up from the grass like rotten teeth. She wheeled her horse around to face the three men who remained of her wonderful posse.
“Tie the nigger to something,” she instructed Keens, “and Harmon, unpack your things.” She looked to Lou. Lou did not look back. He was clutching his wounded arm, sleeve saturated with blood. He looked pale and frightened, decidedly unsure of what to do next.
“Lily…” He began, but trailed off. Lily dismounted from her horse and almost fell over, the world swinging alarmingly around her for a moment before it settled. She pressed a hand up against the wad of soaked bandages covering her wound and felt an electric shock of pain that almost made her yelp. Yet it set the world back into cold clear focus…and for that she was grateful.
She walked into the cabin and saw that it was still partially furnished. A table, and the rotten remains of what looked to have once been a bed. Keens was busily tying the nigger deputy to what looked to be a load bearing joist in the corner. It looked sturdy and unconsumed by rot. She left him to his task.
Schultz had brought a medley of supplies. A lantern, which was now glowing gently in the corner, shirts that she supposed were meant to be torn up for bandages, some food, some water, a dented coking pot scarred with soot, a bottle of whiskey. The list went on. She sat down on the corner of the table and felt it shift alarmingly under he weight. But she stayed where she was, watching her men.
“Those bandages need to be changed.” Lou said quietly from the doorway, still clutching his injured arm.
“You’re hurt too,” Keens said, looking at the ugly tears in Lou’s shirtsleeve, “gonna need to clean that…and get the shot out.” Lily reached gingerly up and removed her bandages with a wet, unpleasant sucking noise. They fell to the ground with a distinct splat.
“Tilt your head to the side,” Schultz said, moving toward Lily with wary caution, “this is gonna hurt…” He splashed her wound with whiskey. Lily jackknifed on the table, sending supplies raining to the floor, mouth open in a silent scream.
It was perhaps the worst pain she’d ever felt in her life, and in an instant it cleared away all of the fog and grief and horror and rage that stewed uncertainly in her mind. Everything was bright and clear and completely blank for a miraculous second. Then she was back, shivering with pain, fresh swathes of cloth being pressed down over the wound. She stared over to Schultz, eyes wide, the words almost not coming.
“Do that again.” She said, but when she tried to sit up her vision blurred alarmingly and Keens had to set her down on the floor. She stayed there, reflecting upon the peace given by pain, until she felt sure enough to stand.
She walked outside and found that her ear hurt a little less now. But she wasn’t sure how much of that was genuine improvement or her nerves still adjusting to the alcohol that Schultz had poured on her wound. Opening her saddlebags, she peered into them and thought of what she was going to do.
Out came a little folding knife that she used to clean her horse’s hooves. Out came a brush, to get the dried blood and other filth from her hair. And out came an atomizer. Because she smelled of her father’s blood, and didn’t ever want to smell like that again. She gave the pump a squeeze and out came the scent of lavender. It would do.
_______
Addison had his knees held up against his chest, like a porcupine rolled into a ball, hoping against hope that this would protect him from whatever the night riders were going to do to him.
He’d prayed a little on the ride, his face pressed up against the flank of the night rider’s horse. He could feel little muscles twitching away under the skin as the beast walked. It was strange, how little details like that stood out so much in moments of sheer terror.
Then he’d been silent. They’d stopped once, to gather things at a house, then continued on into the woods. Addison had the distinct impression that none of the night riders knew where they were going. They just followed the silent ride of Lily Fowler as she went deeper and deeper into the woods.
The silence was the worst part. If they’d laughed or taunted or even said anything then Addison might have had a context to his terror. But instead there was just the darkness all around, the ropes chafing at his skin, the breath of man and horse alike.
He was sitting now upon hard ground, hands tied behind his back, up to a post that rose from floor to tattered ceiling. There was a crossbeam about two feet off the floor and though he could rise into an awkward sort of crouch if he absolutely had to, he knew that there was no way he’d be able to stand. Already his hands felt hot and cramped, blood circulating sluggishly around the too tight bonds.
So instead he watched warily as the night riders unpacked. One disinfected the ragged stump of flesh that had once been Lily Fowler’s ear and the girl bucked and rocked in ecstatic pain for a disturbing moment before wandering back outside.
“What are we doing with him anyway?” Addison heard Schultz ask quietly to Lou. Lou was carefully peeling the blood soaked sleeve of his shirt away from his arm, wincing with each movement he made. He had no answer. Schultz glared belligerently over at Addison but made no advance. Addison tried to calm his racing heart.
They were holding him as a hostage, he reasoned. They had said as much back at the jailhouse. No way were they going to hurt him. That would cost them their leverage.
That false assurance shattered when Lily wandered back in, looking a little more animated than before. Her eyes settled upon Addison. Addison felt something within himself lock up in terror.
“What’re we doing now Miss Fowler?” Keens asked, the epitome of southern politeness. Lily scarcely seemed to hear him. She was holding a perfume atomizer, Addison noted. Why did she have that?
“I need to know some things,” she turned to Schultz, “do you have spare kerosene for that lantern?” Schultz nodded and dug into his pack, bringing out a dark glass bottle with a narrow spout. Lily unscrewed the top of the atomizer and poured the perfume out onto the ground. The cabin filled instantaneously with an almost overpowering scent of lavender. She accepted the kerosene and poured some into the atomizer, with careful motions. She didn’t spill so much as a drop.
Addison watched this with growing horror. What was she doing?
“Listen,” he said, voice quaking with fear, “I’m just a deputy, I don’t know nothing.” Lily stepped closer, atomizer in hand, and Addison suddenly had a horrible vision of her lighting a match and spraying flames onto him. He kicked out and Lily dodged back, face curling into a mask of disgusted hatred.
“Hold him.” She growled, and Keens grabbed his legs, pinioning them to the ground. Addison tried to scream but Schultz hit him hard in the stomach and all of the breath left his body. He slumped over, struggling for breath, and Lily knelt down in front of him, staring.
“Where is Wyatt Outlaw’s son?” She asked, voice icy. Addison shook his head.
“He’s just a boy.” He said, shocked. Lily nodded.
“He’s more than that. He’s precious to Outlaw…just as my father was precious to me.” Addison stared, eyes flickering from Lily to the atomizer in her hand. Schultz stood by, fidgeting, almost desperate for more violence to occur. Anything to wash the taint of the failed raid out of his mind.
“He’s a boy,” Addison repeated, real horror percolating in his voice, “you’d kill an eight year old boy?” Lily said nothing for a few moments.
“This atomizer is full of kerosene,” she said finally, “I’m going to spray some into your eyes if you don’t tell me what I want to know.” The blunt simplicity of her demand took Addison’s breath away. For a moment he felt as though he were viewing the situation from above, an entirely detached spectator. Then it all slammed home just how much danger he was in.
“I…cant.” He said, voice shaky. “I-“ Lily squeezed the pump and Addison scrunched his eyes shut, ducking away from the spray. It hit his cheek and Addison cringed away from the liquid, tucking his face into his shoulder as best he could.
“Goddamnit,” Lily muttered, “Harmon, hold his head still!” Schultz moved and yanked Addison’s head straight. Addison shrieked.
“No! No! Stop! No!” Schultz, losing patience with his thrashing, hit him hard in the mouth and bloodied his lips. Addison reeled back, stunned, and Lily squirted his mouth with kerosene.
For a moment there was nothing but a bizarre tingle, then it seemed as though his lips had burst into flames. Addison shouted and tried to thrash more but Schultz only hit him again. He collapsed to one side, wheezing helplessly, tears of terror rolling down his cheeks.
“Stop it…please…” He managed to gasp between desperate sobs. His voice had taken on an unpleasant slurry edge, and his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, gummed up by the acrid taste of kerosene. He kept his eyes firmly shut.
“Where is Outlaw’s son?” Lily asked again, voice frizzy with anger. She clearly had expected Addison to just cave in, and was displeased with his resistance. Addison choked back another sob and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
He thought of Eli and Outlaw. They were a family. A close one, of the type that he’d never had. The thought of betraying them to the night riders was horrifying, anathema of the purest sort. But deep down another voice was shrieking for him to give Eli up. So that the pain would end. So that the night riders would leave him alone.
“You’re just gonna kill me if I tell you.” He said stubbornly. Lily spritzed his cut mouth with kerosene again and reflected on that while Addison screamed.
“Harmon,” she said, “hold his left eye open please.” Addison tried to thrash and duck and dodge, but there was only so much he could do while tied to the wall, and after a few moments of struggle Schultz had his head pinned against the wall of the cabin. A window crack of unwilling light appeared as the night rider pried his eyelids apart and Addison cried out in terror.
“Stop it! Stop it! I’ll tell you!” Schultz paused in his actions. Lily Fowler, who had been leaning forward, atomizer in hand, cocked her head to one side.
“Yes?” She asked. Addison was shaking, with pain and fear and a disgusted self loathing.
“You gotta promise me that you aint gonna kill him.” Lily’s expression darkened into one of angry contempt. She squeezed the pump of the atomizer. Addison’s vision disintegrated into a kaleidoscope of agony.
_______
“That’s the cabin up there.” Outlaw said, leaning up against a tree, pointing to where Schultz’s home stood, a black silhouette against the deeper dark of the forest. They had left their horses some distance behind and were creeping through the woods, weapons drawn.
“It’s all dark,” Hunt noted, “maybe they’re not here?” He sounded unsure. Turner waved his words away disinterestedly.
“Or they’re laying low,” he said, “and left it dark so their eyes could adjust. Clever…” Holt moved up next to Outlaw, Colt Dragoon drawn and ready.
“You see any horses?” He asked. Outlaw shook his head. But it was entirely possible that they’d hobbled them in the woods somewhere out of sight. Still…the cabin did look pretty empty.
“Move up. We’ll surround ‘em. Harry and I will take the road and go up front, you take your men and surround the rest.” Outlaw said. Turner nodded at this plan and whispered something to Hunt, who passed it on to the others. Outlaw moved carefully through the undergrowth until he found himself on the narrow little track that led to the Schultz house.
It was brighter out here and he kept to the side, in the shadows, staring up ahead. The moon was nearly full overhead and Outlaw was quietly grateful for that. It made it easier to spot movement from the cabin up ahead.
“Tracks,” Holt said from just behind Outlaw, “those bastards came this way.” Outlaw stopped to look. Sure enough there were fresh hoof prints in the road…and that wasn’t all.
“Blood too.” He said. Holt paused to take a look at the occasional grouping of black splatters in the dirt. Whoever was bleeding hadn’t been seriously hurt, they weren’t losing enough blood for that, but their wound wasn’t exactly minor either.
“Addison’s?” Holt asked grimly. Outlaw sighed.
“I hope not.” They moved on, Outlaw keeping an eye on the blood trail as it proceeded closer and closer to the cabin. They were only fifty yards away now, the front windows seemed to yawn out at them and Outlaw was dreadfully certain that at any moment the door would burst open and they’d come under fire.
But nothing happened. The cabin remained dark and silent. They stopped at the edge of the clearing, where the track proceeded out into open space. Outlaw cocked his pistol.
“Listen up you night riding sons of bitches!” Turner shouted from somewhere to Outlaw’s left, “this is Director Stanley Turner of Company Shops and you have made the mistake of pissing me off! I’ve got thirty rifles aimed at every side of your cabin and they will blow the holy hell out of you unless you give up the Negro deputy you’ve abducted and come out with your hands above your heads! You’ve got thirty seconds!” Holt glanced over to Outlaw. Outlaw kept watching the cabin. There was no movement. None whatsoever.
“Twenty seconds!” Turner shouted. And Outlaw sighed, rising up from the crouch he’d dropped into.
“There aint nobody in that cabin.” He sighed, and walked out into the clearing before Holt could stop him. There was still no movement. He limped up close to the window and saw that the curtains were drawn behind the grimy glass.
“Jesus Christ Outlaw,” Turner sighed, stamping from the woods, “what the hell was that?” Outlaw tapped the glass of the window with the head of his cane.
“Nobody’s home. And we weren’t gonna gain anything by blowing some empty cabin to shreds.” Turner nodded slowly and looked back to his men, who were moving cautiously from the woods.
“What now?” He asked impatiently, “where else could they be?” Outlaw remembered the blood trail and looked back. It seemed to end before it reached the cabin. Had the night riders looped back around?
“There was…let me find it.” He hobbled back around and heard Turner let out an irritated sigh. Holt followed Outlaw.
“We got a puddle of blood here,” he said, pointing to a dark blotch on the ground about thirty feet from the front door, “like whoever was bleeding stood there for a while.” Outlaw nodded.
“Probably wondering if this place was safe to hole up in.” Holt stepped around the blood and examined the ground closely.
“They turned around. There’s a circle of blood drops.” Outlaw smiled and was about halfway through turning around to tell Turner what he’d found when the inside of Schultz’s cabin blazed with momentary light.
The blast of the scattergun hammered Outlaw’s ears and he dropped into a crouch, aiming his pistol. The door of the cabin had nearly been driven off its hinges, and lying crumpled over the steps that led up to the porch was Turner.
“Oh no…” Outlaw said, and hurried over as fast as he could.
Turner had been torn nearly in half and Outlaw could see the pale gleam of his guts through the awful rend in his stomach. The director stared up at Outlaw and blinked confusedly.
“What happened Outlaw?” He managed to say in a surprisingly clear voice, then he was gone. In the blackness of the cabin, Outlaw could see the dim outline of a chair with a scattergun lashed crudely to it, the trigger tied to the door.
“Fuck!” Hunt shouted suddenly, and put both hands atop his head, like a man surrendering to a victorious enemy. Garner turned calmly around and vomited off the edge of the porch. He was covered in spatters of blood and had evidently been right next to Turner when the director had been shot. Holt looked to Outlaw. Outlaw looked to the railroad police.
“A trap,” he said, voice shivery with horror, “left by the night riders.” Hunt stared at Outlaw, eyes wide and full of mingled anger and fear.
“We never should have been out here,” he snarled, “this aint our business. Never was…” Outlaw looked down at the blood swamped steps, at Turner’s torn body.
“Your director was just murdered by night riders,” Outlaw said firmly, “how can you possibly think that this aint your business?” Hunt frowned, dropping his hands from his head.
“I don’t need some nigger telling me what is and aint my business,” he said stiffly, “and I can tell you that defending you pickaninnies from the Klan aint something that I’m interested in.” Holt took a menacing step forward but Outlaw neatly blocked his advance by stepping in front of him.
“Think about this. How’s would the board in Raleigh react if they were to come to know that when their director was murdered by night riders his second in command made no effort to track the perpetrators down and arrest them?” Hunt’s face darkened.
“Are you blackmailing me?” Outlaw looked over the group of railroad police with a calmness that he did not feel.
“Whatever gives you that idea?” Hunt glared but made no move. In the back of Outlaw’s mind roiled the possibility that the railroad men would simply murder him and Holt and leave the whole thing behind…but that wasn’t a big enough danger to deter him from taking the risk.
“Fine.” Hunt said unhappily, “but you,” he jabbed Outlaw hard in the chest with a bony finger, “are gonna go in first.” Just barely managing not to wince, Outlaw nodded.
“Fair enough. Now send a man back to Graham and let them know what’s happened to Mr. Turner.” Beebe ended up being sent to complete that errand and the four remaining members of the posse rode off, leaving Turner’s body wrapped in a bloody sheet they’d scavenged from Schultz’s cabin.
They headed deeper into the night. Following a trail of blood.
_______
“Where is Wyatt Outlaw’s son, who cares for him when Outlaw is gone?” Lily was still asking the same question. And receiving nothing but pleas, desperate and agonizing, in response. It was frustrating.
“I bet it’s Albright,” Schultz sighed from the corner, where he was sitting, watching Lily try and crack the hysterical deputy, “he pals around with Outlaw a lot.” Lily nodded slowly. The deputy snuffled and wept, bloody tears falling from his swollen left eye. It looked grotesque and inflamed, a puffed up mountain of bruised flesh nearly the size of a lemon.
“We have to be sure.” Lily said. She felt calmer now. More clearheaded. A small part of her wanted the deputy to hold out for a little longer, so that she could hurt him some more…the rest clamored for revenge. Lou sat in the corner, atop the rotten remains of the bed, clutching his wounded arm, looking lost and afraid. She ignored him. He wasn’t important right now.
“Could be Peter Harden,” said Keens with a special sort of contempt in his voice, “him and Wyatt Outlaw are just about best friends…”
“Might even be nigger lover Holden.” Schultz quipped. Nobody laughed. Lily poked a hole in the deputy’s cheek with her folding knife and squirted kerosene onto the wound. He screamed. Her heart jumped joyously in her chest. But that joy was tempered by the deputy’s refusal to tell her what she needed to know. If she’d had more men then she could have just gone to Graham and looked in Harden’s, Albright’s and fucking nigger lover Holden’s homes simultaneously. But as it was her forces were scattered. They’d have to know for sure before they mounted their offensive.
“You’ve got one good eye left,” she told the nigger, “and I’m about to put some kerosene into it…just like I did with the other. So I will ask you one last time…where is Wyatt Outlaw’s son?” The deputy shivered and heaved silent sobs, blood trickling down his cheek.
“I…I was never a brave man…” He managed. And Lily frowned viciously.
“Harmon,” she growled, “hold his right eye open.” Schultz forced the nigger’s surviving eye open. It peered out at Lily, watery and frightened, darting rapidly around in its socket.
“No!” The deputy shrieked.
“Yes.” Said Lily quietly, and squeezed the plunger. After the initial screams died down, she spoke again.
“I figure that you’ve got about five minutes until that kerosene blinds you completely…depending on how different nigger physiology is from whites. So tell me where Wyatt Outlaw’s son is and I’ll wash the kerosene out of your eye. If not then you will go blind and the last thing that you’ll have ever seen will have been me spraying kerosene into your face.” The atomizer was beginning to feel a little light in her hand, she’d used an awful lot of kerosene already. But that didn’t worry her. She had more.
And besides, they could always just light the nigger on fire for light and warmth if they needed to. He had to be pretty goddamn flammable already.
“Please…” The deputy croaked.
“Where is Wyatt Outlaw’s son?” The deputy fell silent and sniffled softly, head drooping toward the ground. Lily repeated the question and then jabbed the nigger in the ear when he didn’t answer. Blood trickled weakly from the new wound. The nigger didn’t respond.
“I think he fainted.” Lou said quietly. Lily scowled and jabbed the nigger again, opening up a new cut. This time he jerked and cringed back. With both of his eyes shut and his face increasingly swollen it was getting hard to tell when he was awake or unconscious.
“No…No…” The nigger began to sob again. Lily cheerfully spritzed his wounds with kerosene. The deputy shrieked.
“You have only a few minutes left.” She reminded him, and sat back, watching the deputy break down.
“You cant kill him.” The deputy said at last, his voice choked with tears. Lily rolled her eyes.
“Why not?” She asked, “your people killed my father.”
“Please,” the deputy’s voice was choked with tears, “leave the boy alone…” Lou stepped forward, looking like he was about to say something, but quailed under a glance from Lily. He exited the ruined cabin, shivering.
“You’re two minutes away from going blind forever,” Lily said sweetly, “remember that.” The deputy shook his head ponderously, like a buffalo shaking off flies.
“No.” He said. And Lily stood up, what was left of her patience draining away like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass.
“You will tell me.” She said, and stepped back, suddenly aware that she was speaking through a mouthful of blood.
_______
Another two squirts of kerosene. He would withstand the raging sting of two more sprays…and then he would have no choice but to give in. Addison slumped his head and tried to breath, but it was almost impossible. Everything hurt. His lungs felt raw and useless, his face a mosaic of agony, his eyes great swollen marbles that lolled uselessly in his head.
But even through all of the pain that throbbed and burned and stabbed away all across his body, Addison felt strangely at peace. He had not given in. He had stood up…
“I still think it’s Harden.” The night rider called Keens said from where he was pinning Addison’s legs down.
“Sure.” Said Schultz from where he was leaning against the wall next to Addison. He sounded bored.
“Pretty tough nigger we grabbed.” Keens said.
“Not really,” Schultz said sharply, aggrieved to hear anyone put a word of praise towards a Negro, “listen to him whimpering and crying like a little girl. He wont last much longer.” A moment of unpleasant silence, “you hear that nigger? You gonna break.” Addison flinched.
Schultz laughed.
“How can you stand this?” Addison cried out, “you’re gonna kill a child!” There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. Somehow Addison could tell that the night riders were exchanging disquieted looks.
“We’re killing Wyatt Outlaw’s child,” said Lily silkily from somewhere in the unseen gulf ahead of him, “there’s a difference. Also, you’re blind now.” Somehow that realization didn’t seem as horribly scary as it ought to have. Instead, for the first time in his life, Addison found himself reacting to adversity with anger than than fear.
“You’re all cowards,” he grunted, “attacking the weak, fighting from the shadows, killing children!” Schultz stood up and tried to say something but Addison’s mutilated face swiveled towards him, ruined eyes seeming to stare into his soul. “You enjoy hurting people, but you run when they hurt you back. You monsters, you cowards! You-“ Lily Fowler jammed the blade of her folding knife through Addison’s cheek, steel grinding against teeth before slashing through his gums. She backed away from Addison’s choked screams, shivering with rage and more than a little unexpected fear.
Addison shrieked, blood running down his face in a hot cascade, the entire world nothing but pain now. But underneath that he felt a sort of wild triumph. Scenes flashed through his mind, the little slave boy with the marbles, his cousin Rodney hammering uncle Silas into the ground, this new one cemented amongst them, overpowering the old memories of shame and guilt.
He thought of Eli and Outlaw, thought of Holt and Albright and everyone he knew. And how they would be so very proud of him right now.
_______
“Uncle Will?” Eli asked, from where he was cocooned in a nest of blankets.
“Yes Eli?” Albright asked. He was sitting in a rocking chair next to Eli’s bed, a Springfield held across his lap. With the entire town gripped by fear, this seemed like an entirely prudent precaution…especially for someone who lived towards the edge of town, away from main street.
“Why did you buy me?” Albright rocked in silence for a few moments. This wasn’t a part of his life that Eli usually asked about. But he had been fairly past minded lately, ever since the night riders had started becoming more aggressive. Perhaps it reminded him of what shadowy memories he had of life as a slave.
“Because of what your mother told me.” He hadn’t told Eli this before. Hadn’t explained any part beyond the vague outlines. Eli was only eight years old, a child. But with everything that had happened…Albright supposed that he deserved to know.
“My mother?” Eli asked, sitting up in bed.
“She was very sick with yellow fever, and so were you. There had been an outbreak all across Alamance and a lot of plantations were holding slave auctions, hoping to cut down on costs and get rid of their sickly specimens. I went up there to look at your mother and she told me very quietly that she had a son…and that her husband had been taken away by the Confederates. She begged me to buy you and try to find your father…and something inside of me broke. I had never thought about how evil slavery was before that. I was raised to think of Negroes as my inferiors, but…but…right there I knew that none of that was true. So I bought you and your mother for three hundred dollars. She died the next day.” Eli was silent. Albright could see a confusing whirl of emotions in his eyes.
“Did you own slaves…before that?” Albright shook his head.
“No. I only went to the auction on a whim…and I’m glad I did, because it disabused me of those hateful things I believed before. Your father always tells me that I saved his life by bringing you out of slavery and giving you a home until he returned…but in actuality Eli, you both saved me.”
“I’m glad you told me Uncle Will.” Eli said, and Albright turned out the little lamp. It was past ten. Definitely bedtime for Eli.
“Goodnight Eli.” Albright could hear Eli shifting in his bed in the darkness.
“Uncle Will?”
“Yes Eli?”
“Can you stay in my room with me until papa comes back?”
“Yes. I’ll be right here.” Albright was suddenly glad that it was dark, otherwise Eli would definitely have seen the tears sliding down his face.
_______
Holt moved on foot, leading his horse and squinting down at the winding trail of blood. The railroad police were still unhappy, but not nearly as mutinous as they’d been before, which was just fine with Outlaw.
They’d been moving in this way for nearly a half hour now, along the same road, proceeding in silence.
“Hell.” Garner said abruptly, “damn it all to hell.” Hunt glared irritably back at the young man.
“What’s worked you up Garner?”
“It’s sinking in…Mr. Turner’s really dead. It kinda just felt like a bad dream until now.” He spat into the underbrush on the side of the path. It was getting narrower now, more overgrown the further they continued into the woods. The trees seemed to join together overhead, like some vast arboreal cocoon, sealing them inexorably into its depths. Outlaw could hardly see the stars.
“They turned onto another path.” Holt said quietly from up ahead, squinting into the darkness. An old wagon track had opened into the undergrowth to the left of them, and Outlaw pulled his horse to a halt next to Holt.
“No talking past this point. They could be close.” Hunt and Garner exchanged a look but remained silent. Holt drew his Colt Dragoon and swung himself back onto his horse. He attempted to take the lead but Outlaw took ahold of his shoulder and shook his head slightly.
“You’re hurt, Wyatt.” Holt protested quietly, but Outlaw moved ahead of him before he could say anything else.
“I promised Turner I’d be the first one in.” He said, and Holt fell in behind him. Hunt and Garner followed, and they delved into an even deeper darkness. Outlaw couldn’t see the blood trail anymore, couldn’t see much of anything other than the shadowy silhouettes of tree trunks. And even they all blurred into nothingness eventually.
His horse sidestepped something daintily and Outlaw felt the branches of a sapling drag along his side, sparking fresh pain to go along with all of the older aches. He tried to regulate his breath. The night riders were close. They had to be. There are no paths beyond this point. As it was they’d headed off beyond the beyond, on old trails that hadn’t been regularly tread upon for decades.
Then, up ahead, Outlaw caught the faintest glimmer of light. At first he squinted, unsure if he’d actually seen it, but when it didn’t vanish he pulled to a stop. Holt came up next to him and Outlaw pointed out the light.
“Lantern,” Hunt said quietly from behind Outlaw, “looks like the night riders you got such an itch to kill.” Outlaw turned in his saddle, facing the others.
“I’ve got a deputy in there that they’ll probably use as a hostage. We’re gonna need to come in fast and quiet, and hit ‘em hard before they see us coming. If you can get ‘em alive then that would be preferable, but don’t hesitate to shoot if you see weapons coming out.” Holt smiled grimly.
“I wont.” Hunt grunted his assent to the plan and took out a Colt Navy, checking to make sure that each chamber was properly charged. Outlaw looked down to his own weapon, realizing suddenly that he still hadn’t reloaded the one chamber he’d fired back at city hall.
He loaded the cap and ball slowly, making sure that his weapon was clean as he did so. Though he’d kept the Colt Army in storage for most of the time since he’d received it, he had made an effort to clean it at least once a month. All that care seemed to be paying off, the hammer clicked back smoothly and Outlaw felt slightly more prepared as he faced the cabin.
“Everyone ready?” Outlaw asked quietly. He was met with a chorus of nods. Hunt looked to him, unsmiling.
“You first.” Outlaw nodded and faced back towards the cabin.
“Hunt, you and Garner take the left…Holt and I will take the front.” They set off at a slow trot, keeping low over their horses, moving in single file along the narrow trail.
As the path opened into a clearing that seemed to have once been a farm of some sort, Outlaw saw the faint form of a gray mare hitched to the side of the cabin that he recognized as belonging to Harmon Schultz. So that confirmed one of the night riders’ identities. He wondered who the others were.
They advanced silently, coming from the pitch blackness of the forest. They were still hidden in the shadows, but wouldn’t be for much longer. Another twenty yards and they’d be out in the moonlight. That was when they’d have to start hurrying.
Outlaw glanced over to Holt and was about to ascertain the location of Hunt and Garner when a flash lit the left side of his vision, coupled with the rolling crack of a pistol shot.
Outlaw stared over in horror just as another flash lit the night and exposed a perfect silhouette of Hunt, pistol aimed into the sky, giving up their position to the night riders.
_______
The first shot sent Lily to her feet, and gave Keens cause to scramble for the lantern, dousing the flame and sending Lily’s vision into a pandemonium of colorful sparks for a dreadful moment.
Her location had been discovered. But how? She had been so careful, taking such a labyrinthine route through the backwoods. She’d been so careful that even she hadn’t known that her hideout existed before she’d found it.
“Who’s out there?” She demanded. Lou was huddled in the corner, clutching his injured arm, pale as milk, eyes luminous in the dark. She snatched up her Colt Navy and advanced to the half broken wall. And out there she saw shapes flitting closer, indistinct in the darkness. A second shot flared and Lily fired, the muzzle flare of her pistol dazzling her with lances of brilliant white light. Next to her Keens fired as well, and then Schultz opened fire with the repeater that he’d taken off of the nigger deputy.
Behind her Lily could hear the deputy slurring something, but his mouth was too damaged for her to make out individual words. She’d cut him up a little more, sprayed the last of the spare kerosene over him, and had been contemplating dragging him out and setting his ruined face on fire…but still the nigger hadn’t talked. Instead he’d rambled and shrieked, screamed and wept…but hadn’t broken.
She was no closer to finding out where Outlaw’s little pickaninny of a son was than when she’d started. It infuriated her. More than that, it made her feel as though she was failing in her mission to avenge the murder of her father. And Lily Fowler was not someone who suffered failure lightly. Wasn’t that the whole reason she’d shot up city hall and committed every single brutality and act of wanton violence she’d sprinkled out over Alamance County?
One of the attackers fired, lighting a section of the clearing up, bright as the sun for a split second, and Lily saw an empty horse sitting out towards the woods. Had they shot one of their assailants out of his saddle already? Lily sincerely hoped so.
She stepped out through the doorway, ignoring the protests of Keens and Schultz, and advanced into the clearing, firing her pistol and laughing as she went.
_______
Outlaw slid from his saddle and fell face first into the dirt, narrowly avoiding impaling himself on the jagged stump of a fencepost sticking from the grass as he did so. His ribs sang with a pain that was all too familiar by now, and he could feel the bandage on the side of his head beginning to work its way loose. Frost would not be pleased, Outlaw thought distractedly, then remembered that the good doctor was dead and had to bite back a surge of furious anger.
He rose to a kneel and had just enough time to see something totally unexpected before a repeater shot drove him back to his belly.
“Did you see that?” Holt asked, crawling up next to Outlaw, eyes wide.
“Hunt betrayed us…” Outlaw said wearily. Would it ever end?
“No…that was Lily Fowler. What’s she doing here?” Outlaw shook his head. The presence of John Fowler’s daughter amongst the night riders who had shot up city hall didn’t seem to be sinking in. There was so much happening, it didn’t all seem to be registering properly.
“We’ve gotta move up, or else they’re gonna shoot us to pieces.” That placed the situation into a more familiar context, one where he could think about strategy instead of worrying about Addison or…or…
“We got your man niggers! Back off or else we might be liable to put a bullet in his head!” Holt swore quietly. Then, somewhere from their left, towards the woods, Outlaw heard a voice.
“Harmon?! That you?” It was Hunt. Outlaw raised his head slightly, peeking above the grass, and saw a pair of riderless horses milling agitatedly through the grass. He thought of Garner. Was he in on it? Was he dead?
“Hunt?” Schultz called back from inside of the cabin. The gunfire had died entirely away now. Outlaw scanned the clearing for Lily Fowler but couldn’t see her anymore. That sent a chill through him.
“Those nigger lawmen,” Hunt called out, “they gone somewhere to your left…they’re off their horses now.” Holt muttered something ugly under his breath and peeked above the grass.
“That son of a bitch. I’m gonna fucking kill him.” Outlaw couldn’t say that he felt much different. But oddly enough Hunt’s betrayal wasn’t the thing that concerned him the most. That was the thought of Addison, still trapped inside of the cabin.
“We’ve gotta get closer,” he said quietly to Holt, “before they figure out where we are.” Holt nodded, and they began to work their way through the long grass, as the night riders colluded.
_______
Lily Fowler had fallen into a crouch next to the stump of a fence post, and was listening for anything that might lead her to the niggers. It had to be Outlaw. It didn’t even seem possible that anyone else could be behind this attack.
Ahead of her, close to the edge of the woods, she could hear someone talking. That was the one who had given the niggers up. She didn’t know who he was, but supposed that she might recognize his face if given a chance to look at him. In any case, he was unimportant. She took a shuffling step forward and drew back the hammer on her Colt Navy with a click that resounded through the darkness.
“Listen Harmon,” Hunt said from ahead of Lily, “you gotta shoot these niggers and then hide someplace. There’s a storm coming…you’ve already killed Peter Harden and Stanley Turner…you have any idea how nigger lover Holden is gonna react up in Raleigh?” Lily wanted to stand up and shriek at Hunt that what he was saying was cowardly nonsense. She still had to avenge her father. There was still filth to be purged from Alamance.
Then something clicked into place. Peter Harden was dead. That meant…
“Albright.” She whispered to herself. Once she killed the father, then she would know where to go to find the son.
_______
Harmon Schultz looked to the left half of the clearing, but saw nothing beyond a sea of grass gently swaying in the breeze. Lily was out there somewhere. As were the niggers. Hunt too. And he couldn’t see a one of them. That scared him. He gripped the repeater with sweat greased fingers and looked back at the nigger deputy. The niggers hadn’t said a goddamn word in response to his ultimatum relating to their colleague…
“Keens.” He whispered urgently. The older man glanced over to him.
“What?”
“Go light the lantern…we’re gonna get them niggers to stand up.” Keens shook his head slowly.
“Light the place up? Fuck no Harmon.” Schultz grumbled and held the repeater out.
“Fucking yellow bastard,” he growled, practically forcing the repeater into Keens’ hands, “I’ll do it then.” Keens took the repeater and sighed.
“Don’t cry if you get your ass shot.” Schultz felt in his breast pocket for matches and found the lantern. He made his way over to the nigger deputy and shouted.
“I got a gun up to your man’s head niggers! Now stand up or else I’m gonna pull the trigger. You got five seconds!” He motioned for Keens to look to the left, where Hunt had said the niggers were. Somewhere.
He struck the match and lit the lantern, a yellow glow filling the ruined cabin. Tripping the LeMat in his free hand, he pulled back the hammer.
“Five!” He shouted, “four! Three!” And then, from the shadows, right next to the window, something moved.
“I’m standing.” Holt growled, and fired. The lantern exploded into a ball of flame in Schultz’s hands and something hard punched into his hip, knocking him back into the wall. The LeMat discharged into the ceiling and then he was almost completely alight, wreathed in liquid sheets of rippling flame. He tried to scream but inhaled fire instead. Keens danced back from the scene, eyes wide with horror, repeater hanging limply in his hands.
Schultz tried to gain his feet but found, with a syrupy sort of surreal terror, that he could no longer move his left leg. Looking down he could see blood bubbling and hissing, baked to a treacly black even as it came out of the hole that had been blown into his hip. Then the flames reached his eyes and Schultz knew no more of the world but heat and agony.
_______
Lou backed out of the door and fell backwards into the grass, numb with horror, the sight of Schultz in flame dazzling him, searing his vision full of spots and whirls of nonsensical color.
One of the niggers was jumping through the window now, he could see movement that wasn’t shadow. They had crawled right up to the cabin while Schultz had been talking with Hunt. Jesus. How could things have gone so wrong?
Then he could hear grass rustling and managed a choked squeak of fear before suddenly Lily was standing over him, blood trickling down her face, mouth opened in what looked like the beginnings of a silent scream.
“They’ve…they…” He tried to say but Lily was silent. She raised her gun.
_______
Holt crashed through the window frame like a charging buffalo, Dragoon extended before him, a snarl of abject hatred on his face. In the back of his mind some sort of mental klaxon was sounding, shrieking that the cabin was suddenly filled with flames. That one of the men he had fired at was now a human torch, screaming soundlessly from a shapeless hole that had once been his mouth.
The other night rider, much to Holt’s chagrin, was holding his repeater. The one he’d carried back from the fight at Marion.
“You son of a bitch.” He growled and squeezed the trigger, only to be met with a hollow snap. Frowning at his jammed gun, inconvenienced but not deterred, Holt swatted the rising barrel of the repeater aside and gathered a handful of the night rider’s shirt.
He swung the repeater into Holt’s side but Holt hardly noticed. Dragging the hapless rider closer, he smashed the jammed Dragoon into his victim’s face. Bones crunched, blood spurted, the wounded rider squalled pitiably.
Then, behind him, Holt felt a fresh flare of flame and twisted around. Schultz had fallen into Addison and set him alight. The wounded deputy was screaming. Holt turned back around to deal with the man he had in his grip…and in the flashing maelstrom of darkness and shadow, he saw a figure slide into focus for a split second before being obliterated by a flash and a blast of smoke.
He was spun sideways, a sting expanding in the side of his chest, breath suddenly cut short. Christ, he thought nonsensically, I’ve been stung by a bee! Then he hit the ground, the wounded night rider collapsing atop him, Dragoon spinning from his grip.
Staring up, trying to force the breath back into himself, Holt felt flames scorch the side of his face and wriggled away from the slumping form of Schultz, groping for his gun. Movement was restricted entirely by the dead weight of the night rider splayed atop him. He could feel scalding warmth all across his chest. Blood. His? The other man’s?
“Stay down.” The figure in the doorway snarled, and Holt couldn’t help but sigh as he recognized Lily Fowler’s voice.
“Fuck you.” He said. There had probably been better last words, but these were pretty decent. Lily scowled and thumbed back the hammer of her Colt Navy.
“Time to die nigger.” She said. And smiled.
_______
Outlaw hobbled around the side of the cabin, flinching as flames flared within the rotten structure. He had lost his cane sometime just before bailing off of his horse and missed it sorely as he limped toward the front, gasping for breath, ribs stabbing fierce needles of pain throughout his entire body.
A shot hammered through the night and Outlaw heard something heavy fall. Jesus, had that been Holt? He rushed around the side and squinted, momentarily dazzled by the brightness of flames, looking desperately for silhouettes.
For a terrible moment he was unable to see anything in the glare, then white fabric seemed to flash into view, a figure in a dress stepping forward, arm held out stiffly. Outlaw raised his Colt Navy but hesitated.
Shooting someone from ambush felt wrong, even if they were probably armed, even if they were Lily Fowler. He thumbed back the hammer.
“Stop!” He rasped, “put down the weapon!” Lily jumped and spun around, pistol raising. Outlaw squeezed the trigger and the whole scene dissolved into a plume of oddly luminescent smoke.
“Holt!” He shouted, stepping forward, firing another shot into the haze. A bullet snapped past his face but he hardly even flinched, just frowned, like a man annoyed by a buzzing insect, “Holt, you alright?”
“Addison’s on fire!” Holt cried from inside the cabin and Outlaw turned, forcing himself into the veil of smoke pouring from the ruined cabin. The smell was indescribable, a mixture of charcoal, woodsmoke and the sickly stench of burning meat. Holt had propped himself against the wall and was weakly pushing a bloodied corpse from his legs.
“You’re hurt.” Outlaw said, then coughed and had to step back, throat burning and lungs shrieking their protest. Holt pressed a hand to his chest, which was covered entirely in scarlet, and nodded weakly.
“It aint bad. Wyatt…Addison, he…” Holt shuddered. Outlaw stared into the corner of the burning cabin and had to bite back a gasp.
Addison was writhing weakly, his face a melted wasteland of blistered flesh, flames dying out on his legs, where a twisted corpse had settled, barely more than charcoal atop bone now.
“Help me with him.” Outlaw ordered brusquely, and Holt, still holding one hand awkwardly over the wound in his chest, grabbed one of Addison’s arms. The journey from the cabin seemed to last an eternity, but finally they were clear from the flames and smoke, back into blessedly cool night.
Outlaw collapsed and coughed weakly, night air searing his abused lungs. Holt sat heavily down next to Addison, who managed a weak groan.
“I…didn’t say…a word…” Addison managed, his voice a raspy crackle. Outlaw gazed sadly over the mutilated form of his deputy. His eyes had been fused shut, his skin was burnt almost entirely away. There was no way that he’d survive the night.
“Didn’t say what?” Holt asked, putting a gentle hand on Addison’s shoulder.
“…Wanted to…they wanted Eli…” His voice was fainter now, breathing more labored. Outlaw felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Lily Fowler was targeting his son? It sent a sick chill of dread through him. Especially as he realized that the clearing was empty. That Lily was out there even now.
“Jesus…” Holt sighed.
“…Cold. I…I feel cold…” Outlaw squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, fighting to ground himself.
“You’ve done well,” he assured the dying deputy, “you were brave Addison.” Addison made a low choking noise, deep in his throat. It took Outlaw a moment to realize that his deputy was crying.
“Brave…” He said slowly, and a moment later was gone. Outlaw looked over to Holt, who was fiddling with his star. The star, Outlaw noticed, had had one of its arms clipped raggedly away.
“He’s dead.” Outlaw said grimly, and put a trembling hand on Addison’s ruined face, quietly mouthing a simple prayer for his deputy before forcing himself up.
“She’s gone…” Holt sighed, joining Outlaw, “where the fuck we go now?” Outlaw began limping for his horse, which had shied away toward the edge of the clearing. In the glow of the fire he could see everything now, dancing with shadows. It all looked so…strange. Like he was in a bad dream rather than reality. Any minute now he’d wake up and find that the whole ugly series of events had been nothing more than a night terror.
“They’re going for my boy,” he said, voice ugly with hatred, “we have to hurry.”
_______
Lily and Lou caught Hunt at the edge of the clearing, where the man had been hiding in a thicket. He stood up at their approach, looking frightened and unhappy.
“You didn’t kill ‘em!” He said, upper lip curling involuntarily into an ugly snarl. It was an ancient sort of expression, of the type that could be seen all the way back when men lived in caves and valued self preservation over all else.
“Got one of ‘em.” Lily said, hand twitching dangerously close to the butt of her Colt Navy. She’d fired two shots at Outlaw but had somehow missed, had fired one shot point blank into his deputy…yet the man had still been alive the last time she saw him. How the fuck was that even possible?
“They know me,” Hunt protested, “they know my face! And if they aint dead then they gonna find me and string me up. Don’t you care?!” Wordlessly Lily drew her Colt Navy and interrupted the turkey like gobble of horror Hunt produced by shooting him in the throat.
The railroad man turned traitor flopped to the grass, kicking and gurgling, scarlet spurting from his half severed neck. Lou kept his eyes to the ground, Lily spurred her horse onward. Killing Hunt hadn’t been much fun, she reflected as she rode, heading for Graham, it had just felt like a chore. And where was the pleasure in that?
_______
Garner had been shot in the back of the head. Heaving a sigh, Outlaw looked ahead, to where Holt was sitting atop his horse, probing gingerly at his chest.
“The bullet passed through the man I was holding, and then got slowed down by my star.” He said, and wiped his bloody fingers on his pants. He looked haggard and hurt, but Outlaw could tell that there was still plenty of fight left in his surviving deputy. Especially after seeing what had happened to Addison.
Neither of them had mentioned it, it was simply too fresh in their minds, too traumatizing to even think about. But one thing that Addison had said kept on reverberating in Outlaw’s mind. When he closed his eyes he could just about see it flashing on and off, lettered in brilliant crimson. THEY WANTED ELI. It filled him with dread. With terror. Addison may not have let slip his son’s location to Lily…but Outlaw had decided to assume that the murderer knew anyway. How, he did not know. But he had an awful sense that Lily was on her way there already.
“Hunt shot him,” Outlaw sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “be careful…he might be around here somewhere.” But Holt was leaning off of his horse, shaking his head.
“He is…but he aint alive.”
“Lily Fowler.” Outlaw said with a grimace, and spurred his horse into motion. Holt silently followed, repeater held across the pommel of his saddle. There was no conversation as they headed for Graham. Both of them already knew where they were going.
_______
Her head hurt again. Worse. A throb that ran from her shredded ear, deep inside her head. Like the poisonous pulse of a rotten tooth, accentuating the ugly thoughts that ran through her mind. KILL OUTLAW. KILL EVERYONE.
“Why are we going to town?” Lou asked quietly from his position beside her. He was holding his wounded arm tight against his chest, like an injured bird favoring a broken wing. For an incandescent, utterly real moment Lily could see herself raising her pistol and shooting Lou in the side of the head. It was stunning how brilliant the flare of the muzzle flash was, how sweet the smoke smelled. How absolutely the fantasy erased the rest of the world.
Then she was back in the world. With all of its associated hurts and inconveniences. Back in the cold, with a dull ache of guilt settling unhappily in her gut. She couldn’t kill Lou. He still had some use left in him. Even if he was growing increasingly reluctant as time went on.
“To kill them.” She said. Lou offered no reply. They kept going.
_______
Declan, the veteran railroad policeman assigned to protect Albright and Eli, had been born in New Orleans to Creole speaking parents. And though he had moved north since then, he still retained something of a Cajun accent.
At the moment that accent was tracing the words of a poem in a battered collection of Yeats. He had carried the collection with him during the war and had, over the years, gathered quite the understanding of the poet’s work, even if he had never quite learned to pronounce the man’s name correctly (Yeets, Declan would say, was a hell of a poet).
“But the little red fox murmured, / ‘O do not pluck at his rein, / he is riding to the town-land…” The clop of horse’s hooves broke his attention on the words and he looked up, Yeats momentarily forgotten.
Two horses were coming down the street at a canter, silhouettes in the darkness. Out here on the edge of town the light was sparse and Declan could see little beyond the little circle of glow cast by his lantern.
“You there,” he said, tucking Yeats away into his breast pocket, “slow down, show me your faces.” The pair of riders slowed, and Declan caught sight of a fold of white fabric. A dress. Oh…so one of the riders was a woman. He relaxed.
“We heard something bad had happened.” Came the woman’s voice. It sounded oddly blank, but Declan got the strangest feeling that there were whole gulfs of…something behind that tonelessness. He let his hand drop a little closer to the holster of his pistol. This didn’t feel right.
“A shooting out on the main drag,” Declan said, stepping closer, trying to squint up into the darkness at the woman’s face, “it killed a lot of people.” His efforts were in vain however, his eyes were still dazzled by the lantern light, still adjusting to the impenetrable darkness.
“Then what are you doing here?” The woman asked. Declan paused, glancing to the other rider, who seemed to be staring at the ground, like he (she?) really didn’t want to be there.
“None of your business,” Declan said, the feeling of uneasiness growing ever more intense, “move on.” The woman was silent for an excruciating moment, then sighed.
“Nigger lover.” She said simply, and then she was reaching for something. Time seemed to slow, Declan took a step backward, fingers closing around the butt of his pistol. A Colt Navy, much like Lily Fowler’s. He cleared leather, thumbed the hammer back…and suddenly the world had exploded into smoke and flame and brilliant, incandescent pain. He squeezed the trigger and blew the woman’s horse’s throat to ragged shreds. The beast let out a horrible gobbling scream and collapsed, tossing the woman from its back like a rag doll.
Declan tried to take another step back but his leg folded under him and he was suddenly lying on his side, grit scoring the side of his face, chest numb but for a deeply seated fire burning in the side of his chest. He tried to lift himself up but could not muster the strength.
He had been shot. The news registered slowly, bouncing from stunned synapses with all the vigor of a drowning fly trying to paddle through a pool of rainwater. Each breath felt like an effort, there was such an incredible heaviness in his chest. He groped weakly from his breast pocket and found amidst the warm wetness the soggy form of his book of Yates.
In front of him, some fantastic distance away, he could see movement, the woman staggering to her feet. But that didn’t seem even remotely interesting or relevant anymore. Instead he dragged the blood tacky book from his pocket but found that he no longer had the strength to open it up to where he had been.
Where had he been? Oh yes. He could remember the stanza and line now. With remarkable, brilliant recollection.
“…That is the world’s bane.” He tried to say, but died before he could.
_______
The bandage had been knocked from Lily’s head, and blood dribbled freely down the side of her head, shockingly warm in the cool of the night. Her horse was twitching, mouth opening and closing slowly, eyes wide and frightened. The guard…that was what she was assuming him to be, had crumpled onto his side and was still. She’d killed him…but he had nearly killed her in the process.
“Come on.” She demanded, and Lou slowly slid from his horse, not bothering to tie the beast up. It stood there uncomfortably, next to its dead colleague, ears laid back in barely contained fear.
A shot had been fired, the niggers would be coming soon. They needed to hurry. Lily tried the door. Locked. Fuck.
She shattered the frosted glass window that made up the top half of the door (so pretty, but so insecure) and reached inside, groping for the lock. Lou gripped her shoulder suddenly, making her jump, broken glass stinging her arm as she cut herself.
“We aren’t gonna kill the kid, right?” He asked desperately, voice full of some delusional hope that perhaps he had misunderstood the plan this whole time. She glared back at him. Didn’t answer. Lou made a low groaning noise, then the door swung open. They were in.
_______
The first thing they heard was the whistle of a steam train departing the terminus at Graham, then the muted bustle of people, audible even from afar.
“That bitch would have to be crazy to come back to town when it be like this Wyatt.” Holt said, but made no real effort to protest Outlaw’s course of action. They were riding back the way they came, into the north of town, along the main street.
The night glowed with lanterns and buzzed with frenzied activity. The wounded had been cleared since their departure, but most everyone was still out and about, fearing more attacks, more night riders, more chaos.
“We need to cut around, this’ll only slow us down.” Outlaw grunted, and veered off into a side street, leaving more than a few people looking confused.
“What about getting other people?” Holt called out from behind him, “in case Lily Fowler actually shows up…” Outlaw twisted around in his saddle to answer but…
Gunshots. Two of them. So close together that the roars blurred into each other. Close by.
“Oh Christ,” he muttered, a shock of horror slamming through him, like the impact of a club, “oh God, please no.” He spurred his horse faster, Holt just barely keeping up. His deputy said something but whatever it was was lost amidst the roar of blood and wind through Outlaw’s ears.
Up ahead. Albright’s house. A great dark lump in the street. What was that?
“Whose horse is that?” Holt asked. Outlaw stumbled from his horse and nearly collapsed, pain shooting through his legs as he forced them to work for just a little while longer. Entire galaxies of dark spots danced before his eyes before reluctantly clearing. He was starting to hit a wall, last reserves of energy tapping themselves out.
“Not now.” he muttered to himself. There was a man lying on the ground, half curled on his side, haloed by a spray of blood. Dead. No question about it. A blood soaked booklet of some sort on the ground, gripped in a stiffening hand.
And the door…
“They’re inside.” He managed to say, voice shaking with mingled terror and rage. He could feel it bubbling up inside of him, dark and poisonous, a force that he hadn’t allowed to rise up like this for many years now.
From inside came a shot. The upstairs windows blinked white with the light of a muzzle flare. Outlaw let out a strangled cry and pushed through Albright’s door, into the darkness of his parlor.
Eli was up there. Albright had to be as well. No way he would leave Eli alone on such an awful night. He had taken up Outlaw’s habit of sitting with Eli on nights like this, when the weight of the world seemed to great to bear.
Were they alright? Had that flash of gun light been the abstract rendering of his family’s death warrant? Outlaw staggered through the parlor, half collapsed onto the base of the stairs, Holt right next to him.
“I’m coming for you Eli!” he shouted up the stairs. And was answered by a shot, the top of the landing suddenly fogged with smoke. Holt fired back, the cannonade of his Dragoon driving splinters from the wall, shattering a decorative china dish of some sort. Outlaw vaguely remembered that it had once belonged to Albright’s mother.
Gripping the bannister with his free hand, Outlaw hauled himself up the mountainous steps, gasping for breath, Holt firing a second shot over his head, driving the shooter at the top of the stairs away.
“Don’t come no closer!” Shrieked a panicked voice. Barely recognizable as that of Lou Davis. Holt fired and the dim silhouette crumpled sideways through the doorway it was standing in, with a surprised gasp of pain.
“Bastards!” Cried another voice, “come any closer and I’ll spread your boy’s brains across the wall!” Outlaw forced himself to a halt, practically in the doorway to Eli’s room. He could hear Lily’s hectic breathing, Lou whimpering in pain from the floor…Eli sobbing softly.
“Papa?” Eli asked quietly, voice choked with tears. Outlaw holstered his pistol and forced himself to take a deep breath. To try to ground himself, even in this hellish moment.
“Take me,” Outlaw said through gritted teeth, “you can have me, but only if you let my boy and my friend in there go.” Lily was silent for a terrifying moment, then she laughed, a short humorless yip of noise that set Outlaw’s teeth on edge.
“Aint a fair trade. One worn out nigger for everything that nigger has in the world?” Holt edged up next to Outlaw, Dragoon at the ready.
“We gotta get in there Wyatt.” He whispered. Outlaw said nothing back, just kept looking into the little slice of Eli’s room that he could see. Lily, judging from the sound of her voice, had to be towards the back of the room, by Eli’s bed.
“I’m gonna put my hands through the doorway, so you know I aint armed…then I’m gonna step into the room. Alright?” And before Lily could say anything Outlaw put his hands through and then followed, heart in his throat.
The room was blanketed in shadows, and through the darkness Outlaw could see…
Lou, propped up against the end of Eli’s bed, clutching his left hand, which seemed to be missing its thumb. Albright, head bleeding, sitting. Hands and feet bound with sheets. And Eli…held in front of Lily, who had a Colt Navy pressed to the boy’s head.
“I’m gonna shoot the boy if you come any closer.” Lily warned, eyes flat and deadly. Outlaw stayed where he was, watching Holt creep up to the edge of the door out of the corner of his eyes.
“What do you stand to gain from this Lily?” He asked, “you’re surrounded. The night ends here. You shoot my boy and you will die…even if I get killed in the process I will make sure that you do not leave this building alive. But if you let him go, let my friend go too…and take me instead then you can get out of Graham and maybe live to fight another day. How does that sound?” Lily was silent for a moment. Then she smiled. It was only then that Outlaw realized just how spattered, how absolutely saturated with blood Lily was. Something had happened to one of her ears at some point, since her left ear wasn’t…there anymore. And she seemed to be bleeding from the mouth as well. It reminded Outlaw of a rabid dog he’d seen during the war, prowling the edge of his camp. Somebody had shot it through the lungs, yet it was still up and limping around, wheezing blood but still snarling and snapping at anyone and anything that came too close.
“I guess it’s a good thing you came in here,” she said, and snapped her fingers at Lou, who shakily raised a pistol, the gun swaying alarmingly in his trembling hand, “‘cause now you can watch your son die.” Eli whimpered and Outlaw was about to open his mouth to shriek when Albright spoke, face feral with desperation, shining with blood.
“Kill me,” he snarled, “I’m the one that shot your father.” Lily froze, head slowly turning to Albright.
“You…what?” She asked, voice icy and unbelieving.
“I shot your father. And when he fell down and started crying like a schoolgirl, I laughed. You have no idea how hard I-“ Lily kicked him hard in the side Albright wheezed, falling into the wall. Lily’s face was a mask of fury, frothing, formless rage that seemed only a few moments from spilling over into violence.
“He’s lying!” Holt shouted from the doorway, “I shot your father you stupid bitch!” Lily’s mouth had dropped open into a grimacing snarl of horror and anger and every emotion under the sun. Outlaw watched her, eyes wide, waiting for an opportunity. But the Colt Navy was still pressed against Eli’s head, her finger was tight on the trigger. If he drew then she’d kill his boy. And even if he killed her in that next moment…what would life be without Eli?
“I’m going to shoot your boy now.” Lily said, voice shockingly calm, and thumbed back the hammer.
“No!” Lou shrieked from the foot of the bed, fighting his way to his feet. He swayed drunkenly, face pale and drawn, ugly half moon circles of bruised tissues shockingly dark under his eyes. If Lily had been battered by her evil odyssey across Alamance County then Lou had been utterly destroyed. Lily stared at him, task momentarily forgotten.
“You coward.” he hissed, words smoking with contempt. Lou took a deep, shuddering breath that made his entire body shake.
“You’ve gone too far Lily…what we did…it was evil, and this is worse.” Lily let her thumb off of the hammer and Outlaw let his hand drop to the butt of his Colt Navy. If Lily noticed she gave no sign.
“You’ve outlived your usefulness Lou,” Lily said, “now you’re just another thing.” Lou’s eyes shone with tears.
“I love you Lily.” He whispered, and suddenly Outlaw realized that Lou was no longer holding the gun on him. Or even pointing it remotely in his direction.
Lily Fowler’s fiancé pulled the trigger on his Colt Navy, and put a bullet into his prospective wife.
_______
It hurt more than anything. More than the weeping wound that had used to be her ear. More than the lesion in her heart that had been torn there when Frost had blown her father away. More even than the gunshot that had pierced her breast and splattered blood across the wall.
The realization that she had lost hurt more than anything in the world. Lily tried to draw a breath but was only able to deliver a sort of heaviness into her chest, like a stone had been settled there, inside of her, so that she would never be able to dislodge it. Her gun was gone, the world nothing more than an ever shrinking circle of ceiling, dotted with bumps and cracks and tiny imperfections.
She tried to speak, to say something to Lou, to condemn him for his treason and cowardice, yet only managed a mouthful of blood.
As the light drained from her eyes, she thought that she saw something descending towards her from the infinite void.
It looked just a little bit like a rabbit.
