“I am victorious!” Deacon screamed over her. “Thee, with thy pathetic lack of understanding about the forces of life and death, cannot fathom the powers at work here. Didst thou never wonder why blood smells like iron? It is because we are forged by the gods on the anvils of Hephaestus and Ucuetis and Goibniu and Creidhne and all of the others!”
Deacon went to stroke Jesse’s cheek, but she wrenched away from his touch. He grabbed her firmly by the jaw and forced her to look at him. “Every god has a nemesis, you poor, miserable creature. Tengri had Erlik. Monad had Samael. Ahura Mazda had Angra Mainyu. On and on, in every pantheon, a malevolent spirit was sent to torment the bringer of light. Dost thou know the difference between me and all of the other gods?” Deacon asked. He raised the skull and tapped the symbol he’d carved into the forehead, of a snake being stabbed by a spear. “I will vanquish mine.”
Jesse swung her bound hands at him, trying to knock the skull from his grasp, but McGinty and Canada held her back. “She’s a wild one,” Canada said. “Want us to tie her up to that cross?”
“No,” Deacon said. “That is reserved for her son. Take her away and make her scream.”
“Make her scream?” McGinty asked.
“Yes,” Deacon said. “Just as the cry of a youngling in the wild will summon its mother from many miles away, so may the cry of this woman call out her beloved son. You must make her scream loud and long so that he hears it.”
Canada looked at McGinty, then back at Deacon. “Any way we see fit?”
Deacon merely smiled.
“I’ll never scream for any of you!” Jesse shouted. “Do your best and see how far it gets you!”
“We shall see,” Deacon said.
Jesse kicked and flailed, but it was useless. McGinty and Canada had her by both arms and dragged her around the back of the altar. She wrenched her head sideways to bite one of them, and McGinty slammed his forearm down on the back of her head so hard that she went limp in their arms.
“Good grief,” Canada cried. “Don’t kill her before we get her tied up, you damn fool.”
“She ain’t dead,” McGinty said. “Let’s just get her situated before she comes to.”
Canada was starting to huff and sweat. “How much further?”
“Just a little,” McGinty said. “I want some privacy.”
Canada grunted with laughter. “You always was peculiar about people looking.”
“Shut up.” He looked over his shoulder and saw they’d gone fifty feet away from the camp. He could still see the tents and the acolytes, but it was far enough that he did not feel like they’d be able to stare. “Okay, this is good.” He positioned Jesse against a tree and waved for Canada to tie her up.
Canada went to grab the rope but stopped abruptly. He cocked his head toward the trees and listened.
“What is it?” McGinty said.
“I heard something.”
“Of course you heard something, you idiot, we’re in the woods. It was probably just an animal.”
Canada pressed his finger to his lips to tell McGinty to be quiet, then he crept toward the nearest tree and dove behind it. McGinty heard thrashing in the leaves but did not see anything. The woman was getting heavy, holding her up by himself. “Cody? You all right?” McGinty called out. “Quit fooling around and get the rope.”
Canada leapt back out from behind the tree, covered in leaves and twigs, smiling stupidly. “I guess it was nothing,” he said. “Just thought I’d give you a little scare, that’s all.”
“Idiot,” McGinty muttered. “Hurry up.”
Canada returned with the rope and looped it around Jesse’s shoulders, making sure it was nice and tight. He circled the trunk again and knotted the rope, then looped it around her midsection to pin her arms down, and tied it, then another one around her thighs and tied it, and another one around her lower legs. When he was done, he tied a final knot and pulled on it to make sure it didn’t give.
Jesse’s eyes fluttered as she came to and realized she’d been bound. She struggled to get her hands free, but it was useless. “You ain’t getting out of them knots,” Canada said. “I been trussing prize sows like you since I was old enough to catch ’em.”
McGinty rested his hands on his hips as he looked her up and down. “Get her shirt off,” he said. “We’ll start with the whip.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Connor held on to Mirta’s hips as she galloped them toward the woods, but as she went to veer off the road, he pointed over her shoulder and said into her ear, “We need to go home first.”
“I told you, it’s burned to the ground!”
“Trust me!” he said. He reached back and slapped the horse on its rear. “It won’t take long.”
She worked the horse hard and it was foaming and snorting with effort by the time they reached the entrance to Edna’s Prayer. Mirta pulled back on the reins and showed Connor the destruction of what had been his home. The charred wood and bodies were no longer even smoking. All of it had been given over to the rodents. Not even the carrion birds remained. “See?” Mirta said. “All of it is gone.”
Connor peered over her shoulder at the buildings that remained. The barns were still standing and the storage sheds at the rear of the property. He pointed to them. “That way.”
The horses brayed and snorted at them from inside the barns, but the cows merely looked up as they passed. The chickens had broken free of their pen and were scattered everywhere. One of them had been killed by a hawk and was splayed across the grass in a mound of bloody white feathers. “Keep going,” Connor said. “All the way back near the burial hill.”
As they rode past the hill, Mirta saw the uprooted earth spilled across the grass. Dirt was piled in a mound beside an open pit. As she looked, she realized there was a corpse splayed across the ground, with its head removed.
Connor saw it too. Mirta looked back at him, too stunned to speak.
“Just keep going,” he said. “There’s no time.”
When they reached the farthest shed, Connor leapt from the back of the horse and ran to the doors, which were still locked. He found a heavy rock and smashed it down on the padlock, again and again, until it cracked enough of the wood around the lock for him to set the rock down and begin kicking. He kicked the doors inward with a hard thrust, then stuck his hand through and ripped them back out again until there was enough space to see inside.
Mirta peered over his shoulder and saw crates and crates stamped dupont explosives—wilmington, delaware. caution: dynamite.
Together, they grabbed the edges of the doors and pulled until the metal hinges bent. Connor wrenched the door back and forth until it cracked, then tossed the broken planks of the door aside. “Empty your saddlebags.”
He went inside the shed and came out carrying one of the crates of dynamite. As Mirta unpacked her belongings from one of the saddlebags, Connor began replacing them with red sticks of dynamite.
“Wait!” Mirta shouted.
“What?”
She rummaged in the saddlebag and came out holding a metal tinderbox. “You’re lucky I remembered that was in there.”
Mirta stuffed the box in her waistband and Connor loaded up the second saddlebag. “That should be enough.”
“Let’s go,” Mirta said. She climbed onto the horse and Connor reached to grab the rear of the saddle to climb up behind her. She kicked the horse forward and sent Connor onto his behind.
“What are you doing?” he cried as he got up. “We have to leave.”
“Take another horse,” she said.
“Are you crazy? We don’t have time for this!”
“I only let you sit that close to me because it was necessary. Now there are other horses. Take one or I will leave you here.”
Connor groaned and took off running for the barn.
* * *
&nb
sp; * * *
Blackjack McGinty unfurled his long whip and let it hang loose on the ground. It was constructed of woven black and red leather and he whirled its handle back and forth to make it dance. The whip spun in circles at his feet and swirled up the dry, crinkled leaves in a vortex of dust and wind. He grabbed the whip halfway down and ran it through his hands to inspect it. It was the kind of whip you used to corral steer, but you would never hit a steer with because it would lay open their flanks like tissue paper and ruin the beef. He looked at Jesse Sinclair and tried to decide which part of her he was going to open up first. “I said get her shirt off,” McGinty said.
Instead, Canada was hunched over, pulling off her boots. “I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it,” he said.
“Why are you messing with her boots?” McGinty asked.
“So she’s barefoot.”
“I swear to God I’d like to stripe you across the back but good sometimes, Cody. Why should she be barefoot?”
Canada struggled to get Jesse’s other boot off without loosening the rope and tossed it aside. “Because I bet it would hurt like hell if you whipped her across the toes.”
McGinty bunched up his face as he thought it over. “You know what, I think you’re right. That would hurt like hell.” He winced and said, “Goddamn, it hurts just thinking about it.”
“Hee, hee, I know that’s right,” Canada said. “Go on and give it a try. Right across them cute little piggies. I’ll give you a dollar if you can cut one of ’em off on your first try.”
“Deal,” McGinty said. “First get her shirt off. We got to do this proper, now.”
“Fine.” Canada sighed. He straightened up to undo the buttons of her shirt, but as soon as he got close to her she slid her bound hands out from under the rope and hit him square in the nose.
Canada saw a bright flash of light and felt intense pain shoot out the front of his face. He staggered backward, clutching his nose, and felt hot streams of blood running down its length.
Jesse grasped for him but Canada had moved out of reach. As he yelped in pain, she said, “Turns out you can’t rope for spit!”
Blackjack McGinty grabbed Canada by the shoulder and hoisted him up. “Let me see it,” he said.
Canada pulled his hands away to reveal the pulped-up mash of his nose. White cartilage was sticking out through the skin, causing McGinty to wince. “Damn, Cody. Look at you. Why’d you get so close to let her hit you for?”
Canada screamed in pain and started toward Jesse with his hands extended, intent on tearing her apart, but McGinty yanked him back. “Go get that bandaged,” he said. “There’s gonna be so much blood you won’t be able to see straight if you don’t.”
“She stays alive until I get back,” Canada cried as he staggered away. “I mean it. I want my revenge. You have no idea what you just did, bitch. No idea at all.”
“Do I look scared, trash?” Jesse shouted after him.
“You should be,” McGinty said. He dragged the whip across the woodland floor so that it slithered along the leaves like a snake. Then he cocked his arm back and worked the whip over his shoulder. “This is gonna hurt like nothing you ever felt before.”
Jesse squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head to the side to brace herself. She heard McGinty grunt with effort as he hurled the whip forward. Time slowed down. She could hear the whip whistle as it split the air coming toward her. She felt the wind coming off it as it reached her. There was a sharp crack beside her face that seemed louder than a gunshot and she gritted her teeth to keep from giving them the satisfaction of hearing her scream. Bark exploded into fragments that struck the side of her face and neck, but as she felt the whip’s tip slide down her body, she realized she had not been struck.
She opened her eyes and saw Blackjack McGinty standing in front of her, woozy-eyed. He was swaying like a man on a boat in rough seas. He opened his mouth to speak and a gush of blood washed over his tongue and teeth and down the front of his hairy chin. It was then she saw the wooden handle of a knife sticking out of the right side of McGinty’s throat.
The whip fell from McGinty’s hand and he tried to turn and look down at the knife handle sticking out of his neck. He weakly lifted a hand to grab it, when a dark-skinned man wearing a policeman’s badge leapt out from behind the trees and did it for him.
Edwin Folsom grabbed his knife’s handle with two hands and planted his foot against McGinty’s midsection to push the taller man away as he ripped out the knife. “Ack—ack,” McGinty sputtered as he spun toward the camp, clutching his throat.
Folsom ran to the ropes binding Jesse Sinclair and began to slice through them with his blood-soaked knife. “Hold still, Mrs. Sinclair.”
Jesse did as he said. “Who are you?”
“Officer Edwin Folsom,” he said as he cut. “I’m looking for a Native girl named Kakìdsha. Have you seen her?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Jesse said. “I didn’t see much of the camp.”
Past Folsom, Jesse saw Blackjack McGinty trying to get away. But with every step, the pump of his heart sent a great spurt of blood shooting into the air from his neck. It pulsated toward the crossbeams of the gibbet in a wide arc, like water being pumped through a hose.
Jesse heard Cody Canada’s muffled voice cry out, “What the hell is that?”
Canada was running back toward them. His nose was split wide open with the skin flapping on either side of the bone, but he’d had the wherewithal to bring his shotgun. McGinty collapsed to his knees and slumped forward as whatever blood was left in him gushed out like water from a watering can.
Canada shouted for help when he saw what was behind McGinty: Edwin Folsom, cutting Jesse Sinclair free. Canada raised his shotgun and aimed it at the center of Folsom’s back, and there was a loud gunshot that sent all of the birds leaping from the surrounding trees.
Edwin Folsom looked in astonishment at the smoking pistol in Jesse Sinclair’s hands. Her wrists were still tied, but she’d managed to yank his weapon free and fire it just in time. Folsom turned to see Cody Canada collapse on his back.
“Hey,” Canada gasped as his lower jaw jerked side to side. “Heeeyyyy. I’m shot! Aw, God, I’m shot. I can’t—I can’t feel—help me. Help me, I’m shot.” The heels of his boots dug trenches in the dirt as his legs squirmed, and his arms twisted into strange contortions while his fingers curled inward. His eyes opened wide enough to show their white meat all around the dark discs at their center as blood spat from the hole in his forehead.
As his knife slid through the last rope, Folsom said, “Let’s go,” and grabbed Jesse’s arm to pull her away from the tree. “Give me my gun.”
Instead of complying, Jesse raised the gun and aimed as three men in robes came racing around the corner. She fanned the pistol’s hammer and fired once, twice, three times, and all three acolytes went down. “Keep the gun!” said Folsom.
He raced over to where Cody Canada lay writhing and bent to grab the shotgun he’d dropped. “Hey! Come on, finish it,” Canada blubbered. “I can’t—please—I can’t move. Come on! Finish it, you red son of a bitch!”
“You stay here for now, little canary,” Folsom said. He ran back to Jesse and pulled her behind the tree.
“We are under attack, my children!” they heard John Deacon calling from inside the camp. “To thy spears! To thy spears!”
A battle cry rang out and Folsom poked his head out to see how many were coming. It wasn’t good. There were at least twenty, all carrying long-poled weapons with axes and spears affixed to them.
“We must run,” Folsom said.
“Brambles are too thick here,” Jesse said. “They’d be on top of us in no time.”
Folsom dug three rounds out of his shirt pocket and handed them to Jesse. “Then you must reload while you can. Do it quickly.”
She popped the chamber open and ej
ected the three spent casings. She dropped the new ones in and said, “How many more bullets do you have?”
“Three,” Folsom said.
“You brought twelve bullets to a gunfight?” she shouted.
“No,” Folsom said. He opened the breech on the double-barrel shotgun and saw that both were loaded. “I also brought two shotgun shells. And a knife.”
“I been through too much today to die, Officer Folsom!” she said. She stuck his pistol around the side of the tree and got ready to fire. “You bastards want it? Come and get it!”
* * *
* * *
Mirta and Connor were already well past the place where Miss Rena’s body lay enshrouded by leaves when they heard the first gunshot. They ducked and stopped moving to listen. Then Mirta pulled Connor’s sleeve and whispered, “This way.”
She took off running and called back over her shoulder, “Why are you so slow?”
“Because you’re only carrying a bow and arrow and I’m carrying fifty pounds of dynamite!” he said.
“I would be carrying a rifle too if you had not forgotten to bring more bullets!” Mirta snapped back.
Connor slung the saddlebag up on his shoulder and ran as fast as he could to catch up to her. Mirta stopped behind one of the trees and said, “There!”
A field of colorful tents lay ahead of them, with dozens of people in robes racing back and forth. Some were diving into their tents to grab their poleaxes while others grabbed lit torches and raced around the other side of a large wooden gibbet that loomed over the northern side of the camp.
Three more gunshots followed and Mirta said, “That has to be Officer Folsom!”
“Let’s give him some help, then,” Connor said.
They ran to within a hundred feet of the camp and Connor dumped the saddlebag on the ground. “Give me the matches.”
Mirta was about to reach inside her waistband for the box when she saw one of the acolytes spot them. He raised up his poleaxe and charged forward like he meant to hurl it at them like a javelin. Mirta quickly unslung her bow.
Hell Snake Page 23
