Nyx fired the next four rounds at the gallows rope, fraying it but not cutting it through. If she kept shooting, she’d reveal her position, and soon someone would start shooting back.
She reloaded, looked down the scope and saw another man advancing on the gallows, which had begun to teeter in a slow, steady rhythm. Nyx curled her index finger around the trigger, preparing to shoot him. But something gave her pause. She recognized the figure. Angus.
WHEN ANGUS SAW THALER TACKLE KAMP, he knew he had to help. And when the first bullet hit the beam, most spectators ran away, but Angus kept elbowing his way to the gallows. He didn’t pull his pistol yet, knowing that would invite the rifles on the rooftops to blaze.
He assumed Nyx was doing the shooting and deduced she’d situated herself on the mountainside.
At least she’s safe up there.
Kamp, however, was not. The officers who hadn’t run away when the shooting started now advanced on him.
The sheriff, who struggled to keep his balance on the teetering platform called to the officers.
“Take him alive.”
Angus grabbed the ladder on the side of the gallows and started climbing.
Kamp didn’t see Angus and didn’t know he was on his way up the ladder. All he knew was that three blue uniforms on the platform were coming for him and that Nyx wouldn’t be able to shoot them all.
He looked at the trapdoor. Aodh should have been able to get out from under it by now, so Kamp readied himself and then jumped through the trapdoor himself.
As he made his leap, the hanging frame finally gave way, tilting heavily sideways while breaking apart and crashing into the square with the sounds of cracking planks and the wild shouts of men.
WHEN THE GALLOWS FELL, madness descended. Every urge, barely reined in—the pressure and the pain pent up so long—all of it burst forth now, and the riot began in earnest. Bricks smashed storefront plate glass. The undertaker’s office was set ablaze.
The police on rooftops, gargoyles with stiff necks, white knuckles and rigid fingers wrapped around steel triggers, kept still. The order to fire had not been given.
But one officer, a man at the corner of the building closest to the gallows, caught the fever from the scene below. His body willed him to aim at a miner with a brick in his hand and yank the trigger.
The lack of precision in his movements caused the bullet to sail high into the second floor window of the jail, where a clerk had stood transfixed by the melee below. The bullet traveled straight through her throat. She clutched her neck with both hands, blood spurting between her fingers before she fell.
The sight of it, combined with the bullets slamming into the hanging frame, convinced the rest of the officers that it was time to open fire.
THE FIRST PERSON WHO SIGHTED NYX was Joe. He’d been hiding on the mountainside himself, waiting for the trouble to start. He’d heard the first report of the rifle, and he’d located Nyx’s position before she fired the second shot.
She was sitting a hundred yards or so from him and a couple hundred feet higher up. There was no trail from him to her, only trees and boulders. Joe scrambled as best he could, staying low and bear crawling in her direction. He heard her firing again and again.
They must’ve seen her by now.
NYX STOPPED shooting only when smoke obstructed her view of the square. She kept her rifle raised and waited for the smoke to clear. The next glimpse she caught was that of a Black Feather man with his truncheon raised over Angus’s head.
Smoke covered the scene again before she could get the shot. Nyx pulled in a long breath and waited. But the smoke only thickened, so Nyx sprang to her feet, breaking cover and sprinting down the mountain with the Sharps in her left hand and the Henry rifle in her right.
Joe saw her stand up and run, though he was still a good fifty yards away.
“Nyx, Nyx.”
She didn’t hear him, didn’t hear anything. Her consciousness had narrowed to the ground immediately before her feet. She didn’t feel anything, either, not the burning in her lungs, not even the bullet that whizzed past her left ear or the one that passed through the leg of her pants, grazing her left shin.
KAMP EXPECTED A HARD LANDING, but something cushioned his fall. Kamp rolled over on the ground and saw Aodh staring back at him.
“Let’s go,” Kamp said.
As he said it, he heard the cracking of posts and saw the hanging frame going over, bodies spilling off the platform and hitting the ground.
He was surprised to see his cousin land ten feet from him before the hanging frame itself crashed onto its side like a felled giant.
Kamp motioned to Aodh and said to Angus, “Help me.”
As soon as Angus stood up and started making his way over, a Black Feather man came up behind him with a raised truncheon and brought it down hard on the side of Angus’s head. Angus fell to his knees, a trickle of blood flowing down to his chin. The man stood over Angus and prepared to land another blow.
Still lying on the ground beside Aodh, Kamp raised the pepperbox pistol and fired once. The guard caught it in the shoulder but didn’t fall.
He locked his gaze on Kamp and said, “Ach, you son of a bitch.”
Before he could retaliate, and before Kamp fired another shot, Angus gave the Black Feather man a sharp uppercut to the testicles and dropped him to the ground.
Angus scrambled to Kamp, and together they attempted to move Aodh. Kamp tried picking him up under the arms and Angus by the legs, but he was too heavy.
Around them the melee swirled. The rioting miners who weren’t setting new fires fought hand-to-hand with the men in uniform. Some miners wore brass knuckles, which aided in their efforts.
And still the officers on rooftops fired into the square. They aimed for men making mischief, though most of their bullets missed.
WHEN NYX REACHED LEVEL GROUND at the base of the mountain, she still couldn’t get a view of the square. A couple hundred yards from the fray, she stood for a moment, catching her breath, setting down the Henry and waiting for the smoke to clear.
When it did, Nyx saw Angus and Kamp struggling in vain to haul Aodh to safety. She also saw a man in uniform, the sheriff, not ten feet from Angus and Kamp, raise a pistol. As Nyx sighted the man in her scope, he fired.
An instant later she shot as well, hitting the sheriff in the chest and knocking him to the ground. Nyx dropped the Sharps, picked up the Henry and plunged into the melee.
SHAW HEARD THE DIN from a mile away. She put Autumn on her back and ran toward the plumes of smoke pushing into the sky.
By the time she reached the edge of town, the same carriages that had streamed in the day before were streaming out. Shaw had to veer off the road to avoid being trampled by wild-eyed horses. The gunfire intensified as they crossed the bridge into Mauch Chunk.
Shaw let Autumn slide from her back and turned to face her.
“You must stay here.”
“Where’s daddy?”
Shaw guided the little girl to a hiding place under the bridge.
“Where’s daddy!”
“Don’t move.”
Shaw turned on her heel and ran for the center of town.
THIRTY-NINE
KAMP DIDN’T SEE THE SHERIFF standing behind him, but he heard the shot and felt the searing pain in his left shoulder blade. He heard a second shot and spun around in time to see the sheriff falling backward, blood spreading across his shirt at the center of his chest.
The foreman scanned the wreckage of the gallows and saw his employer, Joachim S. Thaler on the ground, face in the dirt. He motioned to his work gang and pointed to Thaler.
“Get him out of there.”
The Swedes advanced on the square, knocking rioters out of their way as they moved.
When Thaler tried to push himself up onto hands and knees, he realized his forearm was broken at an odd angle. He saw Kamp and Angus, both bloodied and both still struggling to drag the doomed man away.
FALKO STIER CHARGED AHEAD. Grigg hesitated to ponder the likely ramifications of diving into the fray but then followed Stier in the wake the man made.
Stier became aware of the shooting behind him and noticed people scattering in front of him before he saw a figure pass by him, rifle blasting and not stopping to reload.
Nyx Bauer didn’t recognize Stier or Grigg, though she’d been arrested by one and prosecuted by the other. She saw only Angus and Kamp struggling in vain to carry Aodh away.
THE FIRST OF THE SWEDES reached the spot where Joachim S. Thaler lay, cradling his broken arm. The Swede grabbed Thaler under the arms and lifted him to his feet.
Thaler motioned to Kamp and Angus and said to the rest of the Swedes, “Stop them. There’s a hundred in it for each of you.”
Kamp and Angus had just begun dragging Aodh away when they saw the Swedes. A moment later the first Swede fell, a bullet in his back. Then the next one clutched the side of his head and spun to the ground. Nyx was shooting them like so many tin cans on a split-rail fence.
She blasted her way across the square until she reached them, the last two Swedes fleeing before she could zero in on them with the Henry. Then a bullet hit her, and Kamp saw it happen. He recognized his jacket immediately and then the person wearing it. Until that moment, he’d hoped she’d stay hidden but knew she wouldn’t.
Kamp could tell by the way she jerked sideways that the bullet entered midway up her torso. But she didn’t fall and kept running straight for him and Angus. Kamp recognized the Henry, too, the weapon brought north decades before by another doomed soul. He had no idea how many shots Nyx had fired.
THE LITTLE GIRL DIDN’T LISTEN to her mother, because she couldn’t bear the thought of hiding under the bridge alone and because she wanted to see her father.
Autumn trailed Shaw from a distance of a hundred feet or so, far enough so that her mother wouldn’t notice but close enough not to lose sight of her. When Shaw vanished into the throng of rioters, Autumn’s heart began to pound as she sprinted forward.
Shaw focused only on finding Kamp. As she neared the jailhouse, she saw him on one knee, clearing dust from his eyes. She put her head down and barreled into the crowd, moving halfway across before she felt a heavy thud between her shoulder blades that sent the breath from her lungs and knocked her to hands and knees. Before she could turn to see who’d hit her, she felt a kick to the ribs and then hands tearing at her dress.
KAMP WAS UNAWARE of Shaw’s predicament. When he wiped the dust from his eyes, all he saw was the familiar, begrimed visage of Antoine “Duny” Kunkle.
Duny slapped the hat off Angus’s head and grabbed him by the hair. Angus swung for Duny’s face, but Duny blocked it and punched Angus in the nose.
Blood poured from both of Angus’s nostrils, and dazed as he was already from the earlier blow to the skull, Angus couldn’t retaliate.
Duny said, “Look here, everyone. This here is none other than a freak, a societal deviant. This ain’t a man at all. It’s a lady!”
No one paid attention to him until he ripped the front of Angus’s shirt, exposing the wrap Angus used to hide his breasts. Duny ripped at that, too, until Angus stood naked from the waist up, exposed to all in the square.
“See! See!” Duny yelled wildly. “Remember Agnes Kamp? Remember her? This is her. Pretending to be a man!”
Now, amidst the smoke and gunfire, a crowd formed around Duny and Angus. One man, red-eyed and drunk lurched toward Angus and grabbed his breast.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he said.
BY THE TIME SHE GOT WITHIN TEN YARDS of the wreckage of the gallows, Nyx understood the killing power of the Henry. She’d shot down half a dozen men.
She put the big boss, Joachim S. Thaler in her sights as he stole away, clutching his left arm.
Nyx sighted his forehead, just beneath his wavy blond hairline and put her finger to the trigger.
“I’m here. Help me.”
Nyx recognized Angus’s voice and turned to see him set upon by three men now. Nyx aimed and fired, hitting the first man just above his left ear and splattering gray matter on the other two, who ducked and ran along with Duny Kunkle.
Nyx took a moment to inspect Aodh, ashen and motionless in the dirt. She went to him and put her cheek to his lips to feel for breath.
Angus said, “We tried. We tried to move him. We couldn’t.”
“He’s gone,” Nyx said.
She stood up, put the Henry to Aodh’s temple and pulled the trigger. The Henry didn’t fire. She checked the breech, saw it was empty and tossed it to the ground.
Nyx took off Kamp’s sniper jacket and put it on Angus before putting Angus’s arm around her shoulder and leading him down the alley alongside the jail.
Nyx called back to Kamp.
“Let’s go.”
FORTY
KAMP HAULED HIMSELF TO HIS FEET and began following Nyx and Angus. He scanned for threats as he moved, looking back over his shoulder one time.
When he did, Kamp saw a gang of men attacking someone. Not my problem, he thought. But then he caught a glimpse of Shaw’s dress and then her hair. He wheeled around, raised the pepperbox pistol and fired.
One of the men grabbing Shaw put his hand to his lower back and felt the blood. He turned and found Kamp through the haze. He charged Kamp, who waited for the man to reach him, then turned the pistol sideways and brought it down hard on the man’s skull, dropping him.
Kamp ran for Shaw, though once again thick black smoke swirled in the square, obscuring her and her attackers.
When he reached her, there were four men surrounding her, all with their hands on her body.
Kamp put the pepperbox to the neck of the first man and fired. Blood sprayed as he fell to the ground. The rest of the men let go of Shaw and set upon him, raining blows on his head and torso. He fired the last round of the pepperbox, hitting one of the men in the sternum.
They knocked Kamp to the ground, and more men joined in, all delivering kicks. He turned his head up to see the smoke clear enough for a sliver of blue sky to appear. And then the kicking stopped. Kamp’s assailants dispersed.
Someone had driven them off, but he didn’t know who until he rolled onto his back and looked up. It took a moment for him to recognize the faces of Grigg and Stier. And then he saw Shaw’s face. She knelt down and cradled his face in both hands.
Kamp said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I wanted to help Angus. And Nyx. I thought I could.”
“Quiet, love.”
She guided him to his feet as Grigg wrapped Shaw in his overcoat. Grigg and Stier guarded them as best they could.
The riot continued unabated, chaos now concealing them. The little girl still found them, running to Shaw and wrapping herself in the folds of Shaw’s dress.
“I couldn’t stay there, mommy. I was afraid.” Tears spilled down the little girl’s cheeks.
“I know, sweetheart.”
Kamp looked down at his daughter and her shining eyes.
She looked up at him and said, “I love you, daddy.”
Close by, a shot rang out and then a man’s voice.
“And now here’s the fella everyone’s been looking for!”
Kamp turned, and there was Duny Kunkle again.
Falko Stier said, “Shut up, Duny.”
“It’s the wanted man in the flesh. Him and his Indian bitch. Glock, Kamp, don’t matter what you call him. He’s right goddamn there.”
The remaining men in the square fell silent, and all eyes turned to Kamp.
Duny continued, “And since I’m the one what found him, and since I have this rifle and it’s loaded, I’ll just be taking him to collect my thousand—”
The first bullet hit Duny Kunkle between the eyes before he finished the sentence.
Kamp drew a breath and sighed. The next bullet entered Kamp’s skull at the right temple, killing him instantly.
ADAMS MARVELED AT HER GOOD LUCK. She’d chased that slippery son of a bitch Grigg
all the way to this godforsaken company dump. When Duny alerted her to Kamp’s presence, the rest was easy.
Duny’s corpse would only net her ten bucks, but Kamp’s body was the real prize. A thousand for the bounty and a good deal more than that from Black Feather. And beyond that, beyond all of that, was the thrill.
She strode to where Kamp’s body lay, fished through his pockets and she found what she wanted, the gold ring she’d lost a year before.
The next cold steel barrel was placed against Adams’ own temple. When she stood up, her pistol was yanked from her hand by a large uniformed officer.
“What’s this about?”
The Honorable J. Blasius Grimp stepped from behind the officers and said, “Disturbing the peace.”
He removed the tin of Turtle Island Tobacco Bits from his vest pocket and put a large pinch inside his lip. Then he motioned to the officers to take Adams to the jail.
Autumn, who’d witnessed it all, threw herself down on Kamp’s body. She pressed her ear to his chest, listened for a heartbeat and heard nothing.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
Shaw knelt beside her and cradled Kamp’s face one more time.
By now Emma Wyles had reached them as well. She stood alongside Grigg and Stier, as the tears filled her eyes.
The only sound in the square was the little girl’s wailing. When an officer in a black wool uniform tried to peel Autumn from her father’s chest, Shaw set upon him, raining fists down on his head and back.
Grimp spat tobacco juice on the ground, shook his head and said, “Goddamned savages.”
FORTY-ONE
JOE KNEW ABOUT THE PRICE ON HIS OWN HEAD, of course. He’d known for the past seven years that if he were discovered in public, he’d suffer the same fate as Aodh Blackall and W.W. Kamp, or worse.
But his daughter and granddaughter remained in great danger, exposed in the center of the square. Lucky for him all of the attention was turned to Kamp’s corpse, as the body had cash value. When Joe reached them, Shaw was facing the Honorable J. Blasius Grimp.
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 21
