The Thicket

by Joe R. Lansdale

  The noise of the bear, the laughter, and all those gunshots had brought everyone out of the cabin, including two men we hadn’t seen before, both of them stout boys carrying pistols. They were undoubtedly twins, and mighty ugly twins at that.

  Eustace was halfway down the hill when he started up a hooting sound, like an owl trying to give birth to a watermelon-sized egg. I ran down there, too, going a little wide and to the right of Eustace. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Shorty coming out from behind the tree to the far left, where the bear had been tied.

  Even with Eustace making that sound, and us in plain view, that bear still had their attention, as it had taken to running around out there in the yard in a confused and circular manner. The men were still firing at it with the same lack of success. The bear finally ran right through the middle of what I guess you could call the front yard, around the edge of the cabin, and galloped down the road fast as any horse, dragging that rope like it was a snake chasing it.

  By this time we were on them. It was good we had gotten close, as Eustace had the shotgun and would need to be right on top of them, and, as I have said, my skills with a pistol are such that I might have been better trying to catch them individually and beat them to death with it. Shorty would be all right with his Sharps, though it was a slow loader compared to the pistols he carried.

  Just as the bear made his exit and we were down on them, out the front door came Lula. She was wearing her same clothes, but they had gone ragged. Her fiery hair was bound up and had a pointed stick through it as a kind of twist-pin. She looked thin and haggard and a lot older than I remembered. Her looks wasn’t something I could dwell on, though, because the ball had started.

  21

  Lula saw us about the time I saw her. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but she realized I was toting a gun, and that led her to darting back inside the cabin. Fatty rushed inside with her.

  The twins had moved to the side of the cabin to watch the bear’s retreat and had just now figured we had shown up. They turned and started shooting at me at the same time I was shooting at them. Bullets were flying every which way, but after they fired six shots and I fired four, wasn’t nobody hit on either side, though I felt a couple of bullets had come close enough to me that you might could have called us companions.

  Now, I can’t tell you all that Eustace done while I was trying to shoot one of those twins, but I heard his pistol popping, and when I glanced at him I saw he had the shotgun still in his left hand and had pulled his pistol and was shooting it at Cut Throat. I only seen two of his shots fire, because I had fallen down, a stray shot from either Cut Throat or Nigger Pete having gone low and clipped off my right boot heel. I fell on my ass, which was a good thing, because the next shot fired at me by Nigger Pete—who, I might add, was shooting crossways of Cut Throat—would have split my head open had that heel not gone out.

  The two sin-ugly twins come running out at me then as I was firing from the ground my last two shots and missing with both of them. That’s when Eustace dropped his pistol and wheeled the shotgun around on them, even as a shot from Cut Throat hit him in the shoulder. I heard the Sharps crack, and Nigger Pete went back against the outside cabin wall and made with a grunt. It seemed like a long time before Shorty made that shot, but you got to understand this was all happening fast, and frankly some of what I’m telling you I put together later, or realized in some part of my mind, but as you might expect, I was at that moment not concentrating on it.

  Eustace’s shotgun opened up, and those two twins danced a little in their spot as that bad buckshot tore through them. When the one closest to me turned, I saw his belly was gone and there was a hole the size of a baby’s head in him. The other twin took some of the shot in the face. He screamed and grabbed at his chin.

  I heard a noise behind me, a whooping sound, turned to see Winton on horseback come leaping out of the brush and down the hill, a revolver in either hand. He looked magnificent. I don’t know if it was Nigger Pete or Cut Throat, but one of them shot him clean out of the saddle, mostly by accident, I figure, and then shot and killed the horse, which rolled over on Winton and then kept rolling.

  I had snapped off all my shots, and so far I had managed to knock some bark off the rough logs of the cabin but had yet to draw any blood. I heard Shorty’s Sharps snap and Nigger Pete yell something at him, but beyond that I was struggling to put shells from my gun belt into my pistol, me still lying on the ground as it were.

  I got it loaded, but the ugly twin with part of his chin knocked off was still standing and was reloaded, too. He ran at me shooting, the bullets hitting around my head like raindrops. He got to where he wasn’t fifteen feet away, yet he was still missing, not only because he was a bad shot like everyone else but Shorty, but because he was crazy over his brother getting blown away. By then he was right on me. I knew the only thing left for me were harp lessons and a set of wings, and that’s when I heard Eustace cock back the mule-ear hammer on that four-gauge and cut down with it again. That twin went away in a spray of blood, the load in that barrel being a mite heavier than the previous and the shot managed from a closer position. My head rang like someone had mistaken it for a bell.

  A little man who I hadn’t seen before hopped out of the doorway with a pistol and fired. The shot knocked Eustace’s hat off, and then a second shot hit Eustace, who acted like he had been stuck with a tack. I think the only reason he got hit at all was because he was a much bigger target than the rest of us, and though that may have also explained the horse, it didn’t explain the bear. After the hopping man took that shot, he leaped inside the cabin again.

  By this time I was loaded and Cut Throat had run into the cabin, damn near knocking the little hopping man down. Eustace was trying to get shells out of his pocket and load the shotgun. All of a sudden he sat down and then lay down; not like the shots had done him much harm but like the liquor had caught up with him.

  I glanced at Nigger Pete, who was hunkered down and wounded, his back against the cabin wall. He was firing at Shorty but hadn’t so much as landed a single shot. Shorty had the Sharps loaded again, fired, and hit Nigger Pete in the chest, a shot that would have killed a buffalo, but still Nigger Pete didn’t die.

  “You little bastard,” Nigger Pete said, then stood bolt upright and started running at Shorty. Shorty dropped the Sharps and pulled his pistol and snapped off three shots. All three hit Nigger Pete because I could see the dust on his shirt powder up. This didn’t drop him, but it made him turn and go for a run around the side of the cabin, moving fast enough to give that bear’s pace a run for its money. Shorty started after him. I could hear him firing his revolver as he ran.

  I sat myself up and fired at the hopping man in the doorway, snapping off shots as fast as I could. I missed time after time, and then he ducked back inside, out of sight. That’s when a tall man wearing nothing but boots come charging out of the cabin right at me with a bowie knife. I guess he hadn’t got the signal that this was a gunfight, and I had a sincere doubt this was his regular method of dress for such a ruckus, but when I fired at him, still sitting as I was, my chambers were empty.

  Pulling myself to a crouch, I was going to try and ward him off with the pistol when out from the side, like some kind of white panther, came Jimmie Sue. She clung to that naked man’s neck and yelled out, “Leave my man alone.”

  The naked man flung her off his back with a shrug, then come at me. That’s when Hog come bolting from over the hill and leaped right at that naked man, seeming to fly. Hog hit him in the chest so hard it took his legs out from under him. The man tried to get up, but Hog got him by the leg and started shaking him about. Hog finally swung him loose, and before he could grab him again, the naked man stabbed out at Hog and caught him a good one behind the neck. Hog jerked away with a squeal, and in that instant, the naked man came at me again. I fought back, using my gun as a club. He cut at me at the same time I swung my pistol. My blow was just ahead of his knife, though, and I cracked h
im down the middle of the skull. Still, he cut me across the stomach.

  I staggered back, holding my belly. Hog hit him again, right about the calf, coming at him like a cannon shot. It sent the naked man flying, and before he could recover, Hog dragged him off and out of sight into the woods, crashing him through the brush and him screaming like someone had run a weasel up his ass.

  When my courage was up, I looked down at my wound. Amazingly, it wasn’t bad. Missing the heel on my boot, I walked over to Jimmie Sue like a man with one foot in a ditch. She was crying. She went straight away to pulling up my shirt, expecting my guts to be hanging out. But it had only cut through my shirt and bit my skin a little bit. There was more blood than there was wound.

  “Come on,” Jimmie Sue said, and started dragging me away.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Come, come, come,” she said, and pulled me over to Winton’s dead horse, and jerked me down behind it with her. From there I could see where Winton had landed, and that the horse rolling over him had flattened his head and face considerably. Wasn’t any doubt in my mind that he was dead as a post.

  I handed Jimmie Sue my pistol because she didn’t have one. Later I would learn that when she heard the shots she had panicked and come running on foot, losing her weapon in the process. Hog had run after her. Anyway, I gave her the gun and the gun belt, pulled the Winchester from the saddle scabbard on the dead horse, laid the barrel over the dead critter, and pointed it at the door. I thought maybe I could hit something with a long gun, though that was mostly wishful thinking.

  I could hear gunfire going on out back of the cabin. I could hear Nigger Pete cussing Shorty and Shorty cussing back. I lay there for a long moment, said to Jimmie Sue, “You stay here, or run for it would be better, but I got to go get Lula.”

  “You go in that cabin they’ll shoot you to pieces,” she said.

  “I got to try. You know I got to try.”

  “Get Shorty first,” she said. “I think Eustace is dead.”

  “No,” I said. “He’s drunk. But he’s no good to me. He might as well be dead.”

  She pulled me to her and kissed me. I gave her the Winchester, too. I said, “You keep a bead on that doorway for me with that Winchester,” then I took out my knife and, more easily than I would have expected, pried the heel of my other boot off so as to have even balance. I bounded up and made a run to the far left of the cabin, but in the process I stopped and picked up Eustace’s shotgun and fished a handful of shells from his pocket.

  Somewhere out back of the cabin, I heard Nigger Pete say clearly, “I been shot by a goddamn midget.” He said this as if he just realized the other side was shooting real bullets, and then I heard a gun bang again. I kept running until I was at the side of the cabin, and I could look back there and see that Nigger Pete was sitting on a log, and he was hit bad. Blood was pouring out of him like rain out of barrel with holes in it. Shorty was standing ten feet away, snapping an empty pistol. Nigger Pete had a pistol in his hand, but he was having trouble lifting it. “Goddamn you, you turd of God,” said Nigger Pete.

  Shorty threw the pistol down and pulled the little gun out of his boot and started walking toward Nigger Pete. Nigger Pete finally got his pistol up, but by then Shorty had shot him in the head, causing him to fall back off the stump.

  I took a deep breath and broke open the four-gauge, pushed the big loads into it, then looked to see if there was some kind of window on that side of the house. There wasn’t. I began easing along the side wall of the cabin, holding the shotgun in front of me, realizing suddenly that this beast of a cannon might not only take out whatever bad guys were inside but might also kill Lula. I didn’t have long to think on that matter, because I was halfway along the wall when the hopping man hopped out of the doorway with his pistol, said, “Aha,” and Jimmie Sue shot him in the side of the head with the Winchester. He crumpled and started bleeding out.

  “Aha,” Jimmie Sue yelled out.

  I glanced in her direction. She had her head raised up from behind the deceased horse. I nodded at her. She smiled and ducked down out of sight.

  I was trying not to breathe heavy, but it was easier said than done. I was sure I sounded like I was a bellows trying to heat up a fire and that my heart sounded like I was banging on a drum, but something kept me moving toward that doorway. I could see that the hopping man had dropped his pistol and that it lay on my side of the doorway. I decided I ought to grab onto it so maybe I could manage to have something to shoot that might not take out the whole room, including my sister. The thing against that, however, was my bad marksmanship. I decided on the pistol nonetheless.

  My head was throbbing from all the firing, my ears ached so bad from all the gunfire I thought they might bleed, and the stench from the burning body of the bear tormentor was thick in the air, making the coffee in my stomach churn, and there was a taste in my mouth like spoiled buttermilk mixed with copper.

  I got my mind back on my business, and just as I was at the doorway, reaching down to get the dead man’s revolver, I heard Shorty yell out behind the cabin at Nigger Pete, “Are you not dead yet?” and there was another shot.

  I figured that was a good time for me, since Shorty’s voice and the shot might have put the ones in the cabin slightly off their game for a moment. I stepped through that doorway, the pistol in my right hand and the shotgun in my left.

  22

  I reckon they were waiting on me, but I think me actually stepping through that doorway bold as the devil took them a bit by surprise. The stubby fellow with the scalped head was standing right there, but he wasn’t ready to act. His eyes went wide, like he had stepped on a snake, and he may have thought about lifting his weapon, but that was about as much thinking as he did. I poked the pistol in his chest and let a round fly. It killed him deader than a hammer.

  Cut Throat grabbed Lula by the arm and dragged her out the open back door. I couldn’t shoot at him for fear of hitting her. I hoped Shorty had him in his sights, but he didn’t.

  I was distracted for a moment, the wheels in my head turning in frustration, and as I was about to go out the back door after them, Fatty stood up from behind a pile of something or other and took a shot at me. I don’t know if he had been storing up his courage or his strength while I stood there, but I had damn near forgotten all about him. His bad aim held. The bullet slammed into the cabin above the open door. I crouched down and fired the revolver wildly, two times. My luck was better than his. Fatty made a grunting sound and collapsed and lay on the dirt floor. It was dark enough in there that his shape was all I could make out, and now as I come nearer to him, my eyes getting used to the dark, I saw he was reaching for the pistol he had dropped. One thing you have to say for Fatty, he wasn’t a quitter.

  I tossed the pistol aside and lay down quick, right there on the floor, stretched out and leveled the shotgun against the dirt and stuffed the stock tight against my shoulder. Fatty had just reached his gun when I cocked back both mule ears on the shotgun. He looked up at me as he brought the pistol around, and I pulled both triggers. The world went red, then black, then white, and there were all these little dots moving around, and then Shorty was shaking me. I come to, my chin aching and my eye hurting like hell.

  “You all right?” Shorty asked.

  “Fatty?” I said.

  “He is not so fat anymore,” said Shorty.

  I took a look. It was really messy over there. I hurt like hell, and that was because the shotgun had been too much for me. It had jammed my shoulder, and the stock had bucked and caught me under the chin, popped on up into my eye. The eye was swelling rapidly, but I could still see out of it.

  “Cut Throat has Lula,” I said.

  “He has already taken horses and bridles, rode off with her, the both of them bareback. I was in the wrong spot when he came out, and by the time I saw them they were riding off.”

  Shorty stuck out his hand and pulled me up. He was strong for a little man. Pain raged through
me like all the fires of hell. “I’m going after him,” I said.

  Jimmie Sue had come in the front door, and she tossed the Winchester aside and run over to me, turned my face in her hands. “You shot?”

  “Shotgun kicked,” I said. “I got a small hole in my side, but it isn’t leaking much. I got to go after Lula.”

  I stumbled outside, toward the corral. Jimmie Sue and Shorty came after me. The corral was open where Cut Throat had taken a couple of horses. Some of the other cayuses had run off, but there was a pony wandering nearby and still a couple in the open corral. Overcome with weakness, I leaned against one of the corral poles and took a breath. By the time I got some of my strength back, Jimmie Sue and Shorty had caught up a couple of the horses and bridled them, but didn’t bother with finding saddles.

  About that time I saw Hog come out of the woods, his snout a bright red from him having finished off the naked man. He looked happy for a hog. When he was up by Jimmie Sue, she reached down and petted him. There was a bit of blood on his neck where he had taken the knife, and there was some on his snout where he had been digging in his dinner, but otherwise he looked fine.

  “Stay with Jimmie Sue, Hog,” Shorty said. “You understand?”

  I guess Hog did, because he sat down by her.

  It was hard to do, my shoulder hurting like it did, but I pulled myself onto the paint, and with the two of us riding our mounts bareback we started out in the direction Cut Throat had to have gone. In front of us were miles of cleared timber. Cut Throat and Lula weren’t even in sight.

  We galloped down the wide wagon road side by side, leaning low to the necks of our horses, snot blowing back out of their nostrils and across our faces. Going along, the nature of the countryside changed. You could not only see the stumps, you could see where stumps had been set on fire and some had been blown out with dynamite, making small craters. I even saw that bear Shorty had cut loose. It was off to our right, back where the woods started up again. It was dragging that rope, heading out of the clearing and into the Thicket.