The explosion literally shook the earth. The left half of the barn exploded out and up through the right side of the roof. The concussive echo blew the rain in a sphere out away from the barn as wood shards and debris landed in all directions, flaming bits in the rain-and then a second explosion, demolishing the remnants, blasted out in a mushroom blaze grasping deep into the dark sky, illuminating everything in a quarter-mile diameter.
Anson watched the explosion, smiling, and could clearly see the approaching group of lawmen closing in on the front of The Catlight Infinite, only a couple dozen feet from the moat and wall of fire?then he casually returned inside, passing Curtis who was now cowering in the doorway after the explosion knocked him back in surprise.
The women stared at Anson, dumbfounded.
"I've?always wanted to blow something up-kids are alright, you got enough money to build another one so?sorry."
Marielle nodded, an angry expression on her face. They made eye contact. He pointed upstairs. She nodded, crossing the crowded room to take every other step until she was out of sight, headed for her rifle and the lookout.
Anson gave a quick gesture for Jonathon to get to the cellar.
Jonathon nodded and did what was expected of him.
The storm was dying down, the rain quieting, slowing.
Anson's eyes darted to the doorway in fear, listening carefully.
He thought he heard faint clicking?
"Get down," he hollered.
The women (and the band, and H.S.) did as they were ordered.
Anglin, however, had just stood up, having recovering from the shell shock of the explosion enough to regain a hint of bravery. The damage to his hair, the guns ready to fire on him, an explosion?his heart was beating fast but as usual, his brain was a step behind. He faced the room, noticed everyone cowering, mistakenly believed it was his doing, that they were finally afraid of him, and prepared to give them an order-
The blasts were numerous, furious, a litany of tiny bursts. The wood splintered and the walls blew out in tiny holes and glass erupted into an infinite fog of shards and smoke and flint-like sparks.
Anson dove back to his table, fishing behind, lifting a chair, moving things out of his way until he reached what he had been searching for?
Anglin found himself spun and pushed and pulled by only a handful of the blizzard of bullets shot in through the front entrance.
The firing stopped.
A moment.
There was a click from his corner - he was bent over something - and then Anson was up, standing, and in his hands was a long gun, with a wooden frame and dark metal barrel, firing bullet after bullet after bullet. The cartridges were shot out the side, the shell cases plinking against the wall and floor. Shot after shot after shot after shot after shot fired automatically, without reloading or cocking or anything, and it was seemingly capable of firing an infinite amount of bullets. The women were staring, amazed by the power of this weapon, the likes of which they'd never encountered before. Anson altered his aim, spraying the wall from left, through Anglin (who was still somehow standing dazed in the doorway), clear across to the right side.
The women followed suit.
A rifle could be heard firing from the upstairs.
Small rounds pierced the walls, headed out and into the wide unknown.
Then, it was all out chaos.
Rounds were returned from both directions, and some found homes in flesh.
A stray bullet caught Anson just under the rib and it drove him back hard and fast, his feet backing quickly-his right foot caught the leg of a chair, tripping him back, causing him to stumble. He passed through the drapes, straight into the window, through the glass, spinning, caught up in the curtains, until he landed with a thud on his back, on the ground outside, with a resounding oomph. He lay a moment in the wet, saw the rain was ending, saw the wall of fire burning a straight line fence across the perimeter?and, last, he saw the remaining lawmen circumventing the fire and moat, and coming back around to the front of The Catlight Infinite.
Anson drifted in and out of consciousness.
His eyes shut.
He felt hands moving over him, helping him, pulling him.
They were meager hands, soft and careful and unsure.
Yanking, pulling, dragging?
* * *
Jonathon William Beckett the third was curled in the storage basement, where it was pitch black. Silent. And it stank of that horrid mildew that reminded him of the sack they had shoved over his face at Warminster Parish.
There had been a hail of gunfire overhead and his breathing had shortened, almost dangerously shallow, but Anson had been working with him in the evenings, teaching him how to calm, to breathe, to not lose time and black out. (There had been numerous occasions when scantily clad women passed by and Jonathon nearly fainted. They had to either find a way to calm him or he wasn't going to be allowed around the women.) The young boy found it easy to regain his breathing if he focused on nothing other than the mental picture of a dandelion and did his best to breathe from the lowest part of his belly.
Once the gunfire ended, Jonathon was better able to concentrate. His breathing slowly returned and he stood up to look through the wooden slats of the ceiling, trying to better gain an idea of what had happened, and what was happening-
A metal clicked in the darkness behind him.
Jonathon gasped and searched the darkness for the source of the sound. He began to think something had fallen through the floorboards and hit the ground?
But then it happened again, a metallic clink.
And, this time, he was certain something rather large was moving.
His breathing shortened almost immediately.
Something was down there with him.
-and then came a third tap, this one more similar to a tap. Heavier. Still metal on metal.
"Hello, young Beckett the third."
The male voice was hauntingly familiar.
There was a stirring, and then the orange light of a struck match.
Pastor Rigby Briarwood's face lit up as the only detail in the basement, to the absolute horror of Jonathon William Beckett the third. The skin of his face had been marked with a grisly wound, one straight gash, a bit thicker in the center, from chin, over his left eye, to forehead. There were thin pieces of black twine stuck up on either side, stitches that had yet to be removed. However, the gash wasn't the feature that caught Jonathon's attention most, no? It was the left eye. Pastor Rigby Briarwood's left eyeball had turned purple, with red cracks, and it appeared to be rotting from the inside out.
Jonathon was frozen in fear, panicked, his breath shallow and then stuck, and the last sound he heard before utter darkness was that of Pastor Rigby Briarwood's low cackling.
* * *
The house had filled with lawmen. There were two by the front door, three spread out when Sheriff Wimbledon Brash came strolling in, stepping over the mangled body of Curtis Anglin with a chuckle. First thing he did was draw his weapon and quickly shoot the two men musicians seated on the far side of the room.
Then he felt ready to speak:
"You whores! done kilt or wounded half my men with your wanderin' shots," he growled, pacing the room, his eyes on each of the women. (Marielle had actually been the one to hit most, aiming through the scope, from her position in the second floor tower, and firing with the fierce precision of her polished rifle.) Brash let his hand rub over the plush fabric of a nearby chair, contemplating. "Which means I'm a let my men still standing have their way with you. Free. Ya understand?" His head swiveled to take in every face staring up at him. Then he continued. "My men tell me Ville's not here, that you say she never was. And Anson Sharpe, well-he's been takin' out by a band of outlaws!" Brash laughed, disbelieving, like he was telling a yarn and had just reached the pinnacle of its absurdity.
He looked toward the older Marshall T. Pickford Service, who nodded.
Sheriff Wimbledon Brash had momentarily sto
pped pacing but resumed. A face from the floor caught his eye. She was staring at him with less reverence and more anger. She looked to be the oldest of them all.
The woman stood up.
"Sir, we have money. The people - whoever else was out there, when seen them dragging Anson Sharpe away, up toward the cave. Otherwise, no one by the name Henri Ville-"
"I'm gonna shoot that there nigger by the count of five," Sheriff Brash declared as if he were about to flush a toilet. "You gon' tell me where Ville is or I'ma shoot him-one."
He lifted his gun to point at H.S., who had been next to Marielle before she stood up.
"Two."
"I told you! We haven't seen-"
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I BEEN TOLD-THREE FOUR!" he screamed in a violent fit, his face flushed red.
H.S. winced, preparing for the shot.
"HENRI VILLE GOT THE DEVIL ON HER BACK! AND HIS NAME IS WIMBLEDON BR-"
There was a loud bang.
Then another.
The men posted at the front door fell over.
Henri Ville crossed the threshold, stepping over the body in the doorway, a gun in each of her hands. Several more loud blasts as each hand fired shot after shot, her movements nearly as fast as the bullets. With her left hand, she hit the man sitting at the table where Anson Sharpe once sat - she hit him twice, then wounded Sheriff Wimbledon Brash in the shoulder. He spun and hit the floor hard. Her right hand fired as well, hitting the two men nearest the bar. Nary a bullet missed and the lawmen, now littered with bullets, uniformly dropped to the ground.
It was like a ballet, quick and chaotic, focused, graceful, and then peace.
Henri Ville kept her left hand trained on the Sheriff while surveying the room down the sight of her right revolver. The room appeared to be empty of threats. The brown of her leather duster brushed the ground in gentle wisps as she moved toward the wounded Sheriff. Her face was half-covered in a bandanna hanging over the bottom portion of her face, strung up over her nose and hanging down over her chin, and painted in a horrific design - drawn in white chalk on the black cloth was the jaw-line of a skeleton, grotesque teeth and bone in a wide smile, as if her skin had been worn away.
It was scary, as if she were demon.
She lowered the bandana and, staring down at the gasping Sheriff, whispered, "You look like your brother. He was an asshole, too."
Henri Ville turned toward Marielle, firing an extra two shots into Sheriff Wimbledon Brash without looking, and asked a single question:
"Where's Anson Sharpe?"
PROPERTY OF J. HARKER
I
"I think we're all agreed that it was best we didn't follow Curtis in through the front door of that whorehouse," spoke Jasper Dupart. He was wearing Curtis' extra pair of snakeskin boots and horse-skin vest, in memoriam. They were standing at the mouth of the cave, him and the remaining men of the former Anglin Gang. Some had followed close behind dear Anglin, though Curtis made it clear he wanted to make the first impression on the residents inside. Those that had followed to the front of the house perished in a hail of gunfire by unseen forces from across a fiery wall.
The whole experience had been breathtaking, to say the least.
Jasper and the rest had remained in the distance some ways off. Curtis had lost sight of them in the rain and wind - he had been so focused on kicking in that front door and "terrifying the innocents." But Jasper had stopped the men from following further than a few hundred yards of the barn. There was a feeling, something was wrong, and Jasper signaled for the men to wait. He hollered to those who could hear him over the storm that they would wait, watch the rear, advance when needed?otherwise, they would stay put. And then fire spread over water - not just fire but a moving, thinking fire that snaked across the ground like a rat'ler from hell - and it grew to the height of a man, and it was a sight to behold; then, the barn blew to hell. Gunfire, a cracking in the distance-POP POPPOP POP-unending flashes, shots discharged for several minutes. And then the body of a man fitting the description of the gentleman Anson Sharpe fell out a window. Dupart single-handedly approached the house and dragged Anson back to the gang.
"Now we ain't got Henri Ville but we got second best - her henchman, Anson Sharpe?"
Jasper's speech caused a moan of annoyance from inside the cave behind him. Anson was slouched in the back of the hollow cavern, his body the shape of a capitol C, his hands and feet tied firmly. Blood had soaked his pants and the ground was turned to a red/brown paste in a circular pool beneath him. The cave didn't go in but fifteen feet before it rounded out to a dead end and that's where he sat. They had some supplies in there, tucked behind darker edges.
There was a faint, indeterminable mumbling from Anson.
Jasper Dupart paused, turned toward the cave, then returned to addressing the men:
"Now as I see this group as a democracy-"
"What'n the hell'ers a demo-crazy?" grumbled one of the men.
"Well I'm glad you asked, Burt. It means we all get a vote. We all got equal say in what happens next."
There was silence.
"Well, what're we doin' next then?" asked another.
By the looks on their faces, the group was none too enthused about this new form of group-based decision-making.
"That's the great thing, we can all decide?"
Dead silence.
"So?let's hear some ideas?"
Dead silence.
"Whelp, first things first, we gotta?"
The men stared eagerly for the next task.
"?turn Anson in for the bounty."
"-turn in Anson for the bounty, that's what I was gonna say," chimed in one of the men.
"O?kay. Well, he's got a sizeable amount on his-"
"How much?" asked another in the back.
"I'm not quite sure but it's, uh, it's definitely enough for all of us."
"Includin' Curtis?" asked one near the front, staring up at Jasper with puppy dog eyes.
"Well, Curtis won't be around to accept it."
"Why?" the same man asked again.
"Because he?he was shot."
"Yeah but what if he lived?-you know, he could still be alive."
Some of the men nodded in agreement.
"I'm fairly certain he was shot, like, 2 dozen times so?"
The man in front with the puppy dog eyes stared up, confused.
"?but, he could still be alive. Like, in a hospital somewhere."
"Where?"
"Somewhere."
"We're in the middle of nowhere."
"?but what if he is?"
"He isn't."
"?but what if he is?"
"He's not-okay, does anyone want to wait here a bit longer, see if this Henri Ville character shows up."
Dead silence.
"Let's see a show of hands."
All of the men showed Jasper their palms.
"No, that's not-"
Anson gave the second-to-last hearty laugh of his life from within the cave.
"Put your hands down," Jasper said, motioning for the men to lower their arms. "We're going to vote."
"What's a vote?" asked Burt.
"It's-I'll give you guys some options. Okay? Like choices. I want you to raise your hands," he raised his hand in example, "if you like the idea."
Nods, grumbles.
"We could take Anson Sharpe in for the bounty?"
Most of the men raised their hands.
"Or we could wait and see if this Henri Ville shows up and try and snatch him up for the bounty, too?"
Most of the men raised their hands.
"Wait-no, guys. Only vote once-"
"Henri's a girl. Short for Henrietta. You dumbasses."
"This is confusin'," one of the men muttered, scratching his head.
"Guys, it's really easy. I'll give you two choices. Pick one and then raise your hand-"
Most of the men raised their hands.
"No, I mean-when I say the choice you want, then raise your hand, so tha
t I know what you're voting for."
"We was better off as an autocrasy," called out a member from the middle. "Curtis mayn't've been smart as a governin' dictator-like fig'er but he got ideas and we believe 'int him. You though, Jasper, you speak like a bleedin' dandy. Leave our hands alone."
There were laughs from the men.
"Well I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe you'd like to come up here and-"
There was a jolt and one of the men fell over.
Not a moment later, the unmistakable crack of a rifle rang out.
The men didn't understand what was happening.
Another fell over - and, again, another crack in the distance.
The men looked at each other a moment, perplexed-and then scattered, grabbing their firearms and taking cover around the cave. The shots were coming from the west, facing the cave.
"She's here," called Anson, gleefully.
And he gave his last laugh.
II
Henri Ville traversed the landscape with a feline agility. There were sharp bluffs and she was moving down them into the gulch of the cave. The trail had been apparent: the drag marks from Anson had been left in wet mud that dried into one long, shallow chasm, a direct path to his location. The cave was far enough from the desert of The Catlight Infinite that green sprouted in fits and bursts, some cacti but also ferns and dried trees.
Henri took the rocky ledge at a run, landing steady a dozen feet lower and a good distance farther, the grips of her boots catching traction on a round boulder-top. The men were still a quarter-mile off. She swung her shoulder and brought the rifle around front. It had been Marielle's, the sight adjusted to perfection, the barrel oiled, the wood polished. The men took positions behind trees, behind rocks, or partially inside the cave. None of them were using a rifle, she noticed, and none of them used Anson Sharpe for cover. Neither would have slowed her pace or changed her action much but she had expected both.
They're idiots, she thought.
The rifle's sight found a man that thought he was well-covered.
She fired and hit his shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
Click-click- she pulled back the bolt-handle, ejected the cartridge, and then slid it forward once more. The gun remained braced against her shoulder, her breathing relaxed, sight to her unblinking cerulean eye? She fired again-click-click-then continued forward. Several of the men fired at her but their handguns were wildly inaccurate - they'd need a long barrel rifle to hit her at that distance. She would have worried more if even just one of them had been using a rifle. The distance was an unfair disadvantage to them - the equivalent of a big kid holding back a littler kid by his forehead while the frustrated littler kid punched at air.