by Sean Lynch
“It’s been nigh on ten years since I’ve been back,” Pritchard said. “When he shot me, he was a Jackson County deputy sheriff.”
“That figures,” Gaines said. “All of Burnell Shipley’s boys were Union men. Elijah was always long on pistol-shootin’, but short on brains.”
“What about you?”
“The brains part is arguable,” Gaines said, “but I’m much better than Elijah ever was with a pistol.”
“We’ll see about that. Still think none of us are willin’ to face you?”
“Ain’t a one of you, yourself included, has the sand to take me on by himself.”
“Untie him,” Pritchard ordered. “Give him a pistol. His own gun, if you can find it. I wouldn’t want it said I took undue advantage.”
“Wait a minute,” Maggie said. “He’s trying to get you to kill him, Joe. He’s the coward. The fraidycat doesn’t want to suffer a scalping and die by fire. He wants a quick death. Don’t fall for it. No point risking your life. He’s already dead.”
“Better take her advice,” Gaines said, “and let the redskins kill me. There ain’t no risk about it; if you cut me loose and give me a pistol, you’ll end up facedown in the street. That’s a certifiable fact.”
“Cut him loose,” Pritchard repeated. Sergeant Finley looked to Franchard. The Ranger captain looked at Pritchard, then signaled for his men to comply.
One of the Rangers covered Gaines with his rifle, while another cut his bonds. A third went over to the large pile of weapons collected from Stiles’s men after the fight.
“It’s that Army Colt .44 with the bone handle,” Gaines said, standing up and rubbing his wrists.
“Make sure it’s loaded,” Pritchard directed as a Ranger retrieved the weapon.
“One cartridge,” Gaines said, “is all I’m gonna need.”
Pritchard stepped back and allowed Gaines to be escorted ten paces away from him. All the other Rangers, women, and Apache retreated to the sidewalks on either side of the street.
Gaines was still wearing his holster and gun belt. The Ranger who’d fetched his Colt inserted the revolver into his holster and quickly moved off.
The two men faced each other. One was tall and thin, the other much taller, and broad.
“Blow his head off,” Stiles yelled to Gaines. “Put one right between his eyes,” another captive outlaw shouted.
Gaines was hunched in a crouch, his entire body tense, and held his right hand poised above the grip of his revolver. Pritchard stood relaxed, with his hands loosely at his sides.
“You sure look familiar,” Gaines said. “Seems if I’d ever met someone as big as you, I’d remember, but I don’t. You claim you know Elijah; are you from Missouri, too?”
“I am. A town called Atherton.”
“That’s my hometown.” Gaines’s only eye narrowed. “Your father didn’t happen to own a sawmill there, did he?”
“He did,” Pritchard said.
“Why, hell,” Gaines said, “I remember you. You were just a runt when I left.”
“Things change.”
“They surely do,” Gaines said, and went for his gun.
Faster than the eye could track, Pritchard drew his right-hand gun and fired. The .44 bullet tore straight through the elbow of Gaines’s gun hand, just as the tip of his pistol’s barrel cleared the top of the holster. Gaines uttered an involuntary yelp, and his revolver dropped to the ground from his now-useless hand.
Pritchard fired five more rounds in rapid succession, dancing Gaines’s revolver down the street. He then drew his other revolver, left-handed, with similarly blinding speed, and skittered Gaines’s Colt even farther with six more shots.
Everyone watching, including Rangers, townsfolk, captive outlaws, and Apache braves, stared at Pritchard, wide-eyed, in silence.
Gaines cradled his shattered arm as his gun ricocheted away. “Finish it,” he croaked. “Kill me, you yellow bastard.”
“Sorry,” Pritchard said with a shrug. He held up his empty revolvers. “Can’t help you, Rube. Out of bullets.” He turned to Sergeant Finley. “Tie him back up and make sure you bandage his arm. We wouldn’t want him to bleed out before the festivities tonight.”
As Gaines was returned to the saloon porch, and his hands were rebound, Pritchard ejected the spent cases from his revolvers and reloaded them with fresh cartridges from the loops on his belt.
Franchard picked up Pritchard’s hat and handed it to him.
“The first time I saw you shoot,” Franchard said, “you gunned down three men after all of ’em had drawn on you first. At the time, I didn’t think you could get any faster.” He shook his head. “I’m here to tell you, I was wrong.”
The Apache chief approached Bina, after she’d finished tending to Gaines’s wound, and spoke to her in his native tongue. He pointed at Pritchard as he spoke.
After their brief conversation ended, Bina walked up to Pritchard.
“What did the old man say?” Pritchard asked her.
“He said the shadow over you is strong. He told me to tell you that if you don’t break its curse soon, it will grow so strong it will consume you. Then you, and the shadow, will become one. When that happens, you will no longer have a spirit of your own. He said he and his warriors will pray for you tonight, at the ceremony.”
“Tell him I’m grateful,” Pritchard said. “What about you? Are you going to pray for me tonight, too?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve got something more potent in my medicine bag.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to bed with you.”
Chapter 46
The remainder of the day was spent doing communal work. One group of Rangers, Apache braves, and townswomen busied themselves building a large-enough stack of combustible material to consume over fifty bodies; more than forty of which were laid out in a row near the growing mound of fuel. Wood was collected from every pile in town, as well as old planks, fresh lumber, and heaps of straw. Before long, the unlit pyre was the size of a small house.
Another group was occupied with butchering twenty-one dead horses and the grim task of collecting the various parts of the Stiles Gang that had been blown off their owners during the initial blasts. The group loaded the fresh horse meat into the four wagons for the Apache, the human flesh was tossed on the woodpile, and the streets of Magdalena were cleaned up.
A third group slaughtered two cows, butchered them, dug a roasting pit, and prepared the food for supper.
The smallest group dug two single graves in the cemetery at the edge of town. These were for the repose of the two dead Rangers.
On Captain Franchard’s orders, a couple of Rangers were tasked with cutting stakes, more than fifty of them, each approximately the length of an Apache spear.
Chief Mangas and two of his braves wearing the colors of apprentice shamans collected blood from each outlaw, whether dead or alive. The blood was obtained from the corpses of the deceased outlaws without protest, but the bound prisoners struggled and howled, cursing the Indians, while they were cut. They had to be restrained with the assistance of burly Rangers. Once the blood from every outlaw was gathered, Mangas poured it into one large bowl. He and his assistants chanted while mixing the blood into a concoction along with herbs from his medicine bag.
The eight surviving members of the Stiles Gang watched, in brooding silence, as the Rangers, braves, and women labored throughout the afternoon. There had originally been nine still alive at the end of the battle, but one of the outlaws expired from his wounds as the afternoon faded into evening.
“Lucky bastard,” one of the prisoners remarked, as his fellow outlaw emitted his death rattle.
Just before dusk, the braves assembled in the square. All had stripped to the waist and were wearing paint on their chests and faces. Chief Mangas motioned to Bina.
“It is time,” she announced. “Those who do not wish to view the ceremony must leave now. Go inside and do not watch. Those who wish
to bear witness must come forward and be marked.”
A number of women complied and went inside the buildings. The children had already been herded into the schoolhouse at the far end of town, earlier in the day, to spare them from observing the butchering of horses and collection of bodies.
Rangers and townsfolk, with Franchard and Maggie in the lead, lined up and filed past Chief Mangas. Dipping his fingers into the bowl of liquid concocted with the outlaw’s blood, he streaked Apache symbols on the cheeks and foreheads of the men and women.
Bina and Pritchard were the last in line. When it was Pritchard’s turn to stand before the chief, Mangas did not paint his face. He gestured for him to remove his hat and shirt.
Pritchard looked to Bina, who nodded her assurance. He removed his Stetson and bib-front shirt. The three bullet-hole scars in his deep, muscular, chest, and diagonal scar across the length of his back, matched the circular scar on his forehead.
Chief Mangas and his two shamans surrounded Pritchard and began to chant. As they chanted, they painted Apache symbols on his chest, back, and arms. The diminutive chief finished by reaching up to the towering Ranger’s face. He drew symbols of the moon and stars on each cheek, and the sun on his forehead.
“What’s this about?” Pritchard asked Bina.
“They are honoring your shadow, so as not to incur its wrath.”
When Mangas finished he looked up to the sky. The last vestige of the sun dipped below the Lady on the Mountain, overlooking Magdalena. He again motioned to Bina.
“Maggie,” she said. “It’s time to light the fire.”
Franchard lit a torch with a match and extended it to Maggie. She gave him a hug, accepted it, and slowly walked toward the gigantic mound.
“No!” one of Stiles’s men yelled from the sidewalk, as Maggie ignited the pyre. “Don’t do it! You can’t burn us alive! Don’t kill us like this! We’re tied up! We’re helpless!”
“Tell that to my husband,” Maggie said, tossing the torch and stepping back. In minutes, the town square was aglow with the light from the massive, billowing pyre.
Some of the captive outlaws began to cry. Others began to curse in defiance. Still others simply stared, with vacant expressions, at the mountain of flames.
“Don’t we at least get a last meal?” Reuben Gaines called out with a grin.
“You surely do,” Franchard answered him. “Barbeque.”
The Rangers and women receded as over thirty Apaches, Bina and her elderly assistant included, drew their knives and went to work on the outlaw corpses. They quickly and efficiently scalped the forty-three dead outlaws and tossed the scalps into a pile at Captain Franchard’s feet.
Franchard motioned to his Rangers. They assisted the Apache braves in lifting and piling the bodies onto the fire. Once this was done, the Rangers and braves converged, breathing hard from exertion, on the prisoners.
Each prisoner was hog-tied, with their legs bound to their hands behind their backs, and dragged, shrieking and thrashing, to the edge of the now-sizzling inferno. The smell of cooking meat permeated the town. Eight Apache braves, with their bloody knives poised, took positions over the captive outlaws.
Women who had Ranger paramours went into their men’s arms. Maggie stepped into Franchard’s. Bina, her knife sheathed but her hands bloody, embraced Pritchard. The other townswomen held one another.
“I’m begging you,” Major Stiles said, looking up at Maggie and Franchard. “Please don’t let these savages scalp and cook us. If there’s a shred of decency left in your hearts, you’ll put a bullet to our brains.”
“Who’s calling who a savage?” Maggie said. “The decency in our hearts you crave so badly, you yourself destroyed. Tell me, Major Stiles; if these Rangers weren’t here when you rode in this morning, would you and your boys be showing decency to me now?”
Stiles hung his head and sobbed. Franchard held Maggie tighter, as tears fell from her eyes.
“You’re going to burn in hell for what you did to Magdalena,” Maggie said, “but not before you burn here on earth. And when you finally get to hell, it’ll be without your hair. Good-bye, Major.”
She waved to Bina, who spoke in Apache to Mangas.
Mangas raised and lowered his hand, and the Apache braves pounced. Major Dalton Stiles, and what was left of his infamous gang of outlaws, wailed like banshees as they were scalped.
Some of the women closed their eyes. A few also covered their ears.
“The Apache believe their cries salve the spirits of your dead menfolk,” Bina declared from Pritchard’s arms, over the roar of the fire. “Their spirits hear the screams and are appeased, knowing they have been avenged.”
When the fresh scalps were added to the pile at Captain Franchard’s feet, the Rangers assisted the Apache braves in hurling the hysterical, howling, and thrashing prisoners onto the fire. By then the pyre was a ravenous inferno, and they had to swing the blubbering outlaws from a distance, due to the intense heat.
As a Ranger and a brave lifted and heaved Major Stiles, his skull exposed, onto the fire, he continued to cry out in pain and fury.
“Witches!” he squealed. “You’re a coven of witches!” His agonized cries soon joined the chorus of his men as he burned on the fire.
The piercing screams only got louder as the prisoners were roasted to death atop the dead bodies of their fellow outlaws. It took long minutes for the last, tortured screech to fade.
Chief Mangas began to sing, and he led his braves in a shuffling dance around the fire.
“Magdalena has been cleansed,” Bina said to Maggie. “All that’s left are the prayers of my people to appease the ga’ans. Your work is done.”
“Not quite,” Franchard said. He called for Sergeant Finley.
The Ranger sergeant released the woman he had been courting all week, an attractive and pregnant redhead, and reported to his captain.
“You know what to do,” Franchard said. “Get it done.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Ranger sergeant, and a detail of ten Rangers carrying the long stakes they had prepared, divided the scalps into two piles. They collected them and the Rangers split up. One group went toward the east end of town, and one group toward the west.
“Where are they taking the scalps?” Maggie asked Franchard. “And why the stakes?”
“They’re going to put each scalp on a stake,” Franchard said, “and plant half of them at the east end of town, and the other half at the west end. The Romans did the same thing with the heads of their enemies. It sends a particular message to anyone who might come ridin’ into Magdalena with bad intentions.”
“I like it,” Maggie said, pulling Franchard closer. She wiped her eyes and looked up at him.
“Do you think I’m a witch?” she asked.
“Hell, yes,” Franchard said. “You put a spell on me.”
Chapter 47
Pritchard led Rusty out of the livery while holding Bina’s hand and tied the big Morgan to the rail in front of the saloon. It was midmorning in Magdalena, and the scent of burned wood and scorched flesh hung heavily over the town.
After the scalp-and-burn ritual the night before, the Apache declined to stay and dine with the Rangers and townsfolk. They silently hitched up the wagons filled with horseflesh, and rode off into the dark toward the Lady on the Mountain. Bina informed Maggie Chase the wagons would be returned before the next moon.
Everyone met in the saloon for supper. Many had little appetite in the wake of the day’s extraordinary events, but the whiskey Franchard allowed his men was readily consumed. As the fire raged well into the night, Rangers and their women, along with everyone but the Rangers on watch, paired up and went off to bed.
At dawn, the Rangers and townsfolk found a smoldering pile of ash where the giant pyre had been the night before. The fire was so large, and had burned so hot, there was nothing left of Major Stiles and his gang but small bits of melted metal from their belts and spurs and fragments of powde
red bone.
Captain Franchard assembled his men and spoke at the burial of the two Rangers who’d died fighting for the people of Magdalena. Everyone in town came out for the funeral.
Pritchard spent the night in the livery, in Bina’s arms. They spoke little, slept even less, and together watched the first signs of the sun as it clawed its way over the horizon.
Pritchard was still covered in ceremonial Apache blood-paint, so he bathed in the livery trough. By the time he’d dressed, shaved, and saddled Rusty, Bina was already clothed.
“You must go now,” she told him. It wasn’t a question.
“I reckon so.”
“Back to the place you were cursed?”
“Yeah,” Pritchard said.
She nodded to herself. “This is a good thing.”
“That remains to be seen,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you.”
She put her arms around him. “I like you, Joe,” she said, tracing a circle with a finger around the scar on his forehead, “but you must go. I am not for you, and this place is not for you. This we both know.”
“You could come with me.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I belong here. You do not.”
“Is that how your vision ended?” he said. “With me ridin’ off alone?”
Bina nodded. “You have many battles left to fight, Shadow Man, in many different places. The time we have shared is almost over. This is how I saw it, and how it must be.”
It was Pritchard’s turn to nod. “Have breakfast with me,” he said, “before I go?”
“Of course.”
They met Captain Franchard and Maggie Chase in the saloon. Both had already dined and were enjoying coffee. They motioned for Pritchard and Bina to join them.
“Hell of a yesterday,” Franchard said, once they were all seated.
“I’d have to agree,” Pritchard said. “Captain,” he began, “there’s something I have to tell you.”
“I already know what it is,” Franchard said, taking a sip of coffee. “You’re quittin’ the Rangers, right? Leavin’ today?”