A Congregation of Jackals

by S. Craig Zahler

  “I see smoke,” Goodstead said.

  Oswell put down his binoculars and looked at the deputy. Dicky, Smiler and the sheriff watched the Texan; the blank-faced man peered through an elongated enameled spyglass, nodding.

  Sheriff Jeffries asked, “Can you see what it’s coming from?”

  “I’d bet a fire,” the deputy responded. “Can’t see it though.”

  “How much smoke?”

  “A line of it. Rising straight up like a pole,” the deputy said. The horses galloped for a few silent moments before Goodstead added, “It stopped. They put it out.”

  “What’s this Quinlan’s doing? A diversion?” the sheriff asked Oswell.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It started again. The smoke,” the deputy said. The horses’ hooves stomped upon dirt and weeds and stones. “Now it stopped.”

  “Smoke signal,” Dicky said, his words garbled by the rag and injuries in his mouth.

  “Are they signaling us, or other folks?” Sheriff Jeffries asked the deputy.

  “I don’t know how to read it. I barely know cursive.”

  “I know how,” Smiler said. “Gimme that spyglass.”

  Goodstead cut his horse to the right and sidled up alongside the marshal’s galloping mustang. The Texan handed the spyglass to the senior member of the posse.

  Smiler raised the telescope to his right eye, looked through it, lowered it, rubbed the glass on either end with his left cuff and raised it again. He looked through it for a moment and then placed the spyglass to his other eye.

  “That’s the good one,” the bearded man muttered to himself. Oswell and the others watched Smiler; the marshal’s mouth moved—and occasionally muttered, “That ain’t it”—while he peered through the glass.

  “No hurry,” Goodstead remarked. “Keep it to yourself.”

  “Deputy,” the sheriff admonished.

  Smiler lowered the spyglass and said, “They’re usin’ Canagwa signals and repeatin’ two words. ‘Trade’ and ‘talk.’ ”

  “I’m feeling talkative,” Goodstead said, checking his revolver. “And I got some beat-up outlaws that I won’t trade for less than a nickel.”

  “They’re callin’ us over,” Oswell said to the sheriff.

  “So this is it,” the sheriff said.

  “Yeah.”

  The quintet did not speak often as they chased their own shadows northeast for more than an hour. Oswell’s mouth was numbed by the pain of his fractured jaw; whenever he spoke, his words had a slight slur to them.

  The mountains expanded before the riders until all that remained of the eastern sky were shards of blue striped with white clouds, like pieces of luminous marble. The sun continued to crawl down their spines; Oswell’s back dripped with sweat.

  The ground beneath them became harder and harder until the horses’ hooves clacked upon crenulated stone that was the extended base of the mountain ridge itself.

  Goodstead took the spyglass from his eye and returned it to his saddlebag.

  “They are up about half a mile.”

  “Let’s leave these horses here,” the sheriff said. “I don’t want gunfire scaring them off, and if somebody gets hurt we’ll need to get back to Trailspur quickly.”

  “Depends on who’s hurt,” Goodstead added.

  Oswell swung his right leg over the saddle and dropped from the steed to the blue and gray stone. The impact brought fire to his jaw; his left ear rang anew.

  Dicky clambered from his mare, pulled the red rag that had been another color an hour ago from his mouth, bits of his tongue, inner cheeks and lips hesitant to relinquish it. He tossed the flesh-flecked fabric to the ground, rinsed his mouth with whiskey (some of which dribbled from the holes in his cheeks) and gently shut the ruined orifice with which he had likely seduced more women than Oswell had ever even spoken to.

  “Do what he said,” the rancher admonished Dicky.

  The New Yorker nodded, stepped forward and winced, gripping his side where Oswell had broken two ribs during their scuffle on the dais.

  Smiler climbed off of his spotted mustang and walked the beast over to the pair ridden by the outlaws from the East.

  Oswell watched the deputy hop off of his mare and walk over to his boss. Sheriff Jeffries leaned on Goodstead’s shoulder as he dismounted his black mare. The lawman grimaced when his left foot impacted the un-yielding stone.

  “Let’s have us a chat,” Goodstead said, slotting a tube magazine into the stock of his lever-action rifle. He flung the trigger guard forward; the dry clack of the bullet being drawn into the chamber echoed ten times.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Coronations in the West

  T.W. ground his teeth as he walked on the hard stone due north. He raised his binoculars and looked ahead; a column of smoke climbed high into the sky, dividing the northern horizon like the left and right pages of a book. At the bottom of the gray pillar he saw a rectangle that was a stagecoach and seven dots no larger than raisins. None of the anomalies moved.

  The sheriff said, “Smiler?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Does that smoke say anything?”

  “It’s just smoke.”

  Sweat dripped down T.W.’s forehead, into his eyes. He wiped the bitter moisture away to clear his view. His left hip throbbed so forcefully it felt as if his heart had fallen from his chest down into his waist.

  He looked through the binoculars again. The raisins had not moved since he had last checked their position.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  T.W. turned to his right; Goodstead, walking beside him, peered north through the spyglass, his blank face pale.

  “What?”

  Goodstead looked from the lenses to T.W. and opened his mouth to speak . . . yet said nothing.

  “Let me see,” the sheriff said, reaching for the spyglass.

  The deputy raised it beyond his fingertips and said, “Better not.”

  “Deputy. Give me that damn telescope.”

  “They stripped the clothes off of them. Beatrice and Tara.”

  T.W. balled up his fists; the muscles in his neck hardened; his scalp tightened; his face grew hot.

  He swallowed dryly and asked, “What are they doing to them?”

  Goodstead looked back through the spyglass and replied, “Nothin’ right now. Just have them standin’ there. Looks like their arms and legs are bound so they can’t run off.”

  “He’s going to try to make you go soft before you get there,” Oswell said. “It’s better not to look until you can draw on him.”

  T.W.’s heart hammered in his chest; his ears rang; he looked at the deputy and said, “Put that telescope away.”

  The blank-faced Texan collapsed the spyglass and hung it around his neck by its leather cord.

  “Hold to the plan,” T.W. said aloud, as much to strengthen his own resolve as to instruct those who walked alongside him.

  They walked north. The boots of the quintet clacked upon the gray and blue stone; ghostly reverberations haunted the crenulated clefts to their right.

  T.W. thought about the plan, and he thought about his hip, and he thought about the destroyed church, and he thought about that horse that curled up and died after the explosion, and he thought about Jesus on the cross and His agony. He thought about everything but her.

  Five dark figures and two pink ones stood in tandem against the northern sky. The lowering western sun cast huge shadows of the seven onto the mountain ridge to the right.

  T.W. led his posse onward. Their gigantic shadows slid toward the waiting cluster, a meeting of wraiths.

  The sheriff and his men climbed the low ridge upon which Quinlan, his crew and his two hostages stood. Fifty yards remained between the groups.

  T.W. saw that Beatrice was nude and shaven bald; little red lines that looked liked string ran down her face. Her blonde hair hung from her mouth like a mop. Quinlan stood beside her, leaning on his crutch.

  The little Frenchman, his le
ft hand pressed to Tara’s right shoulder, said to the sheriff, “You did not appreciate art. You burn it.” He pointed to Tara’s head and then Beatrice’s. “Now you appreciate, oui?”

  The terrible instant that T.W. understood what had been done to Beatrice, he doubled-over and retched his hot insides upon the stone. He wiped the bile from his mouth, stood up and continued to walk north. The lawman felt as if his body were an automaton he controlled from a great distance.

  T.W. and his posse closed the distance to twenty yards. Light glimmered on the long nails that protruded from Beatrice’s skull; the dozen rods encircled her head like a tiara; Tara, silent and motionless, wore the same crown.

  The sheriff focused his eyes on Quinlan and said, “Your signal said you wanted to trade.”

  Quinlan slapped his gauntlet upon Beatrice’s shoulder; she wobbled; sunlight glinted upon the nails that jutted straight out of her forehead.

  T.W., Goodstead, Smiler, Oswell and Richard walked toward Quinlan, Alphonse, the wheezing twin, the bleeding Indian and a mule skinner with big black boots. Most of the opposition was in bad shape, which explained to T.W. why they had hastened the showdown.

  “Au revoir,” the Frenchman said. He shoved Tara; she tipped forward on her bound, bloodied feet. She fell to the stone face-first; the impact drove four nails through her skull deep into her brain. She shrieked and was seized by three violent paroxysms. Blood and urine pooled beneath her.

  Quinlan said to T.W., “Throw down your guns or your girl goes the same way.” He set the palm of his bronze gauntlet to Beatrice’s back.

  “Wait,” T.W. cried. “We just want to talk.”

  T.W. drew his gun, pointed it at Quinlan’s heart and fired; the malformed man caught the bullet and was flung back upon the stone.

  Alphonse cried out, “Patron!”

  Richard, who had turned to his side like a duelist, caught a bullet that came from the twin’s gun directly opposite him; he collapsed.

  Smiler fired a bullet into the right side of the twin’s head; oily tangles of black hair, flecks of skull and jewels of gore burst from the opposite side like confetti; he fell to the stone.

  Goodstead and the Indian fired upon each other; their shots cracked simultaneously. Both men were lanced by bullets and fell. The deputy dropped to his knees; the Indian slammed onto his back. They fired at each other a second time: the top of the Indian’s head burst like a crushed tomato upon the blue and gray stone; Goodstead fell onto his back.

  The mule skinner’s gun jammed; Oswell fired two rounds into his head. The rancher then sent four bullets into the stagecoach; a man groaned, stumbled out of the vehicle holding his stomach and fell to the stone.

  Alphonse fled.

  Richard, lying on the ground and coughing up blood, shot the Frenchman in the legs at the exact same moment that T.W. did. The little man fell to his knees. The sheriff and the New Yorker fired two bullets into his chest. Alphonse withdrew a handkerchief from his coat, blew his nose, tipped forward as if he were going to crawl into his bowler cap and died.

  T.W. looked at Beatrice. The malformed Irishman, bleeding and wheezing, was directly behind her, propped up on his hands, stump and remaining knee. The only way he could have survived the sheriff’s dead-on shot was if his heart were not situated where it should have been.

  T.W. yelled, “No!” and ran at his bound, horribly crowned daughter.

  Quinlan coughed up blood and lifted his left hand from the stone.

  The sheriff bolted as hard as he could.

  Quinlan extended the bronze gauntlet to push the woman forward. On the mountainside, their huge shadows merged.

  The sheriff was three strides from his daughter when the tendon in his left hip finally snapped; the ground slammed into him; air was hammered from his lungs. The sprawled sheriff could neither move nor yell.

  Quinlan’s bronze gauntlet touched the small of Beatrice’s back. She teetered, the nails in her bald head twinkling.

  T.W. watched his baby, his girl, his treasure, his entire life topple forward to the stone.

  Oswell caught her.

  Holding the woman in his strong arms, the rancher kicked Quinlan’s head; the Irishman’s jaw cracked, and he collapsed to the stone, convulsive. Oswell put the toe of his boot beneath Quinlan’s torso and turned him over. The rancher stomped his heel upon the man’s malformed, gasping face. The man’s nose shattered. Os-well brought his boot down again. The dome of Quinlan’s skull cracked; the shape of his head changed; gore squirted from his left ear.

  Tears were pouring from Oswell’s eyes.

  Richard crawled to the dying Irishman. He shot Quinlan three times, the barrel so close that the muzzle flash turned the mashed face into unrecognizable char. The New Yorker dropped his gun, pulled out another revolver and fired three shots into the twin’s corpse; the prostrated body shook as if it had hiccups.

  T.W. tried to stand, but his left leg refused to function; he sat upright on the stone, unable to do anything more.

  He watched Oswell stand Beatrice up, take her hair from her mouth and untie the binding on her wrists. Richard removed the cord from around her ankles. Smiler walked up and put his longcoat around her shoulders.

  She said, “Thank you,” to the three men and walked to her father; she sat beside him. It was hard for him to look her in the eyes—her face was striped with crimson and the nails still protruded from her skull.

  He took her hand and tried to kiss it a thousand times.

  “I’m so sorry this happened. I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “You saved me. You saved me, Daddy.” She was trembling; tears ran from her eyes down her cheeks.

  T.W. said, “I’m going to send for a doctor. You can’t ride with those nails in you.”

  “I’ll go,” Smiler said. “You aren’t going to be sending Goodstead.” The old marshal pointed west; T.W. and Beatrice looked.

  The deputy lay upon the stone; T.W.’s stomach sank; Beatrice said, “No.”

  “I’m still alive.” the Texan said. “And handsome.” He coughed. “Very.”

  “He took one in the stomach,” the marshal informed them.

  Quietly, so that the deputy could not hear, Beatrice asked the marshal, “Is he going to make it?”

  “You bet I will. An’ remember how pitiful I look right now when I ask you to dinner next time.”

  “I’ll fetch the doctor. Do you feel safe with those two?” the old marshal asked, pointing to Oswell and Richard.

  T.W. squeezed his daughter’s hand and looked over at the outlaws.

  Oswell and Richard faced each other; they both held guns in their clenched fists. The sheriff recognized the vitriol in their gazes: somebody was about to get killed.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  So This is How it is Going to End?

  “Put that goddamn gun down,” Oswell said to Dicky.

  With his free hand, the New Yorker pulled the rag from his mouth; flakes of himself went with the fabric.

  “I am not going t—” Dicky said, the sentence’s conclusion precluded by what ever just came loose from his upper gums. He spat the lump to the stone and continued, “I am not going to get hanged.”

  “This isn’t some girl you lie to so you can bed her, or some fellow you cheat in cards. The sheriff let us save our families when he could’ve just executed us, and we’d never know what happened or done any good. We gave him our word what we’d do after.”

  “I did not give him my word,” Dicky said and spat more flecks of himself to the stone. “I just nodded.”

  “Be honest. It’s the last chance you’ll ever have to do it.”

  “I am not going to let anyone hang me.” He felt something warm slide down his cheeks; his wounds began to sting anew.

  “You going to get in a gunfight with the sheriff to save yourself?”

  The New Yorker did not answer the inquiry; he had not thought that far ahead. Oswell’s shadow was gigantic upon the mountainside.

  The r
ancher fired his gun twice. The bullets slammed into the New Yorker’s chest, cracked his sternum, lanced his lungs, and burst through his back. He stumbled three steps to the west as if kicked by a mule.

  Dicky aimed his gun at Oswell’s face; the rancher did not flinch or move away, but instead stared directly into the New Yorker’s eyes. Dicky lifted the barrel from Oswell’s visage and pointed it at his own shadow, cyclopean upon the mountainside. He fired three shots at the wraith—echoes climbed to the peaks and scurried like rabbits across the plains—and then fell to the stone.

  Cold air rushed into Dicky’s lungs. Fluid bubbled in his esophagus.

  Thoughts of Allison came to him, the woman he had tried for fourteen years to wipe from his mind, but whose face appeared whenever he saw a similar-looking woman (as he had on the train a week ago) or whenever he was ill or in a morbid state.

  As his fingertips and toes began to tingle, Dicky remembered the day he had proposed to the raven-haired woman from Maine, the luminous quality of her smile as she nodded and his own ebullience at her acceptance. He was thirty at the time. He recalled the days he spent with her family and how well he had gotten along with her father, Garret, with whom he spent more than a dozen Saturdays playing croquet while enjoying fine gin. Allison and her family had called him Richard.

  He recalled that June evening, one week before he and his fiancée were to be married—the night he had made the mistake of unburdening himself. They had made love, and afterward he felt compelled to tell her about the robberies with which he had been involved. As he recounted the heinous tale of Rope’s End, he could see that she no longer loved him. In her eyes, he was not the thoughtful and gay gentleman to whom she had said, “I do,” but a villain and a liar. He stopped talking. They slept on either side of the bed, a chasm between them. The next morning he had awakened to find her engagement ring and a note upon the table. He gambled the ring away in a poker game that night; he never read the note.