Hell at the Breech

by Tom Franklin

  Mack began to wonder what might happen if Waite got shot here, now. If Mack’s confession died with him.

  Ardy Grant and his men spread out and crept into the trees, down the ridge and up another, toward the gunshots, which were louder, though sporadic. Grant said he thought it was two if not three weapons. With such wet leaves underfoot they could travel without noise and with their dark clothing they were hard to see. When the shooting stopped, they stopped, too. When it came again—pop pop, pop—they veered toward it and presently saw a fellow in overalls lying behind a log. He’d removed a straw hat and it lay beside his elbow in the leaves. Grant raised his rifle and laid the sights on the man’s back and shot. The other men fired, too, and the country fellow jerked and then lay still. He jerked again and they fired more.

  “Who’s there?” Grant called once the echoes had faded, the smoke gone.

  “Sheriff Billy Waite,” came the reply. “And a prisoner.”

  “It’s clear now, Sheriff,” Grant called. “We’ve shot this sum-bitch for you. It’s me, Ardy Grant.”

  “There’s another one behind me,” Waite called.

  Grant told two of the men to escort the sheriff and his prisoner back to the posse and the third to follow him—they were going after the other.

  “We’re running through,” he yelled to Waite. “Don’t shoot us, now.”

  Waite felt a mixture of relief and worry as he picked his way through the bramble and huckleberry bushes toward the road where he could already see the movement and color of men on horseback and hear low voices and the squeak of leather and horses nickering and blowing. He was out of one fix but here was another to negotiate, this one stickier because it involved friends. At least with enemies you knew where to aim.

  Two other younger fellows, the newspaper editor’s assistant, Parvin, and a surveyor called Brady, were dragging Huz Smith’s body by the arms. Waite had relieved it of its rifle, a pair of pistols, and a bowie knife. Macky walked alongside Waite, still handcuffed, quiet as ever.

  Waite helloed the road so the men, likely nervous, wouldn’t open fire, and a voice hailed him in.

  Several members of the posse dismounted as Waite and the two towns-men picked the long brittle wires of briar from their clothes and hair and brushed at their sleeves. Waite dislodged a brown thorn from his forearm. Macky looked terrified and didn’t remove the flecks of briar and leaf still in his hair and attached to his clothes, causing Waite to remember the old folks saying how if you came across a fellow with leaves or twigs in his hair, he might well be a ghost.

  Several men had gathered around Huz Smith’s body. His shirt had come untucked and a shoe was missing.

  Parvin and the surveyor were giving a report to Oscar and the others. This here one dead. Another on the run. The sheriff yonder rescued with his prisoner.

  Waite wanted to find a place to sit down but didn’t. He looked over the grim faces of the members of Oscar’s posse, many of them men he knew, fellows he spoke to on the street or sat across from at church or transacted business with day to day—the undertaker there, a clerk there, there the pharmacist. Even the dentist. A dread had settled on Waite. This wasn’t a posse of legally deputized lawmen; it was a lynch mob with an appetite.

  Oscar came forward and he and Waite looked each other over, Waite’s clothes torn and his face cut and dirty, his pants and boots wet and mud on his elbows. Oscar wore a worried look and Waite was surprised that he didn’t seem to be enjoying the high drama of it all. Something must’ve happened.

  “Oscar,” he said, taking his cousin’s gloved hand. “This is quite a party.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Billy,” Oscar said. “We found your horse a ways back and assumed the worst. He looks plumb rode to the bone.”

  “I’m glad you caught him. Me and him will both be relieved to get the hell out of this part of the county.”

  Oscar looked disappointed and cast a glance back at the Thompson brothers. Waite had long admired them, a pair who had reached the rank of lieutenant in the War, and were now co-owners of the bank.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” he said. “Glad you brought your sabers.”

  “Sheriff,” Claudius said.

  “Billy,” said Virgil.

  Oscar said, “We thought you’d join us, Billy. We need you here. Your experience.”

  Waite gazed past his cousin at the remainder of the men, some mounted, some not, some casting their eyes warily at the shadowed trees, and others glaring at the prisoner. A couple of them were approaching the boy, who stood quietly by a sloping bank of earth. He had his head down.

  Harry Drake had worked himself closest to Macky and was talking quietly to him.

  “Let me go see about this,” Waite said, nodding to Oscar and the Thompson brothers and crossing the road to place his hand on Drake’s shoulder.

  “What’s the good word, partner?” he said.

  “I’ve never seen a dead man standing up,” Drake said.

  Waite noted the rifle the lawyer held. The pistol stuck in his waistband. “Well, he ain’t dead yet,” he said affably. “I’m fixing to take him on to town, leave y’all to your work. Truth is, he might need a good lawyer. You know one?”

  “Billy,” Virgil Thompson said behind him. “You know we can’t let you take him.”

  He turned to face the old man and in doing so stepped casually between Drake and the prisoner.

  “Osk,” he said quietly, “this boy is arrested and in my custody. He’s become my responsibility. I give him my word. Why don’t you and your group go on and finish up whatever you’ve started here, but don’t try to interfere with me carrying out my duty.”

  “Sheriff,” Virgil Thompson said, “tell us his name.”

  He didn’t. He looked at Oscar and tried to read his face. Something was troubling his cousin.

  “Who is he, Billy?” Virgil Thompson repeated, almost gently.

  “I’m damned if I’ll tell you.”

  “Billy.” Oscar leaned close to Waite’s ear and whispered. “This has about got out of control. I don’t know but that we’ve shot some innocent folk already.”

  “That’s your doing, Osk. But if we let them shoot this boy, it’ll be one more.”

  The bushes rattled down the road and three dozen guns went up.

  “Hello in the posse,” Ardy Grant yelled. “We’re coming in.”

  He came out of the woods clutching his rifle, briars stuck to his sleeves. He batted them loose. Another young fellow followed on his heels. They trotted up the road swiping at beggar’s lice on their sleeves.

  “Morning, Sheriff,” Grant said, stopping beside Oscar. He had a cut across his cheek and blood had dried in it.

  Waite gave a curt nod.

  “No need to thank us for getting you out of that spot back yonder,” he said, looking around. “Appears you’re in another one here.”

  “You get him?” someone asked Grant.

  “Hell no. Fellow run like a goddamn chicken. We never really even seen him, just smelled him.” He looked at the dead man. “Got that one there, though, didn’t I?”

  Grant noticed Macky behind Waite.

  “Who we got here? Damn if it ain’t Macky Burke, Toochie Bedsole’s little house nigger.”

  Now a mumbling began among the riders, the name passing back among the craning necks. Burke. They began to line up across the road, getting their guns ready. Those still mounted were swinging down and joining the line which Waite knew with a lightness in his gut was a firing squad.

  “Well,” Grant said. “I appreciate y’all waiting for me to get here.” He reached inside his coat and came out holding a revolver.

  Waite had been scanning the faces of the posse, making eye contact with each man he knew. Most avoided looking at him, though, and were watching Grant. The young man walked over to the Thompson brothers and stood below them, talking quietly. Oscar seemed puzzled now, gazing at Macky Burke where he stood.

  Waite felt inside his coat pocket for the
handcuff key and reached calmly behind him and put it in Macky’s hands.

  Grant held the Thompson brothers’ horses as they dismounted, then handed the reins to the fellow beside him. The three of them walked over in front of Waite.

  “We thank you for bringing this one to us,” Grant said, gesturing with his pistol for Waite to move aside. “We’ll take him now.”

  “I can’t let that happen, Grant,” Waite said.

  “The hell.” Grant’s eyes bugged. He raised his pistol and aimed past Waite’s shoulder and shot, so near that for a moment Waite couldn’t hear anything. Waite drew his own sidearm from its holster and put its barrel against Grant’s stomach. Grant looked down. He understood what was going to happen and the skin tightened on his face, moving his ears back.

  “Don’t,” he said, but Waite did.

  Mack didn’t hear it. There was an explosion, and he found himself facing halfway around from before. He tried to move his arm but couldn’t and knew he’d been shot. In the left shoulder. He was afraid to look at it but did. It was bleeding, his entire arm numb. He couldn’t feel the hand at the end of it but knew it still held the key. Somebody was moaning, he wondered if it was him. He sat down in the road.

  Waite found himself gazing down as Grant lay in the sand holding his stomach. He coughed and retched. He looked up at Waite, his eyes confused, blood beginning to trail down from the corners of his mouth. He retched again, then fell back and rolled like somebody in holy ecstasy, arching his back and kicking himself toward the other side of the road where men moved aside in awkward silence to let him writhe. Some had pulled out their own pistols in case Grant wanted to take anybody with him. Most seemed to have forgotten Waite and the boy.

  Waite had swung his pistol to cover the Thompson brothers should he need to shoot. They were watching Grant, who was cursing a steady stream—“Shit fuck hell goddamn shit”—now on his belly. When he rolled back over his entire shirtfront was red as a flag. He held another pistol, a derringer Waite had already seen him slip from his boot, and before Grant could raise it Waite shot again and saw Grant’s left eye sucked into a black hole in his head.

  He lay still.

  Oscar stared down at him, the left half of his face painted now in blood. “Hell, Billy.” He drew one of his twin revolvers as if in afterthought and held it canted toward the trees.

  Waite forced his grip to slacken. Despite the heavy pistol his arm felt light, as if it might float up on its own.

  The tension had eased and Waite remembered that the boy had been shot. He glanced behind him where Macky sat cross-legged, stunned. His shoulder bloody.

  He looked at the line of men across the street and knew he had very little time to rein it all in.

  “If anybody shoots this boy,” Waite called, “you see what will happen. Even you, Virgil. Or you, Claudius. Harry. Oscar.” He could remember no one else’s names or he’d have gone through the whole list. All he could do was say, “You, you, you,” pointing at each man.

  Oscar knelt beside Grant and, careful not to get blood on his hands, went through his coat. He found what looked like a train ticket and stared at it for a long time.

  “What you got there?” somebody asked him.

  “Nothing,” Oscar said. He continued to search his pockets until he withdrew the paper Grant had read from. He looked at it, then crumpled it in his fist.

  “There’s no names on this,” he said.

  “My Lord, Billy. What have I done?”

  They’d moved off from the others.

  “Killed some folks who might be innocent,” Waite said.

  “No,” his cousin said, “the first fellow said he signed a paper. Ardy, he had that paper…”

  “Osk,” said Waite, “this is gone be a long time getting sorted out. Meantime you gotta put that in the back of your mind. Right now you’ve got to get control of this mob or it’s gone get worse.”

  “You can do it,” Oscar said. “They trust you. Me,” he said, “well, they’ve lost respect for me. If I were them, I would have.”

  Waite knew he could do it. Could turn them around and head them back to town. If he had to, he’d shoot somebody else to prove it.

  But how many others were out there now, how many more members of Hell-at-the-Breech? With Lev James and one Smith dead, the others were liable to come into town madder than hell, seeking revenge, or they’d lie in wait along the road as they had with Anderson, and who knew who else they’d shoot. Might go after Waite or even Sue Alma.

  “Okay,” he said to Oscar. “I’m in charge, though. You’ll do exactly as I say.”

  His cousin nodded. “I thank you, Billy.”

  “We’re going to Bedsole’s store. We’re gone get Tooch Bedsole. And then we’re going after some others. But it won’t be done by no goddamn mob.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  On the road, Waite had each man raise his right hand and he swore them in as deputies. He told them they’d fire only when he gave the order, or when they were fired upon. He told them the names of the men he knew were guilty and said that those men and those men alone would be dealt with. And he said again that if anybody touched the boy Macky Burke, he, Waite, would shoot that man.

  Before they left, he saw that Macky’s wound was tended to, it wasn’t bad, little more than a chunk of meat shot out. Waite asked him if he felt okay and the boy said he reckoned he did.

  “I thank you,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t do that yet,” Waite told him.

  They mounted up, formed into lines, and began to ride east, toward Bedsole’s.

  War Haskew, Kirk James, and William Burke had spent a miserable night in the woods. Kirk had brought a jug which they’d resisted until they got so cold they tapped into it. After a while they found a dry spot and sat down to wait for daylight.

  By the time the sun came up and burned off a little of the damned fog they were on the way to being drunk and they’d gotten a little fire going against all their better judgment. They were arguing about what to do. War Haskew said go back toward the store and find Tooch. Kirk said get the hell out. Just go. Every man for himself. William Burke was swayed to each argument until the next argument came.

  The posse paused in a wide field surrounded by a pine thicket after two ponies collided and sent their riders flying. One of the ponies had broken its leg and had to be shot, and the rider of the other had dislocated his shoulder. While two fellows worked at getting it set, one of the lookouts shouted that someone was coming.

  There were four of them, all armed, walking their mounts along the tree line, the lead man riding a fine roan with a white handkerchief tied on the barrel of his rifle. The lightest cold rain had begun to fall, beading on the shoulders of the men.

  “They want a parley,” Virgil Thompson said, pipe in his teeth.

  Oscar uncapped and extended his telescope and peered through it, then handed it to Waite.

  “That’s Tom Hill out front,” he said. The other men rode mules.

  “Who’s with him?”

  “Can’t tell.”

  Waite told everybody to stay put and rode out, meeting Hill, by himself, halfway over the field.

  “Billy Waite,” Hill said. “What the hell are y’all doing, riding like horsemen of the apocalypse, killing innocent folk?”

  “There won’t be no more people killed who don’t need killing,” Waite said. “I’ve took control now. Done deputized these fellows and we’re gone cut this Hell-at-the-Breech gang’s head off and stomp on its neck. I know who’s involved and who ain’t.” He drew his sidearm, aimed it at Hill’s face. “Give me the names of them fellows with you.”

  Hill straightened in the saddle. He looked back at the three men who’d readied their shotguns, and held his hand up for them to wait. He said their names.

  Waite lowered his pistol. “They ain’t on our list. And you ain’t either. So you fellows are invited to join us.”

  The justice gazed past Waite to where the pos
se stood like a pulsing black cloud of smoke.

  “Join you?” Hill looked incredulous. “After what you’ve done to our beat?”

  “Yeah,” Waite said. “Either join us or oppose us.”

  When the posse rode toward Bedsole’s store the rain had quit and their number was four stronger.

  Mack rode alongside the sheriff on the outside of the mob, light-headed and handcuffed, but with the key in his right fist. The men around him rode with their rifles and shotguns unsheathed and all cast wary glances across the fields. He could tell from their quiet conversations that they expected to be fired upon from the trees, and he looked at the trees himself but worried that if any of Tooch’s men tried such a tactic they’d lose. The fog along the ground resembled smoke, as if the world were smoldering in its heart.

  Out of ammunition, Buz Smith climbed the slippery hollowside and peered at the store from the edge of the trees. Smoke from the chimney, nothing else. He hurried across the croquet court, its wickets pressed flat by weather, and went in the back door. Tooch was standing by the front, looking out. When he saw Buz alone he frowned.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  Buz shrugged. He was soaking wet and cut in a dozen places. He took off his hat and went to the woodstove and held his palms out to get warm. He kept his rifle under his arm.

  “What’s the story?” Tooch asked.

  Buz gestured in a way Tooch had seen a hundred times but it made no sense.

  “What the hell you saying, Buz?”

  The mute wiggled his fingers. He waved his arms. Tromped his feet. Ticked off numbers on his fingers.

  “Did they get Huz?”

  Buz nodded, then shrugged.

  “You saying you don’t know.”

  He nodded.

  “Who was it?”

  Shrug.

  “How many?”

  Shrug.

  “Did you see the boy?”

  Nod.