The Shotgun Arcana (54 page)

Barrow’s bullet whizzed by Kate as the two Colts belched fire and lead at him. One bullet ripped into his chest, the other blew a hole in the eaves of the school door. Barrows screamed, cocked the rife and fired again. Kate’s horse staggered from the bullet tearing into its head. The horse tossed Kate before it stumbled off a few yards and fell over, dying.

As she fell, Kate fired two more shots at Barrows. One missed him completely, the other ripped into him again, blowing a hunk of meat out of his leg. She fell, hard, and the wind whooshed out of her chest, her guns falling into the grass. Barrows, bleeding and grunting, charged toward her, an axe in his hands.

Inside the children were silent, frozen in fear. The Scholar was unmoving, his eyes scanning the interior of the schoolhouse. The gunfire had stopped outside and it was silent now. LaTour shouted out as she maintained the knife at the boy’s throat, “Barrows! Barrows, you simpleton! Attend me!”

“Even if you kill that boy,” the Scholar said calmly, speaking French, “I’ll snap your neck before you can reach another child.” He shifted slightly to the left and LaTour countered by sliding herself and her hostage right.

“But you are a noble man,” LaTour replied in her native tongue, her beautiful eyes hooded like a cobra. “You would never wish harm to come to an innocent boy, would you, monsieur?” The Scholar shifted again, moving himself to try to flank LaTour. Again the slender woman smiled like a jackal and shifted in response to the attempt.

“You have me mistaken for someone else,” the Scholar said blandly. “I could care less if all these little cherubs end up under your knife. I’m here to perform a service for my employer. It’s been my experience that heroics are bad for business.”

LaTour frowned a little and opened her mouth to speak. The roar of two gunshots drowned out her final words. One bullet smashed through the back of her head, destroying her brain. The second zipped through the back of her throat, out the front, and buried itself in the Scholar’s shoulder. He grunted but otherwise seemed nonplussed. LaTour fell, the knife tumbling from her dead hands. Tom Benoit ran as fast as he could toward the Scholar. The children screamed, a mixture of terror at what they saw and relief that the ordeal was ending.

Kate walked through the front doors of the schoolhouse, a smoking pistol in either hand. The children rushed to her and swarmed about her waist, laughing and cheering, hugging her, sobbing and begging to go home. Kate put the guns away and tried to hush the crying children. The Scholar stepped forward, the thinnest trace of a smile on his face.

“Sorry about that,” Kate said nodding to the Scholar’s shoulder.

He shrugged.

“It’s inconsequential,” he said. Two little girls were hugging his leg and he scooped them up and held them. “It’s all right. You are going home.” It was the most emotion Kate had heard in the man’s voice since she had first come to the Dove’s Roost months ago.

“Nice job, getting her set up for the shot,” Kate said. “How did you know I was still alive out there?”

“I didn’t,” the Scholar said. “It was a calculated risk.” He looked at the little girl nuzzled deeply into his wounded shoulder and chest, and smiled. “That,” he said to the little girl, “hurts a great deal. Please stop.”

“I’ll send off the signal,” Kate said. “You old softy, you.”

*   *   *

The tabernacle was being demolished by the fury of the battle. The town elders—Brodin Chaffin, Rony Bevalier and Antrim Zezrom Slaughter—were tied and against the far wall, sitting on a long bench.

Victory Ferrell had a pair of tomahawks, one in each hand. He swung wildly at Black Rowan as she tumbled, dived and leapt, seeking a way past his slashing wall of death. She held a bell-guarded saber in one hand and a short, narrow dirk in the other, and whenever she closed in it took both her blades to keep the lightning-fast wild-eyed soldier’s hand axes from striking her. Ferrell was all instinct, rage and speed, but Rowan had to admit that his sheer ferocity was more than a match for her training.

Harry was picked up off the ground and thrown into the far wall, narrowly missing the elders, who ducked as he flew past. The impact made him see stars. His spine throbbed even through his holy breastplate. The Sword of Laban clattered to the floor and Harry struggled to rise as Liver-Eatin’ Douglass shambled toward him. The mountain man was well over seven feet tall and a lumbering wall of muscle and madness. Douglass grabbed Harry by the leg, intent on using the mayor like a club and smashing him against the wall again and again. Pratt snagged the sword with his fingers—it seemed to slide into his hand of its own accord. He slashed down on Douglass’s wrist and the giant roared as he drew back a spurting stump of a left hand. He shuffled backward. Douglass bellowed and clutched his stump, more like an animal than a man might. Harry slid his bloody, gleaming sword gently over the bonds of Elder Slaughter and they fell away, cleanly severed. Slaughter began to untie his feet as quickly as he could.

“Get the others free and get out of here,” Harry said. “Use the hidden passage, the one we came in through.”

Harry’s father had insisted on the tabernacle and the other formal buildings of the church having concealed entrances, secret exits and hidden passages. They hadn’t been used many times over the years, but Harry was thankful today that his father had drilled him on their locations and access.

“What about you and the young lady?” Slaughter said.

Harry glanced over to see Rowan matching Ferrell blow for blow, sparks flying off the killer’s axes as they clanged against Rowan’s blades.

“We have this under control, I think,” Harry said.

Douglass’s remaining good hand suddenly smashed into Harry’s side. The giant tried to grab Harry and rip his liver out; the breastplate held against Douglass’s immense, preternatural strength, but the force of Douglass’s attempt threw Harry against the wall again.

“See?” Harry said to Slaughter. He spun and moved the sword to try to force room between himself and the giant. Slaughter quickly began to untie his comrades, while Harry kept Douglass busy and distracted.

Rowan had established a pattern now of strikes and parries that Ferrell was locked into it, following her dance, at least for the moment, and that was all the time she needed. Rowan snapped open the hidden compartment on her jeweled ring with a gentle squeeze of her fingers, turned the dirk into the parry of Ferrell’s tomahawk and then pushed hard against it, sending a spray of finely ground glass into Ferrell’s eye. The soldier gasped and involuntarily blinked, pushing more of the deadly dust into his eyeball. He started to scream, but Rowan broke his disrupted parry, knocking it aside, and ran him through with her saber. Ferrell slid off her blade and slumped to the ground, dead.

Harry felt Douglass grab him by his long coat; he turned his arm as best he could and rammed the magical blade backward, into Douglass’s side. Douglass grunted as the blade sunk up to the hilt in his guts and pierced his liver. He released Harry’s coat as he staggered back. Pratt spun, grabbed the hilt of the Sword of Laban with both hands and wrenched it upward with all his might. The sword opened Douglass from his prodigious gut to his throat and lodged finally in the man-monster’s brain. He made a final, instinctual grab for Harry’s neck as he tumbled forward. Pratt braced his boot and bended knee against Douglass’s chest. The weight of the man was incredible. Harry felt the mountain man’s fingers slip from him and he kicked back, knocking Douglass’s lifeless mass to the floor in a widening pool of his own blood and entrails.

Covered in blood, Harry climbed to his feet, groaning. He looked over at Rowan, who was nursing a nasty hatchet wound to her leg. She waved and Harry nodded, panting. He looked over the see Slaughter freeing the last of the elders.

“Look what they’ve done to our tabernacle!” Bevalier shouted.

Harry shook his head.

“We need to send the signal,” Harry said. “I just hope we’re not too late.”

The Fool

They led Bick and Highfather out into the blinding noonday sun from the cool confines of the Paradise Falls. The crowd was mostly silent; a few catcalls and boos greeted the sheriff and the saloon owner, but by now most folks in town had come to see Zeal and his crew for what they truly were and their support was sullen and at gunpoint. Those who still cheered and supported Zeal were the most callous and vicious inhabitants of Golgotha, a few hundred strong at the most. They were here to see blood and spectacle.

Both men were clothed to hide the majority of their injuries, save the evidence of beatings on their faces. Bick was marched up the stairs to the platform, where two large posts had been secured. He was lashed to a post with rope while Zeal addressed the crowd from the platform, where everyone could see him.

“Good people of Golgotha! I hope you enjoyed your day of Thanksgiving and return now reinvigorated to dedicate yourself to the great tasks that lie before us! This man, Malachi Bick, has stolen from you and from me. He has lied, swindled and cheated you and me and he has drained the very lifeblood of our town!”

The crowd murmured and more boos and shouts came from the assembled mass. Even those who feared Zeal and wanted him gone could agree that Bick was evil.

“Why ain’t I up there too,” Highfather mumbled from puffy, swollen lips. He was ringed by guards. Snake-Man and several mercenaries stood near him.

“Bick is the appetizer,” Snake-Man explained. “You will be the main course, the sacrificial lamb. Once he gets those people riled up enough to kill Bick, once they taste blood, then it will take just a little push to get them to tear apart their beloved sheriff, and then they are ours, with us in body and soul.”

Zeal continued, calling out to the crowd, a smiling beatific voice of strength and purpose. It was hard not to nod in agreement with him. “Since he has wronged you, harmed you, dear people, you shall be the instrument of his punishment, you shall lay this evil man low.”

A group of Praetorians rolled a large mine cart into view. It was filled with hard, jagged rocks. They stopped it near the edge of the platform, looking up at Bick, tied and beaten.

“Those of you who feel wronged by this man, who hate this man and wish to do to him as he has done to you, step forward now and show him the true meaning of divine justice.”

Zeal smiled at Bick. The crowd rumbled with debate, agreement, dissent. Gradually a small group of men and women began to step forward and walk toward the cart. “There is your answer from God, Biqa,” Zeal said.

Three men and one woman lined up and were given stones by the guards and Zeal himself. “Here you go Mrs. Jackson,” he said, handing the stone to the woman.

Somewhere, far across the town, three gunshots rang out. A moment later, two more gunshots rang out, also a distance away.

In the crowd of onlookers, Auggie Shultz and his bride, Gillian, held hands and watched in disbelief. They had been dragged from their honeymoon bed by the same Praetorians that had gathered their neighbors and friends to observe this nightmare.

“This can’t be happening,” Gillian whispered to Auggie. “I know Malachi Bick is a bad man, has done bad things, but this is barbaric!”

Auggie got an odd look on his face. He kissed Gillian, released her hand and began to push his way through the crowd.

“Augustus!” Gillian shouted. “What are you doing?”

Auggie looked back and smiled at her, then shrugged. “What is right,
ja
?”

An audible gasp rose from the whole town as Augustus Shultz walked out of the crowd and made his way to the platform. Zeal offered Auggie a rock. Auggie looked at Zeal and a little bit of the smile left Zeal’s face. Auggie took the stone and walked past Zeal and the soldiers, who Zeal gestured to allow him to pass. He climbed the stairs slowly. The thump of each step echoed across the now silent Main Street.

Highfather stood as still and entranced as everyone else did. Suddenly he felt a sharp knife sawing through the bonds tying his hands behind his back. He slowly looked over his shoulder and saw a thin, lanky man in a tattered suit and long, broken wooden mask now standing slightly behind him. Zeal’s men all seemed to accept him as one of their own and were too busy watching Auggie to notice that the masked man was freeing Highfather. The man behind the mask winked at Highfather and the gesture stirred a memory.

Jim!
Highfather suddenly realized.

Up on the platform Auggie stood before Bick, the heavy rock in his hand. “I came to you, Mr. Bick, when I was desperate and had suffered great loss. You helped me but you were not honest in the price you would exact and you took more from me than you ever gave, yes? You have meddled in people’s lives. You’ve hurt good people to further your own schemes and you never gave a thought for what your actions would do to others, Mr. Bick, because you thought your life was more important than ours. You were wrong, Mr. Bick.”

Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath as Auggie raised the stone above his head and looked unflinching into the dark eyes of Malachi Bick. Auggie lowered his arm and dropped the stone at Ray Zeal’s feet.

“And I forgive you,” Auggie said.

A cheer rose up from the crowd, swept across the citizens. Auggie turned to look at the four assembled executioners. “Shame on you,” he said. “This is not how we do things here,
ja
?”

One by one the four dropped their stones as Auggie’s voice drifted out across the crowd. “We have law and a good man, a good sheriff, like Jon Highfather! This is not justice, and this is not right. We are good people,
ja
? We are better than this, we must be, yes?”

The gunshot cracked like the hammer of God Himself. The bullet caught Auggie in the chest and he stumbled against the other pole on the platform. Screams and shouts came up from the crowd. Gillian gasped, horrified, and began to run to her husband. Auggie looked out and caught her eye as she cleared the crowd. He smiled at her, tried to speak, but couldn’t. His eyes fluttered and he fell onto the platform.

“No,” Ray Zeal said, his pistol still smoking. “You’re not, and this is the price you pay for mercy.”