The Winter Family (43 page)
Authors: Clifford Jackman
When Quentin was finished he jogged slowly between the two buildings, away from the main street, until he came out into a field. Two riders were approaching from the west. Quentin fell to one knee and fired a shot. The first rider tumbled out of his saddle.
Out of pure dumb luck, Quentin had shot one of O’Shea’s hands instead of Matt Shakespeare.
While Quentin was pumping the lever of his rifle, Matt saw him, drew a pistol, and fired. The bullet caught Quentin right between the eyes and knocked him onto his back. He died instantly. The expression
on his face was not surprised or dismayed or frightened or anything like that. He never heard the shot and never knew he was dead.
Matt rode on without stopping, shaking his head, his hands trembling only a little.
Not far away, Winter took a parcel from his horse and then kicked it so it ran off. He grabbed Bill by the hair and dragged him into the house. Since one of Bill’s arms was broken at the elbow and the other had a bullet through the hand, he didn’t put up much of a fight, just screamed and screamed.
“Are you different, Bill? Did you turn into one of them?”
“Don’t do it, Winter, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.”
Charlie had joined Johnny inside the inn. He was still trying to patch his face up with rags. The townsfolk were coming at the inn from all directions now. Charlie fired his pistols through a window and they scattered, but he knew they would be back.
“I’m hurt bad, Charlie,” Johnny shouted. “They got me! It hurts real bad!”
“We gotta go, Johnny,” Charlie grunted through his ruined mouth. “Get your ass out here.”
Inside Bill’s house, Winter dragged Bill into the kitchen and threw him into the bathtub.
“Don’t, Winter! Don’t do it!”
Winter was still holding Bill up by the hair and now he scalped him. Pulled so hard the skin on the top of Bill’s head jumped up and then he peeled it right off. Bill screamed and then the muscles of his face relaxed like an old burlap sack, down in the corners of the mouth and the cheeks, and then the blood rushed into his eyes. Blood everywhere.
Winter threw him back in the tub and then shot him through both knees. One and then the other. Bony explosions, little echoes in the tub.
“Ahhh! Ah ha ha ha! Ahhhh! Stop! Stop it! Stop it!”
The gun was empty and Winter smashed it into Bill’s face again and again. His own face was twisted with rage, insane and boundless. Winter was crying.
“Fuck you, Bill! Fuck you!”
“I didn’t, I didn’t do it! I didn’t! Stop it.”
Winter leaned back, splattered with blood and breathing hard, and closed his eyes.
Charlie and Johnny staggered out into the street, leaning on each other, both holding a gun. Shots came from every direction. The brothers moved quickly, even though they were limping and panting and squirting blood into the frozen mud of the streets.
“Which house is he in?” Johnny panted. “Which one?”
They got to the crossroads. A full posse coming from the west and another from the south. Meanwhile, there was another group in the north, some of whom were circling around to the east.
“Shit,” Johnny said. “Fuck, Charlie! They got us!”
Charlie made a grunting noise and pulled his brother toward Bill’s house, firing their pistols at the riders coming toward them.
Inside the house, Winter was stabbing Bill. Bill had stopped screaming and was only making little surprised noises and trying to get his hands in the way of the knife. Winter stopped stabbing and stood up and threw the knife away. They were both covered in blood.
“I’m sorry, Bill,” Winter said. “I fucked everything up.”
Winter swayed a little on his feet as if he were drunk and then he started to take off his clothes.
“It’s the end of everything.”
One layer of blood-soaked clothes and then another. Winter stood naked.
“Did you change, Bill? Did you change really?”
Winter wiped the blood off of his face and hands and arms as best he could. Some of it was coming off; some of it was just rubbing into his skin, making him look vaguely pink.
The Empire brothers burst in through the front door and slammed it shut behind them.
“Boss!” Johnny called. “We’re surrounded, boss!”
Winter glanced at them and then shut the door to the kitchen.
“Auggie!” Johnny shouted. Gunfire began to slam into the walls of the house.
Winter opened the bundle he had brought with him and produced a straight razor with which he began to shave off his long beard.
“I looked at the world, and it was cruel, and I thought that God made it in his image and I thought if I was like Him then God would love me.”
Outside O’Shea and Shakespeare were hidden safely behind the fence to the Methodist church.
“How the hell did they get the drop on us?” Matt said. “Do you have any idea how many are dead? It must be over twenty. Good lord. They even almost got me. I do believe poor old Bread was right about these folks. They’re in a whole separate category.”
“Is Winter in there?” O’Shea said hoarsely. “Are we sure?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Burn it down!” O’Shea said. “Just burn it down!”
“Bread is still in there,” Matt said.
“He is dead. He is dead meat!” O’Shea sounded hysterical. “We have to burn it down!”
Inside Winter was hacking through his fine white beard.
“Do you know why they came after me?” Winter said. “It ain’t about what’s right, or they wouldn’t have killed all the Indians. And it ain’t about defending themselves, because I wasn’t hurting no one. It ain’t about costs and benefits either. They knew if I got loose what I’d do to them was worse than anything they’d get out of killing me. So it’s justice. But then what’s justice? It’s men forcing themselves on the world. You see? I couldn’t break the rules and escape. For their rules to be real they have to spread over every inch of the earth. There can’t ever be one free space.”
The Empire brothers were shooting out the windows.
“Auggie!” Johnny shouted. “We’re bleeding pretty bad.”
“In order for it to exist it cannot tolerate anything else. You can’t be able to step outside of it. It has to be everywhere or else it will die. I thought I was like God, and I guess I was, compared to a civilized man. But I made a mistake. I looked at a civilized man on his own. You can only understand a civilized man as a part of something bigger. They make something when they’re all taken together. You take a bunch of nice, civilized men, and put them all together, and you end up with something a lot like you and me. Just meaner. I ain’t nothing like this thing they’ve got now. I never let up for a moment in my life but it wasn’t enough. I’m just a man.”
Bill shifted a little in the tub. He opened his mouth and blood came out.
Now Winter dressed quickly.
“People don’t even really make this thing; it’s this thing that makes people. It’s as natural as a dream. It’s meaner than me, Bill. And it’s never going to die.”
Winter was dressed. He looked at Bill in the tub.
“Be seeing you,” he said, opening the door to the front room and walking out.
Johnny and Charlie were crouched down against opposite walls. When Johnny saw Winter, he smiled.
“Dandy!” Johnny cried. “Dandy man!”
Winter was clean shaven and his long hair was smoothed back on top of his head. He wore a suit with a string tie and leather boots. If he hadn’t been missing his ears he would have looked exactly as he had done ten years ago when he had terrorized the west as the Dandy Killer.
Winter held up the pistol and looked at the front door.
“Okay,” he said.
In the tub Bill felt a pleasant warmth move through his body, despite the occasional bolt of pain. He shifted a very little from side to side. Small movements. Gentle. He leaned his head back and looked at the crucifix on the wall, and he was hit with a heavy, almost physical feeling of pity for Augustus Winter.
After Bill’s house burned down to the embers, and after the embers cooled, Matt Shakespeare strode carefully through the ashes, poking in front of him with the barrel of his rifle to check for traps and holes. Nothing remained of the Winter Family except for a few fragments of bone, charred into formless nubs. And still less remained of the life Bill had tried to build in the past two years. Not a splinter or stitch survived
.
Matt Shakespeare kicked the ashes off his feet and rode off, and the people in O’Shea’s town were left to grieve and bury their dead, their only consolation that the long and dark and murderous career of the Winter Family had finally been brought to an end, its memory fading like charnel smoke, its last chapter written, except of course for this
.
The sun beat down from the cloudless sky. The house was a little bungalow, painted yellow, flat and boxlike and unremarkable, except for the bullet holes in the walls. The detectives crouched against the picket fence were sweating and bored. Inside the house the outlaws shouted, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying. Signal Hill was clearly visible about a mile to the east, bristling with oil derricks like a giant porcupine.
A rider approached, coming down the dusty street at a steady trot. At first he appeared vague and indistinct, almost like a mirage. Then he came into focus, a tall man, middle-aged, with long red hair that was going orange with gray. No mustache and three days’ worth of beard. A pistol on each hip.
When the rider got close he drew a pistol, so quickly his hand was a blur, and fired three quick shots toward the house. There was the sound of breaking glass and a scream of pain. The rider dismounted and bent double and hurried over to the fence to speak to the lead agent.
“Is there a burned man in there?” the rider asked.
“I don’t know,” the lead agent said. “I know that Collins and Randolph are in there.”
“What about the burned one?” the rider asked. “They said there was a burned man with them at the bank.”
“I don’t know, Mister Shakespeare,” the lead agent said, a little impatiently. “I know that Collins and Randolph are in there and I know they killed Chas Schumacher. I’m sorry if that ain’t enough for you.”
“Fine,” Matt said. “Let’s get this over with.”
He cocked his pistol and held it up next to his head and quickly peeked over the top of the fence. Satisfied, he stood up.
“Shout at them,” Matt said.
“What’s the plan?” the lead agent asked.
Matt laughed, and it made him look much younger. Then he stalked through the gate and down the path to the front door.
“For the last time,” the lead agent shouted. “We’ve got you surrounded. Give yourself up right now!”
The lead agent risked a peek at the house. No one was at either of the windows. Matt Shakespeare had drawn his second pistol and was holding one in each hand, up high next to his ears, with his thumbs on the hammers.
“Any man that gives himself up won’t be harmed, you’ve got my word on that!” the lead agent shouted.
“I said fuck you, you scab fuck!” one of the outlaws screamed, sounding furious. “You can go straight to …”
Matt lifted his knee to his chest and kicked the door and it slammed open and he barged inside. The door banged shut behind him. There was an explosion of gunfire, perhaps eight shots in two seconds, then silence, and then another shot.
Someone wailed in pain.
“You shot me!” the person shrieked.
“Put it down!” Matt thundered. “Don’t touch it!”
“You shot me!” the person cried again. “Oh my god!”
The Pinkerton agents hurried to the front door and carefully pushed it open.
Inside Matt Shakespeare kicked a rifle away from Randolph, who sat on the ground with his back against the wall and his hands pressed up against the side of his chest.
“Oh my god,” Randolph said. “Oh god. It hurts so bad. You’ve killed me.”
On the other side of the room George Collins lay facedown, his head blown apart, blood and bits of bone and other organic matter in a pool around him.
“Ah ha ha ha,” Randolph panted. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”
“Jumping Jesus,” the lead agent said. “You really are a terror, Shakespeare.”
Matt holstered his pistols, one at a time.
“I’m going to die,” Randolph said. “You shot me.”
“You hang on,” Matt said. “We’ve got a doctor coming for you. You ain’t hit so bad.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Randolph sobbed. “Don’t you lie to me. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.”
More agents trooped into the house, their weapons still drawn.
“Fine,” Matt said. “I guess you’re gonna die.”
“Oh no,” Randolph cried. “Oh my god. This can’t be happening.”
“It’s all right,” Matt said.
“I’m so thirsty,” Randolph said. “Can I have a drink of water?”
Matt went into the kitchen and came back with a jug of water. He got down on his knees and tilted it up with both hands and poured some of it down Randolph’s throat. Randolph’s shoulders shuddered and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. When Matt took the jug away Randolph gasped.
“I’m so scared.”
“Hey,” Matt said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m scared.”
“You don’t need to be scared.”
“What if I go to hell?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, are you sorry for what you’ve done?”
“Yes. Oh god yes.”
“Do you want Jesus to forgive you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then he will. That’s his job.”
“How do you know?”
“How else could it be?”
“Hold my hand,” Randolph said. “Hold my hand.”
Randolph lifted one of his sticky, bloody hands away from his side and Matt took it.
“There was a burned man with you when you hit that bank, Billy,” Matt said. “Where is the burned man?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know you are, we’ve been through that. Where is the burned man? Hmm?”
Randolph began whispering between deep gasps, and his head drooped forward, so that his chin was resting on his chest. He kept whispering. Matt thought he might be praying.
“Hey,” Matt said, shaking Randolph’s shoulder. “Hey. Don’t die on me yet. Who was the burned man with you when you hit the bank? Where did he go?”
Randolph was still and Matt thought he might be dead. He gave him one more shake but without much hope. As he let go of Randolph’s limp hand Randolph began to whisper again.
“You chased him for ten years,” Randolph said. “But did you ever talk to him?”
“Who? Winter?”
“Did you?” Randolph whispered.
“No,” Matt said. “Is Winter the burned man? Is that what you’re saying?”
“If you’d talked to him,” Randolph said. “If you’d heard his devil talk. You’d know.”
“Where is he?” Matt said. He picked up Randolph’s hand and lifted it close to his mouth. “Where is he?”
“It don’t matter if it’s him or not,” Randolph said. “It only matters if he’s right about the universe.”
“Where did he go?”
“The son of a bitch,” Randolph said.
“Where?” Matt said.
He shook Randolph again and Randolph tipped over onto his side. Randolph was dead. Matt stood up and took a handkerchief out of his pocket with his clean hand and wiped the blood from between his fingers.
“Did he give up your man?” the lead agent asked.
“No,” Matt said.
He pressed past the Pinkertons back out into the sunshine and made his way toward his horse. A young agent was holding it for him.
“Thank you, son,” Matt said.
“No problem, sir,” the young agent said. “Thank you. You’re just like they said.”
“Like who said?” Matt asked.
“In the papers.”
“Oh,” Matt said. “I ain’t like that.”
Matt stepped into the stirrup and swung himself up on his horse.
“Do you really think the burned man who hit that bank with Randolph and Collins was Augustus Winter?”
“It ain’t very likely,” Matt said.
“Is it possible?” the young man said.
Matt leaned back in the saddle and looked up at Signal Hill. All of the derricks rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Through the day and the night. Never stopping.
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Matt said. “Whether he lived or not.”
Then he lifted his hat and turned his horse and trotted back to the city.