All emotion drained from him, Joe moved quickly and efficiently now, going to the remains of the barn and searching among the charred timber, unconcerned with the stench of the carcass of the horse that had panicked and burned to death. He found a spade, twisted by intense heat, its wooden handle burned from it, but still serviceable and carried it back to the tree. There, on the far side from where Jamie had died, Joe stripped to the waist and started to dig, finding the ground hard and unwilling to be marred by the crude tool. But, as the sun grew higher and grew hotter, drawing sweat from every pore of his body, Joe’s bulging muscles won the battle. Working with strength of will he never suspected he possessed, Joe scraped out a grave seven feet long and four feet deep without once stopping to rest. Then he went to get Jamie and in stooping to pick up the body saw the thumb and forefinger, which had been shot from the hand and overlooked by the buzzards. He picked these up, hard and stiff with the texture of twigs and when he had lowered the body into the grave, dropped them in, too. It took only a few minutes to shovel the earth back into the hole. And form a slight mound with the excess displaced by Jamie.
He made a cross with two pieces of wood from a section of the fence which had escaped the fire and used the point of his knife to etch Jamie’s full name and yesterday’s date in the cross member. He drove it into the soft earth at the head of the grave, then put his uniform back on, carefully looping around his neck a length of cord with a long, slim pouch attached, arranging it so that the pouch hung at his back, pointing down the length of his spine. His jacket, buttoned to the throat, hid both cord and pouch. Then he stood beside the grave, holding his hat by the brim in both hands, and looked down at the mound. His voice faltered as he searched for the words, but was strong and resonant when he spoke them.
“Jamie, our Ma and Pa taught us a lot out of the Good Book, but it’s a long time since I felt the need to know about such things. I guess you’d know better than me what to say at a time like this. Rest easy, brother. I’ll settle your score. Whoever they are and wherever they run, I’ll find them and I’ll kill them. I’ve learned some special ways of killing people and I’ll avenge you good.” Now Joe looked up at the sky, a bright sheet of azure cleared of smoke. “Take care of my kid brother, Lord,” he said softly, and put on his hat with a gesture of finality, marking the end of his moments of reverence.
Picking up the spade he went to where he had discarded his rifle, recovered it and wiped the dust from it on his pants leg before replenishing the tubular magazine so that it was loaded with a full compliment of twelve cartridges. He slid the Henry back into its boot at the rear of the saddle on the horse which had been grazing quietly on a patch of grass besides the gatepost. Then he went to the pile of blackened timber which was the house and although it was impossible to see what the layout had once been, moved with confidence through the wreckage, halting close to where the north wall had stood, at the rear. The floorboards had been burned clear through but a square of timber beneath, in the corner of what had been Jamie’s bedroom, was merely scorched and Joe used the edge of the spade to pries it up, clear of its wooden frame. Beneath was a tin box containing every cent of the two thousand dollars Joe had sent home from the war, stacked neatly in piles of one, five and ten dollar bills. He had no need to count it, although he had told Jamie to make use of whatever money he needed, Joe knew that his brother would not touch a dollar. There would be two thousand. He scooped the money out, dropped the spade into the hole and returned to his horse, stashed the bills into one of his two saddlebags.
Only now, more than two hours since he had returned to the farmstead, did Joe cross to look at the second dead man and in this case there was no necessity to rely on instinct to make an identification. For the scavenging birds had once again made their feast at the man-made source of blood. The dead man lay on his back, arms and legs splayed. Above the waist and below the thighs he was unmarked, the birds content to tear away his genitals and rip a gaping hole in his stomach, their talons and bills delving inside to drag out the intestines, the uneaten portions of which now trailed in the dust, attracting the inevitable swarm of black flies whose incessant buzzing of greed provided the only sound in the great silence that seemed to emanate from the razed farmstead to spread out in all directions across the almost featureless surrounding country.
Then Joe looked at the face of the dead man and his cold eyes narrowed, only this slight gesture revealing his recognition, his certain knowledge of his quarry. The man was Rhett. Bob Rhett, he recalled, a New England dandy from a rich family who had cut him off without a cent when he got drunk once too often and raped the daughter of an English earl on the night their engagement was announced. He had fought a drunken, coward’s war, his many failings covered by his platoon sergeant Frank Forrest and Forrest’s four henchmen who suffered Rhett because his high class manners and educated talk amused them.
Joe did not stay long, looking down at the face of the dead man, contorted into a mask of ugliness by the agony of his ending. Nothing more could hurt him and it was therefore pointless to hate him. There were five more men who must die and each moment that went by before their ends came would hang heavy on Joe. Frank Forrest, Billy Seward, John Scott, Hal Douglas and Roger Bell. They were inseparable throughout the war and despite Rhett, comprised the best small fighting unit under Joe’s command. And they had ridden out of camp as a group, honorable discharge papers in their pockets, three weeks previously.
“Captain,” Forrest had called. “It’s been a pleasure fighting with you. Now me and the boys are riding west. Army pay ain’t enough for our plans. We got real money to make.”
Joe had even waved to them.
Now he lashed out with his foot once more, but this time it was the body of Rhett that stirred the dust, the two buzzards allowed to rest where the bullets had dropped them. Then Joe walked to his horse and mounted, drew his rifle and knife and made five light score marks on the Henry’s stock before urging the animal through the gateway. He immediately left the trail, turning south west, across the black stubble of a wheat field, hoofs crackling and rising puffs of soot. He had not gone fifty yards before the buzzard whose breakfast had been interrupted seemed to materialize over the farm, circled twice and then swooped. Joe turned in the saddle just in time to see the bird stagger backwards as it tugged at something that suddenly came free. Then it rose into the air with an ungainly flapping of wings, to find a safer place to enjoy its prize. As it wheeled away Joe saw that swinging from its bill were the entrails of Bob Rhett.
Joe grinned for the first time that day, his expression of cold slit eyes and bared teeth that utterly lacked humor. “You never did have any guts, Rhett,” he said aloud.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE sun was an hour past its peak when Joe saw his first living human beings of the day. He was still In Iowa, but close to the Kansas state line and he was hungry. He had been riding through open country all morning, only occasionally crossing a trail to indicate that the whole nation was not wilderness. But he had chosen to cross them rather than follow them because none of them took the southwestern direction he was headed: and he had no wish to court trouble in a uniform. For although the war was over, the grievances that had caused it would continue to divide Americans for some time to come and state lines were no guarantee of allegiance to the beliefs of either north or south.