Halladay turned to look at the Beothuk just as Tilt reached for the handle of his gun. He nearly had it unholstered when Halladay touched the tip of the knife to Tilt’s adam’s apple. “You most certainly do need a doctor, Mr. Junger,” Halladay said. “I believe I am just the man to perform the particular surgical procedures you require. Let’s see if you can try and stay still now.”
3. Legends
By morning, the dead were tallied and packed onto wagons for transport to the Willow Funeral Home. Old Man Willow directed the drivers to the side of his house to wait until he could figure out where to put them all. The barn at the rear of the property was already full.
Anna Willow looked at the crowd gathered in her front yard through the kitchen window while she made breakfast for Jem and Claire Clayton. The Sheriff left them there when he dropped off the body of Frank Banner.
Jem sat on the front porch watching the wagons arrive. Anna tapped on the window screen with her fingernails and said, “Why don’t you come inside, Jem? These biscuits are almost done.”
Jem shook his head from side to side, seeing that another wagon was coming. People in the crowd gasped as it rolled past, and some of them covered their faces and sobbed. When Jem saw Mrs. Katey Halladay sprawled out in the rear carriage he started to tremble. Anna dropped her things and went outside to grab Jem by the shoulders. “All right, honey. It’s all right. Let’s go,” she said. She pulled him inside and shut the door. Little Claire was sitting on the floor, sorting through a pile of dolls that Anna had pulled out of the closet. “Into the kitchen, both of you. It’s time to eat.”
At noon, Sheriff Sam Clayton came down the road toward the Willow home in a wagon of his own. He guided the destrier through the crowd, giving people a chance to get out of his way. “Who you got there, Sheriff?” someone called out. “We already counted everyone up.”
“It’s those God damn savages!” another shouted.
"Those sons of bitches don’t belong here, Sheriff!”
“We’re gonna string them up by the fence to show the savages what happens when they come onto our land.”
Billy Jack Elliot pushed his way past the other onlookers and stood in front of the Sheriff’s destrier, forcing Sam to yank the reins. Elliot wrapped his hand around the destrier’s bridle and said, “You ain’t gonna bring them savages into this place of mourning, Sam.”
Sam looked down at Elliot and said, “Old Man Willow can only make so many caskets, Billy. Get your hands off my animal.”
Old Man Willow came out of the house with his hands raised like a preacher’s, “Everybody settle down! This is my property and I’ll decide what happens.” The funeral director was only ten years older than Sam, but was bald as a bowling ball and the sun had turned his skin the texture of leather. Erazamus Willow patted his rotund belly and fingered the buttons on his vest as he looked over the crowd. He went down the steps toward Sam’s cart and looked in the rear at the savages stacked on top of one another in the back. “Not too sure about this, Sam,” Willow said, holding his hand over his eyes as he looked up. “Seems to me those bodies aren’t fit to lay with the ones we have in the barn already.”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
“I understand your feelings,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m going to wait until all our people are properly situated before I ask you to attend to this lot.”
“Please tell me why in the world we’d extend them that courtesy, Sam?”
“Because I intend to return them to their people, and it would be unseemly to bring them back all bloody and bullet-ridden.”
The entire crowd roared and several husky miners ran forward to grab the ankles of the dead savages and yank them from the cart. Sam vaulted over the back of the cart and landed with his Colt Defenders aimed square in the faces of the closest men to him. “Hands off. We clear?”
Billy Jack Elliot came around the side of the cart toward Sam, with several men following. “You can’t take us all, Sheriff.”
The front door of the Willow house crashed open and Jem Clayton came through, shouting, “Any of you two-bit yellow-belly rock breakers so much as takes a step toward my daddy and I’ll kill every damn one of you!”
Sam looked up at his son and said, “Get your ass back inside, Jem.”
Billy Jack Elliot lunged at Sam’s guns. Sam turned aside in time and cracked the butt end of one of his pistols across Elliot’s face and dropped him to his knees. Elliot hunched over and clutched his nose with blood squeezing between his fingers. He spat two teeth into the red clay and moaned.
Sam looked down at Elliot and sighed. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and pressed it against Elliot’s face. “Hold that tight to your face, Billy. Keep your head tilted back.”
Two men came forward and took hold of Elliot, helping him through the crowd. Sam shook his head and said, “Now can everybody else just go home for a little while? There’s been enough bloodshed today and for right now, I think we all need to be with our families.”
The crowd began to disperse and Jem came down from the porch to wrap his arms around his father’s waist. “I need you to get back in there and shut the door, Jem. Lock it and don’t let anyone in.”
“But it’s over. They’re all leaving,” Jem said. “It’s over.”
“Listen to me when I tell you, nothing is ever over.”
Old Man Willow looked up on the porch and lifted his glasses. Anna Willow was standing there with one of his hunting rifles at the ready. “What, exactly, did you intend to do with that, young lady?”
Anna’s eyes were fixed on Sam and her fingers were white against the gun’s stock. “I wouldn’t have let anybody harm you, Sheriff,” she said.
Old Man Willow patted Jem on the shoulder. “Go on inside, boy. Let your father be for a moment. I won’t let anything happen to him.”
Jem sulked as he went up the porch steps, holding the door for Anna but she did not move. Old Man Willow said, “That means you too, missy. The Sheriff don’t need any admirers right now.”
Anna’s face flushed as she raced into the house and slammed the door shut behind her. Old Man Willow chuckled, “I reckon she’s sweet on you, Sam. Has been ever since that trouble with Zeke.”
“She’ll develop better taste in men when she grows up, I’m sure.”
“Her mother didn’t, thank God,” Willow said. “I was able to fool that woman into thinking I was the only man worth marrying on this miserable rock. Ever since she passed on, it’s like all the goodness went out of the world with her. But still, I have learned to respect her memory without feeling like I’m haunted by it.”
“We having a discussion about one thing while talking about another, Erazamus?” Sam said.
“Loneliness makes a man do strange things, Sheriff.”
“Like?”
“Like going off into Beothuk country with the bodies of a bunch of their fallen sons. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s the behavior of a man that wants to come see me again, but on a more professional basis, if you understand my meaning.”
Sam Clayton fished a pouch from his pocket and pinched off an inch of sweetweed. He tucked it into his lower lip and sucked on it until he had a mouthful of juice to spit into the dirt. He chewed for a moment then spat again. Finally, he said, “Nope.”
Old Man Willow sighed, “I should have known better than try to wear you down, Sam. Meet me around the back with these fellers and we’ll get them down into the cooler. Then you can go on and get cleaned up for supper. Anna will burn the house down trying to fix it and still keep an eye on you if I leave you out here. Come on. I’ll get the gate.”