For a few seconds, until the second flight of arrows bristled the ground around them, the soldiers simply stood gaping back at the row of archers. Then one of them cried out. He had a red baseball cap and a blazer that looked as if it might once have been mustard yellow, and he had blond hair that hung wet and straight down over his chest. His cap flew off. He stumbled backwards and fell but scrambled instantly to his feet. An arrow was wagging from his right leg just above the knee. Hopping wildly he grabbed the arrow, which appeared to come loose from its tip. He limped at a good speed off toward the bridge.
The other soldiers looked left, right. They ducked. Each threw an arm over his head. They stepped backwards. They shied away from any of the landed arrows that brushed their legs.
Frost’s guards cheered. The dogs finally brayed and roared and surged against the leashes. More arrows flew. The ground began to look as if a crop of canes had magically sprung up, slantwise, already windblown. Two of the soldiers started to load their crossbows. But they stopped when there was a scream. One of the other men, tall and cloaked in skins, dropped his weapon and clapped his hands to his face. An arrow was hanging from his eye. He stumbled and sat and continued screaming. Another soldier looped his crossbow over his back and hurried to help. He got him to his feet but could not make him run or even move. A second soldier came to assist. They each took and arm and moved awkwardly with the casualty toward the bridge.
Freeway ran to the soldier who lay beside the dead dog, just at the foot of the bridge. He bent and was about to heave him up onto his shoulder when an arrow struck his backside. Freeway bellowed, shot upright, stepped on the fallen colleague and commenced limping very quickly toward the sloping embankment. The shaft projected like the stinger of a wasp. He shouted something, and the rest of his men slung their crossbows onto their backs and ran.
Tyrell glanced at Frost, who nodded.
Tyrell called “Let’s go!”
The guards dropped their bows and snatched up their spears and charged, sprinting full speed, shouting.
Langley’s warriors glanced over their shoulders and kept running. The two who were helping the man who had been shot in the eye were the only ones who were not going to make it to the bridge.
Frost and Daniel Charlie were tugged forward by the raging dogs. Frost called “There are slip knots” and Daniel Charlie called back “All right.” They hauled the dogs back and each lunged for one, then the next and then the last knot. One by one, as if they also had been propelled from a weapon, the dogs flew off across the potato field, as silent now as ghosts.
The two soldiers dropped their blinded companion, who fell to his knees, still screaming. They struggled up the embankment, scrambling desperately after the others, who were now running as well as they could up the span.
On the bridge Freeway reached behind and jerked the arrow out of himself, the shaft at least. He let it fall and ran on, limping .
The six dogs shot past Tyrell and his men and a few seconds later they all fell wild and snarling on the blinded soldier.
Frost and Daniel Charlie grabbed their two bows and a bag of arrows and ran across the muddy field dragging the leashes. As he passed the dogs Frost yelled “Settle down!” but the dogs were a seething mass, tearing at the blinded man and snapping at one another, and would not be stopped by words, so Frost continued at a run toward his men. Newton and Airport sprinted back to meet him and Daniel Charlie. They took the bows and the arrows and returned to the other men, and arrows sailed up the span, skipping off the concrete roadway around the legs of the retreating soldiers.
Some of the men ran back with the leashes and set to hauling the dogs off the blinded man bodily, jerking their hands away from the snapping, bloody jaws, leashing the maddened animals one by one.
On the bridge no one else was hit, but a few arrows dangled loosely from the edges of ponchos. Frost said “Hold it. You’ll hit Fundy.”
For there at the crest of the bridge he stood. Abraham Bundy. He wore a dark suit coat that was short in the sleeves, and grey sweat pants and sandals. He stood near the sidewalk. Without expression he watched the soldiers running up the span toward him. They were on the same side of the lane divider as he was.
There were no more arrows coming, so the soldiers slowed to a walk, looking back every few seconds, but none made a move to load his crossbow. Heads bowed, shoulders slumped, they trudged past Bundy with hardly a glance. But Freeway stopped in front of Bundy. The two men stared at one another. They were of equal height.
Frost yelled “Abraham! Come on!” and motioned violently with his arm. But Bundy appeared not to hear. He just stood there staring back at Freeway. Finally Bundy raised his fist and shook it and shouted “They that sow wickedness reap the same.”
Freeway slid out his sword.
The dogs were quiet at last, and the women on the stub of the overpass had stopped wailing and screaming. Fundy’s powerful baritone voice floated over the bridge and the river and the field. “By the blast of God they perish….”
Freeway lunged. Before Bundy could fall Freeway jerked the sword free and dropped it. He spun Bundy’s limp form, squatted, lifted him high above his head, stepped up onto the sidewalk. Bundy’s long arms hung out wide. His head was flung back. Freeway threw him from the bridge.
The morning tide was running upriver, not fast, but steadily. Some dark portion of Abraham Bundy bobbed two or three times above the murky water, but soon the current had borne him under the bridge and out of sight.
Freeway followed his men over the crest of the bridge.
Frost and Daniel Charlie and the archers turned to face the field. Six men held six dogs that whined and rose lunging on their hind legs. For a minute the men stood there in the rain, motionless, taking in the scene of butchery. Two men walked away a short distance and retched.
Frost shook his head. He said “Jesus Christ, Daniel.”
Daniel Charlie said “Yeah.”
“God damn.”
“I know.”
They were silent for a while. Then Frost said “Grace was right. What she said.”
“What was that?”
“War. She said war.”
Then one of the bodies stirred. It was the soldier in whose embrace the dead dog was lying. He rolled onto his back and struggled up onto an elbow. One arm was still trapped under the dog. He looked at Frost’s men nearby. His face was torn and bloody. He raised his free arm. He reached out. Wing’s man, Pender, walked toward him. Pender had his spear, with a metal head as wide as a saucer. Frost turned away, fixed his eyes on the women heading back down the overpass, determined to hear only their wailing. But Pender’s grunt as he struck was loud.
On the overpass some of the women were running now. Their keening rose like a wind, a howling gale. Frost walked to meet them at the point where they would be able to leave the roadway. But behind him one of his men called “Frost.” He turned.
A body stirred, lifted a hand, scraped a foot against the soil. Frost knew the face, It was Fundy’s field boss. Frost scanned the fallen bodies. He listened for cries of pain.
A boy sprang up from the ground and ran toward him. He was smaller than Will. He was barefoot but had a wool poncho. His heap of dark hair was caked with mud. His eyes were wide and staring, and his face was as white as paper.
Then three figures emerged from the darkness under the bridge, where they had been hidden behind the sheer end of the concrete embankment. A man in skins and a woman in a long brown cloth dress were helping another man to walk. With their aid he hopped, holding one leg off the ground. The bare skin of the calf was dark with blood. “Frost! Frost!” screamed the woman. All this before the boy reached him.
On the bridge the small black dog came racing back.