No, he said.
Someone tugged his shirt. He looked but no one was there. Something clipped his ear and he understood the idiot blacksmith was shooting at him and he rolled behind the sink. When he peered over the iron, Gates was nowhere in sight.
McKissick’s hearing was returning in one ear, the right. Maybe the left. He was black as a minstrel, tatters of smoking cloth dripping from his arms. Something hard in his gullet. His hair burnt off. Blisters already forming on his neck and the bald back of his head.
Where the hell was E.O.? He found his pistol smoking on the ground and fetched it and hit himself in the head with the heel of his hand to clear his thinking as he hurried toward the barn, his boots dissolving into tarry footprints as he ran. Metal eyelet marks burned into his skin.
The hayloft was on fire as he stood in the bay door looking. Animals screaming in their stalls. Burning chickens batting past. It might have occurred to him to set the larger animals loose but at that moment somebody jumped him from behind and hit him in the head. He rolled and put up his hands and caught the Winchester’s forearm in one fist and barrel in the other as the blacksmith used his weight to force it toward his throat.
Wait, fool, he grunted. It’s me. Ye partner.
Oh. Gates hesitated, then climbed off. Sorry, he said. I thought ye was a nigger.
Hell naw. I’m jest all burnt up.
I wondered why ye head was smoking.
McKissick squinted down at his side where fresh blood ran from his wound. Look here what ye done. I’m glad I only left ye a few cartridges. And gladder yet yer a terrible shot.
Sorry for the mistake. Gates extended his hand and helped McKissick to his feet and suddenly McKissick was pounding his own chest.
Dern, he said. He made gagging noises.
What is it? Ye heart muscle?
Naw. It’s Smonk’s got-dern eye. I reckon I swallered it.
The hay was burning high, fire licking along their legs, and they walked to the edge to watch from a safe distance the barn consumed. The not entirely unpleasant odor of burning cow.
Did ye kill him? Gates asked.
Not that I know of.
Did ye see him?
Yeah. We played a hand of rook and drunk a root beer sody.
Oh. Gates put his hands in his pockets and took them out again. Where to next, then?
McKissick turned. Try to find the horse first. That mule too. See what we can save. Then back to town. Meet him there.
They began to walk away from the fire, the bailiff stepping gingerly in his bare feet. What ’ll ye take for ye shoes? he asked.
You can war em all the way home if ye agree to stop and visit that whore up the way. Git a taste.
Fine. We ought to go back by there anyways.
They shook on it, and Gates sat in the dirt and removed his shoes, well-worn suedes with yarn for lacing. He handed them up and watched McKissick pull them on using the side flaps.
Another, smaller explosion boomed behind them, the fire raging through the trees and the fields of sugarcane popping as they incinerated. Gates hung his rifle in the crook of his arm and they walked. He decided that if he killed McKissick now he’d have to sop around in his innards to find the eye, which didn’t seem too pleasant, judging from the smell leaking out. Maybe let him move his bowels before murdering him. He cleared his throat.
Can I git a ration of bullets?
Hell naw.
A mile away they found the singed, shaken horse in a copse of ashen trees and McKissick spoke gentle words into its ear and within minutes he’d mounted up and helped his partner on and they rode west, behind them the crackle of fire and pop of wood. If the wind shifted it might overtake them but it looked as if a fire had burned through here already. Land so desolate, the old song went, that people used to have babies just for the food. McKissick’s skin was scorched and blistered and tatters of clothing still clung to raw patches on his arms and legs. Except for the blacksmith’s shoes and a crude loin cloth fashioned from a bandanna, he was naked. Gates was barefoot with his pants rolled halfway up his calves.
Presently they came upon the pack mule which had leapt in a dry pond bed and rolled in the dust to douse its fiery burden. While the fireworks had exploded and the other goods were smashed or scattered hither and yon, the animal itself was usable and the blacksmith accepted the reins and hoisted himself on without a saddle. The mule seemed eager to get the hell away which improved their pace. Stuck to the mule’s mottled hair Gates found a small package wrapped in brown paper which he tossed to McKissick.
Willie, he said.
As all the balloon needed now was the boy’s sweet breath to fill it, it could have been the bailiff’s heart.
8 THE REDEEMER
BEFORE DAWN, ON THE LORD’S DAY, MRS. TATE CRIMPED DEAD Elmer’s pants cuffs the way she preferred them worn and smoothed the pants at the knobs of his knees and folded his hands which slid back as before. She returned with twine and tied the buttonholes together.
She shooed a fly. She puffed the shoulders of his Sunday coat and wondered should she have dressed him in his postmaster outfit instead. She returned from upstairs with his lucky handkerchief (which he’d forgotten the day of the trial) and tucked it into his pocket, the irony not lost on her. With her flyswatter she pursued and killed flies for the better part of half an hour, all the while talking to him, accusing him of never being a believer. It was the most important thing in my life, she said. My faith. And how could the man who used my own bed not cherish that.
I cherished it, he would have lied.
You cherished cherishing those girls, she told him.
He said nothing. He had a towel over his face. She plucked a string of her own hair from his sleeve.
In times, she said, when God’s burden weighs us down, in His mercy He gives us leave. Such was the leave He allowed Lot’s daughters who plied their father with drink and went in and laid with him to preserve their line. And Lot without guilt. Fat, blind, drunk, happy. His shamed daughters going into his cave. The eldest first. Mrs. Tate popped a fly out of the air. Men are so simple, she said. Get them drunk, satisfy them, and they sleep. It’s the women who lie awake.
From outside she heard a gunshot. She went to the window and lowered her veil and peered into the night. The guard came trotting up and shrugged. Her gun had gone off again. Mrs. Tate let the drapes fall and raised her veil. She returned to her husband’s side and took his hand and told him she was sorry about last Friday. How she’d been cold to him when it was his turn to go see that young Hester Hobbs. You appeared properly burdened by it, she said. Didn’t even seem excited to go which is all I or any of us could ask for. Her so young, so pretty, and our need so necessary. And you not even eager to get out of the house. Pretending so well. And I was cold to you. Because I knew you wanted to go. You asked me to bring you a cup of water and I got the water and set it down so hard it spilled. Go, I said. Just go.
She looked at his shoulders and swatted a fly dead. And off you went. Walking slowly at first. I watched you out the window as your steps got faster and faster and you were almost running you wanted to get away from here so bad. Away from me.
She adjusted the cloth over his face and fluffed his handkerchief. Men are so simple, she said.
On the Lord’s Day, the Christian Deputies rested. Walton ordered his men to do very little about their camp other than pray and meditate or use their magnifying glasses to practice reading their tiny Bibles. He saluted the troops in their studious poses and retired to his tent and fastened the ties and attached his mosquito netting and removed his boots and polished them to spec and then reclined on his collapsible cot to pray. He fell instantly asleep and like a succubus from a fever dream the whore-child Evavangeline assembled herself from the air and sans pants climbed upon his chest like a degenerate muse and attached her steaming vulva to his neck. The dream was so real he had an emission and woke with a yelp, fumbling for a handheld pierglass so he might check his neck for “hickey” marks.