Lester found other human tracks, larger ones, in a patch of bare soil and on lichen-covered rock nearby.
He groaned and tears formed at his eyes as he scouted the scene.
“Them dogs is dead,” he said, “and someone come up and took em. They went off that way, but the boy kept on ahead. Which do we follow?”
“That damn boy,” Saul said.
Buster nodded, and we kept on.
WE KEPT ON much too late.
The first stone hit just after dusk.
The sky was smoky purple above the canopy of trees, and then the canopy gave out as the posse entered a small clearing. The waxing moon was trying to shine behind thin clouds. I suspected Lester was wondering whether to tell everyone that he had lost the trail, and he pulled out a plug of tobacco, stirring his finger around in it to get the last crumbs.
He was putting the pinch in his cheek when he saw something flash just in front of his nose, making him start and inhale.
The stone caught Charley Wade hard and he went “Ah!” and bent over double, cupping his free hand over his ear and holding his revolver awkwardly in front of him. Lester spasmed and coughed while the rest of us crouched and shouted and pointed our guns in all directions. Still coughing, Lester pointed his rifle from the hip and shot blind into the trees.
Another stone bounced off my shoulder and then Buster ducked a third one that hit the doctor square in the teeth. He jerked and shot his .32 at the trees even though his shot wasn’t clear. Buster shouted God-DAMNIT while more stones fell and more men shot.
Saul broke right and scampered towards cover; I went with him, as did Buster and most of the rest. Arthur Noble ran off left, followed by Lawton Butler, who held on to the back of Arthur’s overalls.
Saul got small behind a tree and sighted down his rifle, waiting. I crouched behind him, then realized Charley was still bent over in the clearing, getting hit again, saying “Ah!” I ran out and grabbed Charley’s hand, catching a rock that felt like it might have broken my collarbone, and I yanked Charley back into the trees. Charley lurched and fell, slinging his gun into the trees and out of sight. The doctor covered his head ineffectively with his hands and ran for the gun, but a stone hit him so hard in the cheek he turned right back around and took cover again.
He shot his own gun dry and I shot once at what turned out to be a dead tree.
Yelling and shooting off left.
Panic.
Buster said, “Red dress!” and shot, then slipped and fell against me. A stone had grazed his head.
Buster’s hand on my white shirt left a bloody print.
Lester, still coughing, was about to shoot another bullet, but his daddy grabbed the barrel and pointed it down, saying, “Stop shootin til you can see somethin.”
I saw one, a Negro woman with wild hair, and I shot twice at her before she ducked behind a tree. Her stone just missed Saul’s head, and Saul turned his rifle towards where it had come from. When she broke cover, she ran so fast I barely saw her. Saul’s shot rang my better ear, and the woman fell.
Everything got quiet after that.
I put my gun away.
“Goddamnit,” Buster said again.
No more stones came.
The woods seemed to exhale.
Lawton Butler stumbled across the clearing, holding his head. Bleeding. “Arthur’s dead,” he said quietly.
Then he said it again.
DR. MCELROY WIPED his hands on his pants.
“I’ve seen cancer as big as a catcher’s mitt. I’ve seen a woman with a fishhook in her eye. But I never thought I’d live to see a man stoned to death.”
“Like in the Good Book,” Lester said.
“Sometimes I wonder how good a book can be that’s full of such as this.”
Arthur Noble lay where he had been trying to cover his head. He had run out of bullets just before Lawton had been hit hard enough to lose consciousness. The pile of stones lay all around him.
“When I come to, it was all over,” Lawton said. “I ain’t made for this. I’m sorry.”
But the doctor was still staring at Arthur, who might have looked like he was about to sing, except that his jaw was wrong.
Buster said, “Doc McElroy.”
He looked at Buster now where Buster was holding a handkerchief to his side, just above his belt.
“I did that,” the doctor said.
“No hard feelins. Just tell me if it’s bad.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but it just hit fat.”
Buster smiled a little at that.
“Put whiskey to it if you got some. When we get back, I’ll go in looking for shirt.”
“You should put something on that face, too. You’re a mess.”
Dr. McElroy pulled out his brass cigarette case and squinted at it, but it was too dark to see his reflection now.
“When we get home,” he said. “If we get home.”
SAUL HAD STAYED watching where he’d shot the woman, worried, perhaps, that she might get up again or that one of them might come back for her. Now Buster said, “Let’s have a look,” and we all went forward.
She was a black woman of thirty-five or so with a shaggy, tangled mane of hair that was just going grey. She wore men’s dungarees and an old-fashioned ladies’ coat that had flapped up to show the bare skin of her back and her narrow waist. There appeared to be no fat on her, but abundant muscle.
Saul had hit her squarely in the head, and her mouth was open and the blood under her could fill a sink. The doctor leaned over her and covered her back with her coat. Everyone kept his weapon on her just in case she grabbed the doctor’s wrist.
She did not.
She was dead.
“WE CAIN’T LEAVE Arthur,” Charley Wade said.
“What about her?”
“The hell with her,” Old Man Gordeau said. “If they want her buried, they can do it. They got all the damn shovels.”
Buster said, “We ain’t got time for buryin. We got to hunt or run. I say hunt, but we gonna vote.”
“What do you mean, vote?” Lawton said, still holding his head, which was bleeding less, although his drunken slur and difficulty focusing suggested he had a concussion.
I said, “Lester, can you find them?”
“Not in the dark, not without dogs. But maybe with the light.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Saul said. “Hunt.”
Old Man Gordeau said, “Hunt.”
“Run,” the doctor said.
“Run,” Charley said.
“This isn’t even worth a vote. We’re beat,” Lawton said, quivering his lip like a child about to cry.
Buster said, “I’ll take that as ‘run.’ Three each. Two left. Mr. Nichols?”
I put my hands on my hips and looked down at my feet for a long moment before I spoke.
“As soon as this is over, I’m putting my wife in the car and driving out of here for good. This is your town. I thought maybe it could be mine, too, if I fought with you, if I planted my feet and stayed. But it’s not. I won’t run out on you tonight. I’ll do what you say. There’s eight of us. Seven should vote so we don’t split down the middle. I abstain.”
“No,” Lawton said. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“Who’s left?”
“Lester.”
Buster looked at him.
Everybody looked at him.
He was about to say “run,” but when his daddy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, Lester looked down and the word “hunt” came out of his mouth so quietly I wasn’t sure what he said.
“No. Do what y’all want. I’m leavin.”
Then Lawton Butler turned from where he stood near Buster and walked slowly away.
“Hey!” Buster shouted at his back, but Lawton kept walking.
He had only gotten a few steps when Buster trotted up behind him and spun him around, trying to be gentle, but the man’s balance was bad and he fell into Lester Gordeau’s leg. He crabbed up to his feet and looked wide-eyed at Buster.