Captain Boylan's Raiders
by Steve Myers

We never knew where he came from and never found out his last name. I said, "What do they call you?"

And he said, "Jay."

I says, "Jay what?"

And him: "Just Jay."

Just Jay – I ask you, what kind of name is that?

Anyways, he just pops up out of the woods, out of nowhere, there the other side of the crick – him with that Henry rifle and on that big black horse, the horse still as a rock and its horse-skin, its hide, almost shinin' there in the light through the trees. Me and Vern was racin', our scrawny horses near dead, wheezin' – you know that harsh heavy wheezin' – and them damn bluebellies near on us, right on our ass as we turned off the road and rushed into that crick splashin' high sprays of water – it was then that we saw him on that big black with the rifle raised and we figured that sure as hell it was all over for us.

See, back then me and Vern rode with Captain Boylan from Clay County.

You know how it was with all that raidin' and burnin' and hoorahin' those damn Kansas Free-Soilers. Vern and me was second cousins – him near fifteen years older – and he got me in the troop oncet the real war started. Vern goes back to the Border Wars, you know. And he was in that big fight there at Wilson's Crick.

I didn't get into the fun until '62. I tell you, we was in some mean fights and we burned us many a cabin and shot hell out of many damn sympathizers and traitors, those we didn't hang. Then when the big war was over – at least when they said it was over – Captain says to us – there was maybe near fourteen to fifteen of us then – he says, "Robert E. Lee might surrender but I'll be damned to hell if I will."

Well, then we went on a couple small raids – a warehouse, a cross-roads horse station, nothin' much – and only that big one at Graeter's Station where the Federals were waitin' and we lost two and the Captain's brother Robert takes the Kennedy boys and lights out to pull a raid up to Kay-ro. So there's just eight of us by then – and we stopped to rest at old Pop Farrell's place and he gave us a good feed and put us up and the next day when everybody got up to go Vern said us two would stay over if the Captain didn't mind and meet up later at Bracken's sister's place. Captain winked at us and set off and the rest followed him along the trail to the road. You see, Old Pop had two sweet things stayin' there with him and his old woman to help with chores and Vern and me figured we'd try them out. Vern says to me, "Nothin' like them young ones when they's fresh and juicy." And Pop didn't seem to mind as long as that store whiskey we stole held out.

So the next mornin' at dawn, the light pale through the chinks in the barn, and the two of us tangled there with a beauty a piece and layin' there in the soft and sweet smell of the hay when I heard their horses and I looked out a hole there in the boards and saw them comin' into the yard – maybe six of them – and I kicked Vern and we hardly had time to git on our trousers and boots and drop down from the loft to our horses. We just had time to bridle them and the hell with the saddle and we bust out the back at full tilt, hell bent – and we even left our pistols and the carbine Vern took from that bluebelly we bushwhacked outside Sedalia.

They heard us of course and they was hot after us and zingin' bullets over our heads. They chased us cross the field and jumped the rail fence and was gainin' until we hit that road and our Missouri ponies left them way behind. We was feelin' good and laughin' about it when there at the fork – the one just this side of Red Horse crossing – there was six more bluebellies and they started for us with fresh horses.

And, like I said, they was hard on our ass when we splashed through that crick and the kid showed up – popped up like the devil or an Injun or a ghost. He raises that rifle and he fires right past my head. I mean, I heard that bullet zing by – hell, I felt it clip some hair. So we stopped – the both of us – and raised our hands because we knew it was over and maybe – since they was regulars – they wouldn't hang our sorry asses.

But then there's that flash and loud crack near in our faces – and the shot went past again. And then I understood and just glanced back to see two federal horses down on the ground and riders tumblin' and the others hightailin' it back to the road.

So me and Vern kicked our ponies in the ribs and rode by the kid – him pale-faced and cold lookin' like a slab of cut stone and blue eyes cold as river ice and coal black hair chopped below the ears like it been cut with a knife or dull shears. And him not even old enough to have a beard – just peach fuzz, if that – sittin' there on that big black, a glove on his left hand under the barrel, shootin' at those bluebellies as they took off like scalded dogs.

Vern and me waited there at the edge of the woods and he come up to us and Vern says, "Kid, we sure do appreciate your help."

But he didn't say a thing.

I says, "It was smart, shootin' the horses."

He gave me that stone look was all. Tight lipped, the kid was – I mean, the most he ever said at one time was there at the end when he rode off.

And then I asked him his name and all we got was "Jay." *** So we took him on – or, if the truth be told, he took us on, since he had corn cakes there in that sack on his saddle and a canteen full of fresh water and that Henry rifle. We rode down along the green river – I think they calls it the James – and then we cut west and toward sundown we come out of the woods to Bracken's sister's place. She was a widow with one youngster – a towhead boy about five – and I thought she had a nice face and pretty in her way even if she were a might stringy. There was a cabin built of rough board and a chicken coop in the back and a ramshackle building that was supposed to be a stable or a barn. No doubt her old man – now dead from some fever for three years – wasn't any kind of carpenter.

Well, the Captain was there and Bracken and Sid Reynolds. I told how the kid had saved our skins and all and Captain looked him over and then asked, "You want to join us in our fight against tyranny?"

The kid just looked back at the Captain with those cold eyes and nothin' showin' on his face.

"Well," Captain says, "you joinin' us in the fight?"

"I already have," the kid says.

"Good," Captain says, "now let's us get some supper."

That night the Captain and Bracken and Reynolds slept in the cabin.

Knowin' Reynolds, I figure he comforted the widow in the night. Vern and me slept on a pile of hay in that barn while the kid lay on the ground near his horse, his rifle beside him.

I want to tell you somethin' about that kid and horses. You wouldn't've thought it – him shootin' those Federals' horses – but him and horses had somethin' special. Of course, before he did anythin' else he took care of that black – watered it, fed it, wiped it down, checked its hoofs, and talked to it soft and easy like in no language I ever heard – if it was a language at all, except horse talk. Then he did that with all the horses. He'd stroke the face, drawin' a line down the front to the nostrils, and pet it and sort of hum into its ear and in no time that horse would follow him around like a puppy.

Even the Captain said the kid had a gift from Nature herself or the Lord.

Anyways, the next mornin' the rest showed: Bud Whittaker, Big Bill Burns, and Rhodes. They said the Moyer twins lit out for Texas and maybe meet up with Price in Mexico. Vern told them about the kid and how he saved us and they was impressed – except for Rhodes. You see, Rhodes was just naturally ornery and he had a real nasty mean streak.

Some said he got it from his old man but I knew his mam and I say he come by it from both the acorn and the oak. I mean, we all did some things we never would tell our mothers – things like takin' scalps and hangin' them on the bridle – Bloody Bill Anderson was big for that – and knots in a cord for each one we kilt – but I quit that right quick because there was things not to remember.

But Rhodes enjoyed it all – too much. The killin', the burnin', the hangin', and all pleasured him so much he couldn't get enough. He loved to set things afire – cabins, fields, people. He'd torch a cabin and watch it burn while the folks ran and he'd cackle like a crazy rooster. Oncet I saw him run down a boy no more than seven or eight, run the boy over with his horse.

Well, Rhodes said that killin' horses was nothin' much and it didn't prove the kid could shoot. So he got on the kid and called him Dead-eye and Fuzz Face and such. So the third day we was there, the kid takes up his rifle and shoots an apple off a tree there at the edge of the woods.

Rhodes says, "How we know he meant to hit that? Could be Fuzz Face was aimin' at the tree or the whole damn woods."

The kid gives Rhodes that stone look – like the next one would be in Rhodes – and then suddenly ups his rifle and fires and knocks an apple loose and before it hits the ground he works the lever and shoots again and blasts that apple to pieces.

Vern says, "Hey, Zeb, what's the kid got agin apples?"

"Them's sour and gnarly," I says, "like some people – and good for nothin'."

Rhodes says, "And where the hell he get that rifle? Had to stolen it – a rifle like that. See how it goes 'gainst a real rifle in a real fight, not agin apples. Henry's no damn good outen hundred yards or so."

Vern says, "Sour apples and sour grapes, as the fella says."

And from the cabin doorway the Captain says, "Well, now we know who covers the retreat."

Because, you see, the Captain had a plan. After that little affair in Liberty back in February, the Captain figured robbin' Federal banks was the way to go. He said, "That money is rightfully ours even if it is greenbacks." So the idea was to pick a fat bank somewheres and then hit a warehouse or such for supplies and then hole up for the winter down there towards the Ozarks where there was a good place and his brother Robert could join us there.

First off, we had to pick us a bank. The Captain says we'd scout it out like a raid. So he tells Reynolds to take a wagon and the widow and the boy and pretend like they was a family lookin' for somewheres to settle down. He gave him most all the money we had.

Rhodes says, "How you know he'll come back? What if he just takes off with the bitch and her pup and the cash?"

"All right," the Captain says, "we'll keep the boy here."

So they left and we waited. We found things to do – patch up clothes, clean our revolvers, stuff like that – I found me an old saddle in the barn and worked on that – but Rhodes gets antsy. He starts on the kid – pickin' on him, pokin' him in the back with a stick and then lookin' away – that kind of thing – and he says to the kid, "You keep your hands off my horse."

Because by now all the horses was the kid's pets. He didn't care much for people's company but he sure got along with horses. And there was one other thing: sometimes you'd catch him reading. He had some papers – looked like pages from a book – there was maybe ten of 'em and they was scorched, burnt at the edges. But if he saw you watchin' he'd put those papers back in his shirt pocket.

Rhodes said he was goin' to git those papers and see what they was all about. Vern says, "What good is that to you? You can't read a lick."

And then the Captain says, "You all leave that boy alone. Those pages he's studyin' are from the Good Book. I tell you to leave him alone."

We did – but mostly because the kid stayed by hisself. That lasted a week at most before Rhodes come up with his crazy idea. See, there was a crick runnin' back of the place and there was a spot where it widened into a pool. That was where the kid would wash. I mean that kid was just about the cleanest person I ever saw. He washed everyday – with soap – and two or three times a week he'd strip down naked and wash his whole body. Anyways, it was a bright warm day near the end of September and the kid out to the crick to wash. Rhodes says, "Boys, come watch some fun – I'm goin' to fix that Fuzz Face."

So we followed him, stayin' back some yards, and he went to the crick where it was set off behind some bushes and a tree and he took off his boots and all his clothes so he was naked. That was one ugly sight, I tell you. Rhodes was all hair from his straggle beard and down his chest and back – like a bear almost. Then he pushed through the bushes and we come up to see.

The kid was stark naked there in the pool, the water just over his knees, and he'd just dunked his head 'cause his hair was all wet and he was shakin' it like a dog does to throw off the water. Just then Rhodes jumps in behind the kid and grabs the kid from behind and bends the kid over, pushin' his head down, forcing the kid down so his face is in the water. And then Rhodes begun to mount the kid, usin' him like you would some woman – but from the back end. At first we laughed because we thought it was a joke, you know. But Rhodes kept at it – squeezin' the kid's neck and pushin' him into the water with one hand and trying to force himself on the kid with the other.

And then the kid retched down into that crick and come up with a rock and spun round and hit Rhodes upside the head. Rhodes staggered back and the kid stepped into him and swung and hit him again so hard blood come gushin' out of Rhodes's nose and out his ear. He fell back onto the bank with his feet still in the water.

The kid scrambled to his gear in a pile on the bank and he pulled out a knife, a big thick long one – like a Bowie knife. He come over to Rhodes layin' there moanin' and the blood still pourin' out and the kid with that stone look as he bent down and we figured he was goin' to slit Rhodes's throat or even gut him.

And then we heard the Captain say, "That's enough."

He come through us and went to Rhodes and the kid and he brought up his revolver and cocked it and he said again – this time straight to the kid – "That's enough, son, stand back."

The kid rose up and stepped back a little. He didn't drop the knife and he didn't look scared – he didn't look anythin' – he just stood there with water dripping from his hair.

The Captain looked down at Rhodes and says, "One thing to do such to a pig but to the boy – that's the sin of Sodom." And then he pulls the trigger and puts a forty-four slug into Rhodes's chest. Rhodes coughs maybe twice before he dies.

The Captain says to the rest of us – but not to the kid – he says, "Go git a shovel and put him in a hole. Not near the buildings or the water – out there in the woods."

When the Captain leaves Vern says, "Well, I guess the kid gets Rhodes's horse."

"He don't want it," I says.

So Vern says, "I guess it's mine then." *** While we waited for Reynolds and the widow to come back the little towhead took up with the kid. In no time the kid had the boy up on that big black gelding, the boy hangin' on to the kid around the waist as they rushed across the field and through the deep grass and it was bareback too. It was somethin' to see – that boy's hair streamin' behind him and his face just shinin'.

It was nigh on three weeks at least before Reynolds and the widow come back. I was sure glad because Vern did the cookin' and he was good at a lot of things that required ridin' or shootin' but a pistol nor saddle can't make a meal. Hell, even his coffee ruint your guts.

Now the kid and the little boy did all right on fish from the crick and rabbits they snared and sometimes they'd share with us – and the kid even made flapjacks – don't ask me how he knew but they was damn good compared to Vern's. I mean Vern even burnt flapjacks or he used too much water and made a soggy mess. But most of the time we had dried soup beans – what there was and there wasn't much – and chunks of old dried hog meat – that what was left from the year before – and fried corn meal that was burnt. Some of us thought about butcherin' a horse – but no one was hungry enough or dumb enough to face that Henry rifle. So the first thing I thought of when I seen that wagon and that widow and the flour barrel and sugar sack and that slab of bacon in the wagon – the first thing I thought of was my belly.

Anyways, Reynolds gives his report and the short of it was there was no banks worth botherin' about nowheres close. But there was a regular Federal supply wagon that carried a payroll sack oncet a month to the troop holed in at Sullivan's Station. The escort was only four bluebellies and a driver and a guard in the wagon.

"When's the next trip?" the Captain says.

"Friday after next," Reynolds says. *** So on that Friday mornin' we was ready at dawn – sittin' there on our horses in the cool mornin', the horses snortin', horse breath and man breath hangin' in the air. The Captain comes out in his officer's coat with the three copper bars on the collar and his hat with the gold and black cord and his revolver in the holster on his left side and his boots glistenin' in that early light. He mounted his horse and waved to the widow and her boy in the doorway with the yellow light from the table lamp behind them.

The Captain says, "All right, boys, let us do our duty like men and as God intended and show no mercy."

We followed along the trail until we come on a twisty wagon road of deep ruts and high grass and then we hit the good road between Palmyra and Sullivan's Station. To tell the truth, we all had been on many a raid and nobody was scared and we was lookin' for a fight of some kind 'cause our blood was up, you know, needin' the action. And the ride was a pretty one with the sun comin' up through the trees now full of color – red and yellow and the sumac bright as fire – and the air sweet smellin' from the dew and the high white grass at the side of the road.

About noon we got to a spot where there was a sharp curve you couldn't see around and there was thick woods on either side. So Vern and Bracken takes their axes and fells a tree across the road. Then we all get into the woods, split half and half 'cept for the kid. The Captain sent him up the road a ways with his rifle. He tells the kid, "You don't shoot less it goes bad. If so, I count on you to save us."

The kid nodded and then went up there and hid his horse in the woods and got settled in some bushes.

The Captain says to me, "No need for him to stain his soul with killin' unless he has to."

Maybe an hour, maybe less, we hear the horses and the creak of the wagon. There was two bluebellies joggin' up front and then the supply wagon with a arched canvas top with a driver in a blue blouse and no hat and workin' his mouth like he had a chaw and the guard asleep beside him and then ten yards or so behind the wagon come two troopers runnin' their mouths about somethin'.

So they go past and start around the bend and suddenly one of the front troopers shouts, "Hold on! Hold! Damn tree in the way."

Just then me and Vern and Bracken charge out from the woods firin' our pistols at the two in the rear. Before they git a chancet to turn 'round they's dead, shot off their horses. The two in front hear the shots and come hellin' with pistols drawn, rushin' at us.

It's then Reynolds, Bud, and Big Bill charge out behind them with revolvers blazin' and those two are shot off their horses and the horses keep on runnin', followin' the other two down the road.

The Captain comes out of the trees and shoots the guard twicet before he even wakes up and he tumbles out onto the ground. The driver stands up and raises his hands like he was surrenderin'. Reynolds turns his horse 'round and comes up to the wagon and the Captain nods and Reynolds raises his revolver and shoots the driver in the back of his head and he falls forward with that plug of tobacco shootin' straight out of his mouth. Then the Captain whistles and waves to the kid and in no time he's on the black and comin' toward us.

We strip the bluebellies of boots and trousers and revolvers – they had those '58 Remingtons – before we drug them into the woods – but we didn't scalp 'em, although Big Bill thought we should. The Captain checks the wagon and says there's supplies aplenty and cartridges and caps and barrels of salt pork and flour and corn meal and slabs of bacon and blankets and rope and a crate of Spencer carbines and even a copper-lined keg of coal oil. But no payroll.

The Captain says, "Men, the Lord provides. We have enough now to last the winter and rest up while I plan the spring campaign."

Reynolds wanted to know if we was goin' to stop by and pick up the widow and her boy.

The Captain shakes his head and says, "We can't go back there now.

The Federals will scour the earth for us, and best if we keep away from there."

"But," Reynolds says, "what will she do?"

The Captain says, "Same as she did before us."

"But –" Reynolds starts.

And the Captain says, "Now you git in that wagon and turn it around – unless you desire that woman's flesh so much you would turn cowardly deserter."

Reynolds was stupid but he knew what that meant.

Well, we travel all day and set up camp way off the road, pullin' the wagon behind the trees and the Captain says no fires. Then we was up before dawn and another day on the road, drinkin' canteen water to wet the corn cakes. But not the kid – he'd cut off the road and dive into the woods and come back eatin' berries or nuts or ramps.

Vern says, "He got to be Injun. Who else knows all that and moves like that – huh?"

I says, "How many Injuns you see with face that pale and eyes that blue?"

The Captain was just ahead of us and he slows down until we're beside him and he says, "It is a true mystery the way that boy appeared. It was a sign. I wonder if he's an angel sent to help us on our way." II After three days we come upon the first slopes and we mostly drug and pushed that wagon along the trail, over the rocks and ruts that was only a bobcat's idea of a trail. But finally we come on a pass that was more like a sideways slice into a hill and we passed through and there it was down below – a farm with a log cabin with a shake roof and a split-board barn big enough for both horses and cows and a fallin' down outbuildin' like for pigs and a crick runnin' the far side and the whole thing like a bowl set in the hills and the high hills beyond going up like steps to the mountains shinin' blue in the distance. And all of it set there in a blaze of red and yellow leaves.

The Captain says, "There it is – Cousin Roy's."

Cousin Roy was near fifty and scrawny, sickly scrawny, not work-hard scrawny if you know what I mean. He was glad to see us and the supplies. He was alone there 'cause the brain fever taken his wife and both daughters and he'd had a touch of it hisself and so was deaf in his right ear. And before that his sons Morgan and Earmon had gone off to the war and had never come back yet. And somethin' got to his chickens and a bear kilt his cow – ripped out her insides – and his pigs went wild there in the woods and he wasn't able to round 'em up.

Maybe most of that was true – I don't know. The Captain did say it sounded like the torments of Job.

Well, we settled in. Me and Vern in the loft in the barn, the kid with the horses, and the rest in that big cabin. We parked the wagon and carried the food inside but left the cartridges and the carbines and the coal oil because the air wouldn't hurt them none.

And the next day the kid was up at daybreak and out in them woods and trampin' the hills and he comes back with nuts and roots and such and brews himself a tea that was better than anything I drunk before. And he never et with us – he kept to himself and his horses – his, because there was no doubt nobody could handle them the way he could and Vern said that if the kid didn't give the nod nobody could even mount his own animal. The kid would cook his fish or rabbit or possum over his own fire and drink his tea and study those burnt pages of his.

Then one time he takes an old rusty scythe from the barn and rubs the blade over with some red-lookin' clay and a stone and then he gets a whetstone from his sack and sharpens that blade and then goes out into the field where there was that high white grass even in November and he cuts it all – the whole damn field – and brings it into the barn.

Cousin Roy shook his head at that. I mean, the rest of us just lazed around – but not the kid. Hell, he even took a loop of rope from horse to horse and – him on the black – led them all in a parade out of the barn and all around the place – the horses gentle and quiet and showin' off almost.

And next he gets an ax and a bar and he tears down that ramshackle outbuilding. Vern and me helped with that just to do somethin'. We split the sides and roof slabs and drove them into the ground to make a kind of fence or low stockade around the back of the cabin and the barn to keep out bears and such.

Then the air changed all of a sudden. The wind brought a hard rain and the leaves flew in bunches from the trees and at night there come a hard frost and in the mornin' the short grass was frozen and a thin top of ice lay in the water bucket. It was cold and the air was sharp like that for near a week and then all of a sudden we got bright sunshine and you'd think it was summer again. Everythin' dried out and we went on a hog hunt in the woods to get us a pig to roast and we got nothin' because they was too smart for us and took off before we could get a clear shot – except the one that run up behind Big Bill and knocked him flat on his ass. Of course, the next day a gutted hog was hanging upside down from the tree off to the side of the cabin and we all knew who had shot it and bled it and left it there for us.

And Vern says, "If he ain't no Injun, he should be."

And it was mid-day that we seen them comin' through the cut. There was young Robert Boylan and then the two Kennedys – you never seen a meaner pair, I tell you – and trailin' behind was a woman wearin' a slouch hat like she was a raider and her hair all straggly hangin' down.

The Captain was near to dancin' seein' his brother. They grabbed one another and talked at the same time and finally Cousin Roy says, "Let's celebrate. We got us a pig to roast and I got a fire inside."

And Robert says, "We confiscated twelve bottles of store whiskey from a store in Belleville that would go with that pig."

So we all went inside the cabin except for the kid who taken the horses and, when Robert asked about the kid, the Captain said the kid knew horses better'n anyone he ever seen. And – inside – Robert asks again about the kid and who he was and all and then Reynolds points to his head and Cousin Roy says, "He's tetched. Works hard as hell and makes a horse say its prayers but he's tetched."

So we set up a spit from an iron rod out of the wagon and the stands for the kettle and we set about roasting that pig and Robert opened three bottles of that store whiskey and Cousin Roy brought out one of the jugs of corn he was hidin' in the root cellar under the cabin and we had us a time.

Robert told about raidin' into Illinois and bustin' two banks and then on the way here they'd stopped off at a place outside St. Louis and "acquired the lovely lady you see there enjoyin' the whiskey."

The truth was she wasn't lovely. She had a kind of pug face and straggly brown hair with nary a curl but she was plump and friendly and when she laughed she showed all her teeth and none was rotten.

Well, after a while the kid comes in and sits quiet there against the wall by the door, legs crossed like an Injun. I wondered then about him – I mean, he never come inside. Maybe it was because of the woman – you never can tell about people when it comes to women. I mean, even myself, I get funny around one and look at her and think maybe she'd like a touch, you know.

Anyways, the kid was havin' none of the whiskey and Reynolds and Big Bill and the Kennedys took it wrong. But the Captain steps in and says, "The boy knows better than to succumb to temptation."

And then we told about the kid's shootin' and Robert says, "Well, I'm too drunk now but tomorra we'll have us a contest and do some real shootin'."

And the kid almost smiles – I mean, it was the first time I seen him show anythin' at all – except with the towhead, but that didn't count.

Then he says the most I'd heard from him in a long time – he says, "I will sure look forward to it, sir."

Then the Captain says, "Except for the Moyers and that Sodomite Rhodes, we are together again. Come spring we will bring God's wrath and hell's fury down on that spawn of Satan in the north."

We drank to that and the kid slipped out the door. *** Well, you can guess how the afternoon and the evenin' went. I don't recall how much of that pig was et but I do remember all the whoopin' and hollerin' and Cousin Roy got out his fiddle – which he couldn't play worth a dog – but nobody cared – and the fancy lady was up and dancin' and taken off her clothes piece by piece and we was cheerin' her on and Bud and Bracken takes her into the bedroom in the back – that cabin had four rooms and a loft – and by then my head was dull-like and my mouth was sour and my tongue was thick so I got up and headed for the barn.

Out in the night – how did it git dark so fast? – I staggered to the barn and I sees the kid standin' there lookin' up at the sky. I says, "Jay, what's you doin'?"

And he says, "Countin' the stars."

I looked up but got so dizzy I near fell flat. I heard the shouts and the fiddle from the cabin and smelled the burnin' pig in the smoke out the chimbley. Then in the light from the cabin window I saw a kind of frost floatin' in the air, shimmerin'and turnin' like in a wind as weak as your breath, and it settled on the kid's hair.

I went into the barn full of horses – the air thick with horse warmth and smell – and I climbed the ladder into the loft and flopped down on the hay. Sometime in the night I heard Vern come strugglin' and cursin' as he climbed the ladder.

And he says, "Why, even the Captain had some of that fancy woman."

And then he starts to snort and snore and I kicked him but it did no good. Sometimes you could stick straw in his mouth and he'll come awake coughin' and spittin' but that won't work when he's drunk – he'd just choke.

Later I woke and thought I heard the kid with the horses, movin' about down below, but I fell back asleep. The smell was what got me up – a thick chokin' smell like lamp oil burnin' and then I heard the cracklin' and a sound like a strong wind blowin' – but a wild wind – a kind of roar – and then I seen the flames runnin' up the back wall. I poked Vern and shook him full awake and yelled "Fire" into his ear and drug and pushed him to the ladder and he slid down to a clump on the floor. I jumped down and grabbed him and pulled him out into the yard and away from the barn.

It was dawn – the sun still below those hills to the east but the gray light was showin' through the trees and there was a cover of frost on the ground.

"Damn!" Vern says and we both turned to see the cabin roof all afire.

And there was flames a man high in a ring around the cabin where stacks of dry grass and hay burned. And flames snaked along the walls – the fire roarin' and stinkin' of coal oil. Thick logs is slow to burn even soaked with oil – they just smolder and smoke – but that roof was shake and there was straw to keep in the heat in winter. And there was that ring of flames everywhere 'cept at the door. Then we seen that the fence was burnin' and makin' a wall of fire all across the back and no way could you run through there. Even the outhouse was near gone – just a dark shape in the yellow flames.

The first one out of the cabin was the Captain in his winter underwear and bootless and coughin' and shakin' his head. Behind him come the lady with a blanket around her down to her naked legs. Then Robert, stark naked but wearin' boots, rushes out and knocks the lady flat down to the ground. Then I seen the flash across that open clear field the kid had mowed and I heard the crack just as the Captain grabbed his chest, opened his mouth like to shout an order, and fell face-forward to the ground. And right smack after that the second shot got Robert square in the forehead and he dropped like a pole-axed pig.

I looked across that field and saw the kid there at the edge of the woods, the woods a stagger of bare trees. Him on that black horse – that horse as still as a statue – and all the other horses in a string there – the lead one tied to a tree – and their breaths and the smoke from the rifle like a mist around them.

There was yellin' and screams that cut through my head comin' from the cabin and two more come out in underwear – Bracken and Reynolds – and the kid comes forward out of the gun smoke and gets them one shot on top of the other. Then the Kennedys in boots and trousers and revolvers in their hands – and one runs left and the other right – but that didn't help them 'cause the kid moves closer and nails one in the head and the other in the back and he fell and kicked and started to crawl and the kid put one in the side of his head and then they both lay there with their revolvers on the frost-crust.

The lady was on her hands and knees and shreikin' like a scalded cat and I begun to shake and liked to run but Vern grabs my arm and says, "No use. Just stand here and wait – he'll get 'round to us."

Then the cabin roof fell in and the screams stopped and no more come out. The cabin was all fire now with flames shootin' out between the logs and somethin' exploded and there was loud pops and the smell of burnin' flesh in the smoke. The lady was shiverin' and cryin' softly to herself and around her was six bodies layin' there not movin' – except for Reynolds, who twitched and lay on his side, holdin' in his guts. And Big Bill, Bud, and Cousin Roy were burnt up. So there was just fire and smoke behind us and the open field and the kid and his rifle in front.

Now he was on his horse and comin' toward us, the gun smoke driftin' behind him, his rifle across and restin' on the saddle, and his right hand still on it, still on the trigger. He come slow and steady – straight at us. He come too slow for me and I was about to run again – but there was nowhere to go.

That black stopped close enough I could feel his breath and see his eyes as hard as the kid's but black-hard not blue. The kid looks down at us for a second and then rides over to Reynolds moanin' there and he points that rifle right at Reynolds' head and fires and that black never moved, didn't flinch.

Then the kid rides up to us and he says, "Don't bury them."

Vern says, "We can't do that. That ain't Christian. Them wild hogs would come and et 'em."

The kid thinks about that for a spell and then he says, "Will you take care of her – the woman?"

Vern says, "We sure will."

The kid says, "I mean the right way. She's no dog to kick or beat."

"We'll do right by her," Vern says, "and treat her like a lady."

"Blankets and biscuits and dried rabbit is in the wagon," the kid says.

Then he starts to turn his horse and I says, "Jay?"

He looks back at me and says, "My pap called me that and so did my sis but my mam called me Jeremiah." Then he rides across the field – quicker now – and goes by the horses tied to the tree and then up the hill to the cut and was gone.

"Well," Vern says, "the sun's comin' up and we got a big enough fire to keep us warm until the frost is burnt off. And we got us a string of horses and a wagon and food and a crate of carbines and even a woman. We'll bury those ain't burnt and head out."

"Where to?" I asks.

Vern says, "Well, we can't stay here – this place is cursed."

I looked around at the fires and the bodies and I nodded.

Vern says, "It come over me that we should start west in the spring but in the meantime I thought you might care to comfort a young widow these comin' long winter nights and seein' I already have me a woman…"

"I like the sound of that," I says.

"So," Vern says, "that's where we're headed."

"And him," I says, "the kid – where you think he's headed?"

Vern laughs and as we walk over to the woman he says, "Him? Well, I suppose he's off to kill some more of our kind since he ain't all together sure which ones it was that done it – whatever it was. Yep, he's out to kill more of our kind – and he's sure as hell good at it."

"But," I says, "he didn't kill us."

And Vern: "You cain't never tell about people. Everybody's got a soft spot somewheres."