Only Killers and Thieves(76)

Down they went everywhere. Down, down, down. Shot and clubbed and stabbed and trampled and drowned in the mud. A din to echo in the bones. Screams of life, screams of death, of joy, hatred, terror, despair. Children crying. Little faces riven by tears. Mothers, their mouths gaping, clutching infants to their chests and running for their lives. Men fighting hopelessly, pawing at the passing horses, until they too were dispatched. Tommy watched Noone dismount and stride through the bedlam like a gentleman out of doors, picking them off as he went; he saw Sullivan thrashing and firing at will, flailing like a rabid old cur. Locke in the midst of it all took a girl to the ground and rutted with her in the slop, her dead eyes rolling, head bouncing with each thrust, while around them carnage reigned. Billy also part of it, revolver in hand, taking purposeful aim at the natives as they fled, shooting them in the back, the chest, the head. And down they went everywhere. Down, down, down.

At first they worked in silence, collecting up the bodies, building up the pyre. But soon the sun was upon them and the task was near done and the elation of victory found its voice. Hesitant talking between the troopers, stories traded back and forth. Sullivan wrapped Billy in a sidelong embrace, one arm around his shoulders, slapping his chest, both of them mud-slicked and red, Sullivan laughing, telling Billy how proud he was, how well he had performed. Billy nodded shyly but a smile teased his lips, the same reluctant smile as when Father gave out praise. Billy acting like he didn’t care, when of course he always did.

Now the pair of them stood watching the troopers dragging in the last of the dead, and Noone wandered about the camp, making notes in a little book, like a man tallying up his stock. He inspected the bodies, rummaged through their flattened humpies and personal effects. When he found a woman still living he cupped his hand to her face and knelt beside her in silent prayer. The woman spoke to him. Noone listened and nodded and gently replied. Then he took out his knife and slit open her rounded belly and she gave out a cry and died. He rolled up his sleeve and rummaged in the cavity, then pulled out something clotted and lifeless and studied it awhile, before cutting it loose and tossing it aside and wiping his hand clean. He stood, scribbled something in his notebook, moved on to the next, and Tommy sank to his haunches and vomited on the ground.

The man was upon him without warning: a performer from last night’s dance, white paint still smeared on his face, eyes wide and full of fire. He came yelping from out of Tommy’s eyeline and leaped saddle high to grab him by his arm and drag him to the ground. They landed together but the man scrambled quickly and straddled Tommy from above, pinning him and trying to wrestle the rifle from his grip, while Tommy on his back clung to the stock and fought the muzzle into line with the man’s sunken and scarified chest. He fired. Pulled the trigger and heard the empty click. Both fell still for a second. As if watching the misfire for proof. Tommy tried cocking the hammer again, but in the pause the man twisted the rifle free and flattened the barrel against his throat. Tommy sank deeper into the reeking mud, felt his windpipe closing, darkness creeping; he hadn’t the strength to throw the man. He pawed at his face while reaching for the revolver tucked into his belt, fingering eyes and nose and mouth, feeling the damp of each orifice, the mucus and the warmth of his breath, no purchase to dig his fingers in. Suddenly the man bit him. Tommy cried out and gave up on the revolver—his last two fingers were knuckle-deep in the man’s mouth and he was clenching down hard with his teeth. Tommy pulled but they were clamped there. He was helpless against the bite. Blood drooled from the man’s lips. Tommy began hitting him, but his breath was almost out and each blow fell weak as a kiss. There was a crunching sound, and tearing, and the knuckles gave way. Tommy screamed but the scream gurgled mute in his throat and the man jerked his head and Tommy got the two digits loose. The hand came out mangled and bloody and limp. No pain anymore. Like it wasn’t even his hand. The man started shouting, blood and spittle spraying, as he weighed down on the rifle again. Tommy’s arms fell to his side and he felt himself going out, then his good hand brushed his pocket and the knife he carried there. The folding knife he’d stolen from Song’s Hardware Store. He teased it out, worked open the blade, and with all that was left in him, swung.

The bonfire was doctored with gunpowder and kindling from the crater floor, then left to dry out in the sun. The posse sat resting on a nearby grassy bank. A gruesome collection of men. Caked in gore, smoking and drinking and eating the few provisions they’d rustled from the sacked camp, leavings from last night’s meal. Huddled beside them, unbound but tightly grouped, were five females they’d retained. Six at first, but one had run; they’d let her get so far before Jarrah brought her down, a two-hundred-yard shot with his carbine balanced on the pivot of his knee. Now those five remaining shivered together in the sun. None looked older than eighteen.

The knife embedded fully into the native’s neck. Tommy drew it out and through the thick spew of blood swung again. The man toppled. Clutching his neck with both hands, his life bleeding out in between. Tommy scrambled to his knees, gasping for breath and watching him expire. He tossed the knife away. Wiped clean his face and spat and inspected his hand and cried out. The last two fingers were barely attached. They hung like wrung chicken necks. Tommy looked about despairingly. Utterly alone in the melee. The Kurrong were thinning but some still ran, and the horses ran loose, and berserk dogs howled. Lone survivors scrambled up the banks of the crater and were chased or picked off from afar. A baby screamed somewhere. Tommy looked down at the man convulsing in the mud before him, drowning in his own blood. His wide eyes stared. Tommy spat at him. He kicked him in the side. The convulsions slowed, deathly tremors and no more. Tommy kicked the man again. He drew his revolver and leveled it at the man’s forehead, saw him faintly nodding, and fired. The head jerked with the shot, then rolled to one side. Blood dribbled from the hole. Tommy turned and began walking, feet sucking in the bog, stepping over bodies as he went.