Horrible Harvest

“We’re deep in it,” Tate said, from the window. “Gun fire drew a good number of them out.”

“How many?” I said, resting Douglas’ head on the floor.

“Two dozen – Maybe more – Definitely more.”

I stood and started grabbing rifles off their racks. “Piney,” I yelled.

There weren’t no response.

“Piney.”

Not a goddamn thing.

“You think he ran?”

“Not a chance. I can still smell him – ”

Just as the words come out my mouth, Tate shouted, “There – Coming around the corner – He’s just walking up on them – The fool – ”

I run to the window with six rifles and looked in the direction Tate was staring.

Piney was sure as shit approaching a bundle of Miller men standing in the middle of the street. They all knew him and weren’t alarmed by his presence in no particular way.

“Did we wake you, fellas?” We heard him ask. Weren’t an ounce of panic nor menace in his voice.

“What in the hell is going on?” one of the men asked.

“Now, Ima have to take the blame for all this here noise. I tied one on, and I am not in my altogether sober mind. I was having a shoot about with your fellas back at Lizard Tail Rock. Ol’ Mr. Stockton give me a good talking to. Nothing left to do but to give my sorrys to you fellas for rousing you out of your 40 winks.”

We heard some grumbling among the men as I lined the rifles along the windowsill.

Tate replaced his spent cartridge. “What are the chances we’re going to have a clear path to Miller?”

“I’d say we ain’t got a chance in hell at such an outcome.”

“What’s the plan, then?”

I give his question thought when we heard a pop from the brothel side of town. A second and third quickly followed, and we watched as two Miller men fell in the street. One clutching his thigh, another his side. More pops followed and more Miller men went down. I could see flashes from muzzles through the dirty window, but I couldn’t make out the shooters.

“What the devil – Who’s firing?” Tate asked, as he give a look in the direction of the shots.

“Can’t say,” I said.

A shot rung out from near the sheriff’s office, and I turnt quickly. Piney was backing away, firing his gun at the crowd of men. Confused and panicked, they run this a-way and that a-way with particular haste to the row of buildings on the opposite side of the street, firing blindly as they run like scared rabbits.

Piney burst through the door of the sheriff’s office, clutching his side and tumbling to the ground.

“What in the high hell happened?” I asked.

“Got shot. Goddamn kids can’t aim for shit.”

“Kids?”

“Them little runts – Craig and the others.”

“I told them to get out of here.”

“Well, it didn’t take. They come up out back while you fellas stepped inside – Raring to get at it. I told’em to take up spots around the whorehouse and start to firing only if we get a crowd on the street. Forgot to tell them not to fire if I was part of that crowd – Goddamn kids.”

“You hit bad?” Tate asked Piney as he approached.

“Tate-fella, ain’t no such thing as being hit good.”

Tate pult Piney’s hand away, revealing a cavern-sized wound, leaking dark red blood.

Tate and I give one another a look. We’d both seen wounds like that enough to know he weren’t going to make it.

“Yeah, I know,” Piney said. “Ima ‘bout to crossover. Can’t patch this up. You two need to get at it. Them fellas ain’t gonna be pinned down for long. Handful of runts can only do so much – ” He saw Douglas’s lifeless body. “I’ll give your brother by half a hello when I get to the other side.”

The Miller men started a rally of gunfire in the direction of the brothel.

“Get at it. Prop me up in the door frame, and I’ll unload on the bastards.”

Tate stood and pult the door open. The Miller men, not knowing what exactly they was dealing with, gathered along the doorways, windows, and sidewalls of the buildings across the street, occasionally stepping out into the open to fire in the direction of the brothel. Strangely, shots from inside the brothel could also be heard. I come to know what was happening when a nude woman stepped out the building. She was smeared with blood at her breasts and belly, holding tight to a rifle. Three women appeared at the upstairs windows and four more – in various stages of undress – followed the first woman out the door. All was armed. All was firing at the Miller men. They’d joined forces with the boys and had killed the men in the brothel while they lay drunk and snoring.

I dragged Piney to the doorframe, piled three rifles next to him and turnt to make my way outside when he grabbed me at the arm. “Got a ree-quest of you.”

I give a nod. “Name it.”

“Deliver my pay to good Kate.”

“Every dollar of it.”

“And the pipe – It’s in my saddlebag – You’ll get that to her – Won’t you? Tell her it’s from me – To fill her heart.”

I give his hand a pat.

He leave me go. “Get on. Kill some sumbitches.”

Tate and I rushed to the next building – a provisions store – with rifles and revolvers in hand and found cover under a row of barrels. We heard Piney sing the first verse of his good Kate song, followed by a blast from his gun.

A number of the Miller men returnt fire, and we seen Piney take another hit. He made no show if it, instead he fired two more shots, and then picked up one of the rifles before getting hit again. He growled and spit and fumed, but still managed to fire the rifle on a Miller man, marching toward him, missing him by a good bit but stopping him in his tracks. A volley of shots from the brothel felled the sumbitch.

Tate and I crawled along the safe-side of the barrels and then run like the dickens to the church. Pastor Dan took notice of us for the first time and fired in our direction.

“Who goes there?”

We pressed our backs to the sidewall of the church.

“What did Craig say? There are six inside?”

“That’s what he said,” I answered.

“That’s more than I’d prefer. We need to reduce that number. Too many guns in a small space.”

“I’m guessing you have a plan.”

“I always do. Push them out the front door.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“We make them think they’re being overrun from the rear. One of us kicks the backdoor in – Fires off rounds – One on top of the other – They’ll scurry like pheasant out the front door. The other one of us picks them off easy as pie. What we miss, the ladies and lads at the brothel will take aim at and take down.”

“Which one of us goes where?”

“I’ll flush them out.”

“Why you?”

“Because if I learned anything serving in the infantry, it’s that nothing scares a cracker more than a nigger with a gun.”

“What about the preacher?”

Tate peaked around the corner and saw the preacher with his rifle trained in our direction. In one smooth as silk motion, he stepped out from behind the sidewall, and fired his weapon – striking the preacher between the eyes – And then stepped back behind the sidewall. “Preacher’s dead.”

I nodded. “All right then. We’ll go with your plan.”