When Cane grabbed for the pistol, Chimney brought the corn cutter down on top of the man’s skull with as much force as he could muster. A splinter of bone flew sideways through the air and bounced off his cheek. As the Major dropped to his knees, a stream of blood sputtered out of the top of his head like a small geyser. Chimney stepped back and swung the machete again, burying the blade in the back of the man’s thick, meaty neck, but he remained upright, his eyes blinking rapidly and his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish sucking air. The boy tried to jerk the knife loose, but it was wedged tight between two vertebrae. “Jesus Christ, do something,” he yelled to Cane, as the big man let out a bellow and slowly, miraculously, started to get back up.
Cane stood with a shocked expression on his face, the pistol in one hand, a machete in the other. In all the months of imagining their escape, nobody had gotten hurt. At least not on the first goddamn night. How could he have been so stupid? He heard Chimney yell, “Shoot the sonofabitch,” then watched him step back out of the way. Raising the revolver, Cane pointed it in the direction of Tardweller’s head. He drew a deep breath and tried to steady his aim. But just before he pressed the trigger, a blast exploded off to the side of him, lighting up the entire scene in reddish orange for a second, and something wet splattered against the wall. He whirled around, saw a grim-faced Cob standing in the shadows with the shotgun, a gray wisp of smoke rising from the barrel.
For maybe a minute, they stood silently looking down at the Major in his bloody nightshirt, sprawled out on the floor with the top of his head gone. “Holy shit,” Chimney finally said in an awed voice. “I never saw that coming.”
“Me, neither,” Cane managed to say.
“Goddamn, Cob, you did good,” Chimney said. Then, placing one foot on the dead man’s lower back for leverage, he bent down and grabbed hold of the machete’s wooden handle.
Cob was still standing there with the shotgun raised to his shoulder. Everything had happened so fast. Why, just this morning, he had seen the Major and Pearl talking together, as alive as any two people could be. He heard Cane call his name in a faraway voice. He was vaguely aware of the horses, upset over the commotion, nickering and bumping against the stalls. For a moment, he couldn’t move, and wondered if maybe he was still dreaming, but when he saw his brother yank the machete loose from Tardweller’s neck, he flung the shotgun down and turned away just as most of his funeral supper sprayed from his mouth onto the straw-strewn floor.
Cane waited until he finished being sick, then started out the door with the pistol. “Get them horses ready,” he ordered in an urgent voice.
“Where you going?” Chimney said.
“Up to the house.”
“You sure you don’t want me to take care of them?”
“No,” Cane said. “I’ll handle it.” He looked over at Cob wiping the vomit off his chin. “You two did enough already.”
—
FINDING THE DOOR ajar, he entered the house trembling, still unhinged by what had just happened in the barn. He moved from room to room in the dark looking for Tardweller’s wife and daughter, so relieved when he didn’t find them that he almost got down on his knees and thanked God. He hoped they were off somewhere visiting, something Chimney had mentioned they did on occasion, and not already halfway over to the next farm after hearing the shotgun blast.
The house smelled faintly of perfume and spices and tobacco, and he was suddenly aware of the stink roiling off his filthy body, a mix of shit and sweat and fear. Lighting a candle, he began searching hurriedly through closets and drawers. He found another 12-gauge and a box of shells. He took a black frock coat hanging from a door and three white shirts folded on top of a polished bureau and a gold pocket watch lying on a nightstand. He hunted all over for the purse he knew the squire carried, but it was not to be found. In the kitchen, he came across a bar of soap and a box of cartridges for the pistol and two bottles of brandy in a sideboard, along with a large smoked ham barely nibbled on and a pan of light rolls covered with a cloth. Wrapping everything up in the coat, he started out the front door, then stopped. He had never been in a house this fine before, and after what had just happened in the barn, it might be the only chance he’d ever get to experience one. Going into the parlor, he sat down carefully in a soft upholstered chair. He was disappointed not to see any books. A box on a side table was filled with cigars, and he stuck a handful of them and some matches in his shirt pocket. Just for a minute, he tried to enjoy the flowered wallpaper, the painting of the fox hunt above the mantel, the spinet piano in the corner, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with shame. He had lost his nerve back there in the barn, broke his promise to Cob to take care of everything. As he went out, he quietly shut the door behind him.
“Well, I didn’t hear no shots,” Chimney said when Cane returned to the barn. “What’d ye do, strangle ’em or slit their throats?” A lantern had been lit, and he was standing next to one of the thoroughbreds showing Cob how to cinch the girth straps on the saddle.
“I went all over,” Cane said, “but they ain’t there.”