There was no way that Point was about to let Jupiter swing.
Aside from being the only nice guy that Point had met in this town outside of the Tsavorite, he was an ally that just fell into his lap. He was not about to let the only other sane person with a backbone die over something that never even happened. He also knew if he could save the pair of them that they would need to have a nice long talk about why and how Jupiter and Whisper ended up in the same town that he was in at the same time he was there. A little odd that two people that were not from there—a town that nobody else even knew existed—ended up there at the same time.
Point was sitting with Addy on her bed. Her left shoulder pushing into his right arm. Her right hand playing with his collar. Her lips inches away from his neck.
"So what are you going to do about tomorrow?" She asked him as his mind was already there in an attempt to run possible scenarios to limit his exposure and maximize his success. His eyes off into the middle distance, he asks, "Do you have any idea where they are going to hang them?"
"No, there has only been one person hanged since I have lived here. It was when I was very young and I was not allowed to go." Addy tells him.
Point says, "Not like they would necessarily do it in the same place anyway."
Addy unbuttons his top button with the hopes it pulls his mind back to her.
Point stands up and says, "Have you talked with Conor about any of this?"
Addy replies, "Not yet, why?"
Point thinks for a second, his mind already working through the steps. "I have to break them out."
Addy interjects.
"There's an old cave I found as a kid, east of town." Point says, "After we make our break, that's where we'll hole up then. I need you to find me there and let me know what's going on in town."
Point walks out of her room and down the stairs to the bar and over to the table where Conor had been playing cards. Point leaned into Conor and asked, "Can I have a word with you please?"
Conor looked at Point and could see the urgency in his eyes. Conor had rags anyway so he folded his hand and said to the men at the table, "Deal me out of the next hand gentlemen, I will return."
He followed Point over to the tub room that was empty at the moment.
"What can you tell me about the hangin tomorrow?"
"Oh, not much. Couple black folk that got caught stealing at the Mayor's house I guess."
Point gives a quick nod at the obvious and asks, "You know anything that might not have been in the paper or posted on a wall?"
Conor looks Point in the eyes and says, "Couple guys came into the bar today and asked me for help building gallows behind the mill. My guess is they will start building right before sunrise if they want them swingin by noon."
Point grabs Conor by the shoulders and says, "Thank you my friend."
Point rushed out of the back of the Tsavorite and over to his horse, his boots pounding against the dirt as he ran down the alley.
Point mounts and rides out to the camp where the Indians had been living, pushing his horse hard through the darkness. He had his fingers crossed the entire ride that it had not yet been burned to the ground. There was a good chance that nobody had been back there since the men in charge of the massacre. As they were heavy on men but short on brains—like zombie henchmen.
Point rides into the camp to find all the living quarters still standing—tipis silhouetted against the starlight, their shapes intact despite everything—and even a little movement inside the camp. The Chief was even out in the open air, sitting near a small fire that crackled in the darkness, tending to it like nothing had happened. Like his people hadn't just been slaughtered hours before.
When the Indians saw Point riding up they began to move with steadfast urgency. defense of the remaining settlement was their only priority now. Grabbing whatever weapons they had left—rifles, bows, knives. Voices rose sharp and urgent in their language, calling warnings to each other.
There were a little over a dozen that survived. Six of the adult men for sure had survived, faces hard and haunted in the firelight.
Point rode in slow so they could see his face in the firelight, hands visible, and got off his horse next to the Chief. The old man watched him approach with eyes that had seen too much death in one day, in one life.
Point asked the Chief if he would be willing to part with the men that he had left.
The old man didn't answer right away. He stared into the fire, watching the flames dance and spit embers into the night air. Around them, the survivors moved through the camp like ghosts—women collecting bodies, children clinging to whoever was left, the whole place thick with the kind of silence that comes after violence.
Finally, the Chief looked up at Point. His eyes were red-rimmed, either from smoke or tears or both. "You helped us," he said, his English slow but clear. "You tried to stop them when no one else would."
Point shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the gratitude. "Wasn't enough."
"Was something," the Chief replied. He stood, joints cracking, and called out to the men who were still able to fight. Six of them gathered around the fire—some bandaged, all of them carrying the weight of what they'd just survived. The Chief spoke to them in their own language, his voice steady despite everything. When he finished, each man nodded in turn.
"They will help you," the Chief said to Point. "Whatever you need. Especially if you are going after Cyrus Fletcher."
Point noticed how the name made the men stiffen, how their hands drifted toward weapons that weren't there anymore. "You know it was him?"
The Chief gave a bitter smile. "I know the land we are on is the land he wants. I know McKay is dead. I know white men with guns came here and shot everyone they could see." He shrugged. "Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it was God's will." His voice turned hard. "But I do not think so."
By the time Point had gotten back to the Tsavorite it was getting well into the night—late enough that the crowd had thinned to just the die-hards, early enough that the serious gamblers were still at it, stacks of coins and cards spread across felt. Conor was still hard at his card game, a cigar between his teeth, and Point was forced to break in again to have a word with him.
Point asked, as Conor mucked another hand and walked away for a sidebar so the other players could not hear, "What kind of firepower would you be able to get your hands on?"
Point clarified, his voice dropping lower, "I was thinking more like Gatling guns and grenades."
Conor's eyes flickered like that of an eight year old finding M80's, his expression shifting from amused to intrigued. "I think I can get you fixed up. And how will we be covering this?"
Point narrowed his eyes a bit. He had money but nothing on him, not enough to cover a small arms deal anyway. Not the kind of money that buys repeating cannons and explosives.
Point said, "Bill it to the Sheriff's office. By the time the invoice gets to Rex I am sure he will have no problem putting his name to it."
Conor gave Point a sly smile, and said, "As long as you don't need any dynamite. When the Mayor's boys came here today about the gallows, they also cleaned everyone I know out of TNT. Bought it all up, didn't even haggle on price. I guess they are about to go to work on clearing that land the Indians are on, not to mention the McKay land."
Point slapped Conor on the back, a grin breaking across his face, and said, "Thank you brother, you may have given me an idea."
An idea that was starting to take shape—dangerous, reckless, and just crazy enough to work.
Point figured since the town was so small and the job of clearing off that land was far too big for this little town, Fletcher must be keeping all of the resources he has on his own property. He has the law in his pocket so it's not like he has to worry about any backlash in that respect. His biggest problem is having his brother-cousins and sister-aunts in charge of using or wasting what he has before the job gets done.
He snuck around town, mostly behind all the buildings to get a good lay of the land—moving through alleys choked with trash and discarded lumber, cutting between structures, staying low when lamplight spilled from windows. The smell of outhouses and rotting food hung in the narrow passages between buildings. He also went up on many of the rooftops without being seen, using rain barrels and awnings and fence posts to climb, finding different vantage points to study the town from above. The whole place looked different from up there—smaller, more vulnerable, every street and corner mapped out like a battlefield. He could see clear across to the mill, watch the patterns of who moved where and when.
He had given the Indian Chief the plan he had but he needed to make sure that there was not some sweet spot he had missed—some angle he hadn't considered, some position that would give him away or leave him exposed. He also walked the area where they would most likely be building the gallows—behind the mill where the ground was flat and hard-packed from years of wagon traffic, where a crowd could gather without blocking the street. He paced it out, counted steps, tested sight lines. He wanted to make sure he had no blind spots that someone could jump him or his men. His memory was sharp as a blade, cataloging every door, every window, every angle of approach and escape.
He only needed to find the spot that would be best for his escape.
He made sure that he had three horses tied off in the thick trees across the way from the mill—close enough to reach in a dead run, far enough back that they wouldn't be seen or heard over the noise of town. Point knew there was a chance that he, or someone else, might get shot during this. The plan was good but not perfect, and perfect was the only thing that kept people alive in situations like these. He stabled his own horse safe at the livery and bought another one as a loaner from a rancher on the edge of town who didn't ask questions. He got three young ones cheap, that weren't broken in yet but could run like hell once you got them pointed in the right direction. Good for speed at short distances.
About an hour before the roosters started to make their cock noise, Point positioned himself at the flat part of the roof at the mill. The air was cool and still, the sky that deep blue-black that comes just before dawn. Stars were fading, the moon hanging low and pale on the western horizon. He settled in behind the front of the building, his back against the wood, both revolvers loaded and ready in his lap.
Sure enough, about twenty-five minutes after he had gotten settled, the men came to the mill to start the construction—four of them, maybe five, carrying tools and lumber through the grey pre-dawn light. Hammering and sawing echoed in the quiet, wood being cut and measured and fitted together with the kind of efficiency that said they'd done this before.
Point sat and watched as the men erected the structure that was meant to end the lives of his new friends. The gallows took shape slowly—upright posts first, then the crossbeam, then the platform built beneath it, and finally the trapdoor with its terrible hinges and the lever that would drop it open. The mechanics of death assembled piece by piece, mundane as building a fence.
Just before the town stretched its legs to the morning—before shopkeepers opened doors and women stepped out to sweep porches—he was able to see that his Indian friends had taken position.
Point would have never even seen them there if he did not know ahead of time they were coming. They were all on rooftops—the positions he'd scouted the night before and shown them in the pre-dawn darkness. One lay flat on the roof of the general store, his body pressed against the shallow peak, crossbow angled down toward the gallows. Another crouched low on the feed store roof, using the slight rise of the roofline for cover.
Shadows against wood and shingles, shapes that blended into the architecture like they'd been designed for this very day.
About 10:45 the Mayor even showed his face, walking around the end of construction to see if anyone was watching a little too close. He wore his good suit—the one he saved for important occasions—and walked the perimeter with his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the work like a man inspecting a new fence line. Satisfied with what he saw.
After he had left, the judge showed up to make sure the build was finished in time. He was older, heavyset, sweating despite the cool morning air. He checked the lever with his own hands, tested the trapdoor by stepping on it gently, nodding his approval when it held firm. Everything was ready.
At 11:30 his friends that had been sentenced to die were walked out from the direction of the jail, their hands bound behind them with thick rope. Rex and two other men flanked them on either side, rifles held across their chests. A small crowd had gathered by then— curious townsfolk keeping their distance, women with their hands over their mouths, men with their hats off.
Whisper's face was stone, unreadable. She walked with her head high, eyes forward, refusing to give these men anything. No fear, no pleading, no satisfaction. Her steps were steady despite the rope burns still raw on her wrists and ankles.
Jupiter looked like he was the one that would pull the handle, not the one who would have their head in a noose. His face was equally hard—jaw set, eyes forward, refusing to look at anyone in the crowd. His posture was straight, shoulders back, relaxed even, walking to his own execution with more dignity than the men leading them there had ever possessed. Refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing him break.
They were led up the steps to the platform, the wood creaking under their weight. The hangman—a thin man with shaking hands—placed the nooses around their necks, adjusting the knots with the kind of practiced movement that made Point's stomach turn.
The judge passed sentence at 12:01, his voice booming across the crowd that had gathered. "For the crimes of theft and trespassary against the property of Mayor Cyrus Fletcher, you are hereby sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your souls."
As soon as the lever was thrown—the metallic clank of the mechanism releasing echoing across the yard—Point squeezed the triggers on both of his revolvers and increased the quantity of lead into four people that were there. The judge's head snapped back, a spray of red misting the air, closing the circle on the prediction that Jupiter had made only a day before. The hangman dropped before his hand left the lever. The two overseers that were with Rex went down like puppets with their strings cut.
The shots cracked like thunder, bodies dropping before anyone in the crowd could process what was happening.
As soon as the first shot was fired, Rex dove into the bushes at the edge of the mill yard—he became more part of the landscape than a man, disappearing so fast it was almost impressive. Point would have laughed if he wasn't already moving.
The same time that Point started to fire, his native friends had let loose some twenty-something bolts from crossbows that had been stacked to fire five bolts at a time, with oversized broadheads that whistled through the air. The rope that Whisper was hanged from cut immediately, all five bolts striking within inches of each other. The bolts sliced through the hemp like it was thread, her body dropping onto the ground with a heavy thud.
The one that was holding Jupiter cut about halfway through—not enough. He hung there, choking, his feet kicking as the partial rope held his weight, strangling him slowly.
Point jumped from the roof down to a fence that surrounded the building—a ten-foot drop that he took at a run. His feet hit the top rail with the accuracy of a dancer but the fence was weak, sun-rotted and termite-chewed, and it snapped under his weight like kindling. He went down hard, the impact rattling his teeth, sending stars exploding across his vision. His shoulder hit the ground first, then his head, the world tilting sideways for a moment.
Once Point was able to pull his mind back—shaking off the daze, blinking until the world stopped spinning—he ran up to the gallows and shot at the remaining rope that was tangled around Jupiter's neck. But Point hardly ever misses and he must have been seeing double still because it took three shots to get the rope to snap, the bullets chewing through the hemp until it finally gave way. Jupiter dropped hard onto the earth below the trapdoor, gasping and clutching at his throat where the noose had bitten in deep enough to leave a groove in his skin.
Point ran around to the underside of the structure where Whisper and Jupiter were both sprawled in the dirt, still trying to get their bearings. He grabbed Whisper under the arms and hauled her to her feet, Jupiter stumbling up on his own with one hand still at his throat. The two condemned had no idea what was going on, their minds still catching up to the fact that they weren't dead. They had little option but to follow Point as he ran for the trees, stumbling through the chaos as gunfire erupted behind them—Fletcher's men finally getting their bearings and returning fire, bullets whipping through the air and splintering wood.
Once they were all on horseback they rode off a few miles to the east just below the town where Point had some food and other supplies waiting—jerky wrapped in oilcloth, canteens full of water, ammunition boxes, blankets rolled and tied to the saddles. The horses fought them at first, spooked by the gunfire and the smell of blood, but they got moving once Point dug his heels in.
They had made it out of the town in one piece, though Jupiter's neck was raw and bleeding where the rope had caught him—an angry red line that would scar for sure—and Whisper was still catching her breath from the fall, rubbing at her own throat where the noose had left its mark.
Point was unable to see if the Indians that helped him had gotten away. He hoped they had—hoped they were smart enough to disappear the second the shooting started, to melt back into whatever shadows they'd come from. But he couldn't know for sure. The chaos had been too complete, the smoke and noise too thick to see anything clearly.
He was sure of one thing, though. If the Mayor didn't like him before, he would make sure the price on the head of all three of them would be high enough that even Conor or Addy might sell them out for a chance to have a better life. They'd gone from being a nuisance to being a genuine threat, and men like Fletcher didn't let threats walk away.