The first thing I noticed before my eyes opened was my jaw. The second was the smell of smoke. Andre and I hadn’t lit a fire, so I don’t know why there was so much smoke in the air. My eyes were still closed as images of what happened flooded my brain, and I moved a little, trying to see where it hurt. I felt a momentary panic as I wondered if Jimbo and his friends had done to me what Preacher David did, but it didn’t feel like it.
Then, I thought of Andre. Maybe I kept my eyes closed so long because I was afraid of what I’d feel. I finally did open my eyes and looked around until I found him. He was on the ground, like me, but splayed out, legs and arms wide. I stood up and almost fell right back down, half from the pain in my head that made my stomach twist, and half from the sight of the canyon that had been hacked into his chest. His face was still that same serene, beautiful, pale face, dusted with downy gold on his cheeks. His mouth wasn’t twisted into a grim death mask like I’d read about in some books. I could almost still see the smile on his lips, the same lips that were pressed against mine just a few hours ago.
Hours? In truth, I had no idea what time it was. But I knew I had to move. I knew that mourning Andre was useless and wouldn’t do anybody any good. Mourning wouldn’t bring him back.
Of course, revenge wouldn’t bring him back either but, unlike crying, revenge was something I felt needed to be done.
That’s when I noticed where the smoke was coming from. The mill. The bastards torched the mill. I tried to run, but it set my jaw on fire. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I figured if something was out of place, you put it right, right? So I put my hands on either side of my jaw and pushed, hard. It took me a while, and I almost passed out with pain, but then there was a -POP- that made my ears hurt, and my jaw felt… well, not right, but more right than it did. I threw on some clothes and ran as fast as I could for being as unsteady as I was.
I got to the big house, where my room was, and saw it was intact. They’d fired the storehouse though, and it was big enough that the fire would spread quickly. I ran into the big house to see if Surly Bill and Opal were around.
They were. And so was Rank. Bill was on the ground, face down, with his head almost completely off. It looked like Jimbo had taken that axe to him, but didn’t have enough room for a full swing. He looked at least like he died quick.
Rank was also on the ground, blood everywhere. It seemed maybe he’d crawled a ways, because there was a five foot long trail from just inside the hall door that led from the kitchens to where everyone else was. He was lying in front of the couch with Opal’s big old machete sticking out of his back.
Opal paid for it, though. She was on the ground, on her side, with Jimbo’s axe deep in her skull.
I could have cried then, but it would have been a waste of time. Instead, I ran to my room. It was ransacked, as I figured it would be, but it’s not hard to be smarter than a man like Jimbo. I pulled my bed aside and pried up the floorboard under it. There, I’d kept all the wages I’d saved since I started at the mill. It was a sizable sum. I ran to Surly Bill’s room just to confirm it and, yes, they’d gotten Bill’s keys and robbed the safe. On my way out I threw another glance at Rank. He almost smelled better dead than he did alive, but he had something I wanted. I reached down and stomped on his body, pulling Opal’s machete out.
I didn’t know how late or early it was, so I didn’t know when the men would be trickling in from town. I ran out to see if any of the families were still around and ran into Billy Crandal. “Jesus!” Billy said, his eyes split between the fire and the big blade in my hand which still shone with Rank’s blood. “What the Hell happened?”
“Jimbo came back.” I said, and told him what was going on while we legged it to the family cottages. The storehouse was done for, the house was likely going to go next, but if we could get the toolhouse soaked with water, we might save it. The family men got roused, and none of them even acted surprised to find Purd coming out of Alice and Henry’s house while Henry was in town. They formed a fire line and started throwing buckets and pumping water all over the toolhouse. These men had this handled. Even though this wasn’t something they’d ever done, it was something they worried enough about that they’d practiced it in their minds a million times.
I had other things to tend to. I caught up with Billy Crandal and stuffed ten dollars in his hand. He looked up at me, confused and anxious. “What’s this for?” He said.
“Your horse. I’m buyin’ it and you’re sellin’ it to me.”
“I can’t just… Where are you going?”
“Ain’t no life for me here now. Company’ll send another man to manage the mill, I’m sure, and ain’t nobody gonna treat me like old Bill did, you know that. I only got one thing on my mind right now.”
Billy started to try to talk me down. But Opal taught me how to do more than kill chickens. One look from me shut him up.
“One more thing, Billy.”
“Yeah?”
“You tell anybody this was Jimbo?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, don’t.” He looked shocked. “Not at least for a good while. I want a shot to get to him before the law does. He didn’t just break the law, Billy. He took something from me.”
Billy didn’t say anything, but I answered his question anyway. “He took the promise of a good life from me, Billy. And I’m gonna make him pay a lot more than the law will.”