“The first time I saw you shoot,” Franchard said, “you gunned down three men after all of ’em had drawn on you first. At the time, I didn’t think you could get any faster.” He shook his head. “I’m here to tell you, I was wrong.”

The Apache chief approached Bina, after she’d finished tending to Gaines’s wound, and spoke to her in his native tongue. He pointed at Pritchard as he spoke.

After their brief conversation ended, Bina walked up to Pritchard.

“What did the old man say?” Pritchard asked her.

“He said the shadow over you is strong. He told me to tell you that if you don’t break its curse soon, it will grow so strong it will consume you. Then you, and the shadow, will become one. When that happens, you will no longer have a spirit of your own. He said he and his warriors will pray for you tonight, at the ceremony.”

“Tell him I’m grateful,” Pritchard said. “What about you? Are you going to pray for me tonight, too?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve got something more potent in my medicine bag.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to bed with you.”

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

The remainder of the day was spent doing communal work. One group of Rangers, Apache braves, and townswomen busied themselves building a large-enough stack of combustible material to consume over fifty bodies; more than forty of which were laid out in a row near the growing mound of fuel. Wood was collected from every pile in town, as well as old planks, fresh lumber, and heaps of straw. Before long, the unlit pyre was the size of a small house.

Another group was occupied with butchering twenty-one dead horses and the grim task of collecting the various parts of the Stiles Gang that had been blown off their owners during the initial blasts. The group loaded the fresh horse meat into the four wagons for the Apache, the human flesh was tossed on the woodpile, and the streets of Magdalena were cleaned up.

A third group slaughtered two cows, butchered them, dug a roasting pit, and prepared the food for supper.

The smallest group dug two single graves in the cemetery at the edge of town. These were for the repose of the two dead Rangers.

On Captain Franchard’s orders, a couple of Rangers were tasked with cutting stakes, more than fifty of them, each approximately the length of an Apache spear.