Franchard lit a torch with a match and extended it to Maggie. She gave him a hug, accepted it, and slowly walked toward the gigantic mound.

“No!” one of Stiles’s men yelled from the sidewalk, as Maggie ignited the pyre. “Don’t do it! You can’t burn us alive! Don’t kill us like this! We’re tied up! We’re helpless!”

“Tell that to my husband,” Maggie said, tossing the torch and stepping back. In minutes, the town square was aglow with the light from the massive, billowing pyre.

Some of the captive outlaws began to cry. Others began to curse in defiance. Still others simply stared, with vacant expressions, at the mountain of flames.

“Don’t we at least get a last meal?” Reuben Gaines called out with a grin.

“You surely do,” Franchard answered him. “Barbeque.”

The Rangers and women receded as over thirty Apaches, Bina and her elderly assistant included, drew their knives and went to work on the outlaw corpses. They quickly and efficiently scalped the forty-three dead outlaws and tossed the scalps into a pile at Captain Franchard’s feet.

Franchard motioned to his Rangers. They assisted the Apache braves in lifting and piling the bodies onto the fire. Once this was done, the Rangers and braves converged, breathing hard from exertion, on the prisoners.

Each prisoner was hog-tied, with their legs bound to their hands behind their backs, and dragged, shrieking and thrashing, to the edge of the now-sizzling inferno. The smell of cooking meat permeated the town. Eight Apache braves, with their bloody knives poised, took positions over the captive outlaws.

Women who had Ranger paramours went into their men’s arms. Maggie stepped into Franchard’s. Bina, her knife sheathed but her hands bloody, embraced Pritchard. The other townswomen held one another.

“I’m begging you,” Major Stiles said, looking up at Maggie and Franchard. “Please don’t let these savages scalp and cook us. If there’s a shred of decency left in your hearts, you’ll put a bullet to our brains.”

“Who’s calling who a savage?” Maggie said. “The decency in our hearts you crave so badly, you yourself destroyed. Tell me, Major Stiles; if these Rangers weren’t here when you rode in this morning, would you and your boys be showing decency to me now?”

Stiles hung his head and sobbed. Franchard held Maggie tighter, as tears fell from her eyes.

“You’re going to burn in hell for what you did to Magdalena,” Maggie said, “but not before you burn here on earth. And when you finally get to hell, it’ll be without your hair. Good-bye, Major.”

She waved to Bina, who spoke in Apache to Mangas.

Mangas raised and lowered his hand, and the Apache braves pounced. Major Dalton Stiles, and what was left of his infamous gang of outlaws, wailed like banshees as they were scalped.

Some of the women closed their eyes. A few also covered their ears.