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    Once he reached the door, Mike pressed himself against the farmhouse wall. He was on the opposite side of the door from the farmer. The man was unconscious, now, soaked with blood and sagging. His weight—he was a middle-aged man, heavy in the gut—was tearing his wrists badly. Blood spurted everywhere.
    
Christ, he’ll bleed to death.
Mike’s decision was instant. He sprang across the doorway to the farmer’s side, momentarily exposing himself to fire from within the farmhouse. But there was no gunshot. Two quick powerful jerks withdrew the knives. As gently as he could, Mike lowered the man to the ground.
    That was all he could do for him at the moment. Mike hesitated, then, for a second or two. The interior of the farmhouse was so poorly lit it was impossible to see anything inside. Caution and his Army training urged him to wait until his companions could come up in support. On the other hand—
    
All these guns are those weird antiques. Single-shot muzzle-loaders. I’ll bet that son of a bitch hasn’t had time to reload.
    Again, decision was sharp, immediate. Mike dove through the door and landed rolling.
    Good decision, bad luck. His enemy
hadn’t
had time to reload. Unfortunately, Mike rolled right into him.
    For a moment, everything was chaos. Mike felt a body landing on top of him. The surprise, as much as the collision, jarred the pistol out of his hand. Frantic now, he lunged to his feet, hurling the man off his back.
    Tried to, at least. The man, whoever he was, clutched Mike like a wrestler. Mike snarled and slammed his elbow backward.
    
Damn!
He’d forgotten the cuirass. His left elbow was aching from the impact. But at least he’d knocked the man loose.
    Mike had never been in a gun battle before in his life. He had a boxer’s training and instincts, not a gunfighter’s. He didn’t even think to look for his pistol. He just pivoted and drove a right cross into his enemy’s chin.
    Eight pro fights. The first seven had been won by knockouts, none of them later than the fourth round. Mike had quit the game because he’d realized he didn’t quite have the reflexes. But nobody had ever said he didn’t have the punch.
    The thug, whoever he was, sailed across the room and slammed against a heavy table. His jaw hung loose, broken. His head lolled to the side.
    That dazed helplessness brought no mercy. Neither that, nor the fact that the man was quite a bit smaller than Mike. This was not a fight governed by Marquis of Queensbury rules. Mike bounced forward on his toes and slammed another right hand, low into the man’s abdomen below the cuirass. Another. If there’d been a referee, Mike would have been disqualified by either punch. His next blow was a left hook, which shattered the man’s jaw and lifted him right off his feet. Mike was a very strong man, and—unlike most—he knew how to fight. The blows were like sledgehammers. Mike started to slam another right into the thug’s face but managed to stop the punch.
    
Christ, Stearns—enough! He’s done.
    He forced himself to step back, as if being driven off by an invisible referee. The trained reaction brought some clarity to his thoughts. Mike was shocked to realize how much fear and rage had taken possession of him. He felt like a vial of pure adrenaline.
    His opponent collapsed to the floor in a heap. Mike dropped his arms and let his fists open. His hands hurt. He’d forgotten how much punishment bare-knuckle fighting inflicted on the victor as well as the vanguished.
    He was starting to tremble now, from delayed reaction to the entire fight. The gunplay was affecting him more than anything else. For all that he’d been something of a roughneck in his youth, Mike had never killed anyone before.
    A hand fell on his shoulder, turning him around. He saw Dr. Nichols’ concerned face. “Are you all right?”
    Mike nodded. He even managed a wan little smile, and held up his hands. Three of the knuckles were split and bleeding. “Far as I know, Doc, this is all that’s wrong with me.”
    Nichols took the hands and examined them, kneading the joints. “Don’t think anything’s broken,” he muttered. The doctor cast a quick glance at the unconscious thug on the dirt floor of the farmhouse. “But as hard as you punch, young fellow, I’d really suggest you use gloves from now on. That bastard looks like somebody took an ax handle to him.”
    For a moment, Mike felt a little light-headed. He could sense other miners ranging through the farmhouse, looking for more enemies. But there weren’t any. The blood rushing through his ears blurred the words they were speaking, but Mike could sense from the tone that all danger was past.
    He took a deep, almost shuddering breath. Then, with a quick shake of the head, he cleared away the sensation of dizziness. Nichols released his hands.
    “Thanks, Doc,” he said softly.
    Nichols’ face broke into a sudden smile. “Please—call me James! I believe we’ve been properly introduced.”
    The doctor turned away. “And now I’ve got some badly injured people to deal with. I think I’ve tattered the Hippocratic Oath enough for one day.” In a mutter: “Christ, Nichols. ’First, do no harm.’ ”
    Guiltily, Mike remembered Harry Lefferts. And the farmer and the woman he assumed was his wife. He started after Nichols, ready to lend assistance. Then stopped and turned, looking for Frank.
    Jackson was standing by a large fireplace, slowly examining the interior of the room. Most of the farmhouse seemed to consist of a single chamber, although Mike could see a slender staircase—more like a ladder—leading to the upper story. Very little light filtered into the farmhouse, since the few windows were tiny. But Mike could see that the place was a complete shambles. The thugs had obviously been looting, along with their other crimes. Now that he’d seen how thoroughly the farmhouse had been ransacked, Mike realized that the farmer had been tortured in order to reveal whatever hidden treasures he might possess.
    
Not much, from the looks of this place
. For all its size and painstaking construction, the house was poorer-looking than any farm Mike had ever seen. There wasn’t even any interior lighting. Nor plumbing, from what he could tell. No glass in the windows. Even the floor was simply packed earth.
    Frank’s eyes met him. “I’ll see to this, Mike. Tony’s already checking upstairs. You go help the doctor.”
    Outside, Mike found Nichols working on the farmer. The doctor, having apparently gone through all the bandages in the first-aid kit, had removed his suit jacket and was tearing his shirt into strips. He was now bare from the waist up. For all that Nichols was in late middle age, there was almost no fat on his wiry musculature. The hard black flesh, covered with a thin film of sweat, gleamed in the sunlight.
    Mike looked around. Darryl was tending to Harry Lefferts. Lefferts also had his shirt off, and was goggling at the wound in his side. It was quite spectacular—his entire thigh and hip were soaked with blood, along with his ribs—but Mike didn’t think it was really serious. The wound was already bound with a bandage roll. The bandage was bloodstained, but Mike thought the bleeding had stopped.
    “It’s just a flesh wound,” he heard Nichols say. Mike turned. The doctor had cocked his head toward him. “I treated Harry first thing. He’ll have a truly amazing scar to boast to his grandkids about, but the bullet just traveled along one rib before passing out. No internal bleeding, so far as I can tell.”
    Nichols’ head jerked toward the woman. She had rolled over onto her side, her hands covering her face. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, in fetal position. She was sobbing quietly and steadily. Her shabby dress had been pulled back down over her legs and two jackets were covering her further. The miners who had contributed those jackets—Don Richards and Larry Masaniello—were squatting nearby. Their expressions were confused and distressed. Beyond what they’d done, they obviously had no idea what other help they could give her.
    “She’ll be all right,” murmured Nichols. His face tightened. “As much as any gang-rape victim, anyway.” He looked back down at the farmer. “But this guy might not make it. There are no major arteries severed, but he’s lost an enormous amount of blood.”
    Mike squatted by the doctor. “How can I help, James?” He saw that Nichols had bound up all of the farmer’s wounds. But blood was already soaking through the cloth. The doctor was tearing more strips from his ruined shirt, ready to add new bandages.
    “Give me your tuxedo jacket, for starters. See if there are any blankets inside. Anything to keep him warm. He’s in shock.”
    Mike took off his jacket and handed it to the doctor, who spread it over the farmer. Then Nichols blew out his cheeks. “Get me an ambulance, so we can take this poor guy to a hospital. Short of that, I’ve done all I can here without medical supplies and facilities.”
    The doctor raised his head and slowly studied the surrounding area. “But somehow I’ve got a bad feeling that ambulances and hospitals are going to be hard to come by.”
    His eyes met Mike’s. “Where the hell are we, anyway?” He managed a smile. “Please don’t tell me this is what West Virginia’s really like. My daughter’s been pushing me to move my practice here.” Again, his eyes ranged about. “Not even that movie
Deliverance
was this crazy. And that was somewhere in the backwoods, if I remember right. We’re only an hour and a half from Pittsburgh.”
    Mike copied the doctor’s examination of the surrounding area. Softly: “I don’t think we’re in West Virginia anymore, Toto.” Nichols chuckled. “Nothing’s right, James—not the landscape, not the trees, not the people, not—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the farmhouse which loomed behind them. “There’s nothing like this in West Virginia, I’ll tell you that. For all the poverty of this place, the farmhouse itself is no rickety shack. Anything that big and well-built and old would have been declared a historical monument fifty years ago.”
    He leaned over and seized one of the thugs’ guns, still leaning against the farmhouse. After a quick scrutiny, he held it out for Nichols.
    “You ever seen anything like this?” The doctor shook his head. “Neither have I,” mused Mike. “Ken Hobbs says it’s a matchlock. He’d know, too. He’s made a hobby of antique weapons his whole life. They haven’t made guns like this in—oh, must be two hundred years. At least. Even by the time of the American Revolution, everybody was using flintlocks.”
    He eyed the weapon’s bore respectfully. “Look at this thing, will you? Must be at least .75 caliber.”
    He started to add something else, but was interrupted by Frank, coming out of the door.
    “All clear,” he said. Jackson seemed as unflappable as ever. Some of that was simply his personality, but some of it was due to the fact that the union’s secretary-treasurer was the only one of them besides Nichols who had real combat experience.
    Mike examined the other men he could see. All of them except Jackson and Nichols, now that the fight was over, were starting to react. Lefferts was lying on his back, clutching the bandage to his side and staring at the sky. The young miner, who had been so murderously ruthless in the heat of the action, seemed like a stunned steer. His eyes were wide, empty of all thought. Kneeling next to him, Darryl’s head was slumped between his shoulders. He was gripping his knees so tightly that his knuckles were white. Off to the side, near the rape victim, Don Richards and Larry Masaniello were no longer squatting alertly with their guns in their hands. Both men were now sitting flat, their legs sprawled out in front, supporting themselves with their hands. Their weapons were lying on the ground. Both men were breathing heavily. Richards was cursing softly. Masaniello, a devout Catholic, was muttering the Lord’s Prayer.
    Mike blew out his breath almost like a whistle. “I think most of us are in a bit of shock, James. Except you and Frank.”
    The doctor barked a little laugh. “Don’t kid yourself. Sometime tonight I’ll wake up in a panic. So will Frank, I imagine.”
    Jackson, leaning against the door post, shook his head. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow night, either. But the day after that’ll be real bad. I’ll get the shakes, sure as shooting.” He surveyed the scene grimly. “Christ, this was a worse firefight than anything I saw in Nam.”
    He shrugged himself off the doorpost. “But at least we did almost all the firing.” He stared down at Mike, who was still squatting next to the doctor. “And how are you?” he demanded. Before any reply could come: “And don’t give me any shit, Mike. You’re not that tough.”
    Mike chuckled humorlessly. “I wasn’t about to claim it. Truth? I feel like a truck hit me. Still trying to figure out how come I’m still alive.” He had a flashing image of himself marching forward into the farmyard like a killing machine, cold as ice.
Bang. Bang. Just like that. One dead, one—
    He looked over at the body of the first man he had shot. In the shoulder. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that the man was dead, dead, dead. The magnum round must have blown right through into the heart.
    
Well, that’s why you bought that monster in the first place. Stopping power, they call it. Jesus!
    He pursed his lips, trying to decide exactly how he felt. Frank cut through the fog.
    “Don’t,” his friend said. “You won’t make any sense of it today, Mike. Trust me. Let it go for a time.”
    “Truth,” echoed Nichols. The doctor rose to his feet. The motion reminded Mike that he was supposed to look for blankets.
    “Sorry,” he muttered. Mike got up and started toward the farmhouse door. “Frank, did you notice any blankets while you were—”
    Suddenly, a shout came from above. Tony Adducci’s voice. Mike looked up. Tony was leaning out of a small upper-story window, pointing his finger.
    “We got more trouble!” he exclaimed. Mike followed the pointing finger. There was a small dirt road leading away from the farmyard, bending around a grove. From the ground, Mike couldn’t see anything past the trees.
    Apparently, Adducci could see over them. “There’s a—ah, hell, Mike, I swear it’s true—there’s a
stagecoach
coming this way, escorted by four horsemen. They aren’t more than a quarter of a mile away. Be here any second.”
    His voice rose with excitement. “With about another twenty men pounding after them on foot! Some of those are carrying goddamit huge spears! I kid you not—