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holding it against the sky.
    It
was a half torn human ear.
    Hash
flung it down.
    There
were odd scraps and muddy bits of meat littering the ground all around them.
Baines lit a match and held it near Sheardown’s greatcoat, dispelling the
neutral blue and flooding the stains with color. The color
red.
    The
men were too stunned to sort their thoughts. There was another boom of thunder,
and again the grisly precipitation.
    Gersh
took off his hat and shook blood and viscera from where it had pooled in the
gutter of his brim. His face was drawn and his eyes wide and terrified. He
gripped the Rider, and his thick voice was scared.
    “What
is it?”
    The
Rider wiped blood from the back of his hand and looked to the Colonel, who was
standing and surveying the horizon. Bill was mumbling excitedly, brushing at
his clothes. Baines told him to hush up.
    The
Colonel produced a pair of field glasses from his coat and held them up,
passing them over the horizon.
    There
was another sounding of thunder, and the Colonel’s head snapped to the right.
He leaned in, looking.
    Dr.
Sheardown unclasped his great coat and drew it up over his head as the rain of
blood and meat came once more, spattering them further with gore.
    Bill’s
muttering turned to whimpering, and he crawled under the wagon and put his
hands over his head.
    “Great
God,” said the Colonel. “That ain’t thunder.”
    The
Rider waited for the pelting to diminish, and then rose, dripping black blood,
and stood beside the Colonel.
    “What
is it?” Gersh demanded again.
    “They’ve
got artillery,” the Colonel murmured, and passed the field glasses to the
Rider. “On the hogback. Look.”
    The
Rider put the wet lenses to his eyes and peered through the blue at the jagged
ridge to the northeast. Sky lit in the blue gloaming, he saw the outline of a
group of riders. Two on horseback, and two dismounted.
The two on the ground were struggling with something, and as the Rider focused,
there was a muted flash, another boom, and a puff of smoke from the ridge. Then
he saw the muzzle of what looked like a twelve pound field gun. Something
slumped off the cannon, and then it was time to duck again as bloody material
rained down on them.
    Bill
was hysterical beneath his wagon, and he seemed to paw at the earth and shove
his face into the hole he dug.
    “What
the hell are they shooting us with?” Hash yelled over the wet slapping sounds,
turning his collar up and hunching his head down.
    He
looked through the glasses again, and saw the shadowy figures swabbing the
cannon. A solitary figure walked along the ridge, booting at something. Then he
saw three broken corpses go tumbling like straw dummies down the front of the
hogback. They fell in pieces, the boulders finishing the job of dismemberment
that the cannon had begun.
    “It’s
the men who didn’t stay. They’re strapping them over the mouth of the gun,” the
Rider said, fighting a quiver in his voice. He had not seen anything like this,
not even in the war. How many had left? He hadn’t counted the ones who walked
away.
    The
gun boomed yet again, but this time there was no accompanying hail of gore.
This time there came a shrill whistling overhead, and an earth shuddering
impact. There was a flash of light from behind the saloon, followed by the
terrible noise of animals screaming. The Rider’s heart sank. They had lobbed a
shell into the midst of the animal pen. Smoke was rising from its location.
Probably his onager was dead. He prayed it had been quick.
    Gersh
rose to his feet, but the Rider grabbed his sleeve.
    “Stay
down!” he hissed. “There’s nothing you can do.”
    “Why
would they do that? Kill the horses?” Baines stammered.
    “They
don’t want us going anywhere,” the Colonel said.
    The
wounded horses continued to scream for another twenty minutes. The noise was
unearthly.
    “They
sound like people,” Gersh said.
    The
field gun exploded again, making them all jump. The whistle in the air, like