Pitchfork Annie

29

The other man tackled her to the ground, pressing his entire body weight upon her and Henry couldn't believe such men could claim victory against her. Not against Annie. Her arrival had torn attention away from the women in the barn, and, in consequence, from Henry, and he could not waste the God-given opportunity that afforded him.

Decrying the use of the pistol, Annie could have killed all three men in a flash had she used hers, therefore she had good reason not use far quieter tools and Henry followed her lead on that. Holstering the pistol, he drew the scythe from its holder and stepped over the cowering women around him, raising the scythe above his head.

Henry felt certain he had not made a sound, but some unnatural instinct had called to the bullwhip wielding man and he turned to see Henry almost atop him. The man's eyes widened as Henry brought the scythe down upon him, but the man caught the blade upon the curled whip, knocking it aside. His fist followed that movement, crashing into Henry's face, dislodging his spectacles and causing blood to erupt from his nose.

He staggered back yet still managed to maintain a hold upon the scythe in his hand. It took only the barest fraction of a moment for Henry to regain his balance, even if the flashes of stars before his vision continued, but it proved far too slow to reengage his opponent. The sound of the whip cracking broke the silence once again and Henry felt the most intense, burning sting arc across his chest. He had never felt pain its like in the entirety of his life. It continued to burn long after the whip itself had retreated.

Through his pain, Henry could see and hear the struggle that passed beyond the man with the bullwhip. The other man and Annie rolled across the dirt packed floor of the barn, dust rising as they turned and fought each other. Annie's fist cracked into the man's jaw and he reciprocated. Her thumbs pressed into the man's eyes and he screamed like no other man Henry had heard, yet still he launched a punch toward Annie.

The palm of her hand deflected that punch and the man fell against her and, with a move Henry had seen in carnival wrestling matches, she wrapped her arms about the man's neck, forcing his own arm against his throat, his face reddening immediately, his eyes bulging. The veins in Annie's neck throbbed as she used the entirety of her strength to choke the man atop her, but the man with the bullwhip had seen enough.

His hand flicked up and backward, sending the coiled, tight leather behind him, thinking Henry too injured to do anything. That Annie had proven the most dangerous of the two interlopers, but, in this instance and this instance alone, he was sorely mistaken. If Annie could fight through her pain, that she suffered now and that she had suffered in the past, then Henry could suffer his pain, also.

Almost blind, his spectacles askew, his nose bleeding, his chest afire, Henry saw that arm raised high and he knew what the man intended. Henry decided to curtail that intention with an intervention of his own. Without thought or strategy, Henry launched himself forward with a yell, swinging the scythe toward the man, if only to distract him long enough for Annie to recover her feet. He brought the scythe down upon the man with all his might, all the fury built since seeing this house of horror, since Simmons, since Granite Peak, since that lone farmhouse and the unnamed man. All of that fell upon the man.

"God damn." The man did not exclaim those words. They almost emerged from his lips in surprise as he looked down in confusion. "God damn."

Henry staggered backward, almost tripping over the man's dismembered arm, the bullwhip still clutched in closed fingers. The man dropped to his knees, a look of confusion upon his face as he stared at Henry. He shook his head in disbelief even as his lifeblood erupted from the stump where his arm once sat attached to the rest of his body. He wavered, upon his knees, tilted and then fell forward, his face crashing against the dirt, his eyes continuing to stare at Henry until the blood became nothing but a trickle.

"Come on, Henry, we gotta go." At the door, Annie had pushed the man she had choked to death from atop her and had gathered her weapons. She waved a hand as she looked out of the door. "Others're a'rousin'. We can't stay here."

"What about these poor folks?" He looked to the women and saw a sea of desperation and fear. He couldn't begin to think what he looked like to them now. "We must save them. We must!"

"Mister, you gotta go. If'n they catch you, they won't go easy on you." The girl. She and the others had tried to hide him. He couldn't abandon them now. "Please, Mister, you an' the Lady gotta go. If it pleases The Lord, we'll pass from this life soon enough, risen to His glory. But you don't have to. Please."

Henry hesitated. Annie, her impatience palpable as she shifted her feet by the door, did not feel these women worth her time. She had other considerations to attend to. The women appeared adamant that he should leave. He did not wish to, but they had already disturbed the place. They could not effect an escape for these women. Not fast enough. Not in this moment.

He had never hated himself more than in that moment. Even as leaded feet began to trudge back to the doors, he knew he would never forgive himself for this choice. Even were he to return and set these women free, and the others in the other barns, he would know he had made this choice first.

Annie had already started to run in a crouch toward the Drifter protected fencing, the pitchfork moving in the fashion of a piston. Henry adjusted his spectacles, unbroken but bent, and began to set off after the woman. Only for something to snake around his throat and the familiar sound of a whip crack following only a fraction of a moment later. His hands rose to the whip coiled about his throat and he did the only thing he could do. He waved Annie away. She needn't suffer for his sins.