The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell

there we left it. It would be sad to see him killed, but sadness was on the flourish in those times.
    There was no rain on the wind, only the smell of thawed mud and early blossoms, but the boys were lazied by the previous days, so we made a carnival of the camp and sought no demonstrations with our enemy. The ball of leather was trotted out, with nearly the whole of both parties joining in on the sport, stomping the mud into a glue that sucked down boots and held them there. The whiskey was running low and this raised tempers. Riley Crawford, not yet sixteen but the deadest shot among us, missed the ball with a kick of vigor and shinned Big Bob Flannery. Big Bob knotted him one on the head, and Riley cut him under the armpit by reflex. Captain Quantrill then snatched up the ball and hid it away, saying he would shoot any of us who murdered a comrade.
    After the noon meal, Captain Quantrill and Black John announced that there would be haircuts for all, because we were to be disguised as Yankees once more for a ride into the Union district around Lexington, and our rebel locks would be noticed. There was much grumbling about this, for our locks were of the southern style and our pride and banner. “I’d rather robe myself with dog skins,” Big Bob Flannery said. “For if we must look like Yankees to win, we will be defeated in victory.” The bulk of us saw the sense in the notion, however, and went along with it, shaving and cutting our hair as if spiffying up for a church dance, but Big Bob had to be held down while Arch Clements harvested his hair patch. Little Arch being that close to his scalp with a Bowie knife sobered Big Bob, for he, like all of us, had witnessed the fashion in which Arch barbered dead, and practically dead, Yankees.
    After that Coleman Younger, Little Arch, Pitt Mackeson, and me sat under the husky tree that the prisoners were roped to. Captain Quantrill had made a present to Coleman Younger of a new Enfield rifle that had been captured. We admired the weapon and made chat about its supposed power, the prisoners joining in with a remark here and there.
    Pitt Mackeson tried to flare me by mentioning in a bad mouth the incident with the Dutch boy.
    “If the boy had freed the rope the hanging would’ve been scotched and required doing over,” I said.
    “Judas worked quick, too,” said Pitt Mackeson.
    Coleman Younger stroked the Enfield and chambered a round. “You did right,” he said. “Dead from the front is no more dead than from the back. It is a question of opportunity.”
    “So is chicken stealing,” Mackeson said.
    My arms ached already from the thought of digging his new home, for I was thinking he would soon be in it.
    “Jake did right.”
    Arch Clements untied the prisoners and told them to stand, then retied them in a file of sorts. “Stay in your line, soldier boys,” he said in his squeaky voice. “For we shall march your meals down.”
    Coleman Younger placed his hand on top of my head as he stood. “It was nothing,” he said, “but right.” He ran his hand along the smooth stock of the Enfield, then raised it to his shoulder. He sighted into the belly of the prisoner at the head of the column.
    “Leave off with the jokes,” the prisoner said.
    The Enfield fired and the first three Yankees tumbled.
    Coleman Younger chambered another round. “I would’ve thought more,” he said. “So far this ain’t special.”
    The rest of the camp was dropping letters, gun rags, needles, tin cups, and favored corncobs to watch. I thought Captain Quantrill might be peeved by this employment of his prisoners, but he made no move to halt it.
    The next shot felled only two, and not cleanly. Their moans sounded like man and wife in a feather bed.
    Coleman Younger chambered another round.
    “Not exactly a Sharps, is it?” he said.
    Little Arch made a straight line of the Yankees again as they had drifted some. Alf Bowden was among the standing, and he called my name, which it