Inside the cabin, Annie had already lit a lantern, the light spilling from blackened glass and revealing the contents of the room. He counted five dead, piled in the centre of the room. With the bare light of the lantern, he could see gunshots had struck bodies and heads, the head shots being the telling strikes. Henry had always tried to keep a distance to the dead as best he could. Now, here within the confines of this farmhouse, he could almost taste the stench of the rotting corpses.

All around, he could see signs of a struggle. Empty shell casings skittered across the floor as his shoes tapped them, the tinkling of the metal against rough wood sounding as loud as church bells. The table had overturned, half-eaten food tossed to the floorboards. A skillet, bent on one side, sat upon the floor beside the dead. Blood, that looked as black as tar, coated every surface and wall. Through a torn, tattered curtain, he could see the bedroom, off to the side, but he doubted he could stay the night in this place.

"My ears may well be playing tricks upon me, under such circumstances, but I swear I can hear singing." He tilted his head but it didn't make the sounds any more clear. "I hope I am not imagining things."

"You ain't." Annie placed a finger against her lips, then pointed downward. "Figure there's a preserves cellar 'neath our feet."

In the poor light of the lantern, Henry could see a pained look upon the woman's features as she began to look around the small home. To the other side of the stone, soot-blackened fireplace from the bedroom, Henry could see a pantry, of sorts, and it was to this area that Annie moved. She crouched, a soft intake of breath escaping her lips, and she ran fingers over the floorboards within.

A squeak accompanied the lifting of the cellar trapdoor and Annie turned, waving her hand toward the lantern. Henry dashed across, circling the dead in the centre of the room, and carried the lantern to his companion. She held it down into the hole before dropping a foot and then the other inside, her boots clicking on the steps as she descended.

Henry followed and now could hear the singing far more clearly. The cellar followed the footprint of the house above, perhaps a little wider, with great beams of wood supporting the floorboards above. The lantern, hitting those beams, cast deep shadows against the walls, but Henry could still see another four dead laid on the packed dirt floor of the cellar. The singing came from the other end, hidden in darkness, the lantern light not quite reaching that far.

"I come to town the other night, To hear a noise and see the fight, The watchman feet was a-running around, Crying 'Old Dan Tucker's come to Town.'" The voice sang the old tune as though they were half-asleep, slurring words and breathing hard. "Get out the way old Dan Tucker, You're too late to git your supper, Supper's gone and dinner cookin', Old Dan Tucker's just a-standin' there lookin'."

The light of the lantern progressed along the floor as Annie edged forward, her Colt Navy pistol drawn and cocked. Henry stayed behind her but allowed a gasp to escape his lips as the light began to illuminate the man that sang that song. With the stench of the dead, the tenseness of the situation and now this sight, Henry could not guarantee keeping his stomach contents inside.

The man had only one leg. At least, one full leg. The other had become detached below the knee, a puddle of blood languishing before and around the stump, the bottom portion of the leg a foot, or so, to the side. Around the thigh, Henry could see a line of string tied so tight, even from this position Henry could see the string cutting deep into the flesh, even through the trousers.

As Annie stepped forward a little more, the singing stopped and the sound of clicking echoed from the cellar walls. The clicking of the hammer of a gun. Annie raised the lantern high, revealing the entirety of the man and she lowered her own pistol, replacing it in the holster at her waist. Even she had a distinct look of pity upon her face. A look mirrored by Henry.

The man had not only removed his leg. A bloodied hatchet sat beside the man, still maintaining pieces of flesh upon the edge. To the other side, the man had chopped his own arm off at the elbow, the blood flow stopped by a wide belt pulled taut around his upper arm, but it appeared he had not attempted his amateur surgery in time. Sweat covered his grey, mottled flesh. Henry had seen this before. The fever would soon take the man's life and then he would rise again. Though, with only one leg and arm, Henry doubted the corpse would get far.

"Henry, take the man's pistol." Annie drew pistol again and held it down, pointing toward the man's forehead. "Don't worry none. I got him."

Hesitant, Henry moved to the man's side and, at arms length, began to pry the man's sweat-slicked fingers from the butt of the pistol. With hair stuck to his forehead, dirty stubble upon his face, the man turned to Henry and almost looked pleased to see him, a broad, toothless grin stretching his pallid skin, eyes trying to focus as his head wobbled.

"I apologise." The man smacked his lips before his head lolled forward, staring at his leg. "I am unable to greet you fair folks properly, but I had to pursue certain measures of extreme self-preservation. I fear I have not been successful."

"Reckon you ain't." Placing the lantern on the floor, Annie crouched before the man, tipping her hat backward as she looked at his injuries. "Reckon, too, that you're one of Shipton's boys. Left you for dead. As I heard told, ain't no honour among thieves nor murderers."

She tapped the leg that the man had cut from his own body with the barrel of her pistol. A good-sized chunk of the muscle had become torn from it, jagged, human teeth marks surrounding the wound. Henry stepped back. With the fever this far gone, the man could die and change at any moment. Annie put away her pistol again and reached for the man's chin, turning his head this way and that with no little force and still the man grinned.

"I was, ma'am. That I was and I feel I must apologise for any offence I may have made against you and yours, if'n I caused such offence." His head lolled against his chest as Annie released his chin. The grin remained as he tried to lift his chin. "May I beg a boon, ma'am. If'n you could find it in your heart to grant a dying man one wish. I would greatly appreciate you taking that there pistol and shooting me in the head afore I turn. I do not wish to become one of these pitiless creatures. No, ma'am, I do not."

"I'll take that under advisement." With her elbows resting upon her knees, Annie tilted her head in order to try and catch the man's rolling eyes. "If you tell me where Shipton and the other man are, I will surely consider granting you a mercy."

The man sighed. He lifted his head, resting it back against the wall as his remaining hand, almost limp, began to pat and paw at his blood covered coat. It took several attempts, but he couldn't quite muster the strength to reach inside. With a none-too-gentle swipe, Annie knocked the man's hand aside before opening his coat and searching the inside pockets. After a while, she pulled a piece of folded paper from within.

"I have never been a man of learning, and that I do regret." With a bouncing finger, barely able to raise his hand, the man pointed at the paper as Annie unfolded it. "I cannot read and neither do I retain well that which others speak to me, but I can read maps as well as any man. Shipton drew that for me, in order that should I ever get lost, I would find my way back. I do not believe I will make it back, ma'am. I do not."

Annie handed the paper to Henry after only a short glance. He couldn't make out the map clearly in the poor light, but he could tell the drawing was crude. As Henry folded the map, he saw the man begin to tilt and slide to the side. Annie caught him, setting him back upright, and only now did that grin fall from his face. He knew the end neared and, in place of the grin, his face had wrinkled as tears gathered in his eyes.

"How many others does Shipton have with him?" She gripped the man's coat, his shoulders shuddering as he cried, but Annie showed him no sympathy. "Do you remember a woman with bright red hair? A husband and a son? Do you remember them? You and Shipton and Hennessy? Do you remember killing that family?"

"I confess, ma'am, I do not. I killed so many folks. So many. I apologise for any offence, ma'am. I apologise!" His words slurred and not only sobs wracked his body, but coughs. As he coughed, black phlegm erupted from his mouth. Only Annie's swift reflexes made her able to avoid it. "Please, I beg of you! Put a pitiful soul out of it's misery!"

"No." Annie nodded to Henry and then to the lantern, ordering him to carry it.

She rose to her feet, grimacing as she did so, and reached for the man's collar, dragging him away from the wall. With greater strength than Henry expected of her, she dragged the dying man across the floor of the cellar, toward the stairs. All along the way, the man begged and pleaded for Annie to end his life and Henry pitied the man. Annie did not.