The assault started to waver. These were hardened thugs and street rioters, but they had never previously experienced the form of aural assault created by a dozen or so American ladies with nasal twangs launching themselves into "We're Marching Upward to Zion" without a piano to keep them on key—not necessarily because they were objectively brave, but because Inez was pinned down by part of the shattered piano and the rest of them were simply too stubborn to abandon her. They kept going a capella.
Deneau came forward and rallied the attackers.
"What on earth is going on?" Minnie, having once more experienced the tedium of the morning service at First Methodist in company of Benny, Louise, and Doreen, had successfully made her escape to eat lunch at Cora's with Denise. They planned to go up to Buster's self-storage lot afterwards to spend the afternoon riding.
They headed for the bridge.
Minnie spotted the man tossing the rifle into the creek. She took her stance next to that balustrade, marking exactly where the gun went, determined to keep marking it. Denise dashed back into Cora's and called her daddy. After the fight between Jarvis and Jermaine, he had talked to her several times about the importance of calling him when it looked like things might be starting to go down.
Especially violent things.
"People are attacking the synagogue with axes and sledgehammers, Daddy. Somebody shot Mayor Dreeson and Reverend Wiley."
"Stay right where you are, Princess Baby," he said. "I'm coming."
Nothing much changed in front of the synagogue until Buster Beasley, on the largest Harley hog in Grantville, rolled down the highway, crossed over, and rode right into the middle of the riot. He did a wheelie, scattering the rioters as he went through them.
Then, calmly parking the bike with its kickstand, he drew a .45 automatic from his waist and started firing. He was a good shot and the range was pretty much point blank. Each shot took a man down, and all but one of them killed the man outright. The one exception would die from his wounds about six hours later.
Fortunat Deneau was the second target who came into Buster's sights. Pure happenstance; Buster had no idea who he was and didn't care anyway.
Deneau went down, killed almost instantly by a bullet that shredded one of his lungs and removed a piece of his heart.
Buster's stubborn traditionalism served him badly in the end, though. An old-style .45 like that only had seven shots. He'd started shooting so quickly that most of the rioters were still gathered around and still armed when he ran out of ammunition. He didn't have a spare clip, just a pocketful of hastily grabbed shells—and he wouldn't have time to reload.
He didn't even try. The pistol butt worked fine clubbing down two more rioters, before someone grabbed his wrist and the wrestling started. Within two seconds, Buster had his buck knife in his left hand and that man went down too. So did the next and the next and the next, clubbed or stabbed or both. Buster Beasley was a very strong man and utterly ferocious in a fight.
But there were just too many opponents, and they were no strangers to street violence themselves. One of them finally got a clear shot at Buster with an ax. The ax took an ear off and a good part of his face. It was all over within a minute, after that, although Buster did take a last man with him. When he was on the ground he still had one of the rioters in a headlock and kept working on his throat with the buck knife even as he finally bled to death.
By that time, though, the attack was pretty well broken up.
"Where," Veleda Riddle yelled from behind the piano, "are the goddamned police?"
That question was not immediately answerable.
But Denise had not been the only person on the phones. An informal custom had developed in the town, in those businesses that operated seven days a week, that Jewish employees who were willing volunteered to work on Sundays, thus allowing church-goers to have the day off. Consequently, they were somewhat dispersed. The holiday had complicated matters, of course. Some holy days were bound to fall on the Christian Sabbath, but it was not a good thing to volunteer and then renege. As many as possible had been at the synagogue, but it had taken some time, nearly a half hour, to get all the members of the defense force together when the harangue began.
Once everyone arrived, though, the Grantville Hebraic Defense Force rather efficiently mopped up the remainder of the attackers clustered around Buster Beasley. Attacks on synagogues were not uncommon; the members of the one in Grantville were prepared. A few were briefly disoriented. None of them had before observed the phenomenon of people singing Christian hymns in order to protect a synagogue from assault.