Again, the Captain retreated into a world of his own. But this time he took another with him. Pain, although it was necessarily a component of this world, was forced back to the periphery, to act as a barrier against outside influence. Thus, as he stood up and moved out of the pew, using his hands to swing his injured leg, he was immune to the sights and sounds of the brutal orgy.
“Captain!” Rhett shouted, drawing the attention of his charges to Hedges’ clumsy progress.
Hedges did not hear the trooper’s startled voice as he reached his objective and stood, swaying, staring hate down at the unconscious Terry. Scott and Douglas expended their lust and rolled clear of their victims. The women attempted to cover themselves, drawing up their knees and clutching arms across their bruised breasts. The two troopers scrambled to their feet, buckling their belts and snatching up their rifles. Forrest, Seward and Bell thrust to the conclusion of their acts and immediately became aware of the hatred emanating from Hedges to fill the church. Faith Terry, who had suffered the onslaught of Seward’s cruel desires was unmindful of her nakedness as she rose into a kneeling posture and clasped her hands together beneath her chin.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she implored.
The voice of a woman was able to penetrate Hedges’ private world of hate and, once punctured, the shell peeled completely away. The Captain looked up from the unconscious man and his hooded eyes raked the faces of all who were watching him.
Forrest finished buckling on his gunbelt and snatched up his Spencer. “You want us to take care of him, Captain?” he asked. “You don’t look so good.”
Hedges’ voice was a croak. “You look shagged out yourself.” He turned his cruel-eyed stare towards the kneeling woman. “He burned my girl.”
Faith Terry’s green eyes implored mercy. “Please,” she whispered. “Revenge won’t bring her back.”
“I ain’t that ambitious, lady,” Hedges replied, glancing around the church. His hooded eyes rested upon the altar with the dead minister resting against it and the bell rope hanging down in front.
“String him up and wake him up,” he ordered. “About ten feet. Horizontal.”
Forrest began to grin, then looked confused.
“Flat out,” Hedges amplified. “Face down.”
All the women save Faith Terry clustered into a group, those still fully dressed moving to the fore to hide their companions’ nakedness. The wife of the unconscious raider sank lower on to her knees and rested her forehead on the stone floor. She began to sob softly. While Rhett con^ tinned to stand guard over the women, the other troopers lifted Terry and carried him to the altar. They stacked pews one atop another to gain height and held the unconscious man aloft as Forrest wound the bell rope around his limp body. The bell tolled once as the rope took the strain and Terry’s body swung freely, held by loops around his ankles, middle and shoulders.
Seward went into the vestry and emerged a few moments later carrying a pail slopping water. Hedges, his lean, hollow-eyed face set in a mask of evil intent, limped along the aisle. Behind him Faith Terry’s sobs became wails.
The Captain nodded to Seward. The youngster giggled and hurled the water up into the blood-run face of the raider. The man’s body jerked and he groaned.
“Built a fire,” Hedges ordered.
Scott began to tear hymn books and Bibles. Bell, Douglas and Seward used their rifle stocks to smash a pew into kindling wood. Forrest nodded towards the dead minister.
“What about him, Captain?”
“He’ll burn,” Hedges answered.
“Yeah,” Seward agreed excitedly. “Real good.”
Terry groaned again and snapped open his eyes as screwed up paper and wood was piled around the dead minister. Pews were upended and stacked around the altar.
“You’ll all rot in hell!” Gilda Proctor screamed.
“We’ve already booked our tickets, ma’am,” Rhett told her as Hedges nodded to Forrest, who struck a match on the stone floor and tossed it into the centre of the pyre.
The torn books ignited immediately and within moments the dry, shattered wood became willing fuel for the fire. Terry screamed and twisted his head around to stare at the half circle of troopers.
“Cut me down, for Christ’s sake!” he shrieked, and coughed as grey wood smoke billowed around him.
“You remember me, Terry?” Hedges snarled at him.
“Yeah. Yeah. I remember.”
The wood began to crackle, then to roar. The flames licked hungrily at the leaning pews.
“An eye for an eye!” Hedges shouted as Terry began to struggle and his body revolved at the end of the rope.
“Oh dear God, end it!” a woman pleaded.
The flames found and consumed the robe of the dead minister and then licked across his waxy flesh. They seared deep and the cloying sweetness of charred meat filled the church. The billowing clouds changed from grey to black, completely engulfing the suspended man whose body was wracked by a coughing fit.
“Will you look at that!” Seward yelled.
“Yeah,” Rhett called in reply. “Holy smoke!”
“Let me…!” Terry managed to scream before the oily smoke caught his throat again.
Then his cries took on the timbre of pain rather than terror as the heat of the blaze reached him, scorching his face. Sparks exploded upwards and lodged in his clothes. A dozen tiny fires sprang into being, rapidly expanding. Terry’s screams merged into one continuous sound that resounded across the stifling church and was suddenly curtailed as his body was enveloped in a yellow glow. For long moments it was a flaring apparition dripping flames amid the billowing smoke. Then the rope around his middle snapped and he sagged. The binding at ankles and shoulders parted in the same instant and the charred body dropped, sprawling across the top of the altar.
Faith Terry dragged her head up, stared hysterically along the aisle and then fell sideways, saliva slobbering from her soundlessly working mouth.
“Put it out,” Hedges ordered suddenly, after long moments of staring at the blackened body, hardly recognizable as a human form.
Seward snatched up the pail, ran into the vestry and reappeared to slosh water on to the fire. Other troopers moved forward to stamp out the final few flames among the ashes.
“Score settled, Captain?” Forrest asked.
Pain came to the forefront of Hedges’ mind once again and he had to lean against the side of a pew to keep from falling. I reckon,” he said.
“What about the women? There’s some more, and some kids down in the vault.”
Hedges shook his head. “Now, enough is enough,” he rasped, clutching his injured leg.
“They’ll finger us,” Forrest insisted.
“We’re a long way from anyplace,” Hedges replied, tensing his body against the waves of pain which were threatening to swamp him. “Go make sure they have to walk if they to go there.
Forrest nodded and headed back down the aisle. The other troopers followed him, anxious to leave behind the sickly sweetness of the air inside the church. Hedges limped along in their wake. He had not covered half the distance to the sunlit doorway when a volley of pistol shots rang out, closely followed by another. Dead horseflesh thudded into the ground. The malice in the women’s eyes was like a physical force turned against him. On the floor, writhing in her madness, Faith Terry clawed at her naked flesh with hands formed into demented claws. Trails of fresh blood traced ugly patterns across her white skin.
“You didn’t have to do it!” Gilda Proctor screeched, flinging off a restraining hand.
Hoof beats sounded out on the street. Hedges limped to the doorway and turned to look back down the aisle, to where the charred body of Terry hung across the altar like a blackened sack.
“There’s a war on, lady,” he rasped. “We all got to make sacrifices.”
He stumbled out into the sunlight.
*****
WITH the coming of night, the mountain air grew colder and many of the pris
oners in the cabin huddled close together for warmth: perhaps for comfort, too. And even those whose dignity forbade such an overt sign of their moral or physical wretchedness moved closer to the main group, hugging themselves or blowing on their hands.
The lone exception was Edge, who maintained his position close to the door, alternately sleeping and waking: hearing, but not attempting to look for the cause of each sound coming in from the compound. Thus, when darkness fell, he was aware that the guard had been changed three times, the Chinese had eaten two meals without feeding their hostages and had lit a fire at the centre of the encirclement of cabins. But when he heard a clink of bottles and noted the chatter of the Chinese was rising to high excitement, interspersed with gusts of laughter, he got to his feet. He began to pace up and down in the confined space, flexing his muscles and breathing hard against his hands. The frightened eyes of his fellow-prisoners followed each movement. The woman with the eye-glasses started to make dry sobbing noises.
“Shush, Mrs. White,” Beth consoled, pulling the woman’s face against her ample bosom.
Edge, satisfied his circulation was as good as it was going to get in the icy conditions, ceased his pacing and went to the door to peer out between the bars. The guards sensed his presence and looked at him blankly. Edge ignored them.
The sky was clear and a half moon augmented by a myriad jewel-like stars turned the rugged mountain country into a wonderland of glistening peaks and mysterious shadows. But in the forefront of this natural grandeur man was an ugly intrusion. The Chinese sat in a circle around the blazing log fire, minus their coolie hats so that their greasy hair plaited at the back into pigtails glistened in the dancing flames. A half dozen bottles passed back and forth along each arc forming the circle, the men sucking greedily at the necks. Mao and Shin sat side-by-side, with a bottle each. In the background, silhouetted against the dull grayness of a flooded rice paddy, the three women looked on, the statue-like stiffness of their posture suggesting controlled anger.
After awhile, as the chatter became more high-pitched and the laughter more frequent, one of the drinkers took a harmonica from under his robe and began to blow against it. He produced a tuneless wail, but a half dozen drunken Chinese were moved to jump to their feet. They began to stagger around the compound in a parody of a dance, drawing cheers from their companions.
“What’s happening, Mr. Edge?” Alvin asked.
“Local hop,” Edge replied flatly. “They ain’t good, but they got a lot of spirit.”
He concentrated his scrutiny upon Mao and Shin as the leader and his lieutenant put their heads together and exchanged words. Then Mao clapped his hands, the crack silencing the harmonica player and curtailing the drunken dance. Shin rose and approached the prison cabin, the familiar grin back on his round face.
“Now what?” Beth asked in the sudden silence.
“Mao’s had another thought,” Edge replied. “I figure it’s a dirty one.”
Shin halted in front of the door. His smiling eyes locked with Edge’s cold stare. From his position of strength, the young Chinese refused to be provoked. He bowed in a mocking manner.
“Mr. Mao never jig-jig with Occidental lady,” Shin said, his voice only slightly slurred. “Some other men here not have pleasure. They intrigued.”
Edge curled back his lips in a grin. “Railroad tracks run the same way all round the world,” he said.
“We no that stupid,” Shin said. “Still wish jig-jig. You send out women. They good, we turn all you loose.”
Mrs. White started to wail again. Two other women -a plain teenager with a blotched complexion and a thin maiden lady - pressed themselves against the rear wall of the cabin. Beth laid a calming hand over Alvin’s lips as he opened his mouth to protest.
Shin nodded to the guards, who stepped back, leveling their shotguns at the door. Then Shin stepped forward and shot back the two securing bolts. “They no come out by time count ten, you all dead. Bang bang. No place to run in cabin. We get other Occidental ladies some other place!”
As the door swung open, Edge stepped back out of the entrance. He looked at the pale faces of the women.
“One,” Shin said.
“You’re sitting on our survival,” Edge urged.
“Two.”
“Beth!” Alvin cried, reaching for the woman.
“Three.”
“We’re no good to each other dead,” she pointed out, jerking free of his grip and standing, pulling Mrs. White to her feet.
“Tour.”
Beth looked over each shoulder at the two other women and jerked her head.
“Five.”
They stood and stepped through the helplessly shocked men. Beth led them towards the doorway.
“Six.”
“Beth!” Alvin pleaded again, reaching out a hand. A man knocked it down.
“Seven.”
Beth emerged from the cabin. Mrs. White halted and turned pleading eyes towards Edge. “They’re heathens,” she said. “How do we know they’ll keep their word?”
“Eight.”
“Two more and we’ll never get the chance to find out.”
Mrs. White swallowed hard and stepped from the cabin. The teenager and the spinster stumbled after her. Shin barked an order and the door was slammed shut, the bolts shot home.
Mao’s voice chattered and the harmonica player blew into his instrument again. The prisoners jostled Edge, trying to peer around him for a view through the bars. Shin bowed to the women, gesturing with a hand that they should go towards the fire. As they did so, Beth with her head held high, her body swaying, the other three shambling behind her, Edge glanced across to where he had last seen the Chinese women. They were no longer in sight.
Mao spoke again and Shin pumped his head and broadened his grin.
“Mr. Mao think men dance badly. Think you be much better.”
Mrs. White wailed her misery and Shin shook his head violently.
“No say sing. Say dance Like this.”
He clasped his hands high over his head and executed an inelegant hip-swiveling motion. The men clapped their hands gleefully and exploded with high-pitched laughter. All except Mao, who took out his knife and began to rake dirt from under his nails. Shin completed his demonstration and his face became sad as he looked at the women.
“Chinese patience soon run out,” he warned. “You do like I say or men go to meet honorable ancestors.”
Beth’s angular features looked even more sensuous in the flickering firelight. “You said you’d let us go if nobody followed from the train.”
Shin nodded in agreement. “That is correct. But first must please men. Dance, then jig-jig.”
“I don’t know how to do a jig!” the blotchy-faced teenager whined.
“That part’s got nothing to do with dancing,” Beth told her, and began to sway her hips.
Her movements completely ignored the tuneless rasp from the harmonica and her body swayed as if to some rhythm from within herself. She thrust her hands high into the air, emphasizing the swells of her breasts and as her feet began to move the men started to clap out a timing. The other three women watched her in amazement for several seconds, then tried to imitate her. But they were not dancehall girls and whatever natural feminine gracefulness they may have possessed was held in check by the harsh grip of fear. They moved like stiff-limbed sleep-walkers, bumping into each other, sometimes tripping over their own feet.
But the men, alternately applauding and sucking rice wine from the bottles, were unconcerned with technique. The surrender of the women into the enforced entertainment had a stimulating effect upon the Chinese as they savored the ultimate delight.
When Mao held up a hand the men became abruptly quiet. Even the harmonica player ceased his monotonous noise.
“You keep dancing,” Shin barked at the women as they faltered. He had remained standing, but now he moved back to his place beside Mao and sank to the ground, crossing his legs. He nodded his approval as th
e women’s bodies continued to gyrate in the silence, disturbed only by the crackling of the fire and the swish of their petticoats. “Now you have choice,” he continued. “You take off clothes or men remove them for you. Men sometimes not gentle in disrobing ladies.”
“We’ve got to stop it!” Alvin said hoarsely, his face twisted into ugliness by frustrated fury.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Edge replied softly.
“Talk to them!” Alvin pleaded, elbowing his way through the press of bodies to reach Edge at the door. “Promise them anything.”
Edge shook his head, his hooded eyes moving from Beth to the other women as their fingers reached for the fastenings on their gowns. “Right now they got everything they want, kid.”
The hush in the night seemed to expand and take on substance as the fingers of the women fumbled with buttons and hooks. The youngest girl and Mrs. White were crying silently, firelight glistening its reflection from the tears streaming down their cheeks. The thin woman had her eyes tight shut and her lips set in a rigid line which showed up almost black against the paleness of her skin. Beth, perhaps despite herself, could not prevent the experience of a lifetime adding an easy grace to her actions.
Edge heard the deep breathing of the guards flanking the doorway, then the scrape of their boots against the hard ground as they moved closer to the women. They took several more steps as the top of Beth’s dress fell away from her body, exposing her full breasts, creamy white in the firelight. Grunts and gasps escaped from the throats of the Chinese as they leered at the naked flesh. The teenager’s dress fell next, floating to the ground with no waistline to support it. Fear and cold set her body trembling as it swayed and her fingers were blue as they fumbled with the flimsy underwear. Then her youthful slimness was naked and she dropped her arms, vainly trying to cover herself.
“Arms up!” Shin barked, his eyes no longer smiling as they drank in the curves and hollows of the tremulous flesh. He held out a hand and rotated it. “And turn.”
EDGE: Seven Out Of Hell (Edge series Book 8) Page 8
