“You only think you do. I won’t tell you twice.” Abimelech wedged the shotgun to his shoulder. “I sort of like you and don’t want to make mush of your innards. Do as I say and you go on breathing.”
Inwardly, Ash cursed. He should have been more alert, should have spotted Abimelech before Abimelech spotted him. “I’ll do as you want. Just go easy on those triggers.” He slid the Winchester onto the grass and used two fingers to place the Colt next to it. Then, bracing himself against the fir, he slowly rose. He exaggerated how much pain he was in and when he was erect he clutched his chest and grimaced.
“Is your heart giving out on you? You act just like my pa right before he dropped dead in front of us.”
“It’s not anything I like to talk about,” Ash told him. “Listen, couldn’t I stay here and your brothers come to me?”
Abimelech shook his red mane. “They wouldn’t like that. They’d beat me for not bringing you and I’m awful tired of being beat. Go around that tree and up the mountain and we’ll be there directly.”
Ash moved slowly. He hoped Abimelech would make a mistake and he could jump him, but Abimelech stayed well out of reach and always kept the shotgun centered on his back. “Why does your family live so far from anywhere, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Towns don’t agree with us. Folks generally look down their noses at us and there’s all those can’t-do’s.”
“Can’t-do’s?” Ash repeated.
“You can’t get too drunk or they throw you in jail. You can’t fight. You can’t cuss when ladies are near. You can’t shoot out lights or even shoot into the air. In some towns you can’t even carry a gun. When I was little my family got run out of a few places and we got tired of it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ash commiserated.
“It wasn’t so bad on us menfolk but ma and my sisters always got upset. Ma cried a few times. Pa got mad at her and said it wasn’t our fault people put on airs. We are as good as anyone, he’d say, and she should be proud to be a Frazier.”
Ash feigned ignorance. “That’s your last name?”
“Damn.”
“What?”
“No more talking until we get there.”
“There” turned out to be a cabin nestled at the foot of a cliff. Whoever built it didn’t know much about building. The logs were uneven and had gaps between them. From some logs, the stubs of branches poked out. Mud had been caked in the wider gaps but now the mud was cracked and splitting. To one side was a corral fashioned from saplings. It held seven horses.
There was no door, just an old elk hide that hung down like the flap of Broken Nose’s teepee. The window had neither glass nor curtains.
“Stop right there,” Abimelech commanded. He raised his voice. “Jot! Zeb! Look at what I found!”
Older versions of Abimelech came out of the cabin. Older, bigger and coarser, their beards tangled mats, so dearly in need of baths they stank. They also carried shotguns.
It was the pair who came out next that startled Ash. Two women, both between twenty and twenty-five or thereabouts. Both with the same red hair and the same big noses. Their dresses were faded homespun, with more patches than a quilt.
The oldest and broadest of the brothers reared over Ash and glared. “Where did you find him, Ab?”
“Sitting by a tree down near where we shot that grouse last week. He was panting and sweating like he is now. He’s sickly, Jot.”
“Peculiar,” Jotham said.
Ash smiled and held out his hand. “I’d be grateful for something to drink. My throat is as dry as sand.”
“It’s his heart, Jot,” Abimelech said. “I saw it with my own eyes. Wouldn’t surprise me if he fell dead right where he’s standing.”
“You don’t say.” This from the middle brother, Zebul. “Makes you wonder what a man in his shape is doing up here.”
“I was hunting,” Ash said.
“What?”
“Mountain sheep.”
Zebul laughed. “The best peaks to find sheep are to the south. There’s none on ours, none at all.”
“I didn’t know. I’m new to these parts,” Ash justified his mistake.
Jotham was rubbing his red beard. “You don’t look like no hunter to me. You have the reek of law.”
Ash thought fast. “I own a dry goods store in Denver. Came there from Ohio about six months ago.”
“You’re lying, Mister. You don’t talk like you’re from back East. I can’t say where, exactly, but this is two lies we’ve caught you at.”
Zebul leveled his shotgun. “Step aside and let’s be done with him. I have things to do.”
To Ash’s surprise, one of the girls moved between them. “Not so fast, consarn you. Elisheba and me have got a say, don’t we?”
“Out of the way, Jochebed,” Zebul said angrily. “You know better than to step in front of a man when he’s about to shoot.”
Jochebed’s dark eyes roved over Ash from his hat to his boots. “I want this one alive a while yet.”
“What for?”
“He’s not bad on the eyes.”
“Oh hell.”
Jochebed turned to the oldest brother. “I leave it to you, Jot. You know how long it’s been. Can Elisheba and me have him to play with or not?”
Jotham wasn’t any more happy about her request than Zebul. “What do you need him for when you have us?”
“It can get boring, the same thing every day.” Jochebed rejoined. “We’d only want him for the night. You can do what you want come morning.”
The younger sister, Elisheba, clapped her hands and squealed. “Please, Jot! Please let us play with him.”
“Danged women.” Jotham glowered at Ash and at the sky and then at his sisters. “You two are a nuisance. You can have him but make damn sure he doesn’t get away.”
Jochebed grinned. “Sickly as he is, I doubt he’ll live out the night.”
Chapter 19
Months ago, when Ash told the parson life was too ridiculous for words, he had no idea. Here he was, trussed up like a calf for the slaughter, bound wrists and ankles to a chair in a small room at the back of the cabin. Crumpled blankets were on the floor. The room had a smell that reminded him of a bawdy house.
Ash had been there about an hour. The brothers had tied him and left and no one had come to see him since. He’d yearned to resist, to fight them, but there wasn’t a moment when he wasn’t staring into the twin muzzles of a double-barreled shotgun.
Ash sat slumped in despair. His chest still hurt and his head hurt and his wrists were chafed from his trying to get loose. He pulled and wrenched in the hope he could, but Jotham had done a good job.
The door opened.
Ash sat up. It was the younger of the two sisters, Elisheba. He noticed she was barefoot and her feet were filthy. “How do you do, ma’am?”
“My, ain’t you the polite one?” She came over and pranced around the chair with her hands clasped behind her back, then stood and giggled.
“Untie me, won’t you?” Ash asked.
“Now, why would I want to do a thing like that?” Elisheba giggled some more. “It would only make my brothers and sister mad at me.”
“Why have you done this? What do you intend doing with me?”
She was quite the giggler. “My sis and me are going to have fun. When we’re through we’ll give you to our brothers and they’ll have their fun.”
“What do mean by ‘fun’?”
“With me and my sis it’s one thing. With our brothers it’s another.”
“I’ve never done you or your family any harm.”
“So?” Elisheba crooked a finger and hooked it under his chin. “Sis is right. You’re not bad on the eyes. The last one we got to play with was a miner. He was older and uglier and too afeared to amount to much.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Plenty of times.” Skipping and humming to herself, she pranced around the chair again.
&nbs
p; “I can’t hardly believe this is happening.”
“Oh, it’s happening, sure enough. But it won’t be so bad. Jochebed and me are she-cats. When a man lies with us he doesn’t forget.”
“What if the man doesn’t want to lie with you?” Ash asked, and almost lost an eye when she raked her fingernails at him. He felt sharp stings and the trickle of blood. “You had no call to do that.”
“Don’t insult us, then.”
“All I was saying is that a man should get to choose.” Ash flicked the tip of his tongue at a drop of blood on his lip.
“I’m not stupid, Mister. You think my sister and me ain’t pretty enough or refined enough. You’d rather have one of those fancy gals who live in town, with their bonnets and ribbons and such.”
“I want no such thing.”
“Liar. You’re a man. Men take it anywhere they can get it. I learned that from my pa and my brothers.”
The door opened again and in came Jochebed. “What are you doing in here?”
“Talking to him is all,” Elisheba said.
“You heard Jotham. Neither of us is to be in here with him alone.” Jochebed inspected the ropes. “We’ll take turns. One can have her fun while the other watches that he doesn’t make a break.”
Elisheba giggled and winked at Ash. “When do we start? I’m ready now.”
“After supper.”
“Why do we have to wait so long?”
“Don’t ask me; ask Jotham. I’d as soon get started now, but you know how he gets.”
“He’s too damn bossy,” Elisheba said.
Jochebed glanced at the door. “Have a care, girl. He ever hears you say a thing like that and he’ll bloody your back with a switch.”
“The hell he will. He has no right. Only pa did.”
“Jotham is head of the family now that pa and ma are gone. Like it or not we have to do as he says.”
“It ain’t fair,” Elisheba complained.
Ash was being ignored and remedied that by saying, “You’re not thinking this through, ladies. People know where I am. They’ll come looking for me when I don’t come back.”
Jochebed chuckled. “It’ll just be too bad for them if they do. They’ll wind up at the bottom of the ravine like the rest.”
“What ravine?”
“Where we throw the bodies. The buzzards always pick the bones clean. It saves us the burying.” Jochebed showed no trace of remorse. “I have one of the skulls. I use it for a candle holder.”
Ash remembered seeing it on a shelf in the main room. “How can people like you live with yourselves?”
Jochebed bristled like a stuck porcupine. “What the hell do you mean, people like us? We’re no different from anybody else. Or is it that we never had no schooling and don’t talk proper?”
“This world is an asylum,” Ash said to himself, and was slapped so hard it was a wonder he didn’t lose teeth.
Jochebed reached behind her and flourished a knife with an antler handle. “Call us crazy again, you bastard, and I’ll slit you from ear to ear.”
Ash did bristling of his own. “Go ahead, bitch. Spoil your fun.”
Swearing luridly, Jochebed knocked his hat off. She gripped him by the hair and pressed the knife to his throat. “Call me that again and see if you don’t bleed.”
Ash didn’t care the blade was against his skin. “Threats don’t work on someone who is already dying.”
Lowering the knife, Jochebed stepped back. “That’s right. My little brother says you have the same thing my pa got. But you better be nice to us, Mister. You’re not dead yet. We can make your dying a lot worse if you prod us.”
Ash was so mad, he forgot himself. “How is it everyone is out to hang your brothers and not the two of you? You’re just as vile as they are.” He realized his blunder the instant the words were out of his mouth.
The sisters swapped glances and Elisheba said, “Did you hear him, sister? He knows who we are. He’s not a hunter like he claimed. We should let Jotham know.” She turned, but Jochebed grabbed her wrist.
“Do that and Jot will drag him out and kill him. Our night of fun will be spoiled.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Elisheba hungrily devoured Ash with her eyes. “I reckon it doesn’t much matter when we tell Jot. This one will die all the same.”
Jochebed wagged the knife in front of Ash’s face. “You’re not wearing a badge so you must be after the rewards. I hate bounty men. We were going to go easy on you on account of your heart, but now we’ll do you as we’ve done the others, and if it kills you, so be it.”
“There are worse ways to die than to be forced to make love.”
“Not the way my sister and me do it. You’ll understand once we bring in the whip and the collar.” Jochebed laughed and lightly ran the edge of the blade across Ash’s cheek. Then she poked her sister with her elbow and the pair waltzed out, whispering and giggling.
The moment the door closed, Ash sagged in the chair and bowed his chin to his chest. Fear clawed at him. Real fear. He told himself he was being stupid. He was dying anyway. What difference did it make if the lead pierced his heart or the Fraziers did him in? But call it pride, call it the will to live as long he could, it did make a difference.
Lifting his head, Ash craned his neck from side to side, trying to glimpse the ropes. As near as he could tell, it was old rope, and old rope wasn’t always as strong as new rope. Not that he could snap it. It would take effort. A hell of a lot of effort.
Ash set to work twisting his wrists back and forth. At first they barely moved. The longer he persisted, the more success he had. It hurt, though. God in heaven, it hurt. The pain got so bad, he forgot about the other pain, the pain in his chest. He rubbed and rubbed until he had lost a lot of skin and his wrists dripped blood.
It was funny, Ash thought. For years he’d been in the prime of health. Nary as much as a toothache. Since he was shot, pain had become as much a part of his life as breathing. Now he was in even more.
Desperation made a man do strange things.
Ash tugged and pulled. The ropes weren’t slick enough yet. He tried not to imagine how his wrists must look.
It was do or die.
Ash lost track of time. The sisters were due back and he must be free by then. Intent on rubbing, he was bewildered at hearing distant shots, five or six from down the mountain. He cocked his head and listened for more but there were none.
About a quarter of an hour went by. Ash was bleeding bad. He was feeling weak. The pressure in his chest was worse. The last thing he needed was another attack. Not now. It would be the end of him.
Then boots tramped and the door slammed open. In strode all five Fraziers, the three brothers in the lead. Jotham loomed over him, his big hands on his hips, and glowered.
“Who are they?”
“Who are who?”
The blow nearly took Ash’s head off. The room swam and he floated in and out of consciousness. The next he knew, his jaw was in an iron vise and Jotham’s hate-filled eyes were inches from his.
“Play smart with me and I’ll knock your damn teeth out. How many of you are there?”
Ash tried to speak and discovered his mouth was full of blood.
“It hit me that maybe you weren’t up here alone,” Jotham went on. “So I sent Zebul and Abimelech to scout around.”
Zebul nodded and took up the account. “We spotted two men sneaking up this way. One was an old Injun, the other a cowpoke. The old Injun saw us and warned the cowboy and then took off like a rabbit. We swapped lead with the cowboy but he slipped away on us.”
Jotham tightened his grip on Ash’s chin. “I went down quick as I could to help. We found where you and your friends camped and horse tracks leading down the mountain.”
Ash had harbored the notion that maybe, just maybe, Templeton and Broken Nose would rescue him. That hope had been dashed.
“How many of you are there?” Jotham growled. “And don’t give me that lie about
hunting mountain sheep. You came here after us. You’re part of a posse, aren’t you?”
“No.”
Jotham swore and dug his nails into Ash’s flesh. “Don’t lie to me, you son of a bitch. You’re the law. I know it.”
“I used to be. Not anymore,” Ash confessed.
From behind Jotham came a squeal. “I knew it!” Jochebed exclaimed. “He’s after the money.”
“A bounty man,” Zebul said in disgust.
“No,” Ash said. “I just wanted to kill you.”
Jotham’s bushy brows beetled and he let go and straightened. “What in hell for? What did we ever do to you?”
“Nothing.”
Jotham started to draw back his fist, but stopped. “I don’t savvy, Mister. Explain it so I can.”
“You’ll laugh.”
“I don’t laugh much. And I wouldn’t keep me waiting.”
Ash gave it to them plain. “I’m dying. I wanted to do something with the time I had left, something worthwhile, so when I heard about you and your brothers, about all the killing and robbing you’ve done, I thought, Why not? That Indian and the other man were my guide and my helper.”
“That’s why you came up here? For real and for true?”
Ash nodded and braced for a beating. To his amazement, Jotham took a step back and broke into peals of gruff glee.
“Just when I thought I’d heard it all!”
“You believe him?” Zebul asked.
“Look at him. He’s telling the truth. You can tell.” Jotham chuckled.
“What we’ve got here is a damned do-good. A gent who wants to rid the world of evil like us. Or maybe he’s doing it to get in good with God.”
“Not likely,” Ash said.
Jotham placed his big hand on Ash’s shoulder. “We’ve had tin badges after us. We’ve had men after the price on our heads. We even had Pinkertons once. But you are a first.”
“I’m flattered.”
“And do you know what? For this you deserve the best death we can give you.”
“Best how? As in quick and painless?”
“Slow,” Jotham said. “Slow and hurting. Hurting so much, you’ll scream your lungs out. Hurting so much, you’ll blubber and beg. I want you to die knowing you’re the most stupid bastard who ever lived.”
Fatal Justice Page 14
