More shouts drew Slim to the door. He stood with his back to Ash and said, “What are they yelling about? Can you tell?”
“No.” Ash gripped the bottle by the neck and stood. He took a step and drew up short. In the center of the table were his Remingtons. Horton and the other man must have been using them as poker stakes, playing to see who would get them. Keeping one eye on Slim, he sidled over to them.
Slim cupped a hand to his mouth. “Ben! Ben! Is everything all right over there?”
There was no answer.
Ash grinned in fierce delight. Another couple of feet and he could fight for his life. He held the bottle out to set it on top of the table but misjudged and clunked it against the edge. The clunk wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough.
Slim glanced over his shoulder. “What the hell?” he exclaimed, and came around with his Smith & Wesson sweeping clear.
Ash dived and grabbed his revolver. He also grabbed at the pocket pistol, but his shoulder caught the table and it and him crashed to the floor with the table between him and the door. Cocking the revolver, he pumped to his knee. He thought he was quick but Slim was already there, towering over the table and bringing the Smith & Wesson to bear.
“You sneaky bastard.”
Twin blasts rocked the cabin.
Chapter 31
Slim missed. His shot buzzed past Ash’s ear and thudded into the floor.
Ash didn’t miss. His shot cored the tall outlaw between the eyes, snapping Slim’s head back. Slim tottered, then crashed down across the table, the Smith & Wesson falling from nerveless fingers.
Quickly Ash scrambled up. The pain in his chest had mostly gone away and the pressure had eased. Turning, he ran to the back door. He worked the latch and plunged outside. He considered taking a horse, but the outlaws had the end of the gulch blocked and would likely as not blast him off if he sought to break through them.
To go right was to go down the gulch to where the outlaws and the lawmen had their gun battle. It was quiet now so the battle was over.
Ash went up the gulch. He moved as swiftly as his racked body would let him, seeking a spot to make a stand. As surely as the sun rose and set, Sharkey would come after him and be out for blood.
Ash stayed in the shadows. He had gone some sixty feet when he was reminded of his infirmity by a stabbing pain in his chest that shot clear down to his feet. Gasping, he bent with his hands on his knees, praying the attack would pass.
It did and Ash moved on. He had the Remington, so he had a fighting chance. He should have grabbed the other one but he had forgotten it when he had run out. He’d like to have the Winchester for the extra range but there had been no sign of it in the cabin.
At the next bend the gulch narrowed and was littered with boulders. The stream meandered among them, now closer to the west wall and then closer to the east.
Ash was desperately thirsty. He stopped and cupped both hands and drank greedily. The cold mountain water revitalized him. On he ran, thankful for the stamina but worried about the next attack and anxious about his morphine should the outlaws get their hands on his saddlebags.
First things first, Ash thought. He must stay alive. He smiled at that, at the irony of a man who was dying struggling so hard to go on breathing.
Another bend and the gulch narrowed even more. It was here Ash decided to wage his fight. Two huge boulders left a gap of some twenty feet, a third of which was taken up by the stream. He crouched behind the boulder on the right and leaned against it.
“This is where I die,” he declared.
Ash was under no illusions about the outcome. There were six of them and one of him. This wasn’t a dime novel. He wasn’t the vaunted Wild Bill, who could supposedly hit coins thrown into the air and outshoot most any man alive. He was a good shot, but he didn’t always hit what he aimed at and his aim wasn’t what it once was thanks to his wasting away. He would give the best account of himself that he could. The important thing was that no matter what, he must get Sharkey.
The quiet was unnerving.
Ash listened for shouts and the pounding of boots but there were none.
A raven flew overhead, squawking. A rattlesnake slithered from under a flat rock and crossed the stream.
“Where are you?” Ash wondered aloud.
The sun climbed. He was growing tired. He sat with his back to the boulder and yearned to lie down and sleep. His eyelids became leaden. They would droop and he would snap them open. Again and again it happened until finally he drifted to sleep.
A laugh startled Ash awake. He rose into a crouch and shook his head to clear it.
It was a cold laugh. A vicious laugh. A laugh devoid of the qualities that made a laugh a laugh.
From around the bend came a shout.
“I know where you are, Thrall. I know you’re waiting for us to show ourselves.”
Ash didn’t reply.
“Cat got your tongue?” Ben Sharkey taunted. “I’m mad as hell about Slim. How did you do it? How did you get the better of him?”
Ash ran a sleeve across his forehead. He was sweating again, never a good sign.
“You must be curious about your friends,” Sharkey yelled. “So I’ll tell you. One of them is dead. A deputy by his badge. Buck put a bullet through his head before he could get off a shot. Slow as molasses, that one.”
Ash felt no regrets for Deputy Weaver. The man had been a constant irritation.
“The other one, though. Was that the marshal? He put up a good fight. He got Tyree in the arm and Kline in the leg and then held the rest of us off for as long as he could. We were closing in and thought we had him, but he got on a horse and got out of there. I think I winged him.”
Ash was glad Marshal Olander got away. Olander wouldn’t let it rest, not with Weaver dead. He’d come back with a large posse and hunt Sharkey to the ends of the mountains.
“Come on, Thrall. Talk to me. What can it hurt? Or is it that you can’t? That you’ve collapsed again?”
Ash knew better but he answered anyway. “I want you dead so much I can taste it.”
“Well, now,” Sharkey called out, and laughed.
“You are pure scum. You should have been stillborn and saved the world the misery.”
“A little upset, are you?” Sharkey rejoined.
Ash had an idea. An insane idea, but it appealed to him. “What do you say we end this? Just you and me, man to man?”
“Does that morphine do things to the brain?”
“I’m serious. I’ll hold my fire. You come around the bend with your six-shooter in its holster. I’ll come out into the open with mine the same. Whenever you want you can go for your hardware and I’ll go for mine.” Ash had no intention of doing that; the moment Sharkey appeared he would shoot him.
“I told you before, I haven’t lasted as long as I have by being stupid.”
“Why not? You want to kill me as much as I want to kill you. Let’s finish it.”
“Oh, I’ll finish it, all right, without giving you the chance to take me with you. I can wait out here until you starve or your own body does you in.”
“I thought so. You’re all talk.”
“It won’t work, Thrall. I’m not ten years old. Making me mad won’t make me careless.”
Ash put his forehead to the boulder and closed his eyes. He was feeling weak again. The pressure was worse too.
“You still with us, Thrall? When you go quiet I wonder.”
Nausea filled Ash and he groaned.
“Want to hear a secret, Thrall? It will amuse you. It sure amuses me. That night you shot me? I was supposed to get hitched the next day and I was out celebrating. I bet you didn’t know that. There was this gal I was fond of. She thought I was wild and reckless, but she’d agreed to be mine. Then you went and put lead in me and she decided she didn’t want a man who goes around getting himself shot.”
Ash roused. “Maybe she didn’t want a man who tried to stab a marshal in the back.”
&nb
sp; Sharkey was quiet for a bit. When he called out again, he was almost solemn.
“You changed my whole life. If I’d married her I might have changed my ways. I might have become a rancher or opened up a livery or been anything but what I am.”
“You never give up trying to make me feel guilty.”
A hot stream of cuss words blistered the gulch, ending with “Everything isn’t about you, damn it. When you die the world will go on just fine without you. I’ll go on just fine, and every life I take, every bank I rob, will be on your shoulders.”
“Go to hell.”
“No doubt I will. But first I am fixing to have some fun with you.” Sharkey paused. “You there yet, Horton? You’ve had plenty of time.”
From behind Ash came the reply.
“I’m here.”
Ash whirled, or tried to. The Remington was swatted from his hand, a pistol muzzle was shoved in his face and an iron hand roughly grabbed him and shook him as a cat shakes a mouse.
“Didn’t know there was another way into the gulch, did you?” Horton gloated.
Beyond him, revolver leveled, stood the man called Buck.
“You got him?” Sharkey hollered.
“We got him.”
Ash was flung to the dirt and kicked.
“That was for Slim. He was my pard.”
The rest came around the bend: Sharkey, wearing an ear-splitting grin. Tyree, with his left sleeve rolled up, his arm crudely bandaged. Kline, limping like Sharkey. Then the last outlaw, Nickels.
Sharkey put his hands on his hips. “The trouble you’ve given me, I should blow out your brains here and now, but I won’t. You have it coming and I will by God give it to you.”
Ash had no need to ask what “it” was. He resisted when Horton and Buck seized him by the arms, but they were much too strong and he was much too weak.
Sharkey swaggered along beside them. “You’ve delayed what I had planned for you, but that’s all.”
“I cost you a man.”
“And that will cost you in pain,” Sharkey promised.
“As for your lawman friend, it will take him a week or more to make it back with help and by then the buzzards will have pecked your eyes out.”
The others didn’t laugh. They weren’t in the mood with two of them hurt and Slim dead.
“Remember what I told you about staking you out and breaking your bones one by one with a rock? I’ve changed my mind. There’s a lamp in the cabin. From the smell it’s filled with whale oil, not kerosene, but whale oil will do.” Sharkey slid a box of Lucifers from his pocket. “I aim to pour that whale oil over you and set you on fire.”
“Oh hell, Ben!” Horton declared, and grinned. “The brainstorms you come up. I wish I had your head.”
Sharkey was watching Ash’s face. “Nothing to say? Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to burn you alive.”
Ash was too depressed to care. He had let himself be taken unawares. Now he would never have his vengeance. It served him right for being so careless.
“They say it hurts like hell,” Sharkey mentioned with sadistic delight. “I expect you’ll scream like the very devil.”
“That will be the day,” Ash blustered.
Buck said, “I saw a man burned once. His house caught on fire. When they brought him out his skin was burnt to a cinder and all his hair was gone. He lasted half an hour, caterwauling the whole time.”
“Did you hear?” Sharkey said. “That’s what you have to look forward to. Still have nothing to say?”
Ash refused to give him the satisfaction. He slumped so they had to virtually carry him.
In front of the cabin was a small area clear of rocks. They threw Ash onto his back and two of them held his arms and two others his legs while Sharkey pounded stakes into the ground and tied him to the stakes.
Horton and Kline drew knives and cut Ash’s jacket and shirt from his body, leaving both in shreds. Kline cut Ash a few times, on purpose, while doing it.
“Those are for the hole your friend put in me.”
Sharkey reappeared with an old lamp, a model that had gone out of fashion when kerosene replaced whale oil. He swished it and grinned. “I reckon there’s enough to do the job.”
The stuff was slimy and stank. Sharkey poured it onto Ash’s chest and then took out a well-used handkerchief to smear it over Ash’s torso and neck and face. Ash nearly gagged. He turned his face away, but Sharkey gripped his chin so hard it hurt and rubbed the whale oil on his cheeks and forehead and even his hair.
“Don’t you smell pretty?”
“Bastard.”
“Now, now.”
The rest were in a ring, watching. Tyree was retying his bandage.
Kline glowered.
Ash couldn’t say what made him do what he did next. Fury? Frustration? It didn’t matter. Sharkey was rubbing the whale oil over his mouth. Ash saw Sharkey’s hand, saw Sharkey’s little finger poke from under the handkerchief like a pink worm on a hook. He bit down and locked his jaw.
Sharkey cried out and tried to jerk back.
The salty taste of blood filled Ash’s mouth. His teeth met bone and he bit harder, seeking to break it.
“Get him off me, damn it!” Sharkey pulled and tugged, swearing mightily.
The other outlaws, stunned, were slow to rush to his aid. Horton sought to pry Ash’s mouth open while Buck held Ash’s head, but Ash’s clamped his teeth for all he was worth and wouldn’t let up even when they punched him.
Sharkey was nearly beside himself. “One of you idiots do something!”
That was when Kline stepped up with a Colt in his hand. He grinned down at Ash and said, “This is for the hole your friend put in me too.” And with that he brought the barrel slashing down.
Ash’s world faded to black.
Chapter 32
Stars filled the vault of ink sky and a stiff wind stirred wisps of dust in the gulch.
Ash looked about him, amazed he was still alive. He had just come around and no one else was there. That they had not left anyone to guard him seemed strange, but then he wasn’t going anywhere, tied as he was. He tried to move his arms; the stakes wouldn’t budge.
The cabin window was lit and the door was open. From inside spilled gruff mirth and the clink of a bottle or a glass.
From the position of the Big Dipper, Ash guessed it must be pushing midnight. He had been unconscious for hours. No wonder his throat was bone dry.
Higher on the mountain something roared. A bear, Ash reckoned. If it caught a whiff of him it might become curious.
Someone filled the doorway. Silhouetted against the light, the figure upended a bottle, then came out. Walking unsteadily, he chuckled. “I am three sheets to the wind.”
“And a bastard besides.”
“Don’t start. I am feeling too fine to burn you, but I will if you make me mad.” Sharkey sat next to Ash and took a long swig. “How are you holding up?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t want you dying on me before I burn you. That would spoil my fun.”
Ash hurt all over. He needed morphine, needed an injection as he had never needed anything. “Do me a favor.”
“This should be good.”
“I need morphine. A hypodermic is in my saddlebags. It’s easy to use. I can tell you how to do it.”
Sharkey drank, and snickered. “This is comical. You’re asking me to keep you alive long enough for me to burn you dead. I tell you, there are days when I think if there is a God, the Almighty is as crazy as we are.”
Ash didn’t hide his surprise. “I’ve had the same thought of late. Then you’ll do it?”
Shaking his head, Sharkey belched. “I’ll do no such thing. You can lie there and suffer. Tough hombre like you, I doubt you really need it.”
“Go away.”
“You’re in no position to make demands.” Sharkey went to take another swallow and chortled. “Get it? No position? I am downright hysterical when I am drunk.”
“You aim to let me lie out here all night, don’t you?”
“How did you guess? I plan to burn you at dawn. We can set you on fire and then cook our breakfast over your burning body. I’ve done a lot of things but never that. It will be a first.”
Emotions tore at Ash. Anger. Resentment. Sorrow. Self-pity. The last brought him near to tears and he looked away so Sharkey wouldn’t notice.
“Well, I just wanted to check on you.” Sharkey started to rise and had to catch himself to keep from pitching onto his face. “Damn. Everything is spinning. I reckon I should have waited until after I burn you to celebrate.” He made it to the cabin and went in, leaving the door open.
Ash lay quiet. He was worn out. His craving ate at him like acid to where he had to stop himself from pulling at the stakes like a madman. His chest hammered and the pressure climbed. He thought that maybe this was it, that at long last the end had come. He was wrong. The night dragged on anchors of torment. Every muscle ached. He sweated. He shivered with cold and then he was hot and shivered with cold again.
“Kill me,” Ash said to the heavens. “If you are what they say you are, kill me.”
When Ash finally did succumb, he slept the sleep of total exhaustion. Only twice did he stir. Once when a wolf howled. The second time he struggled up out of a pit that was shaking as if from an earthquake. Someone was whispering his name urgently, over and over. “Who’s there?” he demanded, and felt a hand pressed over his mouth.
“Not so loud! Do you want them to hear?”
Ash was too befuddled to make sense of what he was seeing. “How did you get back so fast?”
“I never went anywhere,” Marshal Olander said. He bent and steel flashed. The ropes binding Ash’s wrists fell away. Swiftly, the lawman did the same with the ropes securing his ankles.
It took all of Ash’s strength to sit up. “They said that you rode off, that you were wounded.”
“I rode off but I came right back. Can you walk?”
“No.”
Olander looped an arm around Ash and lifted him to his feet. “I was nicked in the side, but that’s all.”
They moved down the gulch. Olander kept glancing back. “I’ve been spying on them and waiting my chance.”
Fatal Justice Page 23
