“Hostages,” Warful said. “We’ll exchange them for Mr. Anderson.”
“Then let’s get our guns,” Stuart said.
“We don’t need guns,” Warful said. “Not for Jews.”
“Where the hell do we find them?” Stuart said.
Warful turned and looked at Battles. “That tavern we were enjoying before the unpleasant incident with Mr. O’Day, did you notice anything?”
“The women at the bar,” Battles said.
“There were elderly Semites there, at a table,” Warful said. “They were drinking coffee while they argued interminably about something. I have a feeling they might still be there.”
Before Battles had a chance to say anything, Warful turned away from him and said to his gunmen: “Mr. Stuart, you and five others come with me and Mr. Battles. The rest of you into the jolly boats and await our return.”
He smiled. “It is said that King Brukwe loves his Jews. Let’s see if he loves them well enough to release Luke Anderson.”
Battles said: “If Anderson did kill a woman, he should stand trial for his crime here in Eugene de Montijo.”
“There speaks the lawman,” Stuart said. “Battles, you may have turned outlaw, but you’re still wearing a star.”
“I don’t believe Mr. Anderson could get a fair trial in this town,” Warful said. “But if it assuages your conscience any, Mr. Battles, when I sit on the throne with my lady wife as queen at my side, I will judge Mr. Anderson fairly and justly.”
Warful turned his back on Battles, making it clear that he was no longer interested in anything he had to say.
Instead, to Stuart, he said: “Come, let’s go Jew-hunting.”
Chapter 36
Warful Pens a Letter
There was no question of Warful letting Matt Battles out of his sight, and he insisted that the marshal accompany him to the tavern.
The four old men, white-bearded and dressed in somber black, still sat at the table. The oldest had a Hebrew Bible open in front of him and was arguing vehemently about something when Warful, accompanied by Battles and six gunmen, stepped into the tavern.
Warful walked through the crowd and stopped at the table, looking down from his great height at the four men.
“Do any of you speak English?” he said.
It was the oldest graybeard who answered, his expression wary. “Yes, I speak English. What can I do for you?”
Warful lied smoothly. “There’s a Jewish man at the dock who seems to be sick and in great distress, but he can’t speak English. I wonder if you can come talk to him.”
The old man closed his Bible and rose to his feet. “Of course I will,” he said.
“This way,” Warful said, bowing slightly, his arm extended toward the door.
The three other oldsters also rose and followed, still arguing with one another, their hands expressing what their tongues could not.
Battles had stood by long enough.
He moved toward the door and tried to stop Warful. But Stuart and a couple of other gunmen intercepted him and jostled him back.
As Warful followed the old men out the door, Battles yelled: “Wait! Stop!”
He tried to break free of Stuart and the others, but something hard hit him on the back of his head and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Matt Battles woke to a splitting headache and a rage with the fuse lit.
He touched the back of his head, felt a lump, and reckoned he’d been hit with a bottle, probably swung by Lon Stuart, damn him.
Battles looked around him. He was surrounded by gloom but saw enough. He was on the ship, somewhere forward, in a small closet-sized room that contained nothing but a life belt and the rats that scuttled in the corners.
Later, looking back on it, he couldn’t tell how long he’d been there when the door opened, allowing a shaft of thin light to enter.
“On your feet, Matt,” Durango said. “The boss wants to talk with you.”
“What about?”
“I guess he’ll tell you his own self what about.”
Battles smiled. “Durango, I’m so looking forward to the day I kill you.”
The breed laughed. “You ain’t got the speed nor the sand, Matt. You know it and I know it.”
The closet wasn’t high enough for a tall man to stand, and Battles was forced to crouch as he stepped through the doorway onto the deck.
It was morning and sand blowing off the Sahara painted the sky yellow, streaked with bands of jade and rust red.
Battles saw that Judah Rawlings had conned the Lila closer to land and she was now anchored only a pistol-shot distance from the dock.
Warful was on the quarterdeck, talking with Rawlings, and when he saw Battles he beckoned to him.
“This way, Mr. Battles, if you please,” he said.
“Go to hell,” Battles said, loud enough.
Warful merely smiled. “Then I take it you don’t wish to go ashore and attempt to save your Jewish friends?” he said.
The man had dangled a baited hook and Battles took it.
“What I have here in my hand is a letter of marque, demanding that the authorities in Eugene de Montijo return what is mine, namely my hired man, Mr. Luke Anderson,” Warful said.
He smiled, the early sun casting shadows in the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, making his face more skull-like than ever.
“Since King Brukwe is the only authority in the city, you will hand the letter directly to him.”
“And if I don’t?” Battles said.
“Ah, and if you don’t? Then I will send someone else. As is explained in the letter, if my demand is not met by noon, I will hang the Jew Jacob Bensoussan in full sight of the town. If there is any further delay, I will hang the other three two hours apart.”
Warful stared out to sea, as though the matter was of complete indifference to him.
“Needless to say, Mr. Battles, if you do not deliver my letter, you will be complicit in the deaths of four Jews, including the respected rabbi, the said Jacob Bensoussan.”
He again turned his attention to Battles. “Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Perfectly,” Battles said. Then, his anger rising, he said: “Warful, Dee O’Day is already dead and by this time Luke Anderson probably wishes he was.”
He was aware that Rawlings and a couple of other seamen were listening attentively.
“You’ll lead everyone, your pack of outlaws and the crew of this ship, to their deaths chasing a madman’s dream. Saddle up and ride on out of here while you still can.”
Warful smiled. “All great men have a streak of madness and I am no exception. But I will be king of Eugene de Montijo, never fear.”
“Damn it,” Battles said, “you don’t have enough gunmen to take this city.”
“No, I don’t. I see that now. But the French have troops, and once they realize that I’m a very superior type of human being, they will take Eugene de Montijo for me and my lady wife.”
Battles opened his mouth to speak, but Warful cut him off.
“This grows tiresome,” he said. “Will you take the letter of marque or not? Must I send Durango in your stead? Mind you, he did not find Marcel Toucey, so he has already failed me once.” Warful’s grin was frightful. “Perhaps it’s no matter. I admit that my lady wife hopes your mission will fail. She says she’s eagerly looking forward to seeing Jews dance in the air.”
“I’ll take it, damn you,” Battles said.
But he felt hope drain out of him like water from a holed bucket.
Now clutching the sealed letter in his hand, he realized he was as doomed as the rest.
Chapter 37
The Iron Cage
If Warful thought it strange that Judah Rawlings insisted on accompanying Battles, he didn’t let it show and made no objection, saying only: “You can act as a courier, Captain, and let me know what’s happening ashore.”
As Battles left the ship, Lon Stuart stood by the rail and wished him luck.
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Now that the Texan’s anger over O’Day’s death and Anderson’s arrest had cooled, he seemed oddly subdued, as did several of the other gunmen.
King Brukwe’s soldiers had acted ruthlessly and efficiently after the murder of the dove, and seemed well enough trained that they wouldn’t, as Warful had claimed, cut and run at the first sound of shots fired in anger.
Battles smiled as he stepped down the ladder into the jolly boat.
Maybe the gunmen had begun to realize that the king’s treasure would be harder to take then they’d been led to believe.
The marshal’s smile slipped when he remembered that he’d have to get past the Iron Handmaidens, who were said to be even more ruthless than the soldiers.
No matter how he looked at it, delivering Warful’s letter wasn’t going to be easy.
“Delivering that letter ain’t going to be easy, Matt,” Judah Rawlings said as he rowed the boat toward the dock.
“Seems like,” Battles said, pretending a confidence he didn’t feel.
“How you going to get past them females?”
“I don’t know.”
The oars creaked in the locks and the ropy muscles of Rawlings’s arms bunched as he battled an outgoing tide.
“You reckon Warful will really hang them old men?” he said.
“He’ll hang them and enjoy doing it.”
“I can’t lay athwart that myself,” Rawlings said. “I didn’t know the Anderson cove personal-like, but from all I’ve heard he ain’t a man worth saving.”
“He isn’t,” Battles said, his eyes on the deck of the Lila where Warful had a telescope to his eye, watching the jolly boat’s progress.
“Then hanging four old men to save his hide don’t make sense, to me and to nobody else, an’ that goes for my crew.”
“It does to Warful. He’ll hang them because he hates Jews.”
“And for why that?”
“He says it was the Jews that had him thrown out of San Francisco.”
Rawlings was quiet for a while, turning his head now and then as they grew closer to the dock and he had to con the boat around anchored ships.
Finally he said: “You think that once this is over we’ll all be riding in carriages like Warful says?”
“No, I think we’ll all be dead,” Battles said.
Rawlings again lapsed into a few moments silence, then said: “Thankee for that, Matt. It will help me chart a course a few p’ints off the one I’d intended.”
Battles didn’t think anything of that remark at the time, but it would have consequences that would imperil them all.
A man with no eyes, no tongue, no nose or ears, trussed up in an iron cage under a blazing sun, covered with flies that feast on his dried blood, welcomes death as a groom welcomes his bride to bed on his wedding night.
And so it was with Luke Anderson.
He had strangled a woman with his bare hands, and justice had been swift, the punishment severe.
Now he groaned in his endless agonies, his entire consciousness turned inward, focused on self ... wheels within wheels of regret, pain, despair, and the death of hope.
Under the belligerent gaze of the Iron Handmaidens, Battles and Rawlings looked up at the cage, their expressions revealing a mix of horror and pity.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints in heaven preserve us and save us,” the seaman whispered. “They’re giving the poor man a terrible death.”
Battles nodded. “He wasn’t much, but no man deserves to die like that.” Then, because he felt that some kind of eulogy was needed, he said: “His name was Luke Anderson and he was good with a gun and he knew the way of cannons.” He hesitated, and then added: “May his suffering end soon.”
He glanced at the letter in his hand. There was no point in delivering it now.
And that meant...
Battles knew what it meant: The deaths of four argumentative old men who had probably not harmed a living soul in their lives.
Chapter 38
A Desperate Plan
“There’s nothing more we can do here,” Matt Battles said.
He turned and walked back toward the town, away from the palace and the dying thing in the cage.
“Matt, you know what I’m thinking about?” Rawlings said.
“The four old men, at a guess.”
“They’ll dangle from the yardarm. Warful will see to that.”
“Judah, I need a revolver,” Battles said, a wild plan forming in his head.
Rawlings said: “Bless your heart, there’s plenty of guns for sale in Eugene de Montijo, if you’ve the money to pay for them.”
“American money?”
The seaman smiled. “Any kind of money.”
“Then let’s find a gun store.”
The proprietor of the rod and gun shop was a Levant Arab with predatory eyes who smelled of garlic, gun oil, and treachery.
Battles overpaid for a French service revolver, a double-action, six-shot Chamelot-Delvigne in 11 caliber. He also bought a box of shells, again at an exorbitant price, and Rawlings had to bail him out by throwing five dollars in the pot.
“Damn robber,” Battles said when they were out on the street.
Rawlings shook his head. “It’s just business as usual in this town. He could tell you needed a gun real bad and he took advantage, lay to that.”
Battles smiled and shoved the revolver in his waistband. “Remind me to come back here and shoot him.”
Rawlings’s serious expression didn’t change. “What are you going to do with that gun?”
“Save the lives of four old men,” Battles said. “But I’ll need your help, Judah.”
“Chart me the course first. If I see no shoals an’ I’m still on board with you, I’ll let ’er rip.”
Battles, using as few words as possible, told him his plan.
And suddenly Rawlings turned white under his tan, like a man with seasickness.
“You’re a rough hand, Matt, and no mistake,” he said, his voice unsteady. “But it’s way too thin.”
“Can I depend on you?”
“When you start, there’s bound to be a commotion on deck,” Rawlings said. “And I’ll have two steady lads in the jolly boat, lay to that. But”—he shook his head—“damn me, it’s as thin as hen’s skin.”
“It’s all I’ve got,” Battles said.
“Warful’s fat lady will never go for it.”
“She’ll have to,” Battles said. “If she doesn’t, I’ll blow her head off.” He smiled. “Lay to that.”
The jolly boat was still a distance from the ship when Warful appeared at the rail.
He cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled, “Did you deliver the letter?”
“No,” Battles answered. Then, to simplify a shouted exchange: “Luke Anderson is dead.”
Warful seemed almost pleased.
“Then, by God, I’ll hang the Jews,” he yelled.
Battles pulled his shirt over the butt of his revolver, then scrambled up the ship’s ladder while Rawlings was still making the boat fast.
He had just set foot on deck when Durango emerged from belowdecks with the four graybeards, their lips moving in silent prayer.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is not that the high and dry of it?” Warful said to his assembled gunmen.
There were no murmurs of agreement, and men shuffled their feet or stared down at the deck. The gunmen were outlaws and killers, but each had drawn a line years before over which the tattered remains of his conscience would not allow him to step.
For most, that line was represented by the four harmless old men now silently waiting to be hung from the mizzen yard.
The sailors, though hardened by the rigors of a harsh service, stood back and made no effort to assist Warful. Like the gunmen, they too were drawing a line.
Warful, an unholy joy in his eyes, seemed to dance a little jig as he moved from one man to the next and placed a noose around his neck.
He turned to his men, his mouth wide open in soundless laughter, as though he’d just made a good joke.
“What harm have we ever done to you that you slaughter us like this?” the oldest man said, speaking for the first time since he’d been dragged on deck.
Warful rounded on him, his face savage.
“The fact that your shadow pollutes the earth is harm enough,” he said.
The old man said no more. There is no seeking mercy from madmen.
“I’ll need help to haul ’em up,” Warful said, turning to his men. “But first I must bring my lady wife, who is eager to join in the fun.”
Battles jumped at his chance. “I’ll get her,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. Battles, most thoughtful,” Warful said. “You will haul on a rope as a reward.”
The trouble with madmen is that they believe everyone is as crazy as themselves, Battles thought as he headed for the captain’s cabin and the eager Mrs. Warful.
The door of the cabin was not locked and Battles barged inside.
An unspeakable stench slammed him and he stopped in his tracks, as though he’d walked into a wall.
At Warful’s insistence, the cabin hadn’t been cleaned since the ship had left San Francisco, and the smell of stale vomit and scraps of rotting food added to the woman’s vile body odor.
Hattie Warfield enjoyed her dirt, wallowed in filth like a great sow, and her husband either ignored or encouraged her.
She stood at a scrap of mirror in her shift, smearing scarlet rouge on her fat cheeks.
“I’m not ready yet,” she said. “Tell Mr. Warful I’ll be along directly.”
For a moment Battles doubted he could go through with it.
The thought of touching Hattie’s gross body revolted him. He felt like running up on deck and gulping clean air into his lungs.
But the lives of four men were at stake and he had to do it.
Hattie was suddenly annoyed. “Do as I told you. Tell Mr. Warful I’ll be on deck soon and not to hang the Jews until I get there.”
Ralph Compton Slaughter Canyon (9781101559499) Page 13
