by Ralph Cotton
If Rudy Banatell and his men were still in Paradise, and Ellis had no reason to think otherwise, they would be his ace in the hole. Should he find out his worst fears were true and that Jessup knew he was only impersonating Sloane Mosely, he would need all the help Rudy Banatell could throw his way. Out of habit Ellis hadn’t mentioned to Callie that Rudy had talked about still making a run on Paradise, possibly something more than just robbing the bank. Ellis had never known the outlaw leader to make a claim without following through on it. But until he saw Rudy, he couldn’t afford to leave anything to chance. He rode on.
Another hour passed before the first dim golden glow of dawn wreathed the jagged hills on the far side of the valley. At a place where the trail widened into a cultivated dirt road leading into town, Ellis stopped the big stallion long enough to check his Colt and slip it back into his slim-jim belly holster. Beneath him the big stallion shuffled its hooves restlessly and raised its nostrils to the night breeze, as if in anticipation of what lay ahead.
“Easy, big fellow,” Ellis murmured, patting the stallion’s neck. He smiled grimly to himself. This was not the first time Sloane Mosely’s stallion had ridden in under a cloak of darkness, feeling the night breeze sweep through its mane. He tapped the stallion forward with his heels and kept it pinned to a quiet walk.
The last mile outside of Paradise, he studied the outline of the low hill, where the three crosses stood in dark silhouette against the sky. He’d seen the crosses on his last trip into Paradise, but this time there was a difference. It was a difference he at first sensed, and his senses warned him to move forward with caution.
Drawing nearer to the crest of the hill, he stared in stunned disbelief at three bodies hanging pale and naked in the grainy darkness.
“Oh my God!” he said aloud to himself, already having an idea who he would find hanging on the large rough-hewn crosses. Stopping the stallion, he looked up at the bodies, seeing their dead, sun-cooked faces staring blindly back at him, barely recognizing Orsen and Ernie Harpe. On the third cross hung the body of Forrest Beckman, the former bank manager.
Instinctively Ellis had drawn his Colt on the way up the low hillside. He let it drift back and forth as he made a swift searching glance around the area. To his left the land lay shadowed in silent darkness. But he snapped to his right at the sound of a raspy voice pleading faintly, “Water…Please, water!”
The big stallion perked its ears toward the sound of the voice and nickered warily. Hearing the stallion, the voice asked weakly, “Who’s there?”
Ellis’s eyes and cocked Colt instantly fixed toward the sound of the voice, and spotted a fourth wooden cross, this one lying flat on the ground. Staring at the cross, Ellis saw a head rise the slightest bit, then collapse under its own weight. It took Ellis only a second to decide who was lying there.
“Rudy? Old pard, is that you?” Ellis asked.
The voice had gone into a low, mindless babbling, but at the sound of his own name, Rudy Banatell fell quiet for a second and raised his head again. “CC? CC Ellis?” he groaned. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Rudy,” Ellis replied, tapping the stallion forward, but still keeping an eye toward the darkness, least there be someone lying in wait.
“Come over here, Ellis. Let me take…a look at you,” Rudy said, his voice sounding raspy and spent.
“I’m coming, Rudy!” Ellis said, stopping the stallion and swinging down from his saddle. He snatched a canteen of tepid water from his saddle horn on his way. “Jesus, what has he done to you?” he asked, getting a better look at Banatell in the thin moonlight.
“He called it redeeming me, Ellis,” Rudy gasped.
“Redeeming you from what?” Ellis asked, not expecting an answer, and not getting one. Rudy’s only reply was a long moan of agony as Ellis stooped down and took a closer look at his twisted, bloodstained figure. “Oh, Rudy,” Ellis sighed, seeing how brutally his old trail partner had been tortured.
Rudy Banatell’s hands and feet had been nailed to the cross with long steel spikes. But ropes and steel wire also circled his arms tightly, the wire cutting into his flesh, holding him to the rough cross, making the nails nothing more than an additional element of cruelty. “Never thought I’d…end up like this,” Rudy said haltingly. “I’m in…terrible shape.”
Both of Rudy’s eyes were bloody from the relentless pecking of birds; as were his ears, forearms and chest.
“I’m here now, Rudy,” said Ellis. “I’ll get you taken care of.”
“I never told him nothing, CC,” Rudy whispered through swollen, split lips.
“Lay still now, Rudy. Take it easy,” said Ellis. He poured water from the canteen into his cupped hand, then let it trickle onto Rudy’s lips. “I don’t care what you told him. A man is apt to tell anything, under this kind of treatment.”
“But I didn’t tell him, CC,” Rudy said, the water running down into his parched throat. “Neither did Orsen or Ernie, God love ’em.” His bloody eyes turned up toward the other two men on the crosses, not seeing them but rather recalling where they were from earlier in his ordeal.
“Who’s the other man?” Ellis asked, taking off his bandanna, soaking it and swabbing Rudy’s cracked and blistered forehead.
“A banker…can you imagine?” said Rudy. “Me dying beside a banker. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. I wiggled this cross back and forth…till it came down.” He tried to offer a weak grin, his bloody eyes struggling to make out Ellis’s face. “I was praying it was you coming, Ellis,” he said. “Jessup would have liked that, me praying…him being a religious man and all.”
“This is not religion, Rudy,” said Ellis. “This is nothing but craziness.”
Rudy coughed and choked and said, his voice failing, “Ever notice how the crazier they are, the more God agrees with them on things?”
“God doesn’t agree with them, Rudy,” said Ellis, trickling more water onto Rudy’s burned forehead.
“But he talks to them,” said Rudy, grasping Ellis by his forearm. “He talks to Jessup all the time.” His bloody eyes swam back and forth, unable to see Ellis clearly. “How come God never talked to me? I would have listened…had he talked to me.”
“I know you would, Rudy. Now lay still. I’ll get something to pry these nails out. We’ll get you fixed up someway.” Even as Ellis spoke, he saw no way to pull out the nails without causing the man more pain.
“That ain’t what I was praying for, Ellis,” Rudy murmured, his bloody eyes steadying for a moment in the direction of Ellis’s face. “I was praying you’d get here in time to do us all some good.”
“Orsen and Ernie are both dead, Rudy,” said Ellis.
“But I ain’t,” Rudy whispered. “You can do me some good.”
“Rudy, I can’t do that,” Ellis said, knowing what was being asked of him. “But maybe I can save you. Just hang on.”
“Ellis, I don’t want…to hang on,” Rudy pleaded. “For God’s sake, look at me.”
Ellis did look at him, and he realized the dying outlaw was right. Standing up slowly, he drew his Colt again, cocking it as quietly as he could. “You want me to set this thing right with Jessup for you, Rudy?” he asked.
“Naw, that’s not important to me, Ellis,” Rudy whispered, his voice growing more faint with resolve. He tried to form a thin smile. “Of course if you come across him…I’m obliged if you put a bullet in his head.”
“You can count on it, Rudy,” Ellis said. He held his Colt out at arm’s length and started to squeeze the trigger; but the explosion he heard was not the sound of his Colt firing. It was the sound of an explosion inside his head as a rifle butt snapped forward from behind, smacked him soundly and sent him swirling to the ground, into a sea of black unconsciousness.
“That’s that,” said Arby Ryan, taking a deep breath, letting go of his tension. He stood over Ellis, relaxing his rifle but still prepared to deliver another blow if need be. Kicking Ellis’s Colt aside, Arby called out to the ot
hers a few yards away on the other side of the low rising hill. “I got him, Frank! Hear me? I got him cold!”
On the ground, Rudy’s eyes swam back and forth, trying to focus on blurred shadows. “Who’s that? What’s going on? Ellis? Ellis?”
“Quiet down, you blind, dying son of a bitch, you!” said Ryan. He gave Rudy a short kick in the side. Rudy grunted, but was already too far gone to feel any pain.
Frank Falon walked up over the hill leading his horse, the others right behind him. They circled close around Ellis, looking down at him. A trickle of blood ran on the side of Ellis’s head. “You didn’t kill him, did you?” Falon asked flatly.
“No, but I didn’t take no chances either,” said Ryan. He looked at the others in turn, his gaze stopping on Willie Singer. “I don’t pussyfoot around like some.”
“I hope you ain’t talking to me and Kirby,” said Singer, “because if you are, I’ll be surely bound to stick that rifle up your stinking ass!”
“You might be surely bound to try,” said Ryan, taking a step toward him.
“Get back, Arby. Shut up, Willie!” said Frank Falon. To Willie he added, “You best take some shorter steps for a while around me. You’re damned lucky I haven’t killed you for lying to me!”
Beside Willie Singer, Kirby shrank back a step. Seeing him, his brother, Frank, said, “That goes for you, too, you stupid little turd!”
Both men shrank back farther. “Frank, it was all a misunderstanding,” Willie said weakly.
“I don’t want to hear it, Willie!” Falon shouted. You two get this man over a saddle, if you’re not afraid he’ll wake up and kill you!”
Willie looked down at Ellis warily. “I’d feel better if we put a bullet in his ear first.”
“Or in his back?” said Ryan, with a cruel grin. “That’s more to your taste.”
“All of you shut up, gawdamn it!” Frank Falon shrieked, losing control for a moment. Settling himself, he said slowly with deliberation, “Jessup wants this man alive. That’s how he’ll get him. Now pull him up and get him on his horse.”
On the ground near Frank Falon’s feet, Rudy said in his failing voice, “Falon…shoot me, please.…”
“Huh? What’s that?” Falon said in a mock tone. “Shoot you? A big, cocky gunman like yourself? You’d ask a lowly wolf trapper to shoot you? My, my, but ain’t I honored!”
“Come on, Falon…don’t leave me laying here like this,” Rudy pleaded.
“Go to hell!” said Falon. “You should have had the good sense to stay up there with your friends, die and get it over with.” As he spoke, he nodded up toward the bodies on the crosses. Then he looked back down in contempt at Rudy’s cross lying on the ground. “You miserable bastard, you was going to do so much. You was going to take over Paradise. You was going to include me in things. All’s I had to do was stay back out of the way and let you handle everything. Ha!” Falon laughed scornfully and spit on Rudy’s bloody bare chest.
“At least…I tried…” Rudy’s voice trailed off.
“Well, now that’s just damn admirable, ain’t it?” Falon said in a sarcastic tone. “You tried and this is what it got you. But look at me!” He spread his arms wide, gloating. “I’m still where I was, not nailed to a cross for buzzards to pick at my guts!”
“Come on, Falon…shoot me,” Rudy begged.
Falon watched Kirby and Willie Singer raise Ellis up between them and carry him toward the stallion. “Tonight the coyotes and lizards will eat you apart little at a time,” he said sidelong to Rudy on the ground. “Shoot you? Hell, you ain’t worth a bullet.” He kicked Rudy’s ribs. Jaw Hughes and a couple of the others stared at him.
“You hate, don’t you, Falon?” Rudy gasped. “You hate not being a man, not being able to stand up to the likes of Jessup. Not being able to—”
Rudy’s words were cut short beneath two quick explosions from Falon’s Colt. Rudy’s body bucked twice with the impact, then relaxed limply on the wooden cross. Dark blood spread into a puddle on the ground beneath him.
“There, you sorry son of a bitch!” said Falon. “I hope that satisfies you!”
The silence seemed to answer for Rudy Banatell. Jaw Hughes wiped the splatter of Rudy’s blood from his face and said in a surprised tone, “Damn, Frank! Warn a fellow sometime! Look what a mess I’ve got here.”
“Shut up, Hughes, or I’ll shoot you, too,” Falon growled. The men looked at one another, then back at Falon as he turned and walked away.
“What about him, Frank?” asked Lewis Barr, looking down at the bullet holes in Rudy’s lifeless bare chest. “Are we going to leave him lay here for the wolves and coyotes?”
“Hell, yes!” Falon called back over his shoulder. “We was leaving him here anyway. Let the coyotes have at him. He was nothing but bait for the trap. Jessup knew he’d shake that cross loose and make it fall. That was all to get CC Ellis’s attention.” He swung up on his saddle. “If you think the ones in town had it rough, wait until you see what Jessup ends up doing to this one if he don’t get what he wants.” He glanced toward Ellis and gave a dark chuckle. “I almost feel sorry for this poor son of a bitch.”
Chapter 19
On the main street of Paradise, two of the Believers stood watching Frank Falon and his men ride in. Falon was leading CC Ellis on the silver stallion behind him. “More trouble coming, Brother Willem,” one of the Believers whispered to the other, cupping a hand to this mouth as if someone watching might read his lips.
“Yes, Brother Ted, that would be my guess as well,” Willem Burdock replied, not cupping his hand but rather ducking his head slightly as he spoke. “And if things aren’t bad enough, I understand that Brother Forrest Beckman has been replaced at the Paradise bank.”
“No!” said Brother Ted Noland, unable to conceal his surprise at such news. “Where is Brother Forrest? Who in the world will Father choose to replace him?”
Brother Willem said in a guarded tone, “We are not to call Forrest Beckman Brother anymore. As for a replacement, Father has already seated Brother Lexar into the position.”
“Oh no,” said Brother Ted. “I know we are not to speak ill of our brethren, but Lexar reminds me of something I wouldn’t want to find crawling through my barn late at night.”
“Then your barn is safe,” said Burdock. “It’s our money in the bank that draws my concern.”
“Mine, too,” said Noland. “I know we’re not supposed to gossip about our Community of Believers, but I have to tell you things are not as they should be here. Father is too busy gathering himself wives and belongings, when he should be taking care of more important matters.”
They stood for a silent moment, staring at Falon and his riders as they reined up out front of the meeting house. Ellis sat slumped in his saddle, bare-headed, his hand tied in front of him. “Many of our faithful are slipping away from Wolf Valley unnoticed while Father and his inner circle are off chasing people whose lives should not concern us.”
The two men looked at one another closer. “For those wanting to leave here, there could be no better time,” Burdock said.
“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Noland agreed. The two turned and walked purposefully toward their wagons sitting at a hitch rail.
Out front of the meetinghouse, Frank Falon and his men stepped down and stood beside their horses. Having seen the men ride in, one of the door guards rushed inside and told Jessup. Before Frank Falon had finished slapping dust from the front of his shirt, Jessup came walking out, dressed in a black suit over a crisp white shirt, with a black string tie tipped with two small golden crosses.
“Frank Falon, you have not failed me!” Jessup beamed, stepping in close and shaking Falon’s sweaty hand. “This gains you a lot of favor in my eyes.” He looked at Falon’s men, then back at Falon, saying, “And it’s about time you made such a showing for yourself.”
“Obliged, Father,” Falon said humbly, avoiding the looks from his men. “We always want to do a good job for you.�
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Without answering him, Jessup looked up at Ellis sitting half-conscious atop the silver stallion. “So like any good trapper of wolves, you set the trap and the trap worked!” Jessup said proudly.
“Yes, Father,” said Falon. “He rode in, found one of his friends lying on the ground and, while he was attending to him, I slipped in and let him have it.”
Hearing Frank’s version of the story, his men turned a look toward Arby Ryan, who had actually been the one to slip in and capture Ellis. But Ryan only sat and stared grimly in silence, listening to Falon take credit for his actions.
“Well?” said Jessup, tossing his large hands as if in exasperation. “Are you going to bring this man down and take him inside for me, or must I do everything myself?”
“Beg your pardon, Father,” said Falon, hurrying over to Ellis, giving him a shove from atop the stallion.
Ellis landed with a grunt, still half-dazed from the slam of the rifle butt. With his tied hands doing him little good, he struggled up to his knees and rocked there for a moment until Arby Ryan and Splint Mullins stepped down from their saddles and pulled him to his feet between them. At the rear of the riders, Lewis Barr said quietly to Quentin Fuller, “Now it looks like everybody wants Jessup to see what a good hand they are.”
Fuller replied wryly, “Reckon you ought to get up there and show him something yourself?”
“He don’t want to see what I’d show him,” whispered Barr.
With Ellis pressed between them, Ryan and Mullins began half-leading, half-dragging him to the meetinghouse. Jessup started to turn and walk there himself; but upon seeing Falon try to walk along beside him, Jessup stopped abruptly and said, “Where do you think you’re going, Frank?”
Surprised, Falon said awkwardly, “I thought—That is, the men and I need some drinking water to cut the dust, after sitting out there all night, waiting for him to show up.”
“Because I allowed you to enter the meetinghouse once, Falon, doesn’t mean you and your men have free rein to come and go as you please!” Jessup snapped.
