Blade 2

by Matt Chisholm

  Juan almost cried out in alarm as he saw a second man break from the shadows at the side of the house. The vaquero was helpless to stop what followed, hanging on to the top of the wall with both hands as he was. The man he thought was Blade fell forward through the open doorway under the blow dealt him by the shadowy figure. Juan heaved himself up and threw one leg over the wall. He drew the heavy revolver he carried on his hip. Even as he did so, the glass doors shut and curtains were drawn over them.

  He had to admit to himself that he felt slightly ridiculous sitting astride that adobe wall with a gun in his hand. Just then he heard the cry of the sentry at the front of the building and, a moment later, there came the steady tramp of feet. He guessed that a guard was marching around the palace. He at once jumped from the wall and ran in the opposite direction to the soldier. He exited at one end of the alley while the soldier entered from the other. Thus it came about that he was at the front of the palace when Draper and his men marched Blade and the governor from the palace to Draper’s house.

  Luckily there was enough light on the street for him to at once recognize Blade. Playing the part of an idling stroller, Juan followed them up the street and saw them enter Draper’s house.

  Juan was now in a great dilemma. What to do next?

  The second character to play a part in the fate of Joseph Santiago Blade was Charity Clayton.

  Back in Crewsville, to all intents and purposes, she was still unconscious. At the time at which we find her, in fact, she was genuinely asleep. She had during the last day allowed herself brief moments of consciousness so that Hope Clayton, her sister-in-law, could bring her some food. Charity had decided that, while she would go to the ends of the earth for Joe Blade, she did not intend to starve for him.

  She was awoken from her sleep by the sound of voices. Voices which at first, she could not place. Both were male. Then she realized that one belonged to the man, Lionel Binns, who called himself Manfred K. Shafer. The second, she gathered, was a doctor.

  Shafer was saying, ‘She was in this room with Blade when the shot was fired. The shot that was meant for Blade. Men don’t like shooting women, even scum like Billy Cross. If she’s like to die or if she’s in a coma like the other doctor said, then Cross don’t work for us any more. Draper is worried, even though he now has Blade under lock and key. Is there any way of being certain if she is conscious or not?’

  A hand took hold of Charity’s wrist and she knew her pulse and respiration were being taken,

  A moment or two later, the second man said: ‘Pulse is racing a mite, but there’s nothing serious in that. Let’s have a look at her eyes.’

  Charity rolled back her eyes and felt a thumb pull back at an eyelid.

  When the thumb released her eyelid, the doctor said: ‘There’s something strange here. I can’t say I understand it. But head injuries can do funny things. Yes, this girl could be unconscious. I’m not sure I like the business too much. It’s getting a little rough for my liking when young girls get themselves shot down. Still, now Blade’s taken, maybe things will settle down.’

  Charity listened to them as they walked to the door, down the hall and so down the stairs.

  She sat up in bed and said: Charity, it’s time you moved on, honey.

  As luck would have it, the next person to come visiting with her was George McMasters. He sat on the edge of the bed and said softly: ‘Charity, I see the enemy have been a-visiting.’

  She opened her eyes and said: ‘George, I’m getting kind of scared.’ She told him all she had heard.

  McMasters looked pretty worried when he heard.

  ‘We’ve got to get you to a safe place,’ he said. ‘And I have to report to the governor.’

  She said: ‘That sounds impossible, George. This crowd must be all over the territory. Where you going to find a safe place?’

  ‘God knows,’ he said. His face brightened. ‘Don Sebastian. Maybe he did cry off helping Joe, but he would never refuse a lady in trouble. What we want is fast horses and a prayer. How’s the head feel? Can you get dressed and ride?’

  ‘You bet I can,’ she told him.

  ‘I’ll have horses at the rear of this place in twenty minutes,’ he told her.

  She said: ‘And Joe? Can you help Joe, George?’

  That stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I can try.’

  When Charity came downstairs fully dressed and wearing pants like a man into the bargain, her brother and sister-in-law were a pretty astonished pair.

  Charlie said ‘But I thought—’

  Hope said: ‘Where’re you going, Charity?’

  ‘I’m going for a ride,’ said Charity.

  ‘A ride?’

  Charlie said: ‘What I can’t figure is: what was you doing in Joe’s room, Charity?’

  ‘Making love,’ said Charity and opened the door to see George McMasters there with two horses.

  ‘Makin’ love?’ declared Charlie. ‘With Joe? Why—’

  ‘Hussy,’ said Hope.

  Charity was out and on to the back of a horse before you could say ‘knife’. As the horses skittered around, ready to run, Hope screamed: ‘George McMasters, you bring that girl back here this minute.’

  Charlie was saying: ‘Fancy that Joe Blade—’

  He watched his sister disappearing in a cloud of dust.

  ‘You should of stopped her,’ Hope told him. ‘Can’t you do nothin’?’

  Charlie said: ‘Next time I see Joe—.’

  Hope said: ‘You won’t see that Joe Blade no more. He’s as good as dead.’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘That nice Mr Shafer told me.’

  Rose Mary Dimsdale as a young Virginian lady of good family had been toasted in her girlhood as a noted beauty. She was still a great beauty. She was also an impoverished Southerner who had married a wealthy Northerner. Her family had been ‘army’ from way back in the eighteenth century. So it was not surprising that she had been courted by two dashing West Point men, the cousins Bogart Dimsdale and Manning Steefen. The latter had been far and away the most attractive of the two, but he had been knocked out of the running when he had been dismissed from the army for embezzlement of funds. Had he stayed on the straight and narrow, he would undoubtedly have ended up as Rose Mary’s husband. However, it was the more pedestrian Dimsdale who had won her hand.

  It had been a good marriage. Bogart had been an attentive and unselfish husband. Rose Mary had been a good army wife, had gone wherever her husband had gone, Washington appointments and God-forsaken frontier posts. They had always lived well, for Bogart had inherited a sizeable fortune from his father. He could well have retired and lived a life of leisure, but he was not that sort of man. The wealthy, he thought, owed a duty to their country. He was no politician, and possibly that was why the president had personally appointed him to the Arizona post.

  Rose Mary Dimsdale did tonight what she always did when her husband stayed too late into the night over his papers. She tapped gently on his office door, opened it no more than a few inches and said: ‘It’s getting late, General.’

  The man sitting in the general’s place was startled out of his reverie and without thought demanded: ‘Who’s this?’

  The question was so out of place and out of character that Mrs Dimsdale opened the door wide and entered the room.

  ‘Why it’s I,’ said Rose Mary. ‘Who else would it be, my dear?’

  Manning Steefen stared in amazement at the tall slender woman standing just within the circle of the lamplight.

  He was so startled by the sight of her that he came involuntarily to his feet and said: ‘Rose Mary.’

  At once he knew his mistake.

  The woman went very still. Her face became pale and suddenly haggard. One slender hand went to her throat.

  ‘My God,’ she whispered. ‘It isn’t possible.’

  He should have known, he told himself. Draper had been mistaken. Any wo
man would know a husband from his double.

  Just the same, he started to play his part – ‘What’s wrong, my dear?’

  ‘Wrong?’ she said. ‘You’re not Bogart. You must be Manning.’

  He strode around the desk to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She shrank under his grip, but she didn’t move back from him.

  ‘Is it so terrible that I’m Manning?’ he said.

  ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘It means that I have taken his place. Nobody knows but you and I and the men who have taken over Arizona.’

  The horror and disbelief in her eyes was so profound that, for a moment, he was scared. She would scream, raise the alarm, spoil the whole plot before it started.

  ‘What have you done with Bogart?’ she demanded.

  ‘He is being held prisoner.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I have no idea. No harm will come to him if you do exactly as you’re told.’

  He felt her start to tremble under his hands. His old desire for her blossomed strongly within him.

  ‘What does this entail?’

  ‘Only that you continue to behave in all respects as you do now. From here on I am Bogart Dimsdale. You fail to do this and it could go badly for Bogart. Don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘You can’t mean it, Manning,’ she said. ‘You were always rotten, but surely you can’t mean to go through with this crazy scheme?’

  ‘You have Bogart to thank for this,’ he told her. ‘If he had listened to Alpert and declared martial law, this would never have happened.’

  ‘But a governor can’t declare martial law and Alpert must know it.’

  ‘Bogart has always been close to the President. If he recommended martial law, he would get it.’

  ‘So Alpert and Colonel Rally are in this scheme.’

  ‘Everybody that matters.’

  She said bitterly: ‘You must hate Bogart very much.’

  ‘I didn’t hate him so much as envied him, Rose Mary,’ he said. ‘He had everything I wanted. And what I wanted most was you. Still do.’

  She tried to pull away from him then, but he held her still in his strong hands.

  ‘If you think,’ she said, ‘that I’m going to allow you into my bedroom, you are making the mistake of your life.’

  ‘If you don’t,’ he told her in a hard voice, ‘it will be the mistake of Bogart’s life. You’re not dealing with gentlemen, my dear. These are men who are making a desperate bid for wealth and power. They’re taking over vast land grants, mines, trading rights and public offices. They’ll get Arizona made into a state and they will rule. Cross them and dear Bogart is dead.’

  He kissed her full on the mouth. She started to pull away from him but he held her close and forced her lips open. She groaned once, stiffened and fought and then, suddenly, relaxed in his arms. His old lust for her exploded in him.

  When she at last wrenched her mouth from his, she said in a soft whisper of defeat: ‘You filthy animal.’

  When he put his mouth to hers again, her body clung to his.

  As they went along to her bedroom a few minutes later, he told her ‘Nobody will ever know.’

  ‘Except Bogart,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what makes it all the more delicious,’ he said.

  Eleven

  General Dimsdale was not a man lacking in courage. But the enforced stay in that cellar in total darkness on top of his mental anguish over his wife and his own condemnation of himself for having failed in his duty was almost more than he could bear. He made it clear to Blade that when his captors took him out of there and submitted him to torture, it would be a mental relief to him.

  ‘How long do you reckon we’ve been in here, Joe?’ he asked not once but a dozen times. The darkness had disorientated him.

  Blade said this last time: ‘I can’t be sure, but I should think about twenty four hours.’

  Dimsdale said: ‘The one thing that Steefen can’t do in my place is sign papers. They’ll be forcing me to sign something pretty soon. And I’ll tell them to go to hell. They can kill me before I sign a damned thing.’

  ‘General,’ Blade told him, ‘I see it as my job to keep you alive and get you back into your job as governor. You sign anything they want, just so long as you stay alive.’

  Dimsdale argued: ‘They won’t need me alive once I’ve signed what they want.’

  Blade said: ‘That could be true later on. But right now, for a few days, they’ll need you. Sure, I know whatever you do is a gamble. But I guess we have to gamble, seeing the situation we’re in.’

  Blade knew the situation was as bad as it could be. Draper had kept them in total darkness without food or water for a whole day at least. Which meant that he intended to get their bodies and spirits as low as he could. He felt filthy, unshaven and physically low. Dimsdale’s years were against him and he was feeling bad. Blade did what he could to cheer him up.

  ‘I’ve been up worse creeks than this, General,’ he said, ‘and I’m still alive.’

  ‘We’ll never get out of here, Joe,’ the older man said. ‘We’ve been digging at this goddam wall for a whole day. I guess all we can do is reconcile ourselves to fate.’

  ‘You get some sleep,’ Blade told him. ‘That’s the best escape at times like this.’

  The general was asleep and Blade was working away at the hole with the big nail when without warning the trap door was abruptly lifted. Blade turned. The daylight hitting his eyes was a living agony. He covered his eyes with his hands.

  From above he heard: ‘Dimsdale, get up here.’

  Blade kicked the general gently. Dimsdale groaned. The man above repeated his order. With a groan, the governor hauled himself to his feet.

  ‘Oh, my God, my eyes,’ he said when the light hit them.

  ‘Quit bellyachin’ and get up here,’ the man above ordered. The general stumbled to the ladder. Slowly, he dragged himself up it.

  Blade said: ‘Sign anything, general.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Dimsdale replied.

  The man up above laughed – ‘We can arrange that without no trouble a-tall.’

  When Dimsdale reached the floor above, there was a sound of a blow.

  The voice above said: ‘Here’s some more company for you, Blade.’

  Blade squinted up at the light, but it still blinded him and he could see nothing. Nothing that is except a dark shape hurtling through the opening, striking the ladder and falling on the floor. He heard a human groan and then the trapdoor shut with a slam that nearly deafened him.

  He got down on hands and knees and felt his way across the dirt floor. His hands found a human body. They felt leather chaps, high-heeled boots and heavy Mexican spurs.

  In Spanish, he said: ‘Who is this?’

  There was a slight pause and then: ‘I am Juan Pacheco.’ Another short silence, followed by: ‘It this the señorito?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I came to help you, patrón, but it seems that I have made a fool of myself.’

  ‘How did you know I was here, Juan?’

  ‘I followed you from Espada, señor. Foolishly, I entered this house and asked for you. I overestimated myself. They disarmed me as though I were a child.’

  It seemed that the young vaquero had suffered more injury to his pride than to his body. He picked himself up and, when he learned that Blade had already made some effort to dig himself out of the cellar, at once offered a hand. He produced a knife from his boot and with this at once began to make headway with the hole. They must have sweated together for an hour or more when Juan stopped digging and asked: ‘Did you discover, señor, if the trapdoor is bolted?’

  Blade stopped digging and promptly wanted to kick himself for not thinking of the obvious. Why should anybody want a bolt on the outside of a trapdoor?

  ‘Juan,’ he said, ‘maybe you have something there.’

  He felt his way to the ladder and climbed it. He pushed with one hand against the trap
door and found that it did not budge. Maybe, he thought, it was only the weight of the wood that was holding it immovable. So he climbed up one rung of the ladder and put his shoulder against the trap. To his overjoyed amazement it rose about one inch. He lowered it again and whispered down to Juan ‘You’re right. It’s unlocked.’

  ‘Then let us go,’ Juan said.

  ‘Come up close behind me,’ Blade ordered. ‘When we get out of here, we’re going to have our hands full.’

  He felt the ladder sag under their combined weights as the young Mexican clambered up behind him.

  Blade said ‘I’m going to throw back the trap with all my strength. Just come out fast and use that knife on anybody that gets in our way. We head for the street and, if we can, we take the governor with us.’

  Juan said he was ready for anybody or anything.

  Blade braced himself on the ladder, got his shoulder under the trap, raised it several inches, then got both hands flat against it and heaved with all his might.

  Two things happened at once, one good and one bad. The trapdoor went up like a dream. It swung wide and produced a human howl of alarm and pain. Blade assumed correctly that he had swung the trap at somebody approaching it. In the same second that Blade jumped off the ladder and onto the floor above, the ladder cracked with a noise as loud as a gun report and Juan Pacheco dropped back into the cellar.

  There was little light in the passageway in which Blade found himself. All he could make out was a man struggling to get out from under the open trapdoor. Blade leapt the open trap and landed on the door with both feet. The man whose legs were still under it howled with pain and dropped the gun he held in his hand. Blade moved fast. Scooping up the gun in his right hand, he smashed the barrel down on the man’s unprotected head. The man stretched out lifelessly on the floor. Without ceremony,