by Steve Lee
Scarlett crossed the room and began to rummage through Sloane's clothes. Jack moved toward the bed to pull his knives from the body.
The body sat up, smiling. Sloane pushed aside the wooden plank that had protected him beneath the blankets.
"He's alive!" Jack exclaimed weakly.
"Alive and kicking!" corrected Sloane, swinging off the bed toward the knife-thrower. His foot slammed into Jack's stomach. Jack hit the wall.
Staggering, Jack palmed himself off the wall. He saw Sloane's right whistling toward his head and raised his own fists to block the punch.
The punch never landed. Pulling his right, Sloane's left shot through under Jack's arm and jolted his stomach. Jack gasped, clutching at his belly, and began to crumble. Sloane clubbed a fist down on the back of his neck.
While Jack was floored, Sloane shot a glance at Scarlett. She stood fear-paralyzed, one hand raised to the open red slash of her mouth. Seeing Sloane distracted, Jack flung himself upward, fist swinging.
Sloane's snapkick pounded his chest like a sledgehammer, hurled him back against the wall once more. The roundhouse kick that followed caught him in the temple, a brain-rattling blow that slammed him across the room into a corner. His ears were filled with a noise like a train rushing through a tunnel. He coughed. Something warm oozed from his lips.
Only the wall held him upright. Jack reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled something out, raising it to throw. There was a click as the switchblade flashed open.
Sloane dived onto the bed, hands reaching for the knife-studded board.
Jack coughed again, a racking cough that gushed more blood from bis lips and stayed his throwing arm for more time than Sloane needed. Swinging the board in both hands, he whacked it against the bedpost. The knives flew free, death winging across the room.
Three of the knives tasted flesh. Too surprised to scream, Jack slid down the wall, the switchblade slipping from twitching fingers. He sprawled forward, face slopping into a fast spreading pool of his lifeblood.
Sloane reeled under Scarlett's weight. Her hand groped over his shoulder, clawing for his throat. Pushing forward, he broke her hold and spun round to seize her wrist as the knife fell toward him. The face straining against his was twisted with naked hate. The fingers round her wrist tightened, became bands of bone-snapping steel. She squealed, dropping the knife. Her free hand reared, painted nails aiming at his eyes…
He smacked her brutally, aside and followed after her, drawing back a clenched hand for a spine-splintering punch, wondering what it would feel like to have killed a woman…
* * *
Kathie looked through the open door into Scarlett's dressing room. Still empty. The worry lines in her face tightened as she closed the door. She knew Scarlett wasn't in her brother's room because she'd just looked in there and that was empty too. The two of them had vanished and so had Jenny.
Kathie moved anxiously down the corridor to her father's office.
Lemuel Prescott was seated behind his desk drinking the theater's profits when Kathie entered.
"Dad, have you seen Jack or Scarlett?"
Prescott did not look at her. He was too busy shaking the last few reluctant drops from a bottle into his glass.
"No, I have not… are they not ready to go on?"
Kathie shook her head. "They're due on in a couple of minutes and I can't find them anywhere. And Jenny's disappeared as well." She clutched her hands together concernedly. "If they don't show up, we'll have to give everyone their money back!"
Prescott took consolation in emptying his glass. He studied its emptiness.
"I book knife-throwers and what do I get — a couple of magicians with a disappearing act!"
Banging the glass onto the table, he rose from behind the desk.
"Well, I can disappear too — right across the road to the saloon!" He slapped on his hat and made for the door. Kathie threw out a hand, held his arm.
"That's no answer, Dad."
"It's my answer and it's good enough for me…"
He huffed out the door, slamming it behind him.
* * *
Kathie dejectedly climbed the stairs toward her room after she had returned the last of the money to the grumbling customers. At the top of the stairs, she noticed a light coming from under the door of Sloane's room. Her father had his drink… maybe she could find some consolation of her own. She opened the door and stepped inside.
Sloane was lying in bed reading. He lowered the book when Kathie entered.
"How's the invalid?" she asked.
"I barely got the strength to turn these pages," Sloane sighed.
Sitting on the bed beside him, Kathie firmly took the book from out of his hands and laid it aside.
"Hey, what's the idea?" the invalid protested.
"Mustn't waste your strength holding that big heavy book — you might strain yourself."
Sloane sank back onto the pillows and stared, long-suffering, at the ceiling.
"You're just pickin' on me 'cause I'm so weak," he complained.
"That's right, tough guy."
Sloane failed to smother a smile. "How was the show?" he asked.
"Oh, just great!" It was Kathie's turn to look pained. "Our star attraction, your friend Scarlett and her brother, didn't show and I had to give everyone their money back — every last cent!" Sloane tut-tutted his disapproval.
"Sounds to me like they're lying down on the job," he said.
"Which reminds me," said Kathie, suddenly alertly suspicious, "you never did tell me what you came here for in the first place."
Sloane hunched his shoulders. "It's very simple. A guy told me to go straight to hell. Here I am."
Kathie leaned closer, much closer.
"Welcome to hell, stranger," she breathed.
They kissed.
* * *
A considerable time later, Sloane pulled away from her. Kathie pursued him with her lips. He held up a finger between them.
"Mustn't waste my strength, remember?"
"Who says?" Kathie demanded, outraged.
"You." Touching the tip of her nose, "remember?"
"I said that?"
"Uh-huh!"
Kathie smouldered. She pouted. She did things with her eyes, appealing things to melt a stony man's heart. Sloane shook his head.
With a fine show of sulky dignity, she flounced from the bed and crossed the room, her head held high. In the doorway, she sneaked a look back to see if he'd had a change of heart. He waved goodbye.
With a final toss of her head, Kathie swept from the room, slamming the door behind her, Prescott fashion.
* * *
Sloan listened to her footsteps receding down the passage. Then he swung out of the bed and onto his feet. Pain made him wince. He looked down at his bandaged ribs. The bandage was speckled with fresh blood.
He moved across the room and opened the wardrobe. Jack's body tumbled out and lay vacant-eyed at his feet.
Inside the wardrobe sat Scarlett, bound and gagged with torn sheets. She glared at him, her eyes revealing all the hate a female soul can hold.
9
Pale rivers of light were beginning to splash over the plains when Sloane reached the Big Top ranch. He left the buggy by the hole he cut in the fence and made Scarlett help him carry Jack's body toward the ranch house.
Several hundred yards from the yellow-dusted adobe house, Sloane found a wooden fence, six foot long and six foot high… nothing else. Just a fence where no fence ought to be. He dumped Jack's body behind the fence, out of sight of the house.
Exhausted, Scarlett slumped down beside the body of her brother.
"Who's in there?" Sloane asked, watching the house for signs of life.
She shrugged. "Knock on the door and ask."
Sloane took one of Jack's knives from his jacket pocket and ran a finger lightly along the blade.
"I've got a mind to do some wood whittlin'," he said. "But I don't have no wood…" He looked poin
tedly at Scarlett.
"Carmello, Fish, some others," she said.
"How 'bout the big man, the one with yeller skin and no hair?"
"Khan? Yeah, he's there."
Sloane slipped the knife back into his pocket.
"And the Injun?"
"Injun?"
"There used to be an Injun with you."
Scarlett thought about it a while. "Crow," she remembered, "that was a long time ago."
"What happened to him?"
"Fish took care of him. We came into some money, easy money. Fish didn't think an Injun should get any of it."
"That why Bull ran out? He didn't wanna end up like the Injun?"
Scarlett stared at him. "Who the hell are you?" she asked.
Sloane turned his back on her and examined the fence. The wood was splintered and shot through with holes. He walked round to the other side, Scarlett getting up and following him. Playing cards and other targets were nailed to the other side of the fence.
"This where your lover boy does his target practice?"
Scarlett nodded.
"When?"
"Every mornin'."
Sloane touched his broken ribs.
"He's out of practice," he said.
"Next time, he won't miss." She spoke with snarling confidence.
"There won't be a next time," said Sloane.
Scarlett swung away from him as if disgusted by his presence. The movement stretched into a clumsy dash for the house.
Sloane caught up with her in a few long strides. He swung her struggling onto the ground and dragged her back behind the fence. She scrambled up and drummed her fists ineffectually against his chest. With a piece of the torn sheet he tied her arms behind her back, then pushed her to the ground.
"What you gonna do with me?" she listlessly asked. Her spirit seemed finally broken.
"Got any ideas?"
"You goin' to kill me?"
Sloane appeared deeply hurt.
"Now do I look like the kinda guy would kill a woman?"
She studied his face.
"No," she decided.
"You're right," said Sloane, looking towards the bullet-smashed fence. "I'm gonna let your boy friend have that pleasure."
She followed his gaze. Fear followed understanding. "No," she said. "Dear God, no!"
On her knees, she lurched forward, pressing herself against him in desperation, begging. "I'll do anythin' you want… anything!.. but don't kill me, please!"
Sloane regarded her dispassionately. She was rubbing against him like a dog needing attention. He pushed her away. She sprawled onto her back, black silk legs apart.
Those legs… He remembered the twitch of youthful lust he'd felt when he'd first seen her all those years before, guilty lust, dark-shaded by the blood and fire of that never-to-be-forgotten day.
"Anythin' you want," she promised. "Anyway you want it!"
Sloane dropped his hand into his pocket and came out with the knife.
She fell silent, watching the blade like it was the poison head of a snake closing toward her. But no snake ever moved toward its victim with such painful torturing slowness as the knife held by Sloane.
She retreated along the ground, pushing herself away from him with her legs. A frantic futile effort. Stepping forward, Sloane brought a boot down on a trailing streak of red hair, pinning her to the ground. Bending his other leg, he knelt beside her.
In trembling silence Scarlett watched the knife moving up her leg, slitting through the stocking, leaving a thin red trail. When he reached the top of her leg, Sloane slipped the blade under her costume at the thigh. Scarlett sucked air.
Sloane jerked the knife toward him, ripping the flimsy material. Slicing through the costume, he worked the knife up her shuddering body, between the heaving swell of her breasts and out at the neck. He tugged the blade free and the costume fell open. It peeled off easily.
Sloane said, "Seeing as how we have a couple of hours to kill…"
Fish raised his Winchester toward the fence.
At that range the playing cards nailed to the fence were faceless white spots. He selected one and centered his sights on it. He fired rapidly, the explosions sounding crisp in the morning silence.
After reloading he once more raised the rifle to his shoulder and peered down the barrel. His aim wavered then dropped.
The target was gone.
There was no way a target could disappear, he thought, staring out towards the fence. Unless someone took it down. And there was no one in sight…
Rifle ready, Fish advanced toward the fence.
There was no sign of the missing target on the ground.
Then he noticed the blood seeping under the fence in spiky red streams. He walked round to the other side.
There were two bodies sprawled on the bloodied soil but it was Scarlett's that he ran toward. She was naked, her legs pulled back beneath her, ankles tied to her wrists. At first he thought her red hair was hanging wetly across her face. But it wasn't hair.
She stared at him with one empty eye. The other was part of a raw hole gaping in her face.
"Christ!" Fish emptied his stomach onto the ground.
"Good shootin'," a voice behind congratulated him.
Fish whirled round.
Facing him was an unshaven man in a dirty white suit stained with blood. In one hand the stranger held the ace of hearts. A cluster of holes had punched out the center of the card.
"Bull's eye!" said Sloane.
"You dirty bastard!" Fish screamed, bringing up the rifle to fire.
He didn't even see Sloane's foot rise, just felt its impact when it hit the rifle, knocking him sprawling onto his back.
Struggling up, he stared at the rifle in his hands. He couldn't believe it. The barrel was twisted out of shape, hung loosely from the splintered stock.
But Sloane was moving in. Gripping the rifle by its barrel, Fish swung it at him with skull-shattering force. He hit nothing. Sloane leapt into the air over the rifle, his feet smashing down into Fish's face.
Rolling in the dirt, Fish thought he'd picked up a mouthful of stones. He spat them out. Then, as pain drilled his head, he felt the jagged strangeness of his broken teeth. Scrambling to his feet, lurching toward the house, Fish wanted to scream the agony from his body. But his swollen lips were numb, his mouth filled with choking blood. A hand landed on his shoulder, spun him round.
Sloane studied the swaying man's ruined mouth. A slight gratified smile crossed his lips.
His next punch broke the gunman's nose.
Through a flaming red curtain of pain, Fish saw Sloane's hand rushing toward him again, two fingers hooking for his eyes. With a desperate surge of strength he raised the useless rifle to block the thrust.
Seizing the rifle, Sloane swung Fish round, yanking the barrel tight against his throat. Sloane pulled the rifle back. Fish pawed weakly at the gun as Sloane's knee thrust into his spine. Sloane hauled back more. Legs pumping, Fish's body arched.
When there was no longer any point in applying pressure, Sloane let the limp body drop to the ground beside Scarlett.
* * *
A silent group gathered round the three bodies lying behind the bullet-holed fence.
Carmello stooped to pick up a lump of twisted metal and splintered wood, the remains of Fish's Winchester. He turned it over in his hands, imagining the force of violence that could mutilate metal as easily as a man.
"He's pickin' us off real easy," he said. "One by one — like shootin' fish in a barrel."
Dropping the rifle, he raised his eyes, scanning empty plain and hills for movement. "Prob'ly watchin' us right now…"
The cluster of Mexican hands glanced uneasily about.
"If he shows his face," Khan growled, "I'll rip it right off!"
The clown laughed contemptuously. "Oh, no. He's too clever for that — too clever an' too fast. We need someone can match his speed… maybe's even faster!" He looked thoughtfully at the big Mongolia
n.
"Them yeller-skinned friends of your'n… they still workin' for the railroad?"
Khan grunted a sound that meant "yes."
Mischief gleamed bright in the clown's eyes. "Funny," he said, "but all of a sudden I got a hankerin' for some of that chop suey…"
* * *
Appreciatively, Carmello watched the dozen Chinese assembled before him displaying their fighting talents, arms flailing and striking, kicking and leaping in an elaborate dance of violence.
With brutal suddenness, one of the men reeled back and pitched unconscious to the ground, felled by a blow to the temple from one of Fang's boo-how-doy swivel-jointed arms. Fang yelled harshly in Chinese, clapping his hands. Immediately the rest of the yellow men stopped fighting and fell grinning into relaxed stances.
Their stocky leader walked up to Carmello and kowtowed with eager servility.
"Fang," the clown announced, "Tell 'em I'll give five thousand dollars to the man who kills Sloane and a hundred to every man that tries."
Fang bowed again, even more respectfully this time. He turned back to his men and passed on details of the offer in rapid Cantonese.
The Chinese pressed forward around Carmello, hands outstretched, noisily keen to accept the deal. Carmello paid each man from a fat roll of bills.
When the bounty money had been distributed, he noticed one of the Chinese, a proud-looking youth who'd watched the transaction with grim interest, hanging back.
"What's your problem?" the clown asked. "Don't you want to make yerself some easy money?"
"I do not kill for money," Ching Lei answered with cool distaste.
10
Sloane was sitting up in bed flicking shooting stars at the disapproving features of Uylsses S. Grant on the opposite wall when Kathie entered the room. He slid innocently deeper into the bed.
"Breakfast is served," she announced, setting a loaded tray down beside the bed.
