by Jon Sharpe
He allowed himself one of his rare moments of doubt. His plan had been to get on the island and destroy whatever Noah Tillman had set up there. But what if he became just one more of Noah’s prisoners, one who couldn’t do anything more than submit to whatever Noah demanded. Sometimes, he drew courage from all the tales people told of him. Living up to the legend of the Trailsman inspired him as it inspired others. But he wasn’t invincible.
Had he put himself in the middle of a trap from which there was no escape?
Ekert appeared just before the boat reached land. Un-shaved, he looked grizzled and tired. He toted a six-gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Even given the pitch of the craft in the choppy water, he staggered more than was necessary.
He went straight to Aaron Tillman, stood over the shackled man sprawled on the deck.
“Morning, Mr. Tillman.”
“You sonofabitch. You’ve been waiting a long time for this, haven’t you?” Aaron snapped.
“You notice I called you ‘Mr. Tillman,’ Mr. Tillman?” Ekert smiled, tilted the bottle up, took a long swig that made his Adam’s apple bobble. “You know what your brother was nice enough to let me do?”
Aaron just glared at him.
“He said I could do anything to you I wanted. Anything at all.”
The pointed-toe kick of the cowboy boot did maximum damage, caught a rib and cracked it. Aaron screamed and began to twist back and forth in great and immediate pain.
“All the times I had to clean up your puke; all the times I had to haul you out of saloons before somebody killed you because you were such a prick when you were drunk; all the times I had to put you on my shoulder and carry you out of whorehouses because you’d passed out—and you never said thanks. Not even once, Mr. Tillman. You realize that? All those years and you couldn’t even bring yourself to say thank you even one time. You said I was scum. Remember all the times you called me that? Called me scum and trail trash? You even spit in my face one time. That’s the one that got me. That’s the one I can’t forget, Mr. Tillman. Spitting on me.”
Aaron groaned, cursed, groaned again.
Fargo knew that there was no pain quite like the needle-sharp, insistent ache of a cracked rib. And he’d heard the bone crack loud and clear.
“I don’t get to stay on the island with you, Mr. Tillman. But I thought I’d give you the same kind of treatment you gave me all these years.”
Fargo knew what was coming; he figured Aaron did, too. But for the moment Fargo listened to all the resentment and hatred in Ekert’s voice. He hated Ekert, wanted to kill him. But he had to give the man his dignity—something Aaron in his drunken arrogance had taken from him a long time ago. The weak brothers of strong, powerful men are pretty hard to take under the best of circumstances. He sensed that Aaron had probably been a champion bully.
The second kick was even swifter than the first. And just as devastating. A tad higher up. Another terrible cracking sound. Rib number two.
“You work Daisy over the same way before you killed her?” Fargo said.
Another swig of the bottle. Another grin on the grizzled face. “Now, Mr. Fargo, I sure wouldn’t go around hurtin’ women this way. Not unless I was paid to do it. And Noah, he paid me to kill her quick and clean. He always tells me how he wants things done. Sometimes he lets me have a little fun, sometimes he don’t. Daisy died quick, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just hope you killed the Mex quick, too. He was a pretty good partner. Now I got to find me a new one.”
Short-leaf pines lined the shore. A long, narrow dock extended like a finger into the water. Dogs greeted the approaching boat with violent barks. Killer dogs, no doubt. A short man in a khaki shirt and jeans appeared, toting a shotgun. He waved. Ekert waved back.
A touching scene, Fargo thought. Two killers greeting each other. He wondered again if he’d done the sensible thing, putting himself in such a situation.
Then he decided to hell with it. All this mental jawing was worthless. He was here; it was too late to turn back, and now he needed to spend his time figuring out how to tear the island apart and bring down Noah Tillman in the process. And, oh yes: get his hands on Ekert and beat the sumbitch to death.
The khaki-shirted man walked to the pier, grabbed the rope that was thrown him and helped bring the large craft in true.
Ekert leaned down to Aaron and spat in his face. “I’ve been waitin’ a long, long time for that, Mr. Tillman. I sure have.”
A minute later, Ekert stood on the dock with the other man. They were soon off-loading provisions. And then they were off-loading two shackled prisoners, Skye Fargo and Aaron Tillman by name.
Just after eight o’clock, Tom Tillman left the sheriff’s office and walked two blocks down to the newspaper office. He did a lot of smiling, even a bit of handshaking, a part of his job as the local enforcer of laws. To a lot of folks hereabout, a lawman was the closest thing they had to a celebrity. There was the mayor, but he didn’t carry a gun and didn’t go after bad men. And there was a parson and a priest but they didn’t carry guns, either, and the only bad men they saw were the kind who filled the pews on Sunday and pretended to be holy, the hypocrites.
The street was packed with revelers. There had to be—or seemed to be, anyway—several hundred thousand tykes from ages three to eleven running, jumping, shouting, screaming, laughing, crying, giggling, hopping, crawling, and whining everywhere he turned. In some ways, he was blessed that the missing persons matter had taken all of his attention. Dangerous as it might prove to be, it was still better than trying to deal with little ones who couldn’t find their mommies, drunks who liked to hit people, and traveling thespians who tried to sneak innocent girls into their tents to introduce them to the sweaty miracles of sex.
Liz was alone, sitting at her neatly organized rolltop desk. Two stacks of envelopes sat in front of her. One stack was three times as tall as the other.
She looked up, smiling, when she saw Tom. “Care to guess which one is bills and which one is income?”
“It’s a good thing you’ve got the constitution of a bobcat. You’re in one tough business.”
She put out her arm. Tom took her hand. She said, “Well, at least I don’t get shot at in my business.”
“You write another one of those editorials saying everybody in the North and the South should calm down and talk reasonably—somebody might shoot you then.”
They both knew he was only half-joking. She’d written one such editorial, urging both sides in the increasingly bitter debate over slavery to try to be more civil. The night the editorial appeared, her front window was smashed. Two nights later, somebody set the back of her building on fire. Luckily, a passerby saw the blaze when it was still controllable. It had been put out with minimum damage.
“You’re over here mighty early,” she said.
They were both careful to avoid any talk of romance, hurt feelings, or sneaking off to see each other. Tom’s bearing this morning allowed for none of it. He was able to signal his intentions just by his disposition. Now, he was all business.
“I wanted to find out if Richard ever learned anything about Skeleton Key,” he said.
She nodded. “Enough to know that’s where our answer must be.”
“Exactly. Noah’s my stepfather and I still don’t know anything about it. He claims it’s private because he keeps his best breeding stock there. But the times I’ve been by it in a canoe, all I ever see is a man standing at a dock with a shotgun.”
“What I hear about is those dogs. They’ve got a legend of their own.”
“The fisherman?”
She nodded. “I hope it’s just a story.”
Anytime you make anything off-limits to the public, you inspire all kinds of tales. Anything secret must be evil. Everybody who’d come within a quarter mile of Skeleton Key had heard the dogs. No doubt that they were merciless killers.
It didn’t take long for all sorts of stories to be passed on. The best had to
do with voodoo, a boatload of Haitian slaves being transported to Skeleton Key to do some kind of undisclosed work. As the story had it, the slaves naturally enough got tired of being slaves and decided to turn the dogs loose on the masters. To do this, the slaves hoobie-joobied the dogs with some kind of devil hex and the dogs dined on the masters while the slaves slipped away.
According to the same story, the dogs were still hexed, which not only made them dangerous, it also made them immortal. Yes, immortal. As Satan’s own, they could not be killed. No poison, ax, spear, or gun could take their lives.
Tom said, “I’m going out there tonight.”
“Are you insane?” She was so startled by his comment, she accidentally knocked over both carefully balanced sets of envelopes with a stray elbow.
“It’s the only way. Something’s going on on that island. And people have gone missing. Look at it that way, Liz. You have missing people, you have a mysterious island. As a lawman, I have to check that place out and find out what’s going on there.”
“But the dogs—”
He took her hand. “I don’t have any choice. It’s my job.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
He smiled. “Now you’re the insane one.”
“Why shouldn’t I go? I run a newspaper. I’m supposed to keep the public informed. So I should be there right along with you.”
“But the dogs—”
She grinned. “Huh-uh. That won’t work on me, Tom Tillman. I’m just as resourceful as you are. If you’re willing to take a chance with those hellhounds, so am I.”
“I could always slip away without telling you.”
“If you do, Sheriff, I’ll be a lot tougher on you than those dogs ever could be.”
“You’re serious about going?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I’m so serious about going, if you try and stop me, I’ll tell everybody I know what you’re up to. And word’ll get back to Noah and he’ll stop you one way or the other.”
“But that’s blackmail.”
“I never claimed to be virtuous, Sheriff. Just hard-working.”
It was clear that both of them thought that this could be a pretty good time to slide into each other’s arms. You could feel that kind of tension in the air. But it was also clear from the way they were restraining themselves that they weren’t about to give in to their impulse. This was business and a damned serious business at that.
“I’ll meet you at Simpson’s Ridge at nine o’clock tonight,” he said.
He tried to keep his voice free of the fear he felt. He just kept thinking of what those dogs could do to a man. Or worse, to a woman.
17
The settlement, such as it was, consisted of two large log cabins made from the wood of the dense forest that comprised ninety-five percent of the island. Additionally, there was a long dog run made of heavy timber, one half of it roofed and sided with wood so the animals could avoid getting soaked when it rained. A tall, rugged post stood in the middle of the clearing. The blood that soaked it indelibly made it obvious that this was the sort of whipping post plantation owners used for their disobedient slaves.
A tall, sinewy man with a bullwhip dangling from his right hand, stood near the whipping post watching as Fargo and Aaron were led, still shackled wrist and ankle, out of the forest and into the clearing.
Burgade said to Ekert, “Couple real fine specimens. Should make Noah pretty happy.”
“You know Noah,” Ekert said in a sour tone. “Nothing makes him happy.”
Burgade laughed. “Old Noah gnawing on that bony ass of yours again?”
“You damned right.” Then, looking at the cabin to his left: “Them gals in there?”
“Yeah. Sleepin’. I made ’em run all night. Make sure they were all ready for Noah when he gets here.”
“He isn’t gonna keep ’em anymore, huh?”
A sly grin on Burgade’s face. “Nope. They’re almost twenty-two. You don’t want ‘old ladies’ like that hangin’ around, do ya?”
“They can hang around me all they want.”
“Me, too.”
Ekert said, “Well, I’ll be pushin’ off.”
“You hate it here, don’t you?”
“Place spooks me. I’m always afraid old Noah’s gonna put me on here someday.” He nodded goodbye and started walking away.
Fargo had listened to this with his usual curiosity, trying to figure out what exactly took place on the island. He didn’t know for sure. But he was starting to have a hunch and it was a terrifying thought. A man could get jaded when he had as much as Noah Tillman did. It got harder and harder to buy a thrill. Even big game hunting started to pall after a time.
That left only one kind of animal that could make a hunt truly worthwhile.
Fargo had drifted into his own thoughts when the lash of the whip trenched a line of fiery pain across his chest. The tip of the whip held a metal head.
Aaron got the same kind of lash.
“I thought I’d introduce myself,” Burgade said. “Deke Burgade. I run this little place for Noah Tillman.” He smiled with rotten teeth at Fargo. “I believe you’ve met him a few times in your travels.” He snapped the whip with lurid, dangerous grace. He was obviously impressed with himself and now he meant to impress them, too.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Noah comes here to hunt. There’s a lot of wildlife in the forest. But he got tired of the same old thing. You know how rich people are, right, Aaron? They always need something new. And that’s how he came up with the idea of hunting humans. They present the greatest challenge. So every Fourth of July, Noah comes out here and has himself a real good time.”
Aaron said, “He’s crazy. This is the most inhumane thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“It may be,” Burgade said, “but at least it’s fun. There’s nothing like hunting people. Noah’s let me join the festivities from time to time. And this year, he’s throwing the two gals into the mix.”
“What gals?” Fargo said.
“Two of the most beautiful sisters you’ve ever seen. And not just their faces—their bodies, too. They look like something a fella’d dream about.”
“Where’d they come from?”
“They was visiting town a couple of years ago and I thought they’d be perfect as a surprise for old Noah. I grabbed ’em myself. Brought them here.”
“I’ll bet that made them happy.”
“You’ve got a tongue on you, Fargo.” He paused. “I take extra special care of them. Noah wants me to. They’ve got good food, they keep themselves clean in the lake about a quarter mile from here, and they sure get plenty of exercise. Even here they’ve got their vanity. They know they’re beautiful and they want to stay that way. Even if they don’t have the freedom they once did.”
Fargo nodded to the empty dog run. “Where’re the animals?”
Burgade shrugged. “I let ’em roam most of the day. They make sure that nobody comes ashore who isn’t supposed to be here.”
“I don’t suppose anybody’s ever escaped from this place,” Fargo said.
“Oh, they’ve tried, Mr. Fargo. In fact, I believe you knew Daisy. Well, the poor girl’s brother was here for less than half a day. He tried to escape. Almost made it to the water before Demon and Devil got hold of him.”
“Them being two of the dogs, of course.”
“Of course, Mr. Fargo.”
“This can’t go on much longer,” Aaron said. “Tom Tillman’s already curious about this island. He’ll start to investigate.”
Burgade smiled. “I don’t think old Noah is real worried about anything young Tom might do. Tom’s a good local lawman. But there’s no way he could ever outsmart Noah and get on this island. And until he does that, everything he hears falls into the category of rumor and gossip.”
Then he led them to their prison, the one disguised as a friendly-looking log cabin.
Noah Tillman said, “I’ll be leaving in a couple of hours, Manuel.”
“Yessir.”
“I want all my hunting gear laid out. I’ll take care of the guns myself.”
“Yessir.”
Noah laughed. “Maybe I can do better than last year.”
“Three men in six hours. I don’t know how much better you can get than that. They’d gotten to know the island pretty well.”
Last year, Noah had given Burgade permission to set the three men loose in the island for a week in advance. It wasn’t difficult to shoot somebody who’d never seen the terrain before. And the more difficult, the better. The prisoners had taken advantage of Noah’s largesse. They’d led him a hell of a merry chase. They’d found every cave, every gulley, every tall, lush tree on the island. And then he’d made it even more difficult for himself by limiting his hunting time to six hours. And yet he’d managed to locate and kill every one of them.
This year, given the late arrival time of Fargo and Aaron, he’d instructed Burgade to give them several extra considerations. They probably wouldn’t appreciate what Noah was doing for them—making the thing as sportsmanlike as possible—but Burgade thought they were being coddled and treated far too well. But then, when it came right down to it, Burgade was one sadistic sonofabitch.
Now it was time to take down his favorite weapon. He turned from his desk in the study to the large safe in the east rear corner of the spacious room. He had won them two years ago in a crooked poker game in New Orleans. He’d been the crooked one. He knew he could drive Cal Hawkins to desperation—and did. Hawkins was left with nothing to bid other than his most prized possession—even more prized than his wife and children—the weapon he had taken off a Pawnee warrior chief two years earlier. Night Wolf had been one of the most feared warriors in the Oklahoma territory. Until, that is, Hawkins shot him in the shoulder and then cut his throat. The tribe had earlier honored their chief by giving him the gift of a handcrafted seven-shot Spencer carbine that had once belonged to an army captain, a handcrafted carbine sheath and a pair of gloves made of the same leather and beading as the sheath itself. Noah believed that since the carbine had once belonged to such a fierce warrior, it was bound to make him a keener and better hunter.
