Outlaw's Reckoning

by Ralph Compton

  Smythe and Bennett each took one of Gus’s arms and hauled him to his feet. The moment that happened, Gus’s senses were awash in a wave of fire that burned from the wound in his shoulder. The pain was enough to blacken his vision around the edges and suck every bit of wind from his lungs. Gus clamped his jaw shut and held on to that pain as if it was a bucking bronco. The pain, even more than either of the two men, got him to his feet and held him there.

  “Do you even know how long you were down?” Smythe asked, while wheezing a little from the exertion of carrying his portion of Gus’s weight. “More than once, we thought we’d lost you. But you’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? You made it all the way here and now you’re ready to just march out.”

  They turned Gus toward the right, which shifted his shoulder in a new direction. Gus felt pain similar to the many times he’d been stabbed. This time, however, the phantom blade dug deeply into him and twisted without any intention of getting pulled out again.

  “You want to march out of here?” Smythe asked. “March through them.” With that, he and Bennett propped Gus up so he could look through a dirty window.

  The first thing Gus noticed was that it was early evening. At least he hoped it was early evening. If not, the dull light in the sky was dawn instead of dusk and he’d been knocked out for a lot longer than he’d thought. The next thing Gus noticed was the steady flow of men outside the window. They weren’t just locals walking down a street, but were mostly in uniform. Infantry flags were flown in several places and the men wandered between several smaller buildings grouped together in a cluster.

  He was in Fort Verde.

  Suddenly, Gus knew that being shot was the least of his problems.

  “I see the gravity of your situation is finally sinking in,” Smythe said. “If you don’t want to deal with me, I can surely set you loose so you can deal with them. What’s the price on your head by now? Three thousand? Five? Ten?”

  Gus didn’t answer. He was too busy looking for patterns in the soldiers’ movements and the location of possible exits.

  “All right, that’s enough. You get the idea.” Smythe and Bennett dragged Gus away from the window and set him down onto a chair. The moment Gus’s back hit the wooden support, Smythe stepped aside so one of the other men could loop rope around Gus’s chest.

  There were two other men in the room besides Smythe and Bennett. It was an effort to keep his head raised, but Gus got a good look around while he was being tied up. The room was a good size and may have even been a freestanding shed. Three of the four walls had windows, which were covered by sheets of burlap. There were a few cots and stools against the walls, with a table and chairs in the middle of the room. Outside, it sounded as if a heavily loaded wagon was rumbling in amid shouts from a bunch of enthusiastic soldiers.

  Gus’s senses were quick to come back to him, but his strength was another matter. As much as he willed himself to get moving, he was still feeling the effects of being shot, knocked out and kept down by whatever means Smythe’s men had seen fit to use while they’d hauled him to the fort. He was, however, able to keep his wrists apart a bit while his arms were being tied behind his back.

  “You must know why you’re still alive,” Smythe said as he stepped back into Gus’s view.

  Gus blinked and let his head wobble to maintain the illusion that he was even more out of sorts than he was. “You want to see about getting those pretty clothes back?”

  Smythe blinked without emotion and then wrapped his hand around Gus’s throat in a surprisingly strong grip. “I don’t give a damn about those things,” he snarled. “We can send something else to the Swanns, but we need Abigail. Where is she?”

  “You mean . . . you lost her too?”

  When Gus smiled at him, Smythe smiled right back. He let go of Gus’s throat, stepped back and motioned to one of the other men. One of the bigger fellows who’d tied Gus’s back to the chair came around and delivered a swift left hook to his face.

  Gus’s head snapped to one side and he let out a pained grunt. After shaking off the punch, Gus asked, “Is that the best you got?”

  Another punch came to either silence Gus or impress Smythe. For the moment, it seemed to accomplish both of those goals.

  Nodding approvingly, Smythe said, “You might want to tell me what I need to know. It’ll make things a whole lot easier for you.”

  Gus spat out a wad of blood, but didn’t lift his head. “Easier? I’m shot, tied to a chair and in the middle of a fort. From where I’m sitting, I’ll either be killed by you or hanged by the Army. None of those things sounds too easy to me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You tell me where to find Abigail and I’ll consider you one of my employees. You’ll be entitled to a cut of the ransom money and then set loose to go about your business.”

  When Gus’s chest started to shake, he felt it in the fresh shoulder wound all the way down to his aching feet. The shake turned into a chuckle, which soon developed into something of a laugh. When he looked up to show the kidnappers his broken grin, Gus could see a few of them recoil. “You must not have knocked me around enough, because I sure don’t believe a word of that.”

  “Why should I lie to you?”

  “Why not? Your word don’t mean squat. I know you’ll say anything to get what you want and then break whatever promises you made as soon as it pleases you.”

  “I haven’t gotten to where I am by not honoring my word,” Smythe said. “At this point, it’s the only chance you’ve got.”

  The grin faded from Gus’s face, leaving a snarl on his lips and a gleam in his eye. “I don’t believe that, either.”

  Smythe looked plenty mad when he heard that.

  The other men all looked as if they were bracing for one hell of a storm.

  But Smythe didn’t boil over as everyone was expecting him to. Instead, he folded his hands and began to pace in front of Gus. “All right, so you’re not going to believe that I would cut you in. I probably wouldn’t believe that either, to be honest. You strike me as a man who’s been in this line of work for a good long while.”

  “I’m not a kidnapper,” Gus said. “I can’t abide kidnappers.”

  “I’m talking about stealing. I steal people, and according to the notices with your picture on them, you steal pretty much everything else. It all boils down to money, anyway.”

  Although Smythe waited for an acknowledgment, Gus wasn’t about to give it to him.

  Shrugging at the momentary silence, Smythe continued. “You know just as well as I that we can work out a deal. We’re both thieves, which means we can come to terms just like . . . well,” he said while extending his arms as if to embrace the shed around him, “like generals working out a truce. We could keep fighting the war, but it’s always more beneficial for an arrangement to be made.”

  “An arrangement,” Gus snorted. “Sure.”

  “The fact is that you took what I had and I have every right to take it back. Nobody gets anywhere if we leave things the way they are. Even if your partner decided to cut his losses and let the woman go, she would eventually head back to her family. Don’t you think I’ve got men watching the Swanns? Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to let the family do whatever they liked without keeping an eye on them?”

  Noticing something in Gus’s face, Smythe stooped a bit closer to his level and said, “The moment one of my men sees her with her family, we’ll be forced to kill everyone there. If anything, I’d need to do that just to prove I meant business in the first place. After all, I couldn’t just allow all my promises and threats to lead nowhere. I’d become a laughingstock and everything I’ve done thus far will be for nothing. A man like you has got to understand that.”

  Gus did understand it. That was what stuck in his craw. Any man who didn’t follow through on his promises was nothing but a blowhard. For someone who didn’t have the law to back him up, his reputation bore even more weight. Men known as fearsome cusses could find good partners
and pull off good jobs by just showing their faces and making threats. A blowhard was constantly challenged by men who wanted to be known as the one to kill him or just take whatever was in that man’s pockets at the time.

  Gus also believed what Smythe was saying about keeping an eye on Abigail’s family. That just made good sense. It was something he would do if he was in Smythe’s position.

  “Here’s what I can offer,” Smythe said. “You tell me where to find Abigail Swann and I’ll let you go. More important, I’ll take you out of this fort the same way I brought you in.”

  “Feetfirst?”

  Smythe immediately started to laugh. While two of the others were too anxious to share the joke, Bennett didn’t have any problem cracking a smile.

  “You’re an amusing sort,” Smythe said. “For a man in your position, that’s a mighty admirable trait. As for the rest of it, you couldn’t be more wrong. Although I do have a few friends at this outpost, they certainly wouldn’t be pleased if they knew I was harboring a man of your notoriety without announcing it to the proper federal authorities. Therefore I took it upon myself to wrap you up and bring you in without making anyone the wiser. Folks in uniform aren’t the only ones to come and go from this place, but I kept your face from being seen. I can see to it that you are allowed to leave under similar circumstances. You have my word that you will be breathing when we part company.”

  “How long will that last?” Gus asked.

  “Until the next time we cross paths,” Smythe replied. “You try to muck up another of my business ventures and I’ll put you in the ground. That’s a promise.”

  Gus had heard plenty of threats in his day. He’d made plenty of them as well. All he had to do to put some validity in Smythe’s threat was try to move his shoulder. Either Smythe or one of the men in his employ was a good enough marksman to knock him from his saddle without being seen. That was no small feat.

  “In return for your freedom,” Smythe continued, “I expect you to tell me where I can find Abigail Swann.”

  “Or,” Gus offered, “I could just tell you to go to hell.”

  Smythe nodded and let out a tired sigh. “I was expecting you might say something like that.” He stepped aside and allowed someone else to fill Gus’s field of vision.

  Bennett stood in front of Gus as a pair of rough hands grabbed Gus’s head from behind so someone else could stuff a dirty rag into his mouth. Once that was done, Bennett snapped his fist out to hit Gus with a sharp jab to the nose and followed up with a more solid hit to the stomach. Just as Gus was pulling in a breath, Bennett sent his hardest punch straight to Gus’s chest.

  Gus felt that last impact move all the way through his heart like a ripple going through a pond. The heavy thump filled his ears from the inside, and when he tried to fill his lungs again, Gus nearly choked on the rag. It took a moment, but he was able to think clearly enough to breathe through his nose and lift his head. Bennett snapped out two more jabs that caught his jaw on either side.

  Each time he was hit, Gus felt the pain a little less. He wasn’t fading back into the fog that had claimed him after being shot, however. On the contrary, his senses were growing sharper. Each punch added heat to the fire inside of him and it wasn’t long before that flame was hot enough to forge one mighty sharp blade. Gus clamped his teeth around the rag in his mouth and set his eyes upon Bennett.

  Seeing the spark in the prisoner, Bennett tried to snuff it out by delivering one punch after another. After a while, Bennett stepped back to rub his own bloodied knuckles.

  Smythe stepped in front of Gus and asked, “What about now? Are you feeling a little more open to my suggestion?”

  Gus nodded, so Smythe motioned for Bennett to pull the rag from his mouth. After taking a few deep breaths, Gus said, “Maybe you should hire someone else to throw punches for you. These wouldn’t even put that smartmouth woman down.”

  One more subtle motion from Smythe was all it took for Bennett to replace the rag. After that, the punches rained down in a torrent.

  Chapter 18

  Bennett took a few moments to catch his breath and then one of the other men took his place.

  Every piece of Gus’s body was starting to wear thin. If he wasn’t bruised and battered from the punches themselves, his muscles were tired from tensing in expectation of the next one to land. Blood had soaked all the way through the rag in his mouth to fill it with a foul coppery taste that ran down his throat.

  He didn’t want the beating to continue, but Gus knew it had to. Instead of writhing in pain like he’d been letting on, Gus rubbed his arms to work some more slack into the ropes around his wrists. That constant motion had been enough to make the ropes slick with some of his own blood, but he’d needed to add sweat to the mix, as well. Since he couldn’t just will the stuff from his skin, Gus squirmed and strained while the merciless pummeling continued.

  The second of the nameless pair of men took his turn. He started hitting Gus in the same spot on his ribs a few times in a row. It was either very precise aim on his part or very bad luck on Gus’s, because one of his ribs was about to snap like a twig.

  That realization must have shown upon Gus’s face, because Smythe stepped up and pushed the other man aside. “Take that out,” he said.

  The younger man who’d tenderized Gus’s ribs pulled the rag away. When he dropped it, the material hit the floor with a wet slap.

  “You look like you’ve got something to say,” Smythe declared.

  Gus nodded, but didn’t have enough breath to push any words out.

  Smythe waited patiently.

  “I . . . don’t have that case anymore,” Gus wheezed.

  Bennett and the other men glanced at one another, but none of them seemed to know what to make of that. Smythe, on the other hand, bent at the knees so he could look Gus directly in the face. When he spoke, he measured his words as if he was speaking to a dog. “I want Abigail Swann, not the case. I know you can tell me where to find her. Can you do that, Gus?”

  After blinking a few times, Gus nodded. He tried to speak, but was cut short as he coughed up some of the blood that had collected in his mouth. Hanging his head and breathing as deeply as his battered ribs would allow, Gus said, “I can . . . I can tell you, but I won’t . . . won’t do it here.”

  “Where would you propose?”

  “You say . . . you’ll get me out of this fort. Once I’m out . . . I can tell you.”

  “That can be arranged,” Smythe replied.

  “And I’ll . . . I’ll need my guns back.”

  “Now I know you’re rattled. You’re not getting your guns back.”

  “What . . . happens after I tell you?” Gus asked.

  Smythe straightened up and replied, “I’ll set you free. By that time, we’ll be well away from this fort and we can all go about our own affairs. In case you’ve forgotten what I said before, I most definitely will kill you should our paths cross again. Do we have a deal?”

  Slowly, painfully, Gus nodded.

  “Good. Bennett, prepare our friend here for his ride.”

  Bennett stepped forward while pushing aside the thick strands of black and gray hair that had fallen in front of his face. He eyed Gus suspiciously as he asked, “Should I put the gag back in his mouth?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Smythe replied. “He’ll only be signing his own death warrant if he decides to shout for help in the midst of all these soldiers.”

  Although Bennett nodded at that, he was reluctant to take his eyes away from Gus. He stretched a hand out toward the younger man who’d punished Gus’s ribs. “Fetch them scarves, Dan. The ones we used before.”

  Dan walked over to the table, which was no more than a few feet from Gus’s chair. He pulled several scarves out from a tangled pile, which also included Gus’s hat, jacket and gun belt. Before he could tell if his Colt was there, Gus’s view of the table was blocked by Dan’s wide frame.

  “You might want to cover his face
up a bit more than when we brought him in,” Smythe said. “It’s a bit uglier than normal.”

  Bennett took the scarves from Dan and waited for the other man to circle around behind Gus’s chair. After that, he separated one of the scarves from the tangle and began wrapping them loosely over Gus’s eyes.

  Smythe started prattling on, but Gus didn’t pay any attention to what was being said. The only thing that was of any concern was that Smythe was using fancy words and spewing them out like he didn’t have a care in the world. That told Gus the man in the expensive suit was feeling confident. Smythe was the cock of the walk to himself and his men, which suited Gus just fine.

  Even though Dan’s thick hands pressed down upon his shoulders, Gus didn’t concern himself with the pain from his wound or the fact that he could barely move while in the younger man’s grasp. He just kept on squirming because he’d been doing it from the moment he was put into that chair. By this time, he felt as slippery as a trout that had been freshly plucked from a stream.

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep quiet,” Smythe went on to say. “You step out of line for so much as an instant and I’ll just have to throw you to the wolves. Needless to say, all of these particular wolves are very well armed.”

  For a man who pointed out how much he didn’t need to say things, Smythe sure liked saying them. Although Gus could no longer see much, he could hear Smythe walking away from the table and rustling something. More than likely, he was at the coatrack that was to the left of the door. “There’s a wagon across from this shed,” Smythe said. “We’ll all climb into that and you’ll just stay quiet with your head down. If anyone asks, we’ll say you’re wounded.”

  Gus’s eyes were covered by the scarf that was wrapped around his head. His hat was pulled down low enough to keep the scarf in place while also covering most of it from plain sight.

  “You should take all of these precautions as a compliment,” Smythe said in a voice that clearly reflected an amused grin. “If you told me exactly where the woman is, I might just let you ride out of here like a man rather than as a lump with his hands bound and his eyes covered. Can you do that for me, Gus?” After a pause, his smug voice drifted through the air again. “That’s too much to ask on my part, isn’t it? You’re probably thinking about how you’ll get away once your hands are free and you can see again. Well, think all you want, my friend. If you try anything unexpected, I can gun you down and be rid of you before you even know where the shot’s coming from. I could even drag your carcass right back here and hand it in for a reward. Wouldn’t that be funny?”