The Edge of Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  Viola lifted one of Belinda’s eyelids and saw that the blonde’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets.

  “It looks to me like she just fainted from fear and strain,” Viola said.

  “Do people really do that, señora?”

  “High-toned ladies from Boston do, I guess,” Viola said. “Help me lift her onto the sofa.”

  She took Belinda’s shoulders while Yolanda grasped her ankles. Together they lifted her and placed her on one of the sofas in the parlor. Viola loosened Belinda’s clothing.

  “We’ll give her some air and wait for her to wake up,” she said. “That’s about all we can do right now.”

  Heavy footsteps sounded from the house’s main entrance. Yolanda whirled in that direction, put a hand to her mouth, and gasped, “Señora!”

  Viola had slipped the .38 Smith & Wesson her husband had given her into a pocket of her dress. She reached in and grasped the gun now. She lifted it and had her thumb on the hammer as the shapes of several men appeared in the entrance to the parlor.

  She relaxed slightly as she recognized Santiago Rubriz and Don Eduardo. Santiago was on one side of the don, holding him up, while one of Don Eduardo’s vaqueros supported him on the other side.

  The don’s clothes had a lot of blood on them. His head sagged forward limply. He appeared to be unconscious.

  Viola put the revolver away again as she hurried to meet the men.

  “Señora Slaughter—” Santiago began.

  “Put him over there,” Viola interrupted as she pointed to the room’s second sofa. “Was he shot?”

  “Sí. Your husband said the bullet was still in him.”

  “I’ll have a look at him,” Viola said with an efficient nod. “I’ve patched up gunshot wounds before. There’s a good doctor in Douglas, too, and a rider can be there in a few hours.”

  “Sí, señora, Señor Slaughter said he would send a man for the doctor.”

  As Santiago and the vaquero, an older, hawk-faced man, carefully placed Don Eduardo on the sofa, Viola asked, “Where is my husband?”

  “He and your brother rode off in a hurry, señora,” Santiago said. He stepped back from the sofa and added, “They did not say where they were going, but they seemed quite upset about something, especially Señor Slaughter.”

  John had plenty of reason to be upset, thought Viola. His home had been attacked, his friends and family endangered.

  Texas John Slaughter wasn’t going to take that outrage lying down.

  Santiago seemed to notice his stepmother for the first time. His eyes widened at the sight of Belinda lying on the sofa, and he exclaimed, “Dios mio! Belinda! She is—”

  He had started toward her, but Viola caught hold of his arm and stopped him.

  “Your stepmother is fine,” she said. “She just fainted.”

  Unless Belinda had told him earlier in the evening, Santiago didn’t know that Viola was aware of their affair. Don Eduardo’s men wouldn’t know about it, either, and Viola was sure Belinda would want it to stay that way. Several of the don’s vaqueros had crowded into the parlor, and they might become suspicious if they saw Santiago carrying on too much about his stepmother.

  With a visible effort—visible to Viola, anyway—Santiago controlled his rampant emotions and asked, “You are sure she’s all right?”

  “I told you, she fainted. As soon as she wakes up, she’ll be fine. Now, I need to tend to your father.”

  Santiago swallowed and nodded. He said, “Anything you need, we will help.”

  “I want to clean the area around the wound first. Yolanda, get some clean rags and a basin of hot water. I’ll need some whiskey or something like that, too.”

  The piratical-looking vaquero asked, “Will tequila do?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Viola said.

  The man reached into a pocket inside the brown leather vest he wore and brought out a silver flask.

  “Then we have that,” he declared with a grim smile.

  Viola took the flask from him and said, “I’m sure there are wounded people outside who need help, too. Go out there and see about making them comfortable. Those who are hurt the worst need to be brought in here.”

  The sharp tone of command in her voice might have rankled some men, especially one who didn’t work for her and technically didn’t have to do what she told him.

  But the vaquero just smiled faintly again, touched the brim of his gray felt sombrero with a tobacco-stained finger, and murmured, “Sí, señora,” before he left the room.

  There was no doubt who was in charge here at the moment.

  Viola spent the next quarter-hour working on Don Eduardo, first using rags soaked in hot water to clean the blood from the area around the wound. She was gentle and tried not to hurt the don any more than she had to.

  His eyes were closed. He had passed out, and he didn’t come to as Viola tended to his injury. When the bullet hole was clean and open, she uncapped the vaquero’s flask of tequila and poured some of the fiery liquor into the wound, filling it until it overflowed in reddened streaks.

  The tequila’s fierce bite was enough to make Don Eduardo groan, even though he didn’t regain consciousness.

  Viola didn’t know her husband had returned until Slaughter touched her shoulder and asked, “How is he?”

  She turned quickly toward him and instead of answering his question asked one of her own. “Are you all right, John?”

  “Fine,” Slaughter replied with a curt nod. Viola saw anger and pain in his eyes, though. Not physical pain, she thought, but grief at what had happened here tonight. The people who worked for the Slaughters were like family, and some of them had been lost.

  Slaughter nodded toward the sofa and asked again, “What about the don?”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Viola said. “But he seems to be breathing all right, and the last time I checked his heartbeat it was a little ragged but still strong. I don’t think the bullet did a tremendous amount of damage inside, or else he wouldn’t be hanging on like he is. He ought to be all right if we can get the slug out of him.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Slaughter said. “Do you want to go after it, or should we wait for Dr. Fredericks to get here from Douglas?”

  “I’d rather let the doctor do it, if we can wait that long. You’re going to send a rider?”

  “Already did it, as soon as Stonewall and I got back. Orrie’s on his way into town now, on the fastest horse we could find.”

  “Pacer,” Stonewall added. He had come into the parlor behind his brother-in-law.

  Slaughter glanced over at Santiago, who hovered near the sofa where his stepmother lay.

  “Is that all right with you?” he asked. “We’ll wait for the doctor to operate on your father in the morning?”

  Santiago took a deep breath and nodded.

  “If you think that is best, señor.”

  Slaughter frowned as he looked at the unconscious blonde and asked, “What happened to her?”

  “Fainted,” Viola answered dryly. “She’ll come around.”

  “Oh.”

  From the doorway, the old vaquero said, “Señora, there are more people who need your help. Shall I have them brought in, as you commanded?”

  “Of course,” Viola said. “Yolanda, fetch blankets. We’ll make pallets on the floor. Stonewall, help me move some of this furniture back to make room.”

  As the maid hurried out, Slaughter touched Viola’s arm and asked quietly, “That’s Yolanda? The one young Alvarez was courting?”

  “That’s right,” Viola said. She caught her breath. “John, you said ‘was’ courting?”

  With a bleak expression on his bearded face, Slaughter nodded.

  “He was riding nighthawk. The others left him with the herd when the trouble started. Then he was jumped by wide-loopers who went after the cattle.” Slaughter paused for a second. “They killed him.”

  Viola pressed a hand to her mouth and breathed, “No. That poor b
oy . . .”

  “I’ll tell the girl when she comes back—”

  “No,” Viola said. “I’ll tell her, John. But later.” A determined look came over her face. “Right now, we have wounded to take care of. There’ll be time enough later to talk about what happened—and what we’re going to do about it.”

  * * *

  When the final tally was made, six people had been killed by the Apaches in the attack at the ranch: Pete the wrangler and the other cowboy, Jesse Harper, in the barn; the first victim at the fandango itself, a servant girl named Elena; two more of the ranch’s cowboys, Al Fraley and Ben Baxter; and one of Slaughter’s neighbors, a rancher named Carl Stevens. Hector Alvarez was the seventh victim, killed by the men who had stolen the herd.

  In addition to the fatalities, nine men and three women were wounded, some of them seriously. That included Don Eduardo Rubriz.

  Fifteen Apaches lay dead, here and there around the ranch. Slaughter believed that the renegades must have fought to the last man.

  Viola and some of the other women stayed busy all night, nursing the wounded. Yolanda had cried when Viola broke the news of Hector Alvarez’s death to her, but after a while she dried her eyes and went on helping, grim-faced.

  Doña Belinda woke up after a while, but she was no help. She was still half-hysterical, especially after she saw her husband lying there so pale with makeshift bandages wrapped around his midsection. She fell to her knees beside him and would have grabbed him, but Viola held her back.

  “You don’t want to jostle him around any more than he already has been,” Viola said. “We don’t know exactly where that bullet is, but we know the don is hanging on the way things are. We don’t want to cause it to shift and maybe hurt him worse.”

  “But . . . but he looks so bad,” Belinda wailed. “Like he’s already dead.”

  “But he’s not, and we want to keep him that way.” Viola looked around, spotted Santiago sitting across the room in a straight-back chair, his head hanging down and his hands clasped between his knees. He must have felt her eyes on him because he lifted his head and looked at her. Discreetly, she motioned with her head toward Belinda.

  Santiago was good enough to have an affair with his stepmother, Viola thought. The least he could do was take care of her now and keep her out of everyone else’s way.

  Santiago sighed, stood up, and came over to the sofa where his father lay. He put his hand on Belinda’s shoulder and said, “They are doing everything they can for him. We must let him rest.”

  It took a couple of minutes, but Santiago was able to persuade her to stand up and stop trying to climb onto the sofa with his father. He put an arm around her shoulders and started to turn her away.

  Don Eduardo stopped them by whispering, “S-Santiago. . .”

  Viola leaned over him, a bit surprised that the don had regained consciousness. She had halfway expected him to be out until the bullet could be removed.

  “Don Eduardo, you must rest—” she began.

  “My son . . . Santiago . . .”

  “I’m here, Father,” Santiago said.

  Belinda tried to pull loose from his grip. She sobbed, “Eduardo.”

  Rubriz ignored her. His eyes didn’t open, but he said, “Santiago . . . I think I heard talk . . . the cattle we brought . . .”

  “Stolen,” Santiago said grimly. “Señor Slaughter believes the Apaches were working with rustlers, that their attack was a distraction.”

  “El Señor Dios protect us . . . if those savages begin working with . . . bandidos. You must help . . . must help . . .”

  “Must help what, Father?”

  Rubriz lifted a trembling hand. Santiago let go of Belinda and stepped closer to clasp his father’s hand in both of his.

  “You must go after them,” Don Eduardo rasped. “You must bring those cattle back . . . Our family’s honor demands it.”

  Slaughter had been standing back, listening to the conversation. He stepped forward now and said, “I already paid you for those cows, Don Eduardo. Losing them is my problem. And I assure you, I intend to get them back.”

  “Take Santiago . . . with you,” Don Eduardo pleaded. “Those thieves . . . they stole from me, too. They put my son and my wife . . . in danger. They must be . . . punished.”

  “Eduardo, that’s crazy,” Belinda said. “If you send Santiago after them, then you’re putting him in danger, too.”

  “It’s different,” Santiago said. “I understand what he means.” He squeezed his father’s hand. “And I’ll do it. I’ll uphold our family’s honor.”

  A trace of a smile crossed Don Eduardo’s lips. Barely audible, he said, “That is good . . . I knew I could count on you . . . my son . . .”

  The last word came out of him with a sigh. Belinda lifted both hands to her mouth and stared in horror as she said, “Eduardo!”

  “He’s still breathing,” Viola told her. “He’s just asleep again. Talking even that much wore him out. You should probably get some rest, too.”

  “I . . . I want to help. If there’s anything I can do—”

  “There’s not,” Viola said.

  One of the last things she wanted right now was to have Belinda underfoot, weeping and wailing.

  Santiago turned to Slaughter and said, “You heard what my father said, señor. When are you going after those rustlers?”

  “At first light,” Slaughter said.

  “Then I will be going with you. I can bring most of our vaqueros with me, too. A few should be left behind, though, to protect my father since we don’t know how long he will be here.”

  “I agree,” Slaughter said. “And I appreciate the offer, Santiago.”

  “It’s not an offer. It is my duty.”

  “All right. We’ll ride together.” Slaughter looked over at Stonewall. “Too bad you fellas won’t get to have your race in the morning.”

  “I reckon this is more important,” Stonewall said.

  “Sí,” Santiago agreed. “And there will still be a race. Justice—against the men responsible for this tragedy.”

  Chapter 9

  Ned Becker waited in the mouth of the canyon. A quirly drooped from his lips. From time to time his fingers brushed the leather-wrapped handle of the knife sheathed at his waist.

  The knife he had used to kill that young vaquero with one deadly accurate throw.

  A couple of hundred yards behind him, the cattle moved restlessly, making noises familiar to any man who had spent much time as a cowhand. They were tired and they were angry because they had been driven so hard to get here before dawn.

  Now they could rest for a while, though, before some of Becker’s men moved them on deeper into the mountains. It was still more than an hour until sunrise, and Becker didn’t figure John Slaughter would start after him until first light.

  It would probably take that long just to clean up the mess from that little visit by Bodaway and his Apaches, Becker thought as a wry smile curved his lips.

  A footstep behind him made Becker look back over his shoulder. In the shadowy canyon, he couldn’t see the man who approached him, but he recognized the voice as that of his segundo, Herb Woodbury.

  “You sure you should be out here alone waitin’ for those redskins, boss?” Woodbury asked. “They could decide to double-cross you. Maybe cut your throat just for the spite of it. You can’t never tell what them bloodthirsty savages’ll do.”

  “Bodaway would never betray me,” Becker said. “We’ve been friends for too long.”

  Woodbury came closer now, close enough that Becker could see him in the starlight. He was a tall, gaunt man with a sandy mustache that straggled across his upper lip.

  “It ain’t none o’ my business, but I can’t help but wonder how in blazes you wound up pards with a damn Apache.”

  “You’re right,” Becker snapped. “It’s none of your business.”

  Woodbury started to fade back, muttering, “Sorry, boss—”

  “But that’s all ri
ght,” Becker went on, his tone softening a bit. “Bodaway and I both grew up around army posts and reservations. His father, you see, was a scout who worked for the army and helped them hunt down his fellow Apaches.”

  Woodbury grunted. “Lord. That must not’ve set too well with the redskins who wanted to keep puttin’ up a fight.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Becker agreed. “To many of the Apaches on the reservation, Bodaway’s father was hated and reviled. It was inevitable those feelings reflected over on him, too. He grew up being despised.”

  “Reckon that’s what makes him hate white folks so much now,” Woodbury said.

  “More than likely. He feels like he’s got a lot to make up for. He’ll never come in peacefully. He’s had his fill of reservations.”

  “What were you doin’ there?” Woodbury asked. “Your pa must’ve been one of the soldiers, I reckon.”

  “No,” Becker said.

  “Sutler, then? Civilian scout?”

  Becker considered telling Woodbury to go back with the others and leave him alone. The man’s questions were stirring up old memories that were better left alone.

  Becker knew from experience that as long as he kept his past buried deep inside him, he could control it instead of the other way around. He could use the bitter hatred as fuel to drive him on.

  On the other hand, no man could keep everything bottled up inside him forever. It might feel good to let some of it out for a change.

  “My father was dead by then,” Becker told his segundo. “It was my mother who worked around the forts and the camps. She cooked, did laundry, sold herself to the troopers.”

  He said the words casually, but there was nothing casual about the way something inside him twisted as he spoke.

  “So you see,” he went on, “it was natural for Bodaway and me to become friends. My mother was a whore, and his father was being paid to betray his people. We were alike in so many ways.”

  For a long moment Woodbury didn’t say anything. Then the outlaw said in a clearly uncomfortable voice, “Boss, I never meant to pry—”