The Edge of Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  Except for Viola, of course.

  The two men stopped talking and turned to walk toward him. Stonewall slitted his eyes as he watched them approach. He didn’t move a muscle or give any other sign that he was conscious.

  Turned out that was wasted effort on his part, because the first thing the tall white man did when he walked up was to draw back his foot and kick Stonewall in the side. The brutal blow made Stonewall gasp and jerk.

  “Wake up, if you’re not already,” the man said. He hunkered on his heels next to Stonewall. “You hear me, boy?”

  “I . . . hear you,” Stonewall grated through the pain in his side. Felt like the son of a buck might’ve cracked one of his ribs.

  “I know you’re Stonewall Howell, John Slaughter’s brother-in-law, so don’t even think about lying to me. Where’s Slaughter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The man stood up and kicked him again, this time in the left shoulder. Pain shot down that arm for an agonizing few seconds before it went numb.

  “I told you not to lie to me. You went with Slaughter when he chased after those rustled cattle. Why are you back here so soon?”

  “My horse . . . went lame.”

  “That’s a lie, too. Slaughter would have taken extra horses. And even if it were true, why would that other hombre come back with you?”

  So they knew about Hermosa. Stonewall wondered if the Apache was the man they had run into in the ditch. If he was, the Indian’s presence here didn’t bode well for Hermosa.

  “Did Slaughter send you back?” the man went on. “Did he know there was going to be trouble here at the ranch?”

  “Mister . . . John Slaughter’s my boss . . . not just my brother-in-law. I don’t ask him . . . to explain himself . . . I just do . . . what he tells me.”

  “So he told you to come back. Well, I thought as much. I don’t suppose it really matters what tipped him off. I’ve heard that Slaughter is a pretty smart man. Now here’s the important question.”

  The man placed his foot on Stonewall’s shoulder, the one he had kicked a few minutes earlier, and bore down on it. Stonewall groaned as he felt his bones grinding together under the pressure.

  “How far behind you is Slaughter? When will he get here?”

  Stonewall couldn’t answer because the pain in his shoulder made him throw his head back as a grimace stretched his mouth. After a moment his captor let up, and as the weight went away, the pain eased.

  “I don’t . . . know,” Stonewall panted in a whisper. “I really . . . don’t.”

  The man hunkered beside him again and said, “You think what I’ve been doing to you is bad? This man beside me, he’s called El Infierno. The Fires of Hell. The name suits him, too. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to turn you over to him and let him ask the questions for a while. You think you’ll like that any better?”

  Anger welled up inside Stonewall. This hombre thought he could just waltz in here, kill people and raise all sorts of havoc, and then demand answers. Stonewall said, “Why don’t you . . . go to hell?”

  The Apache moved a step closer.

  The white man raised a hand to stop him and said, “No, that’s all right. I know you’d enjoy working on him, Bodaway, but we don’t have time to waste. There’s too good a chance Slaughter is headed back and will get here before morning.”

  He straightened and prodded Stonewall in the side with a boot toe. It wasn’t really a kick this time, but it hurt anyway.

  “Get him on his feet,” the man ordered. “We can make use of him whether he talks or not.”

  Stonewall didn’t like the sound of that.

  * * *

  Viola didn’t know what Becker would try next, but with the rising of the moon she doubted if the invaders would attempt to sneak up on the house again. The moon was three-quarters full and cast a lot of light over the area around the ranch house.

  She had started wondering about Joe Sparkman up on the water tank. She hadn’t heard any shots from there during the earlier skirmish, and she was afraid Becker’s men might have spotted him and killed him.

  If that turned out to be true, it was one more score against Ned Becker that would need settling. Viola hadn’t even known Sparkman’s name before today, but if he was dead, he had died fighting for the Slaughter Ranch and he would be avenged.

  Dr. Fredericks came up to the window where Viola had posted herself and said, “Don Eduardo wants to talk to you.”

  “I’m a little busy,” Viola said without taking her eyes off the stretch of ground in front of the window.

  Fredericks chuckled and held out his hand. He said, “Give me the rifle. I’ll spell you long enough for you to go talk to the don. I told you before, I know how to use a gun.”

  Viola had to admit to herself that it would feel good to get up and move around a little. She had been kneeling here for quite a while. She made up her mind and handed the Winchester to Fredericks, then grasped the side of the window to brace herself as she stood up. She made sure to stay out of a direct line of fire.

  “I’m not as young as I used to be,” she commented as stiff muscles protested the movement.

  “My dear lady, you’re a child compared to most of us.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’d say that Doña Belinda is a little younger than me. Is she still with her husband?”

  “She’s asleep in one of the chairs.” Fredericks paused. “That may be why the don asked to speak with you. I think he was waiting for her to doze off.”

  Viola wasn’t sure what that meant, but there was one way to find out. She nodded to Fredericks and went into the parlor. She didn’t need a lamp to find her way around. She knew every square inch of this house, and even if she didn’t, enough moonlight came in through the windows to reveal the shapes of the furniture.

  Don Eduardo was sitting up on the sofa with pillows propped behind him. Fredericks must have thought that was all right since he’d just been in here. Viola went over to the sofa, perched on the arm, and said, “The doctor told me you wanted to talk to me, Don Eduardo.”

  He nodded and slowly lifted an arm to point at a wing chair set against the wall. Viola could make out Belinda’s huddled form as she slept, claimed again by exhaustion.

  “I thought while my wife was asleep I should take the opportunity to speak with you again, Señora Slaughter.”

  “Something you don’t want Doña Belinda to hear?” Viola smiled. “If you’re planning on flirting with me, Don Eduardo, you should realize by now that I’m a happily married woman.”

  The don laughed quietly and said, “I do realize that, señora. I only wish my Belinda was as happily married.”

  Viola tried not to wince. She hoped that he wasn’t about to confide in her. She didn’t want to hear his suspicions that his wife was cheating on him. In these desperate circumstances, if he did that she wasn’t sure she could keep what she knew to herself.

  “Her husband is a very stubborn man, though,” Rubriz went on.

  “Are you saying that my husband isn’t stubborn? Because if you are, you don’t know John Slaughter very well.”

  “No, I was talking only about my determination to do what must be done. I have to turn myself over to Ned Becker. If you will help me, señora, we can accomplish that while Belinda sleeps, so she will not try to stop me.”

  Viola didn’t try to hide her irritation as she said, “We’ve already talked about this. We’re not going to give Becker what he wants. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good, since he’s said that we have to surrender Doña Belinda to him as well as you.”

  “I am the one he really wants,” Don Eduardo insisted. “I am the one he blames for his father’s death. It was many, many years after that tragic occurrence before I even met Belinda. She had nothing to do with it. Surely once he has me in his power, he will see that and be satisfied.”

  “Satisfied to kill you, you mean.”

  Carefully, probably because of the bullet hole in his
side, Don Eduardo shrugged.

  “If such is to be my fate, I will regret it, of course. But I have enjoyed my life for the most part and if it is destined to end now, I can accept that.”

  “If my husband was here, he would tell you that we make our own destinies, Don Eduardo. John has always lived by that code.”

  The don let out a weary sigh and said, “People have died, Señora Slaughter. How many, I don’t know, but more than should have because of me. It is my wish that no one else should die because of Ned Becker’s hatred for me.”

  “That argument might work if I really believed he would let the rest of us go. But that’s never going to happen, and we both know it. He’s a madman. If he gets his way, he’ll kill us all, to cover his trail if for no other reason.”

  The moonlight was bright enough for Viola to see the tired but determined expression on the don’s face. She wished he would stop wasting his energy arguing with her. She tried another tactic to get him to understand.

  “Anyway, what would you do if your home was attacked and a lunatic wanted to kill one of your guests?” she asked. “Would you step back and let that happen?”

  He glared at her for a few seconds, then abruptly laughed.

  “You are an intelligent woman, Señora Slaughter. You appeal to my sense of honor, knowing that it means more to me than almost anything else in the world. Only two things mean more: my wife and my son.”

  Who are cuckolding you, thought Viola. That became less urgent, though, in a life-or-death situation such as the one in which they found themselves.

  She stood up and said, “I’m sorry, Don Eduardo, we’re not going to allow you to surrender—”

  “Mrs. Slaughter,” Dr. Fredericks said from the parlor doorway with a note of urgency in his voice. “Mr. Fisher says you need to come back in here right now.”

  That set Viola’s heart to tripping faster. Something was happening, and under the circumstances she doubted if it could be anything good.

  As she hurried past Fredericks, she told him, “Keep an eye on Don Eduardo. Don’t let him do anything foolish.”

  “You can depend on me,” Fredericks assured her as he handed over the rifle.

  Viola took the Winchester and went over to the window where Jess Fisher was crouched.

  “What is it?” she asked the foreman.

  He nodded toward the road in front of the house and said, “They showed up out there a minute ago. I passed the word for everybody to hold their fire.”

  She looked through the window and gasped as she saw three figures standing in the road. The moonlight was bright enough for her to recognize Ned Becker as one of them. One of the other men appeared to be an Apache warrior.

  And the third man, standing between Becker and the Indian with his hands tied behind his back, Becker’s gun to his head, and the Apache’s knife to his throat, was her brother Stonewall.

  Chapter 22

  Stonewall bit back a groan of despair as he stood there in the road between Becker and Bodaway. He hated the fact that he was being used as a weapon against his own sister.

  Surely Viola was smart enough not to give these bastards what they wanted, no matter how much they threatened him. Even if she cooperated, they would double-cross her and kill everybody. He was sure of it.

  “Mrs. Slaughter!” Becker called. “You hear me in there?”

  “I hear you.”

  That was Viola’s voice, all right, and the faint tremble in it told Stonewall that she was mad. Not scared, as somebody else might think if they heard it, but deep down, nail-chewing, blood-spitting mad. Stonewall knew that because he had been on the receiving end of such anger from her before. Not often, but enough to never forget it.

  “You better listen to me,” Becker went on. “You can see I’ve got your brother. My thumb on the hammer of this gun is all that’s keeping me from blowing his brains out, so don’t get any ideas about trying some fancy trick shot. Anyway, even if you managed to kill me without this gun going off, my friend here would cut the little bastard’s throat wide open before I even hit the ground.”

  “We’re holding our fire,” Viola said. “What do you want?”

  Becker laughed.

  “Why, you know that as well as I do. I want Don Eduardo and his wife, and I want you to surrender, as well. I plan to make a clean sweep of this when Rubriz’s son gets back, and I don’t want your husband interfering with that.”

  “You’ve gone to all this trouble and killed all those people for nothing, Becker,” Viola responded. “Don Eduardo wasn’t responsible for your father’s death. Whatever your mother told you about what happened years ago was a lie.”

  Becker stiffened. Stonewall felt the muzzle of the man’s gun press harder against his head. For a second he thought that Viola’s words might have just gotten him killed.

  Becker controlled himself enough not to shoot. He yelled, “You’re a lying bitch! Rubriz is a murderer, and he has to pay for what he did. I’ll see to it that he loses everything he holds dear before he dies! He’ll be begging me to kill him and put him out of his misery!”

  So that was what was going on, Stonewall thought. Some sort of loco vengeance quest. It made sense now, or at least as much sense as a scheme hatched by a lunatic could make.

  Viola said, “If you let my brother go and ride away, you can make it into Mexico before anyone can stop you. The authorities down there probably won’t come after you. This senseless killing can stop here and now.”

  “It’s not senseless,” Becker insisted. “It’s justice. Rubriz deserves to die for his crimes, and anybody who gets in the way of that, well, it’s just too bad about what happens to them.”

  Talking wasn’t easy with the Apache’s knife against his throat, but Stonewall croaked, “Mister, you’re wastin’ your time. I’ve known my sister all my life, and she’s the stubbornest woman on the face of the earth. She’ll never give you what you want.”

  “Not even to save your life?” Becker asked as his lips twisted in a snarl.

  “Not even for that,” Stonewall said. He knew it was true, too. Viola would never back down in the face of evil.

  “Well, that’s her mistake. She’ll see that I’m not bluffing.” Becker’s voice shook with the depth of his anger. “Bodaway—”

  Stonewall figured Becker was about to order the Apache to cut his throat. He tensed, readying himself to make a desperate, last-ditch move that probably wouldn’t accomplish a damned thing.

  Before Becker could finish what he was about to say, Viola called, “Wait!”

  An arrogant grin spread across Becker’s face in the moonlight as he said, “So, you’re ready to listen to reason, are you, Mrs. Slaughter?”

  “You’re the one who needs to listen,” Viola said. “You’ve overplayed your hand again, Mr. Becker. If you kill my brother, we won’t have any reason to hold our fire. You and your Apache friend will be riddled with lead before you can take two steps.” She paused. “I’d say what we have here is a standoff . . . and the only way for you to break it is to release my brother, back away, and get off this ranch.”

  Becker’s breath hissed angrily between his teeth. He said, “You’re a fool. Do you think I’ll give up my revenge that easily?”

  “You can’t get your revenge if you’re dead,” Viola pointed out.

  She was right, of course. Becker had believed he could waltz in here and terrorize his way into getting what he wanted.

  It hadn’t occurred to him that he would run up against a woman with a backbone of tempered steel. No matter how this turned out, Stonewall was proud of his sister.

  The tension in the air would have continued to stretch out until it snapped, and there was no telling what sort of explosion might have resulted from that.

  But before that could happen, an unsteady figure stumbled out of the shadows next to the house, extended shaking hands toward the men in the road, and called, “Ned! Ned, please don’t do this! Don’t hurt these people when the one you really
want is me!”

  “Rubriz!” Becker exclaimed.

  The gun barrel came away from Stonewall’s head as Becker’s instincts made him jerk the weapon toward the don.

  In the same instant, the front door of the ranch house slammed open as Doña Belinda charged outside screaming, “Eduardo!”

  The Apache’s knife moved away from Stonewall’s neck just slightly, and he knew this would be his only chance. He lowered his head and rammed his shoulder into the man beside him.

  * * *

  Don Eduardo’s sudden appearance outside took Viola by such surprise that for a moment all she could do was stare at him as he stumbled erratically toward the road.

  Then Belinda rushed through the front room, threw the door open, and ran outside as well before anyone could stop her.

  “Everyone hold your fire!” Viola shouted as she lunged to her feet and headed for the door, too.

  Maybe she could grab Belinda and wrestle the blonde back inside before something happened to her.

  As she emerged from the house, she caught a glimpse of Stonewall fighting with the Apache. She wasn’t sure her brother was a match for the savage warrior, but she didn’t have time right now to try to help him. She went after Belinda instead, who had just about reached Don Eduardo.

  Unfortunately, so had Ned Becker. Becker could have gunned down Don Eduardo easily by now, but obviously just killing him wasn’t enough to satisfy the crazed need for revenge that Becker felt.

  Don Eduardo leaped between Becker and his wife and cried, “Belinda, get back!” She ignored him and grabbed his arm instead as he almost fell.

  Becker was close enough to lash out with the gun in his hand. The barrel slammed against Don Eduardo’s head and battered him to his knees as Belinda screamed. Viola lifted her rifle but couldn’t get a shot at Becker because as Don Eduardo collapsed, Belinda threw herself at Becker and clawed at his face with her fingernails. She was directly in Viola’s line of fire.

  Viola had no idea what else was going on around the ranch house. All hell could have been breaking loose for all she knew. She ran closer, hoping to get a clear shot at Becker even though she knew that if she killed him, the rest of his men would probably open fire on her.