‘Little missies like little children. Not speak unless spoken to.’ He had the singsong voice of an Oriental.
‘Hold it, Jap!’ Con yelled
‘Looks to me like that’s what he’s doin’,’ the man with the shoulder holster grunted.
‘Ira?’
Con’s tone of voice added a query to the name. Five of the masked men looked towards the sixth. He was almost as tall as Con, but carried a lot less weight. He was thin to the point of near emaciation, so that his shoulder blades and ribs were contoured by the tight-fit of his red shirt. He tugged hard at his left earlobe, like a man immersed in deep, reflective thought.
‘I come for my money, Con,’ he responded at length. ‘The Jap can have her if he’s a mind.’
A low moan escaped from behind the woman’s veil and her body, which had been rigid in the grasp of the Japanese, became abruptly limp. When he released her, she slumped to the ground as if in a faint.
The priest vented a louder moan and took a stride forward. The shotgun swung and exploded a second time. And the horses dragged the hearse another few yards. The ground immediately in front of the priest gave up countless spurts of dirt under the assault of the scattered charge. The priest froze.
Con laughed. ‘You wait your turn, mister!’ he taunted.
George, the youngster in the grave, was working furiously with the shovel again. The three men on the edge of the hole watched his efforts with eager concentration. The Jap went down on one knee beside the crumpled woman and hooked clawed fingers over the neckline of her mourning gown. His other hand fastened around her throat to hold her still as he jerked at the gown. The fabric ripped with the ease of damp paper, but with a more dramatic sound. But the stitching of the waistline refused to part. The Jap gave a grunt of displeasure.
‘This bestiality must end!’ the priest shrieked, and lunged into a waddling run.
The second trigger of the shotgun was squeezed. The range was less than fifteen feet and the moving target was sideways on to the gunman. Father Donovan vented a groan that might have been pity for the woman or an expression of his agony. Then he froze in his tracks, remained standing for a moment, and finally toppled like a felled tree. The upper pattern of the shot tore the flesh from his face: the lower almost ripped off his arm. Blood and tiny pieces of tissue sprayed through hot air as he fell. As he became inert against the dusty ground, his mutilated side remained uppermost. Planes of white skull bone gleamed brilliantly through the bubbles of crimson. His left eye had disintegrated, but the gory cluster of nerves and pulp in the socket seemed to have the power to see and to express a tacit curse towards the priest’s killer.
‘For you, everythin’s ended - you know what I mean?’ Con growled, as he broke the smoking shotgun to eject the spent shells and reload.
Familiar with the reports which had not harmed them, the hearse team were calmer now. They merely flared their nostrils and bulged their eyes as they caught the scent of burnt powder and fresh blood. A swarm of flies zoomed in from under the riverbank and settled to feast on the sheened crimson spilled by the shattered head and torso of the priest.
The woman moaned as the Jap flipped her over on to her belly with a hand and a foot and drew a knife. The man with the shoulder holster was the only one to glance away from the deepening grave to rake distasteful eyes over the corpse.
‘I don’t go for killin’ holy men, Con,’ he said flatly.
‘That mean you don’t go for me being top hand no more, Ken?’ Con asked in the same tone.
Ken looked fleetingly at Con now, but with the light of humor in his eyes above the mask. ‘But I guess I’ll get over it.’
Con nodded. That’s good, Ken. For you - you know what I mean?’
The Jap wrenched the torn dress off the woman’s prone form and, where it held at the shoulders and waist, he used the knife. The blade glinted in the sunlight against the mourning black of the fabric. She remained totally limp and no more sounds escaped her mouth, which was pressed into the dust. Her attacker’s breathing became as loud as the buzz of the flies, and he grunted in time with the thud of the shovel into the dirt as he worked on her underwear with the knife.
‘Man!’ he rasped as he turned her over on to her back again and snatched off her hat so that she was naked except for the sleeves of the dress and the gloves.
Ken shot a glance over his shoulder. His attention was distracted for longer this time, as his still-smiling eyes surveyed the body of the woman. The smooth whiteness of the skin contrasted vividly with the black of the fabric still clinging to her arms and hands: its starkness relieved only by the brown nipples cresting the small mounds of her breasts and the triangle of tangled, corn-colored hair arrowing between her slim thighs.
‘Nah, Jap!’ Ken growled. ‘You been without too long, I reckon. That there’s a woman.’
He laughed and swung back towards the grave as George hit the casket lid with his shovel. The laugh became a yell of delight. George giggled and worked even faster at the digging. The man beside Ken dropped to his haunches. Con clucked his horse forward as he swung the shotgun round on to his back. Ira rubbed the palms of his hands together as if they itched.
‘Nice, missy,’ the Jap crooned, unfastening the front of his pants and rooting inside at his crotch. ‘You like Japanese girl. No fight her man.’
Since she had been rolled on to her back to expose her most intimate parts to any who cared to look, the woman had been as inert as a corpse. But now, as the obese Jap parted her thighs into a broad vee and knelt between them, she expelled her pent up breath. And this triggered her creamy white flesh into a violent trembling motion. Which acted to arouse the Jap’s lust to a greater pitch. So that his own exposed genitals swelled to the limit as he lowered himself down on to the quivering belly and breast.
The shovel was hitting the casket lid at every thrust now. Con and Ira watched in silence. George and the other two were yelling and laughing. Nobody at the grave heard the woman’s shriek of pain as the Jap forced himself into an entry. His hands rose away from himself and formed into claws to fasten over the woman’s breasts. She spread her arms as wide as her legs and wrenched her head to the side. Her eyes snapped open, staring but seeing nothing. Her lips moved, forming unspoken words. The Jap buried his masked face between her breasts as his hands rolled the firm flesh against his cheeks.
His back rose and fell, the thrusts of his panting lust taking their time from the cadence of the grave opening.
Up the hill, in the shaded mouth of the cave, the man astride the gelding took the makings from his shirt pocket and rolled a cigarette. He reached above him to strike the match on the cave roof, then drew deeply against the cigarette. His horse remained utterly still, preferring the illusion of coolness inside the cave to the undeniable high heat which shimmered out in the open. Blue cigarette smoke drifted outside, hovered for a while, then rose suddenly upwards on an eddying thermal.
The Jap spent himself in a shuddering climax and became as limp as his victim.
George tossed out the ends of the four ropes and was hauled up from the grave. The casket was raised, the grunts of the sweating men competing with the hungry sounds of the feeding flies. Con leaned forward, to peer over the head of his horse. The Jap lifted himself out and off of the woman with a sigh. He picked up his discarded knife and replaced it in the belt sheath before he fastened his pants. Then he lifted the lower section of his bandana mask and spat on to the woman’s belly.
‘Missy need more practice,’ he said, and swung towards the grave, where Ira had snatched up the shovel and was using it to lever off the lid of the dusty casket.
The spittle trickled down the woman’s belly into the blood-soaked pubic triangle as her body heaved and vomit spewed from her gaping mouth. The flies swarmed from the dead man to the living woman.
Ira gave a final wrench with the shovel and the lid came free with a squeal of tortured wood and nails.
‘Will you look at that!’ George yelle
d, and his musical laughter masked the sound of the woman’s retching.
The man in the cave showed a first flicker of interest, waving a hand to clear the tobacco smoke from in front of his face. He saw that only Ira had leaned over the open casket - to pick up a hessian-wrapped package. As Ira straightened, the Jap drew his knife again. The knife was offered, handle-first, and Ira took it after tugging ones at his ear lobe. The woman’s nausea was finished and only the buzzing of the flies competed with the sound of the knife blade slicing through the hessian. When it had done its work, the fabric fell apart and all eyes except those of the now-silent woman drank in the sight of the pile of bills which was exposed.
‘You sure didn’t give us no bum steer, Ira,’ Con growled.
George dragged his gaze away from the money to peer into the casket. There was no corpse to be seen - just twin rows of hessian-wrapped packages. There’s gotta be a fortune here!’ he yelled.
Con abruptly broke the spell which sight of the money had cast over him. He sat erect in the saddle and raked his gaze in every direction. But, if he had sensed the watcher in the hillside cave, he failed to spot the man.
‘And there’s gotta be a better place to count it - you know what I mean?’ he snapped.
The men on the ground responded at once. Ken went to get the horses while the others hurried to lift the packages from the casket. There was just the single layer, beneath which was the waxed-faced, linen-clad corpse of a wizened old man.
As the bundles of money were packed into saddlebags, Con continued to survey the surrounding country. His body was rigid, his eyes unblinking, and he constantly fingered the strap of the shotgun. Once, he stared hard at one of the many cave mouths pocking the hillside to the north. He thought he saw a trace of smoke. But then he shook his head Heat shimmer was everywhere, making a man’s mind susceptible to mirages.
‘All done, Con,’ George reported, and the men swung up into their saddles, knees banging against bulging bags. ‘What about Emma?’
For the first time since the opening of the new grave had commenced, all six men looked towards the woman: now as unmoving as the two corpses.
Then Con shrugged. ‘Up to Ira, I reckon.’
The emaciated-looking man tugged at his mask so that it became free of his face and dropped into its more usual role as a neckerchief. With his features fully exposed, the impression of near-fleshless gauntness was strengthened.
‘She won’t cause no trouble,’ he rasped with hate.
‘Missy sure did not give me any!’ the Jap growled as he and the others tugged off their masks. He laughed. ‘I broke her real good, uh?’
‘So let’s move out!’ Con barked across a peal of laughter from the other men.
He was the first to wheel his horse and thud in his spurred heels. The rest were quick to follow, and galloping hooves raised the inevitable cloud of red dust to shroud riders and mounts. Con looked back over his shoulder once, but the billowing pall made it difficult to see even the men immediately behind him. Thus, the scene of slaughter and rape at the river’s side was totally veiled to him. Likewise, the man astride the gelding riding slowly down the hillside from the cave.
The lone rider halted his horse at the brink of the grave as the group of men rode out of sight around the hump of the hill from which they had first appeared. The sound of hoof beats diminished and then ceased to vibrate the hot air. The buzzing of the flies took on a lazy quality as the scavengers neared the point of satiation.
The man astride the gelding looked down impassively at the violated body of the woman. The creamy whiteness of her flesh was now coated with settled dust, held there by sweat: and this sticky cloaking underplayed the bruises and small cuts caused by the Jap’s lustful fingers and nails. The stench of her drying vomit was stronger than the sweet odor emanating from the corpse in the coffin.
The compassionless eyes of the man shifted their attention from the woman to the remains in the casket. He had been dead several days and decomposition was already beginning to win over the work of the mortician. He looked ready to crumble into dust at any moment. But the more recently dead priest was a more horrifying sight - to anyone capable of experiencing horror. For he had died by an act of body-shattering violence, whereas the older man seemed to have passed away peacefully.
A groan caused the man to swing his head around and look at the woman again. She rolled on to her side and started to raise her naked torso, supporting herself with shaking arms and hands. Her eyes as she met the man’s steady gaze seemed dead for a stretched second. Until his voice triggered her into an expression of pain and confusion: as if she could not believe the man and the horse were real until he spoke.
‘Ain’t true what they say, ma’am,’ he murmured, and touched the brim of his hat in a polite but incongruous gesture of greeting.
‘What...?’ she managed to gasp before her vomit-caked lips trembled to cut off the rest of the intended query.
‘No fate’s worse than death.’ He spat on to the shovel and the sun-heated metal exploded a hiss from the evaporating saliva.
The start of anger showed in her eyes now. They were green eyes. ‘You saw what … what happened to ... to me?’ she croaked.
She swung up on to her naked rump and wiped away some of the vomit on her jaw with the back of a hand. Then she folded up her legs to press her thighs against her breasts. She clasped both arms around her knees, grasping the only degree of modesty available to her.
The man jerked a thumb up towards the cave-featured hillside. ‘Had a grandstand view, ma’am.’
‘And did nothing?’ The anger was laced with contempt as she spat out the words, as if they tasted worse than the bile of nausea.
‘Like what, ma’am?’ He eased his horse into a slow wheel. ‘I never interfere in other folk’s business. Unless maybe I’m asked.’
He moved his horse away, to head across the rear of the hearse in the tracks left by the four departed cowhands.
‘Wait!’ the woman called. ‘Please, Mr...?’
‘Name’s Edge, Miss Diamond,’ the man replied, halting his horse and looking back over his shoulder.
She had got to her feet and was still doing what she could to cover herself - an arm forming a bar across her punished breasts and a hand clamped over the base of her belly.
‘I’ll pay ten dollars if you’ll help me back to Dream Creek, Mr. Edge.’ Fresh sweat was oozing from the pores of her face and cutting clean trails across the pasted dirt.
He hooked a leg around his saddle horn and dug out the makings. ‘I’m heading that way myself, ma’am. No charge.’
She gave a curt nod of thanks, then expressed resentment at the way Edge’s narrowed eyes glinted at her from out of the shade of his hat brim. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d turn your back while I cover myself, Mr. Edge.’
He lit the cigarette and did as she requested, then listened as she moved around to gather up her tattered clothing. He could see her shadow as she moved to the hearse and rummaged in the carpetbag. She made soft, angry sounds as she salvaged a modicum of modesty from the ruined mourning gown.
‘First time for you, I guess?’ he asked conversationally.
Her grunt of response was much louder. ‘I was pure!’ she snapped. ‘Before that revolting Japanese monster touched me, it was my intention to enter heaven inviolate!’
Edge showed a wry grin which the woman could not see. ‘It’s the road to hell that’s paved with good intentions, ma’am.’
‘I would ask you to refrain from misplaced humor, Mr. Edge!’ she snapped. There, how is that?’
He swung in the saddle to look at her through a curtain of tobacco smoke. She had used hairpins to fasten the gown around her. The material fitted her more snugly than before: and even had her underwear not been left to view where it had fallen, the contours of her body would have revealed she had nothing on under the gown.
‘You’re decent,’ Edge reported.
She shook her head emphatically. ‘
I’ll never be that again!’ She shuddered. ‘Not after what that Oriental beast did to me!’
Edge sighed. ‘OK, ma’am. I’ll admit that in that get-up you don’t look like no dew-fresh rose.’ He arced his cigarette butt out into the sluggish water of the Rio Grande. Then he spat a flake of tobacco off his lower lip. ‘But ain’t no one can tell you been Nipped in the bud.’
Chapter Two
‘YOU disgust me!’ Emma Diamond shrieked at the coldly smiling man sitting nonchalantly in the saddle. ‘You’re as bad as they are and I don’t need your help!’
She swung into a half turn, the speed of the action causing the skirt section of her gown to gape open to a point midway up her thigh. No longer concerned about exhibiting her body, she strode purposefully to the graveside and heaved the lid back on to the casket. Two of the nails were still in place and she used the shovel to hammer the lid. Then she picked up two ends of rope and tried to drag the closed casket to the brink of the hole.
It moved a mere inch and then came to a halt against a heap of dirt. She turned her sweating, straining, red-blotched face towards Edge and hissed at him between clenched teeth while she continued to haul uselessly on the ropes.
‘I don’t need you, I told you!’ she yelled. ‘Go away and leave me alone! I can do it!’
Abruptly, the patches of red enlarged to suffuse her entire face. Her eyes grew wide, bulging like those of a spooked horse. Then they snapped close and every trace of color drained from her face. She gave a low moan and collapsed, releasing the ropes. One leg fell limply over the side of the grave and pins popped to display the flesh from toe to hip.
Edge sighed and slid from the saddle. ‘Women!’ he rasped as he led the gelding down to the riverbank. ‘Why’d they always say the opposite of what they mean.’
EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19) Page 2
