by Mark Henry
Slamming the flat wooden seat of the stool into the face of one of the grimy men who held the woman, he grabbed the other by the ear with his free hand and yanked hard. The ear ripped half away from the screaming man’s skull and propelled him back to Blake, who finished him off with a rap on the head with the butt of his pistol. The ne’er-do-well Ky had smacked with the stool lay in a heap on the floor—either unconscious or sensible enough to stay down and out of the path of the seething fury that was Hezikiah Roman.
The dark-eyed bartender stared in disbelief as Roman dragged the sobbing, half-naked woman off the table and passed her back to Blake before bringing the stool crashing down on the wooden bar between them. The bulk of the stool broke away and left two feet of splintered pine the size of a short bat. Without pausing, the marshal kicked the bar over with a mighty shove of his boot, trapping the bartender between it and the short wall. Before the dazed man could form a plan, Roman was on top of him, smashing the wooden baton across the arm that held the strop.
The wounded man squealed out in pain. A gush of tears quenched the fire in his eyes and he dropped the leather. “She is only a whore, patrone.”
Ky growled again from low in his chest. He clubbed the blubbering barkeep across the shoulders, and sent him sprawling against the overturned bar. The stick shattered at the blow, and Ky dropped what was left to the ground as if he’d expected it to happen that way. The lawman took up the strop without pausing and he looked up at the woman in Blake’s arms.
“Some things you don’t even do to a whore,” Roman spit through clenched teeth, and laid the wide leather across the man’s back and buttocks. When he tried to rise, the marshal pushed him down with the sole of his boot and struck him again and again. Ky whipped until his hat fell off and sweat dripped from the end of his nose. When it was apparent the bartender was unconscious, Roman toed him over with his boot. He was still alive, but long past feeling the effects of the beating. When he came to, he would feel them for quite a while.
Roman regained his hat and tipped it to the woman. She’d found her composure despite the fact that most of her pink bottom still poked out the back of her shredded dress.
“They call me Cora,” she said through a sniffle. Extending a hand toward the marshal, she smiled through a tear-streaked face. “If I had to guess, I’d say you were Clay’s friends.”
Blake’s head snapped around. “You know Clay Madsen.”
Cora smiled and patted Blake’s elbow. “Why, yes, honey boy, we’re old friends as of twenty minutes ago.” She brushed a wilted lock of red hair out of her eyes. “Really, he’s the first man to treat me nice in a long time.” Her eyes shone in the lamplight. “You two are the second and third.”
“Did Clay say where he was going?” Blake felt Madsen and his father must have been onto something since they were already gone from the saloon.
“Sure did.” Cora let her head loll dreamily and sighed. “He paid for a whole night with me. Hell, more than that—what he paid could have had me for a month—and that’s if I decided to charge a handsome gentleman like him. Then he told Franco to keep off me for the night. Said he’d be back to look in on me, but Franco didn’t believe him.” She sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye with the heel of her hand. “After Clay left, the bastard took my money and whipped me for bein’ nice. As if that ain’t what he pays me to do anyhow.”
It suddenly occurred to Cora that Franco still had her money. She trotted over and rolled him over to get at his pockets. The bartender’s body arched back across the demolished bar rubble like he was trying to do a backflip. She squatted beside him, the tattered cloth of her dress falling between her fleshy pale thighs like a flimsy green loincloth. She searched around under his whiskey-stained apron until she came up with a wad of cash the size of her fist. Money in hand, she rose and stared down at the man who moments before had beaten her without mercy. Rearing back on one leg, she gave him three solid kicks with her bare foot to his unprotected groin. Cora was built low to the ground and had powerful legs. Franco’s eyes fluttered but stayed closed, and his lips parted in a mournful moan as he drew himself into a tight ball like a dead spider. Even through the veil of his unconscious stupor, Franco could feel some pain.
Blake winced within himself. He hoped he never passed out in front of a woman who hated him that much.
Ky leaned over and whispered, “He’s lucky. Your mama would have used a knife.”
Cora looked up at the two lawmen. “Please tell Clay thank you for me. I need to get gone before Franco comes to his senses and shoots me—or worse.”
“I’d be happy to tell Mr. Madsen whatever you want me to, ma’am, if you’d be so kind as to point us in the right direction.” Roman still breathed heavily. He kept his head tilted back to keep from looking at the stout pink hips that peeked between the rags of Cora’s dress.
Her hand shot to her mouth and she giggled. “I’m so sorry. I never did tell you, did I? Him and his friend was looking for Lucius Feak, so I sent ’em over to Moira Gumm’s place. Feak used to take a fancy to me.” Cora held up her nubby fingers and sneered. “Til he decided I wasn’t his style. Moira ain’t got the sense God gave a gopher. She’s hoein’ the same row, so she’s in for the same treatment sooner or later.”
Cora gave the men directions, and started to shuffle off toward her small room sectioned off in the back of the tent. Franco’s cruel beating was still evident on her bottom and in her gait.
Ky started to leave, then turned. “Ma’am,” he said, clearing his throat. Now that the excitement was over, he had a hard time even looking her in the eye. He took some bills out of his wallet and offered them to her. “Do you have anywhere to go?”
She took the money and gave him a coy wink. “I’m still young, sir. A gal like me will have places to go for a few more years anyway. With all the boys in the fire camps around these parts, I’m sure I can be of some service out there somewheres.”
Roman’s shoulders drooped. “But you could take this money along with what Clay gave you and make a new start for yourself—away from men like that.” He pointed to the heap that was Franco.
“Doin’ what?” Cora smiled, but a tear rolled, down her pudgy cheek. “Listen, mister, I don’t know how to sew and I don’t aim to learn now. I can’t cook worth a damn and even if I could, the way I been livin’ no good man like you or Clay would ever take up with me. You see, I already got it figured that I ain’t never gonna see no heaven on earth. I’m just hopin’ to sock enough away while I got somethin’ to offer that I don’t have to live in Hell all the time—till after I’m dead.”
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with both fists. “You best go find your friends. If it’s Lucius Feak you’re huntin’, they’ll need the help.”
CHAPTER 12
Billy Scudder was mad enough to choke a cat to death with his bare hands. Who did that son of a bitch Feak think he was anyhow, ordering him around like that in front of the A-patch and all? Billy had a good mind to stand up to him next time and show him Mama Scudder hadn’t raised no sucky baby. No, sir! Not by a long shot she hadn’t. Billy was tough as any man around and he knew it.
The whiskey he’d shared with the Indians earlier that evening had clouded his thinking, and he couldn’t seem to come up with as many curse words as usual. He compensated by using the same ones over and over as he urged his gaunt pony into the deserted back alleys of Taft and cussed the mortal soul of Lucius Feak.
Killing the boy would be no problem—if it weren’t for the witch. Mama Scudder had taught Billy much more than how to kill a person. She’d also taught him to have enough good sense to be scared of witches. Once, when he left the curtain open after dark with the lantern lit in the front room of their house, she’d nearly caved in his head with a stick of stove wood. “Them Mexican brujas are out there watchin’ for fools liken you,” she’d said. “Fools who leave their curtains open in the night so they can slip in on their spirits and give you the mal ojo—the evil eye—or su
ck the life’s breath right out of you so’s they can raise their dead sweethearts or some such thing.”
Mama’d seen it done, she said. Mama knew about things like that.
Billy wished the sheriff back in Santa Fe wouldn’t have hung Mama. She could have given him some good advice about this particular witch. She would surely know what to do.
The jail was near now, only half a block away. Scudder got off his horse and tied it to a short vine maple growing along the alley. In the distance, a hound sent up a mournful howl. The shiver going up Billy’s spine met a trickle of sweat rolling down it. He belched up a particularly harsh whiskey burp that burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes.
He coughed and spit to clear his mouth. Billy seemed to remember Mama saying witches liked to steer clear of crosses. Not having such a thing handy, he bent to the dusty street and stirred his spitball into a muddy cake. He smeared the greasy mixture between his fingers and held it up close to his face so he could get a good look at it in the darkness. Satisfied it would mark him sufficiently, he smeared the sticky goo in the shape of a jagged cross on his forehead. If Mama was right, he would be safe from any witch trying to suck out his life’s breath to raise her dead sweetheart—or any such thing.
He checked the rounds in his Colt, then slid it back into the holster that rode high on his hip. The deputy would be no problem; few men were as quick or as eager to kill as Billy Scudder. He tapped the wood handle of the large bowie knife on the other side of his belt. He’d use the blade to kill them all if the Indian witch didn’t get in the way. A knife would be quieter—bloody, but not so much fuss as a pistol barkin’ in the night.
Scudder touched the rough mark on his forehead where the muddy spot was beginning to dry. He started into the darkness, down the alley toward the jail. The dog howled again, and Scudder felt his bowels go loose like something broke inside him. That was the last thing he needed. He needed to concentrate on protecting himself from the witch and her mal ojo, not worrying that he might crap his pants. He paused to relieve himself under a clothesline full of long underwear behind a quiet shack along the alley.
“Mama,” he whispered into the black night air while he plucked a cotton sock off the line to clean himself. “I sure hope you told me right about witches.” Even as he questioned his dead mother, he ducked slightly, anticipating the piece of stove wood that inevitably landed somewhere on his head or shoulders when he’d shown any sign of doubt in her word. When nothing happened, Billy Scudder pulled up his britches, screwed up his courage, and walked toward the back of the jail. The bowie knife gleamed in the moonlight, and the sparkle of a plan that would take care of the deputy, the boy, and the witch began to form in his mind.
* * *
Shad hadn’t let go of Maggie’s skirt since he woke from his sleep at Dr. Bruner’s office. The poor boy had seen enough misery to last him a lifetime, and though he was beginning to come out of his stupor, his eyes still held a wistful, faraway look. He held onto her as if she were the only anchor that kept him from drifting away. Though Shad refused to leave Maggie’s side, he had been taken with Madsen. The big, swaggering Texan made faces and clowned with the boy enough to coax out a smile or two. Clay had always had an endearing way with women and small children. Women wanted to mother him and children considered him a playmate.
John Loudermilk puttered around with his coffee grinder in the front office, whistling some song Maggie had never heard before but that seemed to be his favorite. The deputy had wanted to lock Shad and Maggie in a cell for their own protection, but she wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, he’d put her in a storeroom behind the office alongside the two ten-by-ten cells. The small room, no more than a third cell without the bars, had two cots, a pile of wool blankets, and a barrel of drinking water.
All the prisoners had been released on their own recognizance to help fight the forest fires. Apart from Maggie, Shad, and Deputy Loudermilk, the jail was empty.
“I’m hot, Miss Maggie,” Shad said, lying on a cot with his head in her lap.
“Me too.” She tousled the little boy’s blond hair. “My husband says I’m always hot unless it’s snowing.” Her thoughts drifted to Trap while she patted Shad’s cheek. “I’ll show you something my mother taught me when I was a little girl.”
Shad sat up and rubbed his eyes. It was late, but he’d slept away much of the day and was wide awake now. Maggie had taken off the absurd little jacket and knee socks he’d been wearing, and cut the knickers into a much cooler pair of shorts. A heavy woolen blanket covered the open barred window high above the cot. The covering kept anyone from looking in, but held off any breeze as well.
“You come sit over here for a minute and watch me.” The window was over six feet off the ground, but Maggie didn’t want Shad anywhere near it when she took down the blanket. He would be an easy target for someone outside with a ladder.
Using a wooden bucket, she dipped enough water from the barrel to completely submerge the woolen window covering. She carried the bucket to the window, and then used the cot as a stepladder to replace the dripping blanket on its nails in front of the iron bars. Water streamed from the bottom. Another blanket, rolled into a long tube and placed along the floor, caught the drizzling runoff.
“Sit here.” She pointed to the cot beneath the window and stepped to the door.
Loudermilk still shuffled in the other room with his grinder.
“Now,” Maggie said, her hand on the knob. “Watch what happens when I open the door and give the air a place to go.” She cracked the door a few inches, and watched the blanket over the window billow out as a breath of wind blew against it from outside.
“That’s nice,” Shad said, leaning his head back to feel the cool air cascade down from the wet blanket over his head. His feet stuck straight out in front of him on the wide cot. “Mama was always hot too. She would have . . .”
Maggie cocked her head to one side and trained her ears toward the cracked door. The boy kept talking, but she didn’t hear what he said. For as long as she could remember, Maggie had felt a peculiar tickle when things weren’t quite right—as if her heart had walked through a spiderweb. Her mother said it was a gift from the spirits. Trap’s father said it was a spiritual gift.
“What would you say to some Indian tea to help you sleep?” Maggie took the medicine bag from her neck and held it up in front of her. She smiled to keep from frightening him. “It’s one of the special things I keep in my bag here.”
“All right. Will it taste funny?”
Maggie strained to hear Loudermilk’s movements. Nothing. “You’ll like it. It’s sweet—like licorice. I need to get some hot water from the front. Be right back.”
Shad scooted to the edge of the cot and hopped to the floor. “I’ll come with you.”
Maggie raised her hand. “No, you stay here. I’ll only be a minute.” Her voice was sharper than she intended, and his eyes went wide. Pointing to the cot, she put a finger to her lips and motioned him back there. The boy obeyed, but his breathing grew shallow and his eyes lost their focus. He was slipping back into his stupor. It couldn’t be helped. Maggie couldn’t afford to have him clinging to her if her fears were realized. He was safer back here.
The door yawned open a crack, and Maggie peeked into the hall. The front office was quiet. Light from the lamp spilled down past the cells and cast a spiked shadow from the key ring on the wall.
Shad sat back under the window, tight-chinned, like he might break down at any moment. It broke her heart to leave him.
“Be right back.” She grabbed her rifle, hoping Shad didn’t notice, and pulled the door shut behind her. The door leading to the back alley lay off to her left. It was still closed and barred from the inside. In front of her lay a small corridor with the two cells. It ended at a second door to the deputy’s office. To her right, a funnel of light at the end of a short hall lead into the same room.
In the front office, John Loudermilk’s coffee grinder lay in pi
eces on the wooden floor. One of the double-barrel shotguns was missing from the rack behind a cluttered desk, but the deputy was nowhere to be found. Maggie stepped to the front door. The bolt was locked, but there were scuff marks on the floor in front of it and the thick timber bar that should have been in brackets leaned against the wall.
The tickling feeling grew stronger in her chest, and Maggie fought the urge to run blindly back to Shad. With the rifle in both hands, she peeked around the open door that connected to the small alcove in front of the two cells. It was dark and hot. The smell of human sweat and boredom from the recent prisoners’ confinement hung in the stale air. A tawny rat moved across the far wall of the closest cell, its claws clicking against the wooden floor. Maggie shuddered, but rats were the least of her fears.
“John,” she whispered, holding the rifle out in front of her.
Nothing. Nothing, but the prickling web pulling across her heart.
Heavy footfalls echoed off the walkway outside the front door. The bolt rattled while someone gave it a shake. Maggie considered replacing the thick crossbeam, but decided against it when she realized she’d have to put down her rifle to lift the heavy timber. Only then, as she stepped away from the doorway, did she notice the boot heel jutting from behind the cluttered office desk. It was John Loudermilk. His shotgun lay beside him along with a half-dozen errant wanted posters in a growing pool of blood. Maggie knew enough of death to see there was nothing she could do for the poor deputy.
A pitiful scream from the storeroom rent the night.
Shad.
Straining to hear another sound from the back room, she began to move toward the boy. She rounded the corner and ran headlong into a shadowed figure in the darkness. As she crashed into him, the rifle slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. Face-to-face, close enough to feel his sour breath against her forehead, Maggie could smell blood on his clothes. She shoved as hard as she could with both hands. At the same instant the intruder lashed out with a knife.
