by Jon Sharpe
Mad Dog touched his fingers to his cheek and then stared at the drops of blood on his fingertips, his jaw muscles twitching. “You bitch. You miserable little bitch.” Rising, he moved to a mirror on the far wall. “Look at what you have done to me! I could be scarred.”
“I hope you are!” Bobbie Joe shrilly cried. “I hope I spoiled your looks so you won’t be as handsome for the next poor female you take advantage of!”
Fargo had no way of preventing what happened next. Not with his wrists still bound.
Whirling, Mad Dog Terrell uttered a howl of rage worthy of his namesake. In three long strides he was at the table. Gripping Bobbie Joe by the forearm, he hollered at Mattox, “Let go of her!” and wrenched her out of the chair. She tried to claw him again but Mad Dog blocked the blow, drew back his fist, and punched her in the stomach.
Doubling over, Bobbie Joe wheezed and sputtered and staggered a few steps. She went red in the face and could not catch her breath.
“Claw me, will you?” Mad Dog rasped, and struck her again, this time on the temple. He did not hold back. He did not go easy on her because she was a woman. He hit her with all his might and Bobbie Joe Jentry collapsed in an unconscious sprawl.
It took every ounce of will Fargo possessed to stay in his chair and keep cutting at the rope.
Mattox was grinning in delight. “Want me to stomp on her? Break a few ribs and such?”
“Lay a hand on her,” Mad Dog snarled, “and you die.” Stooping, he cupped her chin and violently shook her head. “This one is mine. No one is to touch her but me.”
Fargo could not stay silent. “This is how you repay her for trying to help you?”
Unfurling, Mad Dog hissed like a riled snake. “I didn’t ask the cow to bring you here. She did it on her own.” He nudged Bobbie Joe with a toe. “She has only herself to blame if she ends up sharing the same grave as you.”
“What do you have in mind?” Fargo asked. Not that he cared. He was stalling to buy time to free his arms.
Mad Dog Terrell laughed that inhuman laugh of his. “Let me put it this way: I would not want to be you.”
13
“Let me strangle him, Mad Dog,” Mattox requested. “You know how much I like to strangle things.” His dark eyes glittered at the prospect and he licked his thick lips.
“Strangling is too quick. I want them both to suffer a good long while before they die.”
Fargo was almost through the rope. He dared not look but he could feel the strands giving way. A few more and he would have it.
Then hooves drummed and voices were raised, Yoas yelling something and DePue answering. Mad Dog and Mattox turned toward the front door just as it opened, framing the swarthy half-breed.
“You are supposed to be backtracking these two,” Terrell said, with a jab of his thumb at Fargo and Bobbie Joe.
“I got as far as the end of the valley,” Yoas said, “and I spotted the posse coming down through the timber to the northeast.”
Fargo was surprised. Deputy Gavin had agreed to stay put until he found the outlaws and reported back.
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. I came back by way of the stream and did not break cover until I was close to the cabin.”
Mad Dog had a habit of scratching his chin when he was thinking. “How many are there?”
“It is as the woman told you,” Yoas answered. “There are only four.”
And one of them, Fargo grimly reflected, was in handcuffs. He had a sinking feeling that unless he did something, and did it quick, the posse was going to ride smack into an ambush.
“I figure it will be half an hour yet before they get here,” Yoas had gone on.
“Does DePue have the horses saddled?” Mad Dog Terrell asked.
“He was saddling the last one as I rode up,” Yoas answered.
“Good. Tell him to leave the packhorses in the corral for now. We want the posse to think we are here. I will be right out.”
“As you wish,” Yoas obediently replied, and dashed off.
Mattox clenched and unclenched his enormous hands. “We are setting a trap?”
“We are,” Mad Dog confirmed. “Find some rope and tie Bobbie Joe. Gag her, too, to be on the safe side.” He turned toward the table.
Fargo stopped cutting. Pinching the hilt of the Arkansas toothpick against his palm, he slid the blade up his sleeve so the knife was less likely to be noticed.
“On your feet,” Mad Dog commanded.
“What about Lucille Sparks?”
“What about her?” Mad Dog retorted. “She is none of your concern and never was.”
“Is she still alive?” Fargo wanted to learn.
Mad Dog started around the table, his hand on his pearl-handled Colt, his handsome features twisted in fury. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“You can’t blame me for worrying about her,” Fargo said, standing with his wrists pressed against his buckskins.
Those peculiar eyes of Mad Dog’s were fixed so intently on him, that for a few seconds Fargo thought Terrell was about to draw and gun him down where he stood. But Mad Dog merely took his hand off the Colt and said harshly, “Outside. And don’t try anything or we kill the cow.”
Mattox looked up from binding Bobbie Joe. “I can snap her neck if he gives us any trouble.”
“No. I kill her, remember?” Mad Dog said. “But you can cut her nose off if you want if he acts up.”
Fargo dared not make his move. Not yet. He moved around the opposite side of the table from Terrell and over to the door. The moment he stepped outside, Yoas was there with his six-shooter out.
“Are you thinking about your friends, gringo? You should be. They are not long for this world.” Yoas wagged his revolver. “Over to the horses. I will be right behind you.”
Fargo gazed to the northeast but he did not spot the posse. He came to the Ovaro and reached for the saddle horn.
“Not yet,” Yoas said. “I will tell you when.”
Fargo turned. “I have been meaning to ask. Was that you who took a shot at me back at Dawson’s Corners?”
“S1´,” Yoas said. “Mad Dog sent me to watch and see if a posse came after us, and to slow them down if they did. I saw you and the woman walk off into the woods and figured I might as well start with you.” He scowled. “The damn shadows spoiled my aim.”
“That’s how you like to do it, isn’t it? From a distance, so you are good and safe.”
Yoas took a half step toward him. “Call me a coward again and I shoot you, Mad Dog or no Mad Dog.”
“One day he will turn on you, you know,” Fargo told him. “He only cares about himself.”
Feet swished the high grass, and DePue was there, smirking. “That is where you are wrong, mon ami. Oui, Terrell is not as other men, but he values us. He has saved each of our lives at one time or another. Mine, when he shot a man who was about to shoot me in the back.”
“One day you will be of no more use to him, and that will be that,” Fargo predicted.
“Ignore him,” Yoas said to DePue. “He is trying to turn us against Mad Dog and it will not work.”
“No, it will not,” DePue assured Fargo. “We have ridden with him too long. He has earned our loyalty.”
“You are jackasses.”
DePue’s expression hardened. “That kind of talk, monsieur, will only put you under the ground that much sooner.”
Mad Dog came out of the cabin. Behind him lumbered Mattox, Bobbie Joe slung over a shoulder like a sack of flour. “Mount up,” the former commanded.
Exercising care that the toothpick did not slip out of his sleeve, Fargo forked leather and lifted the reins. He still did not see any sign of Gavin and the others.
With a wave of an arm, Mad Dog Terrell rode west at a gallop. Mattox, DePue and Yoas flanked Fargo, ensuring he did not try to get away. Not that he would so long as they had Bobbie Joe. Soon they came to the edge of the timber and Mad Dog slowed.
Looking back, Fargo saw that the cabin was just out of rifle range. He breathed a little easier but his relief proved short-lived.
Mad Dog entered the trees and immediately drew rein. “Shuck your rifles,” he instructed the others, yanking his own from the scabbard. “Our tracks are plain enough that the posse should come after us. When they do, we will shoot them to pieces.”
“I like how you think,” Mattox chortled.
“All you ever want to do is kill,” Yoas said to him.
The monster grinned. “Killing is the most fun I know. And you are a fine one to talk. I have yet to see you spare anyone when you had the chance.”
DePue was checking that his rifle was loaded. “We all like to kill. It is the glue that holds us together.”
“I never thought of it like that, Creole,” Mattox said as he plopped Bobbie Joe belly down over his saddle.
“It is Cajun, you lunkhead,” DePue sniped. “Will you ever get it right?”
Mad Dog was wrapping the reins to his mount around a low limb. “Enough damn chatter. You are worse than a bunch of women.” He crooked a finger at Fargo. “Come along. You will want to see this.”
Fargo had no desire to witness the posse being wiped out but he followed. He was tempted to bury the toothpick between Terrell’s shoulder blades but both Yoas and Mattox were behind him and would blast him if he did.
Crouching next to an oak, Mad Dog pointed at a spot a few feet from him and said, “Sit.”
Fargo did.
“The rest of you spread out. No one is to shoot until I do. Anyone does, and they answer to me.”
Quiet descended, except for the usual sounds of the forest: sparrows chirping, an irate squirrel venting its spleen, the screech of a hawk in the distance. Fargo could see the upper half of the cabin over the high grass that covered the valley floor. He started to rise to his knees to see better and instantly Terrell swung toward him and cocked the hammer of his rifle.
“What do you think you’re doing? Sit back down and stay down.”
Fargo sank back. “You are making a mistake. Kill them and another posse will come, just like Bobbie Joe warned you. Enough men and guns that you won’t stand a prayer.”
“No one has caught me yet,” Mad Dog bragged. “No one ever will. I know these mountains better than anyone. I have been all over them.”
“You can’t escape the law forever.”
“I don’t need to do it that long,” Mad Dog said. “Only for another twenty to thirty years. By then I will be so old, I will be gumming my food, and it won’t matter.”
“What did you do with Lucille?”
“Back to her again, are you? I told you she was none of your concern. Forget about her.”
“I can’t,” Fargo said.
Mad Dog frowned. “I would laugh in your face if you weren’t so pathetic.” His frown deepened and his mouth twitched. “I can’t wait to whittle on you. I truly can’t.”
Off across the valley, in the trees fringing the stream, riders appeared. Fargo noticed them right away but Terrell was looking at him and did not see them. In order to delay their discovery, Fargo asked, “Why do you hate me so much?”
“It is not just you,” Mad Dog said bitterly. “It is your kind.”
“I have a kind?”
“Law-abiding sheep. People who don’t mind being told what to do. People who spend their whole lives living by rules others set down. That’s not for me. I do as I please, when I please.”
“If everyone thought like you do, it wouldn’t be safe to walk the streets,” Fargo remarked.
Mad Dog was staring at the ground. “I never have liked being made to do things. Even as a kid, when my mother would tell me to clean my room and go sweep out the barn, I wanted to take an ax to her head.”
“You had a mother?”
Mad Dog’s head snapped up and his eyes became slits.
“You will be a week dying. More, if I do it right. Before the end comes you will beg me to put you out of your misery.”
“I wouldn’t count on me begging,” Fargo said. The posse was in full view. Deputy Gavin, Old Charley and Foley had fanned out and were converging on the cabin. Lynch Spicer, still handcuffed, hung back.
“They all say that until I start to work on them,” Mad Dog mentioned. “Usually all it takes is for me to pop out an eyeball and show it to them and they blubber like babies.”
Fargo wished the posse would dismount and advance on foot. They were ridiculously easy targets on horseback. Gavin should have waited until dark. Then it hit him. Gavin had thrown caution to the wind because the deputy was worried about Bobbie Joe and him.
“I like to cut people up. They call it torture but I call it amusement. I have been doing it since I was seven. My first was a rabbit, a bunny my mother had in a hutch. She made me help her shuck peas, so later, when she was knitting in her rocking chair, I took her butcher knife from the kitchen, snuck out to the hutch, and carved that bunny to bits.” Mad Dog smiled wistfully at the memory. “I cut off its ears first. For years I had them as keepsakes.”
Fargo glanced across the valley. The posse was halfway to the cabin. If only he could keep Terrell talking a while longer. “When did you switch from rabbits to people?”
“I killed my first man when I was ten. Between the rabbit and him were a lot of other animals. Dogs, cats, a cow, a rooster, a duck.” Mad Dog laughed. “The duck quacked every time I stuck my knife into her. I chopped off both her legs and both her wings and she still went on quacking. It was comical.”
“It was sick,” Fargo said.
Mad Dog sighed. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand. Sheep never do.”
Fargo racked his brain for something else to say or ask that would keep Terrell distracted. But just then DePue whispered Mad Dog’s name and pointed toward the cabin.
One look, and Terrell gnashed his teeth in anger. “You clever bastard. Nice try, but it didn’t work.” He wedged the stock of his rifle to his shoulder. “All you did was buy them a few more minutes of life.” Sighting down the barrel, he smiled. “I bet you ten dollars I can hit the tin star on that law dog’s vest.”
Fargo coiled his legs to spring. He could not sit there and let it happen. He must do what he could, even if it cost him his life. Sliding the toothpick from under his sleeve, he eased up onto the balls of his feet. If he could kill Terrell, if he could grab Terrell’s rifle, he stood a chance of saving Gavin and the others. Lancing the toothpick at Terrell’s neck, he sprang.
“Look out!”
The bellow came from Mattox. Mad Dog spun. Steel rang on steel as the toothpick glanced off the rifle barrel. Fargo was thrown off balance but he instantly recovered and stabbed at the outlaw’s gut. By rights he should have opened Mad Dog’s belly but a blow to the back of his head nearly pitched him onto his face. Dimly, he heard Mattox bellow something else. A second blow drove him to his hands and knees. He tried to get back up but his senses were reeling. The bright glare of sunlight was fading to black. Words filtered through.
“Thanks. He almost had me. Now let’s pick us off a posse. Aim for the chest and make every shot count.”
Fargo made one more attempt to rise and then the void claimed him.
14
A swaying sensation was proof to Fargo he was still alive. He struggled up through a mental fog and was rewarded for his effort with waves of pain. His head throbbed fit to burst. He opened his eyes and found he had been thrown over his saddle, belly down. Not only that, his wrists and ankles were bound. By craning his neck he saw that Mattox was leading the pinto by the reins. A glance back showed Yoas leading the horse that bore Bobbie Joe. DePue brought up the rear.
Fargo tried to speak but all that came out was a dry hack. He needed a drink of water.
“This one is awake!” Yoas hollered.
Hooves thudded and a shadow fell across Fargo.
“Clever of you to have that ankle blade. I don’t see many of those,” Mad Dog Terrell said.
“We couldn’t find the old geezer but we found blood where he fell. The rest were shot to ribbons.”
Fargo closed his eyes.
“Don’t take it so hard,” Mad Dog said. “Better them than you. You get to breathe a while yet.” He chuckled. “The one with the handcuffs on was still alive when we found him. You should have heard him squeal! He was more amusing than that bunny.”
“He was the son of a judge,” Fargo mentioned.
“Well, now he is maggot bait. Why was he wearing cuffs?”
Fargo explained. His head was slowly clearing. He was glad to be alive but now he no longer had the toothpick. He must rely on his wits, and they had not been of much use the past few hours.
“That boy was a fool to ever leave Springfield,” Mad Dog commented. “But that is what he gets for letting someone tell him what he should do. If that lawman had asked me to join a posse, I would have told him to go to hell.”
“You sure love to talk about yourself.”
“And you must love to hurt or you wouldn’t keep on prodding me.” Mad Dog gigged his mount.
Fargo was left alone with his thoughts, and they were glum. Deputy Gavin, dead. Kleb, dead. Foley, dead. Spicer, dead. Old Charley wounded and probably lying in the brush somewhere, dying. Bobbie Joe, a captive. Lucille Sparks, apparently dead after being raped by Mad Dog. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. All that was left was for Terrell to kill Bobbie Joe and him, and that would be that.
Fargo raised his head and gazed about. They were winding through some of the most rugged country yet, mountainous terrain, marked by steep slopes and thick forest. Compared to the Rocky Mountains, with their snow-mantled peaks towering miles into the sky, Missouri’s mountains were puny, but then, so was every range east of the Mississippi. Missouri’s mountains, though, made up in one respect what they lacked in height. Water was scarce in the Rockies. Here there were creeks and streams and rivers and lakes aplenty, more water in a hundred square miles than there was to be found in a thousand square miles of the much drier Rockies, and thanks to all that water, far thicker vegetation.