“No! I won’t let you!”
“Won’t let me?” Duggins hissed, his face so close that their nose-tips touched. His lips pulled across his tight-set teeth and she smelled his breath, a blend of musky tobacco odor tinged with a sweet edge of the cherry liqueur. She jerked her face to the side and he pushed his mouth to her ear. “I will do anything I please; do you hear, you foolish harlot? And the first thing I will do is make sure you don’t interrupt me again.”
What was behind his threat, Sue Ellen couldn’t tell, but she didn’t like the quaver in his voice. Up until then he had been cool as a full-bellied cat, seemingly unable, or at least unwilling, to lose his temper. But belief in that, she realized, had been mere folly on her part.
Leaning in even closer, he slid his hand down her left arm, and she felt something tightening around her wrist.
“What are you doing?” She hated the fear in her voice, but she couldn’t help it.
“Relax, I am merely going to . . .” He spun the chair, its feet squawking on the polished wood floor. Before she knew what was happening, he had grabbed both her flailing hands again, clamped them tight in one of his, long enough to lash a rawhide thong about her wrists. “. . . tie you up, my dear. I cannot stress how important it is that you pay close attention to what I have to tell you. And I cannot”—he tugged the two ends and her wrists cinched tight together—“do that if you keep rising from your chair, interrupting me with your chatter and complaints.” He stood and spun the chair back around, so that she once again faced the finely laid table, and the sumptuous feast she had prepared at his request.
“Now, I would like to believe you would accommodate me and share this fine meal, but I cannot trust you. So, I will forge on ahead without you.”
With that, he smiled, offered her a slight nod, and returned to the table. He made quite a show out of dragging the chair back from the table, sitting down, shaking out the linen napkin, and finally, commencing to eat.
Despite her best efforts, Sue Ellen found herself running her tongue tip over her lips. It had been what . . . a day? Two days since she’d eaten? Even though she’d fed this jackal and his pack of men almost on a nonstop basis. She wanted more than anything to know what it was they wanted, the one question she had repeatedly asked since they’d arrived. Their appearance just so happened to coincide with Alton’s disappearance.
She wanted to scream the question at him while he guzzled her husband’s wine and gnashed his big teeth into their chicken, the chicken she had prepared. The squash, carrots, potatoes, all of it, he drizzled with fatty gravy. His demeanor had changed from a seeming gentleman, at least in speech, to that of a ravenous wolf. She wanted to tell him that with an appetite such as that, he would soon grow obese. And she would laugh at him the entire time she said it.
She wanted to scream and howl in his face, but his chilling voice cracked into her thoughts like a pry bar. She had no doubt that he could—and would, eventually—keep his promise to somehow abuse her, and that was something she didn’t dare risk. But she stared at him, glared, hoping she would somehow convey her anger. It was all she could do.
Finally, after so much sucking and biting, chewing and snorting, probing his own mouth with a grimy fingertip, he drew the cloth napkin from his lap, thoroughly wiped his mouth, and sighed. Then he balled the soiled cloth and tossed it on his plate. During the meal he did not look at, nor once address her. Finally, he said, “That was a superb meal, my dear. You’ll make someone a fine wife one day.” Duggins threw back his head and laughed loudly.
Sue Ellen gritted her teeth and cut her eyes to the fireplace, tried to concentrate on the dancing flames, on the coals glowing beneath in the brazier, on anything but the million things she couldn’t help feeling: her emotions about her missing husband, seeing Ty today, then being abandoned by him. Why hadn’t she tried harder to tip him off? Why hadn’t he made some indication that he knew her, that he was going to save her from what obviously was a pack of ravenous, bloodthirsty killers?
The scent of chicken, the sound of Clewt Duggins sucking food bits from his teeth repulsed her, and yet her own stomach betrayed her with a long, low growl.
Duggins paused, but still did not look at her. Then he reached for his wineglass, which he had filled at the start of the meal, and sipped loudly. He smacked his lips, smiled, and still not looking at her, said, “You must forgive me for pointing out the obvious, my dear, but you really are rude.”
It was the last thing she had expected to hear.
Now he looked at her. “Oh, yes, you see, staring at a person is considered bad form.”
“What would you have me do?” she said, speaking before she remembered his threats should she speak.
But he merely smiled. “Why, my dear, if you were more civil, I would have you join me.”
“I would not join you in anything if you were the last man on earth, you . . .” Her face bunched in anger.
“Yes? Do go on, my dear. You are so pretty when your blood is up. No? Well, I can tell you that the pretty scenario you paint is not likely to happen. The world is filled with people, many of them men. The others . . . women. But I am only concerned with a handful of them right now.” He turned his chair, with some little effort, the fullness of his belly having slowed him down. He belched and looked at her. “Oh, my dear, what you must think of me.”
She snorted, looked away. “I don’t think of you.”
“Ah,” he said, scratching a match alight on his pants’ leg and touching flame to one of Alton’s cigars. “But you will. You will when you listen to the story I am about to tell you.”
“Does it always take you this long to come to a point?”
He puffed thoughtfully, looked at the cigar, then said, “Only when it’s a matter of life, death, revenge . . . and much, much money.”
Despite herself, Sue Ellen looked Clewt Duggins in the eyes.
“Ah-ha,” he said in a low, stone-on-steel voice.
Through a veil of smoke Sue Ellen saw that his smile had vanished, and his eyes had settled back into their deadly dark stare, one brow arched.
Chapter 6
“Last time I was in Chihuahua was nearly eleven years ago. More precisely me and the boys—oh, you’ve met the boys, my dear, so you know who I mean. Well, most of them aren’t the boys from back then, but close enough.
“Anyway, we were down there, me and the boys, cooling our heels south of the border, doing as little as possible, save for drinking mescal and dallying with the little putas down there. The entire place is brimming with them, filthy with them, and who are we to deny such lovely creatures our company? Of course, the only reason they showed interest in any of us was because we had money. Oh, yes, my dear, we had, as an Englishman I once met said, gobs of it.
“The worst part of being in Mexico to me is the heat. Oh, but I was made for fairer climes, I will admit. So I did the only thing I could do in such circumstances, I drank. I frequented one cantina in particular; the name was some Mexican phrase I have forgotten. I went mostly because there was a certain barmaid who worked there. She was a curious creature, not at all like other Mexican girls. This one was taller, more slender than the rest. She was also half-German, or some such thing. But that lent her an exotic edge that she played to great effect to charm men from all over who came through town. But she rarely indulged in . . . sport with these men. That is, until I came along.”
“What makes you think I want to hear about this?”
“Oh, but you will, my dear. You will. Besides, it’s not like you have anywhere better to go.” Duggins’s coarse laughter hacked out of him, chilling Sue Ellen to the bone.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the cantina. So you see, I cannot say that the girl, with her long chestnut hair, her high cheekbones and wide, angular face, with those luscious full lips, with legs that went all the way to the ground, and those eyes, oh, let me tell yo
u . . .”
“Please don’t,” said Sue Ellen.
“But I insist,” said Duggins, that smile still twitching his mouth. “They were the color of blue ice with light shining through.”
“How poetic.”
He ignored her and continued with his story. “One day I happened to become bored with the usual round of games with the boys at their favorite bar, so I wandered to my place, where I knew Inga worked in the afternoons. And as I pushed in through the swinging doors, I stood there waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer interior. And when they did, do you know what I saw? No? My dear, I saw a gringo you might well recognize.
“Yes, yes.” He nodded. “It was the very same man you married. In truth, though he was much thinner, a harder man in all ways, rougher around the edges, more hair on his head, certainly young—”
“How do you know how much hair Alton has now? How do you know what he looks like now? What have you done with my husband?” Sue Ellen began kicking, lashing out, the chair lurching and scraping the floor.
She struggled against the rawhide, but Clewt had already made it to her side. He snatched up two napkins from a stack on the sideboard and, braving an assault by her flailing leather shoes, he managed to lash her ankles to the chair legs.
Sue Ellen’s shouts grew louder, but gained her nothing but sore wrists and ankles and rough treatment by Duggins. She knew no one was around who could or would help her. Certainly not that weak-spined Ty Farraday.
Yet even as she thought this, in her frenzy of anger, she knew she was wrong. She knew Ty pined for her as he had since the day she broke his heart at the tumbledown of boulders beside which flowed the Olefine River, which pooled there at the bottom of the falls. They had called them Lucky Falls in honor of the ranch they were going to build up together—they were going to call it the Lucky Cross, because they agreed they were lucky to have found each other. And they had vowed in those sillier, youthful, quiet moments that they would always celebrate special times there at the falls.
Those days seemed a million years in the past. And yet she knew, just by being near Ty the few times they had been forced together, found themselves in each other’s presence through sheer happenstance over the years, that he still burned for her, still longed for her. It was a flattering feeling, but painful, too, for she was a married woman. Married to a kind man, though a slightly older and much more formal man. One who had built a way of life on pretense, of maintaining a facade of importance of wealth and worldliness and intelligence. And though he had some of each of those attributes, to be sure, they were in far lower measures than he wished others to believe.
Alton was also a nervous man with a bitter edge that rose to the top when discussing the shortcomings of others. Sue Ellen avoided the topic of her old love, Ty Farraday, like the plague. But somehow when Alton was in the mood, often after he’d had a few drinks, she found herself defending Ty’s reputation and honor to Alton. She hated that he put her in that position, but over the years it became obvious to her, ironically because of Alton’s wheedling, and his probing of the topic, that he was jealous of Ty because although Ty had far less material wealth than Alton, Ty really was a better man. It had hurt Sue Ellen to finally admit it, but it was the truth. And as some wise person once said, the truth stings.
Ty had his faults, to be sure. He could be a pensive, moody man, sullen at times and prone to not sharing what was troubling him. He was overly protective of those he loved and of his privacy. He also worked too hard, driving himself beyond the bounds of reasonable limits. But he was also one of the most generous people she’d ever known. Giving of his time to others, as well as his expertise, which was considerable, about horses and cattle. He was good with his hands, able to fix most anything with few supplies and a considerable amount of gumption and self-confidence.
And he had Uncle Hob, a cantankerous old rooster, but one who Sue Ellen liked very much. And she believed that he had felt the same way. When Sue Ellen had broken off her engagement with Ty, she felt as though she had lost not one but two family members that day.
All these thoughts and more flooded back to Sue Ellen when Duggins lashed her legs to the chair and bound her shouting mouth with another napkin. She seethed then, eyes red and crying and not caring that the foul man saw her tears. She had not cried outwardly since Duggins and his filthy gang had descended on the ranch not long after Alton had left on a quick trip to town.
She had heard the pounding of many hooves, a few yips and crude laughs: then before she could draw back the curtains, these unwashed, hard-faced men had swarmed up onto the sitting porch, and pushed their way into her kitchen. They surrounded her, made themselves at home, all the while eyeing her, making lewd comments. Duggins had assured her that should she do anything that might tip off others who might visit the ranch, the life of someone she loved dearly might well be forfeit.
“What have you done to Alton?” she’d demanded, but he just laughed, and never outright admitted he’d seen Alton, but if she deviated from his directions, she knew what he meant by his threat. It was Alton’s life that would be forfeit. She had asked scores of questions but received no answers, no replies but threats and lascivious winks.
In the end, she did what Duggins said, wary the entire time, sleeping little, tending to their every whim, fending off a nearly constant onslaught of unwanted advances from Duggins’s men. Only when he’d caught two of them, having cornered her in the kitchen, ripping at her clothes as though they were long-penned wild animals—which she supposed they were—did Duggins take action and forbid them from associating with her.
She knew this probably only meant that he was saving her for himself. That had been her life for two days, and then Ty had shown up earlier today and his unexpected presence had given her hope. It was the first glimmer of it she’d felt in days. She hadn’t seen him in nearly eight months, since they’d passed each other in the tightly packed aisles of Hathaway’s Mercantile in Ripley Flats. He looked gaunt but as solid as ever then, perhaps a little grayer, a few more lines around the eyes and mouth, those of a man unused to smiling frequently. He’d looked much the same today.
“Are you listening, my dear Mrs. Winstead?” Clewt Duggins leaned close to her face, spoke in his low, husky growl, his voice made that way, she’d come to know, through his constant smoking of foul-smelling little black cigars.
“You’d better pay attention, because it concerns you. Oh, yes, it concerns you mightily. Now, where was I? Yes, yes, the cantina. By the time my eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the cantina, I saw a lanky, though not overly tall fellow with sandy hair leaning against the bar. He didn’t wear the usual dusty trail clothes, worn boots, grimy spurs, and sweat-stained hat of most folks from north of the border who found themselves down Chihuahua way. Instead this man sported low-heeled black dandy boots, narrow black-striped trousers, and I’ll be darned if he wasn’t wearing what looked to be one of those smoking jackets, wine red in color, and a black felt derby topping it all off. But all of it was a mite dusty, as if he’d ridden on a long, hard trail and someone had fogged it the entire time.
“Now, I hadn’t noticed any tired-looking mounts out front. Come to think on it, I hadn’t noticed any mounts out there at all. Nor any local nags. It was, after all, a hot day. I figured he probably had the sense to lead the beast to the stable.
“Inga flashed a pretty eye at me and I strode forward, eager to meet this new man who appeared to be making a play on her. Though we had no formal arrangement, I considered this dusky, half-Mex maiden my own. And I didn’t appreciate this smile-flashing interloper scooping on in and sweeping her from me. Not just yet, anyway. Me and the boys had plans to stay in town a few more weeks as yet. We figured that was enough time to cool our heels; then we’d be moving on.
“The son-of-a-gun must have read my thoughts, for he spun and in his hand appeared a firearm so small I had to look twice. But the bore wasn�
�t tiny-looking—it was a pepperbox, .22 caliber, and it could deliver enough pain to my innards in such close quarters that I determined to get out of its range, and quick. I dropped to my right knee and rolled down onto my right shoulder. At the same time, with my left hand I shucked my Colt, thumbing back the hammer. We held like that, me having come up some feet away to one side, back by a table. I had half a mind to knock down that table in front of me as a shield from flying lead pills from that homely little pepperbox. That stranger crouched there, holding that little spitter outstretched as if he were going to lob it underhanded to me. I am sure neither of us knew what to make of the other.
“For my part I am confident that I didn’t have a hand in any provocation of the man’s sudden and unfriendly actions. However, there was a part of me that would have gladly put one or two to the man’s forehead just to be rid of him, such was my fast-burning wick of hatred at seeing him talking with my lovely girl at the bar.” Duggins thumbnailed another match alight and puffed a fresh cigarillo to life. He replenished the wine in his glass and looked at Sue Ellen.
Despite her discomfort, and the foul situation in general, she found herself silent, actually listening, wanting to hear what happened next between the two men. He had to be talking of her Alton. Who else could he be talking of? Obviously they both lived through it, for here was one man now and she was married to the other, unbelievable as Alton’s actions sounded to her. Then again, these events, if they happened, had taken place eleven years before now. He may well have been a different, more daring man back then. What had changed him?
Duggins drew on his cigar, plumed a channel of thick smoke at the fireplace, and continued his story. “I see by the light in your pretty eyes that you are wondering just what happened next in that dusty little cantina south of the border so long ago.” He smiled. “So I will tell you. I got him.”
Sue Ellen’s eyes widened for a moment. What? How could this be?
Ralph Compton Double-Cross Ranch Page 5