“Either one of you fuckers so much as twitch and you’re dead,” Trane said. “Understand?”
Jerry looked at Samantha and Darlene. “You girls get out of here!” The two women quickly left the room without looking back.
John looked at Trane. “Now what’s this all about?”
“You two just--”
“Shut the fuck up, Jerry,” Trane said, spittle flying off his lips. He looked at the brothers. “It’s come to my attention that you’re in possession of a great deal of money.”
John felt his heart sink and his face burned red from fear. Somehow, someone had found out, and now they were done for. He shouldn’t have let Paul talk him into this. Now they were going to be hung for sure.
“I think the heat is getting to you, Sheriff,” Paul said. “We barely have enough to pay for our rooms.”
“That a fact?” Trane walked over to John and clubbed him across the head with the butt of his rifle, slicing open John’s forehead. Blood streaked down John’s face, blinding him. The sheriff looked at Paul and then looked down at John.
“That’s just the beginning, boys, a little taste. Now you tell me where that damn money is and I’ll kill you quick and painless.” Trane lifted up the receipt from John’s bag. “And don’t tell me no lies.”
Paul spit a wad of phlegm at Trane. “Kiss my ass.”
The fat on Trane’s face quaked from his boiling rage, his cheeks burning red. “What was that?”
“You heard me,” Paul said. He paused for a moment before he smiled at Trane. “Fat ass.”
Trane clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, walked over to Paul, and punched him twice in the face. A ribbon of blood erupted from Paul’s nose and a gash appeared under his left eye, but he said nothing. He looked at Trane and spit a mouthful of blood out into the bath water.
Trane turned to Jerry. “I think we need to move this outside.”
Jerry slowly nodded. He never thought it would go down like this, get this ugly. He thought Trane would just arrest the two men. He suddenly wished he would’ve kept his mouth shut.
Trane cocked his rifle and gestured to the brothers. “Get your asses up and put on your pants. We need to have ourselves a talk.”
John and Paul stood up, put on their pants, and followed Trane and Jerry outside.
#
While Trane kept the rifle leveled on the brothers, Jerry climbed up into the rafters and ran four ropes through a series of pulleys. He dropped one set of ends down to the barn floor and set the other ends next to several iron weights. Trane looked up at Jerry. “Get down here and tie their hands.”
Paul looked at Trane and weighed the chances of an escape. Neither John nor he were tied up, and they could probably get to fat ass before he knew what was happening. He’d wrestle the rifle away, blow the sheriff’s face off, and then shoot that farmer as he climbed down from the rafters.
Trane raised the rifle and looked at Paul. “Don’t even think about it. Get over there.” Trane gestured to the ropes. John and Paul silently walked over to where Trane was pointing. Jerry climbed down the ladder, tied each of the boys’ hands to a separate end of the ropes, tested the ropes’ strength, then walked over to the ladder and headed back up into the rafters.
“I ain’t going to lie to you boys. This is going to get ugly.” Trane walked over to the brothers and spit at the ground. “If there’s something you want to tell me, now would be the time.”
“We could lie to you,” Paul said. “Spin some damn yarn about some damn money if that’ll make you happy.”
“That a fact?”
“Near as I can see it.”
“How fucking stupid do you think I am? You two little fucks are as guilty as original sin.” Trane looked up at Jerry, who had finished tying the other end of the ropes to the weights. Trane nodded and Jerry pushed the weights over the side.
The weights fell about five feet and the ropes pulled tight. The weights continued to slowly slide down and the slack was removed. Paul and John slowly rose into the air, their wrists burning from the ropes. The weights worked down another foot and then stopped; the brothers hung in the air, their feet barely scraping the floor of the barn.
Trane set the rifle down and walked over to Paul. “Now’s the time to change your story.”
Paul gritted his teeth but said nothing. Having his arms pressed against his head put pressure on his beaten face; his cheeks ached and his eyes pounded with pain. He imagined John felt the same way. Jerry quietly got off the ladder and walked over so that he was behind Trane, where he leaned against the wall uneasily.
“You hear me?” Trane made a fist and drove it into Paul’s stomach. Paul gasped for breath, his diaphragm struggling to work, his extended arms pinching off his lungs. He opened and closed his mouth several times before his lungs caught and started to suck in air.
“Leave him be,” John said. Trane looked at him.
“You got something to say?”
“Keep your damn hands off my brother.”
Trane laughed, a big gelatinous laugh that shook the fat lining his face, his arms, his chest. He looked at Jerry. “Brothers, eh? This is rich. Jerry, you got a whip?”
Jerry nodded. This was turning bad, real bad. Trane was going to kill them boys right here in his barn. And he’d have to clean up the mess. What a sight that would be.
“Well, go get it,” Trane said to Jerry before turning back at John. “Gonna whip your ass red, son.”
Jerry walked to the rear of the barn, found the whip coiled on a bench, and returned to Trane. Jerry handed him the wound leather, his hands shaking slightly. Trane gingerly played the whip out and walked behind John.
“The time for talk has passed, boys. I’m going to whip you fucks something fierce and then I’m going to ask you one last time about that stage. If you still give me your song-and-dance bullshit--well, I just might have to shoot one of you in the head.”
John and Paul hung silently, the ropes creaking from their weight.
Trane lifted the whip and lashed John across the back. A long gash appeared from the blow and a thin stream of blood trickled down the contour of John’s spine. Trane spit and whipped John again. John gritted his teeth, tears running out of the corners of his eyes, but stayed silent. He had taken three lashes once when a rancher named Tim Johnson had caught John screwing his daughter out in the barn. John was hired to cut thistles and Johnson was pissed as hell that he was burning precious daylight with sex; there was time enough for that after the sun went down.
Trane whipped John again, the leather cutting a wide swath across his shoulders. Pain tore down John’s spine and burning heat spread out across his back like a veil. Trane walked around to the front of the brothers and stopped where they could both see him. He deftly snapped the whip at the ground before slowly coiling it back up.
“Bet that felt good,” Trane said. He looked at Paul, a fleck of drool escaping from Trane’s plump mouth. “See what I did there, son? I can do that all day without even breaking a sweat. Now you tell me about the stage and that damn money or I’ll whip your brother until there won’t be anything to left bury but his bones.”
“I told you…we ain’t robbed no stage.” Paul struggled to breathe and his face felt like it was swelling up with blood. White dots danced before his eyes.
“I can do this a long, long time. You don’t want to be responsible for your brother’s suffering, do you?”
Jerry slowly walked over to Trane. He looked at the suspended brothers. Both bled from their wounds and one of them looked like he was having a hard time breathing. “Maybe they’re telling the truth. They’d have told us by now.”
“Shut the hell up, Jerry.”
“I can’t have you killing them in my barn.” Jerry looked at the hay scattered across the barn’s floor; Ed would have to get that cleaned up. “I gotta work in here.”
“I told you to shut your fucking mouth.” Trane walked over to John. “Well, you remember anything yet, yo
u little fuck?”
John lifted his head and looked Trane dead in the eye. There was no doubt that he deserved this abuse and maybe even deserved to die, but John wasn’t about to give this guy any satisfaction. “Go fuck yourself.”
“You boys sure is stubborn.” Trane unfurled the whip with a twist of his wrist and whipped John across the chest, the tail of the whip catching the left side of his face. “But that’s fine. I’m a patient man.” Trane dropped the whip. “In fact, I think I’ll take a little break and let you boys talk this over in private, let you get your stories straight. I hope that when I get back we’ll be able to settle this.”
Trane walked over to Jerry, locked eyes with him, and the two men left the barn without saying a word.
“We’re dead men,” John said after Trane and Jerry were out of sight.
“Only if we tell ‘em where the money is hidden. Until then, he’s got to keep us alive.” Paul struggled for a breath. “Well, at least one of us, anyways.”
“We could lead him out into the desert somewheres and try to escape then.”
“Maybe. But we’d probably still be tied up. And if fat ass has half a fuckin’ brain in his head, he’d leave one of our asses here to make sure weren’t lying. I want to know how they found out. It ain’t even been a day.”
John closed his eyes and forced himself to fend off the pain that seared through his back and chest. They were dead men, there was no question about that now. Even if they told the sheriff where the money was, he would kill them the second he got his fat hands on it. John wished with all his heart that he could go back in time and change what had happened. He’d rather live life as a poor farmer than get shot and dumped in the desert somewhere. He opened his eyes and looked at Paul. Paul’s eyes were closed and his breathing was irregular. At least he was going to die with his brother.
#
Trane and Jerry were around the side of the barn, leaning against a rotted fence post. Jerry kept meaning to replace it but couldn’t find the time nor the money. “I don’t know, Sheriff,” John said. “Them boys woulda cracked by now.”
“You know why you ain’t ever amounted to anything more than a fucking whore-herder, Jerry? It’s ‘cause you’re a damned idiot. Them boys have been getting their asses kicked all their lives; they’re used to a good ass beating. In fact, they probably get off on it. It’ll take a lot more than a few lashes from that damned whip to make them talk.”
“Maybe you should move this to town, Sheriff. I got a farm to run.”
“You want your cut of that money, Jerry?”
“This ain’t something for a woman to witness.”
Trane looked at Jerry and fought off the urge to smash his face into small, bloody, bony bits. Damn, that would feel mighty fine. The first punch might hurt a touch, but after that it’d be easy. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”
“Yeah. Never thought it would come to this. I want no part of it.” Jerry looked at his house, thought about how that money would make life easier around here. He’d be able to put in a new fence, put a new roof on the house, get some new furniture. That would be mighty fine. Still, he didn’t want no part of torture and murder. He should’ve known the sheriff would twist this into something ugly.
“You think they’d sing like two little birds, happy as can be? There’s only one way to get men like them to talk.” Trane made a fist and punched his other hand.
“You can keep the money, all of it. Just get them out of here.”
Anger still surged through Trane, but it was tempered somewhat by the idea of keeping all the money. He probably would’ve screwed Jerry out of the other twenty percent somehow anyway, made something up and blackmailed him. Wouldn’t have been too difficult. Still, it was better this way. Nice and clean. And the jail would let Trane take his time, work them boys over nice and slow, like a slab of meat on a grill. They’d talk, one way or another. The thought of inflicting that kind of violence over an extended period of time excited Trane.
Trane leered at Jerry and made damn sure the farmer saw the fire in his eyes. “Okay,” Trane said, “I’ll go.” The sheriff reached over and grabbed Jerry’s face with one hand, squeezing until Jerry’s cheeks turned red. “But if you say so much as one damned word about any of this, I’ll gut you and leave you tied to a tree so’s the animals can pick at ya. Understand?”
Jerry nodded.
Trane released Jerry’s face and walked back toward the barn. “I’ll need one of your wagons.”
CHAPTER SIX
By the time Trane reached Jackson the sun was low in the afternoon sky. Dark clouds spread across the sky like ink in water, and sharp flashes of lightning dotted the horizon.
Trane sat in one of Jerry’s wagons, his horse pulling it down the road. John and Paul were sprawled out in the back of the wagon, dressed only in their pants. The brothers were both unconscious.
Their horses and the horses from the stage were tied to the rear of the wagon by their reins. John’s horse stumbled along, its eyes bloodshot, its mouth a swollen mass of blood and phlegm and a pasty white foam. Blotches of the mixture dropped from its mouth and splattered on the dry ground. The horse shivered from fever, its flanks shuddering. Its coat was streaked white from sweat and a trickle of blood eased from one nostril.
Trane turned around and looked at John and Paul with disgust. The sons of bitches. He was glad to be away from Jerry’s farm, free to do what he pleased. Most folks in these parts had little use for a sheriff, so he’d be free to take his time with those two fucks, savor the torture. He coughed up a wad of snot and spit it on Paul; the yellow mess struck Paul on the back. I’ll start with the blond one, Trane thought. Tie him to the bars of his cell, pull down those drawers, and ram a gunstock up his ass. More than likely it’d kill him, but the other one would sing like an angel after seeing something like that. No man would be able to stomach such a sight.
He just hoped they really had hit the National stage and still had all the money. A sum like that could go a long way and Trane would finally be able to get the hell away from this shithole of a town.
“You fuckers think you’re so damned tough. You’ll break,” Trane said to Paul’s unconscious form. “Oh, you’ll break.”
#
Trane slowed as he neared the livery stable. Sid Rosales, a small half-Mexican man, was out front, filing a horse’s hoof. Dressed in a pair of overalls and an old pair of boots, Sid was covered from head to toe in dirt and shit. The livery was large enough to house ten horses and the walls were lined with the tools of Sid’s trade, all clean and neatly arranged on their racks. He looked up as Trane stopped and silently grimaced. Just like everyone else in Jackson, Sid hated and feared Sheriff Trane.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” Sid said, gently lowering the horse’s leg.
“Got some horses you’re going to buy off me, Sid.” Trane worked his body back and forth toward the edge of the seat, the wagon shaking from his weight as he climbed off. He pulled up his pants and walked toward Sid.
“Them the ones?” Sid said, gesturing toward the horses tied to the rear of the wagon. The distant echo of thunder rumbled across the sky.
“Nah, it’s this one up front, you fucking idiot. Course it’s the ones in the back. Untie ‘em.”
Sid moved to the rear of the wagon and began to untie the horses. He glanced into the back of the wagon and saw John and Paul. “Where you taking them?” he asked.
“None of your fucking business.” Trane spit on the ground. “Hurry up, I ain’t got all damn day.”
Sid got to John’s horse and looked at its bloodied and swollen face. “This one don’t look too good,” he said. “Think I’ll have to pass on him.”
Trane gave Sid a look and climbed back up into the wagon. “Don’t fuck with me, Sid. I ain’t in the mood. You’re buying them horses whether you like it or not.” Trane whipped his horse and the wagon began to pull away. “I’ll be back after I drop these two off. We can discuss a price then.”
> Sid said nothing and watched the sheriff slowly move away, the wagon rocking with his weight. Sid looked at the four horses, shook his head, and led them into the livery. This wasn’t good, not one bit.
#
Trane pulled the wagon up to the front of his office and stopped. He dropped down from the seat and looked around. A few people were milling about, but none of them looked his way. Fucking pricks. He’d like to kill every last person in town and then burn the damn place to the ground for good measure.
Trane walked around to the rear of the wagon, grabbed Paul by the arms, and pulled him out of the wagon, letting his body fall to the ground. Paul didn’t stir. Trane dragged Paul into the office and left him. A moment later Trane pulled John into one of the cells in the office. He slammed the cell door shut, turned to Paul, and pulled him into the other cell.
Tired from the work, Trane walked over to his desk and pulled a dirty handkerchief from one of the drawers. He wiped his forehead and took a moment to wait for his heavy breathing to subside. After one last look at the brothers, he left the office.
Trane walked toward the livery stable. Black clouds covered the eastern edge of sky, and distant thunder echoed across the dry plain. The sheriff reached the livery and looked at Sid, who was examining John’s horse.
“I’m thinking three hundred for all four,” Trane said.
Sid looked at the sheriff and thought for a moment about what to say. One of the horses was extremely sick and Sid had no doubts that it was dying. Snot and blood dribbled from its nose. “I’m not going to be able to buy this one, Sheriff,” he finally said. “He’s too sick.”
This little fucking maggot, Trane thought as he opened and closed his right hand in disgust. Damn if he didn’t want to beat Sid’s ass red. “What in the fuck are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with that horse.”
Sid grabbed the horse’s head and turned it around so the sheriff could see. He hated standing up to Trane, but there was no way in hell he was going to buy this horse. He’d be damn lucky if whatever it had didn’t kill the other horses in the livery, and two of the other horses that Trane brought in were already showing some of the same symptoms. And if this spread to the rest of the town’s horses, he’d be screwed for sure. There was no way his business would be able to survive something like that. Shit, he’d be lucky if he wasn’t strung from a tree.
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