by Barry Sadler
That was when he heard the scream. A woman's scream. A scream of sheer terror.
There was no need for him to wonder who was doing the screaming.
It could only be Michelle.
For a long moment Casca stood perfectly motionless in the passageway. He had been wrong about McAdams. He had delivered an innocent girl into a madman's hands.
Hell!
But he had done his job. The girl was nothing to him. It was none of his business. If McAdams wanted to rape her, why, hell! let him rape away. Women had been raped before. Dammit, he told himself, it's none of my business.
But…
Oh, hell!
He turned and started back down the passageway, sheathing his sword.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Welcome back, Master Long!"
Casca spun on his heels and looked up at the balcony above him.
McAdams stood there hands on his hips, his expression that of one who has just heard an extremely amusing story.
"What's this all about, you son of a bitch? I did your job for you."
McAdams grinned benevolently. "Come up to my rooms and we'll discuss the matter."
Casca hesitated.
"What's the matter, Squire Long. You did come back to see me, didn't you? Well here I am. Come on up. No one will try to stop you."
Might as well get it over with. Won't find out what he has in mind until I do.
Men had gathered at the doorway but were held back by McAdams' command. "Let him alone. I'll call if I need you."
There was a tension to the house now that he hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it was caused by the sudden change in McAdams. When he'd told Casca to come on up, he was no longer the concerned relative who only wanted his lost relative back. There was now a heavy, pervading touch of evil to him that Casca had seen many times before. This was a sick man. Casca didn't know what his particular form of sickness was but he had the uneasy feeling that he would soon find out.
Cautious, he advanced up the steps past portraits of men who waited patiently on their canvases staring out at the world with eyes that never changed or faces that never grew old.
From McAdams' room Casca could hear a muffled sound issuing. He couldn't make it out clearly but he knew pain and fear when he heard it. There was something evil going on up there. His fingers tightened around the grip of his sword. The door to McAdams' room was slightly open. A beam of light came from within. Casca hesitated a moment. Through the crack he could see McAdams sitting at his desk, waiting. Come in said the spider to the fly. "Well, man, are you going to stand out there all night?"
Casca gave the door a heavy kick with his foot just in case there was anyone standing behind it. The door bounced back. Only a quick movement of his left hand stopped it from shutting in his face. McAdams laughed pleasantly. "I don't blame you. I promise that none of my men will interrupt, at least not until I order them to."
The muffled sounds of pain were clearer now. Casca knew who it was making them without having to see. Michelle. But why? He entered, closed the door behind him, and bolted it. He knew that there was no way he could keep out McAdams' men for long but all too often a matter of seconds meant the difference between life and death. In the right hand corner of the room on a low couch covered with a gold embroidered damask cloth, Michelle lay face down, her back bared where her gown had been ripped from her shoulders. Thin red streaks crisscrossed her back. His own welted hide twinged at the memory of his too frequent beatings. The whipping had been done with either a thin reedlike cane or something similar. The skin wasn't broken but he knew the pain that the bastinado carried in its slender length. McAdams' mouth turned up a bit at the corner. He was obviously enjoying the whole scenario.
"You really are a sick son of a bitch, aren't you?" Casca growled as the awareness of just what McAdams really was began to come to him.
McAdams merely let the grin go all the way, his eyes lighting up with passion. "Sick? That is only a matter of opinion, my friend. To the contrary, I believe that the only sick thing in the world would be to deprive myself of the pleasures that I need."
Casca never took his eyes from McAdams.
"Why did I try to have you stopped, or why did I bother having you return my niece to me?"
Casca had had just about enough bullshit. "Either tell me or get off your ass. I don't like to kill dogs that aren't on their feet.”
"Don't be so impatient, Master Long. I told you my pleasures were important to me, and it pleased me at that minute to prevent your leaving. Depriving you of your wages and your life would have been quite a humorous moment for me. Just think, after all the trouble and danger you went through to be killed at the moment of your reward."
"Go on with it. What about Michelle? Why did you want me to bring her to you if this is all you had planned for her? Surely you have enough slaves that you could use for your pleasures?"
"Ahh, yes! There lies the rub. Simply put, the slaves belong to me because I have bought and paid for them. Michelle, however, is another matter. Since I first saw her in France when she was no more than a child I knew that I would have to have her one day. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, I paid for her too. Her father, my brother in law, never had two pence to rub together. I paid for her education, her clothes, her food to have her molded into that which I desired. Everything she is I created. You should have seen her. A few months ago she was full of pride and arrogance, confident that no harm could ever touch her and not caring who else it came to. A fitting consort to a king." McAdams paused to catch his breath, his face growing red with the impassioned heat of telling his story.
"But that damned beast, Duncan, has cheated me! He has taken that which I reserved for myself. She has been spoiled. See how she cringes at my voice. She is good for nothing now save what few minuscule pieces of pleasure I may derive from her body and her pain." His voice rose to crescendo. "I have been cheated do you hear?"
Casca knew now. McAdams was a madman who only fulfilled himself by the amount of suffering and horror he could inflict on others. Incest merely added to the spice of the terror he had planned for Michelle. He planned to abase her and break what remained of her mind and spirit. The whippings were just the first step in the training of his pet.
"What about Duncan?"
McAdams hissed. "Duncan had been my partner for many years and together we shared many pleasures among the captives he took. Most of his prizes came from information supplied by me and I would serve as the middleman for the disposal of the goods he captured. Through me he became rich and could have become the leader of the entire Brotherhood. But he betrayed me. He knew of my passion for my niece for we had talked many times over the years of how I had been so patiently awaiting her maturity when she would be at exactly the right moment in her life for what I had planned. I should have seen the hunger in his eyes when I showed him her portraits as she grew into womanhood. When we had a parting of the ways, so to speak, he went after what he knew would distress me the most. He took the ship he carried her off in as a prize. I offered him much to have her brought back to me unspoiled. But he decided to keep her. Therefore I had to try and arrange a real rescue with you as my agent!"
McAdams closed his eyes, holding the lids tightly shut for a moment. He sighed almost sadly and said: "That is the way of my life. Everyone l am good to always betrays me. But no more... Do not look so disgusted, Squire Long. You are a man who kills for money. There is little difference between us."
Casca started to move forward but was stopped by McAdams' upraised hand. "Hold it one moment, my friend. I have a thought. You have come back for revenge because I tried to have you robbed. Well if it's money you want, I can arrange for you to take Duncan's place. I will outfit you with the finest ship and guns that money can buy. Together we can take control of the Brotherhood of the Sea and rule the Caribbean as our own private lake, taking what we want when we want it. Now, how's that for a fine offer?"
McAdams knew that his offer had miss
ed the mark when Casca started for him. His confidence that his wealth and the well-known greed of men gave him immunity passed rapidly as he saw the redness in Casca's eyes. Scrambling back from his desk he came up with a rapier, slashing the air in front of him to keep Casca at bay. "To me," he cried. "Hurry!"
The response was immediate. Once Casca had shut and locked the door McAdams' hirelings had come to wait by it. Now they beat and pounded at the solid oak panels.
Casca was crawling over the desk, his sword beating back the more slender point of the lighter blade when the door gave. Four of McAdams' henchmen stumbled into the room, clubs and cutlasses in their hands. He had to turn away from McAdams to avoid a clumsy blow to his head with a club. When he did McAdams gave a cry of victory and lunged, running the slender blade all the way through Casca's back and out his chest. Casca jerked to avoid another strike by the same club. When he did McAdams' sword blade snapped near the ornate hilt. Casca didn't stop moving though the broken sword protruded from his front and back. He severed the wrist of the man with the club then caught him across his throat as he raised his sword back up to ward off the cutlass coming at his face.
Michelle was ignored during the fight. Crawling from her couch to a corner, she curled up into a fetal knot and awaited the outcome. She was sure it was going to be the death of the man who had saved her from Duncan only to deliver her to one even worse.
The remaining two men began to back away, fear of the crazy man before them on their faces and in their eyes. They couldn't understand why he kept coming at them slashing and cursing. He should have gone down by now.
One gathered enough courage to make a desperate lunge only to be kicked in the balls. The man doubled over in time to have his head half taken off. The other showed more sense and decided that McAdams didn't pay him enough money to die. He fled down the stairs into the dark not stopping till he was far away from the house where the devil with the sword through his body was on a rampage. Exhausted he sat under a tree to catch his breath, not aware of the eyes that watched him from the brush. The eyes were red rimmed from the smoking of ganja. Maroons who had known his lash in the past would keep him company this night.
Meanwhile, McAdams rushed past shoving Casca to one side as he tried to escape. Casca caught his balance and followed. McAdams tried to find refuge. From across the nearest of his cane fields he saw a light coming from the warehouse where the sugar cane was boiled down. There were people there. He ran through the stubble of the fields which had only been cut down within the last week. He cursed his workers for it. He had no place to hide. Afraid to look back he could hear the dried cane stalks crushing under the steps of the one called Cass Long as the man gained on him.
At the edge of the field where the man sized pots were boiling the work stopped as McAdams' hysterical form came out of the darkness. Around the vats were over a dozen black slaves, their dark hides oily with the effort of the night's warm work. Machetes or long cane knives hung at each man's side. To McAdams this was safety. Surely there was enough of them to stop the devil on his heels. Hurtling into their center between the large bubbling vats he cried out, "Stop him!" He pointed back to the stubbled fields where Casca was just entering the light cast by the cooking fires. "Stop him and you're all free men with gold in your pockets. I promise it.” At the promise of freedom most of the men moved a few steps closer to the cane field, then stopped. Casca came at them, the broken sword still protruding from his chest, blood covering the front of his body as well as his hands and face.
McAdams screamed, "That's him! Kill him! Kill him and you and your families all go free." The blacks hesitated as Casca came at them, the weapons in their hands trembling. The dark beliefs of their native land were still too strong within them. Casca heard one of them whisper something hoarsely. It sounded a bit like, Dumbala! Then they all turned and fled leaving McAdams to face the demon alone.
McAdams couldn't run any further. His legs were more used to gripping the barrel of one of his fine chestnut geldings. Between two of the large vats he waited, legs barely able to hold his weight as fear and terror nearly paralyzed him. Casca came closer, his face reddened by the glow of the fires.
McAdams whimpered. He was used to being the one who inflicted terror and pain. This was wrong! "Why don't you die?" he sobbed. "Why don't you fall down!" Casca was only a step away. He dropped his sword and reached out his bloody hands for McAdams and roughly pulled the man against his upper body driving the point of McAdams' own broken sword into the whimpering man's chest. Casca held him there like a lover.
"I can't..." Casca whispered in McAdams' ear as he held him tightly in his arms.
McAdams screamed in agony as Casca pushed him away off the point of the sword.
Then he shrieked again as strong scarred hands lifted him off the ground till he was extended above Casca's head. McAdams' mouth was already filling with blood as he looked down to see that he was being raised over one of the boiling sugar pots.
"Sweet Jesus! No!"
Casca dropped him into the thick bubbling substance. McAdams' screams were stopped when the boiling sugar flowed into his open mouth. He tried to stand and climb out of the vat but couldn't find the strength, and the pain was impossible to imagine. Raising his hands in front of his eyes he saw his own skin peel away from the bone leaving clean skeletal fingers. He slipped, this time silently, back into the thick pungent mixture.
Casca pulled the rapier from his chest and tossed it in the vat with what remained of McAdams. Not looking back he re-crossed the fields to the house.
By the time he'd returned to the house, the rest of McAdams' guards had arrived. They didn't move. Without McAdams to give them orders they didn't know what to do. And a man doesn't risk his life for pay when the paymaster is dead. They shrugged at Casca and then exited out the front door.
Going back up the stairs Casca found Michelle still trembling in the corner. Gently he took her hand and said softly, "It's all over." Half carrying her, he took her to her rooms and closed the door behind them. He laid her down on her bed where she instantly fell into the deep sleep of one whose soul needs rest. All the servants had left the house. Casca undressed her and found water and towels. Gently he cleansed her wounds then covered her with a sheet. He left the room for a time to do a little investigating through McAdams' personal papers, but when she awoke with the first light coming through the latticed windows, he was sitting at the edge of her bed.
"What happened?" she asked.
Casca stood. While she was sleeping he had taken the opportunity to clean himself as well, and was nowhere near the fearful apparition of the night before. "It's all over. McAdams is dead and you are now mistress here. He had no other relatives so you own all that was his."
Michelle rose up on one elbow. The sheet slipped away from her exposing one firm breast. She hadn't realized she was naked. But did she know that this strange man had not touched her during the night. There was an odd quality to him, a mixture of violence and gentleness that she hadn't seen in a man before. Making no attempt to cover herself she reached out her own small hand and took the strong scarred paw of Casca. "I don't know what to do. Will you stay with me?"
Casca grinned to himself. She was a fine looking girl and she would need someone to help her. And after all he was in no great hurry. The Americas could wait a few days longer.
H would send word to Big Jim and Julio not to get impatient. He'd meet them soon enough.
"Yes, I'll stay for a time..."
Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 16 Desert Mercenary
With a hardcore group of international mercenaries, Casca assaults a fortress on a mountaintop high above the blistering Algerian desert – to rescue the son of a wealthy munitions dealer and his wife. But even Casca’s ‘dirty dozen’ might not be able to overcome two hundred of the toughest men the desert ever spawned.
For more information on the entire Casca series see www.casca.net
The Barry Sadler website www.barrysad
ler.com