Watching like a hawk, Chip let the knife fall, but the mad man stayed beyond even the most daring leap and a Colt revolver was not casually ignored.
Gaining better control, Starling moved the two men to a convenient tree and ordered Chip to sit in front of it. He removed a long rawhide thong from a coat pocket and tossed it close to Carter Roth.
"Alright, Fleming, tie his hands behind the tree and do it right or I will secure him with a lead bullet."
Carter did not dare fake it but he also did not use his sailor's skill in the lashings. When he had finished, Starling ordered him away and examined the ties to ensure they were adequate. Then he sat Carter against a similar tree and with utmost care tied him fast.
Not until then did he step back, obviously relaxing, but with little of the madness leaving his features.
Neither Chip nor Carter had spoken, but Chip had been studying the man trying to place a vague sense of familiarity. Unable, he finally spoke up.
"Who are you, Mister, and what's this all about?"
Starling tried to sit on a log and draw out the suspense, to savor every moment, but his agitation was too great and he rushed close to Chip almost as though he was going to stomp him before answering.
"Who am I, Shatto? Have you looked closely?" He stuck his face near Chip's and the stink of breath fouled by rotted teeth curled Chip's nose.
"Seems as though I might have seen you somewhere but I can't place you." If anything, the admission further infuriated Starling and he stood erect attempting to suck in his paunch and put iron into his spine.
"Does the name Jonathan Starling remind you?"
Chip's mouth dropped in astonishment. Could this thick set man be the lean and hawklike Starling of less than two years past? He saw that it could be and tried to understand the reason for the man's appearance in Perry County.
Carter Roth broke the spell. "Well, whoever he is, pay him what you owe him, Chip. My hands are already getting numb."
Almost mindless rage contorted Starling's features.
To have his righteous anger ridiculed was too much. He hopped across to Carter and raised his pistol to strike but Chip's bellowing anger slowed him and he turned back to watch Chip struggle futilely at his bonds.
"So ... harm to your friend can reach you, Shatto. Now that I find interesting." He turned again to study Carter Roth. Then he stepped behind his bound figure where he would be safe from flying feet and where he could see Chip's reaction.
Almost gently he grasped the gold ring in Roth's ear and began to pull. Carter's face contorted from the strain and his ear lobe stretched impossibly long before it began to tear.
Chip's voice was ugly. "Damn you for a crazy man, Starling!" The ring ripped free and blood cascaded down Carter's neck, but his only sound had been labored breathing.
Starling wiped the ring clean and tucked it in an inside pocket before he stood before Chip Shatto.
"Crazy, Shatto? Just revenge is not insane."
Staying clear of Chip's unbound feet he again leaned closer. "Can you remember how I looked before your blow, Shatto? See what you have done and imagine how I have longed for this moment ... and those soon to follow."
Rage shaking his voice, Starling drew his pistol and placed its muzzle behind Chip's ear. He brought the hammer to full cock and watched the sweat break on Chip's forehead. Without warning he drove his fist into Chip's face and stepped away.
The blow had been brutally hard and Chip shook his head to clear his vision. "What do you want, Starling? You've nothing against this man." He nodded toward Carter Roth. "So let him go. Any argument you have is with me."
"Let him go?" Starling's laughter was maniacal. "No, Shatto. Fleming will accompany you when the time is right—but first." He again leaned close. "I have services to perform at your house." He saw fear and horror wash across Chip's face and sneered evilly.
"Oh, I understand men like you, Shatto. You would suffer silently until you were dead, but there is your lovely wife ... and then your house just as your barn went. Finally, I will return for you. When you see the flames, you will know I am coming.
He had stepped too close to Carter and Roth's heavy boot struck Starling painfully along a calf. Instinctively the man jumped away and Chip managed a hard driven foot into his thigh.
Clear of them, Starling limped about cursing with spittle flying. He approached Roth from a safe angle and slapped his pistol barrel repeatedly along his head until blood flowed and his victim sagged in his bonds.
Chip's roars of rage frightened Jonathan Starling for an instant. Shatto's shirt ripped as muscle swelled at his straining to escape his bonds and the black Shatto eyes glared like death itself.
Almost desperately Starling struck at Chip's face and head with his pistol barrel, but not until the fourth solid blow did Chip's efforts fail and he sagged, blooded and barely conscious.
Gasping violently, Starling stood back to view his handiwork. His heart labored in his chest and a sense of foreboding enveloped him. He angrily shook it away and snarled his worst into Chip's bloody face.
"I'm going now, Shatto. Think how it will be down there and you will begin to feel how I have suffered these long months past." Chip reared up at him again but Starling was ready and drove a crushing fist into the middle of Chip's dripping features, his laughter maniacal.
Starling turned away and almost ran back down the path toward the Shatto home.
With Carter gone to the woods, Hella Roth decided to visit a bit with Tinker and came breezing in the back door only a little after the stranger had gone up the woods path.
"My, did you hear those men bellowing and hollering up in the woods, Tinker? It'd make you think a bear treed them."
"I couldn't hear from the kitchen, but they may be all excited over some old acquaintance of Chip's who went up to meet them."
They hadn't gotten much further when there were heavy footsteps on the porch and the door swung silently open.
The blocky figure in the long coat darkened the entrance and the sound of his raspy breathing filled the room. His coat hung open and his hat was gone but Tinker recognized the man claiming to be Chip's friend.
His eyes wild, Starling slammed the door behind him. Seeing the two women, he holstered his drawn pistol and walked to where they stood. Hella whimpered and instinctively backed away from the menace almost leaping from the stranger's distorted features, but Tinker firmed her mouth and stepped directly in front of him.
"Now just see here, Mister...." She got no further as Starling seized her by the throat with one powerful hand and lifted her bodily onto a table. Hoarse laughter rumbled from his chest as Shatto's woman clutched futilely at his choking hand.
The blond woman recovered and leaped at him, both hands clawing, but Starling had expected it and his free fist drove hard into her stomach, doubling her over so that she fell retching on the floor.
Tinker Shatto felt her air shut off. The astonishment of being hoisted and slammed down on her own table confused her and for a moment left her defenseless. Hella Roth's attack on the monster strangling her allowed the instant of distraction she needed. Even before the man could look back at her she quit scratching at his thick wrist and jammed a stiffened finger straight into his eye.
Starling's roar of anguish shook them all. He staggered away, holding his savaged eye, knowing full well that it had been gouged beyond repair.
Desperately, Tinker crawled across the table top and Hella scrabbled her way along the floor. Tears of agony streaming from his good eye, Starling started for them. Any plans for drawn out torture were forgotten and if a corner of his mind screamed that this was all madness, he did not care. He bellowed a mindless screech of ultimate hatred and started for them.
Dazed and half blinded by blood flowing from his torn scalp, Chip saw Starling lurch away down the path.
He heaved and surged against his bonds, feeling them rip through his skin and hearing Carter fighting at his.
Doug Fleming poppe
d from the bushes, his face sheet white and his eyes bulging wildly. He held Carter's folding knife in his hand and he rushed straight to Chip's bonds.
"I couldn't come out till he left, Chip. He'd of got me sure. I didn't know what else to do, Chip. I just didn't know."
The boy was sobbing but he was cutting the leather thongs and with a joint-wrenching heave, Chip broke the rest. He rolled to his feet and made a grab at his knife lying on his way, He missed and just kept going, opening up his stride into a run such as he had never before attempted.
Carter was almost mewing in his need to be free.
Doug hurried and gave Carter's arm a deep cut, but Roth didn't even flinch. When the bonds fell away he exploded to his feet and was gone down the trail almost as fast as Chip,
Doug Fleming stood alone, holding Carter's knife, still shocked by what he had returned to. He paused only to pick up Chip's knife then ran as hard as he could after the others.
Chip Shatto had never experienced such intolerable fear and hatred. He drove his body down the woods trail in giant bounds that ate up the distance. He reached the cleared ground and crossed it still gaining speed.
From inside the house horrifying roars erupted and he touched the porch only once crossing it. He hit the door he had so carefully hung in a mighty driving plunge that tore it loose from the hinges and propelled the heavy oak like a projectile across the room.
Barely slowed, Chip saw Starling's gross form a little to one side with Tinker backed before him and flourishing something in both hands. Staggering wildly from the shock against the door he sledged the most powerful blow he could summon at Starling's shape and felt it drive home with crushing force.
When the door practically exploded into the house, Jonathan Starling was prepared to finish what he had started. The Shatto woman had grabbed a pan and was waving it around but with his size and strength it would be as nothing. The rending of the door turned him away and as it swept past on its flight across the room he saw with disbelief the bloodied form of Chip Shatto right behind it.
The blow that Shatto threw was awesome and with one eye gone, Starling had no real chance of avoiding it. Chip's rock hard fist with all of his pantherish power crushed into Starling's chest and shoulder, broke his collarbone and separated his shoulder joint.
The shock of it flung Starling back against the table where he had held the woman. With all her strength, Tinker Shatto swung her iron pan at his head. It was a desperate blow and poorly aimed but the pan edge sliced across Starling's ear, ripping it and tearing into his scalp above.
Stricken, Starling staggered and fumbled with his good arm for his holstered revolver. He saw Chip recover from the violence of his entrance and surge toward him like a wave of death. He abandoned his attempt to reach his gun and threw his arm up protectively in a puny attempt to ward off what was about to destroy him.
Still holding her pan, Tinker saw Chip as she had never seen him before. His head and shoulders appeared bathed in blood but his body swelled with a massive strength that dominated the room. His moccasined feet were soundless on the wood floor. Except for Starling's strangled gasps, his attack was frighteningly silent.
He came in low under Starling's extended arm and drove his head up under the man's chin with deadening impact that snapped Starling's head so that he stared at the celling.
Feet planted, body crouched forward, Chip pinned Starling to the wall with driving blows to his exposed body. They were not blows that jolted or distressed breathing, but trip hammer sledging that smashed wind from lungs and bent ribs until they cracked and broke under the next pile driving impact.
Jonathan Starling knew he was dying. He could feel his bones breaking and sense the sharp ends piercing his organs. He wished himself unconscious but remained awake, feeling the encroaching numbness of his body being pounded into uselessness by the implacable rage he had unleashed.
He felt Shatto step away and his head sagged forward, his eye somehow still seeing. Powerful hands grabbed him and the room swung as he was propelled in a quickening arc toward the light of the doorway.
Agony ripped through his mangled body and he cleared the doorway to land stunningly hard on the yellow pine porch. Vaguely he saw something flying at his head and it hurt terribly for an instant before final blackness claimed him.
Carter Roth had run harder than he thought he could and reached the house just as Starling came out. Running full tilt, Carter saw the man hurled head first through the open door to land sprawling limply on the porch.
In full stride, Carter did a little hop step to get it just right, and as Starling rolled an eye upward, he drove his heavy boot toe squarely into the man's skull. The impact curled his toes painfully but it crushed Starling's head and killed him instantly.
A moment later, Chip appeared in the doorway and they stood over Starling's body, blood soaking their shoulders, sucking air into lungs strained to capacity. Tinker got Hella out from under the oak door where it had landed over her crouching form and they too came cautiously to the doorway to look upon the carnage.
Doug Fleming sprinted into the yard and saw them gathered on the porch. Starling sprawled lifelessly and the four of them were all huddled together hugging one another.
Doug could hear Hella sobbing a little as he came to an uncertain stop at the porch steps and stood holding a knife in each hand feeling suddenly left out with tears creeping in fast and choking his breathing.
Chip saw him and immediately opened their circle reaching out a big arm to him. With a sob Doug dropped the knives and ran close, where Chip caught him under the arms and effortlessly hoisted him into their midst. Carter's powerful arm went around his waist from the other side and he felt the warmth of their caring sweep over him.
Chapter 20
The new barn was bigger and better than the first one. He had included permanent grain bins on the barn floor and more stalls beneath the overhang. A pair of milk cows shared it with the two riding animals and one plow horse.
When puttering in his garden. Chip liked to pause and look at the massive rise of its planked walls and cedar shingled roof. It was painted red, of course—all barns were red. Carter had suggested blue with yellow trim, but the looks of horror following that remark persuaded Chip to remain conventional and he noticed that Carter's barn was also red.
In the evening he and Tinker often sat in the doorway overlooking the barnyard and gazed across the fields to the valley road and on up the other side to Wildcat Ridge. With all of the buildings up, the fields shared out, and the stock they wanted purchased and settled in, they had time to watch the sun move and listen to the peepers that began night long serenades.
The ugly bruise around Tinker's neck was gone and Chip's hair had grown back enough to conceal the scars where Starling's pistol had laid open his scalp. If there were emotional wounds neither he nor Tinker was aware of them. When they thought of Jonathan Starling they might shiver at the closeness of it but the ordeal was past and Starling's shattered body was deeply buried in a grave no one cared to mark.
There were more jokes than terror over the nastiness of the less than an hour frenzy. Carter Roth liked to tell how Starling's pistol bouncing off Chip's head rang a lot like a sledge on an anvil. Chip in turn studied the contours of Carter's head wondering aloud if his skull had always been askew or if Starling had caused the distortion.
Hella claimed Chip pinned her under his oak door on purpose so she couldn't get at Starling before he did and Tinker insisted her voice was deeper than before Starling tried to strangle her.
They all received attentions that took weeks to die away. Newspapers leaped on the story and milked it of actual and imagined details. Everyone they knew and some they didn't came to talk and look around. When the county planted Starling, more than a few curious were in attendance, although because of Tinker's finger jab and Carter's kick there was no viewing.
Doug Fleming was rightly made much of. Chip and Carter both had repeatedly insisted that he had
done just right in remaining hidden until he could do something worthwhile. The boy thought maybe he should have run for help or warned Tinker or perhaps dashed away hollering so that Starling would be scared off. They soothed the doubts and injected their own rough humor until the youth could also smile at the memories.
Although his parents wanted the boy to return immediately to the security of his home on the Little Buffalo, Chip insisted that he stay until all the ghosts were laid away and the terrors and doubts had been talked into boredom.
Then they saw him off on his tall Shatto horse with the gift of Carter's folding knife in his pocket.
No one should live with only the past and neither the Shattos nor the Roths intended doing so. It seemed on appropriate time to introduce new goals so Chip began mentioning the trip west to visit Ted and family.
It was an adventure easy to get caught up in and they began serious planning.
Chip brought up the need to go before they got families started and couldn't hardly leave town without a few wagon loads of baby things. That convinced them to depart in the early spring. Then they would have the good weather for traveling and at least a summer at the ranch.
The times again looked specially good to Chip, but after Starling's unexpected appearance he almost feared to believe that the past had settled and would be only a memory.
Those thoughts brought him to the wonderment of all he and the Shattos before him had gone through to settle among the hills and valleys of Perry County. There had been brutal times mixed with the good and many of those trials were already half forgotten or known by increasingly few. It didn't seem right that so much of what the old timers had suffered should be forever lost. He certainly did not want his own life to be forgotten as though it had never been—perhaps within a generation of his passing.
It appeared that easier times, without the fighting and close to the bone survival lay ahead and it seemed doubtful that the Shattos yet unborn would know about or truly understand what those before had struggled with.
Chip Shatto (Perry County Series) Page 17