Gillett sighed. “Haven’t you ever fished, Taggart?”
“Now and then.”
“And how do you catch one? You bait the hook with the kind of bait the fish you’re after like best. Lilly was my bait, the kind you couldn’t resist.”
“You sent her to me? You wanted to stir up my old feelings for her?”
“Of course.”
“Why?” Clay asked, a tremor in his voice.
“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Gillett released Lilly and pivoted, nodding at the house, the stable, the well, and the valley beyond. “The Bar T is small but you have fine grassland here. And your spring can keep a large herd watered.”
“You did all this to get my ranch?”
“What else? I told you we were playing for the highest stakes there are.”
Clay sagged, his head spinning, and would have fallen if not for the men holding him. So many shocking revelations, one on the heels of the other, had drained him of emotion and strength. He had been betrayed by the woman he loved; she had used his affection to lead him like a lamb to the slaughter. “Boorman,” Clay said. “He was part of it?”
Gillett nodded. “Only the jackass wasn’t supposed to go and get himself killed. The plan was for him to gun you down; then Lilly and him were to claim he had to do it to preserve her honor.” The big man snickered. “I reckon Boorman’s rep as a gunfighter was a mite overblown.”
Clay closed his eyes and wished they would shoot him to put him out of his misery.
“I figured you’d catch on after the posse showed up here so soon after the shooting,” Gillett went on. “There hadn’t been time for anyone to ride to Tucson and tell Crane and for Crane to round up the men he needed.”
“He did show up quick,” Clay said, wondering why he hadn’t realized it sooner. How blind he had been! A bigger jackass than Boorman. The biggest jackass ever.
“Because I thought ahead,” Gillett bragged. “A wise man covers every angle, so I wanted Crane ready to go after you in case you got away. I had him deputize other ranchers so folks hereabouts wouldn’t suspect it was all my doing.”
“I knew that much,” Clay said feebly.
“Did you? Did you also know I arranged to have you lynched?”
Clay’s eyes snapped wide. “You couldn’t have. Some of them are men I’ve known for years.”
“But only casually. You’re a hard man to get to know, Taggart, keeping to yourself all the time like you do. Yes, some of those men played poker with you on occasion, but they didn’t consider you their pard. Take Jacoby, for instance. When I offered him a thousand dollars, he agreed to help hang you without a second thought. Hell, he even offered to tie the noose himself.”
Jacoby had been the one who insisted on checking the knot before Clay was strung up. The galling memory rekindled the rage Clay had felt on first seeing Gillett. “And the others?”
“It varied. Heskett settled for seven hundred dollars. Denton only five hundred. Prost wanted some of my longhorns—”
“Those were yours?” Clay blurted.
“Longhorns cost top dollar. You don’t think a smalltime rancher like Prost had the money to buy any, do you?”
All the pieces were coming together, all the fragments forming into a horrifying whole. Clay had not only been deceived by the woman he’d longed to marry, he’d been betrayed by every man he had ever felt halfway close to, by men who’d known him since he was a youngster. Pards or not, they should have refused to help Gillett and warned him of Gillett’s plot.
“Yes, sir,” Gillett said. “I had it all planned out. Then those rotten redskins went and saved your worthless carcass.”
“You know—?” Clay began.
“Lilly told me,” Gillett divulged. “Told me everything you confided in her. Frankly, I thought you were stringing her on until she brought up that you never lie. And you were hanged.” He stared at Clay’s scar. “Damned if you don’t have more luck than anyone I ever heard of.”
“This hombre’s luck has run out, Senor Gillett,” Vasquez interjected.
“That it has,” Gillett agreed, grinning. “You might say he’s reached the end of his rope.”
Clay listened to their mirth and bowed his head. Not from embarrassment or guilt over his stupidity, but to concentrate, to control the volcanic fury boiling within him. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and bunched his muscles.
“Look at him!” someone said.
“Is he wetting his pants?” asked another.
Lilly Gillett twittered gaily.
Suddenly Clay exploded, flinging both arms outward. The two hard cases were caught off guard, sent staggering to either side. In a flash Clay took a half step and punched, ramming his knobby knuckles full into Miles Gillett’s mouth. The rich rancher stumbled backward, his boot heels hit the porch, and he fell. Lilly started to scream, her cry cut off by the fist Clay slammed into her temple.
In a flurry of blows the gun hands pounced, bearing Clay to the ground by their sheer numbers. There were too many of them, though, and in their haste to hit him they struck one another. Oaths and inarticulate yells mingled with the thud of blows.
Clay was pummeled without letup, but most of the punches glanced off him or caused little pain. Fueled by his rage, he lashed out again and again, gauging his swings with care, landing brutal hits on chins, knees, and noses. One gunman was knocked backward by a smash to the jaw. Another tottered off, clasping a bloody face.
Suddenly Clay set eyes on a Colt in a holster. He lunged, grabbed the butt, lunged again to the right while thumbing back the hammer, and fired as his shoulder smacked the ground. There was a screech and the gunmen began to scatter, some clawing for their pistols.
Clay snapped off another shot, roiled, and fired once more. He was rising to his knees and taking deliberate aim at Miles Gillett, determined to bring Gillett down before the hired killers brought him down, when a jarring impact to the side of his head caused the world to swirl and mist blackly. He tried to resist the mist, to overcome the pain, but a second blow pitched his body to the ground and his mind into an inky emptiness. The last sound he heard before the veil claimed him was the shrieking voice of his beloved Lilly.
“Kill him!” she was screaming. “Kill the bastard! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
~*~
Clay seemed to be floating in a roiling pool Of liquid pain. He didn’t want to be there so he thrashed and kicked. Then a yellow glow blossomed above him, and he tried to reach it.
Unexpectedly, Clay revived, and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was on his back, his arms and legs bound, in what appeared to be a dark room. Agony lanced him from head to toe. His face was terribly sore, his mouth felt swollen. Trying to sit up only worsened the agony but he persevered and was almost upright when a door in front of him opened.
“I knew I heard something, Senor Gillett,” Surgio Vasquez called out.
The light enabled Clay to recognize his own bedroom. Heavy footsteps heralded the arrival of a trio of hard cases who assisted Vasquez in carrying him down the hallway to the kitchen. He smelled food and his mouth watered.
Miles and Lilly Gillett were at the table, eating well-done beefsteak and potatoes. Miles glanced up, his eyes smoldering, and scowled. “So glad you could rejoin us, Taggart. I didn’t think you’d recover after my boys got through stomping you into the dust.” He paused. “You’re one tough son of a bitch.”
“Why didn’t you shoot me and get this over with?” Clay asked testily.
“That would be too easy. After all the aggravation you’ve caused me, I want to do this properly.” Miles set down his fork and touched his puffy lower lip. “You’ll pay for this, a hundred times over.”
“If bluster were gold you’d be the richest man in the country,” Clay countered.
Gillett glowered, rose partway, then stopped and sat back down. “There you go again, getting the better of me when I should know enough to ignore every word you say. Why do I let you get un
der my skin the way I do?”
“Guilty conscience,” Clay taunted.
“I don’t have a conscience. Ask anyone.” Gillett folded his arms across his chest. “I want you to know how I’ve set this up, just so you’ll feel worse.”
“Go to hell.”
“If hell exists, you’ll get there long before I do.” Gillett leaned back and grinned. “I aim to kill you the way an Apache would, slowly and with a lot of suffering. I reckon that’s fitting since you’ve taken up with the red scum.”
“You think they’re scum? There isn’t an Apache alive who can hold a candle to you.”
“Really? I’m flattered.” Gillett laughed. “Once you’re dead, we’ll bury you where no one will ever find the body. Then, in a week or so, I’m going into Tucson and have my lawyer arrange to buy your ranch from the person you named as beneficiary in your will.”
Jolted, Clay struggled to a sitting position. “I don’t have a will!”
“You do now,” Gillett said. “Duly signed and witnessed.” He chuckled. “Your signature is a forgery but it’s good enough to fool anyone except an expert.”
“And just who did I leave my ranch to?”
Lilly leaned toward Clay and arched her eyebrows. “Can’t you guess? For over a year now Miles has had the men spreading stories all around about how you loved me so much you couldn’t stay away from me. How you pestered me to divorce him and marry you. How you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I think ahead,” Gillett declared. “I didn’t want any suspicions aroused when you were shot.”
“You’ve wanted my ranch all that time?” Clay marveled.
“Longer,” Gillett admitted. “My own range has been overstocked for far too long. In order to expand, I bought out all my neighbors who would sell. The only two who turned me down were you and that hermit, Jeb Wilson.”
Clay remembered Old Jeb, as folks called him, a kindly gent who had owned several hundred acres east of the Triangle G. Jeb had been content to raise a few cows and poultry and live quietly in a small shack. A year and a half ago Jeb had disappeared; everyone had blamed the Apaches. “You had Jeb killed, didn’t you?”
“Hell, I killed the old fart with my bare hands,” Gillett revealed, “then filed on his land before his corpse was stiff. Since he had no will and no next of kin, it was easy as pie.”
“So I’m the last holdout.”
“Correction, Indian lover. You were the last holdout. The Bar T will become part of the Triangle G before the month is over.” Gillett’s mouth screwed upward. “I can’t thank you enough for your generosity. I’m so obliged, I’m going to celebrate by making love to Lilly in your own bed.”
“Oh, Miles!” Lilly said. “You’re so naughty sometimes!”
Clay looked at her in rank disgust. Was this the same woman who had impressed him as being so kind, so decent? The woman who had gone on long rides with him and talked of nothing but the joy they would know together? The woman who had promised to be true to him until the end of time? The woman who had shared her body with him more often than he could count? Who had said such tender words when they were caressing one another? Was this bitch the real Lilly? “God, I’ve been such a fool,” he breathed.
“That you have,” Gillett said. “And you’re long overdue to earn a fool’s just reward.” A hefty hand flicked at one of the gunmen. “You know what to do, Jensen. Take Crist and Volk with you. And remember. I want to hear his screams.”
“You will, boss,” Jensen promised.
The night air was refreshing. Clay breathed deeply as he was hauled to the stable where Crist lit a lantern and hung it on a peg. Volk and Jensen dragged Clay to the middle of the aisle, under a thick beam. Rope was produced, and a minute later they had Clay hanging by his arms several feet off the ground.
“Fetch it,” Jensen said to Crist.
Clay watched Crist leave. Volk whispered to Jensen, and they both glanced up at him and laughed. Whatever they had in mind was bound to be unbearably unpleasant, and he hoped he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of screaming like Gillett wanted.
Presently the man named Crist returned. He was skinny enough to get work as a scarecrow, with features to match. In his right hand he grasped a coiled bullwhip.
“Get ready to lose some hide,” Jensen told Clay. “Crist is a wizard with that blacksnake of his.”
“Feel free to holler all you want,” Volk added. “It’d make the boss mighty happy.”
Clay glared at both of them. “I won’t let out a peep,” he vowed.
The whip uncoiled with a snap, the lash landing close to Clay’s moccasins. Crist snickered and gave the handle a shake. “You’ll holler all right, mister. By the time I’m done, they’ll hear you clear in China.” He cracked the whip again. “I can take the eye off a fly at twenty feet. Got my start years ago as a bullwhacker.”
In anticipation of the ordeal to come, Clay clamped his teeth and forced his body to relax. I can handle the pain, he mentally assured himself, over and over.
Jensen leaned against a stall. “I don’t reckon this hombre believes you’re all that good, pard. Why don’t you educate him?”
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Crist said. “Any bastard who would ride with Apaches deserves to have his skin peeled off, bit by bit.” He nodded at Volk. “Strip off his shirt, so I can get to work.”
Clay swayed when Volk grabbed hold. There was a ripping sound and his shirt was thrown down. The air felt cool on his skin, bringing to mind the distant Dragoons where high up in the Apache stronghold the air was always cool, always—
CRACK!
Exquisite anguish lanced Clay’s back. Involuntarily, he arched his spine and gasped; his thoughts jumbled, his teeth clamped harder.
“I see you gritting your nutcrackers, Injun lover,” Crist commented. “It won’t help after a while. You’ll be screaming whether you want to or not.”
Clay opened his mouth to respond, which was a mistake. CRACK! The lash bit into him again, searing him with torment. He cried out, not loudly, but loud enough for the three hard cases to hear and laugh.
“Real tough, ain’t he?” Volk said, to no one in particular.
“They all act tough at first,” Crist said. “The blacksnake loosens their tongues soon enough.”
Even though Clay was braced for the next blow he had to bite his lower lip to keep from shrieking. It felt as if his back had been split down the middle and there was a moist sensation creeping down his spine.
“Want us to jam a stick in your mouth?” Crist poked fun at him. “Would that help?”
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
A flood tide of pain engulfed Clay, forcing a whirlpool of sickening impressions; his back was on fire, his mind reeled uncontrollably, and his stomach threatened to heave. He gulped, gritted his teeth, and stared at Crist, refusing to be beaten in spirit, as well as body.
“That’s right. Show us what you think you’re made of,” Crist said, grinning. “But I’ve got bad news for you, Injun lover. I’m just getting warmed up. The worst is yet to come.”
Clay saw the bullwhacker’s arm move and closed his eyes. It didn’t help. Crist was right. It only did get worse. And worse. And worse.
Chapter Six
The floor of the stable had miraculously changed into a great red sea. Through a scarlet haze Clay Taggart stared dumbly at the moist red liquid below him and idly wondered how the miracle had been accomplished. Then he observed a large crimson drop fall into the sea followed shortly by another and he believed that he knew the answer: It was raining red rain.
“He’s come around again, Crist.”
“Time to get back to work.”
Clay heard the words but they held no meaning for him. They seemed oddly slurred—or was his hearing at fault?—and echoed from the bottom of a vast cavern. Something pricked his back, making him flinch, and vaguely he realized he was being whipped, for the sixth or seventh time. He ha
rdly felt the strokes anymore. There was so much pain, so much acute, terrible pain, that a little more didn’t matter to him at all.
More drops cascaded into the red sea. Clay could see each drop clearly as it fell, see the ripples it made on contact. How pretty it was, he reflected. So pretty it brought a lump to his throat.
Clay’s gaze strayed to the front entrance. He dimly recalled seeing two people there, a big man and a woman who had laughed at him, the woman doubled over and laughing louder. Who were they? What had they found so funny?
Suddenly others appeared at the entrance, three dark figures who hurtled out of the night with gleaming blades in their outstretched hands. They wore breechcloths and moccasins and their long black hair was bound by headbands. One of them pounced on Volk. Another, whose ugly face was aglow with fiery glee, attacked Jensen. The third, the most muscular of the trio, came straight for Crist and caught the bullwhacker from behind as Crist was raising the bullwhip to strike again. Three knives streaked in the lantern light; three gun hands fell. So swiftly was the deed done that none of the white men was able to yell.
Clay watched the muscular one stab Crist again and again. At last, the Indian rose and stepped up to him. Hands touched his shoulders. Then he was falling, slumping forward over the wide shoulders of the warrior. “Delgadito?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Quiet, Lickoyee-shis-inday. We must get you away from this place.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Clay mumbled. He wanted to say more, but a black hand of fog plucked at his brain, and he drifted off. Once, he awoke to a rhythmic rising and falling motion and guessed he was draped over a horse. Another time, he came around when cold water was splashed on his face. The sky was brightening, and he heard horses neighing. He licked his lips, tried to talk, but dizziness whirled him into oblivion again.
~*~
Delgadito squatted close to a small fire and stared at the white-eye sleeping peacefully on the other side. Soon would come the crucial test. If he had judged Taggart’s character rightly, then the next phase of his plan could be carried out. If he had misjudged, he would finish the job the white-eyes in the huge wood lodge had started, and he would not be so sloppy about it. He fingered the hilt of his knife and waited, noting the breaks in the sleeping man’s deep breathing.
Warpath (White Apache Book 2) Page 6