by Jon Sharpe
“What’s your name?” Fargo had to convince her to go with him before Leon Swill showed up.
“Geraldine Moore,” the woman said. She wasn’t chained as Suzanne had been. Her arms and legs were free and she could leave whenever she wanted.
“How long have you been here, Geraldine?”
“I can’t rightly say. Years, I think. I’ve lost all track of time.” Geraldine nervously swiped at a stray bang. “But I shouldn’t be talking to you like this, mister. It’s against the rules for us to speak to strangers. My master wouldn’t like it.”
Fargo’s resentment of the Swills intensified. This woman had been cowed into submission, her spirit crushed, her will bent to theirs. “Geraldine, there’s no need for you to stay here any longer if you don’t want to. How would you like to see your family again? You must have relatives somewhere?”
“My master is my only family,” Geraldine intoned. “The Swills are my only relatives. Anyone who says differently is a liar.”
Fargo had the impression she was reciting by rote sentiments that had been pounded into her. “Look at me, Geraldine.” He smiled to prove how friendly he was. “I’m no liar. I can get you to safety if you’ll let me.”
“My master is my only family,” Geraldine reaffirmed. She was about to say more but suddenly she pressed a hand to her temple and winced as if she were in pain. “Oh! What is happening to me? My heard hurts. I can hardly think.”
By then Fargo was beside her. Taking her elbow, he suggested, “Why don’t I take you out of here? You’ll feel a lot better once we’re outside.”
“My master is—” Geraldine bleated, but she was unable to finish. She staggered, righted herself, and groped at him for support. “I don’t know what to do, mister. Part of me wants to go with you, but I’m afraid. Godawful afraid.”
“I won’t let any harm come to you,” Fargo vowed. But keeping the promise might pose a problem, especially if the Swills caught them together. Clasping her hand, he moved to the front door. Suddenly he stopped. Someone was approaching the cabin, whistling as he came.
“My master!” Geraldine blurted, aghast.
Spinning, Fargo propelled her into the chair she had occupied. “Don’t let on I’m here!” he whispered, and darted over to stand behind the door. He had barely done so before the latch grated and the door was pushed open within inches of his face. Boots tromped on the rough-hewn planks and a gravelly voice rumbled.
“I trust you’ve got my supper ready! ‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll tar you within an inch of your life.”
Geraldine offered no reply.
“What the matter with you, you dumb bitch? Cat got your tongue?”
Fargo peeked out. The thunderstruck woman was staring right at his hiding place. Her lips were moving, but no words came out. Confronting her was a granite slab with shoulders as broad as a bull’s and enough muscle to lift the cabin. Leon Swill was a veritable brute who looked like he could tangle with ten bobcats and come out unscratched.
“Well?” Leon goaded. “Say something, damn your hide, or I’ll get out my club and teach you how to behave around your betters.” He pushed the door shut without looking behind him, then took a ponderous step toward her.
Wishing Geraldine would stop staring, Fargo elevated the Henry to bash Leon Swill over the back of the head.
But the more bestial the man, the more bestial his senses. Leon Swill was no exception. Something warned him, a sixth sense common to predators and predatory men alike. Whirling, he uttered a feral roar and charged.
Fargo had no chance to dodge aside. It felt like a ten-ton boulder had slammed into him. He was lifted clear off the floor and smashed against the wall. Pinpoints of light danced before his eyes and he lost his grip on the Henry. Fingers as thick as railroad spikes bit deep into his neck. With a supreme effort of will, Fargo collected his wits and stared into the contorted animal features of the hulking slab of sinew who was striving to throttle the life out of him.
“Die!” Leon Swill hissed.
Fargo pried at the man-brute’s fingers to no avail. He swung a fist that glanced off a jaw made of iron. He drove his knee at Swill’s groin, but connected with more muscle. Struggling fiercely, he glimpsed Geraldine Moore. She was rooted to her chair, paralyzed by fright, and would be of no help whatsoever.
“Die!” Leon roared again.
Twisting and thrashing, Fargo fought for his life. He punched. He kicked. But it had no more effect than if he were beating on a tree stump. His breath was choked off and his lungs were fit to burst. He swung his whole body to the right, then to the left. Nothing worked.
“Die!”
Fargo was close to blacking out. In desperation he made the fingers of his right hand as rigid as ramrods and speared them into Leon Swill’s eyes. Not once, not twice, but three times, and at the last blow Swill howled and let go.
Stumbling backward, Leon furiously blinked his eyes, trying to clear his vision.
Fargo kicked him between the legs. He had to slow the mountain of muscle down long enough to grab hold of the toothpick. Gunshots would bring the others.
Leon was made of solid stone. The kick didn’t phase him. But he was still blinking. He still couldn’t see clearly.
Quickly, Fargo bent at the knees to grab his toothpick. A painful jab in his spine disabused him of the notion. Pivoting, he stared into the muzzle of a cocked Prescott single-action Navy revolver, and then past it, into the glittering eyes of the revolver’s owner.
“We meet again,” Clancy Swill said.
12
Skye Fargo clawed his way up out of a bottomless pitch-black pit into the light. He became aware of sounds around him, of a man’s cough and the rattle of pots and pans. He smelled coffee and eggs and tobacco. He also experienced an excruciating stab of pain in the back of his head.
Fargo’s memory of who caused the pain returned in a rush. It had been the previous night. He had turned to find Clancy Swill holding a gun on him, and behind Clancy, two others. The tall man he had seen stargazing earlier, and a wizened scarecrow who looked old enough to have fought in the Revolutionary War. He had slowly raised his hands. To do otherwise invited certain death.
“I’ve got to admit, mister,” Clancy commented, “sneaking in here like this proves you have more grit than most. No brains, but a lot of grit.”
“We do what we have to,” Fargo answered.
“Ain’t it the truth. And guess what my brothers and me have to do to you now that we’ve caught you?” Clancy was going to say more, but his eyes widened and he bawled, “No, Leon! Don’t!”
That was when the cabin’s roof came crashing down onto Fargo’s skull and he was smashed to the floor with bone-jarring force. Hard, steely fingers clamped around his throat again, and the world grew dark.
Now, opening his eyes, Fargo took stock. His head was pounding. His wrists were bound, but not his legs. He was lying on his side on a cabin floor but it wasn’t Leon’s cabin. This one was clean and tidy. Sunlight streamed in through a side window decorated with flowery curtains. A brunette was puttering around over at a stove. He twisted his head to see the rest of the room and a low groan escaped him.
“Well, well,” Clancy Swill declared. “Look who decided to rejoin the land of the living? You’ve been out all night and most of the morning.” Clancy was seated at a table adorned with a yellow table cloth. Beside him sat the elderly man with more wrinkles than a prune. “You’re lucky to be alive, mister. Usually when Leon wallops someone like he walloped you, they never get back up again.”
“Brother Leon is as strong as a bull,” agreed someone outside of Fargo’s line of vision.
“If Pa hadn’t stopped him, he’d have stomped your noggin as flat as a flapjack,” remarked a third party, and everyone laughed.
Fargo slowly swiveled around. Gus and Billy Swill occupied chairs over by the wall. Hunkered near the front door was yet another—Harvey Swill.
“That’s right,” Gus crowed. “We found Har
vey and cut him loose. We brought your pinto along, too. Didn’t want it getting lonesome.”
Billy tittered. “That’s a mighty fine animal you’ve got there, Mr. high-and-mighty scout. I reckon I’ll keep it for myself.”
Fargo tried to speak, but his throat was as dry as a desert. He had to wet his mouth and swallow a few times before he could croak, “Why—?”
“Why are you still alive?” Clancy finished for him. “Why didn’t I let Leon finish you off?” He winked at the old man. “Tell him how things are, Pa.”
The patriarch of the Swill clan shifted in his chair and coolly regarded Fargo with eyes amazingly bright and alert for someone his age. Bright, alert, and sinister, for there lurked in them a suggestion of vicious intelligence and latent cruelty. “So you’re the polecat responsible for the deaths of three of my boys? You’re the cur who’s dogged them clear across the territory?”
Fargo didn’t dignify the question with an answer.
“I’m Jericho Swill,” the patriarch announced. “Blood kin means everything to me. My boys are my pride and joy, and I don’t take kindly to having them rubbed out.” He thrust a gnarled finger at Fargo. “The only reason I had Leon spare you is so we can kill you proper. You need to pay, but you need to suffer first. Before we’re through, you’ll beg us to end your life. I guarantee.”
Fargo had heard similar threats before; from the Blackfeet, from the Apaches, from the lowest outlaws and the most vile cutthroats. Ignoring the Swills, he studied the woman. She perplexed him. She was humming cheerfully, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Clancy Swill was observant. “You look surprised, Fargo. You figured all the gals we stole would be like that first one you set free. The Maxwell girl. Well, they ain’t. Once they’ve been with us long enough, they get used to it.”
The woman glanced at him and smiled, but Fargo noticed that the smile didn’t touch her eyes.
Clancy was still talking. “Where is the Maxwell woman, anyhow? We’ve looked all over and can’t find her anywhere.”
Dread knifed into Fargo. In Suzanne’s condition she wouldn’t last long on her own. Had he rescued her from their clutches only to doom her to perish of starvation or thirst?
Jericho Swill rose stiffly and shambled around the table. “When my son asks you a question, you miserable son of a bitch, you’d best answer him.” Snapping his right leg back, he delivered a savage kick.
Agony exploded in Fargo’s ribs. He doubled, bile rising in his throat, and had to resist an urge to slam his legs into Jericho’s. It would only bring on the wrath of the others.
The patriarch and his sons cackled lustily. Then Jericho moved toward the door, saying, “Bring him. It’s time we got started.”
Clancy and Gus seized Fargo by the arms and hauled him out into the glare of the late morning sun.
Jericho’s cabin was on the north side of the clearing. He stepped to a metal triangle suspended from a post, removed the small slim bar that hung from it, and began striking the triangle again and again. Loud peals echoed across the valley. He continued to strike it as cabin door after cabin door opened.
Fargo saw Leon striding toward them like a great, riled bear. He saw the tall Swill whose name he hadn’t learned yet. And with them came Geraldine and the rest of the women. It was a gathering of the clan.
Jericho stopped banging on the triangle and turned to those assembled. “Brethren!” he shouted, raising his hands over his head. “The moment we have been waiting for has arrived! The moment when we exact our vengeance for the lives of Shem, Wilt, and Donny!”
Fargo wondered how they intended to do it. Would they stake him out and skin him alive, as Suzanne had said they were fond of doing? Or did they have an equally hideous fate in mind?
“All of you know me,” Jericho Swill said. “All of you know I’m a fair man. I never harm anyone unjustly. The Good Book says we should give as we receive. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But what do we do when the crime is so foul? How do we make this man pay for the loss of three of our loved ones?”
“Let’s rip his innards out, Pa!” Leon Swill bellowed.
“We could do that, yes, son,” Jericho said, nodding, “but he’d die awful quick, wouldn’t he? Is that fair, I ask you? Is that just retribution for the dearly departed?” His wrinkled mask of a face clouded. “I say no! I say he must suffer! I say he must be made to grovel for mercy. Then, and only then, will his sorrow compare to ours.”
“What do you have in mind, Pa?” Harvey asked.
“I propose we kill him a bit at a time,” Jericho said. “We’ll whittle him down like a block of wood, piece by piece, until there’s next to nothing left. Then, and only then, will we send him to hell where he belongs.”
Leon rubbed his hands together in sadistic anticipation. “How do we start, Pa? Do we cut off his fingers and toes?”
“All in due time,” Jericho said, grinning. “We’ll wait until he’s hungry enough to eat them.” The old man gestured at Clancy and Gus. “Do as we talked about, boys, and be quick about it.”
Fargo was half-carried, half-dragged to a spot midway between the cabin and the corral. He was thrown to the ground, and Leon and Harvey came over to hold his legs. Billy drew a pistol and pointed it at his face. Gus untied his wrists.
Clancy ran back into the cabin and reappeared with a hammer, four wooden stakes, four lengths of rope, and something else, the sight of which made Fargo grit his teeth in expectation of what was to come. “What are you waiting for, Gus?” he demanded.
Gus Swill stripped off Fargo’s shirt and threw it to one of the women. Then Gus grabbed one wrist, the tall Swill grabbed another, and Leon and Harvey seized Fargo’s feet. None-too-gently, they flipped Fargo onto his stomach and his limbs were stretched so he was spread-eagle in the dirt. “We’re ready,” Gus said.
Clancy sank onto a knee beside Fargo’s right wrist and pounded a stake into the earth. When it was deep enough to suit him, he tied Fargo’s wrist to it, gave the rope a few tugs to ensure it would hold, and moved around to Fargo’s other wrist.
Fargo was helpless to resist. Not with four men holding him down and Billy Swill holding a pistol on him.
Harvey pulled off the left boot and tossed it away. Leon wrapped his huge fingers around the right boot, and wrenched.
“Well, lookee here, Pa.”
They had discovered the Arkansas toothpick. Leon unfastened the sheath and threw it to his father, who examined the knife and remarked, “Nasty things, these pigstickers. When the time comes, we’ll use it to chop off his fingers and toes.” He passed the toothpick to Gus.
Soon Fargo was tied fast, and the Swills stepped back to admire their handiwork. “He ain’t going anywhere.” Harvey grinned.
Jericho was holding the last object Clancy had brought out. Now he gave it a practiced flick and the tip cracked as loud as a gunshot. “Know what this is, son-killer?”
Everyone on the frontier had seen a bullwhip at one time or another. Fargo clenched his teeth and steeled himself for the ordeal to come.
“You have an annoying habit of not answering questions,” the patriarch said. “What say we break you of it?”
The bullwhip cracked, searing Fargo with pain that nearly took his breath away. His right shoulder felt as if it had been split to the bone, and a damp sensation spread down his back.
The Swills chortled, Leon loudest of all. “Do it again, Pa!” But none of the women, not even the merry brunette, shared in the glee.
“Happy to oblige, son,” Jericho Swill said, and swung the bullwhip again.
Fargo remembered being told it wasn’t the first strike of a whip that hurt the most. Nor the fifth or the tenth. It was the twentieth and thirtieth, when a person’s back had been cut to ribbons and their swollen flesh was so tender that each blow was enough to make them go insane with agony. But he begged to differ. The next several swings of the lash sliced into him like sabers, and it was all he could do to keep from crying out.
Unexpectedly, Jericho stopped and began coiling the whip.
“What are you doing, Pa?” Leon asked. “Keep it up until he looks like chopped meat.”
“Weren’t you listening, son?” Jericho replied. “A piece at a time, remember? We’ll let him lie there a while, then do it again. And again. And again. And again. Until he’s groveling at our feet.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Fargo said, and was treated to another kick in the ribs.
“We’ll cure you of sassing us,” Jericho promised. “This time tomorrow you’ll lick our boots clean if we tell you to, and be glad to do it.” He walked toward his cabin. “Right now everyone else is invited in for sweetcakes my woman baked.”
Amid much laughter and boisterous chatter, the Swills and their captive women filed indoors. A few of the women cast sympathetic glances at Fargo, but they were careful not to be seen doing it. He didn’t blame them. If caught, they would be beaten, or worse. He lay quietly for a few minutes, listening to the nicker of a horse in the corral and the caw of a raven high in the sky. His back was a welter of pain.
Merriment issued from the cabin. The Swills were having a grand old time.
Fargo strained against the ropes binding his wrists, but couldn’t budge them. He tried to move his legs with a similar result. He was completely at the mercy of men who had no mercy. They could do with him as they pleased and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Closing his eyes, he prepared himself mentally for the next whipping. He refused to show weakness, refused to give his tormentors the perverse pleasure of hearing him cry out.
The Swills left him alone for a long time, an hour or more. Then the door opened and out they marched, reeking strongly of alcohol. Gus was carrying the bullwhip, and he gave it a few swings to limber up.
“I trust you weren’t lonely, mister,” Jericho mocked him. “We would have been back out sooner, but we were placing bets on how long you’ll last.”
“I give you three days,” Gus Swill said. “No one has ever lasted that long, but you’re one tough hombre.” His pudgy arm rose and fell.