“S‘mbitch,” the one who’d been hit in the balls croaked. He was still in a crouch, one hand cupped over his groin. “The bastard’s nailed. C’mon, let’s pay him back!”
The men all staggered forward, lunging at Ki. They were big, husky, range-toughened brawlers, used to absorbing a lot of punishment and dishing it back out. Yet it was likely none of them would have been alive, much less standing, if Ki hadn’t been caught weakened and groggy, before he’d had a chance to revive his flagging energy. But he had been caught, so the men were standing, crowding in, while Volpes held Ki at bay with his finger tight around the trigger.
The infuriated men surged forward, bent on revenge, arms seizing and fists smashing. Ki stumbled, blinding pain seeming to shatter his skull. He was pulled to the ground, dragged and kicked.
“Hey, don’t kill him! He’s worth somethin’ alive!”
Ki gritted his teeth against the brutal impact of boots. He fought his way to his feet again, using fists, elbows, teeth, knees, his entire body as a weapon. But it was useless. Despite his spirit, his defiant will, Ki was only human—a human being whose mind and body were exhausted from his brush with the murderous stampede, and drained of their inner force. Blackness overcame him again, and he slumped unconscious to the trail.
His senses returned gradually, as numbed impressions:
The bent-over hunch of his body ...
Jarring pain in his wrists, ankles, and belly . . .
The sight of moonlit ground moving past him at the pace of a horse’s walk, and the sound of a complaining voice in back of him ...
One other thing Ki knew: he was alive.
He finally became aware of the fact he was tied hand and foot, and that he was jackknifed over a saddle. Craning his head about, he caught sight of two Ryker crewmen, one in front and the other behind him; and of Volpes riding point, mounted on a close-coupled grullo that bore the Snake-Eyes brand on its rump.
“Dunno why the boss picked me to go,” the rider in back was whining. “My guts’re all busted up inside from that kick, I just know they are, and this jouncin’ hurts like pissin’ hell.”
“Shut up bellerin’ like a sick calf,” Volpes retorted harshly. “You ain’t half as bad off as Mike or Lonnie are, and Fletch here, he can’t talk much above a squeak after his throat got squozed.”
The riders lapsed into silence, emerging out onto a thin strip of a pass between the mountains and the foothills. They were high, Ki realized, and climbing higher, on a wandering, little-used trail no better than an animal track. More than that, he couldn’t tell.
Ki closed his eyes and slumped his head, and quietly tested the ropes binding him. They were tight and well-knotted—but not tight or knotted enough. A slight, hu morless smile creased his mouth as he twisted and flexed his wrists and ankles, sensing the weak points. The men, having put their faith in the ropes restraining him, would be less watchful and cautious.
He relaxed then, feeling a bit more confident, and began rebuilding his vital psychic strength. Calming his mind, Ki focused his concentration on an internal point just below his navel, the place the Chinese call tan t‘ien. As he adjusted his breathing, he continued pressuring the ropes lightly with his wrists and ankles, but he made no overt move to break loose; he was more concerned with restoring his essential energy, and was willing to wait, playing the prisoner, to learn why he was alive. It was no accident; Ki did not believe in luck, but in cause and effect. So there was a reason why he hadn’t been killed. To be questioned, he supposed, though he sensed there was more to it than that ...
For all its meandering, the trail kept generally climbing. In single file, the riders crossed a winding bench and passed through a cloaking pine forest, coming out on the sharp-breaking rim of a narrow canyon. The timber and brush closed down so thickly that the canyon could not have been discovered, even in full daylight, until it was actually entered.
The men veered northward, angling once more over sloping ground until, between two towering rocks, a break in the jagged canyon rim disclosed another ribbony path. As they turned onto it, a guard on the connecting rim came out to the edge, where he could be seen outlined against the soft, starry sky. He did not yell a challenge, but waved questioningly with his arms. Volpes signaled the guard to go on with his job of watching, and they continued along the second trail.
The going was slower now, long night shadows cast by the surrounding mountains blanketing the canyon in darkness. Before he saw the shallow creek, Ki heard Volpes’s grullo splashing into the water, followed by the others. They progressed up the stream, its bed widening and deepening as it flowed down around a bend in the now narrowing canyon wall.
Turning the bend himself, Ki glimpsed a point ahead where the two canyon walls apparently joined together to form a land bridge. The water was now up to the withers of the horses, pouring out of what appeared to be the end of a box, over a waterfall some twenty feet in height and about ten wide.
First Volpes and then the next rider disappeared under the falls. Having no choice, Ki moved under the cascading sheet after them, his clothes and aching flesh becoming drenched in the frigid mountain water beating down over him and the horse. On the right, pale moonlight filtered through a narrow passage. They rode into the vague opening, and almost immediately emerged into another, much smaller canyon that was hardly more than a natural pocket dug in the hills.
Not far inside the pocket was a bare-earthed clearing, fronting an elongated log cabin with a flat roof. A few steps from its door were the smoldering embers of a campfire, the silhouettes of three or four men spread out around it. If there were more men in the camp, they were sleeping in the small tarpaper-roofed shacks that dotted the scrub flanking the house; but Ki suspected the shacks were empty, the men out chasing a scattered herd of terrified steers.
They rode across the clearing and up before the main cabin. The door opened and a young woman stepped outside, holding a brass night lamp, and looking puffy-eyed and irritated at the men as they dismounted. The two crewmen moved away, out of range of Ki’s limited vision. Volpes went up to the girl and said something too low for Ki to hear; and she said something back that was also inaudible, though, judging by the sharpness of its tone, it was probably a rebuke. Ki guessed she was Volpes’s girl.
Volpes turned around and walked toward Ki, the girl trailing grudgingly, evidently having been told that her lamp was required. Volpes stopped beside Ki and unsheathed a Green River knife. The girl eased closer, shining the lamp on Ki, her other hand clutching the neck of a long raglan coat, which was draped open around her shoulders, over her nightgown.
Her nightgown was the sort beloved by maiden aunts, of thick daisy-cloth flannel gathered at a yoke in front and back, making it hang very full. But it didn’t matter, not on her. Her breasts were plump and high, their large nipples protruding out from the already straining material; and she was leggy down to the warped, mud-caked cowboots that peeked beneath the hem of her gown. Her hair was wrapped in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and was as raven-black as her eyes, and her butternut-brown face was heart-shaped and matched her body’s promise of sensual passion.
One other thing Ki noticed: the girl was Eurasian.
Ki managed a slight nod. “Yü nü,” he said.
“Hello yourself.” Her black eyes widened, curious, though her mouth remained drawn in a hard, suspicious line.
Volpes had jerked as if bitten. “You’ve got a fat lip that’s gonna get fatter,” he snarled, slicing the rope that held Ki down across the saddle.
Ki dropped like a feed sack to the ground, landing on his side. His skull still throbbed and his brains felt as if they were scrambled, from the twin knockouts suffered from the herd and the crewmen. He lay still, breathing through his mouth, as he felt Volpes cut the ropes around his ankles. Then he was hauled to his feet.
“Fletch, goddmam it, c‘mere,” Volpes yelled, and the man Ki had jabbed in the throat hastened out from the side of the cabin, running bowlegge
d while he buttoned his fly.
“Put this sassy-assed sonofabitch in the empty shed ‘round back,” Volpes told him. “And make sure he stays there, ’y‘hear?”
Fletch nodded, and pushed Ki ahead of him, causing Ki to stumble slightly, and Ki used the opportunity to glance back and see if the girl was looking his way.
She was, frowning as if perplexed while she stood with Volpes’s arm possessively around her waist. Ki grinned. She stiffened, then was hurriedly propelled toward the cabin door, Volpes gripping her tighter and muttering curses.
Ki was pushed forward again, across the yard and along the cabin to the rear, where off to one side stood a small plank-walled shanty with a dark, gaping door. Fletch shoved him inside, and the door slammed shut, and he heard a padlock snapped in heavy chain.
Ki placed his ear against the door. When he could no longer hear Fletch’s receding footsteps, he slid down onto the floor and rested his back against the board wall. For a while he merely sat relaxing, and then he began freeing his wrists from the rope.
Focusing all his concentration on the task, Ki purposely dislocated the bones of his wrists, then his hands, even his nimble fingers. Then, by merely twisting and stretching his ligaments and muscles, he slowly wormed his limp, formless flesh through the encoiling bonds. The rope dropped empty to the floor behind his back.
Snapping his bones back into place, Ki swiftly checked his vest pockets. They were all empty, as were his shirt and pants pockets. His daggers were gone, and even his jammed devices holding the shuriken were missing. Obviously he’d been searched while he’d been unconscious that second time; and once the men had found the first of his secreted weapons, they must have turned him virtually inside out to locate the rest. He was fortunate to have been left his clothes. Grinning mirthlessly, Ki wondered what they must have thought when they discovered his devices.
He stood, stretching his cramped muscles, and started to cautiously feel around the dark, gloomy shed. He quickly realized that when Volpes had called it empty, he’d been telling the truth.
He settled on the floor again, and fell asleep.
Chapter 11
Dawn.
A vague dribble of light began seeping through two thin cracks in the boards across the shed. With a patience he had learned over the years, Ki remained sitting on the same spot where he’d slept, watching the dull gray light ease in time across the flooring. There was no use trying to beat himself against the door and walls, hopelessly wasting his energy. Sooner or later someone had to come in, or he would be led outside. Given a split-second’s chance, he would take full advantage of it.
A field mouse scuttled out from a hole and raced around the floor in the feeble light, before returning to its burrow.
Ki thought about that for a while.
Steps sounded outside, and Ki flattened his back to the wall, arms behind him as if the ropes still bound his wrists. The chain rattled slightly, and the padlock made a soft, muffled click. Gently someone pulled the chain loose and eased open the door.
The girl stood outlined against the dawn sky.
“Yü nü,” “ Ki greeted her with a mocking bow of his head. ”What, no Volpes?“
“I’m alone. But don’t let my nighty fluster you.”
“I don’t care if you’re naked,” Ki said. “What I want is in your hands. That is a bowl of soup you’re holding, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she replied crossly, moving toward him. “And if you don’t stop calling me ‘fair lady’ in that horrid Chinese accent of yours, I’ll beat you to death with it. My name is Daphne.”
“How fitting,” Ki murmured sarcastically.
“Daphne Chung,” she continued, “daughter of a coolie spiking track on the Central Pacific, and an Irish camp follower on the Union Pacific. Not that I’d have to kill you, Ki—”
“You know me?”
“I know of you. You’re all he talked about last night.” She squatted in front of Ki and regarded him with her proud onyx eyes. “He’ll kill you,” she said, obviously still meaning Volpes. “Soon’s Ryker’s finished and turns you over to him, he’ll kill you as fast as a trench can be dug. You’re dead, Ki, dead.”
“Is that why you’re here, Daphne? To rub it in?”
“I suppose even a condemned man deserves food,” she replied grudgingly, and began spooning soup from the bowl.
Ki kept his arms behind him, getting perverse pleasure out of fooling her. Yet, as she silently helped him eat, another part of his mind was in a quandary, his emotions strangely ambivalent toward this cool-eyed, terse-lipped Eurasian. And when he finished and she asked if that was enough, Ki could only nod dismissively, finding himself unable to thank her for her solicitude.
“That’s right, spurn me,” she snapped, sensing his rejection. “Daphne the doxy, no better than a second-generation ukareme.”
Ki gave a sardonic laugh, amused by her use of the antiquated Japanese term for a lewd and dissolute woman. “You’re not Japanese,” he retorted. “Instead, how about yü chi?” Which was equally obsolete Chinese for a third-class “flower girl” who serviced the general public.
She slapped his face, hard, anger flaring in her smoldering black eyes. “Of course, I see now. It’s not that I’m a tramp, it’s that I’m half Chinese! And the Japanese half of you finds that repugnant, doesn’t it? Well, the Japanese make me just as sick.”
“Just my luck,” Ki sighed. “One of the few times I’m not taken for Chinese, I’m hated for being Jap—”
“Invading us for centuries,” she rushed on in her fury, “Ever the conquerer, lording it over us, bloated with superiority and smug contempt!” The girl leaned closer, eyes narrowing, lips peeling back over short, sharp teeth. “But you’re the lesser, Ki. At least I’m true to whatever I am. But how false you are to the yang of kindness and the yin of righteousness, to which you pay lip-service as the basis of your tsui-kao jih-shih, your supreme instruction.”
Stunned and chagrined by her bitter outburst, Ki could not utter the slightest word of rebuttal. “Daphne, where did you learn ... ?”
“I was raised by my father, my mother didn’t want me. He was a dirt-poor coolie to the West, but to the other Chinese he was a teacher of T‘ai-chi Ch’uan, the ‘supreme ultimate’, which makes your pugilism possible—”
She stopped with an abrupt sucking in of air, the sound of heavy footsteps growing louder as they neared the open shed door. Paling, she straightened and backed into one corner, where the shadows were deepest, lines of fear suddenly creasing her almond-hued face.
“Hell, looky there,” a man’s voice growled. “The door ain’t locked like it orter be. Guess this’s my lucky day.”
A weasel-faced man strutted bowlegged into the shed, and stood with legs apart, fists resting cockily on his hips. “Well, now, I heard tell you was here,” he said to Ki, walking closer, and then his sneering grin widened when he glimpsed Daphne hunching in the corner. “Didn’t know you was here too, gal. Guess none of us did, ‘specially Volpes. Maybe we can fix it so he don’t find out, eh?”
Snickering, he turned back to Ki. “Know who I is?”
“Not by name,” Ki said with a slight quiver to his voice, hoping to draw the man out. “Didn’t I see you the other night in the saloon?”
“Right, boy. You saw me there, gettin’ my hide blistered by that uppity galfriend of yours. Seems she ain’t the only bitch liking yaller meat, is she?” the man added, leering at Daphne again.
“I’ll tell him,” Daphne hissed. “I swear I will.”
“You ain’t tellin’ Volpes nothin‘,” the man retorted snidely. “You ain’t got the guts to. Ain’t got much brains, either. If’n you’re gonna fool around on him, you orter leastwise have the sense to do it on the sly. Keep it private, like this.” He pulled the door shut, plunging the shed into murky dimness, and returned to Ki, nudging him with the toe of his boot. “Ryker’s sendin’ a note to your gal, boy, tellin’ her he’s got you hid, an’ if’n she wants yo
u back, she’d better come collect you. You’re bait, boy, live bait. ’Cept I’ve gotta a few scores to square on my own, an’ the way I sees it, I got the chance, and nobody’s told me how ‘live you’ve gotta be.”
“Leave him alone, Nealon, and get the hell out!”
“I’ll tend to you in a minute, slut,” Lloyd Nealon snarled, and rearing, he kicked Ki viciously in the stomach.
Ki, anticipating, had already used an exercise to relax his muscles, and the kick hurt hardly at all. Straightening from his sitting position, arms still behind him, he said coldly, “Try that again, and I’ll kill you.”
The former Flying W foreman laughed derisively. “Why, you nervy asshole, I’m gonna give you a taste of whupping, like I whupped ol’ man Waldemar.” Drawing his sixgun, Nealon swung a pistol-whipping blow with his right hand while gut-punching with his left, adding, “Only this ain’t gonna look like no accident!”
Ki killed him.
Ducking, Ki gripped the revolver and bent it back, breaking Nealon’s trigger finger with a spasmodic firing of one shot. Ignoring the bullet slamming upwards into the low roof, and the explosion thundering in the tiny shed, Ki firmed the hold of his other hand on the arm of the first aiming for his stomach. In a blur of motion, Ki spun Nealon with kuwatago—a short “flying mare” toss that sent Nealon sailing over his shoulder.
Nealon landed on his back, screaming as his pelvis cracked. Then he stopped screaming as Ki kicked in the side of his head, crushing the temple bone like an eggshell.
“I’ll dump the garbage,” Ki said affably, glancing at Daphne. She was standing rigid in the corner, face flushed, mouth wide, and it seemed to Ki that a faint gleam of hope lit her eyes. He wasn’t sure; perhaps he imagined it, he thought as he lifted Nealon, but it seemed that way to him.
He dragged Nealon by the collar and belt, using the man’s broken skull to push open the door. With a swing, he heaved the corpse outside, where it landed, mucous and blood spewing from its mouth and nose, just as seven men came rushing up, pistols in hand.
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