by John Legg
Come to think of it, George Smalley might not be beyond such a thing. He would be known anywhere, have free access and the girls would be used to him, and afraid to turn him away. But that didn’t seem likely. Bloodworth wasn’t sure why, but it just seemed wrong. Smalley might be a slimy character, but he was a businessman, and killing off his working girls would not be good for business. Like Lundqvist, he might be doing it to scare off competitors, but since most of the killings had taken place in his establishments, it was unlikely.
He smiled a little to himself as he thought of Marshal Redmon. He was certainly strong enough to be able to do such a dreadful thing. And, like Smalley, he could easily get into the areas where the killings were perpetrated. The girls would be open to him showing up. And he had a bunch of reprehensible deputies. Bloodworth’s slight smile faded as he gave the thought more consideration. The lawman had often seemed to have a grudge against Bloodworth, several times ordering him, to no avail, of course, to leave town. At others, he seemed to be making an effort to be friendly. It all seemed suddenly suspicious to Bloodworth.
Seeing two men stop outside the Dusty Steer saloon cattycorner across the street and peer over the batwing doors broke Bloodworth’s reverie. He waited, though, alert. The two seemed to be satisfied, and pushed inside, seemingly in a hurry. Bloodworth waited a minute or two, then swiftly limped across the street and carefully entered.
The place was empty save for two drunks sleeping it off at one table. Even the bartender was nowhere to be seen. “Damn,” Bloodworth muttered as he headed for the stairs. He paused at the top, wary. A muffled thump caught his attention. Not sure if it was just one of the girls entertaining a customer, he crept forward.
He half bent and pressed his ear against the door. He smiled when he heard the sound of lovemaking, if that’s what the animal-like grunts coming from the room signified.
Then someone slammed him in the back of the head and he went down, not out completely but on the doorstep of unconsciousness. He tried to rise as he heard two men muttering. Then they laughed. He felt hands grab his boots and drag him along into a room. They dropped him.
“Nice pistol you got here,” one of the men said with a chuckle. His voice was a grumble. He tossed the gun in a corner.
“Best check him for a second six-shooter,” the other man said in a reedy voice. “I reckon a man like him carries a belly gun.”
Bloodworth’s short-barreled backup was removed and was also tossed in the corner. Then the two men tugged him up and shoved him into a chair. Despite the throbbing in his head, he had the presence of mind to puff his chest out as far as he could as the men tied him to the chair.
“Well, well,” the rumbling-voiced man said rather jovially, “look at who we got here, Matt. The great Mr. bounty hunter himself. All trussed up like a chicken.”
“Reckon you found us at last, after so much searchin’,” Matt said. He and his partner laughed. “Not the way you expected, however, I’d sure say, eh?” He shook his head. “We got started on this crusty little whore when we decided to finally bring you in and let you see our handiwork. It took some doin’ trackin’ you down, but once we spotted you across the street, we had you.”
Bloodworth said nothing. He simply tried to focus his eyes and mind. Beyond the two men he saw a woman naked, tied to the bed. She was gagged and looked at him with fear in her eyes.
“Since you’ve been rather interested in me and Harv’s activities of late,” Matt said, “we thought we’d let you watch just this one time. ’Course it won’t do to let you see more than once, as you’ll be dead soon’s we finish with this harlot.” He turned toward the bed.
When Matt and Harv moved away, Bloodworth could see a pair of longhandle-clad legs lying just on the other side of the bed. He figured the man was dead. He neither knew why nor cared.
Both villains dropped their gunbelts in the opposite corner from Bloodworth’s six-guns and shucked their shirts and pants, leaving them in longjohns. Matt bent and pulled a knife from his gunbelt.
Harv, who Bloodworth had figured was the boss of the two, moved up between the woman’s spread-eagled legs. He pulled himself free from the front of his longhandles. Without warning, he jammed his hardness into her.
From where he sat, Bloodworth could see that she barely grimaced at the violation. It was an entirely different matter when Matt quickly slid the knife crossways across her belly. Her eyes bugged out and her scream not escape the gag. The look and silent shriek grew even worse, or so it seemed to Bloodworth, when Matt in rapid succession sliced one breast, then the other.
In barely seconds, Harv grunted to the finish. He pulled himself free, face blank. He took Matt’s knife as the two men switched places.
Bloodworth worked furiously to free himself. Between the inch or two of room he had given himself by puffing out his chest, and the sloppily fastened knots, he thought he had a pretty good chance of doing so. He was not at all certain he could do it quickly enough to save the woman.
Matt took his place between the woman’s legs, but he was flaccid. He almost immediately grew red-faced and began sweating when he could not rouse himself with some tentative, then panicked, strokes. Suddenly he stopped and punched the woman in the stomach, then again.
“Ain’t up to it, eh, Matt?” Harv said with a grin. Almost absent-mindedly he nicked the woman’s neck with the knife, then flicked the tip of the blade against a nipple.
Bloodworth gritted his teeth as he increased his efforts to get free. He was enraged at the woman’s treatment, and burned to kill these two men. He wriggled his shoulders and arms, feeling the ropes loosen a bit. He seethed as he watched the two brutes begin to work with methodical cruelness on the poor fallen angel.
Bloodworth fought frantically and the knots gradually slackened, then more, then still more. With one great flexing of his shoulders and biceps, the knots unraveled. Bloodworth yanked the ropes free. But in doing so, the chair crashed over backward.
Harv, who was on the near side, swiveled his head. Alarmed at what he saw, he dashed toward the guns across the room, snatching one and coming up on one knee. Bloodworth dove for his own gun in the near corner. He grabbed his Remington, rolled once and fired at the same time Harv did. Bloodworth’s bullet punched into Harv’s right shoulder, knocking him back against the all. He dropped his six-shooter. Harv’s shot dinged off the barrel of Bloodworth’s six-gun, knocking it from his hand.
He glanced up, shocked to see Matt with a gun in his hand coming around the far side of the bed. Bloodworth had the fleeting thought that Matt had grabbed it from the man who had been killed earlier. But he had no time for thought or to scrabble around for his gun. He shoved up off his bad leg, ignoring the jolt of pain it brought, and charged at Matt.
The big man froze for a moment, surprised. Then he started to raise his pistol. Bloodworth slammed into him, driving him back and back. Then both crashed through the window. Bloodworth managed to twist a little and when they hit the ground two floors down, he landed atop Matt. He heard bones break and Matt groan.
Bloodworth lay atop him for some moments, the breath having been knocked out of him. Wheezing, he finally began pushing himself up, and saw Harv staggering up the street. “Shit,” Bloodworth muttered. He grabbed the pistol from the ground next to Matt and trotted weakly out to the middle of the street. He knelt and raised the pistol, resting it across his left forearm. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he fired.
Though Harv went sprawling on his face in the dirt, Bloodworth knew it was not a fatal shot. By the way Harv went down, Bloodworth figured he had gotten him in the leg. “Damn,” he sighed. “Dammit.” He pushed slowly to his feet.
Sam, the bartender, shotgun in hand, popped out of the Pecos saloon. He glanced toward Bloodworth. “That you, Harlan?” he hollered.
“Yep.”
“This belong to you?” Sam pointed the muzzle of the scattergun toward Harv.
“He is. Keep him there while I see to the other.”<
br />
People were drifting out of saloons along the street, interested.
“The other?”
Yep.”
“We don’t cotton to shootin’ one of us boys,” someone yelled from the crowd.
“He’s a whore-killin’ son of a bitch.” Bloodworth thumbed back the hammer of the pistol. “Someone wants to take offense at that, come on out here and face me. Otherwise, keep your traps shut and go back to your drinkin’.”
There was silence for some moments, and then a man stepped out from the crowd. “I don’t like it,” he said, his words thickly slurred.
“Pull your piece or shut that shithole of a mouth,” Bloodworth snapped.
The man scrabbled at the pistol in his belt. Bloodworth, in as foul a humor as he ever had been, and he was not of a mind to deal with such a fractious drunk. He started to bring his pistol to bear when another man stepped into the street, getting between Bloodworth and the drunk.
“Go easy there, Bloodworth,” he said over his shoulder. To the man in front of him, he said, “Come on, Fred. I’ll buy you a drink.” He took the man by the arm and led him away. The other men began to slowly scatter.
“One of you men go get the undertaker and Marshal Redmon,” Bloodworth ordered.
A couple of men moved off, one of them heading toward the better part of Dodge.
“You go on, Harlan, do what needs doin’,” Sam yelled. “I’ll tend to this one.” Harv was trying to stand, but Sam placed the sole of a boot on his back and held him down.
Bloodworth turned and walked back to where Matt still lay. The man struggled for breath. Bloodworth looked down at him in loathing, his eyes cold with hate and disgust. “You ain’t deservin’ of this, you scum. Not after what you done. But I ain’t of a mind for dealin’ with you and havin’ you take up a doctor’s time.” He shot Matt through the forehead.
With fury still flooding through his veins, Bloodworth walked around to the front of the building, into the saloon, and up the stairs. In the room, he went straight to the bed.
Chapter Eighteen
Bloodworth gently pulled away the gag from the victim’s mouth, then began cutting through her bonds, trying not to step on the dead man. “What’s your name, girl?” he asked softly.
“Some Love.”
“Seems an odd name,” Bloodworth said as he finished freeing her.
“Her name’s Clementine,” Smalley said, walking into the room. “Her last name means love in French. Amour, I think.” He leaned against the wall. “How is she?” He did not sound all that concerned.
“How the hell do you think she is, you addle-pated son of a bitch? Go get the doc.”
“Why? You seem to think she’s knockin’ on the undertaker’s door.”
“Get the goddamn doctor, you bastard, or you’ll be the one needin’ the undertaker.”
“I agree,” Marshal Redmon said from the doorway. When a scowling Smalley left, Redmon moved into the room and looked down at the woman. “Lord a’mighty,” he whispered. He gently pushed a lock of her frizzy red hair off her forehead.
“Help me get one of these blankets out from under her, Marshal, so’s we can cover her up.”
She groaned as Bloodworth lifted her as gently as he could and Redmon tugged a blanket out. They gently spread it over her, as she moaned with the pain.
Bloodworth took a corner of the blanket and softly wiped a bit of blood from above her left eyebrow.
“Don’t,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper. “It hurts.”
“I’m sorry, Clemma.” He looked at Redmon and shook his head. “It doesn’t look good,” he mumbled.
“I’ll decide on that,” Doctor Shelby said as he shoved Redmon out of the way.
Bloodworth and Redmon stepped back. The bounty hunter picked up his pistols, shoving the backup gun in the holster in the small of his back. He checked the Remington over, but Harv’s bullet had done no damage. He slid it into the holster.
“Somebody need my help up there?” Erwin Bock called up, chuckling a little at his joke.
“Come on up and check,” Bloodworth hollered.
Bock strolled in a moment later. He stopped when he saw Shelby bent over the woman. He usually showed little emotion, but he said in a slightly choked voice, “No.”
“You ain’t getting’ your hands on this gal, Erwin,” Shelby said.
“The one you want’s here,” Bloodworth said, pointing. “There’s another down below outside the window.”
Shelby’s eyes widened, but he shrugged. “I’ll have ’em removed straight off.”
“I hate to bother you, Harlan,” Redmon said, “but Sam’s still watchin’ over a feller out in the middle of the street.”
Bloodworth nodded. “You need me for anything, Doc?”
“No.” His attention was focused on Clementine. “You’ll only get in the way. “All of you get the hell out.”
** ** ** ** **
Sam seemed unbothered as he still stood in the middle of the street, his foot on Harv’s back. “He’s a noisy little cuss,” he said of Harv.
“Let’s hope he stays that way,” Bloodworth growled. He grabbed the neck of Harv’s shirt and hauled him up. “Let’s go, boy.”
“Where?”
“The hoosegow.”
“I can’t walk,” Harv whined. “I need a sawbones.”
“You ain’t getting’ one.” Bloodworth turned him so they were face to face.
“Then I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Bloodworth looked around, then pointed. “You know who’s horse that is, Sam?”
“Just some saddle bum spends a considerable amount of time in the Pecos.”
“Reckon he’d mind if we borrowed it?”
“He does, I’ll deal with him. What’ve you got in mind?”
“Well,” Bloodworth said harshly, “since Harv here doesn’t favor walkin’, I figured if we put a rope around him and that horse’s saddle horn, we can drag him up to the Marshal’s office.”
“You’re joshin’,” Harv said with quite a bit of bravado.
Bloodworth grabbed the front of Harv’s shirt and pulled him close. “Do I look like I’m goddamn joshin’, you piss-brained son of a bitch?” he bellowed into Harv’s face.
Harv began to tremble.
“After what you done to that girl, and all them others, you’re lucky I don’t peel your skin off an inch at a time, like a Comanche’d do.” Harv shuddered. “Now march your ass up the street.”
Harv gulped, turned and started shuffling along, favoring the wound in his leg. Neither that one nor the one in his shoulder seemed all that serious. Redmon followed.
“Thanks, Sam,” Bloodworth said.
“Was my pleasure, Harlan, though I got to admit me and many of the boys hereabouts would’ve preferred guttin’ him instead of you haulin’ him off to the jail to sit till a trail can be held.”
Bloodworth smiled with no humor. “Might not come to that. I want to talk to him before he crosses the divide.” He turned and caught up with Redmon and Harv.
** ** ** ** **
“Why were you doin’ these heinous things, Harv?” Bloodworth asked.
“I ain’t talkin.” He crossed his arms over his chest, wincing a little at the tug on his wounded shoulder.
Bloodworth sighed, fighting back the rage that coursed through his blood. “I am about at the end of my patience, boy,” he said through gritted teeth, “and that should concern you, because once it is gone, you will face treatment like you gave those poor girls.”
“I got nothin’ to say.” Harv’s voice quavered, though.
Bloodworth looked at Redmon. “You mind steppin’ out for a few minutes, Marshal?” he asked tightly.
“No need for that. I don’t expect to see anything that ain’t right and proper.” He stared at Harv. “Was you to ask my opinion, boy, I would recommend you speak up.”
“Why were you and Matt doin’ this?” Bloodworth asked again, voice as hard as ever.
Harv looked from Bloodworth to Redmon, then back. He gulped. “We was paid to do it.”
Redmon was taken aback, but Bloodworth was not. He had more than half suspected it. “Who paid you?”
“I can’t say.” He paused.
“You best answer me, goddammit,” Bloodworth said in icy tones. “I will not hesitate to carve your skinny ass into tiny bits.” He slid out his pigsticker. With an almost dreamy look in his eyes, he added, “Reckon I can start with that tiny dingus of yours, not that it’s been much use to you. Then one eye. Just one, mind you, so’s you can use the other to see what else I’m doin’ to you.”
Harv clamped his legs together, one over the other. “All right, all right,” he said, voice trembling.
Bloodworth glanced at Redmon, wondering, as he had before, if the lawman had had anything to do with this. But the marshal was staring at Harv as if waiting for an answer not threatening the prisoner.
“It was Hope.”
“Hope?” both Bloodworth and Redmon said at the same time, stunned, and an instant later, disbelieving.
“Such humor don’t sit well with me, boy,” Bloodworth snarled.
“It’s true, dammit. I’m tellin’ ya. You think I’d be lyin’ about something like this when you’re nigh onto fixin’ to cut me up into pieces to feed to the curs? You think some stumblebum like me’d know someone like Hope otherwise?”
“Why in hell would such a pleasant young gal like that want such monstrous things done?” Redmon sputtered, still disbelieving.
“Ain’t sure, really. She didn’t confide much in me. Just said she wanted this done, so me and my pard went ahead and did it.”
“Why so vicious?”
“We enjoyed it,” Harv said with a shrug, which elicited a grimace of pain.
“That’s plumb sick,” Redmon said angrily.
“From what I saw, both of ’em is inadequate with women. Maybe that gave ’em encouragement to do such horrible things.” He paused, letting his shock and rage settle down some. Then he asked, “Why’d she hire you? Woman like her don’t usually know the likes of you.”