by Jon Sharpe
“He sounds like he’s got somethin’ funny planned,” the other gunny said to Ekert.
“Shut up,” Ekert said.
They left the room by way of the fire escape.
15
Fargo was thrown into the back of a buckboard, marked by slivers in the wood of the wagon bed. He lay beneath a horse blanket that smelled of animal urine and hay. Ekert and the other gunny sat up front.
It was hot as hell, and his sweat added to the urine scent and the bouncing ride to make the trip miserable. Plus it made him need to piss. But he’d play hell getting them to stop and let him empty his bladder.
He was hoping they’d talk to each other, fill in a few details about where they were going and what their plans were. But they said nothing.
Fargo stared into the darkness.
Somehow, despite everything working against it, Fargo managed to drift into a light sleep.
He woke to find that the buckboard had pulled off to the side of the stage road.
“Where are we?” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, Fargo,” Ekert said.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Fargo,” the other gunny said, sounding like a dumb little kid imitating his old man.
The silence returned.
After awhile the other gunny said, “They’re late.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, McGarth,” Ekert said sarcastically. “I’m sittin’ here with you, remember?”
“Who they bringin’ us?”
“I don’t know. All Manuel said was that we were to meet ’em here and they’d have somebody else for the boat.”
“Well, they’re late,” McGarth said.
Ekert sighed. “You say that one more time, McGarth, and I’m makin’ you walk.”
The silence again. Fargo had a few second thoughts about putting his fate in the hands of two idiots like these. What was to say McGarth wouldn’t say “screw it” and shoot him, anyway? Fargo had humiliated him, or that was how McGarth saw it, and it was obvious the man was eager to pay Fargo back.
After a long time, the clatter of an approaching wagon could be heard.
“About time,” McGarth said.
Fargo tried to sit up but the way they had lashed his wrists and ankles made it impossible to raise his head more than a few inches. But at least when he sat up this way, the blanket fell away and the air, hot as it was, smelled clean.
The buckboard pulled up alongside the wagon.
“How come you’re so late, Manuel?” McGarth said, sounding angry.
“I don’t answer to you,” Manuel sneered.
“Never mind him, Manuel. I thought maybe something went wrong.”
“Something did go wrong. My friend here managed to escape when we were loading him on the buckboard. He faked being unconscious. You’ll have to watch him carefully. He’s a wily one.”
“He ain’t gonna escape while I’m around,” McGarth said.
Manuel laughed. “You have a brave one with you, I see, Mr. Ekert.”
“If he was as good with his gun as he is with his mouth, he’d be a dangerous man,” Ekert laughed.
“You two think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?”
“Go help him load up the other one,” Ekert said to McGarth.
In the moon shadow night, a second man bound identically to Fargo was carried from Manuel’s buckboard to the wagon holding Fargo. He was loaded next to Fargo with all the tender care of two-by-fours being crammed into a wagon bed.
“We meet again, Mr. Fargo.”
The voice surprised Fargo. He rolled slightly so he could get a look at the man who’d just spoken in such familiar tones.
Aaron Tillman.
“I guess tonight we’ll both find out what the island is all about,” Aaron said. “The big secret, I mean.”
“Shut up back there,” McGarth said.
“Right now all I care about,” Fargo said, loudly enough to be heard by all, “is to give McGarth a nice big funeral.”
Manuel, obviously trusting neither Ekert nor McGarth, came back to the wagon bed and jumped up to check the ropes that lashed the men. This was something Ekert and McGarth should have thought of but had forgotten.
“You’ll have fun on the island,” Manuel said, still wearing the uniform-like clothes from earlier this evening. “It’s a real adventure—for everybody involved.”
“You’re not going to give us a hint about it?” Fargo said.
“I would not want to spoil your pleasure in discovering for yourself, Mr. Fargo.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Manuel.”
“But I will say this. You’ll never see the games on the island played anywhere else. Nobody would have the courage Mr. Tillman does.”
“You sure you’re not confusing courage with insanity, Manuel?” Aaron said.
“I hate to say this to you, Mr. Aaron, but I think you’re jealous of your brother. You resent the fact that he’s so—creative. The only thing you’re creative with is finishing off a fifth of whiskey before anybody else. I have to give you that. You have an enormous capacity. For that I salute you.”
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Aaron said.
Manuel laughed softly. “As I said, I don’t want to spoil your pleasure and fun. You need to discover the island all for yourself.”
He jumped down from the bed and walked around front.
“Straight to the dock, Ekert.”
“I know, Manuel.”
“Mr. Tillman will be on the island later this morning. He’ll expect them to be there. But you’re not to wait. You’re to come back as soon as these two are delivered.”
Ekert sighed again. Another deep, frustrated sigh. “I know my orders, Manuel. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“I just want you to know the consequences if something should go wrong. These are the people Mr. Tillman wants.”
“And he’ll have them. Now stand aside. I want to get going.”
The buckboard began to roll again. The second half of the journey was no more or no less hot and uncomfortable than the first half.
Aaron talked a good deal of the time, sharing more stories about his brother’s strange habits. “He got so jaded that he had to start upping the ante. Instead of one whore in his bed, he had to have two, then three. And the sex acts got a lot more sadistic. He’s pretty much barred from all the best houses in Little Rock. None of the whores’ll go with him. They’re too afraid.”
On and on into the night this way, each new tale more outrageous than the last. Finally, Fargo was lucky enough to drift off to sleep again.
Tom Tillman woke early, kissed his sleeping wife and children, and headed, without even the mercy of a cup of coffee, to the office.
The town was quiet and solemn and lovely in the breaking dawn. There was a slight haze over everything, blunting some of the ferocious coloring of the Fourth of July decorations. A couple of men were passed out in chairs on the porch of a saloon; another man slept in a buggy without a horse attached. Here and there you could see articles of female attire in the dust or hanging from the end of a hitching post or lying over a porch railing.
Wait ’til tomorrow morning, he thought. The aftermath of a Fourth of July spectacle always left the town looking like a battlefield. This was the only time of year when even most of the churchgoers let themselves go. And the visitors let themselves go even further.
The night deputy sat at his desk filling out forms. When he looked up and saw Tillman, he said, “Believe it or not, Sheriff, we’ve got a full house. They finally settled down and went to sleep.”
“Anything serious?”
“Busted nose, broken arm, couple black eyes, and soon there’ll be a whole lot of bad hangovers. But nobody was shot, stabbed, or set on fire so I figure it was a pretty good night.”
Tillman would usually smile at such a rueful assessment. But he was too tensed up with his mission to have any fun. “I’ll be in my office.”
“Yessir.”
&n
bsp; Tillman poured himself some coffee and headed to the hall. No lamplight was needed. The sun was starting to clear through the haze. The office window was painted a frail golden color.
He set his cup of coffee on top of the second filing cabinet and went to work. He’d hired a widow who’d been desperately in need of money to set his files in strict order. She’d done so good a job that using the files now intimidated him. Afraid he’d screw up the system she’d established, he was extra careful to put each file back as soon as he was finished with it.
He spent an hour working on the names and dates of the reports on missing people from town. Most of them had no relevance to the “vanished” people that Fargo had asked him about. But between Liz’s husband being shot because he was investigating the situation and Fargo identifying one of the men who’d burst into his room as Ekert, he knew that his stepfather was involved in this. And he also knew that the stories were true. People did vanish around here this time every year. And if his stepfather’s men were involved in “disappearing” Daisy this year, it was likely they’d been involved in the other years as well.
The boat. The island.
What the hell was Noah up to anyway?
He prepared the paperwork the way a lawyer would prepare a trial. He wanted not to merely confront Noah but to assault him with names and dates. See how the cold, old bastard reacted when faced with so many incidents of people just disappearing.
He thought again of his mother and wondered, as he’d wondered ever since he’d come to stay with the Tillmans, what had ever drawn her to Noah. A simple, good woman drawn to a devious, morally corrupt bully like Noah Tillman made no sense to Tom.
He snorted a laugh. Hell, Noah might not even let him on his property this morning. Noah was still angry that Tom had refused to arrest a farmer, a small part of whose land Noah wanted to the east of his property. It was Noah’s intention to build a fancy horse-breeding business there. He could easily have built it somewhere else but once Noah got something into his head, he pursued it ruthlessly. The farmer didn’t want to sell. He wasn’t being ornery. He liked a hill that particular stretch of land had at its western end. He and his family had picnics there in the summer and in winter his kids used it for sledding and sliding. It was nothing against Noah, the farmer insisted. He just liked that piece of land and wanted to keep it as his own.
Noah had one of his men torch an old barn on his own ranch. Noah rode into town and demanded that the farmer be arrested. He said that the farmer had burned the barn as a way to demonstrate that he didn’t want to sell any part of his land and wanted Noah to cease and desist.
Tom had listened carefully and said, “My God, Noah, that’s the dumbest story you’ve ever concocted.” When Tom had first pinned on the badge, he’d done all of Noah’s bidding, just assuming that the old man would never lie to him. But after a few months, it became clear that Noah made up stories about people he perceived as his “enemies” and had the law take care of them for him. Tom and Noah had never been close but once Tom started refusing to do Noah’s dirty work, the relationship cooled even more. These days, Noah sent Tom’s kids gifts on their birthdays, and always had a huge dinner for them on Christmas, but, except for that, they had little contact. Tom expected that soon enough, Noah would find some excuse to take his badge away. There’d be no point in fighting him. This was Noah’s town and would remain so as long as Noah was alive. All Tom could do then was pack up his family and move on. The alternative was to start doing what Noah wanted him to—and Tom would never do that, no matter the circumstances.
The first thing he needed to do, now that he’d written down the significant names and dates, was to talk to Fargo. And then Liz, see what she had turned up.
He checked the jail cells before he left. The combined stench of sweat, vomit, tobacco, and dirty clothes was so strong it seemed to sear his face. If there was a hell, it probably resembled this—humanity in one of its most self-indulgent moments. There were a lot worse crimes than public drunkenness, true, but when you saw this many drunks crammed into so few cells—it was a damned disgusting sight.
He went up front, told his night deputy where he was headed. The day deputies would arrive in half an hour.
You had to give the bastard credit, Deke Burgade thought. He’d damned near made it. And you also had to thank him. There weren’t all that many pleasures to be had on Skeleton Key. But Ross McGinnis had given Burgade one of the few to be had. The stupid bastard had tried to escape.
Burgade was one of those tall, slender men who was stoop-shouldered, skinny-armed, and even a bit limpwristed. His pale face was bland of feature and wrinkled of skin. The only thing distinctive about him was the pirate-like patch over his right blue eye. That gave him not only a sense of menace but an entrée—at least he thought it did—into the very special club of hard-ass hombres. What Burgade might lack in strength and cunning, he more than made up for in meanness. Everything he did was calculated to prove to himself, his victim, and any onlookers that he was a real man.
Take the way he’d tied Ross McGinnis to the hawthorn tree. He took strips of leather, twisted them tight around the man’s wrists, and then poured canteen water on the strips. So that any time McGinnis so much as moved under the lashing whip, he’d force the thorns to eat deeper and deeper into his flesh.
Burgade of the eye patch was no pansy torturer. He was a creative sadist who truly enjoyed his work.
He was also a tireless one.
As the blue jays and the brown thrashers and the painted buntings and the phoebes—songbirds all—began their dawn chorus, Burgade was still at it. He’d been at it since just before four a.m., approximately two hours ago.
Sometimes, he even forgot what he was doing, got so lost in his own thoughts—he had a little gal in Little Rock he got to see twice a month and he was planning his next surprise visit to see her—so it was as if his whip hand was an automatic device.
McGinnis had quit screaming a long time ago, which meant he was probably unconscious. Burgade hated the ones who sissied out and slumped into unconsciousness right away. He’d had a few who swore at him and mocked him for long stretches of time, pretending that the lashes meant nothing. They called him filthy names, they joked about his eye patch, they told him what they were going to do to him when they figured out a way to get free.
And Burgade loved it. He loved a challenge. Damned right he did. Nothing was more fun than turning these boastful prisoners into sobbing, half-insane pieces of ripped flesh and broken spirit. Oh, how they’d plead, all pride fled. But it didn’t do them any good. Burgade of the eye patch had that tireless whip hand and it seemed to grow only more tireless when it was working over the ones who sassed him and made fun of him.
He stopped whipping McGinnis. The man had long ago stopped feeling anything. Coward. Chicken shit bastard. Fainting like that so he could escape the lash. Burgade was sure that he himself could stand up to any kind of whipping anybody could give him.
He went up to McGinnis and looked him over. He always stripped them before whipping them. He lashed every part of their body’s back side. From the ankles right up to the crown of the head.
McGinnis was a mess of wounds that were like the mouths of tiny dying children crying out for mercy and help. This bastard wouldn’t start feeling good again for a couple of months. And the others, seeing him, sure wouldn’t try to escape.
He used the pliers on the wrists, twisting the leather strips free. The tree’s thorns had been hungry. Long strings of flesh and blood hung from the tree. On the left wrist you could see bone.
He reached down and dragged McGinnis through a patch of wildflowers, yellow jasmines, orchids, and wild verbenas. The island was not without its beauty.
He dragged McGinnis all the way down to the river and then hauled him face first into the water. If McGinnis died, Burgade would just push the corpse out into the deeper water and let it sink.
If McGinnis was alive, he’d come awake soon enough.
The first impression McGinnis gave was that he preferred life. He sputtered and splashed as he tried to raise his head. He even managed to speak a few words. Not that Burgade could understand them.
And then he died.
Or sure gave that impression, anyway.
Just buoyed flat on the surface of the water, unmoving.
Burgade walked to the river and started to wade the corpse into the deeper water. Wanting to be sure that McGinnis really was a corpse, Burgade seized his head, turned him over until he was face up. And then took his hunting knife and cut McGinnis’s throat.
A cautious man, Burgade cut the throat a second time, this time using the hunting knife in the opposite direction.
Red blood tainted the blue, blue water.
Burgade went back to the camp and fixed himself some breakfast.
16
Smell of river. Scorch of sunlight. Stab of back pain.
Fargo woke, disoriented.
A stretch of flawless blue sky above him. A snoring Aaron Tillman lying about two feet away from him.
Then he remembered everything.
He lay on the deck of a large, yacht-like boat. They’d been transferred from the wagon some time ago. From what he could see, this was quite a vessel, what they called a well-smack schooner that had been custom-fitted with a mainsail and a smaller sail called a mizzen. There were four oars, two on each side. And a large cabin in the center of the boat. The cabin door faced the port side.
He raised himself slowly and with great pain. A wide stretch of river. And in the sun-splashed, hazy distance he could see land rising abruptly from the water.
He realized he was seeing the infamous island for the first time. The closer they got, the more lush and inviting the island looked. You wouldn’t expect that hell could look so good. But Fargo suspected that despite its rugged, natural appeal, the island held secrets dark enough to scare just about anybody.