The Edge of Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  Several more of Becker’s men had drifted up and started listening to the tale. Becker was in the habit of keeping everything bottled up, so their presence almost made him stop.

  But then he decided that they had a right to know. They wouldn’t just be getting a payoff for this job. They were helping him right a wrong. For once in their mostly misbegotten lives, they were doing a good thing.

  Sure, some innocent folks had wound up dead already because of Becker’s plan, and more would surely die before it was over, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Vengeance trumped everything else.

  “Rubriz was afraid of both families back in Mexico City. In those days they had more money and power than he did. So when my father threatened him, he should have backed off. I guess he just wanted my mother too much, though. He pretended to mend fences with my pa, then lured him out on the range one day and—”

  Becker had to stop and swallow hard before he could go on.

  “Rubriz shot my father in the back,” he grated after a moment. “Pa managed to turn around and get off a shot of his own. He wounded Rubriz and got away from him. But he was hurt bad and barely made it back to the ranch before he died. He lived long enough to tell my mother what had happened, though. She was afraid Rubriz would try to hurt me, too, so that I couldn’t grow up and settle the score. She took me and ran, to save my life. She figured Rubriz would expect her to head for Mexico City and her family, so she went the other way to fool him. We wound up in Arizona Territory. She planned to circle around and get back home, but we didn’t have any money or food and Ma . . . Well, Ma had to do things so we could survive. After that, she was too ashamed to go home, so we got by any way we could.” Becker shrugged and concluded, “You know the rest, Bodaway. Wasn’t long after that you and I met.”

  One of the other men spoke up, asking, “Is that story true, Ned?”

  “Would I have told it if it wasn’t?” Becker snapped.

  Bodaway said, “You have good reason for wanting this man Rubriz to suffer. But it will not bring back your father, or change any of the bad things your mother endured.”

  “I figured you’d understand about a blood debt if anybody would,” Becker said.

  “I understand,” the Apache said. “And I stand ready to help you get what you want. But what you want may not be what you think it is.”

  “It’ll do. As long as Don Eduardo Rubriz dies screaming in agony, knowing that everything he holds dear is dead, it’ll do.”

  * * *

  Several of the other patients at the ranch had serious injuries, though not as life-threatening as Don Eduardo’s had been, so by the time Dr. Neal Fredericks had finished tending to everyone, the hour was approaching midday.

  “I hope you’ll stay and have lunch with us before you start back to Douglas,” Viola told him.

  Fredericks nodded as he rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened them. He was standing beside the pump behind the house where he had just spent several minutes scrubbing blood off his hands.

  “I’d be glad to, Mrs. Slaughter,” he said. “I appreciate the invitation. It’s been rather a long morning.” Fredericks canted his head to one side and added, “Longer for you, though, I expect. Just how long has it been since you had any sleep?”

  “Oh, I don’t really know. Thirty hours or more, I suspect.”

  “At least, I’d say. I’m going to prescribe a nice long nap for you after we’ve eaten.”

  “Someone needs to keep an eye on Don Eduardo and the other wounded,” Viola protested.

  “And someone can. Someone else. The don’s wife, for example. Surely she’s capable of taking care of him.”

  Viola couldn’t stop herself from letting out a ladylike snort.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said.

  “It would take a blind man not to see that the two of you don’t care for each other,” Fredericks commented as they started toward the back door. “Why the hostility?”

  “Some people just don’t get along, I guess,” Viola said. She was still reluctant to expose Belinda’s secret, even though she had only sworn not to tell Don Eduardo.

  Anytime a secret was shared, it was well on its way to not being a secret anymore, she thought.

  “I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise,” the doctor mused. “The two of you come from very different backgrounds, after all. Other than being married to older men, I wouldn’t think you’d have much in common.” He added, “And I’m not saying anything bad about you being married to an older man, by the way. I know you and John well enough to know how well-matched you are.”

  “Thank you, doctor. Not everyone has always felt that way.”

  As they went inside, Yolanda came to meet them. The maid’s features still looked a bit drawn with grief over the death of Hector Alvarez, but she had been busy all day and Viola knew that must have helped her cope with the loss.

  “Señora, Don Eduardo is awake,” Yolanda reported. “He is asking for Doña Belinda.”

  “Where is she?” Viola wanted to know.

  “In her room, maybe?” Yolanda shook her head. “Quien sabe?”

  “I’ll go see. But first I want to look in on Don Eduardo.”

  They went into the parlor, which was still serving as a makeshift hospital. Don Eduardo was not only awake, he was also trying to sit up on the sofa. One of the other maids leaned over him and told him in Spanish that he should rest.

  “The young lady is right, sir,” Fredericks said as he strode up. “You risk further injury by carrying on like this.”

  “Who are you?” Don Eduardo demanded as he glared up at the physician.

  “Dr. Neal Fredericks. I’m the one who removed that bullet from you.”

  “Then I owe you my gratitude, doctor, but not my obedience. Where is my wife? Where is my son?”

  Don Eduardo was a little wild-eyed, Viola thought. He was flushed, too, and breathing hard.

  “Doña Belinda is around here somewhere,” Viola told him. “I’ll find her and let her know you’re awake, but you really should lay back and rest.”

  “What about Santiago?”

  Viola was a little surprised that he didn’t remember telling Santiago to go with John. He must have been a little out of his head at the time.

  “He went with my husband after those men who stole the herd of cattle you brought up here,” she explained.

  “The cattle . . . ?” The confused expression faded from Don Eduardo’s face. He sank back against the pillows and went on, “Ah, I remember now. The Apaches were just to keep everyone busy while the real evildoing went on.”

  Viola would have said that killing innocent people was more evil than rustling cattle, but she knew what the don meant.

  Rubriz went on, “You say Santiago went after the thieves as well?”

  “You insisted that he should.”

  Don Eduardo closed his eyes and murmured, “Good. The honor of our family demands it. May El Señor Dios watch over the boy.”

  Now that the don was calmer again, Fredericks reached down and rested a hand briefly on his forehead.

  “He seems to have developed a bit of a fever,” the doctor told Viola as he straightened. “Well, that was always a possibility and one of the things we needed to watch out for.”

  “What should we do now?” she asked.

  “All we can do is keep him as cool and comfortable as possible and let his body fight it. He needs to stay calm, too, so why don’t you go find his wife?”

  Viola nodded. As she left the parlor, she heard Fredericks telling one of the servants to fetch a basin of cool water and some clean cloths, so she could bathe Don Eduardo’s face.

  The first place Viola checked was the room that had been intended for the don and doña’s use if things had gone as planned. She knocked on the door twice and was about to give up when she heard a faint response from within.

  “What is it?”

  Viola opened the door. She saw that the curtains had
been pulled tightly closed, but enough of the midday light came in through cracks around them that she had no trouble spotting Belinda on the big four-poster bed. Belinda was fully dressed and lying on top of the comforter.

  “Your husband is awake and asking for you,” Viola said. “Also, he’s running a little fever.”

  Belinda sat up sharply and said, “What? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that backwater quack—”

  “Dr. Fredericks is a very competent doctor,” Viola said. “I have no doubt that he could practice in Boston if he wanted to and do just fine. Instead of worrying about that, why don’t you come and see if you can help?”

  Belinda swung her legs off the bed and stood up. As she straightened her clothes she glared at Viola and said, “You’ve no right to talk to me that way. I’m a guest here, remember?”

  “Trust me, I remember.” Viola didn’t add that it was her own stubborn hospitality that kept her from slapping some sense into the blonde. “The doctor said Don Eduardo needs to remain calm. You don’t need to go in there acting angry and upset.”

  “All right. I understand.” Belinda’s chin jutted defiantly. “I’m getting tired of you judging me, though.”

  “Then how about in the future I just steer clear of you as much as possible?”

  “I think that’s a very good idea.”

  The two women left the room. As a tense silence hung between them, Viola led the way back to the parlor.

  Belinda went straight to the sofa where her husband lay. One of the servants sat in a chair beside Don Eduardo and wiped his face with a cool, damp cloth. Smiling, Belinda said, “Why don’t you let me do that, dear?”

  The maid turned the job over to her, and as Belinda stroked the cloth over Don Eduardo’s face, he looked at her and said, “My darling, are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right, Eduardo,” she told him, “and you will be, too, very soon now. Just lie there and rest and let us take good care of you.”

  Rubriz sighed. His eyes slowly closed as the taut lines of his face relaxed.

  Standing back a ways, Fredericks said quietly to Viola, “See, she’s doing him some good already.”

  Viola had her arms crossed over her chest as she struggled to keep an expression of dislike off her face. She said, “I suppose so.”

  “Let’s leave the two of them alone.”

  Viola nodded and turned away. She needed to go see about getting a midday meal ready, she remembered.

  Before she could do that, Jess Fisher appeared in the doorway, holding his hat in one hand. Viola knew instantly from the ranch foreman’s worried expression that something was wrong.

  She went over to him and asked, “What is it, Jess?”

  “There’s a good-size bunch of riders coming in,” Fisher said.

  Viola’s spirits rose for a second when she heard that. She said, “John and the others are back already?”

  “No, ma’am,” Fisher said, his face turning even more grim. “Best I can tell, these fellas are strangers—and they don’t look like the friendly sort.”

  Viola’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. More trouble was exactly what they didn’t need right now.

  But trouble never waited until it was convenient. She said, “Get as many of the men together as you can. If these visitors are looking for a fight, that’s exactly what we’ll give them.”

  Chapter 13

  Slaughter and the other men ate in the saddle, making a skimpy midday meal out of tortillas and bacon brought from the ranch. They were in the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains now. The trail of the stolen herd had led to a canyon that wound through the hills and gradually climbed higher.

  There was something odd about the sign they had found at the mouth of the canyon. The droppings indicated that the cattle had stopped there for a while, probably to let them rest after the hard nighttime run that had brought them to this point.

  Slaughter could understand that, but what didn’t make sense was that the tracks indicated the herd had been driven back and forth a few times, right there in the same area. He had pointed that out to Stonewall and asked, “What do you make of that?”

  The young man just frowned, shook his head, and said, “I don’t know, John.”

  The vaquero called Hermosa leaned forward in his saddle and said, “They were trying to hide something, Señor Slaughter.” He waved at the vast muddle of hoofprints. “What man could make any sense out of that?”

  Hermosa was right, Slaughter realized. The tracks made it impossible to be sure how many men were with the herd.

  As soon as that thought leaped into his head, Slaughter’s keen brain carried it further. He muttered, “Some of them could have turned back.”

  “Why would they do that?” Stonewall asked.

  Slaughter didn’t have an answer for that question, but he couldn’t help thinking about the dust he had spotted a few hours earlier. It worried him now more than it had then.

  But there was nothing he could do. The tracks of the herd led deeper into the mountains. There was no denying that. Everything else was sheer speculation. He couldn’t know for sure that the rustlers had split up, or if they had, where the second bunch was headed.

  As Viola had pointed out, though, he was well-known for following his hunches. That applied equally in all areas of his life—lawman, rancher, gambler.

  He gave in to one of those hunches now, saying, “Stonewall, I want you to go back to the ranch.”

  “What?” The young man looked shocked. “But I’m chasin’ after those rustlers with you, John.”

  “We have a good-size force. We can afford to lose one man.” Slaughter looked at Hermosa. “Or two.”

  “What do you have in mind, Señor Slaughter?” the vaquero drawled.

  “I want the two of you to get back to the ranch as quick as you can and make sure there’s no trouble there.”

  “What trouble would there be?” Stonewall asked. “We wiped out those Apaches.”

  “There’s something deeper going on here,” Slaughter pointed out. “We know that, we just don’t know what it is. But I’d feel better about things if I knew there were a couple of good men headed back to the ranch.”

  Stonewall didn’t like the idea of going back at all, not when the rustlers and the stolen herd were still ahead of them. Hermosa, though, just murmured, “With all due respect, Señor Slaughter, I ride for Don Eduardo, not you.”

  “And I represent my father,” Santiago said. “I don’t know if Señor Slaughter is right, Hermosa, but if he wants you and Stonewall to return to the ranch, I think that is what you should do.”

  Hermosa’s shoulders rose and fell in an eloquent shrug.

  “Of course, señor.”

  Still grumbling, Stonewall had gone with Hermosa. Slaughter hated to lose a couple of good fighting men, but his gut told him Viola might need help.

  The rest of the group had pressed on, and now as the heat grew even more oppressive in the early afternoon, Slaughter could tell from the tracks that the cattle had slowed. The hoofprints were fresher. He and his men had cut considerably into the rustlers’ lead.

  “You know this country much better than I do, Señor Slaughter,” Santiago said as he rode alongside. “Where do you think they are taking the herd?”

  “Well, they’re not headed for Galeyville or Fort Bowie,” Slaughter said. “If they were bound for either of those places, they wouldn’t have come into the mountains like this. Although I suppose they could still reach the fort if they know of some pass through the Chiricahuas. But it would have been faster if they had gone around.” Slaughter scratched his bearded jaw. “It’s almost like they’re just trying to lead us up here. That’s another reason I’m worried that some of them might have doubled back to the ranch.”

  “How many men are there now?”

  “No more than a dozen, I reckon. But the house is sturdy. We’ve had to fort up in it before. My wife comes from pioneer stock, too. If there’s trouble, she won’t
panic. Anybody comes riding in on the prod, she’ll give ’em a hot reception.”

  “I wish I knew that my father was safe. And . . . my stepmother.”

  Slaughter heard the hesitation in the young man’s voice and said, “It’s none of my business, but you don’t like Doña Belinda very much, do you?”

  “My father loves her. I would not want her to come to any harm.”

  “I reckon maybe she got a little more than she bargained for when she moved out here. This part of the country isn’t nearly as civilized as Boston.”

  Santiago shook his head and said, “I don’t know anything about that. I have never been to Boston. My father has, but not me.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll visit Doña Belinda’s family someday.”

  “Perhaps,” Santiago said, but he still sounded doubtful.

  A few more minutes went by as they followed the herd’s tracks through a broad, steep-sided canyon. As Slaughter looked ahead, he saw that the canyon took a turn around a fairly sharp bend several hundred yards in front of them.

  A place like that would be a pretty good spot for an ambush, he thought. Considering the trickiness the rustlers had already demonstrated, he wouldn’t put such a thing past them at all. Because of that, he reined in and motioned for the others to do likewise.

  “I think we’d better do a little scouting,” he said. “I’ll go have a look around that bend.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Santiago volunteered without hesitation.

  “Better not,” Slaughter said. “If anything were to happen to me, somebody will need to take charge.”

  Santiago looked surprised by that statement. He said, “You would entrust such a task to me?”

  “You’re Don Eduardo’s son. His men will follow you. So will mine, if I tell them they’re supposed to.” Slaughter crossed his hands on his saddle horn and turned a level gaze on the young man. “Are you up to the job, Santiago?”

  “I—I will do my best to be, Señor Slaughter.”