Felder found nothing to laugh about. He stood there fuming, trying to watch in two directions at the same time, the room and the hall.
Slim listened hard. It was mighty quiet in the bedroom. He opened the door wider, stepping inside. “Bardo?”
No reply.
Light shone through the doorway, laying a yellow oblong on the floor. The rest of the room was very dark. Slim’s eyes had trouble adjusting to the dimness. An angle of light fell on a brass bedpost at the foot of the bed.
He moved toward it, out of Felder’s view. He stumbled over something on the floor, and fell, dropping his gun. He fell amidst a tangle of limbs. Not all the limbs were his own.
He recoiled, gasping, rising to hands and knees. A puddle of warm liquid lay where his palms pressed the floor. He felt around for his gun, touching a body. He groped it, feeling around its contours with fear and frenzy fast rising in him. This was not the flesh of a young female, this was the body, the corpse, of a male:
Bardo!
Slim’s hands were sticky with wetness. The stuff had a metallic, coppery scent he knew full well—blood!
Slim cried out. He jumped to his feet, rushing the door. All thoughts of the girl, gun, and the gold that was going to be paid for this little job of murder flew out of his head, replaced only by a blind instinctive need to flee this dark room and its bloody corpse.
Felder saw Slim reel into view, framed in the bedroom’s open doorway. Slim was terrified, fear stricken. He looked like he was going to scream. Felder could have killed him for that.
Slim gripped the doorframe with both hands to steady himself. He threw himself forward. Bloody red handprints marked the white door molding where he’d held it.
From the shadows of the room, something came flashing through the air, whirling, pinwheeling—what was it?
It struck Slim a stiff blow in the back, thudding home, bowing his torso forward and out. He shrieked in mortal pain and terror, the cry falling to a thick, choking gurgle.
Slim staggered forward as if struggling against hip-deep mud, seemingly expending an awesome effort to advance each single step. He reached around behind him to his back, as if groping for something.
Even as Felder watched openmouthed, the light went out of Slim’s bulging eyes, orbs glazing over in death. Slim was dead on his feet. He pitched face forward, crashing to the floor.
A war hatchet lay buried deep in his back between the shoulder blades. He’d been tomahawked.
Spooked, Felder fired a blast through the open bedroom door, gun bucking and roaring in his hand.
The echoes of the gunshots faded, replaced by hollow laughter sounding from within the bedroom, mocking, disembodied.
Felder had had enough. His nerve broke. He jumped back as if scalded. He spun toward the rear of the building, ready to race to the end of the corridor, down the back stairs and away—
Only to come face to face with Matt Bodine. Matt was in the corridor, coming on with drawn gun, barring the way to the back stairs and escape.
Felder swung his gun up, cursing, and firing. Matt’s gun was already on target. Felder’s shot missed. Matt’s didn’t.
A bullet tagged Felder high on the right side of his chest, below the collarbone. A second and third round ripped into his right shoulder, shattering the bone. Felder screamed, gun falling from his dead hand. He fell, too.
Matt stood in the middle of the hallway, gun leveled at the hip, gun smoke hazing his form.
Whatever else he was, Felder was still game. He crawled across the floor, sobbing and squirming, clawing for his gun with his good left hand. Matt shot him in the hand, blowing off some fingers, sending them flying.
Felder lay on his side in a fetal position, legs together, bent at the knees. He hugged his maimed hand to him, his right arm limp, unresponsive and useless.
Matt approached, bending at the knees to scoop up Felder’s gun. He circled past him, looking into Room 207.
Sam Two Wolves was in the anteroom, hunkered down beside Slim. His gun was in his holster, unfired. He’d done for Bardo and Slim with his tomahawk.
He and Matt had laid a trap for Felder and his sidemen. Linda Gordon was safe in another room. She’d been moved earlier to Room 204, which had a connecting door with Davenport’s suite.
Remy Markand and Riker were in there guarding her, with Mrs. Sanderson present as chaperone—social proprieties must be observed, no matter what kill-happy characters might be on the prowl.
Matt and Sam had come up with the scheme earlier still, after meeting with Ringo and Curly Bill at the Big Sky Saloon.
Curly Bill’s friends and informants at the cantinas had come up with plenty of evidence to corroborate Gila Chacon’s story about himself, Carmen, and Don Carlos of slave auction infamy. It seemed a sure bet that Black Angus would press on to Pago to sell the captive girls there.
The adventurers needed Gila’s services as guide in order to mount a proper rescue effort. Ringo and Curly Bill had volunteered to spring Gila from jail.
“We’ve got nothing to lose, we’re already on the wrong side of the law.” Curly Bill grinned.
“Besides, Deputy Johnny Behan’ll square it for us when he gets back,” Ringo said. “Fred White’s had a bellyful of being marshal—he’s not going to stand for election. Behan’s the power in that office and a sure bet to win when he stands for marshal come November.
“You two have already got an in with Colonel Moneybags, so you might as well work it for all it’s worth. We’ll fetch the bandido.”
Matt and Sam went to the Hotel Erle for a private conclave with Davenport. They pitched him their plan, and he went for it. Linda Gordon was quietly moved into Room 204, the room switch being kept secret from all but a handful of insiders.
Sam kept vigil alone in Linda’s previous room, waiting in darkness. Matt patrolled the hotel, watching for assassins by night.
It was later learned that Sid Felder and his two accomplices broke into the hotel through a side window on the ground floor sometime around two-thirty, entering unobserved, undetected. They made their way to the kitchen, empty and untended, where a pot of coffee was customarily kept on a hot plate for the use of the night clerk and staff members on the night shift.
Sid Felder came up with the plan to gain entry to Linda Gordon’s room by disguising Slim as a kitchen staff member. A number of aprons hung on a hook in the kitchen. Slim donned one, checking that the coffee was hot and readying the serving tray, including the derringer hidden under napkins.
The trio climbed the back stairs, Felder and Bardo lurking on a lower landing while Slim entered the second floor through the rear fire door. While he distracted Crawley, Felder and Bardo sneaked up the stairs, opening the door a crack and watching for Slim’s signal. Slim nodded emphatically and repeatedly, signalling that he had Duane under the gun. Bardo came through the door and swiftly cut Crawley’s throat.
That was where the plan had gone awry. It was the X factor, the unknown variable that confounds all planning.
The trap got back on track when Bardo and Slim entered Room 207. Instead of a teenaged girl lying helpless in bed in a dark room, the killers had found Sam. He lay on his back, long hair streaming across the pillows, a thin blanket covering him to the neck.
An arm was at his side, tomahawk in hand, hidden under the blanket.
Bardo had gotten quite a surprise as he leaned over the bed knife in hand, ready to make the fatal strike. He fell to the tomahawk chop.
Sam slipped out of the bed on the other side, crouching in a far corner, watching while Slim stumbled around in the dark. Sam had his night eyes and saw clearly as Slim fell over the body, making the horrified discovery that it belonged to Bardo.
When Slim fled, Sam threw the tomahawk, taking him expertly in the back....
Now, Sam took hold of the wooden shaft of the steel-bladed, double-edged tomahawk, wrenching it loose from Slim’s corpse. He had to yank hard, as it was in deep. It came loose with a wet scrunching sound. He
used Slim’s shirttails to wipe the blade clean.
“What’re you trying to do, save on bullets?” Matt joked.
“Just trying to be quiet. I didn’t want to wake anybody up,” Sam said, sticking the tomahawk in his belt.
“That didn’t work out so well.”
Sam joined Matt in the hallway. The second floor was in an uproar. Sid Felder sat on the floor with his back against the wall, sobbing and groaning.
Hotel guests had stayed safely behind locked room doors during the gunplay, but they were all coming out to gaze and gawk now. Remy Markand was there, gun at his side. Riker stood in the doorway of Room 204, wanting to see what happened, but unwilling to leave Linda Gordon’s room unguarded.
Colonel Davenport was there in his nightshirt, a pair of hastily thrown-on trousers underneath, his feet shod in bedroom slippers. He was bright-eyed and alert, seemingly not a bit sleepy.
Arnholt Stebbins was there, too, his sole concession to the informality of the late hour being that his jacket was off and the knot of his tie loosened.
A number of Davenport’s guards thronged the scene. A couple of them were assisting Dean Duane, who’d come around to consciousness after being knocked out. He was dazed, groggy, bleeding from a head wound. They helped him to his feet, leading him into Davenport’s suite to lie down and rest while waiting for Dr. Willis, who had been summoned.
“You’ve got a man on the back stairs landing, dead. I saw him when I came up,” Matt said.
Several guards went down the corridor to investigate, finding Wes Crawley’s butchered corpse where Felder and Bardo had hidden it.
Matt and Sam went to Sid Felder, looming over him. He sat there shivering, trying to shrink into a small package. His eyes teared, his nose ran, and he gasped through gritted teeth, rolling his eyes from the pain.
Matt kicked him sharply with the toe of his boot to get his attention. Felder looked up, mouthing obscenities.
“Well, well, Sid Felder. So you managed to take him alive,” Sam said mildly.
“The hard part was not finishing him off. Polecats like Sid were made for Boot Hill,” Matt said. “You know us, Sid, Sam and me.”
“Yeah, I know you, you bastards,” Felder muttered.
“Actually, both our mothers were married, which I’m sure is more than you can say,” Sam returned.
Felder told them briefly what they could do with their mothers.
Matt tsk-tsked. “You’ve got a nasty mouth, Sid. Better be careful nobody cuts your tongue out.”
“Don’t do that—he’s got to talk.”
“Thanks for reminding me, Sam. Oh, well, I’m sure there’s other parts we can cut off if it’s needful,” Matt said.
“Misguided folks who think being an outlaw is some big, bold, romantic thing should see you now, Sid. Look at you: all shot up, fingers shot off, lifeblood leaking all over the place, snot dripping out of your nose—you’re a mess,” Sam said.
Felder had two words for him.
“Where’s Black Angus, Sid?” Matt asked.
“Who?” Felder said, laughing hollowly.
“Jones left Sid here to die while he went to the slave auction in Pago,” Matt said.
“Never heard of it,” Felder said. Through a supreme act of will, he forced his lips upward into a twisted grin, leering up at them.
“Better take him where nobody can interfere. You know how tenderhearted some folks can be, even with a sidewinder like Sid,” Sam said.
“Room two-oh-seven should fit the bill. There’s already two bodies in there,” Matt said.
“Good idea,” said Sam. He bent over, taking hold of one of Felder’s feet while Matt grasped the other. Together, they dragged him kicking and screaming along the corridor toward Room 207.
Witnesses looked on aghast, quickly moving out of the way. Matt and Sam hauled Felder into the anteroom, Matt freeing a hand to slam the door shut behind him.
They straightened up. Felder lay sobbing and gasping on the floor.
Matt toed his boot under Slim’s corpse, flipping it over on its side and rolling it against a wall, out of the way. “That gives us some room to work,” he said.
He went down on one knee beside Felder, gripping an ear between thumb and forefinger and twisting it to get Felder’s attention. Felder bellowed in pain. He let go finally and Felder stopped hollering.
“Listen up, Sid. You know us and you know we don’t play,” Matt said. “I’m going to ask you one more time: Where’s Black Angus Jones?”
“In hell with your mother—”
Matt rocked him with a backhanded slap that made Felder see stars. Blood trickled from smashed lips.
“You would have it the hard way, Sid,” Matt said. “Okay, Sam—scalp him.”
“I know just the thing,” Sam said. He went into the bedroom.
“You’re bluffing,” Felder said.
“You think so,” Matt said pleasantly.
Sam returned, holding Bardo’s knife. “This should do the trick.”
“You can’t scare me—”
“I don’t want to scare you, Sid, I want to scalp you,” Sam said. He hunkered down beside Felder on the side opposite from Matt. “Nice hair, Sid, good and thick. Your scalp will look good hanging on the reins of my pony.”
“You go to hell!”
“Better hold him down, Matt. This is going to hurt and I don’t want him thrashing around. It might make the scalp come off uneven.”
“Makes sense,” Matt said. He planted a knee on Felder’s left shoulder and chest, pinning his upper body to the floor.
Felder started yelling. Sam crouched over him, knife in hand. He touched the tip to the upper left corner of Felder’s forehead, right below the hairline. The wicked-sharp tip pierced the skin, drawing a ruby droplet of blood.
Sam drew the tip of the knife slowly along Felder’s forehead, its course paralleling the hairline, leaving a red razor line of blood to mark its progress.
Felder kicked and screamed, hysterical. Matt was hard-pressed to hold him down.
“Quit all that thrashing or you’ll lose an eye along with your scalp,” Sam said, speaking loudly to be heard over Felder’s squalling shrieks.
Outside in the hall, bystanders stood wide-eyed and staring as screams rang behind the closed door of Room 207.
“What are those two up to? Go see what they’re doing, Stebbins,” Colonel Davenport said.
“Yes, sir.” Stebbins went to the door, opening it and looking in.
He saw Matt and Sam holding Felder down on the floor, despite Felder’s fear-maddened efforts to break loose. Sam’s face was a study in deep concentration as he drew the knife blade along Felder’s hairline, marking a red line of blood.
Matt looked up, and barked, “Get out!”
Stebbins jumped back, shutting the door.
“What’s going on in there, Stebbins? Speak up, man, don’t shilly-shally. I can’t hear you!”
“Er—arh—ahem! It looks like they’re, uh, they’re scalping that man, sir!”
Colonel Davenport slammed a fist into his palm, exultant. “By heaven! Those are the men to lead my rescue mission into Mexico!”
In Room 207, Sid Felder sobbed hysterically. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! I’ll tell you anything you want, only don’t scalp me, please, don’t scalp me!”
Sam and Matt exchanged glances. “You’re not funning, Sid? You’ll tell us what we want to know?” Sam asked.
“Yes, yes, oh, Lord, yes. Only please don’t scalp me, please—”
“Just like I thought, a yellowbelly,” Matt said disgustedly.
Ten minutes later, the door of Room 207 opened, Matt stepping into the hall, the focus of the eyes of the onlookers gathered there. “He talked,” Matt said.
“Did you—did you scalp him?” Colonel Davenport ventured, all quivering eager expectancy.
“Didn’t have to, he spilled his guts without it. He’s still in there babbling away,” Matt said.
“No scalping?
Damnation!” Davenport thundered. “What a disappointment! His scalp would have made an unforgettable souvenir of my Western trip!
“Oh, well, I suppose it couldn’t be helped,” he said, sighing.
FOURTEEN
Black Angus Jones and his gang were taking the seven young female captives from the Bear Paw wagon train to Pago in Sonora, Mexico. With them were five other girls they’d abducted along the way. The females were being transported by wagon—wagons looted from the sack of the Bear Paw caravan.
The gang moved out from Yellow Snake Canyon the morning of the raid, heading south. Angus Jones was unhappy—to put it mildly—with Linda Gordon’s escape from Dorado and Quirt Fane. He sent Felder, Slim, and Bardo to Tombstone to silence her.
Meanwhile, he and the gang kept pushing south to Mexico.
Felder and the others were supposed to meet Jones in the town of Fronteras across the border in Mexico. Jones had some business to take care of there. He was not staying overnight, but would only be in Fronteras for a few hours before resuming the trek. If Felder and his sidemen missed Jones in Fronteras, they would catch up with him in Pago.
Pago was about sixty miles south of the border, located in the Sierra Espinazo del Diablo, the mountain range known as “the Devil’s Spine.” The isolated mountain town was a safe zone for outlaws, Mexican or American, as long as they were connected to the slave trade.
Don Carlos de la Vega was a power in that part of Sonora. Pago and its surrounding area was his own. A private army of gunmen enforced his will and law.
He was in cahoots with Captain Bravo, commanding officer of a body of troops garrisoned in Pago.
Bravo’s men patrolled the outlying roads and trails, providing some protection against Victorio and his outlaws, who had taken refuge in Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountains, of which the Espinazo was a small part.
This much and more Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves learned from Sid Felder. Dr. Willis grudgingly patched up Felder, grumbling, “I don’t know why I bother—I’m only saving him for the hangman.”
“Hangman’s got to make a living, too, Doc,” Matt said.
Willis had taken the physician’s oath to preserve life, even the life of a no-good such as Felder. He extracted the bullets, stemmed the bleeding, and bandaged Felder, who was then taken to jail.
Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 17