by P McCormac
The vaquero drew alongside. He tipped his hat to Catlin then looked enquiringly at his boss. Eulitereo turned back to the woman. She was staring past him. Her face had gone quite pale.
‘Father?’ she said in a voice that quavered somewhat. ‘Father, is that you?’
Then she was off her horse and reaching out to touch the old man’s leg.
‘Father,’ she said again.
He raised his head slightly and opened his eyes.
‘Who calls me father?’ he said his voice quavering. ‘I have no children. When children have no parents they are called orphans. What do you call a parent with no children? You call him an old fool.’
‘Father.’ She pulled at his trouser leg. ‘It is me, Catlin.’
‘Catlin. I did have a daughter once by that name. But she is dead now. Soon I hope to join her.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘It rained last night, Catlin. I have done wicked things in my life but I never . . . never. . . .’
His voice trailed off. He reached down and touched Catlin’s hand resting on his knee and peered intently into her face.
‘Are those tears in those soft eyes? Are you angry with me? If you have poison for me I will drink it. Your sisters abused me. They threw me out in the storm. I would not have treated my enemy’s dog as they misused me.’
‘Father, come back to the house with me.’ Tears were indeed coursing down Catlin’s face. ‘You’re safe now. I’ll take care of you.’
Swiftly Catlin issued instructions to her riders. They wheeled their mounts and set off back to the ranch. At last she turned to the Mexican.
‘Señor Cardinalle, I am in your debt. This is the man we were looking for. It is my father and he has gone through some troubled times. I will take him to the house and care for him. When you have seen to the herd I would like you to join us. We will have supper together and settle up our business.’
Eulitereo raised his sombrero and inclined his head.
‘I am happy for such a good ending.’
Eulitereo watched while the girl took the lead rope from the vaquero. She mounted her own horse and slowly headed back to the ranch trailing her father’s horse. The Mexican shook his head thoughtfully.
‘There is much sorrow and mystery in this, Juan,’ he said to the vaquero. ‘The madman spoke of his daughters abusing him and yet when he meets this woman she calls him father and is most tender with him.’ He reined around his horse. ‘Come, let us join Felipe and the herd. Perhaps I will learn more when I come to dinner with this handsome woman.’
CHAPTER 20
‘I have a fit psalm for you, Preacher. I want you to join in,’ Lovell told Alward. ‘I’m sure you’ll know it. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Where art thou when I cry for help? I cry in the day and I call out in the night. Preacher, you ain’t joining in.’
The large blade flashed in the air. Alward dodged but felt a blow on his upper arm as the knife sliced into him. Desperately he back-pedalled and the knifeman laughed harshly. Blood was weeping down the youngster’s arm.
‘My father trusted in thee and didst deliver me onto you. His fists were granite and his boots iron. My bruised body cried out for vengeance.’
Alward saw his father moving towards them, his hands outstretched as he groped blindly towards the noise of conflict.
‘Stay back, Gallagher,’ he yelled.
Lovell glanced over his shoulder and Alward saw his chance. He flung himself forward. Out of the corner of his eye Lovell saw him move. The knife came round in an arc and Alward stumbled to the ground, blood pouring from a long gash in his chest. He was trying to scramble out of range on all fours when Lovell kicked him in the side of the head.
Lights exploded in the youngster’s head and he blacked out for a moment. When the world stopped spinning he was conscious of a weight pressing down on his body. He looked up into the corpulent face leering down at him with discoloured teeth exposed in a taut grimace.
‘Now where shall we start to cut, Preacher?’ Lovell taunted.
The knife swished back and forth – bright and sharp. Alward’s hypnotized eyes followed the glittering movements. His hands were trapped by his side beneath Lovell’s heavy thighs. He felt a hard object pressing into his own thigh and realized it was the razor he had been about to shave with when Monday had hustled him outside.
That had been the start of his nightmare. He wondered if it was all to end now with this fat bastard carving bits off him. His father would be next as the bounty hunter took his scalp to claim the reward. Lovell put the point of the knife against the corner of Alward’s eye.
‘Maybe I should take out your eyes, Preacher.’
The point dug in. It took all Alward’s restraint not to scream. Slowly and deliberately the knife was drawn down his face. The flesh parted on each side of the keen blade. Blood ran down the youngster’s face and pooled in his ear. Lovell put his head to one side as he contemplated his work.
‘The fillies don’t like scars,’ he said, nodding with satisfaction. ‘When you get to paradise the houris might just reject you. Shall I do a matching line on the other side, Preacher man? Eh, what do you think?’
The knife dug into the flesh on the left side of the youngster’s face and Alward did scream then.
‘You goddamn, fat, lousy bastard.’
The youngster tried to wrench his head away but this only caused the blade to cut down across his cheek and slice into his earlobe.
‘Goddamn you, Preacher!’ Lovell yelled. ‘Look what you made me do’
He slashed the bloody blade down across Alward’s chest, cutting from the shoulder in a diagonal stroke to his nipple. With the gash already inflicted, an X was now carved on Alward’s chest.
The youngster convulsed and writhed beneath the crushing weight of his tormentor. It was a futile struggle. The fat man grinned down at him and then drove the haft of his Bowie into Alward’s mouth. With his other hand he backhanded the youth, deliberately hitting him on the gaping gash in his cheek.
Alward gagged and coughed as blood from his mashed and cut lips trickled back into his throat. He spit out blood and Lovell laughed. The smile vanished as a pair of brawny arms closed around the fat man.
‘What the. . . .’
Through a haze of pain Alward felt the weight of his tormentor lift from him. He blinked as he saw the blindfolded face beyond the cursing twisted features of Lovell. The fat man thrashed about, trying desperately to free himself from the arms clamped tightly around his chest.
Alward groaned. Then he thrust his hand inside his trouser pocket. He felt the slim shape of the razor. He knew exactly what he had to do.
Lovell’s struggles had taken the two men a few feet away. Alward managed to make it to his knees and shuffled forward. As he moved he was unfolding the razor’s blade from its ivory handle.
It had been an expensive instrument, made of best steel and sharpened to a keen finish. Alward had been stropping the edge prior to shaving before Monday had interrupted him and bid him flee the Mexicans baying for his blood.
Lovell saw him coming – the open razor in his hand. The fat man’s eyes widened in fear and his struggles became more frantic. But Gallagher was a physically powerful man. His arms were clamped tightly around the bounty hunter. Gallagher had locked his hands together and nothing was going to loosen his grip. Big as he was, there was no way Lovell would be able to break that hold.
The fat blowhard struggled wildly and yelled out all sorts of threats and curses. The more Lovell thrashed about the tighter Gallagher gripped, those rigid arms clamped around his chest like the metal bands around a beer cask.
‘Run, Preacher,’ Gallagher called. ‘I’ll hold him long enough for you to get away. Take my horse. It has the gold in the saddle-bags.’
Lovell stared in horror at the bloody figure shambling towards him. Alward’s face was a mask of blood. His lips were drawn back in a snarl of pain as he stumbled towards the grappling men.
Blood streamed from the deep
slits in his cheeks. His teeth were covered in blood that dribbled down his chin, transforming his grimace of pain into a bizarre grin of death.
‘Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest, return ye children to the killing fields,’ Alward intoned. ‘Thou carriest them away in blood.’
‘Run, Preacher,’ Gallagher called again.
‘They are as killer wolves,’ Alward ground on relentlessly as the blood poured from his hideous wounds. ‘In the morning your shadow passes over their graves. Their blood shall water the earth.’
His hand reached out and gripped the fat man’s shirt. The razor came up and Alward stroked hard across the thick neck. Lovell opened his mouth to scream. Blood suddenly pumped out from the ghastly wound in his throat and jetted on to Alward. The youngster tried to back away from the spouting blood and wondered at the heat of the stuff as it poured onto his arms and chest. Suddenly he did not care and collapsed into the dirt and lay there watching Lovell’s dying struggles. Even as the blood drained from the dreadful wound in his neck, Gallagher, unaware of what had happened, still held the man upright.
‘It’s all right, Pa,’ Alward called. ‘You can let go now.’
Slowly Gallagher relaxed his grip. The dead man slid through his arms and collapsed onto the dirt.
‘You called me Pa,’ Gallagher said. ‘I thank you for that, but I ain’t fitten to be no one’s pa.’
‘It’s me, Pa. Alward, your son, come back to haunt you.’
‘Alward, Alward . . . is that really you? What happened? Where did you come from?’
‘It’s a long story, Pa. I’ll tell you later.’
‘Oh, Alward, is it really you? My boy, my boy.’
Gallagher was groping towards the youngster, homing in on the voice.
‘Don’t touch me, Pa. I’m covered in blood.’
But the questing hands had found the youngster and moved to his face. Alward winced as his father’s hands stroked him, touching the dreadful gashes inflicted by Lovell and increasing the pain of his ruined face.
‘Oh Alward, is it really you? Oh, my boy. Can you forgive me, son? I believed that snake, Monday and you had to flee. It’s all my fault.’
The old man’s voice broke and he began to sob.
‘It’s all right, Pa. It weren’t your fault. Monday fooled us all. Now sit by me. I must bind these wounds.’ He glanced at the dead man. ‘I can use this fat bastard’s shirt.’
Painfully he moved across and using the razor, he hacked away the man’s vest and then cut away his shirt. As he worked some papers were dislodged. He set these to one side and cut the shirt into strips, which he painstakingly bound about his face. The makeshift bandages were soon soaked in blood but he hoped the flow must soon stop.
Picking up the letters, he moved away from the corpse and examined the papers. One was addressed to Monday and the other bore Rachel’s name. Quickly he tore open the one for his brother and began to read.
‘My God, brother Monday works fast. He’s wormed his way in with Rachel and now it looks as if Gertrude has the hots for him as well. She wants him to get rid of Alec so he can take his place.’
The next letter detailed plans for the O’Leary sisters to join forces and attack Catlin’s ranch. Carefully Alward folded the letters and set them to one side.
He had taken no notice of his father as the man crawled across to the body of Lovell and continued the search Alward had left off. He had only been interested in utilizing the dead man’s shirt and the letters had fallen out as he had cut away the material. When the youngster looked up he went very still. His blind father had found something much more sinister.
‘Pa,’ he said quietly, trying to keep his voice from quavering. ‘What are you doing?’
There was a grim smile on the blind man’s face as he knelt beside the bloodied corpse of Lovell.
‘I’d be a burden to you, Alward. It’s better this way.’
‘No! No, Pa, not that!’
In spite of the pain in his much-abused body he flung himself forward. He was too late – much too late by a long margin. The shot blew out the rear of Gallagher’s head. The blind man toppled backwards. The gun slid out from between his teeth as the hand that held it slackened its grip.
‘Pa, goddamn it, Pa, I would have looked after you.’
Alward cradled the body in his arms. He stared in horror at the mass of bone and blood that had been his father’s head and tried to hold back the bile that rose in his throat. For what seemed an age he sat there, rocking back and forth, his father’s body cradled in his arms; hot tears mingling with the blood on his lacerated face.
When he could stand, Alward took the big Bowie knife that Lovell had used to butcher him and dug a grave for his father. It took him a long time. Loss of blood and shock had enfeebled him. With his father interred, he used the razor to cut holes in the ore sacks and fashion a crude jacket. He stowed the letters in the saddle bags. The gold was there just as his father had said. Lovell’s pistol and Bowie knife and the razor he hid inside his crude clothing.
Alward roped the two spare horses together and climbed on board his father’s mare. Then he set off, trailing the spare horses and looking like a survivor from a bloody battlefield.
Lovell’s body lay bloated and obscene. The youngster had not thought it fitting to bury the bounty hunter near his father’s grave. Instead he left it to be devoured by whatever wild beasts happened upon it.
‘Rest in peace, Pa. I will find that viper Monday and we will have a day of reckoning.’
CHAPTER 21
Alward lay on the hillside and watched the rider on the trail below. As the man sat his horse, he could see the stranger was viewing something through a scope. From his blind father’s directions he knew he was close to Catlin’s horse ranch.
Climbing back on his horse, Alward continued down the trail towards the silent watcher. As he approached he made no attempt to conceal his presence. The man with the telescope snapped it shut and turned to watch the approaching rider, his hand resting on his sidearm. It was then that Alward recognized him. He had seen him on the arm of O’Leary’s daughter Gertrude and remembered his name was Alec.
‘May the good Lord bring His blessings upon you and your family,’ he called, raising his hand in greeting.
Alec made no reply as he watched the youngster approach. Alward wondered what he must think of the strange, bloodstained figure approaching.
The crude binding cut from the dead Lovell’s shirt and wrapped around his face had finally stopped the bleeding. But not before the material had become soaked in blood. Along with the bizarre face bandages there was his coarse outfit fashioned from ore sacks.
‘Let the peace of the Lord shine His blessings upon you,’ Alward continued in the face of the man’s silence.
His face felt hot and stiff and painful. The knife wounds on his body also burned agonizingly, making every movement a pain-wracked effort.
Alward kept his hand raised in greeting. With his other hand engaged in holding the reins of his horse, he reasoned he would not appear in any way threatening. The effort of riding this far had taxed his strength. It made him weak and dizzy and he had to make a real effort to keep upright.
‘What happened to you, fella?’ Alec asked. ‘You been head-butting cactus or what?’
‘The Lord was angry with me. Out of the night He spoke to me. His voice was terrible to behold. He told me I must atone for my sins. The Lord commanded me to scourge my body. So I mutilated the things that had brought me onto the sins of the flesh.’
Alec reached up and pushed his hat to the back of his head, exposing his blond hair.
‘What the hell sins did you commit? Musta been something a mite severe for you to cut yourself up like that.’
‘I committed the sin of darkness with my mistress. I went into her bedroom at night while her lawful husband was away and we dallied in shameful deeds. My face was my temptation. Now no woman will look at me with lust ever again. I will live in the
desert with wild beasts as my companions.’
A grin spread across the blond gunslinger’s face as he listened to this declaration.
‘I’ve met some crazy folk in my time but you are the craziest son of a bitch I ever did come across in a long time.’
Alward pulled out the letters he had found on Lovell and pretended to study them.
‘I have one last task to perform before I commit myself to the wilderness. It was a dying man’s last request that I deliver these letters. I have to find these people. One letter is addressed to someone called Monday and the other is called Rachel. Perhaps I will find someone in the next town or settlement that may be able to help.’
He looked up at Alec and saw the smile had faded from the gunman’s face.
‘Let me see those,’ he snapped.
Alward willingly handed over the letters.
‘Perhaps you recognize the names?’ he asked.
Alec paid him no attention. He was busy examining the letters.
‘Gertrude’s writing,’ he mused.
There was a few minutes’ silence as he read. When he finally looked up at Alward his face had gone taut. His eyes had taken on an icy hue.
‘You read these notes?’ he asked, his voice tight.
‘No, indeed I did not, friend. I do not pry into people’s private business. I read only the good book. I try to find solace there. The writings of man have no substance for me. . . .’
Alward trailed off. Alec had wheeled his horse past him and was urging it back down the trail.
‘Methinks mischief has been sown amongst the enemy,’ he said softly as he watched the departing gunman.
He turned back to the trail and saw what the blond man had been watching through his eyeglass. In the far distance was a set of low buildings. Alward nudged his horse forward.
‘Pa,’ he muttered. ‘I think I might have arrived at Catlin’s ranch. I certainly hope so, for I am sore in mind and body and could do with lying down and sleeping for a month of Sundays.’