Ralph Compton - Down on Gila River

Jake Wells smiled when he saw him.

The man’s thumb tested the edge of an ivory-handled cutthroat razor, and a hundred different kinds of hell gleamed in his eyes.

Sam heard a scream and for one horrible moment he thought it had come from him.

“How much longer have we got to listen to that?” Jake said, momentarily shifting his attention from Sam to his brother.

“Had enough?” Dan said. “I reckon I’ve been listening to it for too long.”

“More than enough,” Jake said. “He’s been screaming and calling out for hours.”

Dan drew his gun and moved to the door.

“If ol’ Vic wants to meet his Maker that badly, it’s only fair that I help him along,” he said.

Dan stepped outside, and Jake turned his attention to Sam once again.

The man’s head was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage and his left leg was propped on a chair. The leg was splinted with split barrel staves and had been bound tightly with rags.

Jake made a show of closely studying the razor.

“Well, lookee here at this,” he said. “Says right here on the blade that it was made by Samuel Last, 105 New Bond Street, London.” Jake nodded. “The English know how to make razors. They make ’em good an’ sharp.”

He waved the cutthroat at Santos. “Hey, Skate, you ever seen a man skun with one o’ these?”

Before Santos could answer, a shot rang out and the echo bounced through the river canyon like a rock tumbling along a marble corridor.

Jake smiled. “RIP, Vic Moseley.” He beckoned to Sam. “Come here, Pops. I want to give you just a little taste o’ the blade. I mean, so you’ll know what’s coming next, like.”

“You go to hell,” Sam said. His face took on a look of genuine puzzlement. “How come everybody around this here neck o’ the woods is hell-bent on skinnin’ folks?”

Jake ignored that. “Well, if you won’t come to me, then I’ll come to you.”

He rose clumsily, swayed for a moment, then hobbled forward a step.

Sam moved to his right, booted a chair into Jake, and the man tripped and fell, roaring in pain as his broken leg slammed into the floor.

Santos was stunned by the suddenness of Sam’s move and didn’t react before the older man made a dash for the door.

Sam threw the door open . . . then backed slowly into the saloon again, the muzzle of Dan Wells’s Colt shoved firmly between his eyes.

“Hold him!” Jake yelled. “Don’t let the buzzard go.”

Dan holstered his gun and he and Santos grabbed and held Sam’s arms. Both were big men, and strong, and Sam’s struggles did him no good.

Jake hobbled toward Sam, his face ugly, the razor poised for a slashing cut. “I promised ye a taste,” he said, “and now I’ll serve it up to you.”

It came very quickly, the razor so keen that Sam initially felt little pain. The blade sliced across Sam’s right cheek; then a vicious backhanded stroke laid open his left. Blood spurted and Sam saw the front of his shirt turn scarlet.

Jake stepped back and admired his handiwork.

“Finish him, Jake,” Dan Wells said. “Cut his throat.”

But the younger man shook his head. “No, I want him skun a slice at a time.” His bloodshot eyes lifted to his brother. “You and Santos strip him and stake him out. His dying will take many days and he’ll scream for all of them, even worse than Moseley.”

Sam struggled, and tried to kick out at his tormentor.

“You sorry piece of trash,” he yelled. “Let me loose and we’ll fight it out, just me and you.”

He would have said more, but blood filled his mouth, his head slumped onto his chest and merciful oblivion took him.

“Stake him, Skate,” Jake said, “like an Apache would.”

“You already owe me thirty dollars,” Santos said. “Staking a man will cost you another ten.”

Jake smiled. “Then do it. It’s well worth the money.”

Chapter 36

A lame horse and the buildup to a summer thunderstorm that turned the bright afternoon dark were only two of the problems that beset Hannah Stewart as she made her slow way along the bank of the Gila.

The others were that she had no clear knowledge of the fate awaiting Sam and how she could change it, that and the fear for herself and Lori, chiefly for Lori, that made her drag reluctant feet.

She was close to the Wells place, maybe only a mile or so, and now fear was a constant companion that nagged at her unmercifully.

Hannah unsaddled the horse and turned it loose on grass at the bottom of a hollow, then walked back to the riverbank.

The day had grown even darker, and to the north, in the direction of the Mogollon Mountains, thunder banged and lightning glittered.

The rain came a few minutes later, a steady, wind-driven downpour that hissed on the leaves of the cottonwoods and higher up the slopes made the graceful aspens dance.

Hannah’s thin dress soaked very quickly, and when a horseman slowly emerged through the rain, riding toward her, she was uncomfortably aware of the wet cotton. Hannah recognized the rider as Skate Santos, and she stepped into the shelter of the trees. She took the derringer from her pocket and waited.

Santos’s waist-length hair hung over his shoulders in sopping braids and he rode with his head bent against the wind and rain.

Hannah waited until the man was a few feet away, then stepped into his path.

“Hands up,” she said, realizing how silly that sounded.

Santos drew rein and grinned, both hands on the saddle horn.

“You can put the stinger away, woman,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Hannah kept the derringer trained on the breed. “Where’s Sam?” she said. “Tell me and don’t lie to me.”

“You know where he is.”

“What’s happened to him?”

“So far, not too much, though he’ll have some new scars on his face.”

“Did you do that? Did you harm him?”

Santos shook his head. “No, not me. Jake Wells did it with a razor.”

“And you didn’t stop him?”

“I wasn’t being paid to stop him. Your man means nothing to me.”

“Is he in the saloon?”

“No, he’s staked to the ground outside the saloon.” Santos glanced at the sky. “Not really the weather for that, though.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is Sam staked to the ground?”

“Jake intends to skin him alive, a little bit at a time.” He leaned forward in the saddle. “I tied his wrists and ankles with rawhide, and this rain will stretch it. If you want the save your man, I guess now would be the time to do it. While the rain lasts, you understand?”

“You staked him?”

“Sure I did. Jake Wells paid me ten dollars to do it.”

“You’re a piece of filth,” Hannah said.

And she triggered the derringer.

Chapter 37

Sam Sawyer opened his eyes and stared at a gray sky shot with black that looked so close he could reach out and touch it. He wondered if he could do that, touch the sky and grab a handful of thundercloud, sizzling with lightning. He tried to move his right arm and could not. His wrist was pinned to the ground. Sam tried to move his left arm with the same result and his ankles were tied, his legs spread wide.

The rain hammered into his face and pained him. His cheeks hurt as though he’d cut himself shaving . . .

And then he remembered.

Jake Wells had cut him with a razor, cut him bad, and promised more.

Sam struggled against his bonds, but the rawhide cut into his wrists and the stakes that held them in place refused to budge.

Lightning flared across the sky, and thunder banged a moment later, and it was about then that Sam gave up. He was done for. That was the long and short of it.

He opened his dry mouth and caught rainwater that was cool on his tongue and trickled down his parched throat.