Ralph Compton - Down on Gila River

He stared at the sky again, blinking in the downpour, and wondered when Jake Wells would come for him.

Sam told himself that he wouldn’t scream, but he knew he would. No man feels himself getting skinned an inch at a time and does not cry out in pain and fear.

To his right he heard the creak of a door. He turned his head and saw Dan Wells step into the rain. So close was Sam to the door that he could hear the rain drum on Wells’s hat and the squelch of his boots in the mud.

Then Wells loomed over him.

“How are you doing, Pops?” he said. He grinned. “I trust you’re comfortable.”

“You go to hell,” Sam said. He could feel his hat still on his head and he thought that middling funny.

“Just stepped out to tell you that Jake will be visiting soon,” Wells said. “He’s got big plans for you, Pops, big plans.”

“He’s trash, Wells, just like you,” Sam said.

“Big talk from a man lying in the mud who’s going to get his skin stripped,” Wells said.

He kicked Sam viciously in the ribs, choosing the scabbed-over spot where Jeptha’s bullet had burned him.

Wells’s boot thudded into Sam again and again and he gasped in pain.

“That was for my brother,” Wells said. “But it’s only a taste. Later I’ll help Jake with the skinning, and I won’t be gentle.”

Sam tried to cuss Wells but couldn’t, all the breath kicked out of him. He tried to spit at Wells, but his mouth was too dry.

But the big outlaw saw Sam make the attempt and it amused him.

Tall and terrible in the rain, Wells drew his gun.

“Pop! Once right in the belly,” he said. “Pretty soon you’d scream like Moseley did. Wouldn’t you, old-timer?”

“Go . . . to . . . hell . . . ,” Sam managed in a dry croak.

“Nah, a bullet would be too easy, too quick,” Wells said. “Best we wait for Jake and his razor, huh? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Sam said nothing, but he was scared, more scared than he’d ever been in his life.

Wells’s face took on a pretended concern. “Jeez, Pops, I wish I could give you some hope, just a glimmer to keep your spirits up, like. But I can’t. All the people you rode with are dead. There ain’t nobody coming to rescue you, and that’s real sad. I mean, sad for you.”

Wells tipped back his head and laughed, great, roaring peals that competed with the thunder and chilled Sam to the bone.

Dan Wells was still laughing when he opened the saloon door and stepped inside.

* * *

Despair gripped Sam Sawyer as the downpour lashed at him and the heavy, sullen sky threatened to fall and crush him to a pulp.

Had Wells been telling the truth? Were they all dead? Were Hannah and Lori lying out there somewhere in the wild land, their pale, dead faces turned to the rain?

A great shuddering sigh wrenched Sam’s body.

He knew then that he’d lived too long.

It was time for him to die.

The thunder roared and he closed his eyes.

Chapter 38

The .41 round from Hannah’s derringer burned across the thick meat of Santos’s left shoulder.

The man didn’t even flinch and Hannah fired her second barrel.

This time the bullet went . . . well, she didn’t know where it went. Nowhere near Santos—that was for certain.

The breed looked at his torn shirt, stained by a streak of blood, and smiled. “You’re a regular she-wolf,” he said. “It’s a quality I very much admire in a woman.”

“If I’d two more bullets I’d kill you,” Hannah said, her eyes blazing.

Santos nodded. “Yep, I guess you would at that.”

He swung out of the saddle and walked toward her through the rattle of the raking rain.

“No,” Hannah said, her voice unsteady. She backed away and searched for the hot glow in the man’s eyes.

Santos stopped and stared at the ground, shaking his head. When he looked at Hannah again, his smile was still in place. “Why does a woman, especially a homely one, think that every man she meets wants to harm her?”

Hannah was outraged. “How dare you! I’m not home—”

She saw the breed’s smile mocking her outburst, and, flustered, she chose the path of least resistance. “Will you give me the road?”

Santos swept off his hat and bowed. “Of course, dear lady.”

Soaked, her wet hair falling over her face, Hannah pulled what was left of her dignity around her like a ragged cloak.

“Then I’ll be on my way,” she said. “If you promise not to follow me.”

“I won’t come after you,” Santos said. “But how will you do it? How will you save Sam Sawyer?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll find a way.”

“Do you have money? Two hundred dollars?”

“Of course not.”

“For you, I would kill the Wells brothers for two hundred dollars.” He smiled. “My woman’s rate.”

“I’ll free Sam by myself,” Hannah said. “I don’t need your help.”

“No, you won’t free him. They’ll kill you—or worse.”

“Then that’s a chance I’ll have to take.”

“What about your daughter?”

Hannah bit her lip but made no answer.

“She is lucky to have such a mother, and your man is lucky to have such a woman,” Santos said. “Aiiiee, you are indeed a she-wolf.”

“No, I’m not. I’m scared to death,” Hannah said. “Now let me pass.”

“Where is your horse?” Santos said.

“He’s lame. I let him loose.”

“Then you have a long walk ahead of you.”

“I’ll manage,” Hannah said.

“One thing you should know,” Santos said. “I used rawhide to bind your man’s wrists and ankles.”

“What are you telling me?” Hannah said.

“Only that rawhide stretches when it is wet.”

Hannah thought about that for a few moments, then said, “Thank you.”

Santos said nothing. He stepped to his horse and swung into the wet saddle.

“Good luck,” he said, waving a careless hand.

He kneed his mount forward and Hannah watched him disappear into the rain and the scowling anger of the brawling day.

* * *

It took Hannah the better part of an hour to reach the Wells place on the Gila. The rain had swollen the river slightly and the current was much faster, but she hiked up her skirts and waded across, at one point struggling through rushing water up to her armpits.

Drenched, her hair falling over her face in tight ringlets, she reached the talus slope and started to climb.

Rivulets of rainwater ran down the incline and Hannah dislodged a shower of shingle with every step she took. She fell often and by the time she reached the rock ledge, her dress was covered in mud from neck to hem and her hands were scraped raw.

The storm had not kept its promise of continued thunder and lightning, but rain swept through the surrounding pines and a sharking wind bit deep, its breath cold.

Hannah stepped into the lee of a limestone boulder and her eyes swept the ledge.

Lamps burned in the saloon against the gloom of the day, but there was nothing human or animal in sight. Even the hog had sought shelter.

Then Hannah spotted Sam.

He lay outside the saloon, his arms and legs spread-eagled, the relentless downpour hammering him. He lay as still as death.

Hannah swallowed hard and tried to wipe rain off her face with her sleeve. The cotton came away pink, her cheek bloodied when she’d fallen on the slope and slammed into loose gravel.

What was it Santos had said? That the rawhide binding Sam’s ankles and wrists would loosen in the rain.

She hoped he was right, because she had no knife.

Down below, she heard the rain-swollen rush of the river, and higher up the slope behind the dugouts, spear-pointed pine trees poked holes in the lowering clouds.