Shawn O’Brien sat in a circle with four other men, Tweedy, Lowth, Creeds, and the Topock Kid. Facing out, their backs to each other, none of them moved. Movement was impossible, bound tightly as they were with ship’s ropes.
Lowth’s bowler had holes fore and aft, the result of a walnut-size chunk of shrapnel that had burned across the top of his head and drawn blood. “What will they do with us, do you think, Mr. Tweedy?” he said. Before the other man could answer, he added, “I must admit that I fear the worst.”
“Well, they took us prisoner instead of killin’ us outright, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “I’d say that’s a good sign.”
Because of the seating arrangement, Silas Creeds was forced to talk over his shoulder. “They’ll kill us before they sail. The damned pirates are swarming all over the boat, getting her ready for sea.”
Without the threat of his guns, Creeds seemed diminished, just a tall, skinny man in an oversized coat and battered top hat with fear in his eyes.
“Are you of the same opinion, Mr. O’Brien?” Lowth asked.
“Creeds said it right,” Shawn answered.
“Then we’re done for.” Lowth sighed.
“Damn you, hangman, do you always state the obvious? Of course we’re done for.” Creeds strained against his bonds. “Damn these ropes. Damn them, damn them, damn them!”
Creeds’ outburst earned him a kick from one of their guards. The man pushed the muzzle of his rifle against Creeds’ head and said, “Bang!” and the men with him laughed.
Shawn had no illusions about his fate. The Arabs would not let them live.
He looked to where Julia and the rest of the women were crowded together on the beach under heavy guard. The guards and the Arabs on the schooner shouted back and forth to one another and it seemed to Shawn that they were planning to load the women soon.
But a sailing ship needed wind, and the afternoon was dead calm. Unless she could be rowed out in the hope of catching a favorable breeze in the gulf, the schooner was going nowhere that day.
A persistent buzzing he’d been hearing for some time made Shawn turn his head and look at the place where the bomb had exploded. The whole blood-splashed area was thick with flies, black clouds of them gorging on the remains of what had once been men. And a woman, he reminded himself. For her, death had come fast.
“Hey, something’s happening.” The Kid’s swollen eyes strained in the direction of the ship.
The slavers around the ramp bowed low, kowtowing to a creature being led from the ship by the tall man who’d killed Zeb Moss.
“It’s a woman,” Creeds said.
“No, it ain’t,” Tweedy disagreed. “It’s some kind of animal.”
“Wearing clothes, you idiot?” Creeds grumbled.
“Then it’s an animal wearing clothes.” Tweedy didn’t back down.
The creature was sexless, a bent, frail shape wearing a brown, hooded cloak. The feet were large, the long toenails like curled horns and the skinny arm the Arab supported with his was wrinkled and as big around as a willow twig. Its face was hidden by the hood. Even when the creature stopped in front of Shawn and the others they couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
“For those of you who don’t know, my name is Sheik Abdul-Basir Hakim,” the tall Arab said. “I trust you gentlemen are quite comfortable and your needs have been attended to.”
“You go to hell.” Tweedy spat at the slaver’s feet.
Hakim nodded. “A brave infidel, is he not, sorceress?”
So she was female, Shawn thought. And she looked to be about a hundred years old . . . or two hundred.
“Let us see if you are as brave after my soothsayer pronounces your sentence,” Hakim said. “I must warn you that she is not a merciful woman.”
The woman pushed back her hood and revealed a face deeply furrowed by a long passage of time. Strands of thin white hair fell to her scrawny neck. She had a small hook of a nose and her black eyes were sunken in the sockets.
She stood over Tweedy, sniffed the air, and said something to Hakim in a language Shawn did not understand.
The Arab laughed. “She smells bear, old man. Do you consort with bears?”
Tweedy looked shocked and said nothing.
The crone moved on to Lowth and again she smelled the air around him. She again spoke to the sheik in the language Shawn didn’t understand.
The sheik explained. “The smell of death is all about you, infidel. Are you an executioner?”
“I am a hangman,” Lowth said. “It is an ancient and honorable profession.”
Suddenly the sorceress cackled and she spoke longer.
After she’d finished talking, Hakim smiled. “Ah, that is so exquisite, old woman.” He loomed over Lowth. “You will hang your companions from the yards of my ship. In return, you can have your own miserable life.”
“And if I don’t?” Lowth asked bravely.
The sheik spoke to the witch and she spoke again.
He nodded. “If you don’t, the bellies of you and your companions will be cut open until your guts spill, then you will all be buried alive in the same pit.”
“Then I’ll do as you say.” Lowth’s face was ashen, like that of a dead man.
Hakim smiled. His hazel eyes looked like mildewed brass. “The executions will be tomorrow at first light before we sail, hangman. One word of advice. Do not tie the knots too tightly. My men will wish to see the infidels dance.”
Tweedy, red with anger, nodded at the crone. “Is she your wife, Abdul? She’s as damned ugly as you are.”
The sheik smiled again. “And you, my bear-loving friend, will dance longest of all.”
“Thankee, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “Gettin’ hung by a friend is a sight better way to go than a cuttin’ an’ buryin’.”
“He ain’t no friend of mine.” Creeds turned his head and glared at Lowth. “You do it right, mister. Break my damned neck.”
“Or what?” Shawn asked, smiling.
Creeds was silent. There was no answer to that question.
“I am,” Lowth said softly, “much distressed. I wish my dear wife was here to give me counsel and succor.”
“It’s not your fault, Thaddeus,’ Shawn pointed out. “The Arab offered you a choice that was no choice at all. You gave him the only answer you could.”
“I’ve never hung friends before.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy’s face suddenly brightened. “Here, do you think that old hag really smelled bear on me?”
“It would seem so, Mr. Tweedy,” Lowth said. “That was a most singular occurrence.”
“I bet it’s the ol’ she bear I slept with during the winter of ’82. Her smell must’ve rubbed off on me.” Tweedy bent his head to look at Shawn. “What’s your opinion on that, O’Brien?”
“I’d say it seems likely,” Shawn agreed. “I reckon you haven’t taken a bath since.”
“Bathing gives a man the rheumatisms, boy. Hell, everybody knows that.”
“Shut the hell up!” Creeds yelled. “All of you! Let a man have some peace.”
“Seeing ghosts, Creeds?” Shawn asked.
He expected the gunman to curse him, but Creeds surprised him by saying, “Yeah, every damned one of them I ever kilt. They’re out there in the desert, watching me. Saying nothing, just standing there, staring at me.”
“Must be quite a crowd,” Shawn said.
Creeds tilted back his head and yelled, “I done for all you blackguards once and I’ll do you again! Now leave me the hell alone!”
“Easy, Creeds,” Shawn advised. “Take your medicine like a man.”
Creeds slumped. “Ain’t you afraid of dying, O’Brien?”
“Yeah, I am. But there isn’t much I can do about it.” Shawn nodded to their alert, hostile guards. “Those gents are a pretty determined bunch.”
Creeds’ gaze moved to the desert where thin shadows stretched among the scrub. “You see them boys out there, O’Brien?”
“No. They’re hanging heavy on your conscience, Creeds, not mine.”
“Then be damned to you for a preaching fool,” Creeds said. “I should’ve gunned you when I had the chance.”
Shawn said nothing and looked over at the schooner. Sailors swarmed over the ship, readying her for sea, and men were aloft in the yards.
He had until dawn. It was not a long time for a man to live, but time enough to make his peace with God.