CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
As they had been doing since the morning after they had wiped out that gang of rustlers to the last man, Jed Breen kept his double-action Colt pressed against the back of Charlotte Platte’s head and Sean Keegan kept his Springfield carbine pointed in the general direction of Otto Kruger, while Matt McCulloch unlocked the manacles from the widowmaker’s wrists and ankles. Wooden Arm just stared at the proceedings, wondering what these strange white men were doing . . . again.
After gathering the iron bracelets, McCulloch and Breen backed away from the woman.
“Now,” McCulloch ordered, “Strip.” He drew his Colt and waved the barrel.
“You’re pigs,” she said that morning. Sometimes she used a tongue significantly more virile than pigs, or hogs, or brutes, or even stronger than “Dirty rotten scoundrels.”
She tossed her hat into the dirt. The shirt went over her head, and she pitched it with more profanity in front of the former Texas Ranger’s boots. Still standing, she managed to pull down the men’s pants they had given her, and kicked them close to the shirt. She wore no socks. Jed Breen had reminded them of the days when he had a partner, Mikey Maxwell, and they had captured Garry Cartwright. Garry had taken off his boots, removed his socks, knotted them together and strangled Maxwell to death, stolen the horse, and rode out for Mexico. He made across the border, too, but bounty hunters don’t have to follow certain rules like extradition and international boundaries, and Breen eventually found the killer in Nogales and brought him back, strapped over a pack mule with a bullet through his heart.
“All the way,” McCulloch told her.
“You’re sick. All three of you. And so is the red savage.” But she pulled down her bottoms, then took off her muslin chemise, and stood before the three men, the salivating Otto Kruger, and even the Indian teen who stared with wide eyes at the sight of her. Breen moved over to her undergarments and began shaking them out.
“Remember,” Keegan said as he positioned himself so he could blow Otto Kruger to hell if he burped too loudly but still get an eyeful of the beautiful murderess. “Tomorrow, it’s ol’ Sean Keegan’s turn to pull that duty with her unmentionables.”
“Filthy, dirty, miserable, disgusting, perverted pigs,” Charlotte Platte said.
When Breen had finished his search, he looked at McCulloch, shook his head, and back toward the widowmaker. He tossed the undergarments to the prisoner, and aimed his Colt at her while Matt McCulloch holstered his pistol and went through her shirt and pants. Finding nothing, he threw them into the pile at the naked woman’s feet.
“The boots,” Breen reminded her, waving the barrel.
Those contained nothing but sand, but Breen dumped the grains out, pitched the battered old cavalry style boots back to her, and stood, then kicked at the sand, just in case.
“Do I have permission to get dressed, you stinking—?” She stopped when McCulloch walked to her, keeping the cocked revolver trained on her chest.
The others watched intently, but made no sound. McCulloch stopped, the gun barrel resting just below her perfect bosoms, and then he reached forward and jerked off the necklace, snapping the small silver chain.
“Hey.” Her eyes flashed with bitter hatred, but the Colt stopped her from coming any closer to him.
“We checked that yesterday, Matt,” Breen said. “And the day before.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning the medallion around, looking for some secret opening, but the damned thing was solid, heavy like a piece of gold.
“We also haven’t been poisoned lately,” Keegan said.
“Yeah.” Matt McCulloch held the spinning circle about the size of a double eagle coin, in front of the killer. “What is this to you?”
She stared into his suspicious eyes. “Just a gift.”
“From anyone special?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then you won’t miss it.” He jerked his arm back and threw it to the desert floor.
She turned, gasped, then swore, and looked at him with even more hatred, but McCulloch was walking back.
“I’m not taking any chances,” he said. “She killed that rustler somehow, and I’m not giving her any opportunity to do one or all of us in the same way.”
“Hell, Matt,” Keegan said. “Maybe she’s just a witch.”
“Wrong consonant,” McCulloch said.
Keegan frowned. Breen chuckled. “I’ll explain it to you over supper, Sergeant.”
“Put your duds on,” McCulloch said, and slowly slid his revolver into the holster. “We’re burning daylight.”
They watched the woman dress, and when she had finished and pulled on her hat, Wooden Arm led the horse to her. Before she mounted, Charlotte Poison Platte knew what to do. She held out her arms, clenched her fists, and waited for Matt McCulloch to lock the cuffs back over her wrists. When he didn’t, she mounted the smallest of the horses they had confiscated from the dead rustlers and waited. The leg irons would wait until the day was finished.
McCulloch was already in the saddle. “You know what to do,” he told her after shoving her ankle chains into his saddlebag. “Same as the past week. Let’s get these ponies moving.”
Breen had already mounted his horse, and Wooden Arm was gathering the hackamore to his pony. Sean Keegan stayed afoot for a moment, making sure Otto Kruger got into the driver’s box on the covered wagon. The scar-faced murderer looked at the old horse soldier after he had settled into his seat.
“Vie do voman go vitout chains?” he asked, like he did every morning. “I drive vagon good. I help.”
“You’re a big help. I’ll be sure to mention that to the hangman in Precious Metal.”
The chains rattled, but not loud enough to hide his curse, and Keegan laughed as the ugly man grabbed the leather and whipped out at the animals that pulled the wagon. By that time, Keegan had found the reins to his horse, and he swung into the McClellan saddle.
“I don’t see how you sit in one of those things,” Breen said, waiting for the soldier before they rode to the herd. “You bounce all over that little thing.”
“Aye.” The Irishman grinned. “I wish we had an extra saddle so we could watch that Miss Platte bounce around.”
“Careful,” Breen said with a grin.
“Aye, lad, I know, I know. But for a mad-dog killer, she sure is a woman to look at. Handsome. Downright beautiful for a woman not blessed to have been born in Ireland.”
“Yeah.” Breen pulled the reins to turn the horse around. “But that rustler might have been handsome, too, before he drank whatever Poison Platte offered him. You best remember that. For that fellow sure didn’t look like much after he drank her brew.”
“Which is why we search her every day.” They started at a trot toward the mustangs. “I wonder if that dead man knows what a blessing he gave us. Maybe he saved our lives. And let us peer at a goddess as the rays of dawn bathed her in all her morning glory.”
“Hell, Sean,” Breen said. “I never knew you were a poet.”
“But now you know it.” He laughed at his rhyme, and nudged his horse to the rear of the herd.
* * *
So the days went, morning after morning—even the occasional surprise search during a noon stop. The widowmaker called them paranoids, and Breen explained that word to Keegan, too. When Keegan pointed out that they had found nothing on her person in two weeks, McCulloch ordered that the German start stripping, too.
“Matt,” Keegan pleaded. “I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
“She killed that rustler somehow,” McCulloch roared. “She can do us the same way, and I’m not dying like that.”
“But do we have to search that Kruger’s clothes?”
“Yes, damn it. Do you want to cough out all the blood in your body?”
“There’s no blood, left, me boy. It’s nothing but whiskey and a pint or thirty of good stout porter beer.”
“Kruger strips. All the way.”
Keegan sighed. “And I suppose we have to search his clothes the same way.”
Breen laughed. “Don’t worry, Sergeant. I’ll make sure you get the murdering Hun’s underdrawers.”
* * *
When they turned west, they slowed the animals. The wind blew thick clouds of dust, and riding into the sinking sun in the afternoons practically blinded them. This was tough country for anyone, even those like Keegan, Breen, and McCulloch who lived in tough country.
Breen developed a theory that Poison Platte found her killer herbs or powders in the desert, but that maybe they had passed where such poisonous plants no longer grew.
“Don’t give Matt any ideas,” Keegan chimed in. “There’s not a bloody thing to see in this whole country, so please don’t deny me—or any of us—our one look at pure beauty.”
McCulloch did not. He would not. He knew she had poison somewhere, but damned if he could find it.
“You could search her cavities,” Breen suggested.
“Her teeth are perfect,” Keegan said.
“That’s not what I meant,” Breen said.
Understanding, Keegan chuckled and looked at the former Ranger.
“I don’t want to touch her anywhere,” McCulloch said, “just in case her damned skin is covered with poison. But I’ll be damned if I’m sticking my fingers anywhere indecent.”
“What do you know about decency, you lout?” the murderess said.
Matt McCulloch’s eyes ripped through her like a. 45 slug. “What do you know about decency? You murdered that rustler.”
“And you’re damned glad I did. For he would have killed you, too.”
“Maybe. I doubt it. He wasn’t very good at rustling. But you also poisoned fifteen miners in Arizona. That’s why there’s a five thousand dollar reward on you. Imagine it would have been even higher if seven of those lucky fools hadn’t survived.
“I shoot a man when he’s facing me. Always. You put something in their food, coffee, or whiskey. You didn’t give those poor men a chance at all.
Breen corrected McCullock. “Two were women. Well, one was a woman. The other was a girl.”
McCulloch swore with venom.
“I had my reasons,” the widowmaker said.
“And I have mine,” McCulloch said. He drew his revolver. “Take off your clothes. Again.”
* * *
The next morning, McCulloch realized the mistake he might have been making. After the search, and after breakfast, and when nobody began bleeding profusely from the mouth, and fell over, gagging, crying, and begging to be put out of his misery, McCulloch made her strip again.
“A grand idea, Matt,” Sean Keegan said. “Two peep shows in the morning. Maybe we should do it at night again.”
“We might,” McCulloch said.
The woman fumed, but she took off her clothes, which once again McCulloch and Breen went through meticulously without finding anything. They tossed the clothes back to her.
“You’ll never get to Precious Metal if you keep up with your damned perversions. Like you say”—she shoved on her hat—“we’re burning daylight.”
“Yeah,” McCulloch said. “So in the morning, you take off your clothes the minute you wake up, then you go attend to nature’s call, and you get dressed before we leave.”
“You’re all sick puppies,” she said. “Haven’t you any decency?”
McCulloch tipped his hat. “Most jackals don’t, ma’am,” he said, before turning around to climb into his saddle.