CHAPTER EIGHT

Carmen de Menendez despised Sheriff Slim Parfitt, just as she actually despised most men. Yet she knew that he lusted after her and would damned well sell his soul if she so much as hinted that he might one day share her bed. It was, of course, an idea that repelled her, but as long as he was useful to her she was willing to play the game and string him along.

The screaming show that she put on when she ‘found’ poor little Rosalind’s body was, she felt, a masterstroke. Half of the wastrels in town witnessed it, and she massaged the fool of a sheriff’s ego so much that he got deputy Hank Bott to whip up three of the most immoral bar-dogs in town to form a posse.

They assembled at the bar of the Busted Flush Saloon.

"Why don’t you take Nantan?" she suggested, tremulously, as if the shock of finding Rosalind had shaken her to the core. "He is a good tracker."

Slim Parfitt accepted the suggestion with alacrity. "That was my very thought," he said, taking a final swig of his complementary whiskey bottle that Carmen de Menendez had instructed Manolito, her head barkeeper, to give to each member of the posse. "He will run that murdering hombre down in no time."

Carmen de Menendez watched the posse ride off, then quickly went to her private rooms, making it clear that she was going to rest and did not want to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Then she sent Leticia, her personal maid, to go and bring her horse from the livery. Then while Manolito arranged for drinks on the house, she slipped out the back of the saloon. She slung her saddle bag on the bay and slid a well-oiled Winchester into the boot.

Carmen de Menendez was a well-armed and capable woman who was not prepared to let anyone get in the way of her ambition or her destiny.

* * *

Rubal Cage had left his horse ground-tethered on the other side of the rise from the Rocking H ranch-house, then once darkness had fallen he made his way to the bunkhouse. Knowing as he did that it would be empty he had settled down to a peaceful sleep in Bill Coburn’s superior bed in the ramrod’s room.

At first light he made his way across the yard to the ranch-house, whose geography he had a vague recollection about. He let himself in by one of the downstairs windows that had been left open overnight to let some fresh air in. Once inside he grinned to himself as he realized that he had hit the jackpot on his first attempt.

Johnnie Parker was slumbering peacefully in the big brass bed. Rubal Cage crossed the room and drew out his Colt .45. He pressed the barrel against Johnnie’s temple as he simultaneously clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Not a sound, Parker!" he whispered between grated teeth. "You surprised me by still being alive, but so help me I will finish the job I started the other day if you so much as squeak." Then when Johnnie made a slight nodding movement of his head to indicate his acquiescence, he asked, "Just how come you're still here? When I shoot a man I expect him to die."

Johnnie eyed him disdainfully. "Maybe I wasn’t ready to die, Cage. And maybe I will live to see you hang, you miserable – "

Rubal Cage clamped his hand over Johnnie’s mouth again and pressed the gun muzzle harder against his temple. "I’ll give you one chance, Parker. Keep quiet until I say so, or you go to meet your maker right now."

Once again Johnnie nodded, then watched as Cage silently stepped across the room and positioned himself on the other side of the door, as if he had heard a step outside.

A split second later the door burst open and Yucatan stepped in with a handgun in his right fist. "Mister Johnnie, are you – "

He never finished the sentence as the butt of Rubal Cage’s gun thumped down on the back of his neck and the big man went sprawling face down on the floor.

Rubal Cage prodded him with his foot. "Didn’t you ever learn to knock before you come in a room?" he said with a sarcastic laugh. "Because that is what you can expect from me if you don’t." He picked up Yucatan’s gun before Johnnie Parker could even think of getting out of bed.

"Now how about we have a little word with the man of the ranch-house," he said with a malevolent grin.

* * *

Scudder had half-expected to feel the fatal thud of a bullet in his back as he labored to dig the hole with the small shovel. A strong, muscular man at the peak of fitness, yet his breathing was becoming labored in the heat of the mid-day sun as he stood in the hole that was now the depth of his shoulders.

"Don’t stop yet!" ordered Sheriff Parfitt. "You ain’t hit water yet!"

The other members of the posse went into hysterics at this and another whiskey bottle did the rounds.

"How deep a grave do you plan on me digging?" Jake asked.

"A grave?" Sheriff Parfitt repeated with mock surprise. "What makes you think you're digging a grave?"

Jake raised an eyebrow but said nothing, which provoked another outpouring of laughter from the posse members.

The sheriff suddenly let out a gasp as Nantan silently appeared, as if from nowhere and held out a sack.

"Damn it, Nantan, why do you have to sneak up like that?" Sheriff Parfitt barked, holding his hand up for Nantan to keep the sack. "And no, I don’t need to see it yet." Then turning to Jake he snarled:

"Toss that shovel out here and put your hands behind your back."

Jake obeyed and felt someone tie his hands behind him. Then he watched as the barrel-chested man with the straggly moustache picked the shovel up upon a gesture from the sheriff and began piling the sand into the hole around Jake.

"I thought you said this wasn’t a grave, Sheriff," Jake said sarcastically.

"It isn’t a grave unless you want it to be," returned Parfitt with a sly grin.

Ten minutes later only Jake Scudder’s head remained above the surface, which had been tamped down by the other posse members.

"All right, Nantan," said the sheriff. "Time to show the man his new friend."

Jake watched in horror as the young Apache opened his sack and held it steadily for a moment before darting a hand inside and catching hold of something. A moment later he withdrew his hand, which was clutching the unmistakable wriggling body of a diamondback rattlesnake.

Jake was all too aware of the film of perspiration that had developed over his brow and the thump of his rapidly beating heart. He watched in horror as Nantan held it behind its flat, triangular head and dexterously tied a loop of rope about its tail, just above its rattle. Then he signaled to Deputy Bott, who tied the other end of the rope to a wooden stake that he had already hammered into the ground about six feet away.

And then Nantan slowly lowered the snake to the ground, stretching its rope to its full extent.

"You devil!" Jake gasped, straining his head back as far as he could. He was all too aware that the distance of the stake from his head had been carefully gauged. At full stretch the rattler would be able to reach within a couple of inches of his face. If he relaxed he faced a painful death.

Sheriff Parfitt and the posse positively dissolved into hysterics at the sight of the angry snake and the clearly petrified Jake Scudder.

"Hope you have a strong neck, Scudder," laughed the sheriff. "Because that is what you would have needed if we had just hanged you. At least this way you’ve got a chance – if you can outlast the rattler!"

Hank Bott, the deputy grinned. "Of course, in this heat you are both going to get mighty dry without water or shade."

Jake was too engrossed with simple survival to reply. That the reptile was full of hate and anger was all too obvious.

"Must say it is getting hot," Sheriff Parfitt said, removing his hat and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "You might think about all the discomfort you're causing us, Scudder," he said accusingly.

The impassive Nantan tugged the sheriff’s sleeve and whispered in his ear. The sheriff grinned and nodded. "Reckon that makes sense, Nantan," he said. "Coffee and chow sounds a good idea. We'll give the bastard a bit of time with his executioner, and then we'll be back. No sense in us all burning in this heat."

He knelt beside Jake’s head and grinned. "And in case the snake doesn’t get you, just remember that I’ve got six bullets in this Peacemaker of mine – and any one of them will be enough to put you out of your misery if you just care to holler."

* * *

Elly had not felt like eating the rancid bacon or drinking the thick black Arbuckle’s coffee that the two men gave her. However, she was all too aware that she would need her strength and her wits about her no matter what happened. They had locked her in the dark, windowless back room of a cabin in the Pintos that she had little doubt would be almost impossible to find. A solitary guttering candle was her only illumination.

The fact that the men made no attempt to cover their faces alarmed her no end. Even more disconcerting, they didn’t even bother to conceal their names from her. And indeed, she was almost sure that one of them had worked for her father for a while, until he had fired him.

"Damn it, Hog," she heard the younger one, the coarse featured one with a lazy eye, say as he closed and bolted the door behind him, "she’s a looker. Why for two cents –"

"For two cents you'll keep your trap shut," said the other, the one Elly noticed had a badly bandaged ear. "We're here to do a job, that’s all. You know what Rubal said – keep our eyes peeled and be ready to shoot."

Elly had been about to take another sip of her coffee, but she stopped with the tin mug halfway to her lips when she heard the name.

Cage? Rubal Cage? She was sure that she had heard that name several times before. Then she remembered. He had been the ramrod of the Double J, she was sure. And Jeb Jackson had fired him because of some trouble with the way he looked after the horses and critters. And there were other, darker rumors that made her spine shiver.

What do they want of me? she thought, once again trying to puzzle out the whole situation. It seemed clear that these men had been involved in the rustling, no doubt with others who had probably been paid off after the herd had been sold to the C & SW Cattle Company. And so where did Rubal Cage fit in? Were they planning to hold her for ransom in the mistaken belief that Saul would be able to raise any money at all?

A thought struck her and she willed herself to chew on the bacon. Perhaps Rubal Cage’s dismissal had all been a ploy. What if he was still working for Jeb Jackson, albeit clandestinely?

Questions! Just questions and suppositions, she thought with a frown. And in part that frown was aimed at Jake Scudder, the man who had said so confidently that he was going to look after her. Well, where was he? She swallowed the bacon and took a hefty gulp of the strong black coffee.

Whoring, that was where! she concluded. Probably still loitering about in bed with one of the girls from the Busted Flush Saloon! At the very thought she pushed the plate aside and grasped the spoon – the only utensil they had given her. "You are on your own, Elly Horrocks," she whispered to herself. "Fine! That means you have to get yourself out of this prison before those devils out there come in and try to rape you, or – or worse."

And getting up she surveyed the interior of the room with its dirt floor. As quietly as she could she went and tested each of the wooden slats that made up the walls. To her chagrin she realized that none of them were loose or weak anywhere. And that meant that her only way out was going to be through the floor.

She drew a deep breath, pulling her stomach in as far as she could, as she tried to assess how deep she was going to have to burrow.

"No time to waste, then," she mused. And settling down on her knees she began to dig the dirt floor by the far wall with her spoon.

* * *

The sun had long since reached its zenith and Jake felt the exposed skin on his neck and face begin to burn, sure that in some parts blisters were beginning to rise.

From a distance away he heard the ever-more raucous banter of the posse as they cooked a meal and drank more whiskey. Despite his predicament, however, such was his approach to life and all that it could throw at him, he would not allow himself to permit the thought of defeat or despair. There was no way that he would give up in his struggle to survive, and give the sadistic sheriff the pleasure of seeing him beg for a bullet in the brain.

"I just wish I had a hat," he mumbled to himself. Then, perhaps partly from semi-delirium as he lost body fluid and partly from his steely personality, he found himself grinning at the thought of his head with a Stetson sticking out of the sand, with a rattler trying to give him a kiss on the nose.

As he thought it the flat head made a lunge at him, as if divining his thought.

"You sure are an angry varmint, aren’t you?" he asked the snake. "I don’t suppose there would be much use me trying to sing to you or whistle a bit. I can’t see that would calm you down any."

But as he looked into the snake’s eyes it seemed that all he could see was hate. As if it was determined to kill this creature who was sharing its captivity and its experience of the baking early afternoon sun.

Jake’s neck was aching almost beyond endurance as he strove to keep himself as far from the snake as possible. Indeed, so focused upon the rattlesnake was he, its head mere inches from his own, that he failed to hear the approach of another.

A hand suddenly clamped itself over his face, pulling his head back at such an angle that he feared for a moment his neck would snap. Then he saw another hand appear with the long double-edged blade of a hunting knife. It glistened in the sun.

He realized that his throat was now exposed and he shut his eyes and gritted his teeth as he waited to feel the blade flash across to slit his throat.