KYLE KEEGAN RESTED his bulk on an upended box beneath a pine tree that occasionally dropped needles onto the wide brim of his hat. Before him was a barrel that he used as a magistrate’s bench. He eyed the three culprits who had failed to intercept Hawk on his way up canyon. They stood stiffly, apprehensive. Ringed behind them were the remnants of Keegan’s outlaw band. He would not; recruit replacements for those Hawk had killed because with payment of the ransom, Keegan intended to quit the territory.
“You three had a jug,” Keegan began reciting the charges, “you were playin’ cards when you should’ve had your eyes on the road.”
Burke fingered his beard and mumbled, “It’ll never happen again.”
It was the wrong thing for Burke to say. One of the onlookers snickered. Keegan agreed. “Yeah, it sure won’t happen again.”
Keegan noticed that Colonel Spate, standing beside the barrel, was glowering as he fingered three deep scratches on the right cheek. There were spots of blood on the beard. Amalie Hitchburn had proved to be a tigress when Spate tried to explain why he had had to use her as a shield in order to capture Hawk. It secretly amused Keegan because the colonel was so damned superior, so sure of himself where it came to women.
Spate pointed at the accused—Burke, Teale and a man named Orland. “We need every man, Kyle.”
Keegan scratched at chest hair that bulged at his collar, pretending to think about it. He had already made up his mind, however. He waited for Spate to make another plea to at least spare the life of Teale, who was one of the colonel’s favorites. Earlier Spate had argued for clemency.
At the moment, Keegan enjoyed prolonging the agony because Spate was squirming. And his squirming had only begun. Because Spate was already doomed. Once the woman was returned and the money collected, Keegan would call a halt, pretending to split the money. When Spate reached for his share, Keegan would kill him.
Not an instant death, but lingering; he wanted Spate in his final agony to ponder the many mistakes, the planned treachery. He was well aware of what went on in the colonel’s mind. Keegan believed in being more direct. A shot in the stomach, for instance, was more effective than such tortures as the death cage. A man died in as much pain and terror with his guts blown apart by a lead bullet as he did with steel points slowly pushing into the flesh.
Spate was making another plea for the lives of the three accused. “We need them, Kyle,” Spate said, “especially Teale. Nobody can break horses like that man.”
Keegan had been waiting for this. “Most hosses we steal are already broke to saddle,” he said with deceptive mildness. “Come to think of it, I never really watched Teale bust a hoss.”
Spate stepped closer to the box where Keegan bulked. “What’ve you got in mind, Kyle?” he demanded in low-voiced fury.
“I’m still runnin’ things?” Keegan asked quietly, turning his round head so that the small eyes raked Spate’s clawed face.
“That has nothing to do with this!” Spate flung out a hand to the three men now losing color as it dawned on them that this was to be no reprimand, but death.
“Let me handle it, Colonel,” Keegan said, his pistol loose so he could grab it.
“Do what you want with the other two,” Spate said, leaning down to Keegan’s hairy ear. “Leave Teale out of it.”
Standing to one side of Spate, her face drawn, eyes swollen from her weeping, was Amalie Hitchburn. She had been dragged from her quarters at Keegan’s order.
Keegan said, “You ever seen a man die, Mrs. Hitchburn?”
“Yes.”
This surprised him. “Where?”
Her blue eyes were filled with loathing as well as fear. “The night I was kidnapped. You cut a man’s throat with your knife.”
“You’re goin’ to see real death this time, Mrs. Hitchburn,” Keegan said. “Teale’s goin’ to bust a hoss for us.”
Meg awakened to the murmur of voices, wondering what was happening out in the yard. Last night it seemed that every man in camp had come visiting. As she lay in bed, yawning, Meg thought of Amalie Hitchburn, that round-eyed innocent. She wished Keegan would make Amalie pay for clawing the colonel’s face by tying her to the bed and whistling for his men.
Meg liked the colonel, though Trudy despised him. The colonel had always treated Meg like a lady. She was enjoying her favorite fantasy: Meg and the colonel on a ship out of Vera Cruz, heading for that far place called Argentina, with the ransom money in black leather satchels. Meg’s freckled throat would be draped with pearls and her gown would be of finest Chinese silk—
A man’s sudden scream brought her upright in bed. Trudy, from another bedroom, cried, “Look what they’re doin’ to Teale!”
Meg rolled her voluptuous naked body from the bed, reached for a green wrapper and hurried to a window where Trudy was crouched.
Through the trees she could see a shaken Teale, hands tied to the saddle horn astride a buckskin that fidgeted. It frothed around the bit in its mouth. Two men held it by a headstall as they led it to a corral.
Meg studied Teale’s pale face, the shock of tawny hair that spilled across his forehead. He had not been among the men who had come to her last night. She had been glad. Because sometimes she would have to suffer pain. He would use the points of his nails and twist fingers cruelly into the flesh.
“They’re goin’ to kill him,” Trudy breathed.
Meg started to laugh, then felt a shred of pity. “Do they have to kill him that way?” She had seen it done before and it was not a pretty sight.
Last night, when she learned Orland and Burke were locked together in one cell, Teale in another, she had counted her blessings.
But what Keegan intended to do to Teale was inhuman.