CHAPTER 37
“There you go, little girl,” Gerta said, slamming a tin plate down on the table before Hattie. “A plate of beans for you. Now that Daddy and I have eaten, you can eat, too. You eat last. After we’ve dined. Consider it a privilege you don’t deserve!”
Gerta was crouched over Hattie, the fat woman’s mannish face only six inches from Hattie’s. Gerta had the flat, menacing eyes of a wild dog.
“Th-thank you,” Hattie said, cowering from the explosive woman’s anger.
Gerta kept her head close to Hattie’s, staring at her as though she wanted to shove her hand down her throat, rip out her beating heart, and eat it right there before her helpless, trussed-up prey.
Hattie stared down at the steaming plate. There weren’t many beans on it, and no bread to go with it.
That was just fine. Hattie wasn’t one bit hungry. She hated the fear she felt toward this animal-like woman glaring down at her from six inches away, but there it was.
“I suppose,” Gerta said, spitting the words out like prune pits, “you think I should untie your hands so you can eat!”
Hattie swallowed. “I guess I don’t see how I could eat otherwise.”
“Well, I sure as hell am not going to feed you like a baby—now, am I?” Gerta slammed her pudgy fist down on the table beside Hattie, making the plate leap.
Hattie leaped in her chair, startled and terrified. “No . . . no, I don’t suppose you would do that, Gerta.”
“You’re right—I wouldn’t!”
Gerta stepped away to grab a skinning knife off the table, from the far end, near the dry sink, where she’d cut ham to cook with the beans. Her own plate as well as Daddy’s plate remained on the table. There were also the remains of a grainy loaf of bread and some cheese.
A hurricane lamp hung over the table by a rope attached to a nail in a rafter. The table was lit in a watery, bleached-out light, leaving the rest of the kitchen and the large house beyond it in deep, mysterious darkness. Hattie could hear Daddy and several men talking outside in the yard, not far from the front door, which was closed now against the high-mountain chill.
Hattie sensed the men’s and Gerta’s nervousness about the men they’d sent up to the mine. Hattie shared the same apprehension. Not for the Spanish Bit men, of course, but for Slash and Pecos. Were they up there? Had they run into the Spanish Bit riders?
Were they still alive?
Hattie was more than a little apprehensive about her own fate as well. Her ankles were tied tightly together beneath her hide-bottom chair. Her wrists were just as snugly tied behind her back. She felt like a lamb trussed up for butchering. As if her predicament wasn’t bad enough, Gerta acted as though she couldn’t wait to kill her and would do so in a heartbeat if Hattie merely looked at her wrong.
Gerta moved back toward Hattie with the skinning knife. She stepped around behind Hattie, standing behind the young Pinkerton for several seconds. Hattie’s skin crawled. She could hear Gerta breathing back there; she could see the woman’s shadow angling back over her left shoulder. But she couldn’t see the woman herself.
Hattie gritted her teeth, felt her stomach tighten, wondering if the skinning knife was about to be stuck in her back.
“What’s the matter?” Gerta asked in her dull, toneless voice. “Scared?”
Hattie didn’t say anything.
“Huh?” Gerta asked, louder, even more belligerently. “You scared?”
“Yes, yes, Gerta, I’m scared. Of course, I’m scared.”
“Good,” Gerta said, sounding delighted but still angry. “You should be scared!”
Hattie felt Gerta saw through the ropes binding her hands behind her back. She squeezed her eyes shut in dread. She was sure the woman was going to cut her, to make her pay for some perceived slight.
She was surprised when her hands came free without a nick. Gerta stepped up beside her and slammed the knife into the table, where it quivered wildly before dwindling to stillness.
“There you go. Eat your beans.” Gerta moved around the table and picked up the old Spencer rifle she’d leaned against a ceiling support post, within easy reach of the chair she’d been sitting in when she and the man called Greenleaf, or “Daddy,” had eaten supper. “I’m gonna go outside an’ confer with Daddy.”
Hattie saw her eyes flick toward the knife embedded in the center of the table, within Hattie’s reach. Gerta’s mouth corners betrayed a fleeting humor, challenging Hattie to pull the knife out of the table. The woman opened the door and clomped out. Daddy had just come up on the porch.
“Any sign of the men?” Gerta asked him.
“Not yet, honey.”
“Soon, though—don’t you think, Daddy?”
“If they’re going to ride back tonight, I’d think they’d be back soon, honey. But there’s a chance they dealt with what they had to deal with up there, and they decided to spend the night. I saw clouds up there on the mountain. Likely snow on the trail, and that’s a dangerous trail down over them rocks.”
“You don’t suppose we have to worry they’d run off with the gold—do you, Daddy?” Gerta asked.
“No, no. Our men are loyal. We pay them well, give them plenty of time to sow their wild oats in Mexico and California. Besides”—Daddy chuckled—“they know our reputations well enough to know that if they ever tried such a thing, we’d stalk them to the ends of the earth to get our reckoning.”
Gerta laughed her weird, snickering, snorting laugh. “Ain’t that the truth, Daddy?”
The door opened suddenly, and Daddy ducked through it. Hattie jerked with a start. She’d been sitting in her chair, staring at the beans on her plate, not eating, listening to the conversation out on the porch. Now she felt vaguely sheepish as she sat there, not having touched her supper.
“Hey, now—that won’t do, Gerta,” Daddy admonished his daughter, pointing at the knife embedded in the table. “That simply won’t do! What’re you tryin’ to do—get that poor girl killed? Leavin’ such a temptation as that, an’ her hands untied!”
Daddy stomped over to the table, pulled the knife out of the heavy oak plank, and threw it onto a shelf. Swinging back toward Gerta, he scowled at her, browbeating her. She stood to Hattie’s left, off the end of the table, pooching her lips out guiltily.
Finally, Daddy chuckled, shook his head. “You’re up to your old, crazy tricks again—aren’t you, honey? Always got badness on your mind. Poison mean you are, deep down.”
“Just like you, Daddy, I reckon.” Gerta smiled, her full, pale cheeks reddening with pride.
“I reckon so, I reckon so.” Daddy chuckled.
“What’re we gonna do with her, Daddy? Once the trouble up there on the mountain’s been taken care of.”
“Well, then, I reckon we won’t need her anymore.”
Gerta’s breathing seemed to quicken. Her eyes glittered as she stared at Daddy, her lips spreading another delighted smile. She looked like a snake with the prospect of a rabbit supper making its rattles quake.
“Too bad.” Daddy came over and stared down at Hattie. He slid her hair back from her cheek, appraised her with his dull, dark-brown gaze, which was impossible to read.
Hattie was glad it was. She had a feeling the evil she might see behind those eyes, lying raw as freshly ground beef inside the man’s cold soul, would turn her inside out with fear. Gerta wore her evil on her sleeve. Daddy’s was tucked away inside him, concealed and disguised maybe even to himself, which would likely make its manifestation all the more surprising and horrifying.
These were bad people. Hattie had known bad people before, back in Chicago, where she’d been plying her Pinkerton skills before being sent out here on this job running down the gold thieves. But now she realized she really hadn’t known what bad was. At least, she hadn’t known before she’d met Daddy and Gerta.
Now she was getting a nice big double dose of the knowledge. She hoped she’d live to use it.
“Yes, too bad,” Daddy said again with a weary sigh, letting Hattie’s hair flop back against her cheek. He looked at Gerta and said with a devilish, faintly mocking edge, “Such a pretty, pretty girl. Have you ever seen a young woman more beautiful, honey?”
Gerta’s cheeks flushed again, this time with raw hatred. Her eyes narrowed at Hattie as she said, “Oh, I don’t think she’s all that purty, Daddy. At least, she ain’t gonna be nearly so purty when I’m finished with her!”
She rose up and down on the toes of her stovepipe boots.
Daddy chuckled, bemused by his daughter, in whom he obviously saw so much of himself. He stretched, yawned, and pulled his baggy canvas trousers up his broad, bony hips. “I’m tired. The men are gonna stay up, keepin’ an eye out for possible trouble.” He glanced at Hattie. “In case there are any more Pinkerton agents lurking around this end of the valley. Me, I’m old an’ tired. I’m gonna hit the old mattress sack.”
“I’ll stay awake, too, Daddy,” Gerta said. She walked around to the other side of the table and plopped down in the chair across from Hattie. She scowled over the table at the young Pinkerton and said, “I’m gonna stay awake all night long, keeping careful watch on the Pink here.”
“Don’t kill her, honey,” Daddy admonished. “Not until I say you can. Hear?”
“Don’t I always do as you say, Daddy?”
Daddy chuckled, walked over, bent down, and pressed his lips to Gerta’s greasy head. He squeezed her shoulder, looked at Hattie, gave her a lewd wink that put ice in her blood, then swung around to the stairs and climbed up into the second story.
Gerta leaned back in her chair and rested her rifle across her lap. “Go ahead an’ eat,” she ordered. “We don’t let food go to waste around here, little girl!”
* * *
Hattie choked the beans down.
She didn’t see that she had a choice. Anyway, she needed sustenance. It would likely be a long night and an even longer day tomorrow. Or maybe not all that long. If Slash and Pecos were dead, Hattie would likely soon follow the old cutthroats to her own unmarked grave.
Still, she needed to eat. Anxiety had used up her energy, and she needed to replace it, in case she needed it again.
She was glad she did eat the beans. It turned out she needed the energy, after all. Gerta didn’t stay awake long. In fact, after only about a half hour of sitting in the chair across from Hattie, glaring at her stonily, Gerta’s eyes grew heavy. Soon her chin was sagging to her chest, and she was snoring. She sat like that, waking briefly from time to time, but mostly sitting there with her head sagging or wobbling around on her shoulders, snoring almost as loudly as Slash and Pecos had snored in camp.
While Gerta slept, Hattie worked on the ropes binding her wrists. She worked on them off and on all night long, taking short breaks to rest. Gerta had tied the ropes tightly around Hattie’s wrists, but Hattie worked on them, moving her hands around steadily, trying to loosen the knots, which she did by increments so small as to be almost unnoticeable during any given hour.
By dawn, she was exhausted from her efforts. Her wrists were raw and bloody, and they burned. She had, however, loosened the ropes enough to make her hopeful that, if the snoring Gerta, and Daddy, also snoring in the second story, would keep on snoring for another hour, she might be able to free herself and make her escape. She doubted she could make it through the barrier of tough nuts on patrol around the ranch, whom she’d heard milling in the yard from time to time all night, but she had no choice but to try.
Hattie Friendly was not one to give up, even when the odds were piled high against her.
She gave a rare curse, however, when, about a half hour later, Daddy stopped snoring in the room above her. The old man grunted and mumbled to himself. Hattie heard the creaking of a bed and the chirp of a floorboard as the old man rose and then the pounding as he stomped into his boots.
Gerta heard the pounding in the ceiling and snapped her own head up with a loud, “Wha . . . ?” She jerked up her rifle, squeezing it in her hands and glaring suspiciously across the table at Hattie. “Wha . . . what are you up to, little girl?”
Daddy came thundering down the stairs. “Horses . . .”
“What’s goin’ on, Daddy?” Gerta asked, looking around anxiously.
Hattie looked around, too, as she heard hooves thudding and men shouting.
“Sounds like we’re under attack!” Daddy gained the bottom of the stairs and pulled an old-model Winchester rifle off two pegs in the kitchen’s front wall, then, pumping a round into the breech, walked over to the window to the right of the door. Gerta rose and hurried to the window and stood gazing out into the yard with her father.
Beyond them, Hattie saw several horses just then ride into the yard, galloping around from behind the house, on the right side. Hattie couldn’t tell how many horses there were—maybe a half-dozen or so. None appeared to be carrying riders.
No. That wasn’t right, she saw as she turned her head this way and that to see around Daddy and Gerta standing in the window before her. The horses were carrying riders, all right. Only the riders were tied belly down across their saddles. They were wrapped in yellow oilskins that only partly concealed them. Their heads and arms flopped down the near sides of the saddles, fingers nearly brushing the ground.
The yellow rain slickers were thickly spotted with blood. In fact, some looked more red than yellow.
“What do you think, Daddy?” Gerta asked softly.
“I think . . . I think that don’t look too good, honey.” Daddy placed a comforting hand on Gerta’s broad back and said, “You stay here with our hostage. I’m gonna go out and see what in God’s name is goin’ on.”
“Be careful, Daddy,” Gerta urged as the old man opened the door, stepped out onto the porch, and drew the door closed behind him.
Staring out into the yard, where the seven horses had stopped near the front of the house, the Spanish Bit men milling around them cautiously, talking anxiously amongst themselves, Gerta turned her head to cast Hattie a threatening glare over her shoulder.
When she turned her head back toward the window, Hattie let a satisfied little half-smile tug at her mouth.
Hattie saw Daddy step over to the porch rail and stare down into the yard at the horses and the dead men tied across their saddles. The Spanish Bit outlaws had formed a ragged semicircle to one side of the horses. Holding his rifle in front of him, high across his chest, Daddy told one of the men to stop standing around ogling the dead men and to check them out.
One of the men—a big, fat-bellied man with long, curly red hair and a thick, curly red beard—stepped up to a chestnut horse. With his gloved left hand, he drew up the head of the dead man before him, by its hair, and crouched to stare into the slack-jawed face.
Hattie saw two open eyes staring in death at the red-bearded man.
The red-bearded man turned to Daddy and said, “Cobb.”
Daddy cursed.
The red-bearded man walked over to another dead man, drew the man’s head up by its hair and said, “Henshaw.”
Again, Daddy cursed.
The red-bearded man walked over to the next dead man and pulled the man’s head up by its long, silver-blond hair. The red-bearded man froze as the man whose head he’d just pulled up formed an angry scowl and said, “Ow—stop pullin’ my hair, you heedless son of a three-legged coot!”
Hattie’s eyes widened in shock as she saw the dead man pull a short but savage-looking shotgun down from his right shoulder, from beneath the rain slicker, and shove it toward the red-bearded man’s man fat belly. The red-bearded man only stared down at the double-bore cannon in hang-jawed shock, apparently unable, as was Hattie, to wrap his mind around a dead man wielding a shotgun.
The shotgun roared like near thunder, and the fat, red-bearded man went flying straight back into two other men as though he’d been lassoed from behind. Then Hattie’s mind went blank from shock for a second or two—a second or two during which all hell broke loose.