Read A Time to Slaughter Online

Authors: William W. Johnstone

A Time to Slaughter (18 page)

BOOK: A Time to Slaughter
4.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Chapter Thirty-seven

“O'Brien, get off that hoss, and that goes for you two as well.” Silas Creeds motioned with his glass at Tweedy and Lowth.

Shawn swung out of the saddle and stood holding the reins of his mount. “Looks like the ball is about to open, Creeds.”

“Soon. But not yet. The boss wants to look over the ship.”

“He may not have time,” Shawn pointed out.

“He's got the Arab in gun range. Zeb knows it and the Arab knows it. The ball will open when Zeb Moss decides to open it and it ain't yet.” Creeds waved toward the table. “Go get yourself some grub, but stay clear of the rum.”

Shawn looked around him. “I count thirty seamen, and most of them are already armed. You plan to take them on with six men?”

“Nine, including you and them two with you, and ten, counting Mr. Moss. The boss should count for two or three, just like me and maybe the Topock Kid, if he's well enough.”

“It's getting a little too tense for comfort around here, Creeds,” Shawn said. “When will the shooting start?”

Creeds gave his yellow smile. “When I put a bullet in you, O'Brien, you'll know when it
ends
. Until then, be ready.”

After Creeds strolled away, Shawn and the others stepped to the table. Shawn was hungry. He wrapped some salt beef in a flatbread and discovered it made a tasty sandwich. He stayed away from the rum, though Tweedy helped himself to a glass.

“Know what I feel like, Mr. Lowth?” Tweedy said, after sampling the rum.

“Do tell, Mr. Tweedy.” Like Shawn, Lowth was munching on a sandwich.

“It's like when I'm stupid enough to get myself downwind of ol' Ephraim an' he's as mad as hell and comes after me. I know I've got a fight on my hands and the only question is . . . when? And the answer is that Ephraim's smart an' won't brace me until he figgers he's got an edge. But as to when that will come about, only he knows.” Tweedy looked at Shawn. “You take my meanin'?”

Shawn looked to where Moss and the Arab were walking toward the sailing ship, unhurried, talking like two old friends out for a morning stroll.

“You mean hard times are coming down sometime soon, Uriah.” Shawn smiled. “I hope you're loaded for bear.”

Tweedy made a face. “Lousy rum. Damn furriners.”

Shawn studied the terrain around the camp. There was no cover, no place to hide for miles, only desert brush on flat ground that stretched to the Sierra Madres. What he had in mind was impossible.

Tweedy winked. “Been thinking that my ownself, sonny. They'd ride us down afore we covered a quarter mile. Or they'd just stay right where they're at an' shoot us down.”

Shawn nodded. “I know. And we'd have women along with us.”

“It seems to me, Mr. O'Brien,” Lowth put in, “that all we can do is wait and then react to whatever situation manifests itself.”

“Fine words, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but them was high-sounding words.”

“We wait and see, Uriah,” Shawn explained. “That's what he means.”

Tweedy took a swig of rum. “Hell, boy, that's all we can do.” He laid the glass at his feet and levered a round into the Winchester's chamber. “But right now I'm gonna go talk with my intended.”

“Uriah, those Arab sailors don't look like they'd exactly welcome your visit,” Shawn pointed out.

“That's their problem, not mine.”

“Wait, Mr. Tweedy, I'll come with you,” Lowth said. “There's strength in numbers.”

“You're a mannerly, well-spoken gent, Mr. Lowth, so you're welcome to talk with my future bride,” Tweedy offered. Then to Shawn he said, “Just in case things go bad, cover us, young feller.”

 

 

Four pairs of black, hostile eyes watched Tweedy and Lowth as they walked closer to the women. One of the guards, a big, brawny fellow with a ragged black beard down to his navel, stepped in their way. He managed a slight, artificial smile. “Rum,” he said, motioning with his Lebel rifle toward the table. “You go, infidel. Drink.”

Tweedy stopped, the Winchester in the crook of his left arm, and moved the forefinger of his right hand back and forth. “No drinkee.” He pointed at Julia. “Me talkee.”

The Arab hesitated. His lord was still on the schooner with the American and he'd been ordered to pretend a warm welcome to the infidel dogs. After a few moments, he bowed slightly and stepped aside.

“See, Mr. Lowth, all you have to do is talk to them in their own lingo and they'll do anything for you.” Tweedy smiled at the stone-faced Arab. “Thankee . . .”

The women crowded around Tweedy and Lowth, all of them asking questions at the same time. Tweedy held up a silencing hand. “Ladies, I'm only here to see Miss Trixie Lee, my intended.”

One of the young Mexican girls asked, “Can you help us, señor? Can you take us away from this terrible place?”

Tweedy pretended a confidence he didn't feel. “Never fear, ladies, we'll get you out of here and back to Santa Fe.” He grinned. “Never fear. Tweedy is here.”

The girl took Tweedy's hand and kissed it, her tears falling on his tough skin. “Thank you, señor. Oh, thank you.”

Tweedy, knowing he'd lied to the girl, who was little more than a child, felt like a Benedict Arnold and he was forced to swallow the lump in his throat.

“How are you holding up, Miss Lee?” Lowth asked Julia. “I hope you are not too distressed.”

Julia looked at the man, her face empty. She said nothing.

Tweedy, discouraged by his lie to the Mexican girls, said in an apologetic tone, “We're goin' to save you, Trixie. But it won't be easy or soon. You understand?”

“Save yourself, Uriah,” Julia said. “It's too late for me, too late for all of us.”

“Never you mind. We'll come up with somethin', Trixie. Damn right we will, on account of how when this is over me an' you is gettin' hitched right away.”

Julia managed a smile, but it was distant and fleeting. “Don't get your hopes up, Uriah.” She put her hand on his buckskinned arm. “You are all in terrible danger. Tell Shawn O'Brien I said that.”

“I reckon he already knows, Trixie,” Tweedy said. “Zeb Moss wants to take the slave ship. Men will die, most of them real quick.”

“Then leave us. Get on your horses and ride and don't stop until you reach Texas.”

Tweedy shook his head. “We're not leaving you, little schoolteacher gal.”

“Then you'll all die soon. It's building, Uriah. Either Moss or the sheik will make his move before dark.”

Lowth had been listening intently, but made his way to the redhead with the baby in her arms. He smiled. “How is she?”

The woman looked haunted. “The slaver says he'll buy me but not my baby. That man Moss said that was all right and they'd just leave my little Annie on the beach and let the tide take her.”

She grabbed the front of Lowth's coat. “Please don't let them take my baby from me.”

“I won't let that happen.” Even as he said the words, Lowth knew they were as empty as a banker's heart.

“Thank you.” Suddenly there was hope in the woman's eyes. “You'll save us, won't you?”

“Yes. Yes I will,” Lowth said, hating himself. “You'll see, dear lady, everything will be just fine.”

The woman so obviously and so eagerly believed him that Thaddeus Lowth felt himself die a little death.

Chapter Thirty-eight

The Chinese girls were slowly drifting away....

Shawn O'Brien sat in meager shade, his back against the thin trunk of a spineless young ironwood tree. As drowsy crickets made their small music in the brush near him, he wondered idly why the women were leaving. If they'd paired off with a man and were seeking a place for a rendezvous he'd have understood. But they were slowly walking toward the beach one by one as though afraid their leaving would be noticed.

Shawn's eyes moved to Moss's gunmen. They seemed unconcerned, talking to one another, though every now and then a man would slant a puzzled glance toward the schooner. No doubt Moss and the sheik were still bargaining for the women, Shawn decided. Or, more correctly, Moss was going through the motions, biding his time before he made his move.

Shawn shifted his eyes back to the Chinese girls and saw something else that disturbed him. Apart from the men guarding Moss's captives, the ship's crew had assembled near the schooner and all were armed with rifles and swords.

Suddenly, tension stretched in the air, taut as a fiddle string. The Arabs were not making any hostile moves, but constantly chattered to each other. Then, their black eyes glittering, they fingered their weapons and looked toward Moss's gunmen.

Tweedy, as downcast as a man could be after spinning one lie after another, sat close by, drinking rum.

“Hey, Uriah—” Shawn began.

“I see 'em,” Tweedy said. “Trixie said the fun times was fixin' to come down soon and I reckon she was right.”

“You reckon the Arabs will open the ball?” Shawn asked.

“Yeah, I do, but not yet. Not without their boss man.”

“It would seem like.” Shawn looked toward the schooner. There was no one on deck nor any sound but the faint creak of two tall masts in the breeze.

The morning had grown warmer and, except for Silas Creeds, the Moss gunmen had removed their coats, but all wore their guns. They were talking little now that they'd noticed the departure of the Chinese girls and the gathering of armed crewmen near the ship. But without Moss they seemed undecided about what to do. For the moment they were content to remain right where they were. A few of them were drinking rum in earnest.

Like Shawn and Tweedy, the gunmen felt something in the air, as though the atmosphere around them had shifted and become poisonous. Hostility hadn't greeted them gently. It reached out, grabbed them by their throats, and started their alarm bells ringing.

Without even realizing it, the gunmen had spread out a little, each man clearing some fighting room around him.

Shawn rose to his feet. His eyes narrowed and his vision began to tunnel as happens to a man who knows he's about to get into a shooting scrape.

Yet, the Arabs made no moves.

They remained standing where they were, silently looking toward the gunmen around the table as though waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly, the Arabs broke into a cheer.

Tweedy and Lowth stepped closer to Shawn. All eyes were on the beautiful Chinese girl who'd just bowed out of the smaller tent. She held a basket piled high with fruit and dates and she smiled as she walked toward Moss's men.

Shawn was puzzled. Was this a peace offering of some kind?

The girl wore very little and her pert little breasts were mostly exposed, a sight not lost on Moss's men. Grinning, they crowded around the girl, more interested in what she had on show than they were the fruit basket.

“Purty little thing, ain't she, Mr. Lowth?” Tweedy commented.

“Indeed she is, Mr. Tweedy. I believe Celestials as a whole are a pretty race.”

Shawn said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the young Arab man who'd also left the smaller tent. He seemed unsteady on his feet and drool from his slack mouth trickled down his black beard. Shawn thought the man was drunk or had been smoking opium, a drug to which his brother Jacob had once been much addicted.

But then Shawn saw something that chilled him to the bone.

The man held a burning brand in his hand. He opened his vest and lit the short fuse of a silver-colored bomb strapped around his waist. Immediately, he shrieked and ran on bare feet toward the Moss gunmen.

Shawn yelled, “Look out!” He drew and fired, but his bullet spurted dust inches behind the assassin's pounding feet.

Alerted to the danger, the gunmen faced the Arab, and bullets slammed into him. The bomber staggered, but kept on running toward them, screaming, “Death to the infidels,” his hatred fueled by drugs and sex.

Then he was among Moss's men.

“Down!” Shawn yelled as he dived for the ground and was aware of Tweedy thudding onto the sand beside him.

The bomb blast erupted in a spinning Catherine wheel of scarlet flame and crimson blood. Severed heads, arms, and legs flung into the air and maimed men screamed amid the pornographic violence.

Shrapnel screeched over Shawn and Tweedy and behind them, Lowth yelped and hit the ground hard.

Then it was over.

A dark ribbon of smoke and dust rose in the air spiked with the stink of gunpowder and blood and the day was made terrible by the agonized moans of dying men.

Shawn rose and glanced at Lowth. The man was sitting up, but his forehead was bloody and his eyes seemed distant and unfocused.

“See to him, Uriah,” Shawn said.

Then he walked forward . . . into a charnel house.

 

 

Seeing the result of the bomb, all Shawn's courage and fortitude went out of him like a gust of breath. He'd been prepared for sprawled bodies and dying men, but not a scene like the aftermath of a demonic feast on the bodies of the damned.

Moss's gunmen had been torn apart by the explosion, as had the Chinese girl, her headless, naked corpse obscene in death. The bomber had been blown to smithereens, as there was nothing left of him that was identifiable as human. A red thing without arms or legs begged Shawn for death, but numbed by horror, he could only stumble away from that terrible place, gorge rising in his throat.

Silas Creeds and the Topock Kid were the only Moss gunmen still alive.

They stood near the beach surrounded by the terrified women who had fled from the blast. Julia comforted a Chinese girl who sobbed quietly on her shoulder.

Creeds and the Kid seemed stunned, unable to believe what had happened. Creeds' hands were in his coat pockets, ready to draw as soon as he could identify the enemy. Beside him, the Kid's battered face was empty, a man trying to grasp a horror beyond anything in his experience.

But there was worse to come.

 

 

Moss and Hakim scrambled from the ship and stepped rapidly toward the blast site. Moss had removed his coat and looked tall, handsome, and immaculate in a white, frilled shirt, black pants cut tight in the Mexican style, and English riding boots. He had a blue, ivory-handled Colt stuck in his waistband.

He saw Creeds and without slowing his pace, yelled, “What the hell happened?”

“Bomb,” Creeds said, figuring no other explanation was necessary.

Moss swung on the sheik. “Damn you. Did you plan this?”

Those six words closed the final chapter of the book of his life.

He gasped openmouthed as Hakim, moving with flashing speed, rammed three feet of Damascus steel into his belly. Blood stained his mouth as he stared wide-eyed into Hakim's face, unable to comprehend the terrible fact that the Arab had killed him.

“Yes, infidel,” Hakim said. “Now I will take your women and make them my own.” He withdrew the sword and Moss fell dead at his feet.

Hakim kicked the corpse. “Infidel dog.”

Creeds didn't lack sand. His guns cleared his pockets, but he fell to the ground under the weight of the crewmen who'd jumped on top of him. Creeds fought like a cougar, kicking out as he tried to bring his .38s to bear. But a savage club to the head from a Lebel butt knocked him into stillness.

The Kid, surrounded by leveled rifles, made no attempt to draw. He was a paid mercenary and nothing in the code said he had to die to avenge a client. Like Creeds, he was disarmed and pounded to the ground.

Shawn drew his Colt and retreated slowly toward Tweedy, who was wiping blood from Lowth's face.

Without looking at the younger man, Tweedy said, “Don't try to buck a stacked deck, boy. There's too damn many of them.”

A dozen corsairs advanced on Shawn and the others, teeth bared, their rifles up and ready.

Suddenly Shawn had had enough . . . enough of blood and guts and violence and the screams of dying men. He tossed his Colt away and said to the oncoming Arabs, “Damn you. Come and get me. I'm through.”

BOOK: A Time to Slaughter
4.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Denouncer by Levitt, Paul M.
The Space Between Us by Anie Michaels
Clay Pots and Bones by Lindsay Marshall
Time After Time by Hannah McKinnon
Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington
THE VIRGIN COURTESAN by MICHELLE KELLY,