The black swan (11 page)

"You've played enough, Edmund. Let us have some fun with her now."

Ullah sank to the floor, curling up, trying to protect herself from the sight of the animals and the dread of what was to come. She moaned, crying and pleading to deaf ears, "Oh, please, suh! Mastah Edmund, hoF 'em back! Oh, Lawd! Oh, Lawd!"

"When do we get her, Edmund? This is a citizens' committee, not your private party," the Goat's head said, with more authority now.

"All right. She's yours, but take her outside," Edmund commanded. "When we get Tom, I want him to see everything."

The whip cut across Ullah's buttocks. She made a sound, half scream, half whimper.

"Get up off that floor!" Revanche commanded.

She scrambled up. The Snake and the Alligator grabbed her roughly and forced her through the front door into the yard. Suddenly the Snake jerked her off her feet and leaped on her as she fell backward to the ground.

"There won't be any fun and games this time, nigger," said a voice that sickened her with remembered fear. As he had done that terrible night, he grabbed her dress by the neckline and pulled. He jerked her again and again until the fabric gave way and she was exposed.

There was laughter from the masks that crowded closely around her.

"Chrissakes, Ross, can't you get it in?" growled the Alligator. "We can't spend all day!"

Ullah, her heart pounding, watched the fangs of the Snake come nearer. It was useless to fight this man; he would tear her apart. She lay waiting, limp, feeling her legs jerked apart and his harsh invasion of her body. She braced herself, held herself stiff until he was done and the Snake's head rattled with his hoarse breathing. In a daze, she heard the drunken cheers and shouts from the other animals as Ross withdrew from her and the Goat moved to take his place.

The leering face and the long curved-back horns terrified her even more than the Snake had; but worst of all, she recognized the rank odor of Sleath, Revanche's overseer. She knew he would kill her if the others didn't. Sometimes late at night he would come to her cabin, pulling her out of bed and sleep, and force her ahead of him down the long row of whitewashed buildings, his whip biting through her thin shift every step of the way. When at last they would reach his cabin, he'd throw her onto his putrid bunk and ...

"Oh, Lawd! Lawd!" He wouldn't do it to her this time without a fight. As he came near, her knee came up forcefully into his crotch. He gasped and fell heavily onto her. She thrust her hands through the openings of the mask and drove her thumbs as hard as she could into his eyes. Sleath screamed, drew back his fist, and broke her jawbone.

Tom, laughing as he watched the shouting boys in their crazily rocking boat, heard Sleath's cry, "J'hoshaphat, what was that?" He heard nothing further, except Adam, Ben, and Beau. "Sounded like a painter!" he said jovially.

Then Ullah's animal screeches were the only sound he could hear. They went on and on, mindless, hair-raising, sending a taut tingle through all his veins. Ashen, he began to run. Never had his legs seemed shorter then when he went crashing up the woods path, splashed through the clinging muck of a small pond, climbed its bank, and emerged, still running, from the edge of the woods.

What he saw was something out of hell. In a rough circle were three gaudily painted animals, yelling, leaping, and prancing insanely around a fourth who was attacking a flattened object on the ground. A Goat sat nearby, holding himself and drinking clumsily out of a flask. The animal heads bobbed in outsized grotesquery, urging the attacker to greater speed, to greater heights of lust and brutality. Slightly out of the radius of the circle stood a curved-tusked Boar, his arms folded and his booted legs apart, holding a three-tongued whip. Somehow, on the evil painted face, Tom sensed a smile of satisfaction.

Tom caught a glimpse of blue calico with white flowers' on it. UllahJ Mounted on her, rocking obscenely to and fro, was a soft-eyed Raccoon with his fawn-colored breeches pulled down.

Screaming Ullah's name, he raced for the circle of attackers. Only the Boar noticed his approach. Tom plunged into the group, knocking aside two of the animals as he dived for the Raccoon, hitting him with the full impact of his hurtling body, rolling into the dust at the feet of the Boar. He grunted in pain, feeling a sharp crack as the Boar's shining boot kicked him in the side.

"Ullah! Run! Run!" he screamed, struggling to regain his feet. He swung his fists wildly, his wrists absorbing the shock each time he connected with a solid body. He heard her voice strange sounding, piteously cry his name once, then a hard slapping noise and a hollow laugh of unholy glee as the next man took his turn.

After that Tom hardly knew what he was feeling. The Snake and the Alligator caught his arms, wrenching them from their sockets as they pulled them up and behind him. As they stood still for a moment panting, the Boar walked near, raised his right boot, and planted the point of it into Tom's stomach just below his ribs. Tom's breath left him in a hard grunt. The earth grew gray and spun nauseatingly. The Snake let go with one hand and chopped Tom in the windpipe.

The Boar spoke sharply. "Hold him, Ross! I want him to see."

The dread fears of the past weeks hit him. It was Edmund Revanche who was the Boar, Edmund who stood to one side smiling evilly, whip in hand so Ullah couldn't possibly escape, taking his vicious, perverted pleasure in watching while his friends wrought his vengeance on Tom's wife.

The Goat was not content with rape alone; he hauled Ullah to her feet, ripping the shreds of her dress away so that she was naked and trembling, barely able to stand, the blood dribbling out of her mouth onto her breasts.

With the Goat's first blow Tom lunged mightily against the two men who held him. He got one arm loose, but then the Bear grabbed and twisted, and he felt the bones break.

"Please ... let her go!" Tom cried, sobbing. He strained forward, dragging the Snake and the Bear with him. The Boar stepped in front of Tom, the butt of his hand forcing Tom's head back as he drove his knee into Tom's groin. Everything became a haze of blows and pain and Ullah's pitiful broken cries echoing in his ears. Blindly, futilely, he struggled against the hands that held him prisoner, until there was nothing but searing agony in his shoulders and down his arms. He felt and heard his ribs crack as the Snake kicked him.

Then Edmund Revanche threw aside the Boar's mask. He stood before Tom, a cool, cynical smile on his cruel features. "As you see, Tom, I am keeping my end of the bargain. What a pity you are not in better condition to enjoy the spectacle."

Tom, pinioned by pain and the grip of others, whispered hoarsely, "Let her go . . . you've done enough." Ullah had fallen to the ground. The Goat squealed like a hog as he satisfied his lust.

For answer, Edmund slashed at Tom with calculated expertise, first with fists, then with boots, reducing his face and genitals to pulp and gore.

Tom's world turned to a blood-red haze. Yet his hearing remained acute. Ullah was still alive, could still moan from the torture they were inflicting on her. Through tears and broken lips he begged, "My God . . . Edmund . . . please—"

"You God damned nigger-loving traitor." Edmund delivered a final kick that doubled Tom over in agony.

The Alligator released Tom. "I ain't had my turn at the nigger yet. Leave some for me." He shoved the panting Goat out of his way. The awful green head with its pop eyes and the garish white rows of teeth bobbed and strove over Ullah. Her screams grew more horrifying, even after the Alligator had rolled off her.

Then the Snake, holding his hunting knife by the tip, expertly snapped it, to plunge nearly to the hilt in Ullah's belly. She gasped and went limp. She did not move as four other hunting knives struck her.

But the screams continued, bloodcurdling to Tom because they were his own.

"Oh . . . my . . . God!" Adam breathed, and swallowed. The three boys crouched, gasping in horror at the brutal beating taking place halfway between the house and the barn. UUah swayed on her feet, a mass of bleeding wounds and bruises, while a Goat-headed man knocked her around, then leaped on her as she fell. Tom, trying to go to her defense, was being held by a Snake, an Alligator, and a Bear, while a Boar attacked him mercilessly.

Adam started forward.

Ben grabbed his shoulder, hard. "We'll all get killed if you go out there!"

Adam turned around and glared at him. His head jerked back toward the clearing. "Where's Angela?"

Three pairs of eyes strained for the sight of a small body. "Find Angela, Beau. Don't go near the house .... If she's there, it's already too late. Look around that thicket."

Beau had already taken several steps. "What'll I do with her, Adam? What if they come after her?"

"Take her through the woods to my Ma. Run, Beau!"

Adam and Ben ran back down the path toward the boat.' Adam grabbed up the guns, handing Ben his, then loading his own and Beau's.

"You're not going to try to shoot them all?" Fear was making Ben's hands shake, but he worked with desperate skill as they moved toward another path. "We can't, Adam!"

"No—they'd kill Tom and Ullah right off. But maybe we can scare them. Run through the woods. Keep down.

Shoot as often as you can. Maybe it'll sound like we're a lot of men. Don't stop shooting!"

"Adam, it'll never work! They'll never believe we're a whole party of hunters. We'd better shoot a couple of them."

Adam's voice was commanding. "Damn it, Ben, do as I tell you!"

The two boys weaved back and forth among the covering brush and shrubs, keeping out of sight as well as they could. In fast succession their guns went off, Adam with the two rifles able to cover Ben's reloading time.

Edmund Revanche looked in the direction from which the shots came, and, listening, narrowed the repeating sounds to a twenty-yard area.

"Finish," he said flatly. 'There's a hunting party nearby." He replaced the Boar's head, hiding his face. "Get Tom's horse, Sleath. We don't want any damned fuss over this."

The Bear pulled out his pistol and shot two or three times into the woods before the Boar shouted angrily, "You fool! They'll be shootin' at us if you don't stop!"

The Alligator and the Raccoon bent to lift Tom's barely conscious body upright. The Boar tossed a long rope over the limb of a large cypress. He placed the noose around Tom's neck and jerked it tight. "Put him on the horse," he commanded. He held the loose end of the rope securely to a cross member of the fence, taking up the slack as Tom was lifted onto the horse's back.

"Stretch him a little or he's gonna fall right off," shouted the Goat. The Boar pulled the rope tighter. Only its tension kept Tom erect in the saddle.

"Let's go," the Boar said.

"Want us to tie his hands?" asked the Snake.

Shadows passed overhead. The Boar looked up into the sky. It was growing black with the slow passage of the vultures, flying to the nearest roosts in trees, strutting alertly at the perimeter of the carnage. He looked at Tom's arms, dangling useless at his sides. "No need. Look at her, Tom! See her there on the ground? That's what you're dying for! That's what all insurrectionists come to in the end."

The others were waiting. The Boar mounted his own horse, then gave Sable a smart blow with his riding crop.

Sable, already rolling her eyes in fear, jerked and leaped forward. Tom's limp body was pulled backward, coming to life as it swung through the air in spasmodic jerks and twitchings.

Adam ran out of the woods as the Boar struck Sable. He lowered his rifle, aiming for the Boar's head. The bullet whizzed past the cheek of the mask, gouging it. Without looking back, the garish menagerie whipped their horses into a canter and rode out of sight.

Adam raced wildly across the open yard. He dropped the rifles and grasped Tom around the waist, holding him up. He buckled and strained under Tom's dead weight as Ben ran from the woods. Tom's body sagged again, taking up all the slack Adam could give him. Tom would hang right then, with Adam holding him.

"Hurry, Ben! He's slipping! I can't hold him! Cut the rope!"

Ben sawed frantically.

Under Tom's suddenly released weight, Adam staggered, trying to regain balance, then fell with Tom on top of him.

Ben ran to him, rolling Tom away. Then suddenly he paled as his eyes focused on Tom and couldn't let go of the sight. He turned away, retching. When he looked back, his eyes streamed tears.

"Adam, he's dead. What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know." Adam fought his own fear and nausea. He crawled over to Ullah, stirring up a buzzing cloud of insects that had gathered on her. The warm, pleasant sun struck brightness off the hilts of the hunting knives. "They've killed her, Ben." It was all he could do not to break down and cry.

Ben's voice was quavery. "Adam! Tom's still breathing! God, what if they come back?"

A vulture flew over Adam's shoulder, no longer intimidated, and landed on Ullah, ripping viciously at her.

Adam leaped to his feet, screaming and flinging his arms wildly. Ben, nearer to a rifle, shot one bird. The others fluttered up but continued to fly or to strut like gross chickens nearer and nearer to Tom. Soundlessly, more and more of them gathered in the trees. The stink of them pervaded the warm air..

"Adam, what can we do?"

Adam looked around frantically. "I don't know. . . .

Tom's dying. . . . We—" With sudden decision he said, "Get him down to the boat. We'll carry him between us."

He and Ben gingerly found places where they could lift Tom. A dozen carrion crows left their perches and swooped across the yard onto UUah.

"Put him down. Keep the crows off him!" Adam ran into the silent house, tearing the bedding off Tom's and Ullah's bed. A quick glance told him Angela wasn't there. He could only pray that Beau had found her safe. He ran back to the yard. So frantic was he, and so menaced by the vultures, that he scarcely noticed the way Ullah's flesh clung to the knives as he jerked them out. He wrapped her in a sheet, struggling with her arms and legs, which flopped about, strangely unwilling to be captured.

Ben spread the blanket, and they lifted Tom onto it. Hastily Adam threw the coverlet over Tom, for the birds were gathering again. They carried him down to the boat. Ben looked anxiously about. "Hurry and get in, Adam. Those men'll come back. They must have seen you. They'll know we can't stop them."

Adam looked from Tom's silent, limp form back toward the yard. "She's ... the carencrows . . . they'll—" Suddenly he burst into a sob. "I can't leave her, Ben!"

More frightened now than he had been before, Adam ran back to the house. Warily he looked down the path the men had taken. He rummaged in the barn for Tom's shovel, thinking to bury her. Then his heart stood still as he heard the pounding hoofs of a horse.

It was only Sable, seeking her. stall, but he had had enough of terror. He ran back toward Ullah. The carrion crows had lighted on her again< pecking and ripping at the sheet that covered her. He chased them off, slung Ullah's body over his shoulder, and moved as quickly as he could toward the boat. Ben's eyes grew wide, but Adam said decisively, "We have to take her with us."

Seated on the wide plank, Ben edged away as far as he could. He wasn't sure what he thought about ghosts and spirits, but he knew he didn't want to sit close to Ullah.

The vultures circled purposefully overhead as Adam poled the boat into the main channel. He had loved these two people next only to his own mother, and one was dead and the other nearly so. Unashamed of his emotion now, he let the tears stream down his face.

"Damn them! May God damn them all," he said over

and over. "I'll repay them, Ben. I'll find out who they were, and I'll repay them."

Chapter Eight

The night outside was black and starless when the muffled thudding came at the back door. Zoe snatched up a lamp and ran through the house. She opened the door just as Adarn's booted toe kicked it again. She gasped, and nearly dropped the lamp.

There stood her son, his face smeared with blood, his eyes swollen, haunted, and sad. His mouth was grim and determined as he stepped up to the house with his hideous burden. Behind hirn stood Ben, pale enough to be dead himself. In his arms he carried Ullah's broken body, swathed in the tattered, stained bed sheet.

Uncertain, Adam remained in the doorway, his eyes fixed on his mother's face. Having finally reached the safety of home, he no longer knew what to do.