The Edge of Hell Read online

  Once Bodaway was gone, Becker said to his segundo, “We’re not going to wait any longer. The men have the torches ready?”

  “Yeah, but those folks in the house are gonna be on edge now,” Woodbury said. “It’ll be harder to sneak up on ’em.”

  “Do it anyway,” Becker ordered. “It’s time to put an end to this.”

  Woodbury hesitated, then said, “Boss, you’ve already waited a long time for your revenge. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt anything to wait until the redskin gets back and we find out what’s goin’ on.”

  “No,” Becker said, his voice as hard and cold as ice. “Have the men set the place on fire now. It’s judgment day for Don Eduardo Rubriz.”

  * * *

  Inside the house, Viola’s heart seemed to jump into her throat when she heard the shots. She could tell they came from the barn.

  “Jess,” she said to the foreman, who knelt at one of the other windows, “did we leave anybody out there?”

  “Just Joe Sparkman on top of the water tank, ma’am,” Fisher replied. “Everybody on the place except for him and the men who went with your husband is in this house.”

  “It couldn’t have been Joe, so who were they shooting at?”

  “Beats me. Shadows, maybe.”

  Viola didn’t think so. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she’d heard two different weapons going off. She had been around enough gunfights to know one when she heard it.

  Did that mean help had arrived? Was John back?

  She didn’t know, but for the first time in a while she actually felt hopeful again—but also more frightened because for all she knew, her husband might be in danger or even hurt.

  “Keep a close eye out,” she told Fisher. “That might have been a signal, and even if it wasn’t, it might prod them into starting something.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Time stretched out maddeningly as several minutes ticked by. The echoes of the shots had died away, leaving the ranch cloaked once more in that sinister silence.

  Then Fisher exclaimed, “There!” and straightened up. The rifle in his hands cracked as he thrust the barrel through the open window.

  Viola kept her attention focused on the area outside the window she was covering. She saw a sudden flare as someone snapped a match to life.

  “Watch out!” Fisher called. “They’ve got torches!”

  Viola squeezed off a shot and felt the rifle buck against her shoulder. As she worked the Winchester’s lever she saw a small explosion of flame in the darkness. It spun toward her and she had to throw herself backward to keep from being hit by the torch as it sailed through the window.

  The blazing brand landed on the floor, bounced a couple of times, and came to a stop. Viola smelled kerosene from the torch as the rug began to burn.

  Chapter 20

  “We need to get back outside where we can move around,” Hermosa told Stonewall. “We do not want to get trapped inside this barn.”

  That sounded like good advice to Stonewall. Without wasting time checking on the man he had shot, he and Hermosa turned and hurried out the barn’s rear door as soon as Stonewall found the rifle he’d dropped.

  They headed for the trees. More shots split the gathering night, these coming from the direction of the house.

  Alarm made Stonewall’s heart slug heavily in his chest. He knew Viola was probably in the house, trying to defend it from whoever the intruders were. He wanted to reach her, to make sure his sister was all right.

  But if he charged blindly into the middle of the fracas it was more likely he would just get himself killed, and that wouldn’t be any help to Viola at all.

  Stonewall spotted a garish orange glare through the trees that made his already taut nerves constrict even more. He pointed it out to Hermosa and whispered urgently, “They’re tryin’ to set the house on fire!”

  “It seems they are trying to make those inside flee.”

  “How can we stop ’em?”

  “It may be too late for that.”

  The vaquero’s voice was grim, and Stonewall saw why. The flames were growing brighter. From here it looked like the house might already be on fire.

  Rifle reports came from the northeast. Stonewall looked in that direction and spotted the flicker of muzzle flashes several hundred yards away. He pointed them out to Hermosa and said, “That’s where the schoolhouse is. The kids of the married hands have classes there whenever John’s got somebody around who can teach ’em.”

  “It appears to be where the invaders have taken cover,” Hermosa said. “Is there a way to get behind it without crossing open ground where we would be seen?”

  The question made an idea leap into Stonewall’s head. He said, “There’s a ditch that runs parallel with the road. If we stay pretty low, we can follow it most of the way and they shouldn’t be able to spot us.”

  Hermosa nodded and said, “Let us go.”

  Stonewall dashed through the darkness. Full night had fallen now and the moon hadn’t risen yet, so they had that on their side, anyway. But the silvery light of millions of stars was scattered down over the landscape. They could have used a few clouds to block that starlight, but the sky was dazzlingly clear, as it often was in this part of the country.

  Stonewall reached the ditch, which was about five feet deep and six wide, and dropped into it. It had been dug to bring water to the trees near the barn when one of the infrequent rains fell. That hadn’t occurred in a good while, though, so the sandy bottom was dry as a bone.

  Stonewall crouched low and moved along at a fast trot with Hermosa following close behind him. The ditch ran for approximately five hundred yards, ending at the little lane beside the ranch cemetery.

  The two men had covered about half that distance when a dark shape suddenly loomed up in front of Stonewall.

  He barely had time to realize somebody was there before the man lunged forward and crashed into him, driving him back into Hermosa. The surprise attack knocked both of them into the bottom of the ditch.

  Stonewall had the presence of mind to thrust his Winchester straight up and ram the barrel into the attacker’s belly. Foul breath spewed into his face.

  Hermosa writhed free of Stonewall’s weight and surged up to tackle the man who had jumped them. As the two of them locked in hand-to-hand struggle, Hermosa gasped to Stonewall, “Go on! Help your sister!”

  Stonewall didn’t want to leave Hermosa, but he figured if anybody could take care of himself, it was the vaquero. Besides, Viola’s safety had to come first. Stonewall scrambled to his feet, leaped past the two men, and ran along the ditch.

  The shooting continued from the direction of the house as he reached the end of the ditch and climbed out to race past the cemetery. He was farther east now than the place where the schoolhouse sat, so the men using the adobe brick building for cover wouldn’t be likely to see him as he circled in behind them.

  He spared a thought for Hermosa and hoped the vaquero was all right. Then he turned his attention to the task before him. He was only one man and knew he would be outnumbered, but that might not matter if he could take his enemies by surprise and get the drop on them.

  As he slipped into the trees behind the schoolhouse, he heard horses nearby, blowing and stamping. It made sense that whoever was attacking the ranch would leave their horses back here where they were more out of harm’s way.

  Stonewall catfooted among the cottonwoods and made his way carefully toward the animals. When he was close enough he could see them, a large, dark, restless mass. He thought one of the gunmen might be watching the horses, but apparently they were just tied back here.

  Unsure whether to be disappointed or relieved—Stonewall had thought he might jump the horse guard and knock the man out of the fight, but that also would have meant the risk of getting caught himself—he moved closer and murmured to the horses so he wouldn’t spook them even more. He took hold of a pair of taut reins, followed them to the sapling where they were fastened, and untied t
hem. The horse pulled away.

  One by one, Stonewall untied the other mounts. He didn’t try to stampede the horses because that would have drawn attention to him. Instead he just let them drift away. Whoever the invaders were and whatever they wanted, they wouldn’t be able to make a quick getaway now.

  With that done, he moved closer to the schoolhouse. He had counted fourteen horses. The man he had shot in the barn and the hombre he and Hermosa had run into in the ditch accounted for two of their owners.

  That left an even dozen men to carry out the assault on the house. Some of them had crept close enough to throw torches at the house and try to set it on fire.

  Thankfully, they didn’t seem to have succeeded. The orange glow that had blazed up briefly had died back down. The defenders must have put out the fire.

  That didn’t mean this bunch of killers would give up, however. They would try something else, unless Stonewall managed somehow to stop them.

  He didn’t get the chance to try. He heard something behind him, started to turn in the hope that Hermosa had disposed of his opponent and caught up to him, but instead he caught a glimpse in the starlight of a cruel, savage face framed by black hair bound back by a bandanna.

  Apache!

  That was Stonewall’s last thought before something exploded against his head and sent him tumbling down into an all-consuming blackness.

  * * *

  Viola reacted instantly when the rug blazed up from the kerosene-soaked torch. She grabbed one edge of the rug, lifted it, and threw it over the flames.

  Then she lunged on top of it, snuffing out the fire with the rug and her own weight.

  This wasn’t the only place the attackers had succeeded in getting a torch inside the house, though. She heard shouting in some of the other rooms that told her the defenders there were battling other blazes.

  With the stink of kerosene and burned rug in her nose, she grabbed the rifle she had dropped and leaped back to the window. She saw a man drawing back his arm to throw another of the burning brands and snapped a shot at him.

  Instinct guided the bullet. The man cried out, spun around, and dropped the torch at his feet as he collapsed. The grass along the fence was fairly dry at this time of year. It caught fire and sent flames dancing along the man’s body.

  The fact that he didn’t move told Viola she had killed him. That might bother her later, but at the moment it left her unmoved. The man had attacked her home. As far as she was concerned he deserved whatever happened to him.

  “Mrs. Slaughter, are you all right?”

  The urgent question came from Dr. Fredericks behind her. Without looking around she said, “I’m fine, doctor. What about everyone else?”

  “No one is hurt except for a few minor burns.”

  “The other fires?”

  “They’re out—for now. We were lucky they didn’t spread too much. Your house sustained some damage, though.”

  “Damage can be repaired,” Viola said. “A house can be rebuilt, if it comes to that. As long as we don’t lose any more people, that’s all I really care about.”

  She watched over the windowsill as the grass along the road continued to burn. The fire was bright for a few minutes, but then it began to die down as the fuel was exhausted. The smell of smoke lingered in the air.

  From the window where he was posted, Jess Fisher said, “I don’t see anybody else moving around out there. Looks like they’ve all pulled back except for that fella you drilled, Mrs. Slaughter.”

  As the smoke drifted over the house, Viola caught a whiff of a sickly sweet smell that made her stomach turn over unpleasantly. She knew it came from the body of the man she had killed, which had been charred by the flames around it. She gagged a little at the thought.

  “Mrs. Slaughter?” Fredericks asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” she managed to say. “Don’t worry, doctor.”

  “It’s the smell, isn’t it? It always got to me, too, during the war. I was a surgeon in the Union army, you know. It wasn’t the things I saw in the field hospitals that bothered me the most, although Lord knows they were bad enough. It was always the smells.”

  Viola took a handful of .44-40 cartridges and concentrated on thumbing them through the Winchester’s loading gate. Once she took her mind off what had happened, she found that her stomach calmed down quickly.

  She had a job to do—defending this ranch—and she couldn’t allow anything to interfere with that.

  No matter how many men she had to kill.

  * * *

  Becker paced back and forth angrily behind the schoolhouse as Woodbury tried to explain how the defenders must have been able to put out all the fires before they spread too much.

  “I can see that,” Becker interrupted. “I can see that the damned house isn’t on fire like it’s supposed to be. Did that failure cost us any men?”

  “Pony Chamberlain didn’t make it back,” Woodbury said as he shook his head ruefully. “One of the boys told me Pony got hit just as he was about to throw his torch. He dropped it and it set fire to the grass around him instead. He must’ve been dead, ’cause he didn’t move while it burned him.”

  “Serves him right for letting himself get shot,” Becker muttered. Then he saw the surprised, upset look on his segundo’s face and knew he had gone too far. He added, “We’ll make the bastards pay for killing him.”

  That seemed to mollify Woodbury. He nodded and said, “We damn sure will.” He paused, then asked, “What are we gonna do now, boss?”

  That was a frustrating question. Nothing they had tried so far had worked.

  Before Becker could answer, Bodaway emerged from the trees carrying something draped over his shoulders. As the Apache came closer, Becker’s eyes widened in surprise. Bodaway’s burden was the body of a man, either unconscious or dead.

  Bodaway came up to Becker and Woodbury and dumped the body in front of them. In the starlight, Becker could tell that the man was young, with fair hair and a dark smear of blood across his face from a cut on his forehead.

  “Who’s this?” Becker demanded. “I thought all of Slaughter’s people were holed up in the house.”

  “I found this one and another man trying to get behind you,” Bodaway explained. “This one had reached the trees and turned your horses loose before I caught up to him.”

  A curse exploded from Becker’s mouth. He turned to Woodbury and ordered, “Go get those horses rounded up.”

  Woodbury hurried to obey as Becker turned back to his old friend.

  “Is he dead?” he asked as he nodded at the young man lying on the ground.

  “Not this one. I left the other in a ditch over there.” Bodaway waved vaguely toward the barn.

  “What about those shots earlier?”

  “Your man in the barn is dead, as you thought.”

  “So we’ve lost two men,” Becker said. “That’s got to stop. Why didn’t you go ahead and kill this son of a bitch?”

  “I thought you might be able to make use of him. He is Señora Slaughter’s brother.”

  That came as a surprise to Becker, too. He said, “How in the world do you know that?”

  “Last night, before my men and I raided the party, I overheard some of the people talking while I was still hiding in the dark. I learned then that Viola Slaughter is his sister.”

  A smile tugged at Becker’s thin lips as he looked down at the unconscious young man.

  “Well, now,” he said, “that was good thinking on your part, Bodaway, bringing him here alive instead of killing him. This little bastard might just come in handy.”

  Chapter 21

  Stonewall wasn’t out cold for long. He was a little surprised when he regained consciousness to find that he was still alive.

  When the last thing you saw before you passed out was the cruel face of a bloodthirsty Apache warrior, you didn’t really expect to wake up again.

  It was obvious he wasn’t dead, though. Not with the way his head hurt from being wallop
ed like that. Unless that pounding racket was Satan’s own imps playing a drum inside his skull instead of his own pulse.

  No, he heard human voices somewhere nearby. He was definitely alive.

  But that didn’t mean he was all right. He could still be in a mighty bad spot. The next step was to open his eyes and find out exactly what was going on.

  Easier said than done. Each eyelid seemed to weigh at least a thousand pounds, and he lacked the strength to lift them.

  Finally he pried them up, and when he did he saw that he was lying on the ground with trees around him. Figures moved vaguely nearby. Those were the men he’d heard talking a moment earlier, he thought.

  They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him. Maybe he could get up and slip away into the night. It was worth trying.

  Or it would have been if he could move, he realized. As he tested his muscles, he discovered that he was tied hand and foot. Someone had pulled his arms behind his back and lashed his wrists together. Likewise a length of rope was bound around his ankles.

  They hadn’t gagged him, though. He could yell all he wanted to—for all the good that would do. He didn’t figure there was anybody close by who would want to help him.

  Actually, it might be better if they didn’t even know he had come to, he decided. That way he stood a better chance of eavesdropping on his captors and figuring out his best course of action.

  Sooner or later he would get a chance to make a bold, unexpected move, he told himself, and when the proper moment came, he needed to be ready.

  At first he thought his eyes were adjusting to the starlight, but over the next few minutes as everything became brighter and took on a more silvery hue, Stonewall realized the moon was coming up. He could make out his surroundings a little better. The dark mass about fifty yards away became the double-cabin schoolhouse where the kids on the ranch were taught their lessons.

  He even saw the Apache who had captured him, talking to a tall, lean man who held himself like he was the boss around here.

  That hombre would soon find out how wrong he was, Stonewall told himself. When John Slaughter got back, everything would be different. He was the only boss on this ranch.