Longarm #396 : Longarm and the Castle of the Damned (9781101545249) (14 page)

“Mostly I been called Bunny Adams,” Bannister said. “What you might call my ‘professional' name.”

“Ah, now that name I know. Hell, Bunny, you're wanted in so many states I can't count that high. You're practically famous. Wanted for just about every crime on the books.”

“Thank you, Long. I take that as a compliment.”

“I didn't mean it as one.”

“Oh, I understand that. Still and all . . .” Adams chuckled. “A man should be proud of his work, and I consider myself to be a craftsman. It hurts my feelings to see that you survived that time I shot at you. Now I'm just pleased to be able to correct that error. This time I'll know you are dead.”

Bunny Adams—or Carlton Bannister—turned on his heel and went happily on his way.

Custis Long was not so pleased.

Still, this caged animal was not quite toothless. No one had bothered to search him after Jake took his Colt from him. Longarm still had the two shots in the derringer he carried in his vest pocket, and he had his folding pocketknife as well.

Hell, he could take on Henry Lyon's private army with all that firepower, couldn't he?

Toward evening two guards came past. They bypassed Longarm's pit, however, and went to the last pit on the end. Together they lifted the grate up and one of them snarled, “All right, girl. Time for you to go see the man. Are you coming willingly this time?”

Longarm rose from where he had been sitting on the dirt floor and moved closer to the bars.

“To hell with you and to hell with him too,” a female voice responded.

“Suit yourself.” In a louder voice the guard said, “Boys!” and two more men came, these carrying a ladder.

All four of the guards now present climbed down into the pit, picked the girl up, and bodily carried her up the ladder and away, leaving the confining grate laid back.

There still was no movement from the man to Longarm's left, and he was beginning to wonder if the fellow was alive. That question was answered when the man moaned and rolled onto his belly.

In that position Longarm could see that the man's back was horribly lacerated. His flesh had been sliced in long cuts, each oozing blood and pus. The poor son of a bitch had been whipped, likely with a teamster's blacksnake. Except that a teamster uses the crack of his whip to guide and encourage his team, never to touch or to harm them. This poor bastard had been flayed to the bone. Longarm could actually see pale cartilage or bone lying within some of the cuts.

He crossed to that side of the pit and knelt beside the bars.

“Mister. Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

His fellow prisoner groaned and his eyelids fluttered, then opened. He turned his head to look in Longarm's direction.

“Who . . . you?”

“Long,” Longarm announced to the poor fellow. “Deputy U.S. marshal.” He laughed, perhaps a little bitterly. “Here to make an arrest, you understand. Who are you that you're in such a state?”

“Name is Sam. S . . . S . . . Sam Childers.” He took a deep breath. “Tried to get . . . away.”

“From this pit?”

Childers shook his head slightly. “Down . . . below.”

“I don't understand,” Longarm said.

“Mine. Gold mine. Lousy ore. Takes lots . . . rock . . . to make it pay. Lyon keeps . . . slaves. Works them to death if . . . if he has to . . . to make the mine pay.” Childers grunted, a sound that might have been intended as a laugh. “Small payroll, you see. Uses his . . . guards. Bastards ever' one. You see . . . what they done to me.”

“Can you shift over here closer to the bars between us?” Longarm asked.

“Can . . . try.”

It took some time and a great deal of effort, effort that must have been terribly painful, but Childers did as Longarm asked. He wriggled close to the bars.

“That's good,” Longarm said. He took his handkerchief from his pocket, wet it in his water bucket, and gently bathed the whip slashes that crisscrossed Sam Childers's back.

“That feels good,” Childers said. “Real good.”

“Who is the girl at the other end?” Longarm asked.

“Men he captures he keeps to work down below. He has . . . had a few women too. Keeps them for sex. Don't know how many he has in the house. More than one. I'm sure of that.” Childers seemed to be feeling stronger now that he was receiving Longarm's help.

“That girl. Been here maybe two weeks. He bought her . . . from some place. She fights him. Two, three times a day the bastard will have her dragged inside. Couple of his men hold her down while he rapes her. She could live comfort . . . comfortable. If she'd give in to him. But she doesn't. I think he is trying to break her spirit, but she's a strong-willed little thing. She fights the guards every time.”

“Who do you think will win?” Longarm asked.

“Oh, he will. If he can't break her, he'll kill her.”

Longarm grunted. “Could be she'd consider that a victory for her side.”

“Yeah. She's tough, all right. And stubborn.”

“Do they take the whip to her too?”

“No, they don't. She's pretty. I think he doesn't want to spoil that. But if he gets tired of trying to break her, I'm betting he'll kill her.”

“Not to change the subject or anything,” Longarm said, “but is there a way out of here?”

“I've been here . . . shit, I don't know how long now. Long enough to think an awful lot. And to lay here looking up at those bars. The ones that cover the pit aren't bolted down or anything, just laid over the hole. The pit is about eight feet deep. I'm thinking if I get strong enough, I could jump up and grab hold of the bars over your hole while I kick the bars over top of my hole. You see what I'm getting at?”

“Yeah, I do. That might could work.”

“So it could. But then what the hell would I do when I got out of the pit? There's walls all around. Solid. With guards on top of the wall and at the gate. I seen them.”

“How long have you been here?” Longarm asked.

“This is . . . what? June, maybe?”

“September,” Longarm told him.

“I drifted past . . . or tried to go past . . . in November last year. So I been here ten months. Other guys have come by since then and been caught. Some of them died or been killed. They don't feed worth a shit, and if a man gets sick, they just let him die rather than take care of him.” Childers grimaced and went stiff as a jolt of pain hit him. After he relaxed, he said, “You'll learn all this. They'll keep you here long enough to soften you up. Then you'll go down below. You'll likely swing a pick just like the rest of us.”

“You keep saying ‘down below,' ” Longarm said. “What d' you mean by that?”

“At the bottom of this here mesa. We're . . . I don't know how deep inside it we are by now. Pretty long tunnel anyway.”

“Adit,” Longarm said.

“Huh?”

He smiled. “A hole in the ground is only a tunnel if it goes all the way through. If you haven't broke out the other end yet, it's called an adit.”

“I didn't know that,” Childers said.

“Yeah, it's interesting the shit you learn if you live in Colorado for a while. Lot's of mining hereabouts.”

“Listen, could I ask you for a favor?” Childers asked.

“Sure.”

“My back. It feels like it's on fire. Could you put some more of that cool water on it, please? That really feels good.”

“Glad to,” Longarm said, reaching for the water bucket.

“You bastards!” the girl's voice was weak but defiant as, sometime after dark, the guards dumped her back into her hole and clanged the grate down over it again.

Longarm waited until the men above were gone, then whispered, “Are you all right, miss?”

“Who are you?”

“At the moment I seem to be another prisoner, but not for the same reasons as you. As it happens, I'm a deputy U.S. marshal. I came here to look into something, and it seems I found more than I was prepared to handle. Are you all right?”

He could hear her derisive snort. “Just fine and dandy, mister. Tonight the bastard said if I don't start being nice to him, he'll just turn me over to the guards and maybe then to the slaves. I'll kill myself before I let that happen. I'm . . . I was a good girl until I wound up here.”

“What happened?”

“I suppose it is a sorry tale but not an uncommon one. I fell in love with the wrong man. He betrayed me. That is what it comes down to.”

“I'm sorry, miss.”

“Don't be. Henry Lyon is the bastard who will have to pay for this. I just hope he remembers me when he burns in the fires of Hell. I hope he screams my name. Well, screw him and all his kith and kin.” She paused for a moment. “Can I ask you something, mister?”

“Of course.”

“What does the word ‘kith' mean anyway?”

Longarm could not help but laugh. It seemed an odd question under these circumstances. But it did show that the girl was far from being broken by her captors if she could think of a silly thing like that. “I'm not sure,” he admitted.

“I know it,” Sam Childers piped up from his cell. “It means friends, relatives, folks that live around you or are close to you. Kin, they all have to be related to you somehow. Kith don't.”

“Thank you,” the girl said.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” Longarm asked.

“You can pray for me. Would you do that, please? Both of you?”

“I will,” Longarm promised.

“Me too,” Childers said. “Can I tell you something?” he added.

“Sure.”

“I saw you when they brought you in. You are . . . you're awful pretty.”

“Maybe I was once, but I'm soiled goods now. No man will have me after this.” She sounded entirely matter-of-fact about that prediction. Remarkably, there was no bitterness in her voice at all.

“Once you leave here,” Longarm said, “no one needs to know the things that went on here.”

“I'll know,” the girl said, her voice very low and sorrowful.

“You can think about that after the three of us get out of here,” Longarm told her.

“Mister, you are dreaming.”

“No, I'm not. Sam told me how to do it.”

“I did?”

“Sure you did. You said you were going to try it as soon as you were strong enough. Well, I'm strong enough.”

“Maybe, but what happens after you get out?” Childers asked.

Longarm chuckled. “Oh, I have an idea or two about that too. Do you think you can help if we can get out of these cells? Physically I mean. Are you up to it?”

“I'll help or I'll die trying,” Sam swore.

“Me too,” the girl put in. “I would rather die than to be that man's slave for the rest of my life.”

“All right then,” Longarm said. “Now, first things first. Let's get up out of this damn hole so's we can maybe accomplish somethin'. Sam, I want you to . . . Oh, shit. Wait.”

He could see a growing thread of light above the grate and could hear the approach of some of Lyon's guards. Men carrying a lantern, obviously.

“Long,” one of the men called as they came near. “Stand up. The boss wants to see you.”

Quickly Longarm plucked his pocket watch—with the .41-caliber derringer attached to the watch chain—out of his vest. He thrust both it and his pocketknife through the bars and said, “Hide these, Sam. Lie on top of them and pretend you're still passed out. They are what's gonna get us outa here. When I get back.”

“If you get back,” Childers said.

“I'm coming back.” Longarm chuckled. “Hey, have I ever lied to you before?”

Even under these circumstances Sam Childers laughed.

The covering grate was shoved back and a ladder thrust down into the pit. Longarm could see at least four men standing above the hole, one of them holding a lantern.

“Are you coming up on your own, Long, or do we have to come down and get you?”

“There's no need for violence, boys. Let me freshen up a mite and I'll be right pleased to join you.” He made sure his shirttail was tucked in, tugged his vest down, and scampered up the ladder to see what fate had in store for him this time.

They took him to the same large room with the fireplace, except now there was a fire blazing on the hearth, cedar judging by the fragrance it gave off. The room was bright as day, in fact much brighter now than it had been in daytime, courtesy of a dozen lamps blazing along the walls. Bunny Adams was there, lean and lethal, as was Henry Lyon, who now was wearing a satin dressing gown.

This evening, Longarm noticed, Bunny had a coiled bullwhip draped over his shoulder. His left shoulder, where it would not interfere if he needed to get his six-gun out in a hurry.

Lyon took a seat in one of the armchairs, crossed his legs, and took a fat cigar from a small humidor that rested on a small table nearby. He struck a match, then slowly and very carefully warmed the cigar before clamping it between his teeth and lighting it. The smoke smelled good, although not as pleasant as the scent from the burning cedar.

The master of the manor—Longarm had already come to the realization that Senator Lyon was quite mad—motioned with one finger, and his thugs grasped Longarm by the upper arm and guided him to a spot directly in front of Lyon and about six feet away. Obviously they thought it a safe distance. In truth Longarm could kill Lyon, perhaps Bunny Adams too, before the guards could stop him. He felt sure that he could. A quick blow to the throat and a violent wrench of the neck and it would be done.