Seven Out of Hell (10 page)

He didn’t hear the rifles crack, nor see the four raiders slump backwards pouring blood into the thirsty ground. He was unaware of the troopers leaping down from the roof, two entering the house to check on the dead in there while the other four approached the raiders on the street.

“We got us a live one,” Seward exclaimed, lowering his rifle muzzle against the pulsing throat of Bill Terry.

Forrest decorated his features with an evil grin. “Captain’s goin’ to like that.”

Seward looked unsympathetically at Hedges lying face down and unmoving, stretching his full six feet three inches across the ground. “He looks like he could use some good news, sarge.”

Forrest seemed to have forgotten Hedges had been hit. Now, his mean face devoid of emotion, he crossed to where Hedges was sprawled and put his boot under the stomach of the unconscious man. He flipped him over on to his back. He saw the dark blood staining Hedges’ pants and the purple bruise on his forehead.

“If you hate him that much, Frank, you won’t get a better chance to kill him,” Seward challenged.

Forrest spat into the dust close to Hedges’ unmoving right hand. The five troopers watched him expectantly.

“Ain’t many men I’ve hated worse than him,” Forrest rasped.

“Nor many you’ve needed more,” Rhett replied softly.

The truth hit home hard and Forrest whirled. His frustration became transmuted into hate as he stared into the scornful eyes of the New Englander. The tension between the two men stretched time. Forrest snapped it.

“But you I can do without, punk,” he snarled. He raised his Spencer and Rhett began to quake.

“Frank, the church!” Scott barked.

All the men turned to look along the street, across the crumpled forms of the dead raiders, to where the church door had opened. The women began to file out, all in black now, having taken off their white aprons. Each one either held, or led by the hand, a small child. They formed up into a line, with the children in front of them, across the doorway of the church.

“Hal, go get the dame and the horses. Rhett, pick up the Captain. Billy, bring the poor man’s Quantrill.”

Forrest’s voice was soft, but commanded instant compliance. As the designated men moved to carry out their orders, the church bell sounded: the slow, mournful toll of the death knell. Some of the women began to wail.

Rhett staggered under the weight of Hedges. Seward sweated as he dragged Terry by the feet. Forrest, Scott and Bell had to make a conscious effort to slow their pace as they neared the line of women and children. Douglas hurried in the opposite direction, anxious not to miss anything.

“What we gonna do, Frank?” Seward gasped.

Forrest shook his head. “One thing I can’t stand, Billy, and that’s lying women.”

“They sure did steer us wrong, Frank,” Bell agreed.

Forrest grinned. He halted before the line of women, who met and held his gaze across the heads of their children. “Can’t stand ’em,” he menaced. “But I can sure lay ’em.”

“This is a house of God!” Gilda Proctor warned.

Forrest nodded to the unconscious Hedges cradled in Rhett’s arms. “God’s sleepin’, lady,” he said. “So I reckon he don’t care too much right now. We figure it’s just a house.”

The men moved forward.

*****

THEY marched for two hours, gaining height all the time and were almost at the snowline when Mao and the woman he had claimed went through a gap in a ridge and led the line of hostages and guards down on to the camp site.

It nestled at the foot of a shallow incline where the ground leveled out for three hundred yards before falling away again into a series of steps down to a far off river flowing through the enormous valley. The terrain was mostly of rock, dotted here and there with clumps of toughened grass and a few shrubs. But the camp, comprised of a half dozen cabins crudely constructed of stone and timber, was surrounded by an area of fertile fields bristling with rice plants, the roots of which were lost beneath the muddy surface of the water which flowed in from a clear stream. Three women worked at the edge of one of the paddy fields, blocking a hole through which water was escaping.

As the newcomers neared the camp the women watched with apprehension, which slowly became resentment as their narrow eyes studied the four female hostages. They completely ignored the American men.

“You will now stop!” Shin commanded as the group moved into the compound formed by the circle of cabins.

Guards and hostages alike were grateful the long walk was over. The effort of moving forward without rest, constantly up hill, had been compounded by the thinning of the mountain air. And as they came to a halt at last, they took deep breaths, aware for the first time that the chillness stung their lungs.

“All prisoners in that hut!” Shin instructed, pointing to one of the crude buildings. “AH behave and all be treated good. Make trouble and we kill.”

Mao gave Beth’s rump a final squeeze and shoved her unceremoniously towards the open door of the hut. Her expression hardened and she seemed about to hurl abuse at the Chinese for his sudden change of attitude.

“I reckon you ain’t lost the chance,” Edge called to her.

The woman whirled to glare at him.

Shin stepped forward. “One make trouble, all die.”

Beth flounced into the cabin and as the guards motioned with their shotguns, the other hostages followed her. Edge was the last to enter. The door, with a barred, glassless window, was slammed behind him and two bolts were shot home. Shin stabbed a finger at two blank-faced Chinese and they shambled forward to take up sentry positions on each side of the door.

“These Wong brothers,” Shin said, the grin back on his face. “Very miserable men. Smile only when allowed to kill. Kill very good with knife.” Shin put his index finger against his stomach and inscribed a circle. “Cut out belly. Not kill quick. Hurt very much.”

Edge’s eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded Shin between the bars. “You made your point,” he said.

One of the women hostages began to sob. Shin grinned more widely. “Wongs like to cut women best. Be pleased to accommodate any lady make too much disturbance.”

He turned away, to follow Mao into a cabin on the other side of the compound. The men with the sacks of loot from the train hold-up delivered their burdens inside and emerged. Then, with the exception of the blank-faced sentries, all the Chinese men entered other huts. The women regarded the prison cabin for a few moments before returning to their work in the fields.

Edge turned and looked around the cabin, allowing his hooded eyes time to adjust to the near darkness. The barred aperture in the door was the sole source of light. The floor was rough rock, the walls dry stone and the roof unplaned timber. The area was about fifteen by ten and there was no furniture. Some of the hostages stood while others squatted or sat on the floor. It was cold in there, away from the insipid sunlight of early afternoon. Every eye was upon the tall figure of Edge, communicating a tacit agreement that he had been unanimously elected their leader. Even Beth seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

But Edge’s hard-eyed stare offered no comfort or hope. He expressed nothing as he looked around the ring of pale blobs which were their faces in the murk. This rejection was too much for a middle-aged woman wearing wire-framed eye-glasses and as her spirit broke, it undammed a flood of tears and triggered a crescendo of wails.

One of the Wong brothers smashed the stock of his shotgun against the door and unleashed a babble of Chinese.

“Better shut her up,” Edge said easily. “This ain’t no bridal suite but it beats a womb with a view.”

The woman stemmed her emotions and her eyes were wide behind the spectacles as she stared at Edge.

“What kind of a man are you?” Beth snarled as she jerked free of Alvin and placed a comforting arm around the woman’s shoulders.

“A poor one,” Edge replied, sinking to the floor, resting his back against the door. “Which kinda riles me.”

He had no need to voice a threat, his tone and the menacing set of his features implying his mood. Then, with a final glance around at the wretchedness of his fellow prisoners, he closed his eyes and within moments had drifted into an easy sleep.

Chapter Six

“W
HERE’D
you keep the kids before you needed ’em?” Forrest demanded.

Those children old enough to comprehend the danger clung to the women and began to whimper.

“Vault under the church,” Gilda Proctor replied and for the first time she revealed fear. Her voice shook.

Forrest nodded. “Better get ’em back down there, lady.”

Many of the women stared back down the street towards the sprawled bodies of their men. Faith Terry sank teeth into her lower lip as she looked at the blood on her husband’s face. It came from a meaty furrow ploughed across the top of his forehead.

The bell continued to intone its one note message of death. One of the women swayed in time with the sound, as if hypnotized.

Forrest’s voice was a snarl. “Move! You, you, you and you. Take ’em and stay with ’em.”

His rifle stabbed towards the four oldest women. Hoof-beats sounded on the street but the sergeant did not turn around to watch as Douglas led the raiders’ horses up the incline. Maria Marwick rode one of the animals, her hands lashed to the saddle horn.

“Gilda?” one of the old women pleaded.

The red-head was holding a baby. She thrust the child into the arms of the biddy. “We tried and we lost,” she said dispiritedly. “Now we must pay the penalty.”

Forrest showed her a leering grin. “You got good sense, Gilda,” he complimented. “Just keep ’em in line and nobody’ll get hurt.”

“’Cepting sleeping beauty here,” Seward hissed as he began to drag Terry closer to the church.

Faith Terry moaned and her teeth drew blood from her lip. The rest of the women handed over their children into the care of the four designated by Forrest. They were led and carried into the church. Douglas hitched the horses to the rail outside the saloon and lifted down the woman. He led her by a rope with her hands still tied.

“Not the church?” Gilda asked.

“The church,” Forrest spat at her.

Whatever spirit had been left in the women now drained from them and their shoulders drooped as they filed in through the arched doorway. The men followed. A large, brass-studded door thudded closed, blocking the entrance to the vault. The bell sounded louder within the confines of the building and they could see the old minister at the end of the aisle, pulling rhythmically on the rope.

“Enough is enough!” Forrest yelled as the women lined up against a wall.

Seward dropped Terry’s legs. Rhett lowered Hedges gently on to a pew. He placed a prayer hassock under his head. The death knell stopped abruptly and the old minister peered back along the aisle through weak eyes, “I ask forgiveness for my flock,” he said strongly. “They spoke untruths in order to protect what they hold most dear.”

Forrest spat. “They lied to get us killed. Now they gotta pay.”

“He sold us down the river as well, Frank,” Scott pointed out.

“And he can’t pay like the dames,” Bell put in. He glanced at Rhett, grinning. “Unless...”

The New Englander looked at the minister with distaste. “You didn’t want the old women,” he said with a sneer.

Forrest shrugged. “Sorry, padre. Guess we all got to get old…” He swung the Spencer and squeezed the trigger “... and die.”

The women screamed. The minister staggered backwards, clutching at his chest. He crashed into the altar and slid down to sit in front of it, staring down the length of his church with the glazed eyes of the dead.

“You filthy swine!” Gilda screamed.

Forrest appeared not to hear. He glanced at the troopers, resting his rifle against the rear of a pew and unbuckling his gunbelt. “Pick your pussy,” he invited. “Rhett, watch the rejects. They start anything, stop it.”

“You mean kill ’em, Frank?” Rhett asked.

“That’ll do it,” Forrest replied.

Hedges had been swimming through the blackness towards the surface of consciousness when he had been laid upon the pew. The sound of the shot jerked him fully into a pain-wracked world. For long moments he saw the vaulted roof of the church as a blurred pattern with no form and heard the grunts and moans of rape as a distant confusion of meaningless sound. And even when- full awareness came to him he could spare no thought for his surroundings. For the sickening pain in his head and the burning agony in his leg kept him locked inside his own world of self-pity.