Glo said, “Be the first to admit as how we done terrible things when we ’uz killin’ Comanches back in the bad times, Mistuh Boz. But that were then, this is now, and this is different.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. This is a bad time, too,” Boz said and shook a finger in Atwood’s direction. “And if I have to drag this son of a bitch down the street by the heels to the nearest butcher’s shop and feed him through a hand-crank meat grinder one bloody chunk at a time, then that’s what I’m gonna do.” He paused, pointed at the batwings and added, “I’ll turn his sorry ass into chili meat without a second thought. You can’t deal with it, or don’t want to deal with it, you need to wait outside ’cause this dance is about to get a helluva lot worse.”
A look of pained, muted panic rushed over Glo’s face. “What you gonna do now?” he said.
Boz snatched the pointed end of the stick from beneath the pool table’s cushioned railing. He held the jagged piece of polished wood up in Atwood’s face. Bent over next to the gunny’s ear, he hissed, “I’m gonna shove this into the bullet hole Lucius put in his chest, then I’m gonna lean on it till I push it all the way through him and the tip hits the slate under his back.”
Atwood sucked in a ragged, terrified gasp. He twisted back and forth like a snake trying to get out of a hot frying pan. Took in a number of terrified, bloody, gurgling, wheezy breaths. “All right,” he spat. “All right, for the love of God, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just don’t go stab-bin’ me with the broke end of that stick.”
Boz suddenly looked tired to the bone. He tossed the broken piece of hickory onto the floor at his feet. The two-and-a-half-foot-long splinter of wood bounced and made a loud clacking sound, then rolled to a spot against the wall.
My friend snatched his hat off. He wiped thumb-sized beads of salty sweat away from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, then tiredly said, “Question’s still the same, Atwood. Hasn’t changed since first asked. Where’s the girl?”
I had to move closer to Atwood’s blood-soaked resting place to hear him. In truth, the man appeared but a step or two from his own demise and could barely speak. He said, “God’s truth, Tatum, I-I-I don’t k-k-know—exactly. Swear I don’t. Just know Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner. Told Eagle he could do with her as he pleased.”
Atwood’s surprising remark shot right past me and Boz. But Glo heard him well enough. He strode to the table like he just might pick Tatum’s stick up off the floor and go back to whacking on Atwood’s shins himself. He glared at the outlaw and growled, “You said, ‘Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner.’ Ain’t that right, mister? Didn’t I just hear you say, ‘Webb gave her to Eagle Cutner’?”
“Damned if he didn’t,” Boz mumbled and scratched a stubble-covered chin. “Heard it myself.”
Frothy, pink slobbers dribbled from the corners of Atwood’s grinning mouth. He coughed. A gobbet of blood the size of a hen egg squirted out onto his chest. A wet, bloody, almost unearthly chuckle rattled out from somewhere deep inside the dying outlaw. “That’s right. ’S exactly what I said. Got you boys doin’ a-right smart a-thinkin’ now, d-d-don’t I?”
20
“WHERE WOULD CUTNER TAKE THE GIRL?”
“PROP ME UP,” Tanner Atwood wheezed. “Gotta get me off my back, boys. Can’t seem to suck down enough air a-layin’ here like this.”
Glo grabbed several of the cushions off some of the cane-backed chairs provided for the Broke Mill’s snooker lovers. We helped the groaning, back-shooting lowlife into a sitting position and jammed the well-worn pads under his head, neck, and shoulders.
Once we’d got him somewhat comfortable, Boz offered the battered man another run at his tin bucket of beer. Atwood refused. Said, “Could sure ’nuff use some water though, Tatum. Mighty dry right now. Feels like I ain’t had a good, long, refreshin’ drink of water in years.”
While we waited, Glo rummaged around behind the bar and came up with a heavy-bottomed mug filled to the lip with cold, clear water. He helped get some down Atwood’s gullet, then, under his breath, I heard him say, “Best get to talkin’, Mistuh Atwood. Not sure we can stop Mistuh Boz again, if’n he takes it into his head to go a beatin’ on you some more.”
“I’ll try,” Atwood said, then gasped for air. “Gar-n-tee I’ll sure ’nuff try.”
Glo nodded, then added, “Well, I’ll gar-n-tee, if you don’t have somethin’ important to offer him, little girl’s screamin’ voice you’re gonna hear beggin’ for mercy is gonna be yours.”
Atwood gulped down near half that mug of liquid before he stopped. ’Course that set the thumb-sized hole in his chest to pumping blood out at a considerably faster pace. He set to clutching at the wound and let out a series of pitiful, near heartrending moans.
All that yelping and moaning got me to thinking as to how the evil skunk might be right on the edge of passing on over to the other side. But to everyone’s surprise he perked back up a bit. Appeared the man was holding on with his last fingernail. Guess he didn’t want Satan to get a grip on his immortal soul for at least a few more minutes.
Surprised the bejabbers out of me, when, out of nowhere, Boz’s hand snaked out. He delivered a rattling, openhanded, five-fingered rap across Atwood’s unprotected cheek. Then he grabbed the man by the chin and said, “Don’t you dare go and die on us. Swear if you die now, I’ll drag you out into the middle of Del Rio’s central thoroughfare and set your sorry ass ablaze.”
Bubbling, foamy slobber dribbled down Atwood’s chin. A look of panicked despair creaked across the outlaw’s face when he said, “You wouldn’t do that. Tell me you wouldn’t do that, Tatum.” Then he cast a horrified glance my direction and yelped, “You wouldn’t let him do that, would you, Dodge? Would you?”
Appeared to me a serious case of loco was camped behind Boz’s eyes when he said, “Don’t matter what Dodge thinks. ’Cause I’ll damn sure light you up if you don’t get to talkin’. You don’t give me something substantial, you’re gonna burn like a cord of last winter’s firewood. Get you flamin’ up good while you’re still here so the Devil won’t have to waste so much effort when you land on his front porch.”
In a halfhearted attempt to reassure him, I patted the terrified man on the shoulder and said, “Get on with it. Sure ’nuff wouldn’t want to watch you burn.”
“Who’s this Webb feller? One you said gave Miss Clementine to Mad Dog Cutner,” Glo said.
Atwood groaned. Talon-like fingers squeezed the seeping chest wound. Sounded as though he was being strangled when he said, “He’s the girl’s uncle. There, you happy now?”
“Uncle?” The word popped out of all three of our mouths at the same time.
A self-satisfied, mischievous, almost childlike grin danced across the wounded brigand’s quivering, blood-encrusted lips. “Yeah. Crazy, ain’t it. The Honorable Nathan Hawthorn Webb’s baby brother. Charles Axel Webb. All us ole boys from Huntsville who’ve been travelin’ with the man of recent call ’im Ax.”
As if he’d been slapped, Boz recoiled and took half a step backward. “God save us. Ax Webb. Webb for cryin’ out loud. We shoulda known. Shit. I just didn’t make the connection. Did you, Lucius?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t figure I ever would’ve, either. Just so far beyond the pale as to be nigh on impossible to fathom.”
“Why?” Glo said. “Why this man behind killin’ his own kin? Turns my stomach just thinkin’ on such a heinous crime.”
Though racked by waves of easily observable pain, Atwood let out a croupy, staccato laugh. Then he wiped another frothy pile of spittle from his twitching lips. He welded me to the floor with a cold-eyed stare and said, “Might remember as how ole Ax got sent to p-p-prison ’bout five years back for a number of daytime bank robberies he staged all over south Tejas. P-P-Prosecutors tried to nail him with a couple a killing’s that took place durin’ them particular raids as well. Didn’t work. S-S-Still and all, jury sent him up the river for a hundred and f-f-fifty years.”