Amidst an instant, wavelike cloud of dust, raised by the pistol’s head-ringing blast, Cutner let out a single, ear-shattering shriek. Honest to sweet Mary, screech he let out sounded like a stagecoach ran over a mountain lion right in front of me. No doubt about it, Boz’s well-placed shot did the trick, and then some.
Cutner turned his pistol loose like it was a fresh-forged horseshoe. The still-cocked weapon skittered across the packed-dirt floor and ricocheted off the stone wall. He dropped Clem, then grabbed at his blood-gushing crotch with both hands. Went down on both knees then rolled onto one side. Hit his unprotected shoulder like a felled tree. Set to whooping, hollering, and thrashing around in the dirt as if Boz’s shot had cut his head off.
I holstered my pistols, jumped across the ten or so feet that separated us, and snatched Clem away, while Boz snatched Cutner’s pistol up off the floor. He shoved the short-barreled blaster behind his own cartridge belt. A beaming grin painted across his face, he stood over a freshly neutered Eagle “Mad Dog” Cutner and watched as the man rolled around on the floor, slinging blood every which direction.
Quick as I could, I carried Clem to the ramshackle piece of a bed. Laid her out atop a blanket that was horrifyingly smeared in what I figured had to be her own blood.
I covered the girl up best I could manage, with anything I could lay a hand on. Pressed two fingers against her gore-caked neck in an effort to find something akin to a pulse. Bent over and listened for breathing, then put an ear against her chest. I could barely hear her heartbeat ’cause of all the yelling and hollering Cutner was doing.
“She’s still with us,” I said more to myself than to anyone in particular. “Think if we can get her awake, cleaned up, and moving around, she just might make it. Gotta get on it fast as we can, though.”
Boz eased up beside me. He jammed a fresh shell into the empty chamber of his pistol. Slapped the loading gate closed, then shoved the gun into his hip holster. Thumbs hooked over a hand-tooled Mexican cartridge belt, he rocked back on his heels and frowned. “Hard thing to think, but given the way the poor child looks, be nothin’ short of a miracle if she lives another ten minutes, you ask me, Lucius.”
From outside, I heard Glo call out, “How is it in there with you, Mistuh Boz? Mistuh Dodge? You gennemens okay? Y’all still be alive and kickin’?”
I turned and yelled, “We’re fine and dandy, Glo. Still breathin’. Still kickin’. Need you to run back to the horses. Get the blanket tied behind my saddle. Also all our canteens and my saddlebags. Bring everything inside here quick as you can.”
Hadn’t quite finished my instructions, when I spotted him standing in the blasted doorway. Thought for a second or so the man would break down weeping when he said, “Sweet merciful Jesus, Mistuh Dodge. What’d that animal go and do to the poor chile? Top of everthang else she’s done suffered, what’d he go and do?”
I stood beside the shaky piece of a bed and gazed down into Clementine Webb’s scabrous, splotched face. Took the whole of my self-control to keep from breaking down like the girl’s very own father. “Sweet Jesus, don’t know for sure, Glo. Doubt we’ll ever know all of it for certain. Whatever he did, we need to get her warm and cleaned off right quick-like. Want her outta here and shaped up as best we can manage ’fore she manages to regain some semblance of consciousness—if she ever does.”
“Goin’ for the blankets, water, and sech right now, Mistuh Dodge. Back fast as these ole legs and the good Lord’ll let me.”
Glo’s words were still hanging in the air when I heard Eagle Cutner moan. He sounded most like a man being tortured by a band of Satan’s red-eyed imps.
I stomped my way across the room and tried my dead level best to put my booted foot completely up his no-account backside. Guess I must’ve kicked the unmitigated hell out of him four or five times. Would’ve probably kicked him slap to death, but then Boz slid up from behind, grabbed me around the shoulders, and dragged me back a few steps.
Arms still locked around me in a viselike grip, mouth right next to my ear, Boz hissed, “He’s still alive, Lucius. Son of a bitch is still alive. Doubt he’ll die from losing them there gonads of his’n. And we don’t wanna kill ’im completely dead just yet.”
Still mad enough to eat raw bees, I grunted and tried to wrench myself from his grip.
“Think, now, ole friend,” he hissed into my ear. “Wanna get at the head of this beast, we’ve still gotta find out where that stink sprayer Ax Webb went. Keep on kickin’ ole Eagle and he just might give up the ghost.”
Can’t remember a time when I’ve let my emotions get hold of me to the point where I seemed to lose all reason like I did that day. But, my glorious God, appeared as how Eagle Cutner had gone and done deplorable things to Clementine Webb, and I wasn’t in anything like a forgiving mood. Felt like my head might explode if I couldn’t stomp a bloody ditch in his sorry hide, then stomp it dry.
Boz didn’t turn me loose until I’d relaxed a mite. Got to admit, it took an almighty heap of self-control to keep from finishing the job I’d started. I clomped a path all the way around that big ole room a time or two. Kicked at every piece of broken-down furniture handy. Was trying like the dickens to shake off the urge to go back over and put the boot to Eagle Cutner till I’d stomped him slap to death. Pretty sure, at the time, the simple act of killin’ the bee-Jesus out of him would’ve made me feel one hell of a bunch better about the whole situation.
After about two or three minutes of fuming like a forest fire on the verge of bursting loose and flarin’ up like Hell’s lowest circle, I finally calmed down enough to go over and squat down beside the castrated son of a bitch.
He was still rolling around in his own filth. Man had both blood-soaked hands clamped between his legs and had descended to the point of whimpering like a hurt dog. Was enough to make me want to puke up my balbriggans, socks, boots, and silver-mounted spurs. Sweet Jesus, he was pathetic.
Arms crossed over his chest, Boz slouched against one end of the rotting fireplace mantel and watched. After a few seconds of contemplation, he set to rolling himself a ciga-reet.
As I recall it, Boz’d already started on his smoke by the time I grabbed the sniveling stack of walking scum at my feet and snatched him onto his nekkid back. Knees hiked up against his heaving chest, Cutner fingered at the still-bleeding ribbon of flesh between his legs, whimpered and mewled. Just typical. Cowardly bastard’s real self had popped out with the loss of his manhood. And he couldn’t hide it any longer.
24
“GO ON AND KILL ME.”
NOW, I HAVE to confess, I might’ve gone and slapped the blue-eyed hell out of Eagle Cutner a time or two, maybe three, that fateful afternoon. As I now recollect the events of that day, my open palm across his cheeks did tend to make loud cracking sounds. Pretty sure I left a goodly share of red welts that looked like my fingers on his surprised countenance.
Once I’d finally got his undivided attention, I grabbed the sorry bastard by the throat and said, “You’ve gotta clear your mind, Eagle. Whatever there is left of it. Gotta perk up. Pay attention. You’n me, and ole Boz Tatum here have unfinished business to discuss.”
Cutner groaned, then made the kind of pitiable sounds that would normally have had the power to pull tears out a glass eye, but not that day. From behind his own set of piss-yellow orbs, he whimpered, “Ain’t g-got nothin’ to say to either of you star-carryin’ b-bastards. Skunk ugly a-assholes done turned me into a geldin’. One pistol shot. Damnation. One shot. Cain’t b-believe it. Went from bein’ a rooster to a hen in a s-single heartbeat.”