“Ah, yes, Maurice. Did you tell Cahoon that this Maurice person had stopped by here?”
“That is what he wrote and told me. But I have no way of knowing if he did stop or not. Maurice, ah, tends to story a bit.”
“I see. In other words, he’s nothing more than a goddamned liar?”
“Ah, yes, Your Majesty.”
“Where is he now, Jester?”
“I have no idea, Your Majesty.”
“I see. Does he look like you, Jester?”
“No, Your Majesty. Maurice was adopted, you see. While my hair is—”
Rex waved him silent as a man carrying a tray of drinks stumbled and went crashing to the floor. The glasses shattered and the smell of raw whiskey and beer filled the huge room.
“Incompetent fool!” Rex yelled at the fallen man.
“I’m sorry, sir. It was an accident.”
“Your services will no longer be needed here, idiot.”
The man tried to crawl to his feet just as Rex pulled out a .44. “I cannot tolerate clumsiness.” He eased back the hammer and shot the man in the chest, knocking him back to the floor. The man began screaming in pain. Rex calmly shot him in the head. The screaming stopped.
Smoke watched it all, then remembered to put a shocked look on his face. Just in time, for Rex had cut his eyes and was watching Smoke carefully.
“Oh, my goodness!” Smoke gasped, putting a hand over his mouth. “That poor fellow.”
“Drag him out of here and sprinkle some sawdust over the blood spots,” Rex ordered. He punched out the empty brass in the cylinder and replaced the spent cartridges, then cut his eyes to Smoke. “Life is the cheapest commodity on the market around here, Jester. Bear that in mind at all times. Now then, how long were you planning on staying in my town?”
“My original plans were to spend about a week, sketching the scenery, which I was told was lovely. Then I was going to resupply and move on.”
“A week, hey?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Give me all your money.”
“Sir?”
King Rex slapped Smoke out of the chair. And as he hit the floor, Smoke was really beginning to question his own sanity for getting himself into this snakepit. And wondering if he were going to get out of it alive.
Smoke was jerked up from the floor and slammed into his chair. The side of his face ached and he tasted blood in his mouth. And if Rex, king of Dead River, could just read Smoke’s thoughts…
“Never, never question me, Jester,” Rex told him. “You will obey instantly, or you will die. Very slowly and very painfully. Do you understand me, Jester?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Just don’t hurt me. I can’t stand pain. It makes me ill.”
“Stop your goddamned babblings, you fool. Give me your money!”
Smoke dug in his trousers and handed the man his slim roll of greenbacks.
Rex counted the money. “Sixty dollars. I charge ten dollars a day to stay here, Jester, unless you work for me, which you don’t. What are you going to do at the end of six days, Jester?”
A woman began screaming from one of the rooms upstairs. Then the sounds of a whip striking flesh overrode the screaming. A man’s ugly laughter followed the sounds of the lashing.
“A slave being punished, Jester,” Rex told him. “We have many slaves in this town. Some live a long, long time. Others last only a few weeks. How long do you think you would last, Jester?”
“I don’t know, Your Majesty.”
“An honest answer. Now answer my original question, Jester.”
“Well, I suppose after my six days are up, I’ll just leave, sir.” After I kill you, Davidson.
From the depths of the crowd, a man laughed, and it was not a very nice laugh. Smoke looked around him; all the hardcases were grinning at him.
“So you think you’ll leave, hey, Jester?” Davidson smiled at him.
“Yes, sir. I hope to do that.”
“Well, we’ll see. If you behave yourself, I’ll let you leave.”
Sure you will, Smoke thought. Right. And Drifter is going to suddenly start reciting poetry at any moment.
Davidson shook the greenbacks at Smoke. “This money only allows you to stay in this protected town. You pay for your own food and lodgings. You may leave now, Jester.”
Smoke stood up.
“Welcome to Dead River, Mr. DeBeers,” Rex said with a smile.
Smoke began walking toward the batwings, half expecting to get a bullet in his back. But it was a pleasant surprise when none came. He pushed open the batwings and stepped out onto the boardwalk. He mounted up, packhorse rope in his hand, and swung Drifter’s bonneted head toward the far end of town, away from the sights and sounds and smells of the dead and slowly dying men and women at the other end of the town. He got the impression that hell must be very much like what he had witnessed coming in.
One thing for sure, he knew he would never forget that sight as long as he lived. He didn’t have to sketch it to remember it; it was burned into his brain.
He wondered what had finally happened to that slave woman he had heard being beaten back at the Bloody Bucket. He thought he knew.
How in the name of God could a place like this have existed for so long, without somebody escaping and telling the horrors that were going on?
He had no answers for that question either.
But he knew that this place must be destroyed. And he also knew that when Marshal Jim Wilde and Sheriff Larsen and the posse members saw this chamber of horrors, there would never be any due process of law. No courts with judge and jury would decide the fate of the outlaws of Dead River. It would be decided on the seventh night, with gunsmoke and lead.
If the posse could help it, no outlaw would leave this valley alive.
Smoke pushed those thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on his own predicament: He did not have a cent to his name and had very few supplies left. Maybe enough to last a couple of days, if he was careful.
Smoke Jensen, the most famous and feared gunfighter in all the West, didn’t know what in the hell he was going to do.
10
“So that’s it.” Sally’s father’s voice was filled with ill-disguised disgust. “What a wretched excuse for a human being.”
Abigal’s face mirrored her shock and horror.
Sally sat with her mother and father in the book-lined study of the mansion. Her father’s room, which few of them had dared enter when they were children. But Sally had never been afraid of doing so. She used to love to sit in her father’s chair and look at all the books about law and justice.
The three of them were alone; her brothers and sisters had left for the evening. And the town was fairly buzzing about the news of the famous gunfighter who was soon to be arriving.
“Why didn’t you tell us when it happened, dear?” her mother asked.
“Because he told me he would kill you both. Then, after he left town, after killing that man, I just did my best to put the incident out of my mind, as much as possible. As the years went by, the memory became dimmer and dimmer. But there is no doubt in my mind that Dagget is the same man who tried to molest me years ago.”
John rose from his chair to pace the room, his anger very evident. Wife and daughter watched him until he composed himself and returned to his leather chair. “The first thing in the morning, I shall inform the authorities as to this scoundrel’s whereabouts. Then we shall begin extradition proceedings to have him returned to New Hampshire to stand trial.”
Sally could not contain the smile that curved her lips. “Father, by the time you do all that legal mumbojumbo, the matter will most probably be taken care of—if it isn’t already tended to. However, Smoke did suggest he cut off Dagget’s head and bring it back here in a sack.”