The Judas Goat, page 14
part #6 of Breed Series
After that he waited.
Nolan got word from the stableboy and threw the youngster a dollar.
He smiled as he drained his glass. ‘C’mon Jude, let’s go. We got ourselves a debt to settle.’
‘You ain’t believin’ that are you?’ Christie looked startled. ‘You ain’t gonna go walkin’ up there with him waitin’?’
‘Why not?’ Nolan tugged at his ear, rubbing his thumb around the ragged edge where Azul had once shot away the lobe. ‘It’s the best goddam chance we ever had.’
‘He’ll be waitin’,’ repeated Christie. ‘He’ll be sittin’ out with a Winchester leveled on us.’
‘Sure he will. That’s how we’ll know exactly where he is.’ Nolan’s voice was flat and cold and hungry-sounding. ‘We’ll know exactly where he is, but he’ll be guessin’ our positions.’
Azul waited.
The room was dark and warm. There was a fly buzzing irritably around the shutters behind him, and in a pool of light that filtered through the louvres he could see three ants running in circles over the floor.
He was hunkered down in a squat. He could wait that way for hours, or power up should the need arise. He had learned long ago to rest motionless in one position, holding it for as long as need be; waiting.
It was an Apache thing, something his mother’s people had taught him.
Before she was killed…
Before his father was killed…
Before their scalps were lifted by Nolan and Jude Christie…
Before he learned to hate.
He raised his head, abruptly conscious of something wrong. Instantly, it registered on his trained ears: a lack of sound.
There were no more voices outside in the corridor or stairway, no more footfalls. The hotel had gone suddenly quiet.
He canted the Winchester across his chest, barrel angling towards the window behind him, but the carbine held so that he could swing it fast towards the door. He heard footsteps. Soft. Too soft. As though a man in boots was doing his best to tip-toe along the balcony.
He grinned.
It looked more like a rictus, the bare-bones ugly grin on the face of a skull.
Come on, he thought, come on and die. You owe me that. Me and my parents. And my people. Come on in and die.
There was a scrabbling on the balcony behind him and he swung round, leveling the carbine. A shadow blocked the sun. He triggered the Winchester. Saw splinters jump clear of the frame as the shadow fell away.
Then bullets were blasting in through the door.
He fired back and ducked. The door shook and lurched inwards. A dark shape sprang into the room, gun flowering bright flame at bed and chair. A harsh, cold voice bellowed a curse and the gun swung round, spraying bullets across the room.
He recognized Nolan and let the Winchester drop. It was too long, too cumbersome for this kind of fighting.
His hand closed on the butt of the Colt. The gun slid from the holster, thumb tugging back the hammer, forefinger closing over the trigger. Bullets blasted under the bed, muzzle flash lighting the dusty floor.
Nolan rolled, dropping his own Colt. His hand darted beneath his jacket, emerging with a .38 Remington’s Star. He fired back at Azul as he launched himself through the door, tumbling back to escape the blast of gunfire coming his way.
Azul cursed, knowing that his shots had missed in the heat of the brief moment. He dropped the emptied Colt and lifted the Winchester, triggering a random shot through the swinging door.
‘That’s twice,’ Nolan shouted. ‘Two you owe me.’
‘How’s that?’ Azul shifted back against the wall as he said it, watching the balcony. ‘How’d you mean?’
‘My ear once,’ replied Nolan, ‘then the bullet you just put through my arm.’
‘Next one’ll be your head,’ grated Azul
He came to his knees, raking fire across the door. Left to right, then on into the plasterwork of the wall. He eased off, hoping to hear a body fall, or a cry of pain. There was nothing to satisfy his blood lust.
Unless the scream counted.
And that came from behind him.
He twisted, launching himself back and across the room, fetching up on the far side, tucked into the corner between the chair and the dresser he’d had no occasion to use.
‘Don’t!’ Jude Christie shouted the words. ‘Unless you want yore woman dead.’
He came out through the adjoining door, left arm wrapped tight around Carmen’s throat, the right hooked round to press the Colt’s Frontier against her face.
The pistol was jammed hard into her jaw, distorting the skin so that it was tugged tight down from her cheek, enlarging her eye, accentuating the tears spilling over her face.
‘Please,’ she moaned, ‘please don’t shoot. Don’t do anything or he’ll kill me.’
Azul stared at her. Time seemed to spill over, instants flooding into minutes, hours. This was the woman he had agreed to take down to Chihuahua. The woman he had Slept with. The woman who had offered the suggestion of a new life. The woman who had thrown it all back at him. The cold, savage anger returned.
‘She’s not my woman,’ he said softly.
And pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Carmen Grieve in the center of her stomach. It left a little red hole in her white dress, a much larger hole at the back. Azul couldn’t see that one because Jude Christie was pressed up too close against her. But he could see the pain on her face. Could feel it.
The bullet went through Carmen into Christie. It came out of the woman’s back with most of its force spent, but it was still moving fast and hard enough to bust a rib and send the Southern man jerking backwards.
His right arm lifted at the blow. Lifted just enough to level his gun on Carmen’s temple.
Then reflex action dragged his finger tight on the trigger and the Colt went off.
The .45 caliber slug plastered the right side of her face inwards against her brain. It drove through on an upwards trajectory into the soft grey mass that was her devious mind. Tore it all apart and came out through the bone of her skull It imbedded in the plasterwork of the ceiling, leaving a great crimson smear that began to drip sluggishly down on to the floor.
She slammed against the wall, leaning back with the sticky, glutinous mess of her own skull dripping on to her hair. The white dress was all muddied with blood and bits of bone. Her eyes were very wide and very empty.
She crumpled to the floor like a forgotten rag doll, leaving a great wash of crimson behind her.
Jude Christie stumbled and fell. He had one hand pressed up tight against his side. The other was triggering shots at Azul
‘Oh sweet Christ! Nolan! Help me! Fer God’s sake help me!’
He emptied his gun and heard the hammer click over spent cartridges.
‘Jesus! Nolan! Help me!’
Azul swung the Winchester back towards the door. He squeezed the trigger. Saw wood fly clear of the frame. Levered. Fired. Levered. Fired.
‘Sorry, Jude. You’re on yore own.’
Azul didn’t hear the shout. He was filled up with blind, howling fury. He was a killing machine, intent only on pumping bullets into Nolan’s body. Destroying the scalphunter. Revenging his parents.
He powered to his feet, launching himself in a reckless dive across the room. He landed close by the door. Rolled. Angled the carbine past the frame and pumped bullets into the corridor.
Nolan was gone.
Azul came to his feet, running fast for the stair well The desk clerk looked up, clutching the sawed-off shotgun in both nervous hands.
‘Where’d he go?’
The clerk pointed the shotgun along the corridor. ‘That way.’
Azul turned, racing along the balcony. There was an open door flapping at the far end and he went through it at a run. A man was slumped against the wall, moaning as he clutched his head, trying to stem the flow of blood coming from the long cut across his forehead. The window was open.
Azul leaned out. The balcony didn’t extend this far along, but he could see a figure in a black suit running—for the side alley.
He lifted the Winchester to his shoulder, bracing his hips against the lower edge of the window frame. His shot chipped wood an inch to the left of Nolan’s disappearing figure, then it was gone.
He pulled back into the room, ignoring the man, and went back to the corridor. Nolan was gone, but he still had Jude Christie. And the Southerner still had a debt to pay.
There were people coming up the stairs when he got back to room seven, but they halted when they saw his face and stood in nervous silence as he went into the room.
Carmen was huddled on the floor in a pool of blood, and when he stepped through the adjoining door he saw Ramon Bedoya stretched across the bed: with a scalping knife sticking out from between his shoulders. Christie was groaning and trying to shove cartridges into his pistol. Azul kicked the gun out of his hand and dragged the fair-haired man upright by the front of his shirt.
He spun Christie round and jammed the Winchester against the small of his back. Then he walked the man out to the stairs.
The watchers parted as he went down, falling away to either side as though afraid of catching some communicable form of death. Like a bullet.
‘Oh, God!’ Tears spilled down Christie’s cheeks faster than the blood leaking out of his side. ‘Somebody help me! For God’s sake, someone help me!’
‘There’s no one.’ Azul’s voice was flat and cold and deadly. ‘Just you and me.’
He shoved Christie to the door, then turned back.
‘If anyone follows us, I’ll kill them. Remember that.’ He pushed the shaking man through the glass-fronted portico and on to the sidewalk. There were a few curious faces turned their way, but when the watchers saw the expression on Azul’s face they averted their glances. Fast. He took Christie up the street to the stable and called for his horse. The boy had the black saddled and ready in minutes, then asked if el norteamericano would want his own horse.
‘It still here?’ grunted Azul.
‘Sí señor.’ The boy’s voice quavered. ‘The other one took his awhile ago.’
‘Oh, Christ! That bastard Nolan.’ Christie’s voice was high-pitched and wavery as the frightened boy’s. ‘He run out on me.’
Azul laughed. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘go get the gentleman’s horse.’
He shoved Christie up on to the saddle and lashed the reins about the Southerner’s wrists, tying them hard against the saddlehorn. Then he lashed a lead rope through the bridle and rode out west of Casas Grandes.
‘What you gonna do?’ The tears were still spilling from Christie’s eyes. ‘Why you taking me out here?’
‘I’m going to kill you.’ Azul said it quietly; satisfied. ‘I’m going to kill you the way you killed my parents. Slowly. Very slowly.’
Christie began to scream, but by then they were out on the prairie and there was no one to hear him.
Azul found a place about five miles out. It was a good place, empty and lonely. There was a stand of tall saguaro, the big cactus trees interspersed with high-standing ant hills. He dragged Christie down off the pony and leveled the Colt’s Frontier on the quaking man.
‘Strip off,’ he said, cold and slow.
‘What?’ Christie sounded surprised.
Azul fired the Colt. The shot blew dust over Christie’s feet. He began to strip.
When he was naked, Azul told him to lie down. Then he lashed rawhide about the man’s wrists fastening the end to a big cactus tree. Christie was moaning, lost in shock and fear, and made no move to prevent Azul from spreading his legs to lash his ankles to other saguaro stems.
When the half-breed was finished, Jude Christie was spreadeagled on the warm sand, helpless to move against the rawhide bindings. There was an ugly bruise on his side, and a matting of coagulated blood, but the wound wasn’t bad enough to hamper him, the broken rib low down on the right side where it couldn’t hurt too much.
Azul squatted, holstering the Colt as he drew the Bowie knife from his belt.
‘I waited a long time,’ he said slowly. ‘You will too!
‘Nolan’s gonna come back.’ Christie fought his own tears to get the words out. ‘He’ll come back an’ kill you. You better let me go.’
Azul smiled. It was a cold, ugly, lonely smile.
‘You should have let my parents go,’ he said softly. ‘You didn’t though. You scalped them. I’m going to scalp you.’
Christie began to scream again.
Incongruously, his penis erected, jetting a spurt of urine high in the air, splashing back over his ribs and belly. He winced as the acid liquid touched the hole in his side.
‘Scalping doesn’t kill you.’ Azul kept his voice soft, insidious. ‘I can lift your hair and leave you alive. Alive for a long time.’
Christie’s bowels emptied, his body humping up in involuntary reaction to the fear that was flooding through his mind. Flies began to settle around him, glad of the unexpected feast.
Azul smiled and set the knife to Christie’s forehead. ‘Remember,’ he murmured, ‘the first cut is the deepest.’
He drove the blade down, jerking back the hair as he cut through to the bone.
Christie screamed.
The blade sliced skin, went into flesh, grated on bone. Blood welled thick over Christie’s face, blinded his eyes. Azul tugged the hair back, cutting round in a circle that curved over the soft upper regions of the skull. He cut again, slicing down to join the overlapping ends of the circle. Then slipped the knife down to lop the knot of hair and bloodied skin free from the reddened bone. He jerked back, ripping it loose.
He waved it in Christie’s face.
‘Did my mother’s hair look like this? Did you scalp my father the same way?’
He waved the tufted hank over Christie’s face. It dripped blood into eyes, and open, screaming mouth. He shut off the cries with the bloody scalp.
‘Did they scream? Did you listen to them screaming?’
Christie jerked, his body lifting, arcing up on, heels and head. He spat the scalp out of his mouth, blood and vomit mingling over his lips and chin.
‘Oh, God!’ His voice was a high-pitched shriek of pure terror. ‘Why don’t you kill me? Kill me! For God’s sake, just kill me!’
‘No,’ said Azul calmly. ‘Not yet.’
He sat back, watching. Christie writhed, tugging against the rawhide bindings. His movements served only to drag the ropes tighter about his wrists and ankles, until they cut into the flesh and blood started up around the knots. His skin got black where the rawhide cut in and after a while he fell back, quiet.
Azul looked at him; slapped his face. He was unconscious.
The half-breed stood up, looking round. He saw a patch of mesquite, dried out by the sun, and used his knife to cut it clear. Then he pared it down to a usable lengths and piled a cone between Christie’s thighs.
He lit the dried wood and hunkered back, waiting.
Christie woke up screaming again as the flames licked about his genitals, crisped his pubic hair. The fire went out as a stream of urine doused the flames. An acrid stink rose into the hot, blue afternoon.
Azul grinned, reaching out to slice the Bowie knife over Christie’s chest and stomach. He cut deep, far enough in to spill blood thickly over ribs and groin, but not deep enough to kill.
‘In a while,’ he said quietly, ‘the ants will scent that. Then they’ll come to eat. Come to eat you.’
He reached out again, plucking Christie’s lids clear of his eyes. He knelt over the man’s face, working the blade with infinite delicacy along the upper rims of the eyelids, where they joined the line of the upper part of the eye sockets. He was careful not to cut too deep, just enough to slice the lids away so that Jude Christie was left staring up at the sun with no way to close his eyes.
There was nothing to close them with anymore.
Azul scooped the knife down into the wounds on the Southerner’s body and backed off towards the ant hills, leaving a trail of dripping blood behind him. He made the journey twice, then three times more before he was satisfied.
He hunkered down, watching.
And after a while the ants began to come.
At first they came slowly, cautious, darting backwards and forwards over the tempting, sticky trail. Then, emboldened by the lack of resistance, they moved faster. Scouts went out first, scuttling hurriedly over the sand, flickering long, sensitive antennae all around the globules of blood, scurrying on to the next droplet, then the next, until they reached Christie’s body.
The workers came behind, busily scooping the fresh, salty food into their wide-spaced pincers. Darting back to deliver it to the hill as a dark wave of their fellows came rushing out to collect the welcome feast.
They reached the body and began to climb over the heaving flesh. Their sensitive legs dug into the skin and they followed the lead of the scouts, up to the cuts on chest and belly, then to the tasty offerings of the staring eyes. Their mandibles nipped and crunched, taking blood first, but then flesh. When Christie screamed and shuddered, trying to throw them off, they spat formic acid at the trembling skin. It went into the open wounds, into the cuts, into the eyes.
It stung, and Jude Christie screamed and gnashed his teeth. But the ants kept working, and all he felt was the bitter taste of blood and insect bodies between his teeth.
And the pain.
Azul watched.
Watched until the body stopped writhing and the screaming ended and there was only a long, wide column of busy insects hurrying forwards and backwards to and from the feast.
And Jude Christie was stripped of his body.
And bone stood out white in the moon’s light, the brightness outlining the dark column, cleaving skin from bone, taking everything until only the memories were left.
The memories and a skeleton…
Bones of the past … memories of the past …
And one more left to kill …
