Bullets Over Bedlam (5 page)

5.

INTERROGATION

H
OLDING his Remington straight out from his shoulder, Flagg strode into the room, turning toward the bed on his right. The other five deputies scrambled in behind him, aiming their rifles and shotgun.

To Flagg's left, Hound-Dog was down on one knee, hatless, aiming his greener at the bed, breathing hard.

Flagg held his gaze on the bed's far side. A single, slender figure lay beneath quilts. At the head of the bed, copper-colored hair shone, and two blue eyes burned through shadows at Flagg.

The woman's voice was taut with fury. “Who the hell are you?”

Flagg's eyes went to the pillow to the girl's right, still hollowed where a head had lain. He craned his neck to rake his gaze around the room, then returned his eyes to the girl.

“Where's Hawk?”

She glanced at the pillow beside her. Then her eyes, too, ran a quick sweep of the room. “Haven't seen no one called Hawk.”

Flagg stepped toward her, aiming his revolver at her forehead. “He was here last night. When did he leave?”

She scuttled up in the bed, rested her back against the headboard. The manuever left her magnificent breasts bare for a second, before she raised a quilt to her neck and curled her lip at Flagg. “I don't know anyone called Hawk. I spent the night alone. Now, I'm waiting for your apology, mister, and for you and your limp-dicked tin stars to haul your asses the hell out of my room.”

“He's registed downstairs.” Flagg glanced at the .45 shells littering the floor, winking in the wan light slipping around the single window shade. “And someone left you with two empty guns.”

“I know enough about the law to know you ain't got no right to bust into my room.” She leaned forward, blue eyes blazing, a quilt slipping halfway down her breasts. “Git out before I call the sheriff!”

Flagg turned his head. “J.C. Galen. Franco. Check the back. If you don't see him, hightail it to the livery barns. We might still be able to catch him.”

When the three deputies had left, Flagg stared coolly down at the copper-haired girl, who now sat with her knees raised to her chest, holding the quilts to her neck. Her eyes were on fire, and her chest rose and fell sharply.

“I'm going to give you one more chance, Miss Saradee Jones. When did Hawk leave, and where was he heading?”

Saradee crinkled her eyes, jerked her head up, and sent spittle flying into Flagg's face. The marshal recoiled slightly, ran his gloved left hand slowly across his right cheek, and glanced at the deputies flanking him on either side.

“Hound-Dog. Bill. Press.” Flagg lunged forward, ripping the two quilts from the girl's grip, laying her naked body bare. “Help me tie Miss Jones to the bedposts.”

The men stared appreciatively down at Saradee snarling and writhing on the bed like a cornered lioness, clamping her raised knees together, flexing her toes, and pressing her arms to her heaving bosom.

Big Hound-Dog Tuttle glanced at Flagg. “This ain't exactly by the book, boss.”

“What isn't by the book?” Flagg said. “Restraining an obviously unfriendly witness so I can ask her a few questions?”

Bill Houston said, “Titty up or titty down?”

“Down,” Flagg said. “I'm thinking this girl's pa was too soft on her. She needs a good strapping across her naked ass . . . till she remembers where Hawk's headed.”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” Press Miller chuckled.

Flagg holstered his pistol and reached for one of the girl's ankles. She uncoiled like a snake and struck, bounding off her heels and flying across the bed. She tucked her knees into her chest and slammed both kneecaps into Flagg's chest.

The marshal grunted and stumbled back. The girl clawed at his eyes with both hands as she drove him to the floor.

“Goddamn!” Miller exclaimed, grabbing one of the girl's flailing arms.

Saradee screamed like a wildcat. She jerked the marshal's Remington from his holster and thumbed the hammer back. Before she could lower the barrel toward Flagg's head, Bill Houston grabbed her wrist.

The slug thumped into the ceiling.

Houston jerked the revolver out of her hand, then smashed the butt across her left temple. Saradee grunted and flew to the floor to Flagg's left, where Hound-Dog Tuttle held her down with a knee between her pointed breasts.

She stared up, wild-eyed, breathing hard, blood glistening on her temple. In the wan light, her naked body appeared swarthy as an Indian's.

Flagg climbed to a knee, his upper lip curled, his colorless eyes set like stones. Three clawlike scratches bled on the nub of his left cheek, while his right brow was torn, the blood dripping into the corner of his eye.

Tuttle had a firm grip on both the girl's wrists, his knee still firmly planted on her chest. Saradee scrunched up her eyes and winced at the pressure, barely able to breathe. She halfheartedly kicked her naked legs.

Flagg stood and ripped the bottom sheet from the bed, stretched it out between his hands, and ripped it down the middle. “Now, where were we?”

When they had the girl tied belly down on the bare mattress, wrists and ankles secured to the four brass posts, Flagg removed his hat, coat, and cartridge belt. He unbuckled the belt holding his pants to his lean hips.

He glanced at the three deputies. “You men head on out and stuff your fingers in your ears while I . . .
interrogate
the witness.”

Miller grabbed his rifle and smiled at Saradee lying spread-eagle, her slender back flaring out to her hips and round buttocks. “Sure you don't want us to stay and observe the procedure, Marshal?”

Flagg shook his head and doubled the wide leather belt, then dipped the tongue in the water bowl atop the washstand. “Search the livery barns. I'll be along just as soon as Miss Jones decides to spare her ass and cooperate.”

As he grabbed his shotgun from against the wall and moved toward the door, Tuttle glanced toward the bed. Saradee lay with her face to the wall, her hair a thick, coppery mass across her shoulders. She breathed sharply but said nothing.

Tuttle grabbed the doorknob. Flagg raised the wet belt and slammed it down hard across the girl's bottom.

The girl tensed. She stopped breathing for a second. Then she sucked a deep breath, and her back resumed rising and falling sharply. A red, rectangular welt stretched across her buttocks.

“Now, then,” Flagg said as Tuttle followed Houston and Miller into the hall and closed the door behind him. “Need I continue, Miss Jones?”

The three deputies paused before the room's closed door. They looked at one another expectantly, saying nothing, holding their weapons slack in their hands.

The men jumped slightly.

Houston grinned. “Damn, that's gotta smart!”

Tuttle said, “The book they gave me when they swore me in and gave me the badge didn't say nothin' about interrogatin' prisoners this way.”

“That's because you weren't after a man like Gideon Hawk.” Miller slapped Tuttle's shoulder with the back of his left hand, and started toward the stairs. “Come on, let's check out those livery barns.”

Tuttle flinched and headed after his partners.

He was halfway down the stairs, the desk clerk standing with one hand on the newel post, staring warily up at him, when the sound of the belt smacking bare flesh again rose like the report of a small-caliber pistol.

The oldster hitched his glasses up his nose. “What in blue blazes is goin' on up there?”

“Nothin' that concerns you,” Houston told him. “Go on and get yourself some breakfast.”

Halfway across the lobby, Tuttle blinked when the belt lashed across the girl's bottom. Harder than before. Upstairs, she gave a sharp grunt through clenched teeth but didn't mutter a word.

Later, all six deputies were waiting with their horses at the west edge of town, when Flagg strode toward them. The sun was nearly up, a salmon wash in the sky behind him. Flagg moved stiffly, mouth set in a grim line.

“Get anything out of the her?” Houston asked.

Flagg shook his head. “Strangest damn girl I ever laid eyes on.”

“Maybe she didn't know,” Tuttle said.

“She knew, all right.” Flagg plucked a stogie from his shirt pocket and scowled back in the direction of the hotel. “Tighter-lipped than most men I've interrogated . . . though I left my mark on her hide.”

“Doesn't matter, boss,” said Franco Villard. He threw the reins of Flagg's steeldust to him. “We found the livery barn he stabled his horse at. Fresh prints indicate his horse has one new shoe, built up a little on the left.” He canted his head to indicate a fresh hoof print on the dew-damp trail before them.

Flagg flushed eagerly and grabbed his saddle horn. “Well, what we waiting for?”

Flagg tipped his hat low and spurred the steeldust into a westward gallop. Falling in behind him. Press Miller turned to Villard. “Isn't it ‘What
are
we waiting for?' ”

 

Wending his way through the Arizona desert, Hawk headed back to his current hideout in the Anvil Mountains near the Mexican border.

Three days south of Cartridge Springs, he put the grulla down a rocky ridge crest until he was no longer outlined against the sky, and stopped. He hooked a leg over his saddle horn and dug into his shirt pocket for his makings sack.

Rolling the smoke, he peered into the broad, rocky canyon before him, an ancient Mexican village strewn about the slopes, with a shallow, glistening river threading the canyon's bottom.

Home sweet home.

Hawk let his eyes range along the canyon and both ridges, habitually scouting trouble. The adobe and stone hovels wedged against both slopes were nearly indistinguishable from the boulders and tough clumps of brown and iron-gray brush.

The smoke wafting up from several chimneys smelled of burning piñon and mesquite, roasting goat meat and chili peppers.

Sangre de la San Pedro, the village had once been called. Blood of St. Peter. Gringo prospectors had renamed it Bedlam, and the name had stuck even amongst its Mexican inhabitants, only a handful of whom remained after the silver veins had pinched out.

Hawk touched fire to the cigarette, drew the smoke deep into his lungs.

It was good to be back to the secluded little canyon. Since Tombstone had begun booming to the east, few risked the Apache-infested trails to come here. Hawk, however, had found an hacienda on the northern ridge—abandoned since its inhabitants had been wiped out by a fever several years back. Several months ago, he'd taken up residence there, to rest between manhunting expeditions up north.

It was more room than he needed, but most of the locals avoided the place, as they believed it haunted by the lost souls of those who'd died there writhing and screaming in fevered agony. His bedroom balcony offered a good view of the village below the ridge as well as both ends of the canyon. Few came or left without Hawk knowing about it.

The breeze pushed against his face.

If he were smart, he'd stay here. Settle down. Give up the hunt. The hacienda was certainly big enough to raise a family, and there were enough acres for a kitchen garden and horses.

Hawk took another deep drag off the cigarette, then stripped it, letting the tobacco drift away in the breeze. He tipped his hat brim low against the westering sun, slipped his right boot into the stirrup, and heeled the grulla forward, letting it pick its own way along the switchbacking trail.

The village gradually pushed in around him, the mostly abandoned hovels crumbling back to the iron-red caliche from which sage, cactus, and wild berry shrubs grew. He passed the dusty fountain that saw water only when it rained. Circling the main square, he continued out of town, past a low, pink adobe hut around which a half dozen goats chewed the short brown grass and a one-eared cat sunned itself atop a pile of neatly stacked pine and cedar logs in a saffron ray of sunlight slanting down from the western ridge.

“Gideon!”

Beyond the goats, Hawk stopped the horse.

In the river down the grade to his left, fifty yards away, a young woman knelt in the water that rippled white over shallow rocks. She was a slender girl with long black hair. Naked, her tan skin glistening wet in the late light, she waved. Her full breasts were pear-shaped, heavy against her chest. Hawk saw the white line of her teeth as she smiled.

Feeling the throb of desire, Hawk waved back.

“Are you home for good this time?” she called in broken English. Juliana Velasquez had been born here in the village, to a Mexican mother and a gringo prospector father, both taken by the fever.

Hawk raised both arms and shoulders. “For a time!” What did “for good” mean, anyway? Until he got the urge to go sniffing out outlaws north of the border, to go hunting again . . .

A stream of broken Spanish rose sharply, and Hawk saw that the old woman who'd raised Juliana, Dona Carmelita, was kneeling on the shore, her back to Hawk. The old woman was surrounded by clothes and bedding stretched out amongst the shrubs and boulders. Her Spanish was too fast for Hawk to follow. She gestured angrily at Juliana.

The girl's shoulders shook with laughter as she covered her breasts with one arm and turned away. But she kept her head turned toward Hawk, smiling. With her free arm, she waved, lifting her hand high above her head.

Hawk returned the wave and gigged the grulla along the trail.

Soon he was threading his way up the northern ridge, along the boulder-strewn trail switchbacks. He turned the last bend through a stand of pecan trees and entered the shaded, dusty yard, the old hacienda standing behind a four-foot adobe wall—a sprawling, two-story structure with shuttered windows and narrow, stone stairs rising to a heavy oak door. Sunlight glistened on the whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs, faded and crumbling from age and neglect.