But pain, if not an old friend, was a familiar companion and within a short time he had adjusted to the misery. Memory returned, thrusting into his mind every detail of what had happened up to the time the bullet found its mark. He explored the ridge of bruising on his forehead and then his probing fingers ran over the hard caked blood crusting his pants around the thigh wound. Satisfied that this was the extent of his injuries, he hauled himself into a sitting position and slitted his eyes to look over the back of the pew.
He saw Rhett aiming a rifle from the hip towards a cluster of five trembling women. He saw five other women, sprawled naked upon the tattered remnants of their clothes, arms and legs spread wide in unresisting submission as their bodies were assaulted by the lustful troopers. And he saw the murderer of the only woman he had ever loved.
Again, the Captain retreated into a world of his own. But this time he took another with him. Pain, although it was necessarily a component of this world, was forced back
to
the periphery, to act as a barrier against outside influence. Thus, as he stood up and moved out of the pew, using his hands to swing his injured leg, he was immune to the sights and sounds of the brutal orgy.
“Captain!” Rhett shouted, drawing the attention of his charges to Hedges’ clumsy progress.
Hedges did not hear the trooper’s startled voice as he reached his objective and stood, swaying, staring hate down at the unconscious Terry. Scott and Douglas expended their lust and rolled clear of their victims. The women attempted to cover themselves, drawing up their knees and clutching arms across their bruised breasts. The two troopers scrambled to their feet, buckling their belts and snatching up their rifles. Forrest, Seward and Bell thrust to the conclusion of their acts and immediately became aware of the hatred emanating from Hedges to fill the church. Faith Terry, who had suffered the onslaught of Seward’s cruel desires was unmindful of her nakedness as she rose into a kneeling posture and clasped her hands together beneath her chin.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she implored.
The voice of a woman was able to penetrate Hedges’ private world of hate and, once punctured, the shell peeled completely away. The Captain looked up from the unconscious man and his hooded eyes raked the faces of all
who were watching him.
Forrest finished buckling on his gunbelt and snatched up his Spencer. “You want us to take care of him, Captain?” he asked. “You don’t look so good.”
Hedges’ voice was a croak. “You look shagged out
yourself.” He turned his cruel-eyed stare towards the kneeling woman. “He burned my girl.”
Faith Terry’s green eyes implored mercy. “Please,” she whispered. “Revenge won’t bring her back.”
“I ain’t that ambitious, lady,” Hedges replied, glancing around the church. His hooded eyes rested upon the altar with the dead minister resting against it and the bell rope hanging down in front.
“String him up and wake him up,” he ordered. “About ten feet. Horizontal.”
Forrest began to grin, then looked confused.
“Flat out,” Hedges amplified. “Face down.”
All the women save Faith Terry clustered into a group, those still fully dressed moving to the fore to hide their companions’ nakedness. The wife of the unconscious raider sank lower on to her knees and rested her forehead on the stone floor. She began to sob softly. While Rhett con^ tinned to stand guard over the women, the other troopers lifted Terry and carried him to the altar. They stacked pews one atop another to gain height and held the unconscious man aloft as Forrest wound the bell rope around his limp body. The bell tolled once as the rope took the strain and Terry’s body swung freely, held by loops around his ankles, middle and shoulders.
Seward went into the vestry and emerged a few moments later carrying a pail slopping water. Hedges, his lean, hollow-eyed face set in a mask of evil intent, limped along the aisle. Behind him Faith Terry’s sobs became wails.
The Captain nodded to Seward. The youngster giggled and hurled the water up into the blood-run face of the raider. The man’s body jerked and he groaned.
“Built a fire,” Hedges ordered.
Scott began to tear hymn books and Bibles. Bell, Douglas and Seward used their rifle stocks to smash a pew into kindling wood. Forrest nodded towards the dead minister.
“What about him, Captain?”
“He’ll burn,” Hedges answered.
“Yeah,” Seward agreed excitedly. “Real good.”
Terry groaned again and snapped open his eyes as screwed up paper and wood was piled around the dead minister. Pews were upended and stacked around the altar.
“You’ll all rot in hell!” Gilda Proctor screamed.
“We’ve already booked our tickets, ma’am,” Rhett told her as Hedges nodded to Forrest, who struck a match on the stone floor and tossed it into the centre of the pyre.
The torn books ignited immediately and within moments the dry, shattered wood became willing fuel for the fire. Terry screamed and twisted his head around to stare at the half circle of troopers.
“Cut me down, for Christ’s sake!” he shrieked, and coughed as grey wood smoke billowed around him.
“You remember me, Terry?” Hedges snarled at him.
“Yeah. Yeah. I remember.”
The wood began to crackle, then to roar. The flames licked hungrily at the leaning pews.
“An eye for an eye!” Hedges shouted as Terry began to struggle and his body revolved at the end of the rope.
“Oh dear God, end it!” a woman pleaded.
The flames found and consumed the robe of the dead minister and then licked across his waxy flesh. They seared deep and the cloying sweetness of charred meat filled the church. The billowing clouds changed from grey to black, completely engulfing the suspended man whose body was wracked by a coughing fit.
“Will you look at that!” Seward yelled.
“Yeah,” Rhett called in reply. “Holy smoke!”
“Let me…!” Terry managed to scream before the oily smoke caught his throat again.
Then his cries took on the timbre of pain rather than terror as the heat of the blaze reached him, scorching his face. Sparks exploded upwards and lodged in his clothes. A dozen tiny fires sprang into being, rapidly expanding. Terry’s screams merged into one continuous sound that resounded across the stifling church and was suddenly curtailed as his body was enveloped in a yellow glow. For long moments it was a flaring apparition dripping flames amid the billowing smoke. Then the rope around his middle snapped and he sagged. The binding at ankles and shoulders parted in the same instant and the charred body dropped, sprawling across the top of the altar.
Faith Terry dragged her head up, stared hysterically along the aisle and then fell sideways, saliva slobbering from her soundlessly working mouth.
“Put it out,” Hedges ordered suddenly, after long moments of staring at the blackened body, hardly recognizable as a human form.
Seward snatched up the pail, ran into the vestry and reappeared to slosh water on to the fire. Other troopers moved forward to stamp out the final few flames among the ashes.
“Score settled, Captain?” Forrest asked.
Pain came to the forefront of Hedges’ mind once again and he had to lean against the side of a pew to keep from
falling.
I reckon,” he said.
“What about the women? There’s some more, and some kids down in the vault.”
Hedges shook his head. “Now, enough is enough,” he rasped, clutching his injured leg.
“They’ll finger us,” Forrest insisted.
“We’re a long way from anyplace,” Hedges replied, tensing his body against the waves of pain which were threatening to swamp him. “Go make sure they have to walk if they to go there.
Forrest nodded and headed back down the aisle. The other troopers followed him, anxious to leave behind the sickly sweetness of the air inside the church. Hedges limped along in their wake. He had not covered half the distance to the sunlit doorway when a volley of pistol shots rang out, closely followed by another. Dead horseflesh thudded into the ground. The malice in the women’s eyes was like a physical force turned against him. On the floor, writhing in her madness, Faith Terry clawed at her naked flesh with hands formed into demented claws. Trails of fresh blood traced ugly patterns across her white skin.
“You didn’t have to do it!” Gilda Proctor screeched, flinging off a restraining hand.
Hoof beats sounded out on the street. Hedges limped to the doorway and turned to look back down the aisle, to where the charred body of Terry hung across the altar like a blackened sack.
“There’s a war on, lady,” he rasped. “We all got to make sacrifices.”
He stumbled out into the sunlight.
*****
WITH the coming of night, the mountain air grew colder and many of the prisoners in the cabin huddled close together for warmth: perhaps for comfort, too. And even those whose dignity forbade such an overt sign of their moral or physical wretchedness moved closer to the main group, hugging themselves or blowing on their hands.
The lone exception was Edge, who maintained his position close to the door, alternately sleeping and waking: hearing, but not attempting to look for the cause of each sound coming in from the compound. Thus, when darkness fell, he was aware that the guard had been changed three times, the Chinese had eaten two meals without feeding their hostages and had lit a fire at the centre of the encirclement of cabins. But when he heard a clink of bottles and noted the chatter of the Chinese was rising to high excitement, interspersed with gusts of laughter, he got to his feet. He began to pace up and down in the confined space, flexing his muscles and breathing hard against his hands. The frightened eyes of his fellow-prisoners followed each movement. The woman with the eye-glasses started to make dry sobbing noises.
“Shush, Mrs. White,” Beth consoled, pulling the woman’s face against her ample bosom.
Edge, satisfied his circulation was as good as it was going to get in the icy conditions, ceased his pacing and went to the door to peer out between the bars. The guards sensed his presence and looked at him blankly. Edge ignored them.
The sky was clear and a half moon augmented by a myriad jewel-like stars turned the rugged mountain country into a wonderland of glistening peaks and mysterious shadows. But in the forefront of this natural grandeur man was an ugly intrusion. The Chinese sat in a circle around the blazing log fire, minus their coolie hats so that their greasy hair plaited at the back into pigtails glistened in the dancing flames. A half dozen bottles passed back and forth along each arc forming the circle, the men sucking greedily at the necks. Mao and Shin sat side-by-side, with a bottle each. In the background, silhouetted against the dull grayness of a flooded rice paddy, the three women looked on, the statue-like stiffness of their posture suggesting controlled anger.
After awhile, as the chatter became more high-pitched and the laughter more frequent, one of the drinkers took a harmonica from under his robe and began to blow against it. He produced a tuneless wail, but a half dozen drunken Chinese were moved to jump to their feet. They began to stagger around the compound in a parody of a dance, drawing cheers from their companions.
“What’s happening, Mr. Edge?” Alvin asked.
“Local hop,” Edge replied flatly. “They ain’t good, but they got a lot of spirit.”
He concentrated his scrutiny upon Mao and Shin as the leader and his lieutenant put their heads together and exchanged words. Then Mao clapped his hands, the crack silencing the harmonica player and curtailing the drunken dance. Shin rose and approached the prison cabin, the familiar grin back on his round face.
“Now what?” Beth asked in the sudden silence.
“Mao’s had another thought,” Edge replied. “I figure it’s a dirty one.”
Shin halted in front of the door. His smiling eyes locked with Edge’s cold stare. From his position of strength, the young Chinese refused to be provoked. He bowed in a mocking manner.
“Mr. Mao never
jig-jig
with Occidental lady,” Shin said, his voice only slightly slurred. “Some other men here not have pleasure. They intrigued.”
Edge curled back his lips in a grin. “Railroad tracks run the same way all round the world,” he said.
“We no that stupid,” Shin said. “Still wish
jig-jig.
You send out women. They good, we turn all you loose.”
Mrs. White started to wail again. Two other women -a plain teenager with a blotched complexion and a thin maiden lady - pressed themselves against the rear wall of the cabin. Beth laid a calming hand over Alvin’s lips as he opened his mouth to protest.
Shin nodded to the guards, who stepped back, leveling their shotguns at the door. Then Shin stepped forward and shot back the two securing bolts. “They no come out by time count ten, you all dead. Bang bang. No place to run in cabin. We get other Occidental ladies some other place!”
As the door swung open, Edge stepped back out of the entrance. He looked at the pale faces of the women.
“One,” Shin said.
“You’re sitting on our survival,” Edge urged.