Wild Country

Chapter Forty

Familiar pain… faint pressures of hands exploring his body… blankness… splash of lovely cool wet stuff. Vaguely, Quantrill knew he was swallowing water.

Bits of talk from several male voices.

"Nothin' broke that I can tell."

"Beats me why the sumbitch ain't in more pieces than a china doll."

A deep low voice: "He will be, if I know Jer."

"I seen this one someplace, Billy Ray. Rocksprings, maybe."

"Well, take his feet, goddammit; you expect me to tote him thru this brush and shit all by myself?"

Rough handling then, not vicious but clumsy, and a slow passage through foliage as tough as an acre of wire brush. Then curses, grunts, and cushions under his butt. The aft cockpit of a cycle, perhaps. A wave of nausea, then blank-ness again.

Later, Quantrill realized he was trussed and in a safety harness as a diesel thrummed in the chassis; headlights swept across him from time to time from a following cycle, and a cool wind fanned his face as they proceeded in darkness. When they stopped for a break, he managed with a struggle to sit up. They gave him more water, and a strip of salt jerked meat to chew. Against all odds, he still had teeth to chew it with.

"I think you're gonna make it, pocho," said one of his captors, half in wonder. The man was roughly Quantrill's age and, checking the swelling on his captive's forehead, clucked to himself. "You hearing any of this?"

Quantrill nodded, and thought his head would roll off onto the ground.

"What do they call you?"

Quantrill croaked the first thing that came into his head: "Sam Coulter. More water…"

From nearby, the strong deep voice: "Watch the fucker, L. J., he might sandbag you."

"And him hogtaped like this? Ease up, Longo, I'm just givin' him water." Quantrill took the canteen, his wrists taped together, and savored a full quart of it.

From what little he could see in the multiple glows of running lights, Quantrill estimated there were five of them; taciturn hired hands, men he had perhaps nodded to at Saturday dances or on the streets of Rocksprings. At least, none of them seemed to know his name.

"Gettin" on to eight o'clock," said the leader, the one others called Longo. "If that radio of yours is fixed, Billy Ray, call Concannon. Tell him we're an hour out." He mashed a cigarette underfoot, drew on his gloves, and swung into the forward cockpit of the lead cycle. Quantrill kept the canteen and managed during the next ten minutes to empty it without heaving any water up. He had been thoroughly bound with the modern cowpoke's standby, filament tape, his upper arms bound to his sides. He could not get his wrists anywhere near his teeth, and the effort was exhausting. He tried to stay awake but eventually slept again.

He woke in a modern, well-lit equipment barn as his captors were stowing their cycles. His driver, the wiry young man they called L. J., freed him from the harness, cut the tape at his ankles, and helped him stagger onto a cement floor. Then they prodded him forward, out the folding doors into a packed-earth yard bathed by an overhead sodium-yellow light. Standing alone, fists on his hips as he studied the latecomers. Cam Concannon shook his head as he looked into Quantrill's face.

Longo, the one with the resonant basso and a barrel chest to push it, jerked a thumb toward the captive. "Says his name's Sam Coulter. Poking around where that S & R crew picked up the limey."

Concannon's eyes flickered. "Coulter, huh? That's a good name, I reckon. Well, Mr. Coulter, you got some explaining to do." He turned to the other men, considering his words carefully. "You boys find fencecutters on him? Any brush-popper hardware?"

Quantrill stood there, weaving a bit, shaking the kinks from his legs as the men made their report. They'd found very little to suggest more than simple trespass. It seemed they had taken a careful look around his cycle. Billy Ray, it turned out, had brought the vet kit and the Nelson rifle along as evidence.

"This damn rifle of his sounded like a twelve-gauge, but it's just one of them vet guns. He coulda been tryin' to knock over a few beeves," Longo rumbled.

"Oh, sure," Concannon said, running a hand through his hair as he considered the idea. "Nothing to skin a beef, not even a balisong or fencecutters; how the hell was he gonna dress out anything more than a few steaks and get over a Garner fence with it?"

"I could've told them," Quantrill began, "but the first warning I had—"

Not loud, but fierce: "You shut the fuck up. Coulter," said Concannon. "You're a major pain in my ass. Think more and talk less 'til I get you in front of the old man." His gaze augered into Quantrill's. It said a little about fairness and a lot about caution when talking among these men. Quantrill sighed and brought up his hands to show the tape at his wrists.

"I see it," said Concannon, and laughed. "Hell, I ordered it. Damn good thing you didn't bag any Garner hands out there, or the tape coulda gone over your nose and mouth, too." Asphyxiation was a terrible way to die; as bad, perhaps, as the death of the skins. The foreman was telling him, as clearly as he could, that on Garner land a rough judgment might be followed up by summary execution.

And there were still more judgments to be made.

Quantrill had few illusions about that; he had already made a rough match between the deep-chested Longo and some records he'd studied in Junction. If he had carried his wallet with him, they'd have known his name immediately — and Longo might've whacked him on the spot. Maybe that was why Concannon was pretending to buy the "Sam Coulter" charade.

After a few more questions, and praising the men for a job well done, Concannon told them the cook was waiting with peach cobbler and waited until Longo had followed the others away into distant shadows. Then, with a shove on Quantrill's shoulder, the foreman aimed him toward the main house.