Cruel Rider

  NO JUSTICE

  “Just hold it right there and don’t move a muscle, or I’ll shoot you down right where you stand.”

  The voice came from the shadows at the corner of the kitchen shack. Jordan immediately tensed, but he did as he was ordered. In the next second, two men emerged. With three rifles on him, he had little choice but to give in. He wasn’t even wearing his pistol.

  “Well, now, if it ain’t Mr. Jordan Gray. I figured you for better sense than to show your murderin’ face around here again.”

  It had been more than a year, but Jordan easily recognized the voice of the new sheriff of Deadwood, and immediately heard the sound of three rifles being cocked. “I’m not wearin’ a gun,” he said.

  “Step out more in the moonlight, so I can see for myself. Get his rifle outta the sling, Whitey.”

  Jordan stood passive while Whitey confiscated his rifle and lifted his pistol belt from the saddle horn. “So now what, Ben? Another hangin’ like you and your boys did with Ned Booth?”

  “Why, no, we ain’t gonna hang you. We’re a lot more progressive in Deadwood now. We’re gonna give you a trial, and then we’re gonna hang you.”

  CRUEL

  RIDER

  Charles G. West

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, December 2005

  Copyright © Charles G. West, 2005

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66281-6

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For Ronda

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Special Excerpt from OUTLAW

  Chapter 1

  Some folks are born mean. This was not the case with Bill Pike, youngest of three brothers born on a squalid pig farm twelve miles southwest of Omaha. Those who bothered to remember would say that young Bill was a sweet child and, being the youngest, was his mother’s favorite. Bill’s uncle, Thad Brown, would recall that the boy showed no signs of the downright evil streak so prevalently displayed by his two older brothers. Content to play by himself near the crude shanty that served as the Pike home place, never far from his mother’s watchful eye, little Bill remained oblivious to the constant turmoil between his brothers and his father during his toddling years. Jared, the elder brother, was seven when Bill was born, and by the time Bill had reached his seventh year, Jared had already been a guest in the Omaha jail.

  John, the middle boy, was two years behind Jared, but exhibited belligerent tendencies that promised to surpass those of his older brother. One of his favorite amusements was to torment his baby brother whenever his mother was not around to protect her youngest. As a result, Bill suffered a great many twisted ears and numerous knots on his head. He would cry and complain to his mother, and John usually got a licking, which only gave him incentive to take it out on Bill.

  Bill wasn’t born mean, but thanks to his brothers, he soon picked up the trait. By the time of his ninth birthday, he held a sharp disdain for his entire family, except for his mother, who still tried to watch over him. This contempt for his brothers festered rapidly, and was probably demonstrated best when John, who couldn’t swim, slipped on a rotten log and fell into the river. Bill, nearby, searching for blackberries, heard John’s screams for help, and ran to the riverbank to see what all the fuss was about.

  John was thrashing about in water about fifteen feet deep, trying desperately to keep his head above the surface. Bill could see the panic in his brother’s eyes as John cried out for help. A dead limb lay on the ground no more than a few feet away. Bill could have easily reached his stricken brother’s flailing arms with it, but decided it more interesting to sit himself down on the riverbank and watch John try to save himself.

  John struggled desperately, but his efforts only caused him to tire more quickly, while making no progress toward the bank. The fear was ever more apparent in his eyes as he began to realize that he was helpless—a phenomenon that Bill found fascinating. He sat, watching John’s final moments, calmly eating blackberries, until the doomed boy went under for the last time. Still, he sat there, watching until the last bubbles stopped breaking the surface of the dark water. He remained there, waiting to see if John’s body would eventually come to the surface again. After a quarter of an hour had passed with no sign of John, Bill became tired of watching. Don’t reckon he’ll be twisting my ears anymore, he thought and got to his feet. Better go tell Mama that John’s dead.

  Later that evening, when Luther Pike pulled the body of his middle son from a snag in the river, some three hundred yards down stream, he passed the lifeless form to his wife. Unable to restrain her grief, she sank down on the grassy bank, sobbing while she rocked her son back and forth in her arms. The scene was particularly disturbing to young Bill to see his mother so obviously stricken. It seemed to him to be an act of betrayal, as if she loved John more than him. This was the initial fissure in the close relationship between Bill and his mother. It would increase in size over the next year, resulting in
an impassable chasm when she became pregnant for the fourth time.

  The arrival of another baby was not looked upon as a joyous occasion in the Pike household, and Luther seemed to blame his wife for the unwelcome addition. Bill, like his father, felt it was his mother’s fault for allowing herself to be impregnated. Two days before Christmas of Bill’s tenth year, Grace Pike went into labor with what was to be her final attempt to bring life to another child.

  With no one to assist her, Grace steeled herself to deliver her baby alone, for husband and son, Bill, absented themselves from the cabin, neither desirous of witnessing the event. Had he been there, Jared might have helped her, but he was once again a guest of the deputy marshal in Omaha, awaiting trial for stealing a horse.

  The birthing didn’t go well. Grace knew at once that something was terribly wrong, and she cried out in agonizing pain for help she knew would not come. The baby arrived after hours of torturous labor, but it seemed to be tearing Grace’s insides out with it. Finally, the totally exhausted mother struggled to lay the infant on the bed between her legs. She sank back in despair, oblivious to the massive hemorrhaging of her womb. It was not until late in the evening that Luther Pike came home to find his wife dead, lying in the bloody deathbed, the infant between her legs. He barely noticed the small huddled form of his youngest son in the corner of the room.

  Luther, the stoic pig farmer, stood staring at the cold dead corpse of his wife for several long minutes. He turned his gaze upon the baby as the infant’s tiny hands reached up for him, its fragile cry a pitiful plea for its mother. Without taking even a moment to consider, Luther calmly clamped a huge hand over the helpless child’s mouth and nose, and held it there until there was no longer life. The baby was of no value to him without a mother to nurse and care for it. The ten-year-old boy huddled in the corner watched silently, his mind already deadened to the cheap price placed upon a human life. It seemed no different from the culling out of the sick newborn from a litter of pigs.

  In the years that followed, Bill helped his father on the farm until, sick of the sight of hogs, he found a job in a sawmill near Omaha. He had worked at the mill for a little more than two years when Polly Hatcher entered his life. The owner of the mill took the young girl in when her widowed mother succumbed to pneumonia. There were no relatives to take the child, at least, none living near Omaha. Polly only knew of one relative, an aunt, her mother’s sister, and all she knew of her was that she and her uncle Horace had traveled west to settle in Julesburg, Colorado Territory. Polly had never seen her aunt Hattie, but her mother had told her many stories about her high-spirited sister. After her mother’s death, Polly worked in the mill owner’s house as his wife’s maid. She caught Bill’s eye almost at once.

  Traveling back and forth every day on horseback, between the sawmill and his father’s farm, Bill soon began thinking of how much easier his life would be if there was a woman at home to do for him. Although stripped of the compassion he had been born with, Bill could affect a gentle façade when he had to. It was this face that he presented when courting Polly. Romance, and certainly love, never entered the equation from either party. Polly, desperate to escape her role as a servant girl, could see little prospects of meeting the love of her life, and decided she had best take the offer on the table. A marriage of necessity could conceivably grow into one of love, she reasoned. So they were married, and Bill took his bride home to Luther and the pig farm.

  Polly’s hopes were shattered upon first sight of her father-in-law’s farm. There was scant resemblance between the farm described to her and the squalid conditions that met her eye on her wedding day. She saw at once that she had not escaped her life as a servant girl. Her situation was even worse than before. She resolved to make the best of it, however, and resigned herself to cleaning up the filth that Luther and Bill had nested in since the death of Bill’s mother.

  Her wedding night proved to be a traumatic memory that would forever dwell in the darker regions of her mind—returning as nightmares for months afterward. Steeling herself against the brutal, animallike assaults upon her virgin body, she submitted to Bill’s savage lust while aware of his father’s prying eyes peering around the doorjamb. The image of the dirty old man’s lecherous gaze would return in countless dreams over the next few months, causing her to awaken, shuddering with disgust.

  It did not take long before Polly realized that prospects for improvement of her lot in life were slim, if at all attainable. In time, she became calloused to the physical abuse suffered at the hands of her husband, whose regard for her never ventured beyond his carnal lust. In the beginning, she was terrified by Bill’s father, and the way he leered at her every move. As far as a threat to her physically, she soon came to know that the old man was harmless. Strong drink and failing health insured that his capabilities were diminished, leaving him with no ability beyond watching. But watch he did, and she soon learned to make certain of her father-in-law’s whereabouts before bathing or getting into her gown.

  It was inevitable that the old man’s lecherous ways proved to be the cause of his doom. One day in early spring he decided to act upon his desire to get a closer look at his daughter-in-law. Pretending to start down to the lower field to feed his pigs, he slipped back to the cabin, knowing that Polly would take advantage of his absence to bathe. Being careful not to make a sound, he stole up to the back window and peered over the sill. There, he was able to see what he had hoped for. Polly poured hot water into a basin and, stripped to the waist, began cleaning her arms and torso.

  So engrossed was he in the despicable intrusion upon his daughter-in-law’s private moment, that he failed to hear the soft padding of hooves in the dust behind him. Furious to discover the old man spying upon his wife, Bill set upon his father with a whip, lashing him until the helpless wretch collapsed, unconscious and bleeding. When Polly heard the attack, she quickly pulled up her bodice and ran outside to see what had happened. Bill, standing over his father’s fallen body, then turned to give his wife a taste of the whip—punishment for tempting the old man. He stopped short of the beating he had just administered to his father only because he had further use for her.

  Standing over her trembling body, he glared down at her with eyes still flashing with anger. Almost in shock, she cowered at his feet, afraid to even whimper lest it should set him off again. She knew then that somehow she must escape this violent monster. In that moment she realized the extent of her husband’s disdain for human life.

  Distracted by the sound of a feeble groan from his father, Bill turned to fix his gaze on Luther. After a moment’s thought, he walked over and knelt down beside him. With no show of emotion, he clamped both hands over the old man’s nose and mouth, just as his father had done to extinguish the life of his newborn daughter. Luther struggled weakly, but could not overpower his son. Paralyzed by the horror before her eyes, Polly was unable to move. It was not until Luther’s feeble struggles subsided, and he lay motionless on the ground, that she drew herself up to huddle fearfully against the wall of the cabin.

  Satisfied that his father was dead, Bill turned his attention to Polly once again. “I’m hungry. Git yourself up from there and fix me some supper.”

  Still in a state of horrified shock, she nevertheless forced her body to move, afraid for her life if she didn’t. It was not quickly enough to please him, and he drew his arm back as if to administer the whip once again. It served to hurry her motions. Then, with complete lack of remorse, he turned to look at his father’s lifeless body. “I reckon I’ll have to bury him,” he said. “I oughta feed him to the damn hogs.” The idea seemed to have merit, so he dragged the old man down to the fence and dumped his body over in the hog lot.

  With her husband seated at the table, seeming to watch her every move, Polly forced herself to prepare his supper. She could feel his eyes upon her as she stood over the stove, her back to him, afraid if she faced him he would read the terror in her eyes. He would often explode in a fit of rage
over some trivial thing that didn’t suit him—she was used to that. It usually led to verbal abuse and, if he felt like it, a cuff on the side of her face. But on this night his mood was deep and brooding, unlike any night before. He was in a killing mood, and she feared her life was in jeopardy because she had witnessed the murder of his father. With trembling hands, she placed a plate of food before him and backed away.

  “Set down,” he commanded. “Ain’t you gonna eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” she replied, her voice quaking with fear.

  “Well, set down, anyway.” He watched her intently until she seated herself in a chair across from him. Stuffing food in his mouth, he continued to lock his gaze upon her.

  There followed a few minutes of silence, with no sound save that of the grunting and squealing of the hogs as they fought over their grisly supper. She tried not to form a picture of the ghastly banquet in her mind, and strained with all her might to keep from sobbing out loud.

  He paused in his eating for a moment. “You seen what I did. Didn’t you?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “The hell you didn’t,” he shot back. “I seen you gawkin’ at me, your eyes as big as horse turds.” He started chewing again. “He warn’t no use around here no more—one less mouth to feed.” He paused once more, and pointed at her with his fork. “You’d best keep your mouth shut about it—or you’ll get the same medicine.”

  “I won’t tell nobody,” she replied softly. She hoped with all her heart that he believed her, for she had made up her mind that she was leaving as soon as he went to work in the morning. In the past, she had resigned herself to a life of abuse at the hands of her husband, but the horrifying events that had taken place that evening were more than she could endure. It would only be a matter of time before he decided that she was of no use to him anymore, and her fate might be the same as that of his father. She had to leave. Her plans were altered, however, with Bill’s next comment.