Chapter One
I spit. The corresponding splat had my eyebrows raising slightly. A new record.
Hurray, I thought absently as I fell back onto the flea bitten cot within the dank cell I was imprisoned within.
Letting my arm fall across my face I debated my sanity for only the fourth time today. At least I think it was the fourth time.
My temper exploded and I rose up off the bunk to slam my fists into the wall. It hurt, but savagely I didn’t care.
I stared at the wall for a moment before glancing to the side to view the splotch of moisture on the floor. Spitting contests, cockroach races, and befriending mice could only go so far into filling the emptiness of being left in this pigsty of a cell morning, day, and night.
Closing my eyes I rested against the wall as I admitted that a part of me had already gone insane in the three months that I had been cooped up in this Mexican hellhole of a penitentiary. That is if I’d ever had a sane bone in my body to start out with.
I laughed out loud hollowly and in the still atmosphere of the cell my laugh sounded so far gone of sanity that I abruptly stopped. Tapping my forehead against the wall I gripped down hard and repeated the mantra that kept me going, “Stay alive, be ready, and get out!”
Pushing away from the wall I forced myself to start the daily exercises that I had enacted to both help with the boredom and the need to be physically ready to make a go at an escape if the opportunity ever presented itself. The opportunity was never presented though.
I was never permitted to leave the cell, unlike some of the other prisoners and in fact they never even opened the door. The only reason they fed me, was because they knew the torture of being cooped up in this cell indefinitely was to me far worse than being starved to death. The diabolical fiends!
I swore then viciously over and over again as I pulled myself up in endless chin-ups. The swearing didn’t help though because every time my feet touched down it was only confirmation that I was still in this accursed cell.
I’d be here till I died. “No! You’re going to get out Logan!” I addressed my errant thought harshly.
It didn’t help my effort to remain sane to now acknowledge that I was addressing myself as if there were multiple warring factions held up within me. This further sign of my persistent descent into madness only drove me to exercise harder.
I ran in place. I jumped up and down. Did push-ups on the floor. Shadow boxed, as I relived every fight I’d ever fought, until I stumbled about the floor of my cell in exhaustion.
I tripped on a rough stone and fell out flat on the grungy floor of my cell. Hopelessly I stared upwards at the brief light given through my cell window that offered me a view of the wide-open plains beyond the penitentiary.
I never dared to look out the window. To do so would be to truly go mad, at least that’s what I feared would happen.
I heard Mark’s chirp and then the feel of little feet scampering up my side. My gaze shifted down to the field mouse sitting on my chest.
“How’s the outside world today Mark? Still there and waiting for me?”
Market chirped and I nodded.
“Good to know. I just need another day and I’ll be out, you’ll see.”
Mark arched his little head to the side and I stated for his benefit, “What? You don’t believe me? What would you know about it anyway? Maybe they’ll be an earthquake.”
Mark didn’t seem to think much of that plan and truly neither did I. I continued to lay in the dirt idly stroking Mark’s svelte furred back with a finger. He seemed to vibrate with each stroke and I contented myself in knowing that at least one of us was happy.
Boots sounded on the corridor outside and my ears picked up on the anomaly of sound instantly. It was the wrong time of the day for any activity as it was the siesta hour.
I stared at the door as the steps drew closer. The steps drew even with my cell door and then they moved past.
My head fell back to the floor as utter defeat swept through me. In the background of my private sorrow I heard a jingle of keys and then the protesting creak of a door being opened.
There was swearing then and in surprise I recognized it as being done in English instead of Spanish. A door was slammed shut and I straightened up till I was sitting.
I scooped Mark up and offered him a shirt pocket to take shelter in. He scampered in and in gathering astonishment I heard the jingle of keys at my door.
My door was pulled open to the tune of pointed gun barrels leveled off at my head. Blinking against the blinding light streaming through the doorway I got to my feet.
I made no attempt to escape as the number of guns leveled against me wasn’t something I wished to test.
“You Logan Collins?” Came a rough voice from beyond the doorway.
“Sure thing. Who wants to know?”
Hired beef rushed into the cell and jerked me back against the wall roughly. It would’ve been a thing of ease to steal their guns, but I wanted to let this wild bet ride for a while.
Completely clueless as to why this intervention was being instigated, I allowed myself to be cuffed and then pulled down the stank halls of this south of the border cesspool.
Reaching the outside perimeter of the jail I was shoved towards a horse. Willingly I mounted up.
My hands were once again secured. My second pair of cuffs looped around my existing ones and were snapped around the saddle horn anchoring me to the saddle.
Without a word the party of five hard cases that were rescuing me from hell road out the open gate of the place tugging me along behind them. At the moment I couldn’t make up my mind if they were ministering angels of deliverance or if there was something worse to be feared than the fires of the hell of the place that had tried my sanity to the breaking point.
I said nothing, but instead left the situation to develop. We were riding northward toward Texas and idly I wondered if my escape was but to the gallows of some Texas border town.
The thought didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t care for hanging, but I’d admittedly done enough to deserve it. Deserve it or not I wasn’t going up those thirteen stairs to the top of the scaffold willingly.
*****
It was a silent bunch I rode with. They regarded me with watchful caution and I them in return.
The more time that went on the more it occurred to me that something wasn’t right about this setup. Who would want me enough to send a bunch of hard cases like this, south of the border to pull me out of a deserved residency in hell on Earth?
I’d thought about it for hours and still I came up with nothing. What friends I did have didn’t have the money to pay a bunch like this and though I called them friends they weren’t the type to go out of their way and do something like this even if they did have the money.
I had plenty of those who wanted me dead, but why go to this great length to rescue me?
No doubt there were some bankers and a few ranchers who’d pay good money to see me suffer, but this extreme of an action seemed even too much for them. I leaned forward against the tree I was chained off to for the night and contemplated what to do.
The shackles were tight and I still hadn’t managed to find anything with which to pick the locking mechanism. It looked like I was stuck here, for the night anyway.
Mark scampered up and out of my pocket to disappear into the undergrowth of the copse of trees that we had camped in for the night.
“Happy journeys little friend.” I muttered, as I looked off into the surrounding countryside longingly.
I was free of my cell, but still a prisoner. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
*****
The next day dawned and surprisingly Mark was back in my pocket. I rode stiffly perched in the saddle still sore from having to sit up all night.
I was beyond hungry as my captors hadn’t seen fit to feed me any of their breakfast and I wasn’t asking anything of them. Right now all I wanted to do as I felt them pull me steadily closer to some form of overdue justice was to kill them.
They had it coming anyway. Anyone who stood in my way of being free deserved what they got.
We crossed the border a little before noon and I saw my chance when we stopped off in a small border town.
One of them pulled me from the saddle and shoved me over against a nearby hitching post and shackled me off to an iron loop stuck fast in the timber post. With a contemptuous sneer the one who’d done it turned his back on me and followed the others into the saloon.
I waited till he was gone before I commenced using bits of the chain linking my manacles together to pry at a rusty nail half stuck into the hitching post. Sweat beaded my brow with the effort I exerted to be free. With a protesting creak that sounded far too loud the nail came free after several minutes of prying it from the tough wood.
Nail in hand I leaned forward onto the post as if asleep. I heard boot heels come to the batwing doors and then after a moment move away into the interior of the saloon again.
My eyes opened and I turned the nail in my palm around to start to work at the lock. It was a crudely simplistic lock and with only a few twists the manacle sprang free from my wrist. I worked on my other wrist and had the same results.
Straightening up I looked around the sleepy border town. A dump like this likely didn’t even have a Marshal or any form of law enforcement when it came to that. Rubbing at my wrists I acknowledged what a good thing that was.
I turned towards the saloon doors. Most men in their right minds would mount up right now and light a shuck for it, but not me.
I went to one of my former captor’s saddle bags and pulled out a spare handgun I’d seen him keep there. I spun the cylinder of the weapon and sizing it up I determined that it was good enough for what I needed.
I stuck the barrel into the front of my waistband and then mounting up the stairs I boldly pushed through the doors of the saloon letting them clap loudly as they closed behind me. The five men at the bar turned their heads to look and immediately all motion on their part was arrested to the stillness of surprise that marred their faces with astonishment at the sight of me armed behind them.
I said nothing, as I continued on a few more steps only to stop. They all slowly turned from the bar and glanced surreptitiously at one another and then one started the ball rolling and went for his gun.
I drew and fired and I didn’t stop, as I watched each of the five go for it and try to gun me down. Hot lead burned past my cheek and glass shattered behind me, but I’d made my shots count.
Five shots later the last of the five slid down to the floor as his grip on the bar gave way. The bartender kept glancing at something beneath the bartop and in a hard voice I said, as I casually waved the gun in my hand, “I wouldn’t if I were you. I still got a shell here with your name on it if need be.”
The bartender backed away with a grey look to his face and I stepped closer to the bar and one of the men who still lay alive on the floor. He was gut shot.
He looked up at me with hate as he said, “Why’d you have to go be ah shooten me in the gut jailbait?”
“You shouldn’t have jumped like a scared rabbit, bounty man. Now I need you to answer a question. Who sent you to fetch me?”
The man stared mutinously up at me in silence. Reaching to the bar top I picked up a glass of whiskey and dumped it on his bloody fingers clutching at his stomach.
He screamed and jerked at the contact of the fiery alcohol upon his wound. Picking up a bottle I held it threateningly above him and said, “There’s more where that came from. Now start talking or I start pouring.”
In a broken whine the man pleaded, “Please Mister what did I do to you to deserve this?”
“You treated me like an animal and I’m not in the business of being forgiving. Start talking!” I finished with as I tilted the bottle threateningly.
“Okay okay! We were hired on to go down and bribe the Commandant to let you go. We was promised $1000 apiece if we brought you back alive!”
I stared down at the man incredulously. “$1000 apiece! Who pays with that amount of blood money in these parts?” I exclaimed, while tilting the bottle even more threateningly.
“It was a government man by the name of Lawrence! We was to deliver you to the railhead at a town two days ride north of here where they’d take custody of yah. After that I don’t know nothing I swear!”
“Who’d take custody of me?” I pressed.
“That Lawrence fella and a detachment of Yankee Calvary is what I heard.”
I set the bottle down hard on the bar as I came to grips with the knowledge of what the man had just said. What had I done to bring the government down on me that they’d be willing enough to pay $5000 to the likes of this crew to bring my hide to them alive? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t wasting any time in finding out.
I left the bar and rifled through the other men’s pockets and came up with a sizable amount of cash and gold. Stuffing it all away I turned to the bartender and as if reading my mind he set the bar money on the counter and I tipped a hat that I’d claimed off of one of the dead men to him and said, “Much obliged.”
I’d claimed a gun belt off of one of the men and I took two guns that I fancied from two of the others. I holstered one and stuffed the other gun into my pants behind my back.
Looking to the man that lay twisted up in pain on the floor I un-cocked and tossed the pistol I had used to gain my freedom, which ironically had come from his saddlebag. The gun clattered to the floor beside him easily within his reach.
He looked at it incredulously for a moment before snatching it up and cocking the trigger back and pointing it at me. I stared down the barrel of the shaking gun and held up one finger.
I turned my back on the man and left the saloon. A shot rang out, but it hadn’t been one directed at me.
Mounting up on the horse I fancied the most, I captured the reins of a second horse that I’d use as a spare if need be and then I took out of town as if the devil himself was behind me.