Black Ransom (10 page)

Once the cell door was opened, the guards rushed inside. Ehron Lee swung the water bucket at the first man in, the Irishman, slamming it into his jaw and knocking him back into the two guards who were following behind. With all three momentarily thrown off balance in the cramped confines of the cell, Ehron Lee tried to scramble past but was grabbed at the ankle before he could reach the door. He attempted to kick himself free, but the hand gripping him held fast and tightly, allowing the other two guards time to regain themselves and start swinging at Ehron Lee with their truncheons, delivering a battery of blows to his head, back, and shoulders. Ehron Lee desperately tried to protect himself by hunching his shoulders and covering his head, crossing his arms tightly over his skull, but he was soon overwhelmed. Woody was alternately laughing and crying as he watched the savage beating go on for almost a full minute.

Finally Ehron Lee's battered body went limp and two of the guards dragged him moaning from the cell. The third guard stayed behind and glared at the cowering Woody.

His breathing came hard as he said, scowling, “Besides bein' an ugly sonofabitch, you're one sneaky weasel, Milo. I find out you were somehow behind this . . . and things ain't gonna go much better for you.” He brandished his bloodstained club in Woody's direction for emphasis.

* * *

Submerged in sweltering heat, surrounded by filth and the stink of rot and decay, suffering paroxysms of pain from his injuries, while his rage intensified; his mind slipping out of control.

Pulled semiconscious from his cell, Ehron Lee had been tossed directly into one of two deep “punishment” holes dug into the grounds in back of the compound, each of which was known by the prisoners as “the pit.” Ehron Lee had lain there for several days, floating in and out of consciousness, mercifully unaware of the physical anguish that would be there to assail him once he revived: an intense, crippling pain that coursed throughout most of his body.

But in a strange way, he appreciated the suffering. It gave him a perverse strength. It contributed to the burning hatred that he now recognized was becoming a permanent part of his character.

When he first came to, he could barely lift his arms or maneuver any part of his body without enduring the most intense agony. Each movement he attempted was tentative, so mostly he held his pain-wracked body still, scarcely daring even to breathe. He didn't think any bones had been broken, though his shoulders and upper torso were covered in bruises. His eyes were puffy and his face was swollen and caked with dried blood.

As time passed, he wondered if he'd been confined to this stinking pit to rot.

To rot.

He recalled the words of his sister-in-law, Abigail, spoken to him after his sentencing and now reaching him like a distant echo:
“I hope you rot.”

Maybe she'd gotten her wish. And she'd likely gotten her other wish, too, for it was only with faint hope that Ehron Lee believed he'd ever see his beloved Melinda again.

He was overwhelmed with rage, but it was a helpless emotion. In his more rational periods he simply wanted to die, for he saw no purpose in living anymore.

It was perpetually dark where he was. The pit was truly a pit. During the daytime hours he might catch slivers of light filtering through the cracks between the pieces of heavy wood planking covering the narrow ceiling shaft about ten feet above him, but they provided little relief from the oppressive gloom. The quiet that surrounded him was nearly deafening. He was far enough away from any activity in the compound not to detect sound or motion. He existed in virtual isolation.

No one came to check on him. Not Superintendent Watson, nor the doctor, nor any of the guards. If they had, they would have to be lowered into the hole since the ceiling shaft was the only access to this unique form of imprisonment. But he wasn't totally forgotten. He was fed twice a day. His meal, a basket containing stale bread and a small jug of water, was passed down the shaft to him on a rope.

One evening there was a rare thunderstorm, and as the heavy rain poured relentlessly throughout the night, it seeped through the cracks of the planking into the pit, soon creating a pool on the earth floor. Ehron Lee was chilled by the dampness and he huddled tightly against a corner of the mud wall, trying vainly to keep himself warm and dry.

Miraculously, he survived that night without becoming ill.

Perhaps it was an approach of madness. But he took his survival as a sign.

A strange message that he had a purpose to fulfill. An unexpected destiny.

And so the days passed. Slowly Ehron Lee's body healed . . . but not his mind.

Sitting in his endless solitude, with nothing else to occupy his thoughts, he created images in his brain, disturbing but to him all too real mental pictures of Abigail hastening Melinda onto a stagecoach, heading to some unknown, faraway destination. He could hear clearly his sister-in-law's urgent words:

“Come now, Melinda, let's hurry. You know this is for the best. Ehron Lee never was no good for you.”

Together they would ride off to raise
his
child—alone. Abigail would never forfeit her control over Melinda to another man.

The most troubling part was that he could see Melinda weakening and eventually surrendering to Abigail's obstinacy. As he thought about it, he and Melinda had barely had a life together. First, the long separation because of the war, and now his imprisonment. She was still a young girl with a whole lifetime open to her. He asked himself outright: Why would she stick by him any longer? And even if she waited for him to be released, what type of life could he offer her and his child, branded as an ex-convict? What work would be open to him to support his family? Melinda would most likely have to find a job. She'd have both a husband and a child to look after. How fair would that be to her?

How could she not finally give in to her sister's influence?

Obsessed by these thoughts, day by day having them run over and over in his brain like a mad rodent scurrying in an endless circle, Ehron Lee's mental faculties had become as brittle as dry kindling. Yet in an odd way he realized that he had never before thought with such clarity.

He determined that
someone
had to be held accountable for the unjust fate that had befallen him. It was the only way to make things right. Of course, nothing could ever really be put right—it was too late for that. But he was owed a debt and he intended to collect.

During the war he'd witnessed man's brutality. He saw it again when he returned home to Kansas and discovered Quantrill and his band's savage handiwork. The destruction of his father's property and the destruction done to his father's mind. Still, even during those darkest days, he never surrendered hope—not with the pure and devoted love of Melinda to sustain him, and the joy of them furthering that love in the giving of a new life. The picture he'd always envisioned: a family sharing a lifetime of togetherness.

Yet circumstances determined that it could never be. The simple happiness he sought would be denied him because he'd been wrongly accused of a crime and made to suffer a brutal penalty.
That
was the real crime, and for such a crime, there had to be justice.

An eye for an eye
, the Good Book said.

For whatsoever as a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Ehron Lee vividly remembered those words he had heard as a boy, delivered by a minister hell-bent on preaching fire and brimstone. They had terrified him.

But now he saw a new truth in them. A truth he could use to satisfy his own purpose.

Perhaps not in the way the Good Book intended, but that no longer mattered to him. Ehron Lee Burrows could now admit he had an overwhelming resentment toward God—that Almighty Power by whom he had been abandoned. Who had allowed his wife to be taken from him and now permitted him to suffer in a living hell.

He'd been condemned not only to the walls of a prison, but also to the erosion of his soul. For he sought retribution. A justice of his own making.

Vengeance is mine.

Yes, he could pervert those words to justify what needed to be done.

Perhaps God would grant mercy and forgiveness to the perpetrators of this tragedy. But Ehron Lee would not.

And as his bitterness continued to fester, Ehron Lee held two men responsible. Two men who in their individual capacities were the architects of his damnation.

Both stood for the law and order that had condemned him.

Ehron Lee Burrows—a man who only wanted to live his life rightly.

Ehron Lee Burrows—the victim of a travesty of justice.

Maybe he couldn't take back what was his.

But somehow, someway, he could even the score.

And he swore that no matter what happened to him, regardless of whatever further cruelty they might inflict upon him, he would live to see that day of reckoning.

SEVEN

CONFINED TO A
near-midnight world of claustrophobic blackness and the deafening sounds of silence, with no knowledge of the passage of day or night, Ehron Lee could not know how long he had been kept buried alive in the pit. But the day finally came when the guards arrived to set him free.

It was going on noon. The hottest period of the day, with the temperature nearing a hundred degrees.

He was lying stretched out on his back when they lifted the planking and gazed down at him, considering, with little concern, whether he was dead or alive, as he was unresponsive to their shouts. Finally one of the guards went to fetch a bucket of water from the well. When he returned, he dumped the contents directly onto Ehron Lee's face, startling him back to consciousness.

The guards laughed with cruel humor as his eyes widened in surprise and he sputtered water from his mouth.

By that time, Ehron Lee was half out of his mind. His brain alternated between hallucination and harsh reality. He was only vaguely aware of the noose-like rope being thrown down to him through the open shaft along with the shouted instructions to loop the rope under his armpits . . . then his being lifted from the darkness and thrust into the blinding daylight. The guards pulled off the rope and welcomed him back by tossing him onto the ground like the trash they considered him to be. His eyes couldn't adjust to the sudden assault of sunlight, and he frantically covered his face with his arms while he writhed about in the dirt.

One of the guards kicked him to his feet and roughly led him back to the cell block, taunting him with such remarks as how he smelled worse than a skunk. Encrusted in weeks of filth as Ehron Lee was, this was not an entirely inaccurate observation.

The cell door was unlocked with the big set of keys and Ehron Lee was shoved inside, landing sprawled onto the hardness of the floor, where he lay without moving as the guard relocked the door and departed the block with a sneer.

The outer door slammed shut, its echo reverberating throughout the cell block. Then silence, followed by the muttering of voices.

One was gruff and gravelly and unfamiliar to Ehron Lee.

“One of these days I'm gonna make a grab for those keys,” it said.

The second voice Ehron Lee recognized but could not immediately place. It was higher-pitched and there was a slight edginess to the tone.

“You tried somethin' like that before and they gave yuh two more years.”

“Yeah, and you can shut your mouth, Whitey,” the gruff voice snapped.

Ehron Lee felt himself being pulled to his feet by his shoulders—not roughly, not gently. As his eyes regained their focus, he looked into the raw, rough features of the man whose voice he did not recognize. The face was sallow-complected with slate gray eyes topped by a mop of greasy black hair.

The man's thin lips were chapped and twisted in a cynical half-smile.

“Ehron Lee Burrows,” he said affably. “Heard all 'bout yuh from Whitey here. Name's Ward Crawford.”

Ehron Lee was too disoriented to place any significance to the name. Ward gave a slight, understanding nod and helped seat Ehron Lee onto his bunk.

“Fact is, I can respect any man who's gone through what we did,” Ward said. “Sure ain't no picnic.”

The physical effects of Ehron Lee's confinement were evident. He was malnourished and had lost a lot of weight. His previously ill-fitting prison uniform was hanging even more loosely from his body. His face was thin and had a grayish pallor. The cords in his narrow neck stood out. Congealed blood still scabbed his skin under his disheveled growth of beard, and his eyes were pouched and red-rimmed.

“You look like hell and yuh ain't gonna feel like talkin' for a spell, I know,” Ward said to him. “Thing is, they'll only give yuh 'nuff time to get your strength back before settin' yuh back to work. 'Less you
are
dead, they don't put up with any deadweight 'round here.”

Ehron Lee collapsed back onto the mattress and immediately fell into an exhausted sleep. When he awoke later, it was to the refreshing pressure of cool moisture being applied to his face. He blearily opened his eyes and suppressed a shudder at the face leaning over him. Slowly he became aware that it wasn't some hellish gargoyle that had followed him from the pit, but his cell mate, Woody Milo, wiping his face with a wet piece of cloth. Ehron Lee shifted his eyes and saw that Woody's other hand held a razor.

“You slept for alla yesterday,” Woody said gently. Noticing Ehron Lee's stare focused on the razor, he added, “They trust me
not
to cut your throat, or mine for that matter.”

Ehron Lee regained enough of his senses to tense at the remark.

Woody grinned out the one side of his mouth. “You don't gotta worry. Another one of my chores 'round here. Taught me a trade I'll never get to use on the outside.” He dipped the cloth, stained a sickly brownish color with dried blood, into a bucket near his feet to rewet it.

Ehron Lee relaxed. He coughed to clear a buildup of phlegm from his throat.

“Hope that ain't our drinkin' water?” he half joked, uttering his words in a feeble voice.

Woody shook his head.

“Uh-uh. Got 'em to bring in another bucket. Nice of 'em, huh?” he said with sarcasm.

Ehron Lee tried to rock his head in acknowledgment but it still ached.

“How long did they keep me . . .
there
?” he asked.

“I'm in for life, I don't count days anymore,” Woody answered stiffly. “But I'd say they kept yuh there for 'bout two weeks. That's 'bout as long as a man can take it, and some don't even make it that long. Yeah, the guards hate it when they gotta climb down into the pit and pull out a dead one. Stinks somethin' awful.” He stood up and added, “They wanta put yuh back into work detail in the next coupla days. They do that . . . and likely you'll die.”

Ehron Lee grimaced. Though weak and still in sufficient pain, he spoke his words with grit and purpose.

“Ain't figgerin' on dyin' . . . yet,” he said.

Once more he drifted off to sleep. When he next awoke, it was getting dark in the cell. The barred window began to get gray; night was approaching. He struggled to sit himself upright on the bunk. Woody was seated across from him. Then Ehron Lee noticed Ward Crawford standing by the window, gazing morosely outside into the compound.

Ward slowly turned his head toward Ehron Lee and grinned through straight and even but tobacco-stained teeth.

“Whitey's been takin' real good care of you,” he said archly, jerking a thumb at Woody.

Woody's shoulders and arms tensed as his fingers flexed, and he said with muted emphasis, “Don't like for you to be callin' me that.”

Ward's mouth curled in a thin, amused smile.

“That's what yuh are, ain't it?” he said with mock innocence.

Ward walked over to Ehron Lee's bunk and lifted a foot onto the metal base.

“Whitey's okay,” he said. “A pretty tough hombre, in fact. S'pose he told you how I gave him that scar.”

Woody's hand reflexively touched the wound on his face and his features twisted into a grimace.

Ehron Lee saw no point in answering.

“Messed yuh up pretty bad,” Ward said to Ehron Lee. “Guards look for any reason to blow off steam. You gave 'em plenty. From what I heard, you came purty close to bustin' one's jaw.” Here he mocked an Irish accent: “Sergeant Liam O'Brien. Yeah, he's a skunk, one of the worst 'round this cesspool. Watson likes 'em mean and O'Brien purty much tops the list. Lemme tell yuh, this place is fulla bad characters, but ain't one got nothin' on George Watson and his band of cutthroats.”

Ehron Lee bit down on his bottom lip but remained quiet.

“Still kinda stiff from my own time underground,” Ward said as he flexed and rolled his broad shoulders, then winced at a sudden, sharp pain. “Not to mention a coupla bullet holes.” He smiled. “'Fact, we was probably neighbors for a time. Sure, nursed me back to health so they could toss me in the pit. 'Course, 'cause they added time to my sentence, they only gave me a week down there.” His smile became a smirk. “'Sides, I just tried to bust out, not bust the fat face of no guard.”

“Shoulda killed him,” Ehron Lee muttered scornfully through clenched teeth. “Yeah, and Watson, too . . . if I coulda got to him.”

“Whitey here told me 'bout that,” Ward went on. “'Bout him refusin' a visit from your old lady—”

Ehron Lee's eyes flashed angrily at Ward, silencing him.

Ward understood. His words weren't tactful, and he had offended his cell mate. He raised his hand in an apologetic gesture. A big hand thick with calluses.

“Yeah, I mean your
wife
,” he corrected deliberately. He sat himself on the bunk next to Ehron Lee and spoke in a low voice. “Reckon you know now how our superintendent operates. He makes all the decisions 'round here, and if you know what's good for yuh, you don't ever question 'em. 'Course them rules don't apply to him. His woman's come 'round. Gets kinda hurtful for the fellas here when they have to see that.”

“Watson's got a wife?” Ehron Lee asked with interest.

“Sure,” Ward drawled. “Him and his missus got a house in Allensfield. 'Cause Watson don't get home much, on occasion she rides out here to the prison. Not often since Watson don't want none of us vermin to be gawkin' at her . . . but maybe once every coupla months. Lock themselves in Watson's office and enjoy some ‘private time,' if'n yuh get my meanin'. Leastwise, that's what we all figger. And I'll tell yuh, she's a fine-lookin' lady. Watson might not spend much time with her, but he surely provides well.”

“Saw a photograph in Watson's office,” Ehron Lee said, remembering. “Thought it might be his daughter.”

“Hell no!” Ward exclaimed. “That's his wife. Reckon he likes 'em young.”

Ward noticed the flush of resentment start to spread across Ehron Lee's features.

He said, “Lemme tell yuh, the only guys with nothin' to lose in this place are those that don't got wives or families. Like me . . . and Whitey.”

“I got folks,” Woody protested, then hesitated. “Somewhere.”

“Yeah, I know. They took one look at you and skeedaddled,” Ward said caustically, speaking out the side of his mouth.

Woody huffed and looked offended. Ward grinned at him.

“Just havin' some fun with yuh, kid,” he said good– naturedly.

“Just wish you'd knock it off once in a while,” Woody said sulkingly. “And stop callin' me Whitey all the time.”

Ward shrugged indifferently. “Whitey. Woody. Just names. Mean nothin'. Ain't
who
you are but
what
you are that matters, kid.”

“And I ain't no kid, neither,” Woody snapped at him.

Ward gave him a deep look. There was a hint of respect in his voice when he said, “Yeah, I know you ain't.”

The momentary tension passed. Ward turned his attention back to Ehron Lee.

“Jokin' aside, don't take this guy lightly,” he said, tilting his head toward Woody. “Maybe if I'd known more, I wouldn'ta carved up his face. Y'see, Whitey's a killer. Sure, went on a rampage and gunned down some parishioners as they was walkin' outta church one Sunday. Some little hick community down south—”

Woody interjected gravely, “They didn't want me to come inside. Kinda made it clear I was like somethin' sprung from the Devil.”

Ehron Lee spoke again. His voice dripped bitterness. “Church. Religion. Never brought no one any good.”

Ward regarded him, curiously amused.

“Lose your faith, Burrows?” he asked. He answered the question himself. “Ain't surprised. Not many believers in this corner of ‘paradise.'”

Ehron Lee didn't say anything, though both of his cell mates noticed how the muscles in his face grew taut.

“Well, I got my own figgerin',” Ward said expansively. “When my time comes, I aim to either be shakin' hands with the Devil or spittin' in God's eye.”

Woody spoke up. “I ain't sayin' I don't believe in God. It's people that I ain't got much use for. Hell, even here I can't go eat in the mess hall with the other prisoners 'cause they say lookin' at me spoils their appetite. It's all right if I clean up after 'em. But I gotta eat all my meals in here. Alone.”

Ward ignored his cell mate's grievance and returned to the initial conversation. “Well, the only reason they didn't hang him is 'cause he's just a kid . . . and he's got that condition. People got superstitious. Thought if they strung him up, it'd bring 'em bad luck. Whitey might not like the way he looks, but it sure enough saved his skin.”

“Yeah, but I'll be locked in here for the rest of my life,” Woody said scornfully.

“What's your sin?” Ehron Lee asked Ward in a neutral tone.