Faces spun in nauseating circles before him: Ma stricken, terrified, Pa blazing with courage, desperation, Beth helpless, caught fast in the jaws of the relentless horror only children can know. And the Garveys—Cain's devil face, Eli's broad, dull one, etched with an animal brutality that would have turned any sane man's stomach.
Garret moaned, battling to claw the images from his mind, struggling to lose himself again in the chasm of his pain—even that hell far preferable to the one now consuming him. But whatever demon held him in its clutches only tightened its sharp talons, dragging him deeper, ever deeper into his own tortured memory until the stark child terror enfolded him like a living thing, filling his mouth with the taste of death.
Pa.
He sprawled battered and bloody upon the ground, crimson smearing his face as Ma clung to him, sobbing. His hands were bound before him, the leather thongs biting so deep into the flesh his fingers were purpling. His eye was swollen shut, his lip split from where the butt of Cain Garvey's pistol had slammed into his face again and again, until even Tom MacQuade's stubborn pride and oak-tough strength couldn't keep his knees from buckling. Dirt clung to the oozing wounds, the crimson staining the blue calico apron Ma wore, the apron that had been Pa's gift to her when last he'd gone to town.
Desperate and half-crazed with terror, Garret struggled against arms that held him, Eli Garvey's sour breath hot against his neck.
"The gold, MacQuade. Where is it?" Cain hissed, drawing back his gun to strike again.
"You're mad, Garvey. Insane," Pa gasped out. "Look at this place—can barely scrape by. There is no damn gold."
"You and I both know better, MacQuade. You tell us where you stashed those strongboxes, an' me an' Eli here'll be on our way. That pretty wife of yours can tend those wounds, and nobody else'll get hurt."
"Like hell. Seen animals like you before. Murdering bastards... kill us anyway."
Garret screamed as Garvey slammed his boot into Tom MacQuade's midsection. Pa gave a grunt of pain, a horrible sob tearing from Ma's throat.
"Stop it!" she screamed, struggling vainly to shield her husband. "For the love of God, stop!"
"God don't love you anymore, woman," Cain chortled with evil glee, "but 'pears that my brother Eli sure do."
Garret wanted to retch. The man who held him captive had kept one arm locked around Garret's chest, the outlaw's rasping breath and harsh grunting sounds hinting at mysteries Garret sensed somehow defiled the mother he adored. "Don't you talk to my ma that way," Garret screeched, struggling to get loose, "or I'll—"
"Garret!" Anguish, fear, and helplessness raked stark claws across his father's rugged features, laying open a side of Tom MacQuade Garret had never seen before—a vulnerability, a core-deep love that the stoic man had kept so carefully hidden.
"Garvey, you touch my wife, and I swear to God, I'll kill you an inch at a time."
"I'm pure shakin' in my boots, MacQuade," Cain snarled with an ugly laugh. "But you know, that puts me in mind of a solution to our little problem here. See, we could go on like this till you was dead—me beatin' on you. You bein' stubborn. Hell, my arms is already gettin' right tired." Cain holstered his gun and fingered the steel hilt of the knife shoved in his belt. "Maybe we can get that pretty woman o' yours to see things our way."
"Garvey." There was warning in Tom MacQuade's face, lethal, killing fury. "Don't."
Ma was clinging to Pa, her face so white, so still, those laughing, beautiful eyes brimming with terror.
"Go 'way!" Beth's voice, shrill and frightened, cried out. "Go 'way! Leave us alone!"
" 'Fraid we can't do that, girlie." Eli's voice was odd, almost soothing. "Till your pa decides to be more obligin'."
"Oh, but he will be. He'll crawl through live coals on his belly if I tell him to, once I got my hands on his woman."
Garret cried out, kicking savagely at Eli as Cain grasped a handful of Lily MacQuade's dark hair and yanked her to her feet.
"Lily—" Anguish, agony so deep in his father's voice it scarred Garret's soul forever.
Tom MacQuade struggled valiantly to shove himself upright, but a savage boot to the side of his face sent him crashing back to the turf.
A groan tore from his chest, his arms shaking as he struggled to right himself, his eyes bleary, fighting unconsciousness. "Damn it, Garvey... tell you..." Tom MacQuade tried to stagger to his feet. "Tell you what want to know if... just... let her go."
At that instant Garvey pressed the knife blade to Lily's soft breast.
"No!" Garret shrieked. With all his strength he slammed his head back into Eli Garvey's face, the horrendous sound of breaking cartilage and roared oaths ripping through him. He tore from the huge man's grasp just as Tom MacQuade launched himself at Cain.
In that instant Garret knew his father wanted to drive the outlaw over the rim of the cliff a dozen yards away, to carry both himself and Garvey to their deaths. But the outlaw had already flung Lily to the ground, the knife flying from his hand as he grabbed for his gun. In a heartbeat Garret had the knife in his palm, and he wheeled to his father's attacker, but before he could charge pistol fire shattered the air, crimson blossoming on his father's chest. Tom MacQuade took two more staggering steps, desperate, but another shot rang out, sending him crashing to the ground.
"Pa!" Garret screamed, flinging himself onto Cain Garvey's back, the knife slashing in frenzied grief and terror. The blade bit flesh, cleaving the outlaw's face, then his hand as Garvey groped for the knife, but Garret clung, fighting for his very life.
"Run! Beth! Ma!" He shrilled as their horror-stricken faces whirled before his eyes.
