The shield was unnecessary. Smith wasn’t dead yet but he hadn’t moved six inches from where he’d fallen. The three card-players and the proprietor hadn’t stirred; they watched Boag with no show of friendliness but no show of threat either. These were all outsiders to them and they didn’t care who killed whom, so long as no citizens got stray lead.
Boag hauled Jackson outside again. “You got a horse in that corral up there?”
“I reckon.”
“Let’s go saddle up then.”
“Wait a minute. Can’t we talk here?”
“I don’t think we want to be disturbed.”
“I’d just as soon not leave this town.”
“Well you ain’t got a vote, Jackson. Now let’s go get your horse.”
Boag picked a spot back in the mountains six or seven miles away from Tres Osos. He hobbled his horse and hobbled Jackson’s horse and then he unlashed Jackson’s wrists from the saddlehorn and let Jackson step down. While Jackson rubbed some circulation back into his hands Boag loosened the cinches and carried Jackson’s rifle over to a flat slab of rock. “Come on over here. Bring my canteen.”
“Canteen?”
“Just bring it, stupid.”
It was a clear night, part of a moon and plenty of stars. It took Jackson’s clumsy hands a long time to untie the canteen. He brought it with him. Boag pointed to a little bowl-shaped depression in the slab of granite. “Empty it in there.”
“All of it?”
“There’s plenty of springs up here. Nobody’ll go thirsty.”
Jackson emptied it into the bowl. The water gurgled ominously. It made a little pool of motionless liquid a foot in diameter and four or five inches deep.
Boag cut a six-foot length of rope and tossed it to him. “Tie your ankles together now. I’m going to check it afterward so you may as well make it good and tight the first time.”
“What the hell you up to, boy?”
“Quit calling me boy, Jackson. Just because you outweigh me by forty pounds of lard.”
“What you got in mind here?”
“Never you mind. You just do what you’re told.”
“Why?”
“Because I got this gun pointed at your ass, you stupid trash.”
Jackson sat down with a grunt and doubled his knees up under his chin and wrapped the rope around his ankles. Boag watched him cinch it up and tie a double bowline knot in it. Boag said, “You’re pretty good with knots.”
“I’ve hung a few nigger boys in my time.”
“You ain’t making friends with me that way.”
“You can go fuck yourself, boy.”
“Lay down on your belly,” Boag said. He took the rope he’d used on Jackson’s wrists before; he tied Jackson’s arms together, sitting on Jackson’s buttocks while he yanked the tie up tight. Jackson’s cheek was pressed into the rough surface of the rock; Jackson said, “Hey.”
“Well I’m sorry we ain’t got no feather pillows.” When Boag was satisfied with the tie he climbed off the man. “You can roll over and set up.”
Jackson showed his distress but he managed to heave himself onto his back and sit up without scraping too much skin off his hands. He glanced at the little pool of water a few yards off to his left.
“Now you’re hogtied and sweatin’ and you don’t know for sure what’s coming next. I’d tell you but it might spoil the fun. I’ll just tell you this much. You can save yourself whatever it is by telling me where I can find Mr. Pickett.”
“I told you, boy. You just don’t listen. I got no idea where he’s at.”
Boag decided to save the pool of water a while. Lead up to it first. He walked over to Jackson and hunkered down and put his palms flat against Jackson’s jowly cheeks. Held his thumbs over Jackson’s eyes and pressed slowly. Enough of it and it would crush in Jackson’s eyeballs. He kept increasing the pressure until Jackson screamed.
He relaxed his thumbs. “Aeah?”
“Cut that out, you son of a bitch.”
“What about Mr. Pickett then?”
“I can’t tell you nothing I don’t know!”
Boag put the pressure on again.
Jackson’s chest heaved for breath. “All right boy. All right.”
“All right who?”
“Just all right.”
“I’ll tell you what, Jackson, you call me Sergeant Boag, all right?”
“If you say so.”
“If you say so who?”
“If you say so, Sergeant Boag.”
“Now let Sergeant Boag hear where Mr. Pickett’s camped.”
“Last I heard he was up one of them little towns above Ures on the Sonora River, waitin’ to meet up with some fellow from Mexico City was going to take the gold off his hands for New York bank scrip.”
“Selling the same gold all over again, is he?”
“How’s that?”
“He already sold it once to a fellow name of Ortiz.”
“Yeah. How’d you know about that? Jesus my eyes hurt. I think I’m blind.”
“You’ll have a hell of a headache for a couple days,” Boag said. “You’ll think somebody jammed a wad of barbwire inside your skull.”
“Boy you want carvin’ up. I get a chance I’m gon bust a big hole in you, Sergeant Boag sir.”
There was still too much defiance in Jackson and that was what convinced Boag he was still lying. There was no point questioning him any further until he’d been softened up some more. Jackson was big and soft but he had a great capacity for pain and Boag wasn’t getting the truth out of him.
Boag took him by the arm. “Come over here with me.” He brought Jackson along on his knees and positioned him belly-flat on the rock. Jackson had to hold his chin up to keep his face out of the pool of water. Every time he tried to wriggle to one side Boag pushed him back into position.
“What you think now, Jackson?”
“For God’s sake I already told you what you want to know.”
“Maybe you’ll change your mind after a while of this.”
With red-hot hate Jackson reared his head back. “By God boy——”
Boag shoved his face down into the water and felt it when Jackson’s nose hit the bottom of the pool. He held the back of Jackson’s head and sat on Jackson’s spine to keep him from rolling away. Jackson’s legs came up from the knee hinges but Jackson couldn’t reach Boag with his spurs. Boag held his head under until bubbles started coming up. Then he hauled Jackson’s head back by the hair.
Jackson blew and snorted and heaved for breath. Boag said, “God damn it you got chiggers in your hair. Don’t you ever take a bath, white trash?” He let go of Jackson’s head and batted at his hand.
Then when Jackson exhaled he shoved Jackson’s face in the water again.
He let Jackson get panicky this time before he let go. Jackson’s head skewed back and he spouted a spray of water. He coughed a lot and started to retch into the water and when he was all through being sick, Boag shoved his face in it again.
This time he let Jackson get his breath afterward.
“Let’s try a different question this time, fat boy. Why’d Mr. Pickett send you two gents up to Tres Osos?”
“Look after,” Jackson said and coughed, “the gold.”
“You mean you got the gold up here in Tres Osos with you?”
“Some of it. It’s scattered, some of the boys got some of the gold. A lot of different towns—a dozen maybe.” Jackson wheezed and coughed.
“So all the gold ain’t in one place for somebody to steal it away. Mr. Pickett’s sure a cautious man.”