Chapter Three
It was night when he awoke, his head pounding with pain, the side of his face sticky with drying blood. The ball had grazed his scalp. He could feel something tied between his bound hands. It was soft, pliant. A few feet away Horace and Oscar Radler sat looking at him. Blinking to clear his vision, Mingo saw the two boys likewise tied to trees behind their brutal father. The younger boy slumped forward, evidently asleep. The older boy's hard eyes stared into Mingo's. Their expression held a challenge. And blame.
Horace chuckled mirthlessly. "Hello, Cherokee. Remember us? Been some time, ain't it?
Glad you could join me'n Oscar for a little reunion. We been plannin' this party for many moons. Ain't we Oscar?"
The heavy man at Horace's left smirked, the muscles of his face lifting the dark parallel lines to bracket his words. "Sure. Couldn't see livin' no longer without payin' our dues. We owe you, Cherokee. Sure do. We Radlers never let a debt go unpaid!"
Both men grinned malevolently. Horace fingered his mutilated ear, slid his knife from its sheath at his belt, and placed the entire blade into the fire. Beside him Oscar did the same.
Mingo watched them, understanding that they intended to use the blades on him. It would be a horribly slow, agonizing death. Clamping down on the memories of a Huron victim he had seen years before, he forced his mind to search for support. He knew he would need all his strength, mental and physical, to die honorably.
"Nv-da, show me……..show me," Mingo whispered to himself. Trying to visualize his guide, he steadied his breathing, drawing life slowly into his body from the ground beneath. He drew the life force from the tree behind him and felt it run like sap through his veins. Nv-da began to materialize within the yellow flames. Forcefully Mingo pushed all thought from his mind as he prepared for the torture.
Horace Radler pulled his knife from the fire and with a look of hatred twisting his scarred face crept forward. Holding Mingo's refocused eyes, he cut loose the woven belt around Mingo's waist. He slid the hot knife underneath Mingo's vest, slowly pulling upward to slice the leather from his body. The back of the knife burned a trail of fiery red beneath the vest. The smell of singed hair and skin drifted up from Mingo's bound body. Pressing his lips tightly together, he did not flinch.
His eyes partially closed, his lips lifted in a smirk, Horace cut loose the vest from Mingo's shoulders. Again the blade left its trail of fire in the Cherokee's skin. Oscar called from the edge of the light. "Looks like you're drawin' a line to carve there, Horace. I bet you cain't foller it straight. Whadda you say?"
Horace glanced over his shoulder. "I take that bet! What're you bettin'?"
Before Oscar could answer Mingo spit his challenge. "I'll wager that you CAN make the lines straight, Horace. My wager is that if you do, I fight you. If you don't, I fight Oscar."
Taken aback by Mingo's bold pronouncement, Horace rocked back on his heels to consider. Seconds later he replied with a mocking smile, "I'll take your bet. Oscar, what about you?"
Oscar crawled to kneel by Mingo's side. He had his own red-hot knife in his hand. "Sounds good to me. Either way you're one carved Injun. I figure you got it comin' to you. Got it comin' hard!" Oscar's left hand unconsciously touched the black scars on his cheek, then rubbed the stump of his left ear. "We don't aim to scar you up and let you go like you done to us though."
"You've had a chance to choose your life. What did you do with that choice? Plot revenge against me, Charles and your brother's former wife! You chose your path. Every step was your own choice." Mingo's voice was laced with power. Oscar responded by pressing his blade against Mingo's throat. The steel bit through the skin before Horace pulled his brother's hand.
"Stop it, Oscar! You killin' him so quick ain't what we planned. Remember, we told the boys we'd show 'em how to deal with this Injun. Go wake up Rinney. Go on!" Horace shouted to his reluctant brother. Oscar's hand trembled with his desire to kill. But he slowly stumbled to his feet and did as Horace directed.
Mingo watched as the cruel man shook the boy awake. He could feel the blood trickling in rivulets from the cut at his throat. The wound stung but was too shallow to be fatal. Horace continued to squat before him, staring into his eyes. "That's just a little taste of what's to come. Feel good, Injun?" he said tauntingly.
"My name is Caramingo," Mingo declared proudly.
Horace grinned widely. "Good to know. But we ain't plannin' on any marker. There ain't goin' to be enough o' you to bury anyways. We're goin' to let the varmints have you. They'll scatter your bones all over this forest. That's what you wanted for us, ain't it?"
Mingo did not reply. Treacherously his memory replayed the last time he'd seen Horace Radler, tied tightly to a tree, his bloody cheeks swelled against the ash rubbed into the cuts. Oscar returned from waking Rinney, bent to look at Mingo's bound hands, and shot a pleased look toward his brother. "Them guts we tied in his hands is purty well putrified."
"Good! We'll rub some into his cuts oncet we get him carved up. Then we'll leave him for the varmints to finish." Horace pushed his face into Mingo's. "Maybe they'll wait until the poison gets him. Sittin' tied to this here tree, the rabbit guts mortifyin', could be he'd rot from the inside out. Yeah! That's what we'll do, Oscar. Rot him, not kill him."
Mingo's stomach lurched as the knowledge churned through his mind. What Horace was planning would indeed be a terrifying death. With great strength of will he kept the fear from showing on his face. He battled with his active mind as it presented all the possibilities. He loosened his hands to try and drop the handful of offal he held.
With a final gamble, he reissued his challenge. "What about my bet? You accepted."
Horace Radler leaned back on his heels, uncertainty plain on his face. As a reply, Oscar pressed the blade of his knife against Mingo's left shoulder and slowly drew the metal across the skin. Not completely taken by surprise, Mingo was able to stifle the cry before it could leave his lips. Desperately he continued to stare into Horace's light eyes.
Unexpectedly Horace leaped to his feet. He pulled on Oscar's shoulder. Unbalanced, Oscar fell over backwards. His upper body landed in the camp fire. With a scream of pain and fear, he rolled sideways to escape the flames. But in his panic he rolled the wrong way, increasing the amount of time in the flames. His hair on fire, his shirt burning, he continued to scream as he rolled on the ground. Vivid images of Pearl's death shot through Mingo's mind as he helplessly watched Oscar burn.
The two boys screamed in horror. They pulled at their bindings. Horace shouted for them to shut up as he knelt and threw dirt on his brother's writhing body. In the firelight the extent of Oscar's burns was difficult to see. But from past knowledge Mingo knew the man was badly burned and would likely die. He remained on the ground, the remains of his shirt bound to his body at his waist. His dirt-covered chest bubbled pink fluid.
"Horace," Oscar muttered. "Horace, it hurts! Do somethin'." The pleading voice was strangely at odds with the cruel, swaggering man he had been only minutes before. His burned fingers dug into the dirt as another paroxysm of pain traveled through his body. He shrieked in panic as he felt his life oozing away. Both boys and Horace stared helplessly as the hour passed. His left shoulder and throat seeping blood, Mingo sat bound to the tree and waited for the chance to preserve his own life.