Chapter Seven
Joe spat and sputtered from the seemingly endless stream of water hitting him in the face. When the water finally stopped, and he shook it off his face, he saw Nolan standing over him with a malevolent smile.
"You're not too bright, are you boy?"
Slowly sitting up, Joe propped his arms on his knees and hung his head. "You've got the sheriff in your back pocket."
"Not exactly. He's afraid the army will come in and make him disappear…just like you did. Now get up." Joe took a deep, disgusted breath and clambered to his feet. Nolan untied his horse at the entrance to the alley and brought him forward, removing a rope from the saddle and tying one end around Joe's neck. "You open your mouth to yell, and I'll put a bullet in your back."
"Aren't you afraid that'll bring a crowd?"
"You're a prisoner as far as they're concerned. Besides, not one of 'em'll care as long as they don't end up in the back of my wagon. Now, you head straight up that hill back to the cemetery."
As Joe walked, the chain of his ankle shackles caught on the sage brush, sending him to the ground more than once. Each time Joe fell Nolan pulled back on the rope, cutting off his air and digging it into his flesh. By the time Joe made it to the top of the hill, he was struggling to breathe. Once he was in the forest away from the brush, he was able to keep his footing. Staggering into camp, he caught himself on the back of the wagon to keep from falling to the ground again.
Nolan dismounted and untied the rope from Joe's neck, then left him there, knowing he was too spent to run. He called the two men who had been left behind. "You two, get over here!" They had heard that venom in Nolan's voice before and quickly scrambled to their feet. When they saw Nolan's face, his lip curled into a teeth-baring snarl. They pulled their hats off and stood like two school boys caught pulling the girls pigtails in the schoolyard. "Do either one of you wanna explain how this boy got down to the sheriff's office?"
The men looked at each other wide-eyed. "Honest, Nolan. We didn't hear nothin'."
"You two ain't got nothin' under your hat but hair." Nolan looked up into the trees, and when he'd found what he was looking for, he called the two men over. "You see that branch right there. Get two boxes out of the wagon boot to stand on, and hang that boy by his wrist chain from it."
Once the boxes were under the tree branch, one of the men brought Joe over. "Step up there," he said, pointing to the box. Joe did as he was ordered, and the other man released one of the shackles, stepped up on the second box and threw the chain over the branch, relocking the shackle. He stepped down and kicked both boxes away, leaving Joe hanging above the ground no more than two inches.
Joe yelled out when the box was kicked out from under him. He knew his shoulders could handle his weight for a little while, but he hadn't thought about the edges of shackles digging into the flesh under his thumb and the other side of his hand. He laid his head against an arm, and closed his eyes. Sweat was beginning to drip down his forehead, and he clenched his teeth fighting the need to scream out.
"Nolan, how long you reckon it'll be before them shackles tears the skin right off his hands?"
"He won't be hanging long enough for that to happen. He'll need those hands. But you two take a good long look, 'cause this is what's gonna happen to you if you let one of these prisoners escape again." Nolan walked over to his horse and pulled a whip off the side of the saddle. "You know how to use a whip?" he said as he flung it out and cracked it against Joe's back. Joe flinched, then bit down on his lip to squelch a scream. "Give him twenty lashes."
Both men hesitated, and Nolan cracked the whip right across the face of one of them, sending the man cowering and whimpering to the ground. "You boys better get used to it. This is what your job is from now on, and if you can't handle it, I'll put you in the back of that wagon to work in the mines. Now give that boy his lashes," he yelled.
The other man took the whip and cracked it, just to see if he could. When the next crack went across Joe's back, Joe tensed, his nostrils flared, and his eyes closed tightly as he bit down hard on his lip. A man gets to a point when the pain is just too much for his mind to handle, and thankfully, it shuts down. Joe's mind shut down on lash number fourteen.
His head fell forward, and Nolan stilled the arm of the man with the whip. "You boys take a good look at your work." The man with the whip, stood there, looking, but the other man turned away. Nolan grabbed a handful of his hair and pushed him over to Joe. "Look, boy," he said through gritted teeth. "Get used to it. This is how punishment is doled out at the mines. You're liable to have to do this every day, and if you can't, you're no good to me or the army. Now get him down and in the back of the wagon. I'm going back for Dusty and Scully. I'll tell the sheriff to send the telegram in the morning."
Before Nolan had disappeared into the darkness, the two men had Joe down. When they were sure Nolan was gone, the man who had done the whipping unwrapped Joe's shirt from around the ankle chain. Looking at Joe's back, he said, "It ain't the worst I've seen, but it'll smart for awhile. His shirt'll help keep it clean."
"Why do you care if it's clean?"
"Because if he dies from infection, Nolan might just decide to replace him with one of us. We best keep him alive if we can."
