Chapter 44

This mission looked to be one of the simplest I'd ever had. The information I'd received told about another slave-house twenty miles farther east down the same road the Midway Ranch was on.

I got with Conroe and asked him to lend me a couple of good men, and then I told him where I was going.

"I've got two good men to let you have, but you'll need to stop by Midway Ranch and talk to Ben and Jerry. They're the two men in charge there now and they've collected quite a following. They started out with the older boys we rescued and they've been training them as guards. They have about forty young men in training there now and they should be able to provide all the help you'll need. Besides, the experience will do the boys good.

The two men were Carlton and Delgado. Ben fixed us up with two mounts each and a long legged packhorse. I was a little surprised when I saw their bows and asked about them.

"George figured out how to cast the cams and handle and he makes the limbs out of the bent over steel. They aren't quite as good as the other bows, but he can make plenty of them and they're nearly as good. I'm so used to mine now I wouldn't trade for one of the others," Carlton said, and Delgado agreed with him.

We decided to leave just after noon and when I suggested we stop and find a place to rest for the night Carlton let me know they usually rode straight on through the night now and he told me we could get good rooms at the Hero's Midway Inn.

Apparently they had taken over the inn sometime lately and we could count on sleeping there and having a good breakfast in the morning.

When we arrived at the inn I saw it was more than just an inn now. There was a nice stable nearby and they even had a man awake during the night to take care of our horses. There was also a night duty man at the inn who gave us rooms and soon I was sleeping soundly in a comfortable bed.

We were up and down to breakfast just at sunrise the next morning. Carlton introduced me to the young girl who was manning the counter and she said she was glad to see us. Apparently she wasn't so sure about two of her guests. They had been very argumentative about the charges for a room for the night when she let them have one yesterday afternoon.

She brought our breakfast shortly and we were eating when the two men came down. They didn't pay any attention to us, but they started up with the young lady again and it ended when one of them drew a rather long knife and began to threaten her with it.

One of my throwing knives sank respectably into the shoulder of the arm he was waving his knife with and it took his complete attention. His traveling companion turned toward me and started drawing his sword, but Carlton and Delgado didn't intend to let me show them up and they put a knife each into the man. He dropped his sword at once, but I pulled mine as I stepped up to speak to the men further.

"It looked a lot like you were trying to rob my inn just then gentlemen. What say you?"

They didn't say anything until I put my sword tip to one of their noses and opened it up a little. Then they had plenty to say, but none of it sounded good so I cut the throat of the one I'd been carving on already and put my sword tip to the other one's throat. He said plenty.

Not much of it made sense to me, but he did let on they had been sent here to force the inn out of business and it only took a little sharp encouragement to find out he'd been sent from the place we were about to visit.

I had Carlton and Delgado roll him over and bind him up tight and they removed all his weapons while they were at it and cleaned the dead one too.

We took the live one back to lie in the floor beside where we were eating, and he didn't seem to be able to keep his mouth shut now. He kept asking what we were going to do with him and things like that. I got tired of it and finally told him.

"We're going to finish our breakfast, have a cup or two of coffee, and then we'll be taking you down to Midway ranch. Since I own it too I'm sure they'll be happy to help us torture you until you tell us everything you know about the place that hired you to come down here. If you live through the torture we'll probably kill you later," I said, and then we had to leave because he'd shit his pants.

I sent Carlton up to search the room they'd been staying in to make sure we weren't passing up any valuables while I had Delgado frog march the live one over to the stables. I grabbed the dead one by the collar and followed.

At the stable we found out they had come riding up on two nice horses. The hostler saddled them both for us while we saddled our own. We tied the live one to his horse and threw his dead pal over the one he'd come up on. Carlton joined us and saddled up then and I led out for the short trip to the Midway Ranch.

There was a small guardhouse at the head of the lane to the Midway Ranch now and the guard knew Carlton and Delgado. He gave them a friendly greeting and then straightened up alarmingly when they told him I was Hero Jack, come to make an inspection.

When we made it back to the ranch building I was surprised since there was a nice big new barn here now and it was obvious that more land had been cleared and most of it was cultivated. The head men in charge were Ben and Jerry. I'd already met them before at The Hero's Ranch back in Jacksville. They were quick to ask what they could do for us and I laid the torture scheme on them and they were glad to comply.

There was a bell mounted on a post and Ben went over and rang it right away. Thirty or so young men gathered around and Ben shared the plan with them. Two of them built a fire right away and two others removed the dead meat and took him over to a rather large hog pen they had. They threw the body in and the hogs started fighting over it almost right away.

"If you're lucky we'll make sure you're dead before we throw you to the hogs," I told our live captive, and he started talking right away. He gave us chapter and verse about how the other place was organized. Told us where the slaves were kept and on and on. I'll swear he told us about every misdeed he'd ever been a part of too.

It took most of the fun out of the prospective torture since I didn't think we could get anything more out of him. I made him tell it all over again and told all the boys to listen closely because we were going to ride down and put a stop to the goings on down there.

The idiot kept coming up with additional little tidbits of information and it made me suspicious. I called for the fire to be stoked up to make it hotter and I asked that two long irons be put into it. I had our songbird stripped off naked while I was at it, and then I had a word or two with him

"I have no doubt you have given us plenty of information. In fact I wonder how you could know some of the things you've let us in on without being higher up in the organization than I thought. Now you are going to start from the first and tell us everything, and I don't mean just a piece at a time.

"You may have twenty minutes to get your thoughts in order. After that I'm going to spend ten minutes with you and the hot irons to convince you to tell us everything promptly.

"Carlton, have the boys drive four stakes deeply into the ground and then we are going to tie him spread eagle so that I can apply the hot iron where it will do the most good. Make sure they tie his wrists to the stakes and leave his fingers free so I can cut them off later if I need to encourage him. By the time he isn't able to pick his own nose he should be ready to tell all," I said, and made sure everyone heard me, especially the object of our affection.

When he was properly tied down and the irons were hot I got right to the business of making him talk. For my first trick I laid the red-hot iron against the bottom of his ball sack. I wanted him to know I meant business this time. He must have been convinced, because the quality of the information picked right up, promptly.