Headhunter
Серия: Special X, книга 1
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The body hung upside down from the ceiling by nails driven through both feet. The head was missing, the neck severed to expose vein and muscle, artery and bone in a circle of raw flesh. What was left of the man was still dressed in the bright scarlet tunic of the Northwest Mounted Police, the arms, with their sleeves decorated with gold braid now dangling down toward the plank and sawdust floor. A pool of blood as red as the tunic spread out beneath the corpse. There was blood dripping from the tips of the dead man's fingers but the splash of each drop as it hit the pool was drowned out by the slow, incessant, monotonous thud of a drum beating overhead. The drumbeat came from up on the roof beyond the trap door in the ceiling.
Thump… thump… thump… thump…
He awoke with a start.
His muscles tense.
His mind alert.
His nervous system taut like a bowstring at full draw.
Under the blanket Blake used as a pillow, his right hand closed on the Enfield's grip and his thumb eased back on the hammer. There was a click as the hammer cocked but its sound was smothered and lost among the coarse cloth folds of the blanket. Slowly, Blake eased the revolver out from under his head and into the bitter cold. Then he lay stock-still in his buffalo robe. Silent. Listening. Waiting.