A Knife in the Heart

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Back below, but once again, Fallon splashed through the surface. He saw the bend of the river ahead of him, and realized he remained in the middle of the Missouri. An eternity to the west bank. Even farther to the east. He’d never make it.

  And one of those damned steamboats was coming right at him.

  Fallon closed his eyes, started to sink below, at least drowning would be a better death then being cut apart by the bow of a sternwheeler.

  Then reason returned. He kicked, pushed forward, and reached out, grabbing a firm hold on the branches of that piece of driftwood that had almost capsized the boat. More than a chunk of wood, or a branch, this seemed to be a whole damned tree. But it was as sound as a boat. Solid. Unsinkable. And all Fallon had to do was not let go. Just drift. Drift with the Big Muddy.

  He turned around, getting a better hold on the waterlogged branches that scratched his face and arms, and ripped his coat. He thought he made out the capsized boat. And the body of Herzog. Maybe if the captain of the steamboat that had to be coming this way at some point noticed that, he would send word, and a rescue party would come looking for . . . survivors.

  But by then, Fallon would be . . . where?

  And he had to get back to Leavenworth. He had to stop Sean MacGregor and those vicious killers from escaping.

  First, Fallon decided, he had to get rid of this coat. It was weighing him down, waterlogged so much it felt like a dead man’s shroud. By the time the coat was floating, then sinking, the river had twisted again. Next he tried to kick off his waterlogged boots. That probably took him at least a quarter of a mile. Or did they measure by knots in a river?

  “Hell,” he said, just to say something, “you’re not a damned sailor.”

  But he remembered all the marching he had done in prison, all the walking, walking, walking. He did a lot of walking as a warden, too, and his legs had to be strong. The legs had kicked him up from the depths of this river. So now, as the uprooted remains of the tree floated into what would pass for narrows in this country, Fallon began kicking, steering it toward the bank. He knew he couldn’t turn it toward the west bank, on the Kansas side, closer to Leavenworth, but he also knew he didn’t have enough strength to swim to that bank. He needed the wood to keep from drowning. And he needed to reach that bank before he slipped off and let the Big Muddy carry him to a grave downstream from the two men he had shot to death in the river.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  As soon as his feet began dragging on the bottom, he pushed himself away from the drifting tree and managed to crawl out of the river, where he collapsed on the bank, feeling the sand caking to his cheek, hair, hands, and clothes. Breathing in and out deeply through his mouth, he rested for just a few minutes. Fallon could have lain here for hours, maybe days, but there was no time to rest. He rolled over and eventually managed to sit up.

  The capsized boat was out of view, either below the surface, past the next turn in the river, or in the jam of trees, brush, trash, and driftwood. The bodies of the two kidnappers were gone, as well. The Missouri River had a way of keeping its secrets hidden for a long, long time.

  One of the steamboats was rounding the bend, the paddle wheels splashing—about the only sound in the eerie stillness. Groaning, Fallon pushed himself to his feet and began waving his arms over his head, trying to signal the captain or any of the deckhands and passengers. Moving his arms hurt like blazes after all the swimming Fallon had done. He shouted, coughed, and cleared his throat and yelled again, but this time music blasted from the rear deck of the paddle-wheeler, boisterous to the point of being earsplitting.

  Fallon swore. He had never understood the appeal of the calliope, the organ that made what some people, though certainly not Harry Fallon, called music through its steam-powered pipes.

  He tried to yell, but nothing could be heard over the racket from the deck, not even laughter, waves, or birds. It moved down the river, hardly leaving a wake, making Fallon feel invisible. The passengers on the rear deck never looked his way, just stood around listening to that horrible screeching that came from the calliope.

  So Fallon turned and stared upstream. There was another boat, he remembered, but how long it would stay moored along the landing he didn’t know. Hours. Maybe even a day. And it could be one of the short-liners, just moving upstream to Weston and Atchison, then back. He could find another sturdy enough piece of driftwood to carry him to the western bank, but the current would take him farther downstream. Time became critical. So Fallon started moving up the banks, barefoot. The current had swept off his socks. His shirt and pants felt twenty pounds heavier because of the water. In Cheyenne, with the wind and the dry air, he would likely be dried off by now. But here . . . with the humidity stifling, he felt as heavy as Aaron “Bootsey” Holderman.

  Still, it wasn’t like they had traveled the length of the Missouri River. They hadn’t even neared Kansas City. Maybe five miles. If that. All Fallon had to do was hike to the ferry. He could be back in Leavenworth in an hour or ninety minutes.

  Or so he thought.

  Until he came to the dam of debris, one of nature’s impenetrable blockades of timber and trash and dirt, in one of the Missouri River’s crevasses. It stretched out like a finger, a good hundred and fifty yards, so tall—perhaps twenty-four feet high—that Fallon could not see how wide it was, for he had not noticed it on his rowboat ride down the Big Muddy. He reached up and pulled down a branch, which snapped easily from rotting and drying over the years.

  That meant it wasn’t sturdy enough to support his weight. If he tried to grab hold of it in the water, it might disintegrate, and he’d risk drowning or floating downstream for who knew how far—away from Leavenworth. Most certainly, there was no way he could climb over it. That meant . . .

  Fallon looked inland.

  With a curse, he began to walk.

  The first thirty yards were easy enough, ducking through trees. Then he found a branch, good, strong, and sturdy, and he used it like a scythe, crushing the vine and briars as best he could. He had no idea how many years of driftwood, wreckage and rot had been accumulating here, but he saw the rotting hull of a lifeboat seventy-five yards deep into the woods, a rusted coffeepot a short while later, and even the faded name of a ship, though he could not clearly make out the name or the company that had built her. Fallon’s bare feet burned from cuts and the spines of twigs that had pierced his skin. He had taken off his shirt, using the sleeves to tie around his waist. He chopped. He moved. If he had dried off the water from his plunge into the river, sweat had replaced it.

  But he had to find a way back to Leavenworth.

  * * *

  Now his legs sank into the swampy, murky, vile stagnant water of the marsh, but he had found the end of the giant mess of the casualties of the river, of the floods, of the storms for fifty or a hundred years, maybe even longer. Mosquitoes hummed about him, biting his neck, his face, his arms, and bare chest. What were his chances of catching yellow fever? Spiderwebs brushed his face. A snake swam past him. His feet sank deep into the mud, past his ankles, sometimes up to his calves. He trudged on.

  The water never came higher than his waist, but the gaseous foulness often caused him to gag, turn his head, and spit. When he reached the edge, he had to toss the probing stick he had been using onto the carpet of rotting leaves and pine needles, then grab a vine and pull himself out of the marsh. He rolled over on his back, sat up, and began pulling the smelly, soaking legs of his trousers up to his knees.

  He counted seven leeches, four on the right, three on the left. They didn’t hurt. No stinging, nothing but disgust and annoyance. No matches to burn them off. No salt to pull them off. And while it wasn’t like they were filling his body with venom, Fallon wasn’t going to leave those nasty parasites on till he reached town, and let them suck his blood for hours. Chances are the leeches would suck till they were fat, then just drop off and wait for some other unlucky animal to pass by.

  Fallon ran the finger of his right ha
nd down to the thinnest end of the closest leech. He ran the fingernail of his pointer finger to the leech’s mouth and carefully pushed the head and mouth sideways. With his other hand, he plucked the fatty end of the leech off. Blood flowed easily from the bite, but Fallon had removed leeches before. The wounds would bleed a while, but there was no danger. And he had not pulled the mouth off, which could leave the mouth under the skin. That sometimes would cause itching and swelling and take a long time to heal. He flung the leech into the pile of debris and went to work on the next disgusting present from the swampy hell he had managed to ford.

  When the last leech was finding a perch on some fat leaf, Fallon stood, dropped his trousers and summer underwear, and did a cursory check to make sure no other bloodsuckers had found a part of him they liked. Clear, he hoisted the trousers, pulled the suspenders back over his shoulders, and moved back through brambles and thick forest, until he moved back to the bank.

  After hours in the darkness of the thick, miserable woods, the brightness of the sun refreshed him. But still he saw no sign of help along the river. So he kept marching, determined now, free of the obstacles. Where there was not much of a bank, at least there was enough of a path for him to move at a steady clip.

  Twenty minutes, maybe a mile, maybe not nearly a mile, later, he came to a sandy part of the river, and heard the braying of a mule. Fallon peered around into a cutbank, and saw the white mule, which lifted its ears, snorted, and pawed the ground.

  He must have been delirious, because he asked the mule, “Can you swim?”

  And the mule looked him in the eyes and said, “This mule don’t swim.”

  Fallon turned, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there, understanding that—obviously—a mule doesn’t talk. A man sat on a bucket by the river, holding a cane pole in his right hand. He brought the pole up, and saw the hook remained on the line, and a minnow wiggled as bait. The man let the weighted line carry the hooked minnow about twelve feet into the Missouri, plop on the surface, and sink till the cork floated.

  The fisherman, a black man with white hair and a salt-and-pepper Abraham Lincoln beard, did not look at Fallon, just kept his eyes on the floating cork. He wore Civil War–era Army trousers covered with patches, black boots, and a loosely fitting muslin shirt, the sleeves torn off around the shoulders, exposing the massive muscles of his arms.

  “I need to get to Leavenworth,” Fallon told the back of the Negro’s head. “It’s an emergency.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “I done tol’ ya,” the black man said without looking at Fallon. “That mule don’t swim.” He pulled the pole a little to his right, dragging the cork a few inches, then let it settle and float. “Ain’t much good for walkin’, neither.”

  Fallon sank to the sand, just to rest, to relieve his legs of the weight of carrying the rest of his body. At least he had met another human being—unless he was suffering from sunstroke and was imagining everything.

  “How . . . far . . .” He swallowed. All this water around him and he had not had anything to drink since . . . he didn’t want to think about that. “To . . . Leavenworth?”

  “Never been. I live in Missouri.”

  The mule brayed.

  “Fish biting?” Fallon asked.

  “Nah. Too hot.”

  “Yeah.”

  Fallon pushed himself back to his feet. “Maybe they’ll start biting.” He looked at the sky. “Yeah. There some clouds coming. If they go in front of the sun, you might get some supper.”

  Now the man lifted his head and looked at the sky. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. You done some fishin’ I guess.”

  Fallon tried to laugh, but doubted if he had succeeded. “It has been a long time, but yeah. Only not in the Missouri River.” He gestured off to the southeast. “But I’m a Missouri boy myself. I’ll be seeing you.”

  He walked past the man and the mule, and kept walking, staring at the bank, watching how it curved up and ran into another mess of brambles. He’d have to barge through that, too, and probably another after that, and he glanced at the river and wondered if he could just swim. But the banks looked no more promising on the Kansas side than they did on the eastern edge. He walked, feeling the world spin and then sinking to his knees. The last thing he remembered was the rotting leaves and driftwood on the bank rushing up to stop his fall.

  * * *

  He floated, serene, at peace, most likely dead. The sun warmed his face, and when Fallon managed to force his eyes open, he found himself staring into the blue skies. The clouds he remembered telling the big black fisherman about must have vanished, or, perhaps there were no clouds in heaven.

  No. Fallon shook the cobwebs from his addled mind and felt the stiffness and aches in practically every muscle from his neck down. He heard the gentle, soothing rippling of water, and felt the motion underneath his body. An oar stroked the water, followed by the wonderful sound of water dripping into water, then over wood, and pushing through water. He was in a boat.

  Fallon lifted his head to see the big black fisherman working the oar, again on his left side. Fallon tested the joints in his legs. The ones in both knees appeared to work, so Fallon brought his calves and legs up, and shoved himself into a seated position at the bow of the boat. He glanced around.

  “Mule ain’t here,” the big man said. “He don’t swim. And he don’t like ridin’ in boats.”

  Fallon looked at his legs. No leeches. Hardly a sign of where the parasites had been sucking his blood.

  “Where are my pants?” Fallon asked.

  “Had to charge you somethin’,” the black man said. “They won’t fit me. But I’ll gets some use outs of them, for shore.” He pointed at his old Civil War trousers. Yeah, Fallon thought, his pants would be fine for patches.

  Twisting around, Fallon looked up the river. Black smoke rose around the river’s bend, and he knew that would be a waiting steamboat at the landing. He looked back at his savior. “How long have you been rowing?”

  The man shrugged. “Don’t keep much track of time. Hard, though. Paddling ag’in’ da current. But”—he grinned—“I am right strong for an ol’ veteran of the War a’g’in’ da South.”

  “Well, I thank you.”

  The old man nodded. “It’s all rights, suh. Be real easy for me to get back to the mule. And by den, well, suh, I figure dem fish might be bitin’.”

  Fallon turned completely around, because the weight of the big rower in the boat’s stern reduced the rocking to almost nothing. He could see the banks coming closer as the old man turned the boat and headed for shore. The steamboat was being loaded with barrels and crates. Passengers crowded around the gangplank that led to the deck. Vendors still hawked peanuts and popped corn for passengers to take on their voyage. Fallon looked up toward town. He could only guess the time, but he had made it in plenty of time. At least, that’s what he hoped.

  Due to the old Union soldier’s weight, the boat touched ground before reaching the banks. But Fallon did not mind. He stepped over the edge and into water up to his knees, and moved down the boat, to extend his right hand toward the big man.

  “My name’s Fallon,” he told the rower. “Harry Fallon. But you can call me Hank. Any time. I’d like to pay you more than just those pants, though.”

  “Shucks, Mistuh Fallon,” the man said, as a grin brightened his ebony face. “I don’t need nothin’ mo’. Why, when I tells my family and all my friends how I come to get these here britches, I’ll be rich with the laughter I’ll be hearin’. Good luck to you, suh. Good luck. And iffen you even needs another ride up the Big Muddy . . .”

  He used the oar to push away into deeper water, then turned the boat around. Fallon thought he’d just row away, back to the mule and the fish that weren’t biting, but he did turn his head and wave. “I reckon I wasn’t thinkin’ too good. My Pa and my Ma would raise a conniption for bein’ so ignorant and rude. My name’s Noah, Mr. Fal—I mean, Mr. Hank. My name’s Noah. And that ain’t no joshin’
. It’s writ down in the family Bible back home.”

  He waved again. Fallon waved back, watched the old man and the boat find the current, and then Fallon turned and ran along the landing to the stairs.

  The stairs weren’t much. More gradual because Leavenworth was just a smidgen higher than the Missouri, and the streets closest to the river often flooded. But there were steps, and those steps sat close to the steamboat. Fallon heard the gasps first, but he didn’t care. He saw women turning around after their faces brightened with embarrassment and outrage. Some ladies pointed. One, wearing a brightly colored dress and a finely painted face, laughed.

  A priest crossed himself.

  A sailor swore and pointed a gnarled finger as Fallon ran past him with hardly a glance.

  “Have you no shame?”

  “You scoundrel!”

  “Of all the indecencies!”

  One woman staggered, put her elbow against her forehead, and collapsed into her husband’s arms.

  A deckhand roared, “Put on some pants, you damned freak!”

  “This is a God-fearing town, you demon.”

  The man hawking peanuts stepped in his way, yelling for the police. Fallon knocked him into the cart, which toppled over, showering the grass and shell-lined path with paper sacks and kernels of corn, some parched or popped, others waiting to be cooked.

  He was past them now, moving up the walkway between docks, moorings, and warehouses to the road that ran alongside the river. His bare feet really hurt now, from the briars and the sticks and stones, and now the hard cobblestone street along the waterfront. He had to get to the federal courthouse first. Or maybe the police station. It was closer.

  “For God’s sake, you pervert. Get off the street and put some clothes on!”

  It wasn’t like Fallon was naked as a baby or that proverbial jaybird. His underbritches remained on, wet, stained, torn, maybe hanging on by threads, but still preventing him from sending churchgoing Kansas women into seizures.