Dead Man's Return

by Derek Rutherford

‘We’re pretty positive,’ Jim said.

  ‘Then I should go down first,’ Rosalie said. ‘And I should go down alone.’

  Jim looked at her. ‘No way.’

  ‘Yep,’ Leon said. ‘No way.’

  ‘He knows what you two look like. He doesn’t know me.’

  ‘We have to show our faces sometime,’ Jim said.

  ‘I’m not saying you don’t go down ever. I’m just saying I go down first. I’ll check the lay of the land.’

  Leon looked at Jim. Jim shook his head.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Rosalie went on. ‘You’ve come this far. . . . For the sake of one more day. Maybe even just a few hours.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll ride in. Buy us some fresh food. I’ll look around.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ Jim said. ‘We have to go down there sooner or later.’

  ‘And if there’s a trap?’ Rosalie asked.

  ‘Why would there be a trap?’

  ‘Jim Jackson and Leon Winters are both out of prison,’ she said, her gaze moving between them. ‘If John Allan is aware of that you think he mightn’t have made some preparations?’

  ‘How would he know?’ Leon asked. But Rosalie was right. If Allan was down there and he was the one that had framed them all those years ago then he might well be on guard. Assuming someone had told him that both he and Jim were free.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t know,’ Rosalie said. ‘But why risk it?’

  Jim said, ‘Tell me, how many people have we met on the way up here who have talked about Leyton?’

  ‘Not many,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘But a few. And what did they say? All of them, without exception.’

  ‘They said it wasn’t a town where you wanted to put a foot wrong.’

  ‘They said the sheriff is cruel,’ Leon said. ‘Desperately cruel, was one phrase, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Then I’ll be careful not to put a foot wrong. Look, you know I’m right. He knows both of you.’

  Jim shook his head again. ‘I’m not happy about this.’

  ‘Me, neither,’ Leon said. ‘It doesn’t feel good.’

  ‘But you both know I’m right,’ Rosalie said again. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘You don’t know what he looks like,’ Jim said. But in his voice Leon could hear that Jim was reluctantly coming round to Rosalie’s idea.

  ‘He’s not as tall as either of you. Black hair – though of course he may be grey, or bald by now. Brown eyes and he used to have a moustache but no beard. But that could have changed, too. Not the eyes. But the rest. He’s got a scar that runs from the corner of his mouth, the left-hand side – his left-hand side – back towards his ear. And he’s got half of his fourth finger missing on his right hand.’ She took a sip of hot coffee and smiled at the men. ‘That’s what he looks like.’

  Leon looked at Jim, smiled, and then shrugged.

  ‘But it’s not just him,’ Rosalie said. ‘You – we – want to know if there’s anyone else down there waiting. It stands to reason this is where we’d turn up. And sure enough here we are. You’re wanted men. There could be Texas Rangers down there waiting. You could walk right into them.’

  ‘We left it long enough,’ Jim said.

  ‘Not through choice,’ Rosalie said. ‘We all took some mending.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Leon said.

  ‘So it’s agreed. I’ll ride down alone.’

  Jim sighed and Leon smiled. They’d both already learned you couldn’t argue with Rosalie.

  There was indeed something odd about Leyton, Texas. It was nothing overt, just an invisible difference to most places she’d been. The atmosphere, maybe, Rosalie thought as she rode slowly into the town. Or maybe it was the stories they’d heard from strangers on the way up here. Leyton’s reputation went before it: a hard town, a cruel sheriff, not a place where you’d want to live, and definitely not a town where you’d want to do wrong. Leyton was clean and quiet and full of buildings similar to ones she had seen scores of times across the frontier. The people were the same, too. Or at least they were dressed the same. The shop-keepers and the stable-boys, the women – the wives and the daughters, the children, and over there by the Watering Hole, a couple of pretty saloon girls. Thankfully, at least a couple of the children were laughing and running around. Because, aside from those children, there was little noise in Leyton, nobody yee-hawing it up, no one snoring off last night’s whiskey on the plank-walk.

  She watered her horse at a trough halfway into town and then she hitched him to a rail outside a dry goods store. Somewhere someone was cooking bacon and it smelled good. She wandered along the plank-walk, casually looking in the windows. She paused outside a clothing store. There was a lady’s dress on display, a blue dress in a subtle pattern with white lace on the collar and cuffs, a matching bonnet was suspended on a hook above the dress. It looked like something she might have worn in her previous life – the life that had ended a few months ago in Austin, Texas, when she had first met Jim Jackson. She had been on a train heading into Austin, dressed in a nice outfit and wearing a bonnet, with a job interview and a room at her sister’s house waiting. It was supposed to be a new start, a return to a sensible life after having worked some minor frontier adventures out of her system.

  Things may very well have turned out that way had Jim Jackson not sat down opposite her in the carriage and had some outlaws not attempted to rob the train.

  Jim – who she discovered later had actually once been a train robber himself – had single-handedly foiled the robbery and from that moment on their lives had been entwined. Rosalie’s sister, Roberta, had through her work for the State of Texas located the prison in which Jim’s old friend Leon Winters was incarcerated and, armed with this information, Jim had set off to rescue Leon.

  That story had ended in violence. Jim had been wounded in the process of breaking Leon out of prison. Leon had been so weak it had taken months for him to recover.

  Somewhere along the way Rosalie had lost her bonnets and blue dresses and had instead found herself wearing a man’s shirt and jacket, blue riding jeans, and a Colt 45 on her hip.

  A sound came to her on the gentle morning breeze. She turned away from the shop window display. The noise was coming from just around the corner. It was the sound of a woman crying.

  Rosalie walked towards the sound.

  She turned the corner and stopped, aghast at what she saw.

  There was a boy in a cage. He was no more than fifteen or sixteen. He had a shock of black hair and his face was white, his eyes red, and he was gripping the iron bars of the cage. The crying woman had her hands over his and she was imploring people to help. But nobody stopped. Few even looked.

  ‘Please,’ the woman wailed. ‘Help me. He didn’t do anything.’

  Rosalie noticed a tall man, taller than even Leon, standing across the road. He had a dark hat and a very long beard and, though he was making no moves to help the woman or the boy, at least he wasn’t rushing by, eyes cast downwards like most of the people.

  The woman saw Rosalie.

  ‘Please,’ she said, more quietly than she had been a moment before. ‘Help me. Help us.’

  Rosalie stepped forward.

  The cage was built on the outside wall of a building that she now saw was the sheriff’s office. There was a door in the side of the building that had it been open would lead into the cage. The cage itself took up just half of the plank walk. It wasn’t big. There wasn’t room for the boy to lie down and there was nothing for him to sit on. The sun was already shining down on the bars and with no shelter Rosalie could only imagine how hot it would get. It might be early autumn but the sun these last few days had felt as hot as ever during much of the day.

  The boy saw Rosalie.

  He shook his head, then he nodded, as if confused. His breathing was fast and she saw him trying to control his heaving chest.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t do what they said I d
one.’

  ‘He didn’t do it,’ the woman – his mother, Rosalie presumed – echoed. ‘You’ve got to help us.’

  Another woman, scurrying by, head down, whispered ‘God bless you, Martin.’

  ‘What is this?’ Rosalie said. She’d never seen anything like it in her life. She thought of the people they had passed on the ride up to Leyton, the stories they’d told. Some of those tales had seemed fanciful at the time. But now she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘I stole bread,’ the boy called Martin said. ‘I admit that. But I didn’t steal no horse.’

  ‘He didn’t steal a horse,’ his mother said.

  ‘Why the cage?’ Rosalie said, almost to herself. She looked round again. More people rushed by without hardly a glance. The tall man with the long beard continued to watch them.

  ‘It’s to make him confess,’ the woman said. ‘It gets so hot. He can’t stand up and he can’t lie down.’

  Rosalie now saw that the iron bars making up the roof of the cage were just inches above the boy’s head, and he was crouched forwards, his face up against the vertical bars.

  ‘I ain’t confessing to something I never did,’ Martin said. ‘They can send me to prison for the bread or whip me if that’s what he wants.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Rosalie asked.

  A man walking by looked at her and shook his head. Rosalie didn’t know if the shake of the head was pity or a warning.

  ‘Him,’ the woman said, nodding at the sheriff’s door.

  ‘The sheriff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Beelzebub, I shouldn’t wonder,’ the woman said.

  ‘He whips some folks,’ Martin said. ‘But he don’t want to whip me. He wants to. . . He wants to hang me.’

  ‘Hang you?’ Rosalie said.

  ‘He’s an evil man,’ the woman said.

  Behind Rosalie the sheriff’s door opened. She turned, and found herself face to face with John Allan.

  ‘At least I’m not a horse-thief,’ Allan said.

  He looked at her with unblinking cold brown eyes. He still had the moustache that Jim and Leon had told her about, although it was grey now. But it was the scar, white against his weather-tanned skin and running from his mouth towards his ear, that convinced Rosalie this was Allan. She wanted to glance down at his right hand, but she didn’t want to give him the slightest hint that she knew who he was. So she held his gaze even though there was something in that gaze that made her tremble inside.

  Behind him a deputy filled the doorway, a wide-shouldered man with a full beard and teeth the colour of coffee.

  ‘I didn’t steal any horse,’ Martin said.

  ‘We’ve got witnesses said you did,’ John Allan said, still staring at Rosalie. ‘You’re new,’ he said.

  ‘Just passing through.’ She still held his gaze. ‘How can you keep a boy in a cage like that?’

  ‘He can go back inside anytime he wants. He’s got a cot and a jug of cool water and we’ll even feed him. He just has to admit to what he did.’

  ‘And if he didn’t do it?’

  John Allan stared at her and it felt just like he was reading all her innermost thoughts. She wanted to look away lest he discover Jim Jackson and Leon Winters inside her head. But she refused to show him any weakness.

  ‘Just passing through, you say? Then you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘He likes to hang someone every so often,’ the woman said.

  ‘That’s not true,’ Allan said, turning his gaze upon Martin’s mother, and to Rosalie the feeling of relief was palpable. ‘I’m not afraid of hanging those that need to be hanged. This is a peaceful town. That’s down to me.’

  ‘He never did it!’ the woman said.

  ‘A lot of folks are scared to kill someone,’ Allan said, looking back at Rosalie. ‘Me, I take on such burdens so others can live safely. Safe in the knowledge that no one’s going to sneak around in the night and steal what don’t belong to then.’

  ‘I stole bread. I admit that,’ Martin said.

  ‘You ever seen a hanging?’ Allan said.

  ‘I saw the aftermath once,’ Rosalie said. ‘Surely there’s no need to hang him – he’s only a boy.’

  ‘He’s old enough to steal a horse. He’s old enough to hang.’

  ‘He didn’t do it!’ the woman shouted.

  ‘If you’re still here in the morning,’ Allan said, ‘come and see him hang. Nine o’clock. I find it’s a lesson that a lot of people can learn from. Anyway, if you’ll excuse us.’

  Then he raised his right hand to his face and saluted her and she saw that half his little finger was missing.

  ‘You’re the Devil!’ the woman said to Allan as he and his deputy walked by.

  He smiled at her. ‘Come and find me if he confesses. He can spend his last day in the shade if that’s the case.’

  After the sheriff had walked away the woman turned to Rosalie. ‘You’ve got to help us. Please.’

  Across the street and around the corner from the cage, Rosalie paused outside the telegraph office, trying to calm her nerves.

  ‘This is the scaredest town I ever saw.’

  Rosalie jumped. She hadn’t realised the tall man with the long beard was behind her.

  ‘I saw you talking to the boy,’ the man said. His voice was low and slow, steady. ‘And his mother. Everyone else was too frightened.’

  ‘They’re going to hang him.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘That man. . . . He really is evil. I could actually feel it.’

  There were more people about now, the town was livelier, but still she could hear Martin’s mother pleading and begging.

  ‘Yes, there are men like that around.’

  She looked at him. His beard was long and thick, but clean. His coat was the same. The way he looked at her, his eyes were soft but unblinking.

  ‘Are you just passing through, too?’ she said.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She looked down at his guns. He wore two of them.

  ‘Maybe you could help the boy?’ she said. ‘His name is Martin.’

  ‘My name is Abraham,’ he said. He held out a hand.

  ‘Rosalie.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Rosalie. My advice would be to do whatever you’ve come to do and leave. Despite what the sheriff told you, nothing good ever came of seeing a hanging.’

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘He speaks loudly. He wants everyone to hear him all of the time.’

  ‘Could you help that boy?’

  Abraham smiled. His teeth were white and she thought how different he was to the sheriff and the deputy that she had been talking to just a few minutes earlier.

  ‘No one can help Martin. The sheriff’s got three deputies and they all like killing as much as he does.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been watching. Anyway, Rosalie, it’s been nice talking with you. Please take my advice, and don’t stick around. It’s not that sort of town.’

  ‘He’s there!’ she said. ‘John Allan. Jack Anderson. Whatever his name is. He’s there.’

  Jim Jackson nodded and smiled. Rosalie knew that Jim had been sure that Anderson and Allan would turn out to be one and the same.

  Leon Winters said, ‘Anyone else there, though? Anyone setting a trap?’

  ‘He’s got three deputies.’

  ‘Three?’ Jim said.

  ‘Yes. And the one I saw looked big and mean and like he would’ve enjoyed putting a bullet in someone.’

  She took her hat off and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She felt so hot – hotter than the ride back up to their camp warranted. It was everything, she thought. It was the ride, it was what was happening down there in town. It was standing in front of the Devil.

  ‘How do you know he’s got three if you only saw one?’ Jim asked.

  ‘I was talking to a man down there—�
�

  ‘Water?’ Leon interrupted, offering her a water skin.

  ‘He did all the work,’ Rosalie said, nodding at her horse. But she took a drink anyway. She looked over at Jim and smiled. He smiled back, but there were new lines on his forehead and his mouth barely moved from the straight. He was so close to seeing the man that had put him – and Leon – through ten years of hell that she knew he could think of little else. It was as if all his nerve endings were tuned like the highest notes of a piano.

  ‘I didn’t see any Texas Rangers,’ she said. ‘No soldiers. Nothing like that. But the man I was talking to down there. He was tall – taller than either of you – with a long beard and two guns. Said his name was Abraham.’ She looked from Jim to Leon and back again.

  ‘I know of no Abraham,’ Jim said. ‘Lincoln, aside.’

  ‘Wasn’t he a fellow in the Bible? Aside from Lincoln, I mean,’ Leon said. He coughed gently into his hand.

  ‘I think he was,’ Jim said. ‘But I don’t recall him wearing two guns.’

  ‘He was watching,’ Rosalie said. ‘That’s the best way I can describe it. Watching.’

  ‘Watching what?’ Jim asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I got the impression he was watching John Allan. You know he’s actually the sheriff?’

  ‘I heard he ran the town,’ Jim said. ‘That’s what McRae told me. It feels like a lifetime ago.’

  ‘He’s going to hang someone tomorrow,’ Rosalie said. ‘A boy.’

  ‘A boy?’ Leon said.

  ‘Yes, a boy. Sixteen, seventeen. Martin. He – Martin – admits he stole some bread, but John Allan says the boy stole a horse and – ‘

  ‘You spoke to John Allan?’ Jim said.

  ‘I was talking to the boy and his mother. Allan has him in a cage, right there on the street. It’s awful. No one will help. They all walk by. They won’t look. Abraham says it’s the scaredest town he ever saw.’

  Leon said, ‘You talked to Abraham as well?’

  Jim smiled at Leon. ‘She’s certainly does a thorough job.’

  ‘We should help him,’ she said. ‘Martin, I mean. We can’t let them hang a boy.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jim said. ‘We need to plan this right. Take our time.’

  ‘Please. We don’t have time. Martin doesn’t have time. This morning you were all for riding right down there.’