Dead Man's Return

by Derek Rutherford

  She could see the tenseness in his eyes, the single-mindedness.

  ‘What else did John Allan and Abraham say?’ he asked.

  She told them everything she could remember about her ride into town. After she had spoken to Abraham she had wandered around another corner and suddenly she could see the edge of town, and out there where the buildings thinned, upon a slight rise, was a graveyard. In front of the graveyard there was a gallows. A couple of fellows were hammering nails into the frame, but it looked, at least from a distance, like the frame had been there a long time. The wood was dark and weathered, and the men laughed as they worked. Aside from a few children earlier, they were the only people she had heard laugh. Maybe they were more of John Allan’s deputies, she thought.

  After she had told them it all they brewed coffee and sat in the shade of the trees. It was mid-afternoon. Rosalie couldn’t imagine how hot it must be down in that unsheltered cage on Main Street. A month or two earlier and it was likely they wouldn’t have needed to hang the boy. He would have roasted alive.

  Leon said, ‘What’s the plan, then? Is there a plan?’

  ‘Whatever it is, we need to save the boy,’ Rosalie pleaded. ‘If you’d have seen him, how scared he is. How innocent. If you saw that you’d know we have to save him.’

  ‘The plan was always to get John Allan alone,’ Jim said. ‘And I guess it still is. But with three deputies, it isn’t going to be easy.’

  ‘We need a diversion,’ Leon said. ‘Like the one you used when you broke me out of the camp.’

  ‘Short of setting the town alight I’m not sure I can replicate that,’ Jim said.

  ‘A hanging ought to be a pretty good diversion,’ Leon said.

  ‘What are you thinking? John Allan will surely be right there in the middle of it.’

  ‘I’m not thinking of anything. Not in particular. But there must be something.’

  ‘Something before the hanging,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘What do you remember about Allan?’ Jim asked, looking at Leon.

  ‘It was a long time ago. I guess I remember he liked to be in control. He didn’t like it that Hans was in charge rather than him.’

  ‘He was scared of being caught, too,’ Jim said. ‘I remember he was always careful not to leave anything personal behind.’

  Rosalie looked at Jim. She could sense something starting to coalesce in his mind.

  ‘He’s got his own empire now,’ Jim said. ‘He no doubt loves being in charge of that.’

  ‘And,’ Leon said. ‘I bet he’s fearful of losing it all.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Rosalie said.

  Jim was quiet for a few moments. Then he asked, ‘Was there a telegraph office in town?’

  ‘Yes. What are you thinking of?’

  Jim Jackson told them.

  Chapter Four

  Of the many things that haunted Jim Jackson, it was the killing of a young man in the woods outside their hide-out two months ago that was the hardest to live with. He and Rosalie had successfully broken Leon out of the prison camp where he was being terribly mistreated. They’d escaped to a hide-out many miles away. But the young man in question was closing in on that hide-out when Jim snuck up on him from behind. Circumstances had meant that silence was a necessity and so Jim had cut the man’s throat. From behind.

  Jim had killed other men before but without exception those killings had been initiated by the other party. Jim had stood before them in fair fights. The young man in the woods had been the first one that, in Jim’s mind, could have been constituted as murder.

  Leon had spent weeks counselling Jim over the killing, trying to help him to understand how it had been as fair and as justified as any of the others, that it wasn’t of Jim’s doing, that the circumstances had forced him into killing the man in the manner that he had.

  On one level Jim knew that Leon was right and he had come to accept what he had done. But on another level, maybe in his heart rather than his brain, he still felt that he had crossed a line that he would never have imagined crossing.

  Now he wondered if he wasn’t going to have to step across the line once more. John Allan, the man that it appeared had framed them and set both him and Leon up for more than a decade of hell, was within reach.

  But once they’d reached him, what then?

  It was eight o’clock in the morning according to the clock on the wall in the telegraph office when Jim and Rosalie stepped inside. The office was neat and tidy. The walls panelled with wood, the window clean, a curtain hanging halfway up the window to maintain privacy. There was a door in the far corner – they’d already checked rear access on account of if there hadn’t been any way out they would have needed to revise their plan. On a large desk below the window sat the telegraph machine – Jim wasn’t sure what many of the elements did, though he was sure he could have figured it out given a few minutes. He would have loved to have simply sat down and talked to the telegraph operator about the bells and the clicker and the earpiece, the wires and all those mysterious brass instruments. Right now that was nothing but a fanciful idea. Sitting in front of the desk was that operator in a white shirt, with red braces holding up his trousers. He was balding and was wearing round-framed spectacles.

  He turned in his chair.

  ‘Good morning. How may I help you?’

  Rosalie stepped forwards. They had agreed that the request – no, the demand – would sound better coming from a woman.

  ‘Do you think it’s right that the sheriff hangs that young boy, Martin, this morning?’

  The operator shifted back in his chair a few inches as if the words themselves had a physical impact.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’

  ‘You support the hanging?’

  Jim Jackson stood in front of the door. If anyone tried to come in over the next few minutes he would say they were composing a private message – which was the truth – and could they please come back a little later.

  ‘I . . . I’m not sure I—’

  ‘It’s a simple question,’ Rosalie said. ‘I was out on the street yesterday and I got the impression that most of the townsfolk are against the hanging. Maybe you’re for it?’

  ‘No. No. Not at all. It’s just—’

  ‘It’s just what?’

  The man leaned forwards. He reached up and took off his glasses.

  ‘Who did you say you were?’

  ‘She didn’t,’ Jim Jackson said. The man looked over at him. Jim smiled. ‘For information, we’re the good guys.’

  ‘It’s just what?’ Rosalie said again. Jim was impressed at how forceful she was. They had agreed on the ride down into town that she should confuse the man, bully him a little if needed.

  The operator looked from Jim to Rosalie. He ran a hand over his forehead.

  ‘What can you do?’ he said. ‘I mean, any of us? What can we do?’

  ‘If you could do something, would you?’ Rosalie said.

  ‘Yes. Yes of course I would.’

  ‘You’re not scared?’ Jim asked from over by the door.

  ‘Everyone’s scared.’

  ‘Then why don’t you all leave?’ Jim asked.

  The man looked at him. ‘Oh, some folks have left. The ones that never had roots here. The ones that can afford to.’

  ‘So you’ll help us?’ Rosalie said.

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘If you could do something, would you?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Howard.’

  ‘Then Howard, I’ll tell you exactly what you can do,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘I won’t do it,’ Howard said.

  ‘Just write it out and go and hand it to him,’ Jim said.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What are you scared of?’ Rosalie asked.

  ‘Look, I don’t know who you are, where you come from, or what you want with Anderson—’

  �
��We want to save that young boy,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘Well, that’s as may be. But you don’t live here. You don’t—’

  ‘Times getting on,’ Jim said. ‘If Howard here is too much of a coward—’

  ‘Howard the coward,’ Rosalie said, staring at the telegraph man, trying to shame him into changing his mind.

  ‘You’d be a coward too! He’ll find out sooner or later that it was made up. And when he does. . . .’

  A new voice piped up, ‘When he finds out what?’

  It was a young boy, no more than ten. He had brown hair, blue dungarees over a dirty white undershirt, and red shoes. He was smiling and standing just inside the rear door to the room.

  ‘Billy,’ Howard said. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Go, now. Leave.’

  ‘ ’Course I should be here. It’s my job.’

  Billy stepped further into the room. He smiled at Rosalie. ‘My name’s Billy. I run the messages for Mr Howard.’

  ‘Hello Billy,’ she said.

  ‘Hello.’ Billy turned to Jim. ‘My name’s Billy,’ he said again. He walked forward and held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

  ‘Jim.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘Billy,’ Howard said. ‘You should go.’

  ‘No messages?’ Billy said, turning to look at the telegraph man.

  ‘No, Billy. There are no messages,’ Howard said.

  ‘Actually,’ Rosalie said. ‘There is a message.’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ Howard said.

  Jim looked across at Howard, his eyes hard, and his voice level. ‘The lady is right. There is a message.’

  ‘Then give it here,’ Billy said. ‘I can be anywhere in town in under three minutes.’

  Rosalie wrote the words in block capitals on a blank telegram. Howard was furious, telling them that it was theft, pleading for them not to put his and Billy’s lives in danger. ‘Our lives after you’ve gone,’ he said. ‘That’s the thing you don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh we understand,’ Jim said, after Billy had disappeared out of the door with the fake telegram in his hand. ‘The thing is, this time was going to come sooner or later. And you should be thanking us from what I can gather.’

  ‘Thanking you?’

  ‘Your sheriff. . . . Life will be a whole lot better without him. No?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Jim smiled, but the smile belied his own concern – what were they going to do? It had been easy to come this far, driven by a white core of anger deep inside, all those years of pain, those injustices, the executions and the deaths of their old friends. But somewhere in the last few months, sometime whilst they had been recovering from injuries, when life had slowed, as the heat of summer had passed, and reason had become more. . . reasoned. . . the white hot rage had cooled. He wasn’t a killer. Oh he had killed, but he was no more a killer than Rosalie or Leon were. Any man, or woman, could be a killer when they were forced into it. But when there was no longer any forcing, what then? Could he look John Allan in the eye, right here in this room, which was what they were planning, and simply shoot him?

  And if not, then what?

  Billy cried, ‘Telegram for Sheriff Anderson! It’s urgent!’ He banged on the sheriff’s door, his little fist not making much noise against the solid wood. He shouted again. ‘Telegram for Mr Anderson!’

  The cage just alongside from the door was empty. Scores of people were standing around looking at the sheriff’s office. One of them, a woman, said to Billy. ‘I hope to God that’s someone telling the sheriff that he can’t hang my Martin.’ Her voice was quiet and weary. Billy looked at her. Her face was grey, with tear tracks that left darker grey lines. There were other women, and a couple of men with her. It looked to Billy like one of the men was holding Martin’s mother upright. More people were arriving all of the time.

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ he said. ‘But they told me it was urgent.’

  ‘They?’

  Billy looked back around. Sheriff Anderson had opened the door.

  ‘What do you mean they?’

  ‘I mean Mister Howard, sir, and the person at the other end who sent it.’

  ‘Well give it here, boy, and don’t go expecting a penny for your trouble. I’m too busy this morning to care for niceties.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Billy handed the sheriff the telegram and it was as if a dark magic trick had been played on the sheriff’s face. As Anderson read the telegram his eyes widened and his face reddened, and then his voice burst out of his mouth louder than ever and he said, ‘Darn meddlin’ fools! Why can’t they leave me alone?’

  He screwed the telegram up in his hand and half-leapt down the steps and onto the hard, mud-packed street. He pushed Billy out of the way, sending him sprawling, and he strode across the road towards the telegraph office.

  ‘My goodness. What did it say?’ one of the men asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t read,’ Billy said, standing up, brushing dust from his dungarees. ‘But Mr Howard, he wasn’t happy either.’

  Then Billy ran after the sheriff.

  Jim Jackson saw John Allan approaching. Allan strode across the dirt looking like a thunder storm was raging inside him. His face was red and his fists were clenched. Every step raised clouds of dark dust from the street.

  Leon had been right, Jim thought. The man hated not to be in control and was terrified that all he had built up was about to be brought crashing down.

  Jim was leaning against the wall of the next building along from the telegraph office. His hat was pulled down, and his head lowered. John Allan never even spared him a glance. Jim saw Billy running after the sheriff and wanted to call out to him to stay back, not to go inside. But doing so might have given the game away.

  Allan smashed open the telegraph office door, letting it crash against the inside wall of the office. The door rebounded, closing itself. Jim heard him shouting at Howard, ‘What in the hell is this?’

  Had there been a couple of deputies with John Allan then Jim would have backed away. Rosalie was now outside, around the back of the telegraph office with the horses and with Leon. They knew what they had to do assuming all went as planned, but equally they could have all simply slipped away into the trees if the situation hadn’t played out the way they had planned. Of course, if they did that, Allan would know something was up and it would make things harder – especially for Howard and Billy – but it would be better than taking on the sheriff and his deputies. Nevertheless, Jim had figured Allan would leave at least one of his deputies guarding the boy. Probably two. So at worst Jim he would have had to deal with two men. He figured he could do that. And maybe against such odds he would find it easier to be violent. Easier to kill. He’d been leaning against the wall trying to conjure up the feelings and injustices, the pain and humiliations, the need for revenge that had driven him all these years. Seeing John Allan – their old gang-mate looking so big and healthy, so untouched by the hell that he had put the old gang through, Jim discovered that fire starting to burn within him again. He could do it, he told himself. He could. He could extract the revenge he had come for. He just needed to stoke that fire a little harder.

  Billy was getting too close to the telegraph office. Jim stepped forwards and held up his hand to stop the boy going any further.

  Jim pulled his gun from its holster.

  He followed Allan into the office.

  Billy told his friends later what had happened. He’d run up to the window and seen it all.

  ‘The man walked in with a gun in his hand.’ Billy said. ‘And the sheriff, his face was still red as a beet, turned to see who it was and I’m telling you his eyes widened even more and his mouth dropped open and he shook his head, and then the man held out his gun and said something quietly and the sheriff actually smiled. He smiled and he laughed and was still shaking his head. But he put his hands up. And that was when another fellow came in from the back door and the sheriff s
tarted to twist around and this new fellow had a bag which he dropped over the sheriff’s head. I mean, it was like the hood the sheriff uses when he hangs someone except these fellows were doing it to him. I mean, they must have been plumb crazy.’

  ‘Remind you of anything?’ Jim Jackson said, as Leon dropped the bag over John Allan’s head.

  ‘What the hell!’ John Allan said, his voice still loud beneath the bag. He turned blindly, his hands first waving about wildly for balance and then reaching up to remove the bag.

  Leon grabbed Allan’s hands and yanked them back down.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Howard said from the corner of the room. ‘Oh my God.’

  Jim Jackson turned his gun round and cracked John Allan on the side of the head. Allan’s legs gave way and he crumpled to the ground.’

  ‘They tied him to a chair,’ Billy said later. ‘Lifted him up and sat him down and they tied his ankles and they tied his wrists. It took a while and I could see the sheriff starting to twist against the knots. Then the two men, they got Mr Howard’s water jug and they poured it over the sheriff’s head. He spluttered and he shook his head and I think he tried to say something. I just saw him shaking his head and rocking that chair.

  ‘And then one of the men pressed his gun against the sheriff’s neck.’

  ‘Please,’ Howard said. ‘Please!’

  ‘Shut up,’ Leon said.

  ‘I just don’t want any trouble. Not in here. No shooting, please.’

  The sack over Allan’s head, Allan’s shirt, the wooden floor below the chair were all wet. John Allan regained consciousness, twisting and turning, trying to tear himself loose from the chair. He coughed and he cursed. After he had exhausted his initial fury he became still and he said, ‘You two.’

  ‘Been expecting us?’ Jim Jackson said.

  There was a pause. They could hear Allan breathing heavily beneath the bag, see the material moving in and out as he inhaled and exhaled.

  ‘Why would I be expecting you?’