Dead Man's Return

by Derek Rutherford

  ‘After all we’ve done?’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘I know it was different! That was life and death. We saved a young boy from being hanged and we freed an entire town. All I’m asking—’

  He shook his head. His face was reddening slightly. ‘Please don’t ask.’

  ‘What do you think they’ll say?’ She waved her hand in the general direction of the door, and by implication, the town beyond it. ‘Everyone out there is giving us whatever we want. Even when we don’t want it. We can’t pay for a drink, a meal, a bath, a haircut. Someone even offered to look at my teeth. Anything we want is ours this morning. You think they’d take kindly to you refusing to give me one little thing?’

  ‘They’d understand.’

  ‘Howard. Please.’

  He looked down at the screwdriver, at the book. He sighed.

  ‘It’s connected, isn’t it? Abraham, I mean.’

  ‘It might be.’

  He sighed.

  ‘I need to pop out the back for a moment.’ He paused. Then he said, ‘Please don’t go through the drawers looking for the records of what I’ve sent.’

  ‘Thank you, Howard.’

  ‘For what? I haven’t done anything.’

  Then, without looking at her, he stood up and walked out of the back door.

  She put the slip of paper down on the table in front of Jim and Leon. They were alone at the big table in Martin and his mother’s kitchen. Something was simmering in a large black pot on the stove in the corner and the room smelled of ham and coffee and herbs.

  The note was addressed to Beecher and Smith, Austin, Texas.

  ‘That’s your writing,’ Jim said. He’d never forget her writing. A note once that gave him the address of the prison camp where Leon was being held, and a short while later another letter to say that she was in the town adjacent to that prison camp when he’d thought he’d never see her again. Both moments were seared into his memory like a brand on a calf.

  ‘I copied it out.’

  Leon picked up the note.

  ‘Who are Beecher and Smith?’

  ‘No idea,’ Jim said.

  ‘Austin,’ Leon said.

  Jim felt his insides churn. He’d escaped the capital by the skin of his teeth not so long ago. People had died – and although he wasn’t to blame, he knew the authorities there held him accountable. They would love to get their hands on him and Leon again. The thought made him go cold.

  ‘Austin,’ he repeated. His throat dry. He reached across the table for the jug of water.

  ‘Job Done. JA killed.’ Leon read.

  Rosalie had even copied out the header: Western Union. Four words.

  ‘Beecher and Smith,’ Jim said. ‘Austin.’ His hand shook a little as he poured water from the jug into his cup. Every time he thought he had escaped Texas, or some part of Texas, it seemed something wanted to drag him back.

  Chapter Seven

  There was something a little more uncontrolled, wilder, and even violent about Washington Smith’s lovemaking. No, violence, wasn’t the right word, Evelyn decided. It was crazy, that’s what it was. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his mind and the relief had set him free, and he’d grabbed that freedom with both hands, and both legs, and . . . well something else as well. And here they were in this small but beautiful Austin hotel where the bed sheets smelled of wild flowers and where there was indoor plumbing on the ground floor. They’d enjoyed a meal and too much wine. His wife thought he was out west somewhere at one of his timber places, and he’d been like a wild stallion suddenly let out of a corral in rutting season.

  She liked Washington. She really did. He was handsome in a greying, ageing way. Although these last few months he’d been far too tense, had too many new lines mapped onto his forehead. He was powerful, of course. Not just the money – although there was that – but the way he controlled men, controlled his empire. Even the way he controlled Charles Beecher, his supposed equal. She enjoyed their evenings and nights together. Oh it was wrong, she knew that. Just as she knew there was no future in it. He talked about leaving Martha but she knew – and Washington knew – that it was just talk. But so be it. She was single, even if he wasn’t. She hadn’t set out to be a mistress – it had simply happened. She had fallen a little in love, just the way a thousand other people did every day, especially when they worked so closely. At some point she’d have to figure out what to do about the situation. She knew that she was trapped to a certain extent, imprisoned by a job and an affair and if she didn’t break loose she would never find her own true freedom and happiness in life.

  But that was all for another day. Right now it was so nice to see and feel the relief coursing through his body, even if it had made him a little wilder and crazier than normal.

  Afterwards, Washington lay back against the pillow. He rested a glass of whiskey on his bare chest, the glass nestling amongst his curling grey chest hairs.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Washington said.

  ‘Who?’ She propped herself on an elbow and looked at him. For a moment she thought he meant Charles Beecher. Sometimes she got the impression that Washington felt Charles was holding him back. There was a tiny flare of fear at the back of her neck. Was he capable of that?

  ‘Just someone from long time ago.’

  He took a sip of whiskey, put the glass on the table by the bedside, and turned to look at her.

  ‘A loose end,’ he said, and smiled. He lifted the whiskey glass, took a sip, and then placed the glass on the small table beside the bed. ‘I feel very good. Make love to me, Evelyn.’

  Roberta Robertson sat in her favourite armchair reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Everyone was reading it. She’d bought a copy the weekend before in Gammel’s bookstore. The book was heavy, the hard cover green and embossed gold, and the words inside were full of adventure, fun, and wonderful characters. Each night, after she’d eaten and cleared up, Roberta sat in her chair, an oil lamp at her shoulder, and fell deliciously into Huck’s world. A world she longed to partake in, but knew she never would. That was the beauty of books – you could partake of the adventure whilst sitting in a comfortable chair, with a glass of sherry on the table, and a door between you and the rest of the world.

  At one point she found her mind wandering. It wasn’t that the words weren’t gripping – they most certainly were – but they had created resonances, memories, and ideas in her mind. She found herself thinking of her sister Rosalie. Rosalie who would happily have jumped on board that raft with Huck Finn and rode the river to wherever it took them.

  Rosalie had travelled through the frontier territories just a few months ago, out where the west was still wild. Rosalie had embraced the adventure but Roberta had eventually managed to persuade her sister to come to Austin and get a proper job. She’d rather hoped her sister would find a man like she’d done. Her own beau, Andrew, was a lawyer. A handsome lawyer. Roberta was quite excited about the future, although she was taking things slowly. She’d worked so hard for this little house and her independence that she was reluctant to let things change too rapidly. Nevertheless, she had a wonderful feeling about the future and it would be nice to have her sister close by, and with Rosalie’s looks and her lust for life she’d be sure to find an Andrew of her own very easily.

  Actually, Roberta thought, the truth was Rosalie had already found a man. But that man was a killer and a train robber, albeit one that appeared to have swapped sides. He’d foiled a train robbery the very day that Rosalie was riding the train into Austin. Within a day Rosalie had gone out walking with him. But not before Rosalie had persuaded her – Roberta – to use her position at work to find information about a series of men that, it turned out, were, or had been, in prison throughout Texas. Most of those men were dead. But one – Leon Winters, Roberta remembered the name – was still alive. And sure enough, this handsome ex-train robber had disappeared the very next night, leaving Rosalie high, dry and abandoned. That
should have been the end of it. But oh no, just like Huck Finn was swept from one adventure to another, that same night Rosalie came home weeping. Two of her fingers had been broken. Roberta had never quite worked out the whole story, but she knew it had all revolved around the train robber. And then a few days later, Rosalie, and her broken fingers, had disappeared.

  A life of danger and adventure. It was foolhardy and it was something of which Roberta disapproved, whilst, deep inside she was quietly jealous.

  She sighed, took a sip of sherry, and focused on Twain’s words again.

  Half an hour later someone knocked on her door.

  Roberta slipped a thin strip of brown leather into the book to mark her place. She put the book onto the table next to her empty sherry glass. She went across the room and opened her door.

  ‘Hello sister,’ Rosalie said.

  Roberta said again, ‘I can’t believe it. I mean—’

  ‘You can’t believe it,’ Rosalie added.

  ‘I was just thinking of you. Really. It’s almost. . . . It’s like magic.’

  They were sitting in Roberta’s small front room. The Mark Twain book lay forgotten on the table, although Roberta had picked up and refilled the sherry glass. She’d poured Rosalie one too, and was now sitting on the two-seater next to her sister.

  ‘Tell me everything. How’s your hand? Let me see. I never thought I’d see you again. What really happened? Where did you go? Tell me it all!’

  ‘I’ve never heard you talk so much, sis’,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t be.’

  ‘It’s just . . . I’m so excited. I really didn’t think I’d see you again. I was so sad. I was desperately sad. You just . . . left.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell anyone where I was.’

  ‘But where were you? Why couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘It’s Friday, Rosie. There’s no work tomorrow. We’ve got all night. Are you hungry?’

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘You look hungry. You look thin. Those clothes. They look like men’s clothes.’ Roberta shook her head disapprovingly.

  ‘That’s more like the Roberta I know,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m joking.’

  ‘Oh. But you do look like . . . You are dressed like a man.’

  Rosalie smiled. She sipped sherry from the tiny cut glass. She looked around the room. The curtains were heavy and beautiful, as were the cushions. There were paintings on the wall, books on a shelf. A plaster cornice ran around the room between wall and ceiling, and halfway up was a dado rail. She’d forgotten how beautiful Roberta had made her small house. Outside, in the street, there had been streetcars – like stagecoaches but long and slow and much more comfortable looking. And hanging alongside and across the roads were electric lights. Now that was magic.

  The sherry was sweet and warm.

  It was safe, civilized living. It was living like living was meant to be for a young professional woman in this modern world.

  It was, Roberta had told her last time, what Rosalie could have if she got a job and settled down.

  Rosalie thought of Jim and Leon, camped several miles out of Austin, hidden in the woods, no walls between them and the rest of the world, no ceiling between them and the stars.

  ‘These clothes are practical,’ Rosalie said. ‘Out there.’

  ‘Out there,’ Roberta said. ‘Is he still out there? The train robber man.’

  Rosalie smiled.

  ‘Let me get you something to eat,’ Roberta said. ‘And you can tell me all about it.’

  The electric lights outside had long gone off by the time Rosalie had told her sister almost everything. Roberta had been full of questions throughout the story, but now she was quiet.

  Rosalie took the quietness for disapproval, something her sister had always been good at.

  ‘I suppose you had to be there,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a wanted man,’ Roberta said. ‘They both are.’

  ‘In the eyes of the law, yes. But as I said, if you’d have been there.’

  Roberta shook her head.

  ‘I’m not judging.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I thought I’d lost you once before. That you’d gone forever. You’ll no doubt be going again soon.’

  ‘I’m sure one day we’ll. . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Settle down.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you come back? I mean, why now?’

  ‘You’re my sister.’

  ‘You want something, don’t you? Let me guess: you want to know about Beecher and Smith.’

  ‘Yes and yes. But you’re my sister. I will always come and see you.’

  ‘Your old bed is still made up. Let’s talk more in the morning.’

  Leon stood with his forearm against a tree, his forehead on his arm, and he rested from the coughing whilst half spitting, half dribbling blood onto the ground. It was getting worse, and he could no longer hide it from Jim.

  ‘We need to get you to a doctor,’ Jim said.

  They’d been camped for two days and two nights in the same quiet spot. They were off the beaten track, in a dense copse of trees that grew hard up against a sheer rock face, many miles to the west of Austin. A stream ran through the trees, and there was grass on the ground where the sunlight forced its way through the canopy, and the rock face protected them from the wind and from anyone approaching from behind.

  ‘There’ll be time for that once this is done,’ Leon said.

  ‘I’m told the doctors in Austin are as good as any in the world.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Well, I imagine they are. You should see it – Austin. It’s like something out of the future.’

  ‘You know that neither of us can show our faces in Austin. Well, especially you.’

  ‘We may have to yet.’

  ‘So be it. But I’m OK. Truly. A few nights with good whiskey and a warm blanket and I’ll be fine.’

  Jim said nothing. He knew the signs of consumption. A dry climate was what was needed. That and rest. But there must be something a good doctor could do as well. The way Leon was sounding, by the time this was over – whatever this was – and he came to take his rest it might be too late. Jim stood up, still aching from the beating that John Allan had given him in Leyton, and put another couple of dry broken branches on their low fire. The sky was darkening. It was surprising how quickly the air chilled once the moon was up. He thought of his own warm blanket. It wasn’t nearly so warm without Rosalie there.

  ‘You think she’s OK?’ Leon asked.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Jim said, wondering if he’d mentioned Rosalie’s name aloud.

  ‘You any ideas on Beecher and Smith?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking on it.’

  ‘Beecher and Smith?’

  Leon came away from the tree and sat by the fire.

  ‘Yes, but also on that fellow that John Allan killed on the train. Why would someone – presumably this Beecher and Smith – want a Texas Ranger dead?’

  ‘Go on.’

  Leon coughed into his hand. Through new habit he looked at his hand and then wiped the blood on his trousers.

  ‘And why would they want it to look like an accident? Well, not an accident, but like it was the result of a train robbery?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I think the Ranger could be the key.’

  ‘He knew something?’

  ‘Or he was close to knowing something,’ Leon said.

  ‘It was over ten years ago,’ Jim said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And we can’t exactly walk up to a Ranger and ask, even if we knew where to find one.’

  ‘Maybe we could.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Leon.’

  ‘You told me once about that fellow M
cRae. The one whose gun you carry. He knew something.’

  ‘Sam McRae. And he’s dead, too.’

  ‘He knew you were innocent – and, by implication, me too. And if he knew something then maybe someone else does, too?’

  ‘I doubt it. I suspect it ended with McRae.’ But, Jim thought, maybe Leon was right. Maybe Leon was onto something here.

  ‘McRae was killed by someone else. You told me it was unrelated – a blackmail racket, you said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you avenged his death?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘So firstly I don’t think the Rangers would look unkindly upon you. And secondly, I’m not sure anyone has put all this information together. We can’t. Not quite.’

  ‘You want me to walk up to a Ranger and ask?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like I said, I’m just thinking on it.’

  ‘Let’s see what Rosalie comes back with about Beecher and Smith. She’ll be here in the morning. Maybe noon. It’s a fair way.’

  Rosalie told the men: ‘They run a lumber yard.’

  ‘A lumber yard?’ Leon said.

  ‘Yes. Just outside of the city. A place called Georgetown. Roberta said their operation is huge, and the two of them – Mr Beecher and Mr Smith – are both bigwigs on the social scene. They’re rich and they’re influential. That’s very rich and very influential.’

  Jim Jackson rested a metal pot on the flat stones that he’d placed alongside the fire when they’d first set up camp. The stones were burned black now and were retaining heat well. He edged the pot so half of it was hanging over the flames. It would take a while to boil, but then anything good was worth waiting for.

  Leon coughed into his cupped hands, and said, ‘Why would lumber men send Abraham to kill John Allan?’ Even as he said the words he raised a finger as if to say, actually, I think I might know.

  Jim Jackson smiled. He was on the same line of thinking.

  ‘They wanted to kill John Allan so as he wouldn’t talk to us,’ Leon said. ‘It only happened after you were released and once you’d broken me out of that camp.’

  ‘Yep,’ Jim said. ‘Until we were free they had no worries.’