Dead Time

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “That’s why I’m here, Colonel.”

  The white-haired gentleman laughed. “And I thought you came for the chicory coffee and our wonderful food.”

  Fallon kept eating and drinking.

  “Don’t you think the War Between the States is over?”

  “Do you?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Mr. Alexander?”

  Fallon lifted the china cup and nodded at the wall behind the Colonel.

  Justice turned around and looked at the flag. The Confederate battle jack.

  “I carried that bravely with me for four years of the most dreadful fightin’, Mr. Alexander,” Justice said.

  Fallon knew that a colonel of a legion was not carrying a battle flag into combat. He knew, not from experience, for he had been too young to serve in that war on either side, that the enemy seemed to enjoy shooting down flag bearers in battle. The Colonel would have been on a horse on a hill, watching men die. Some colonels fought alongside their men, of course, but Fallon didn’t think Justice filled that bill.

  “There’s just one thing that troubles me, Mr. Alexander.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That all of these bad things you’ve done. How come I never heard of you . . . till now?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I didn’t want anyone to hear of me,” Fallon said with a shrug. “People heard of Jesse James. Of Quantrill. Bill Longley. Cullen Baker. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “They’re all dead.”

  “Cole Younger,” Justice said, “isn’t dead.”

  “Might as well be,” Fallon said. “Rotting away as he is up in that prison in a damn Yankee state like Minnesota.”

  Justice smiled. “And John Wesley Hardin?”

  “Hardin wasn’t fighting the war. He might say he was, but he wasn’t. He was fighting for himself.”

  “You might be right, Mr. Alexander, but The Judge does judge the men we select for . . . special duty on my farms.” He yawned. “Finish your meal, sir. Have more coffee if you so desire. I must retire, for nights like this tend to exhaust me. But make sure you get plenty of rest. Sleep well in your new lodge, suh. You’ll have a busy day tomorrow. After breakfast, I want you to whip that man who ruined my supper party. I want you to flay the skin off his sorry hide.”

  * * *

  Fallon did not think Justice would listen to the argument he had presented to Sergeant Barney Drexel back at The Walls when the beast had ordered Fallon to whip another prisoner, so he gathered up the blacksnake after breakfast, as he was ordered, and walked to the whipping post.

  All of the prisoners, the guards, and the regular workers for Justice’s plantation had gathered outside, including women and children. Even a few hounds were brought out.

  Entertainment for the masses after breakfast, Fallon figured, and drew in a deep breath.

  He remembered his fight with Juanito Gomez with whips—after he had refused to whip a prisoner. He remembered how lousy he was at whip-fighting. A man has his limitations, Fallon knew, and he was glad that he had never mastered the art of using a whip. He would give these fine people a show, and he wouldn’t be acting at all.

  It didn’t take long for Colonel Justice to grow tired of Fallon’s weak attempts at whipping the prisoner being punished. Fallon did not come close to flaying off the poor soul’s skin. He did manage to burn his own back and arm. He also tripped up a guard—which resulted in cackles, hoots, and howls from prisoners and the guards, except the one whose feet got jerked from underneath by an errant aiming of the blacksnake whip.

  “Mr. Alexander, please cease and desist. You are no teamster, suh.”

  Fallon heaved, shook his head, and began curling up the long whip. “Never said I was.” He wiped sweat from his brow, let his lungs suck in air deeply, and blew it out in great gasps.

  “I sure hope you are far better at cuttin’ cane, Mr. Alexander, than you are with a whip, suh.”

  Fallon nodded. Inwardly, he thought: So do I.

  “You want me to whip this cur?” the day sergeant asked.

  To Fallon’s relief, Justice shook his head. “No. No, I think not. Our workers, and your guards, are bemused. No sense in killin’ their good spirits. Get them to the fields. Work ’em long and hard.”

  “And him?” The sergeant pointed at the prisoner who remained strapped to the post.

  “Leave him. If he’s still alive after your day in the fields, we’ll call his punishment complete. If he’s dead, well, the hogs like fresh meat this time o’ year.”

  A guard gathered the whip, and the prisoners were marched to a shed to pick up all they needed for work in the cane fields. Forty minutes later, Fallon was in the fields.

  Guards kept their distance, staying in the shade, shotguns and rifles ready, watching. Colonel Justice sent his own men, big black men in dungarees and well-used slouch hats, to make sure the workers knew what they were doing.

  “You pretty good at this, boss.”

  Fallon looked up, wiped the sweat from his face, surprised to see that the big man kept nodding his head. The foreman wasn’t joking.

  “I mean, I can tell ya ain’t been a-doin’ this all yer life. But some of dese workers I gets . . . Jay-sus . . . they don’t know nothin’, hardly get no work done.”

  Fallon went back to work. “Why they’re in prison,” he said.

  The big man let out a throaty laugh. “Yes, suh. Dat jes’ might be da case.

  “So whens sum o’ dem white boys leaves, it ain’t no big loss. No, suh. Not a-tall.”

  “Like the one who got snakebit and then eaten by a gator.”

  The man laughed uproariously. “Boss, you looks smart enough to know better’n believe ever’thin’ ya hears in a place like this.”

  Fallon nodded.

  “People dies here all da time. Natural causes, dey likes to say. Only things is . . . nots all of ’em is act’ly dead.”

  Fallon wet his lips, kept cutting through the cane, and waited.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me none a-tall to learns that you is dead when you ain’t, neither. From da way I hears you handles yeself.”

  “I see.”

  “But da Col’nel, he’s got hisself a good thing here. Don’t know why he wants somethin’ mo’. He had a fine time afore da Mas-sa-cree. Now he gots somethin’ better.”

  “Massacre?” Fallon asked.

  “Ya never hears of it?”

  Fallon shook his head.

  The foreman sighed, shook his head, and told Fallon all about it, but it wasn’t the kind of massacre Fallon was expecting to learn about.

  The way the black man told it, five-six-seven years back, some Yankee boys came down and got the workers to assemble and form a union.”

  Fallon stopped long enough to stare up at his supervisor. “A labor union? In Louisiana?”

  “I guess dat’s what it was, suh.”

  Well, the hands harvesting the cane weren’t exactly making much money. Barely living off what they could make. So right before November—what the foreman called “Grindin’ Time,” and from what Fallon had learned during his cane training back in Florida that was the crucial opening of a harvest season—the workers went on strike.

  Fallon had never heard of this, but a strike in Louisiana wasn’t likely to make the Illinois papers that he might get at Joliet, unless one of the Yankee organizers had hailed from the state.

  “Dem po’ boys didn’t know what dey was a-doin’,” the foreman said. “But da Col’nel, he knowed what to do.”

  Indeed. The way the foreman told it, Colonel Justice called upon the governor, who called upon the state militia—and not federal, Yankee, troops—to put an end to the strike. The militia arrived with a Gatling gun.

  All of the strikers were evicted from their homes on the plantations. When they still refused to work, other workers were called in to replace them.

  Well, the foreman went on, things got uglier and uglier. Out-of-work strikers made thr
eats to burn the town, destroy the cane fields, kill the “scabs” who had been sent in to replace them. When two “scabs” were fired at with rifles one night—or at least when they said they were shot at—the militia, Colonel Justice, and some of his men retaliated. They gathered several strikers and brought them to the edge of a swamp.

  “From what all I hears, the Col’nel, he tells ’em to swim and run or die right dere. That Gatlin’ gun opens up. Dunno how many of our folks gots kilt, some says thirty, some says three hunnert. I wasn’ there. Didn’t come down till after, back when the strike done got busted up.”

  Fallon shook his head. “You didn’t go to the law.”

  “Pshaw. You joshin’ me, boss? Da law? White-man law? No justice for us, just Jus-tice. As in Col’nel Justice.” He laughed, but Fallon could tell the old man found nothing funny.

  “And it’s better now?” Fallon asked.

  “For Col’nel Justice, sure.” He pointed. “Afore dat strike, all dem workers got paid in what dey call script. Means da comp’ny pays you in paper dat you gots to spends at da comp’ny sto’. But now-days, da Col’nel gets his workers mostly from Texas. You criminals. Don’t hardly pay y’ all nothin’. And dats fine with me. ’Cause I ain’t breakin’ my back, jus’ watchin’ you fine gents break yours.”

  Fallon kept working. Working and sweating.

  A few minutes later, the foreman sighed again. “Dat strike, it sure changed da Col’nel, though. He started doin’ all sorts of things. Strange things. Bringin’ in folks. Goin’ down to Mexico. And sayin’ some of ya pris’ners is dead when they ain’t dead a-tall. Jus’ shipped down to Mexico.”

  “Where in Mexico?” Fallon asked.

  “Oh, ain’t no tellin’. Or nobody’s fool enough to tells me. Big country, I hear. I tried to get down there oncet, long times ago, back when I was just a field slave for some other white boss. But dey catched me. Got me a whippin’, got sended backs to work.”

  He laughed. “Too bad I didn’t have you whippin’ me, boss. You ain’t no good at that. So, suh. No good a-tall. But you ain’t bad at cane, boss.”

  “I had a good teacher,” Fallon told him.

  “Yer daddy? My daddy taught me.”

  Fallon shook his head. “Not my dad. A man like you. A good man. A good teacher.”

  The Negro straightened.

  Fallon kept working.

  Things were starting to make sense now. That far-fetched guess that Colonel Justice might be trying to raise an army to restart the Civil War did not sound so insane after hearing the black foreman’s story. The massacre would have been six or seven years ago. That fit the timeline the American Detective Agency had come up with.

  The problem was that Fallon was alone. MacGregor, Christina, and everyone else thought Fallon was in Justice’s Hell on the Brazos, not in Louisiana. And he had no way of getting word to the detectives. He had no idea whom he could trust. Briefly, he considered asking the foreman, but he instantly rejected that idea. All that would likely do was get the black man killed. Thrown into the swamp. Shot down like a dog. No, Fallon wouldn’t risk that. He’d have to find some other way.

  * * *

  They worked steadily. Few breaks. Just cutting cane till they could hardly straighten their backs. Finally, as the sun disappeared over the moss-covered trees off beyond the town of Natchitoches, the foremen told the men to stop working, to move to the cane-laden wagons, and get back to the compound.

  Even the guards seemed half-dead, and Fallon understood why. Just sitting in that heat sucked the energy out of a person, and watching men harvest sugarcane wasn’t the most exciting detail a man could have.

  They filed back through the shed, lethargic, bitter, just wanting the chance to wash their faces and hands, get the stickiness of cane sugar off their bodies, and have a decent supper and good night of sleep. But they were dreaming. There would be no bath until Saturday night, the food they would get would taste like dung, and they would be up again before dawn for a breakfast of coffee and mush, and then march back to the fields of ripening cane.

  The whipping post came into view. The prisoner had been taken down, not dead, for Fallon saw him in the corral, tending to the horses. That came as a relief.

  Justice stood in front of his home, talking to a man in a derby hat and striped tan and green suit. A few other men stood near the Colonel, but it was the man in the derby who held Fallon’s attention. The white-haired former rebel commander pointed at the feet-dragging men, laughed, and told the man in the suit, “Here come my boys, Chris. Look at ’em. Marchin’ like John Bell Hood’s Texans.” He removed his hat and waved. “Welcome home, lads. Thanks for makin’ me a richer man today.”

  He cackled.

  The man in the derby turned, and Fallon made himself look away. He couldn’t help himself, though. His right hand reached into his pocket and he gripped the handle of the knife he had been told to leave in the tray in the shed, but which he had managed to keep for himself.

  It had been years, but Fallon recognized the face. And the name, the first name, which Justice had called out, fit. Fit perfectly. Right then, everything fit perfectly.

  Harry Fallon felt, for the first time, that he was capable of cold-blooded murder. He wanted to charge, to draw the knife from his trousers, and cut that yellow dog’s throat. No matter what would happen to him, he could exact his revenge—and maybe even stab Justice to death—before the dumb guards understood what was happening and opened fire. He’d be dead. But so would they.

  The door opened. Fallon marched inside the awful shed. Went straight to his bunk. Sat down when ordered. And remained there after the guards did their head count, and moved back outside, locking the door shut.

  Fallon remembered . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Deputy Fallon, how old are you?”

  It was 1877. Fallon couldn’t remember the exact month, but spring, maybe early summer. He answered before the prosecuting attorney could object, and Fallon knew he would hear the federal solicitor berate him in the offices when the day’s’s testimony was over.

  The defense attorney was Chris Ehrlander, maybe only a few years older than Fallon. He wore a fine suit, a diamond pin in his cravat, and his hair had been slicked back so that not one strand fell out of place. From his spot on the witness stand, Fallon could see every woman in court staring at the handsome attorney, while Fallon sat sweating in his worn trail duds and his best coat and tie, both shabby and stained. The prosecutor would curse and gripe about that, as well.

  “Your Honor,” Ehrlander said with a charming smile at Judge Parker, “the solicitor implies that I am belittling Deputy Fallon because of his youth. By no means do I say that someone as young as Fallon lacks experience and therefore is not fit for the job. I commend Deputy Fallon. Why, everyone in Fort Smith has heard about how he ended the terrible reign of the notorious brigand Daniel K. Huntington—and when he was only supposed to be driving that jail on wheels.”

  Parker yawned. “Do you have a question for the witness, Mr. Ehrlander?”

  The young attorney bowed at the judge, turned on his heel, and nodded at Fallon. “Have you ever been in jail, Deputy Fallon?”

  The prosecutor shot up from his chair, hammered his fist on the table, and screamed, “Objection!”

  “Overruled,” Parker said.

  “But,” the district attorney pleaded, “Deputy Fallon is not on trial.”

  “Are you asking for an exception ? ” Parker asked.

  The attorney sank into his seat. Everyone knew better than to challenge anything Judge Parker had decreed—at least, not while there were spectators and reporters in the gallery.

  “Answer the question, Deputy Fallon,” the judge instructed.

  Of course, Judge Parker knew the answer. Judge Parker had been there when Fallon had been arrested, long before he ever took the oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and laws of the state of Arkansas and the United States of America.

  �
�Yes.”

  “More than once?” Ehrlander smiled, but it was a charming smile, more for the twelve good men looking bored and annoyed in the jury box. He didn’t seem vindictive or cocky, though Fallon knew that a lawyer like this one had reason to be sure of himself.

  “Three times or thereabouts,” Fallon said.

  “For what crimes?”

  “Usually drunk and disorderly.”

  “I see. Was the defendant drunk when you arrested him?”

  Fallon shrugged. “There was two kegs of rotgut in the camp, and only one had any liquor left in it. Maybe a quarter full. His eyes were glassy. His voice was slurred. And—”

  Ehrlander held up his hand, and Fallon stopped talking.

  “His eyes were glassy, you say. His voice was slurred. Was that before or after you bent the barrel of your revolver over my client’s skull?”

  “I didn’t bend the barrel over Wright’s skull, mister,” Fallon said. “Hard as that whiskey runner’s head might be, it isn’t going to bend the barrel of one of Sam Colt’s equalizers.”

  That got a reaction from the stone-faced jurors and the crowd. Even Ehrlander offered a mocking bow of appreciation.

  “For such a young man, you have an admirable wit, Deputy Fallon,” the lawyer said. “But would you mind answering the question I put forth to you?”

  Fallon sighed. “His back was to me as he reached for the rifle. I hit him on the head. Didn’t knock him out. Just stunned him. So I guess that hurt I put on him could’ve made his eyes glassy and left his speech impaired. But his breath stank of whiskey. From my experience, he was drunk.”

  “From your experience as a federal peace officer? Or from your experience as a man who has spent the night in jail on multiple occasions for being drunk and disorderly?”

  The crowd laughed again. This time Judge Parker banged his gavel and warned them about outbursts in his courtroom.

  “Both,” Fallon said.

  The judge had to bang away often before the crowd fell silent this time, but Fallon saw Judge Parker was grinning, too.

  “A very fine parry, Hank,” the lawyer said.