A Thousand Falling Crows

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Tió slammed his foot on the brake and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Uh-oh. Bad trouble.”

  Her stomach fluttered at the first sign of the headlights. She was praying to make it home. They were close, so close she could almost run there from where they were and climb in her bed like she had never been gone.

  Carmen looked behind them, over her shoulder, and slipped her hand on the door handle at the same time.

  There was another car back there. It had appeared out of nowhere, just like the first, its lights directly on them. This car had a spotlight attached to the driver’s door, and it suddenly lit up, illuminating the inside of the Model A like it was the middle of the day. The other car set a red flare in the road. They were trapped.

  Panic flashed in Tió’s brown eyes. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Get out of the car, and you will not be hurt,” a voice, amplified by a bullhorn, demanded from behind them.

  Tió shook his head. “Not going to jail. You can’t go home, Carmen. Not now.”

  Tió switched his foot from the brake pedal to the accelerator and slammed it down as far as it would go.

  The tires spun into motion and the car lurched forward, throwing Carmen back against the seat. She hadn’t been expecting the move. Her hand fell away from the door handle. She lost any chance she might have had of jumping out and making a run for it.

  Tió wrenched the steering wheel and turned left off the road, jumping over the berm, bouncing them both around like they were on an out-of-control carnival ride. Carmen held on to the seat as tight as she could, but she rolled sideways, toward Tió.

  Over the clatter of the engine and the bounce and bump of the car making a path off the road, Carmen heard what she thought was distant thunder. But there were no clouds in the sky, only stars and a widening gray horizon, offering more light to the world by the second.

  Metal ripped through metal, and the thunder was not thunder at all. It was a gunshot.

  The first bullet slammed into Carmen’s leg and went right through it like it was nothing but a piece of paper. She barely had time to scream before the passenger window shattered and shards of glass rained down on her.

  The smell of gunpowder infiltrated Sonny’s nose, and for a moment he thought he was at war, in a battle, transported back to France one more time. Except no one was shooting back. It had been a problem since he’d returned from the distant shores, mistaking where he was, jumping at the sound of a gunshot. But the shock of the war, of all he had seen and done, had worn off over the years. He knew it was because this was fresh. He’d been off of his feet and without a gun in his hand for a long time.

  Frank Hamer had a fifteen-round clip on his Remington, and he was firing one shot after the next. Sonny eased the hook off of the shotgun’s trigger and stood back.

  Hamer noticed and stopped shooting. “What’s the matter, Burton?”

  “They’re not shooting back.”

  The last shot from the Remington echoed over the hill, but there was still firing. It was Jesse. Orange flashes popped out of the end of his rifle, exposing his position.

  As dawn ate away the night, the Ranger car in the ditch would become more and more visible. Grayness covered half the sky. Daylight was coming on fast.

  Sighting the beat-up Model A was easier, clearer. It had careened off the road, gaining speed, and was just about out of range when it came to a sudden stop. The car teetered on its side like it had struck something unseen.

  Frank Hamer eased the rifle down onto the hood of his car. They had stood behind it for protection. He picked up a flashlight and blinked it on and off three times. Cease fire. “We might have got them,” he said.

  “There’s no need to pulverize them,” Sonny said. Hamer shot him a harsh look, and Sonny almost regretted saying it but offered nothing to retract the statement.

  There was no question that Bonnie and Clyde had needed to be stopped when they were. They would’ve just kept on with their killing spree. No man who wore a badge within three states would have been safe. But what Sonny had learned of the shoot-out troubled him then—and now. He saw no need to overdo it. And he still held out hope to rescue Carmen. At least save her from the same fate as Bonnie Parker.

  “All right, let’s see what they do.” Hamer set the flashlight down, produced a pair of binoculars, and directed his attention to the Model A. “No movement. Doesn’t look like the car’s going anywhere soon. The axle’s broke. We got ’em stopped at the very least.”

  The second shot had barely missed Tió, but it might as well have hit him. Once Carmen screamed, Tió began to wail and tremble. He drove wildly across the field, trying to dodge unseen bullets but to no avail. The car was a target.

  All hell broke loose. The windows shattered. Mercury’s head flew off, deflecting the bullet. It whizzed by Carmen’s ear. If it hadn’t have been for the hood ornament, the bullet would have slapped her between the eyes . . . but she was hardly aware of that. Once she had taken the first shot in the leg, she had slid to the floor and buried herself as tight against the firewall as she could. After that, shock came fast. She was slightly aware of where she was, that she was still alive. Pain was the only confirmation of her mortality.

  The air was filled with all kinds of noises. Mechanical groans as the car sped across a hard field, gunshots, thunder, glass breaking, Tió yelling, crying, babbling. And then the car came to sudden stop, like it had hit a wall. It jerked and then slammed down, a great breaking sound coming from underneath it.

  The gunshots kept on peppering the metal doors, the roof, the radiator. The smell of steam, gas, and blood all mixed together, but Carmen couldn’t puke—there was nothing left in her stomach to vacate. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She felt like she was going to lose consciousness, pass out. Maybe this was her death, what it felt like to die. The angels were coming for her. Tears drained down her cheeks, but she couldn’t even hear herself cry.

  Then silence came, and to her surprise she was still alive, still awake. She could feel the pain in her leg growing worse, blood rushing from her body. The bullets had bounced around her, but had not hit her anywhere else.

  Tió was slumped against the door, his eyes open, staring straight ahead, bloodier than anything she had ever seen.

  Carmen knew that Tió was dead. The agony of living, of knowing what he had done to his brother, to her, was over for him. He would be second-best no longer. There had never been anything she could have done to save him. Something deep inside told her she should have tried harder.

  They approached the Model A carefully, taking cover at every step, guns drawn, fingers on their triggers.

  The sky was white, like a blank canvas, waiting for the rest of the day and weather to arrive. There seemed little question that a storm of any kind was going to blow up any time soon. The air was still and the clouds were high and thin, barely perceptible against the same-colored sky. Once again, darkness had lost the battle against light—but there would be another time for that, as the sun turned away from the earth for just a blink. The war would never end as long as the world kept spinning.

  Sonny eased up alongside Frank Hamer, taking each step hopefully but sensing all of his hope had been wasted. It didn’t look like anyone could survive what had just happened.

  The morning light made the land more navigable, snake holes more defined, and movement in the car—which remained still—clearer.

  Jesse had pulled his car down to the spot where the Model A had turned off the road. Jonesy and Hugh Beaverwood had come up, too, bringing their vehicles with them.

  A flare, cutting into the soft white sky like a glowing red worm, had been shot to alert the deputies on the other road that they were needed at this scene.

  Sonny saw the boy slumped by the steering wheel from ten feet away. He could see the rest of the seats—the back door had popped open on impact—and there was no one there. It was empty. There should be three of them, he thought, but didn’t say.

>   Frank Hamer knew that, too, and saw the same thing that Sonny did. He motioned for Sonny to stop, then crouched down and slid up the door of the car, the barrel of his gun leading the way.

  “There’s only one of them and a girl.” Hamer stood back and waved at the road.

  Sonny turned and saw the tall, lanky Hugh Beaverwood jump into action and pull a gurney out of the back of the ambulance.

  Hamer rushed around to the other side of the car and yanked the door open. “Looks like this one’s still alive, but she’s been hit.”

  Sonny followed, happy at Frank Hamer’s announcement. Upon seeing Carmen, there was no question that she was Aldo’s daughter—she looked just like him, only younger, softer.

  There had been no time to alert Aldo during the night about Hamer’s plan. The Mexican probably would have been unwelcome among the posse, but Sonny still wished that Aldo was there to see his daughter . . . just in case she died before she got to the hospital.

  Both doors at the back of the ambulance stood open. Hugh Beaverwood pulled the gurney up over the berm as Jesse pushed it up from the back.

  Sonny had hurried alongside Carmen the best he could. She hadn’t spoken a word, was not conscious. Her eyes were closed.

  Dawn was gone, and morning had arrived with a pure brightness that made it difficult not to see everything clearly, There was no mistaking the blood on Carmen’s leg.

  Hugh Beaverwood had fashioned a tourniquet to slow the bleeding, but anyone with any battlefield experience at all knew there was little chance that Carmen was going to survive. It looked like an artery had been severed.

  With a yank and a pull from both men, the gurney lurched over the berm.

  Beaverwood and Jesse hurried to the ambulance and slid Carmen inside. Sonny never left her side, nearly pushing Jesse out of the way from the door.

  The sun had popped over the horizon, casting even more light on the cars and the surrounding landscape. The inside of the ambulance was lit up like it had klieg lights on the inside of it.

  Carmen’s face was pale, and she had yet to move. She was covered up to her neck with a white blanket, like a mummy about to be set into a tomb.

  Hugh Beaverwood stood back, closed the door on his side, then looked at Sonny expectantly—who was standing in the way of the other door being closed.

  Sonny was focused on Carmen, on the interior of the ambulance.

  “Every second counts, Ranger Burton,” the coroner said.

  “Right,” Sonny answered, a little distracted. He stood back and slammed the door.

  Hugh Beaverwood hurried out of sight, and in a matter of seconds, the ambulance sped away, toward the hospital in Wellington.

  Sonny didn’t move. He stood in the middle of the road, watching the ambulance disappear down the road.

  “What’s the matter, Pa?” Jesse had sidled up next to Sonny, followed by Frank Hamer.

  Sonny shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t think. But maybe something.”

  “What?” Hamer said.

  Sonny shook his head. “There was a shoe in the back of the ambulance.”

  “A shoe?” Jesse said. There was a tone of recognition, of coming trouble in his voice.

  “Yes, a shoe. One shoe. Sensible and slightly scuffed,” Sonny said.

  “Just like the girl in the field was wearing,” Jesse answered, turning toward his car. “Damn it. I knew it.”

  “That’s it. Just like the girl in the field was wearing. Son of a bitch. He’s been standing in front of us the whole time. One shoe was missing.” Sonny followed after Jesse and jumped into the passenger seat of his car—leaving Frank Hamer in the dust, with a confused look on his face.

  CHAPTER 31

  The crows were startled awake by the gunshots, roused from the safety of their roost earlier than normal. The sky had been black, black as their wings, but they lifted away from their resting spot in search of safer limbs.

  It didn’t take long for all of them to figure out that they were not the target of men’s guns.

  The conflict, the hunt, was man after man, or in this case men after a boy and a girl. What was apparent to the birds, though, was that there would be blood left about, drops to draw other things to the ruckus.

  So they stayed close. Watched from a distance and became even more hopeful when they saw the two-legged one that was most like them. The first one to always show up when there was human blood, death, opportunity.

  If the man had wings, he’d be their leader, a member of the gang, and they would be all the better for it—rich in food beyond their wildest dreams.

  He was dark like them, and they wondered what stories there were about men like him, men with eyes as black as a thousand falling crows.

  Jesse punched the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned red.

  “You knew?” Sonny asked.

  “Don’t start, Pa.” Jesse’s eyes were focused on the road. There was no sign of the ambulance.

  “Hugh Beaverwood,” Sonny said, with a frustrated exhale.

  “Maybe. Yes. I didn’t have a clue until late yesterday.”

  Sonny looked at Jesse, then back at the road. There was still no sign of the ambulance. “You best tell me what you know.”

  Jesse set his jaw, gritted his teeth, fought off whatever he was feeling. “Betty Maxwell called me after you left the hospital yesterday. She was nearly hysterical, afraid.”

  Sonny immediately recalled the conversation with Nurse Betty and felt bad all over again. “I was rude,” he said.

  “You were. You saw that she was pregnant, or had been, and then there was no child, no baby to show for it. That’s what set her off, got her thinking.”

  “What’s this have to do with Hugh Beaverwood, Jesse?” Sonny looked up the road, and in the distance he saw a plume of dust rising in the air. “That it might be him?”

  Jesse nodded, then looked over at Sonny. “She’s a grown woman with a son, single, and under enough scrutiny as it is, just for that. Working at the hospital gives her a little bit of credibility in this town, but folks are uncomfortable with their secrets bein’ known. If she came up pregnant and not married, she’d lose what she had. She didn’t have a choice.”

  “A choice?” Sonny pulled the .45 out from his back and held it in his left hand.

  “She had to take care of it,” Jesse said.

  Sonny didn’t say anything. They were still a good distance from the ambulance—which was driving at its flat-out speed—but it was no match for Jesse’s newer-model sedan. “So, she went to Hugh Beaverwood?”

  “Seems that way. She asked me about the two dead girls, if they’d been pregnant. I confirmed that and told her about the third girl, and it was like the lights just came on. She told me everything then, that it was Hugh Beaverwood who took care of the girls that came to town and didn’t go out to the Jorgensons to have their babies.”

  Jesse shot Sonny a terse glance, then let it fade it away as quickly as it had come on. “She didn’t know, Pa. She didn’t understand the consequences of silence. None of us do until it’s too late to change things.”

  “I rushed out of there and started asking him questions, and he denied everything. He wasn’t nervous at all. Just went about his business, closed everything up, and went inside. Just left me there, feeling like I had insulted him. I was going to go to the judge first thing this morning for a search warrant, but Hamer’s call came in. Things happened so fast I didn’t have time.”

  Sonny chambered a round in the .45. “You rattled him. He knew you were on his scent.”

  Jesse glanced over to Sonny, then back to the road. “Hold on, there’s a dip comin’.”

  Sonny braced himself by jamming his wood arm into the door, letting go of the .45, and gripping the seat with his left hand. It was a hard bounce, and the gun fell to the floorboard, but he maintained his balance.

  Sonny reached down to get the gun, then sat back up. When he did, he saw the rear end of the ambulance about t
wo hundred yards ahead of them.

  Jesse maintained control of the sedan and pressed down the accelerator even more, demanding as much as he could from the V-8. “Hugh talked to Betty on occasion. He didn’t have a whole lot of friends. She had known for a long time that girls went to Hugh, but she never thought it was something she would do. She understood that those things happen. It wasn’t any of her business. She turned her head because nobody was getting hurt, and those girls were getting a second chance at life. At least, that’s what she thought. She was just keepin’ one more secret. It was a habit to look the other way.”

  Sonny bounced in the seat and let his mind wander away from Jesse’s voice for a second, then said, “We might have a bigger problem than the one that’s right before us, if that’s the case,” Sonny said. “If you’re on the money about Hugh Beaverwood.”

  “What?” There was panic in Jesse’s voice.

  “Have you talked to Betty since you went to talk to Hugh?”

  Jesse shook his head. “No.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Jesse’s lip quivered. “He went after Betty?”

  “I‘m afraid he might have, Jesse,” Sonny said. “I‘m just afraid he might have, if he thought Betty tipped you off.”

  CHAPTER 32

  There was no way the ambulance was going to outrun Jesse’s Plymouth sedan. In the blink of an eye, they were on the bumper of the vehicle, giving Sonny little time to think things through, even though he knew what he had to do—he just wasn’t sure how he was going to do it.

  “He knows it’s us,” Jesse said.

  “He’s not going to stop.” Sonny leaned forward with the prosthetic and put the hook on the dashboard. Metal against metal, jostled about by the forward motion of the vehicle, the hook slid off, and there was no way to stop it. “Damn it.”

  Jesse looked over to Sonny. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to figure out how to get a good shot.” Sonny made another attempt, only this time, he leaned into the dashboard and butted the hook against it. With the wood arm extended, it was like a steady bridge.