A Thousand Falling Crows

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Hugh Beaverwood was driving erratically now, outmaneuvering Jesse at every turn. The coroner was good at playing cat and mouse, anticipating the Ranger’s intentions to go around him.

  Sonny let his wood-arm relax, leaned over, swaying and dodging the whole time, and rolled down the window. “Get up alongside him,” he said to Jesse.

  “I‘m tryin’, Pa.” Jesse’s face was drawn tight with focus and frustration at the same time.

  There was no way that Sonny couldn’t see the child in the man, trying and failing, but refusing to give up. One thing about Jesse, he had never cried when he fell off a horse, off of old Snag. He dusted himself off and climbed back up on the saddle. That determination had served him well as a man—mostly.

  Sonny wedged the hook into the dashboard, picked up the .45, and leveraged it over the wood bridge, so that it was as stable as it could be. “Go on, dodge right, dodge right again, then veer left as fast as you can, and pull up next to him so I can get a shot into the cab.”

  Jesse glanced over at Sonny and started to say something, but held back. He did what he was told.

  Sonny hung on, tensing his lower back the best he could, so his trunk only swayed slightly. He had a hard grip on the .45 and aimed the barrel directly out the window.

  Beaverwood fell for the ruse. Not that it was much of a ploy. It wasn’t like they were on a mountain road. There were flat, dry fields on both sides of the road, room to maneuver—it was just a matter of time before the cat, before Jesse, won the game.

  Jesse sped up, trying to get next to the ambulance.

  Sonny could see Hugh Beaverwood’s thin frame hunched forward over the steering wheel, like he was trying to urge the truck on, make it go faster. But that was impossible. He was going as fast as he could. The coroner looked over his shoulder frequently, worried, afraid, then turned back to the road.

  “Shoot the tires,” Jesse yelled.

  Sonny shook his head. “Carmen’s in there. We can’t risk it if he wrecks.”

  Jesse nodded, then leaned into the steering wheel, just like Beaverwood, trying to will the sedan to go faster than it could.

  They were halfway up to the driver’s door of the ambulance when Sonny started shouting, “Pull over! Pull over!”

  There was no response. Sonny might as well have been yelling at a wall. He hooked his finger around the trigger, felt the familiar touch of the metal, and didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger with as much certainty as he ever had—shooting at Bonnie and Clyde; in France at an unknown German; as a little boy, the gun bigger than his head, standing next to his father, firing for the very first time. Every bit of skill Sonny had acquired over the years was in that one pull.

  The boom echoed inside the sedan and was more deafening than Sonny thought it would be. The smell of gunpowder lingered for a second, then the burst of smoke whooshed out the window and was gone with the speed of the car.

  Glass shattered and fell in on Hugh Beaverwood. The ambulance lurched right, then straightened out, back under control.

  Sonny had not shot to kill, or to even to maim. He had shot to warn, to show that he was serious. He wanted to take Hugh Beaverwood alive.

  “What are you doin’?” Jesse yelled.

  Sonny ignored him and shot again, this time blowing out the windshield in front of the steering wheel. The ambulance wobbled a little bit—then did something that neither Sonny nor Jesse expected: Hugh Beaverwood slammed on the brakes of the ambulance. It came to a sudden stop in a big cloud of dust.

  It took Jesse a second to react, but he hit the brakes, too, sending the sedan into a sudden slide sideways on the hard dirt road.

  Pebbles and small rocks flew into the window and pelted Sonny like buckshot. For a second, he was afraid he’d been shot. One of the rocks was of decent size and hit him in the chest. It bounced off him and fell into his lap. He almost laughed in relief, but there was nothing funny at the moment.

  Jesse was out of the car before the dust cleared.

  Sonny looked over his shoulder, blinked, and watched, trying to ascertain the situation. He saw a fully capable figure running—tall, black, almost like he was trying to gain speed to fly. But he wasn’t quick enough, and there was no place to run. The flat Texas land was Hugh Beaverwood’s enemy now.

  “Stop, in the name of law,” Jesse yelled, giving the man the opportunity to prove them wrong, to claim innocence.

  Hugh Beaverwood didn’t stop running. He ran faster, his eyes focused on a distant spot on the horizon. If he heard Jesse, he offered no sign of it.

  Jesse yelled again, “Stop!” and got the same response. This time he leveled his rifle and took down Hugh Beaverwood with one shot.

  Jonesy, Frank Hamer, and the other deputies appeared out of nowhere, surrounding Jesse and Sonny like members of a pack of wolves come to inspect a kill and fight for their rightful place around the table. But Hugh Beaverwood wasn’t dead. Jesse had shot him in the leg, behind the knee, making sure he wasn’t going to run anywhere any time soon.

  The coroner was still breathing, unconscious but breathing, piled up face-first on the ground, like he had been tossed there and left for dead, left for the scavengers to have their way with him. It looked like he had hit his head on a rock in the fall. Blood ran out of his ear. Flies paid no attention to the circle of men. They found a way in, around, above, below, desperate for a taste and a place to deposit a bit of themselves, lay eggs, and move on.

  A crow cawed in the distance not too far away, calling others as the wind gusted about, carrying every sound of opportunity to the farthest reaches of the field and beyond.

  Jesse looked at Sonny. “Damn it, he can’t talk.”

  “It’s all right,” Sonny said. He turned to Frank Hamer. “You need to get that girl to the hospital, pronto, and this monster, too. We need him to talk.” Then he spun around without any other explanation and hurried back toward Jesse’s car.

  “Where you goin’?” Hamer yelled out.

  Jesse realized what Sonny was up to and ran to join up with him.

  There was no time to explain, no time to hand-wring over what was right and what was wrong, all Sonny could think of was Betty Maxwell and her son, Leo.

  He hoped his gut was wrong. He hoped they were still alive. “We need to go find a nurse,” Sonny answered over his shoulder.

  The Maxwell house looked no different than it had the last time Sonny had seen the property. Except the screen door stood open, battering against the frame with a steady beat.

  The wind had picked up again, out of nowhere, offering no promise of rain but of another dust storm, another bitter cloud that dropped nothing of sustenance on the land, just more of the same—dirt, sand, and misery.

  Sonny and Jesse hurried out of the car, both with their pistols pointed upward, fingers on the triggers.

  “Betty!” Sonny called out as he hurried up the porch steps. “Are you here? Leo?”

  No answer came, and the bad feeling that Sonny had in the pit of his stomach grew bigger, darker, sadder. He had seen what Hugh Beaverwood had done to girls he didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine what he would do to Betty Maxwell, all things considered.

  The front room was a mess. Chairs turned over. Broken glass on the floor. And blood. One blot, and several dots leading to the kitchen. There was no question there’d been a struggle of some kind. Sonny’s heart sank at the realization that he’d been right about Hugh Beaverwood.

  Jesse said nothing; he just followed the trail of blood like a dog on a scent. Sonny stayed behind him, in his shadow, listening, hoping somehow that he was wrong.

  The house was silent. Sonny heard nothing past his own heartbeat and Jesse’s footsteps. There was nothing alive under the roof, not even a mouse dared move about, contributing to the dread Sonny felt.

  The kitchen was empty.

  “I‘ll check upstairs. You clear the downstairs,” Jesse said, as he pushed by Sonny.

  Sonny agreed with a nod. It was a good plan. Now was not
the time to jockey for power or control. Let the boy be, Sonny thought. He’s good at what he does. Don’t act surprised.

  Jesse hurried up the stairs, and the sound carried though the house like a man yelling in a canyon.

  Sonny checked the larder, the closet, the parlor, and a single bedroom on the first floor. They were empty. Jesse checked all the rooms overhead, and then hurried back downstairs, shaking his head. “Nothing here. Let’s check the cellar.”

  Jesse ran out to his car, rummaged for a flashlight, then hurried back to the side of the house. He called out for Betty and Leo again, then pushed down the stairs that led to the cellar. Sonny was on his heels, at the ready, the .45 comfortable in his left hand.

  Jesse yanked open the door, shined the light all around, and called out again. There was no one inside the dark cavern, and it didn’t look like there had been for a long time. Cobwebs dangled in the doorway.

  “Damn it,” Jesse said.

  Sonny sighed. “Maybe he took them somewhere.”

  “Maybe. But where?”

  “Only one place that I can think of,” Sonny said.

  “The funeral home in Wellington?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Normal life pulsed on the streets of town. Cars and trucks came and went from the stores and the courthouse on the square. People walked on the sidewalks like it was a perfect day—and it might have been—for them. A bus sat in front of the Ritz Theater, waiting to depart.

  Wind blew dust around, but it didn’t look like it was going to manifest into a big storm. There was no indication that anything was wrong outside of town. News of the shoot-out and capture of Hugh Beaverwood hadn’t reached anyone yet, and the weather was just an accepted way of life in this part of Texas.

  Jesse hurried the sedan though town and made his way to the one and only funeral home in Wellington. He parked in the back, where Hugh loaded and unloaded bodies.

  “Looks locked up tighter than a drum,” Jesse said, as he got out of the car.

  Sonny followed Jesse up to the door. “You realize we need a warrant.”

  Jesse stared at Sonny and shrugged. “I see blood on the ground, don’t you?”

  Sonny looked at his feet and didn’t see a thing. “Sure, if you say so.”

  “I say so.” Jesse checked the door to see if it was locked. It was. He didn’t hesitate. He kicked it in.

  The inside of the funeral home was dark. It smelled musty and old inside. Like a library with the added aroma of embalming fluid—formaldehyde and methanol. Sonny’s eyes stung and began to water, making everything in his line of vision wavy, like he was underwater.

  “You ever been back here before?” Jesse asked Sonny.

  “Once or twice. This is a receiving room, then there’s a room where Hugh does his work, and the chapel or whatever you call it behind that. He keeps coffins in the basement.”

  Jesse looked at Sonny curiously.

  “I had to go down there and pick one out for your mother,” Sonny said.

  “Where’s the door?”

  “Past the embalming room.”

  “This place gives me the creeps even in the daytime.”

  Sonny ignored Jesse, and his ear perked up. “You hear that?”

  Jesse cocked his head. “Yes.” A hopeful look crossed his face, and he hurried down the hall and stopped at the first door. He kicked in the door and swept inside with the barrel of his gun. Sonny backed him up.

  There was just enough light to see Leo tied to a chair and gagged, his eyes wide with fear and relief at the same time.

  Jesse hurried to the boy and pulled off the gag. “Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know. Downstairs maybe. I heard him drag something down the steps. Find her, please. Just find her,” Leo cried.

  Both men bolted for the door, but Sonny stopped and looked back at the boy. “Don’t worry; you’re safe now. We’ll be back for you.”

  “What about him!”

  “Hugh Beaverwood can’t hurt anyone anymore. Don’t you worry, son,” Sonny said.

  Jesse was already down the stairs and into the basement by the time Sonny made it to the top of the stairs.

  “Betty, Betty, are you down here?” Jesse called out.

  Sonny heard a thump, thump, thump, like somebody was beating on a drum. He hurried down the stairs, his heart racing like it never had before.

  Jesse had turned on the overhead lights, illuminating the basement like it was daylight.

  By the time Sonny reached the bottom of the stairs, the thumping had stopped. There was a sea of coffins, mostly unfinished. It smelled like raw wood and varnish mixed with death.

  Jesse stood over a plain walnut coffin with the lid up. “It’s her, Pa. She’s alive. Beaten up. But alive.”

  CHAPTER 33

  AUGUST 29, 1934

  Sonny downshifted the truck as he pulled into the Jorgenson’s drive. The house looked like the oasis it was in the soft morning light. Lidde had worked hard to green some zinnias in front of the house, and they were watered and blooming. It looked like a rainbow of colors—reds, yellows, and oranges—had fallen from the sky and stayed there. More than one chicken pecked at the ground. There were six or seven from what Sonny could tell. Fences were mended, and a few cages back by the barn had dogs in them. They barked as the truck rolled to a stop.

  Pete and Lidde were standing on the porch, waiting, expecting them. There was no slouch in Pete’s shoulders, and Lidde had a wide, welcoming smile on her face. Her hands were clasped at her ample waist, against her ever-present freshly bleached apron.

  Sonny drew in a deep breath and looked over at Blue, who was on all fours, standing up, thumping his tail against the seat. He knew where he was. “Calm down, boy, you can go in a minute.” He looked past the dog to Carmen. There was no mistaking the small bulge in her stomach, like she had slid a ball under her dress. “Are you ready?”

  Carmen shook her head.

  “They’re good people,” Sonny said. “Lidde will help you like no one else can.”

  “I don’t want to give him up,” Carmen said in Spanish, staring out the window. She eased her hand down to her belly and touched it gently. “He will need me.” A tear dripped down her cheek.

  “No one said you had to give up the baby,” Sonny said. “You can decide when the time comes.”

  “I have already decided.”

  There was steel in Carmen’s eyes and voice that Sonny couldn’t—wouldn’t—dispute. He nodded, opened the truck door, and stood up out of it.

  Blue followed, easily jumping to the ground. The splint and bandage had come off, leaving the hound with a noticeable limp—but it did nothing to deter him. He ran straight up to Lidde, wagging his tail, nuzzling into her as she leaned down to greet the dog.

  Aldo was already out of the back of the truck, waiting on Sonny and Carmen.

  Like the house, and the Jorgensons, Aldo looked a little refreshed, but a little older, weathered by the past events. He looked at Carmen with sadness and love, though it was easy to see that he was hesitant around her, tepid, like he was afraid he would scare her off at any second.

  Carmen sat in the truck, her teeth set tight, her eyes distant, her cheeks wet with fresh tears.

  Aldo leaned inside the driver’s door. “It is not a jail,” he said.

  “I know,” Carmen answered. “They are strangers. Anglos. What do they know of me?”

  Sonny stood back, stoic, waiting, trying not to listen, but there was no way to avoid it.

  “Your momma would be here if she could. This is the best place for you and the baby,” Aldo said.

  “They won’t take him?”

  “No one will take him, I promise. Señor Burton promises.”

  Carmen looked at Sonny, who nodded again, reassuring her.

  Sonny was surprised that they both were convinced that the baby was a boy, but said nothing. That was not any of his business.

  Carmen nodded, then pushed out of the
truck.

  A smile crept across Aldo’s face. He reached into the bed of the truck, and pulled out a small suitcase.

  “She doesn’t know how lucky she is,” Sonny said to Aldo.

  “No, I don’t think so. She could be in jail. Probably would be if she were older,” Aldo said. “I am thankful she is alive, here. That is all that matters. The baby has no crime to his name.”

  Sonny nodded and remained where he stood. Aldo met Carmen, and they walked up to the house together.

  Lidde met them at the stoop and allowed Aldo to make the introduction. Pete smiled down at Carmen and took the suitcase from Aldo.

  “Come on,” Lidde said, wrapping her arm around Carmen, “let’s go look at your room, yah? I‘ve made it extra comfortable, just for you. You’ll like it, you’ll see.”

  Carmen looked at Aldo, who nodded, then leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “You will be fine. You’ll see. I will stop in every day on my way home from work. You will not be alone here.”

  “Promise?” Carmen asked.

  “Yes, I promise,” Aldo said.

  Carmen nodded. Lidde smiled. And they disappeared into the house. Blue followed, walked through the open door like he was welcome, like he lived there, too. No one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t object.

  Aldo watched, then turned, walked back to the truck, and climbed into the bed without saying a word to Sonny or Pete.

  Sonny walked up to the porch and Pete set the suitcase down.

  “Thanks for taking her in, Pete.”

  “Our pleasure,” he said. “It’s the last of that business for a while. How is your son? I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  Sonny sighed. “He went back to Brownsville for a little while to take care of some business. Once that’s done, he’ll be back up here permanent.”

  “Gonna stay north with the company in your place?”

  “I think it’s a good thing. The trial’ll be coming up soon, and Jesse’ll need to be here anyway.”