The Hanging of Samuel Ash

by Sheldon Russell

  “You only got one arm,” he said.

  Hook looked at his prosthesis. “Been wondering why it took so long to button my shirt.”

  “I’ll have some identification. You don’t look like no bull I ever saw.”

  Hook rolled his eyes. It had been two years since anyone asked to see his badge. Now that he didn’t have one, every son of a bitch between here and Pecos wanted a look.

  “Must have left it on my bedside table. You can call my supervisor if you got a problem.”

  “Well,” he said. “I guess you wouldn’t be driving no railroad vehicle otherwise. You might want to consider carrying it in the future. Someone might mistake you for a bo.”

  “Yeah, I’ll keep it in mind,” Hook said. “The body’s over there.”

  Officer Payne walked around the body, knelt, and then looked up at Hook.

  “How many goddamn ways can a man figure out how to die?”

  Hook said, “A call came in that the wigwag had malfunctioned. Turned out to be this fellow hanging from the cantilever up there.”

  Officer Payne shined his light onto the wigwag and then back onto the body.

  “You ought know better than to move a corpse. This here is a crime scene.”

  “A short haul was scheduled in from the mine,” Hook said, shrugging. “Had to get that signal up. Safety, you know.”

  “Who is he?”

  “No identification.”

  Officer Payne stood and clicked off his light. “Maybe he left it on his bedside table,” he said.

  “Or maybe the sons of bitches who hung him took it,” Hook said.

  Officer Payne searched for a cigarette. Hook offered him one. He popped it between his teeth and lit up.

  “Bums, be my guess,” he said, blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth. “The country’s crawling with them, what with the war over. Found one in a grain elevator the other day after he’d eaten a bellyful of treated seed corn.” He shook his head. “Blew up like a goddamn toad.”

  “Times can get hard on the rails,” Hook said.

  Officer Payne flipped his cigarette ash onto the ground. “I figure this one here bailed off the wigwag his own damn self.”

  “Possible,” Hook said.

  “You could search from here to hell and not find out who he was, ’cause he didn’t want no one to know. He maybe didn’t know hisself.

  “In the end, it don’t matter a damn, if you ask me. All of ’em got the same story one way or the other. Their wives left ’em; they couldn’t find work; they’ve been jilted or otherwise screwed by society. Or maybe they’re just plain too lazy and stupid to get along.”

  He dropped his cigarette next to the body and squashed it out with his foot.

  “Every man’s story should be worth a hearing,” Hook said.

  “Right,” Payne said, motioning for the ambulance to pull up. “I’ll have the coroner in Carlsbad take a look-see. We’ll run prints, but I wouldn’t count on it coming to much.”

  “I can be reached through the Clovis operator if you come up with anything,” Hook said.

  The ambulance driver and his assistant dropped the gurney and lifted the body onto it.

  Hook turned to the patrolman. “Who’s the coroner over there?” he asked.

  Officer Payne rubbed the toes of his shoes against his pant legs.

  “Broomfield, the local dentist. I know as much about ballet as he knows about being coroner.”

  * * *

  Hook arrived at the Artesia depot about dawn. The operator, busy digging an apple out of his lunch box, looked up.

  “Get them little bastards rounded up?” he asked. “I tell you, kids nowadays.”

  “Turned out to be a dead body jamming up the wigwag,” Hook said.

  “I’ll be,” he said. “Never know what’s running the tracks these days. I took to keeping a pistol in the desk drawer over there just in case.”

  “Mind if I use your phone?” Hook asked.

  The operator slid the phone over to Hook.

  “Don’t tie it up too long,” he said. “The yard office raises hell if they can’t get through.”

  Hook pulled up a chair and dialed Eddie.

  “Security,” Eddie said.

  “Eddie, this is Hook.”

  “You know what time it is, Runyon?”

  “Later than you think, Eddie. Look, I just got back from that wigwag out on the potash spur.”

  “You called to tell me that?”

  “A body had jimmied the thing up.”

  “A body? What the hell’s a body doing on the wigwag?”

  “Just hanging there.”

  “Dead?”

  “When you’re hanging from the wigwag, you’re pretty much dead, Eddie.”

  “Who was it?”

  Hook leaned back and studied his fingernails. “He had nothing on him, Eddie, no identification, not even pocket change.”

  “It’s against the law to hang on railroad property, Runyon.”

  “I don’t think he gave a shit, Eddie.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Who?”

  “Jesus, Runyon, the body. What the hell we been talking about?”

  “The state police took it to the coroner in Carlsbad.”

  “Is that signal back up?”

  “It’s up.”

  “Then get on over to Clovis soon as possible. We got strikers kicking up dust over there. The sons of bitches break the law, you nail them. The union’s got a no-strike agreement with the company. These bastards don’t follow their own rules.”

  “Right, Eddie.”

  “It’s your job to see that no one breaks the goddamn law, strike or no strike.”

  Hook rubbed at his temple. An ache had settled in behind his eyes.

  “About this wigwag thing, Eddie?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you think there should be an investigation?”

  “Let the state police handle it. Give those boys something to do besides write traffic tickets.”

  “I got this feeling, Eddie.”

  “Keep it in your pants, Runyon. Feelings can turn a man’s brains to shit. Stick with the facts for once.”

  “Yeah, I know, Eddie. It’s the first thing you learn in detective school.”

  “And that new man should be arriving in Clovis anytime.”

  “Come on, Eddie. I’ve got a lot going on here.”

  “His name is Junior Monroe. He’s highly educated, and he’s got manners. Maybe you can learn something from him. I want him trained right, see. We need men who respect their superiors.”

  “I respect you, Eddie. You’re like a father to me.”

  “Well, that’s a possibility,” he said, hanging up.

  * * *

  Hook turned to the Artesia operator, who had just come back from the can.

  “Is the line clear to Clovis?” he asked. “I want to take the road-rail in on the track. It drives like a Sherman tank on the road.”

  “You can’t run that road-rail to Clovis,” he said.

  “Want to see my note from home?”

  “The line’s been closed to through trains ’til further notice.”

  “I’m running a road-rail, not a train.”

  “You can run it to hell for all it matters to me. I’m just telling you what they’re telling me.”

  Hook turned in his chair. “So, why is the line closed?”

  “Crossing is down. Probably an accident or something. I just follow orders around here and wish the hell others did the same.”

  “I’ll be needing fuel for that road-rail,” Hook said. “She drinks gas like a road grader.”

  “You’ll have to go to the yard for fuel. While I have to kiss every fool’s ass who comes through that door, I don’t have to fill up their gas tanks.”

  * * *

  Hook pulled onto the crossing outside town, dropped the pilot wheels onto the rails, and sped off downline for Clovis. With luck, he could be home
in a few hours.

  He was anxious to get back. Rummage sales had been blooming all over town. While not the best for book hunting, the prices couldn’t be beat. He’d catch a little shut-eye, get himself a burrito down at Pepe’s Pepper Shack, and head out for the nearest sale. It had been a hard week, and he deserved a break. Even if he didn’t come up with a rare first, the hunt just might save his sanity.

  He closed his eyes against the sun. By noon it would be a hundred, by five, a hundred and ten. Already heat waves rose up in ribbons down the right-of-way, and the dry air crackled.

  He thought about that boy hanging from the wigwag, how men like him died in obscurity, men forgotten by family and country alike. He’d seen his share of them, been on the run himself, for all that. If nothing else, maybe they would locate the poor bastard’s family and rescue him from the indignity of a pauper’s grave.

  The road-rail hummed down the tracks like a Cadillac. Given a choice between road or rail, the old hermaphrodite clearly preferred the rail.

  At the Roswell signal, he brought her down to check the traffic. Pulling through the crossing, he goosed her up and clacked off into the desert. The miles clicked away, and as he approached the Clovis signal, he could see that the crossing had been blocked by a truck. A dozen men sat about, some with signs across their laps. When they spotted his road-rail, they stood. Hook slowed down and eased to a stop just short of the truck.

  One of the men, an ax handle cradled across his arm, stepped up.

  “Where you think you’re going?” he asked.

  Hook got out. “I’m headed for Clovis,” he said.

  The men gathered in a line across the right-of-way behind the man, who then lowered the ax handle to his side.

  “Not this way, you ain’t,” he said. “This line is closed until further notice.”

  5

  HOOK RECOGNIZED THE man with the ax handle as Moose Barrick from the signal gang out of Clovis. He’d been nicknamed Moose for obvious reasons. His nose flattened out on the end, and his eyes bulged from his forehead in perpetual astonishment.

  Hook knew him first in Amarillo, where Hook had investigated him once for stealing railroad supplies. He’d not pinned Moose, but he had little doubt that the suspicions were justified. Moose, having taken offense at the investigation, never forgave him.

  “Hello, Moose,” Hook said. “What you doing with that stick?”

  “Killing rats,” Moose said.

  The men laughed and gathered in close.

  “Looks to me like you got the line shut down. Your union know this is going on?”

  “We are the brotherhood,” one of men said from the back. “We ain’t had a raise in five years. All the company cares about is profit, and all the union cares about is keeping its membership guaranteed by the company. And that’s just the way Truman likes it. We ain’t looked up since this war began, and it’s time we changed things.”

  The men rumbled their agreement and moved in closer.

  Moose said, “Get your road-rail off the track, Runyon. There ain’t nobody running this line without our say-so.”

  Hook moved to the front of the road-rail, and Moose stepped back.

  “I just took a dead man off the potash wigwag,” Hook said. “It’s left a sour taste, and my temper’s running short. Whether you strike or don’t strike is between you and your union. But you don’t have a right to break the law. Shutting down the line is breaking the law. Move the truck off the crossing.”

  When Moose started to lift his ax handle, Hook spun about and shoved his elbow into his nose. Moose staggered back, his eyes wide, blood oozing into the corners of his mouth.

  Moose tried to bring the ax handle up again, but Hook stuck him with three short ones to the belly. Air rushed from Moose’s lungs, and his eyes glazed. Hook caught him again with a solid whack across the head with his prosthesis. Moose staggered and then wilted to his knees. His ax handle clattered into the cinder bed.

  Hook glanced around to make certain the others hadn’t taken up the fight before delivering a shattering uppercut that sent Moose sprawling across the tracks.

  Stepping back, Hook lowered his hand onto his sidearm. The men looked at each other and then backed up.

  “Now, move the truck, boys,” Hook said. “And take this lard bucket here with you.”

  “Whose side you on, union buster?” the man in the back said.

  “This is not about sides,” Hook said. “This is about keeping it clean. Stay off the property, and we won’t have a problem. Is that understood?”

  The men nodded, and Hook said, “You might want to pick a new leader while you are at it. This one’s not feeling so well.”

  Hook waited until they’d carried Moose off and backed the truck down the road before he cranked up the road-rail and headed for Clovis. He blew on his knuckles, which were bruised and swelling. Moose Barrick had a head like an anvil and a brain the size of a rabbit’s.

  Hook did understand the men’s frustrations. Those same fellows had worked twelve-hour shifts seven days a week for the duration of the war. Prices had increased, but their wages hadn’t. They were feeling the squeeze.

  In this business, he had no choice but to walk the line between the company and the union, so it had to be about the law and nothing else. If either side perceived him as partial, his effectiveness was shot to hell.

  * * *

  He pulled off at the Clovis crossing and parked the road-rail behind his caboose. When Hook got out, Mixer came bounding from beneath the caboose.

  Hook knelt and pulled his ears. “What’s this I hear about you claiming the baggage?” he asked. Mixer dropped down on his front legs and stuck his butt in the air, his tail swinging. “You’re treading on dangerous territory, buster, ’cause I been thinking I might like to have a cat instead. They eat half as much and cover up their mistakes.”

  Mixer, knowing he’d been chastised for something, slinked away, looking back over his shoulder now and again as he went.

  Hook made his way to the depot to check in with Popeye, the Clovis operator. Everyone called him Popeye because, when young, he had biceps the size of Christmas hams, and he wore a cocked hat everywhere he went.

  He found Popeye bent over in his chair tying his shoe.

  “Where’d the operator go?” Hook said from behind him.

  Popeye jumped and bumped his head on the drawer he’d left pulled out on his desk.

  “Goddang it, Hook. Do you have to sneak around like that?”

  “You’d think an operator would be a little more alert, given he’s charged with keeping trains from crashing into each other,” Hook said.

  Popeye took off his hat, rubbed his head, and then poked his hat back on. “Where the hell you been, Hook? That dog of yours has been tormenting humans and animals alike around here.”

  “Mixer’s just good-natured, unlike a sour old operator I know,” Hook said.

  “Humph,” he said. “That mongrel waits for hours out there for a passenger train to pull in. Then he runs out and sprays up the luggage when it’s set off. Course he don’t spray up just any old luggage. Oh, no. He favors the alligator and pigskin luggage, the expensive stuff.”

  “I never knew an operator who could keep from blowing up a story,” Hook said.

  “That mutt’s turned over trash cans, stole T-bone steaks out of the Harvey House kitchen, and chased the line inspector’s speeder car halfway to the Belen Cutoff.”

  Hook sat down. “You about through bitching, Popeye? ’Cause I feel a migraine coming on.”

  “Why should I complain? It’s just been dandy all around, hasn’t it. Finished up the week with a truck blocking the Pecos run, tying up the whole line and setting off every official from here to Chicago. There’s a million square miles of desert, and some son of bitch stalls out on the main-line crossing. You have to figure it’s a shit cloud just hanging over my head. There’s just no other way to explain it.”

  “The line’s cleared,” Hook said. />
  “You checked on it? Was it a farmer or a drunk?” he asked.

  “There are more possibilities than farmers and drunks in New Mexico, Popeye.”

  “Not far as I can tell. Course, could have been a drunk farmer, or a yard dog, I suppose. But then here he sits sober as a Baptist deacon.”

  “Farmers,” Hook said.

  “Well, I thought so, and the Artesia brass pounder said you found a bo dancing off the potash wigwag?”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to know for your newspaper column, Popeye?”

  He took off his hat and pushed back a wisp of hair that lay across his bald head. He put his hat back on and checked the clock.

  “There’s a package came in on the mail train for you,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Looks like a security badge to me,” he said.

  “Jesus, Popeye, that’s my private mail.”

  “I hear there’s pickpockets working the line. Course, you, being a lawman and carrying a sidearm, wouldn’t have to worry about pickpockets like the rest of us.”

  Picking up his new badge, Hook dropped it in his pocket.

  “Tampering with the mail is a federal offense, Popeye. I’ll thank you to mind your own business in the future.”

  “Well, I’d tell you about that fellow whose been looking for you, but then it ain’t none of my affair, I guess, so I’ll just sit here and mind my own business like I was doing before you came in.”

  “It’s been a while since I shot up an operator, Popeye, but I’m seriously considering it at the moment.”

  “He’s a stiff-necked little guy what looks like he just ate a lemon. You can’t miss him. He’s all dressed up for a wedding, or a funeral, which comes mostly to the same thing.”

  * * *

  Hook drove to the dime store downtown, bought a wallet for a buck, and slipped in the new badge. Back at the depot, he parked the road-rail in the shade and made his way toward the caboose.

  A young man, just coming out of the bathroom, waved him over. He wore a starched white shirt, black suspenders, black bow tie, and his black shoes shined like axle grease in the sun. He’d slicked his hair back without a part, and he flashed a set of teeth straight as a picket fence.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, setting down his luggage. “I’m looking for a Mr. Walter Runyon. You wouldn’t happen to know him?”