Gripewater snorted. “You mean Carver?”
“Yeah, Doc.”
“You said almost?”
“Yeah. Ummm. Carver . . . well . . . he’s dead.”
“Is that what’s the cause of all the hell that’s breaking loose?”
“Yes . . .” Ryan’s voice was just audible. “Sir.”
“Well, you best get back to the show, sonny. Don’t want to miss your chance to be a hero, get your name written up in the papers, or get killed, and then be a dead hero and get your name written up.”
Ryan frowned but turned toward the door. Fallon started to follow him, but Gripewater said, “Not you, sonny boy.”
Both the guard and Fallon stopped. The old sawbones pointed at Fallon’s leg. “I don’t think you want to bleed to death. Hop up on that bed. I’ll get to you directly.” The doctor glanced at Ryan, said, “Git,” and focused on Wagner’s injuries.
Fallon moved down the room to a bed against a wall. He pulled himself up, but just sat there, legs hanging down. Gripewater did not look up but said, “You’re bleeding on my floor, sonny boy. Get your legs on that bed and elevated on those pillows and blankets at the edge. That might keep you from bleeding to death.” Fallon obeyed.
“Hey!” Gripewater yelled, without raising his head from where he was setting the broken bone or bones in Ford Wagner’s wrist. “If you’re going to stay here, you can at least get some work done, sweetheart. Get this new man’s leg cleaned and see that he don’t die before it’s his time.”
The doctor went back to his work on Wagner, and Fallon watched the big woman, who was sweeping up the glass into a dustpan. She appeared to have no intention of cleaning Fallon’s calf.
He felt the shadow and turned his head to the right. A young woman with brown hair and hazel eyes came from behind a curtain. Fallon saw that she was a small woman, quite attractive, and wearing a striped dress that had to be three sizes too big. She made only the briefest of eye contact with Fallon before her small hands began pulling up Fallon’s britches.
He felt her pull down his sock and was glad that he had put his knife in his other boot. She loosed the makeshift bandage and stopped. She looked at Fallon.
“Who stitched this?” she asked.
Fallon said, “A friend.”
“What did he use?”
Fallon shrugged.
The conversation drew the attention of Thaddeus Gripewater, who left Ford Wagner, still unconscious, and moved to the far table. Gripewater put his stethoscope on Fallon’s chest, though not bothering to remove the jacket or shirt, and glanced at the wound in the leg. He moved closer, and pressed his clean hands on the leg, thumbing over what was left of the stitches.
“Human hair,” Gripewater marveled. “Braided together.” He glanced at Fallon. “Not your hair.” Now his eyes bore into Fallon. The man rubbed the stubble on his chin, snorted, and asked, “How long have you been in this prison . . . I’m sorry. What’s your name again?”
“Fallon. Harry Fallon. My friends call me Hank.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“I didn’t say you could call me Hank.”
The doctor grinned. “How long?”
Fallon let out a slight laugh. “To tell you the truth, Doctor, I’m not altogether certain.”
“Usually, a prisoner is examined by me when they first come here.”
“They gave me special treatment,” Fallon said.
“I can see that. I don’t believe that our walking cadaver over on that bunk put those bruises and cuts on you.”
“He’s tougher than he looks.”
“I’d say the same about you, Fallon. And you look mighty tough.”
The doctor turned to the nurse in the prison uniform. “Clean that up. And I mean a thorough cleaning. When it’s ready, I’ll put some stitches in it, and we bandage it thoroughly.” His eyes turned back to Fallon. “And I won’t use my hair, but real sutures, shipped all the way from a medical outfit in Ann Arbor, Michigan.”
Fallon smiled. To his surprise, Thaddeus Gripewater smiled, too. The old sawbones looked at the nurse who was pouring alcohol and some other mixture. “Are you feeling all right, Jess?”
Fallon turned his attention to the woman, Jessica Harper. Jessica Benton Harper, who had left her parents’ home in Ray County and was married to, or at least was living in sin with, Linc Harper. She was smaller than Fallon had imagined. But the ill-fitting dress had been a good disguise. It also hid the fact that this woman, still in her teens, was pregnant with Harper’s baby.
He had done it. Fallon had made it into Thaddeus Gripewater’s hospital, where Jess Harper was at this very minute. And Fallon had needed neither gin nor cherry pie to make it here—just several days of darkness, pain, pure hell, and a lot of his own blood.
As Gripewater moved back to his patient and began a muffled conversation with the other woman, Fallon tried to think of his best move. Jess Harper turned to him and said, “You best lean back on that pillow, mister. And brace yourself something good. Because this will hurt . . . a lot.”
A few second later, when Fallon had stopped sucking air in deeply, blowing it out harshly, and wondering if the young woman had just sawed off his leg below the knee, he managed to say, “You’re weren’t kidding.”
Jess Harper laughed. Her laugh was musical but something sad. It reminded him of his dead wife’s laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He did not say much to Jess Harper, just let her bandage what needed to be bandaged. She brought him water in a ladle, and he pushed himself up and drank it deeply. As he handed the ladle to her he said softly, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You don’t have to thank me. You don’t have to ma’am me, neither.”
“Yes,” Fallon said, “I do.”
Their eyes met, and he smiled gently, but that was enough for now, he said. A woman like this . . . no, a girl like this . . . was likely used to men eyeing her long, hard, and lecherous. Besides, Doc Gripewater was coming back over, with the big matron behind him, and she was carrying a silver tray, and Gripewater was holding his hands, now reeking of alcohol and dripping wet, above his waist. Eyeglasses had been placed on his nose, and his dark eyes looked like those of some monster behind the lenses. Fallon lay back down.
“You did a real nice job, Jess,” Gripewater said. “You best go lie down.”
“What’s going on outside, Doctor?” the girl asked.
“Don’t worry your precious head over that. Our fearless warden will put out those little fires. Go on, honey. You need to get off your feet.”
“You ready for this, Fallon?” the doctor asked once Jess Harper had retired behind a curtain at the end of the hospital room.
Fallon smiled, “No.”
Again, the doctor returned the grin. The big matron, whose name Fallon had learned was Eve Martin, grunted and rolled her eyes.
“You want a scar or not?” Gripewater asked as he brought up the needle with the long suture dangling from the threading hole.
“I have plenty of scars,” Fallon said, “already.”
“And likely will get plenty more.”
For all his gruff appearance and temperament, Thaddeus Gripewater had a soft touch. Fallon could feel the needle and the suture, but it did not hurt.
“What happened to Wagner’s cousin, Carver?” The doctor did not look away from his hands and fingers, and Fallon kept his focus on the ceiling, trying to keep his mind off what Gripewater was doing.
“There was a fight. On the catwalk. He fell.”
“And you didn’t.”
Fallon wet his lips. “No.”
“So, first you get into a fight with Wagner over there. Then you get into a fight with Carver. Is that what happened?”
“You could say so.”
This time, Fallon gasped as the doctor’s fingers, the needle and the suture turned into something awful, burning, painful.
“Sonny,” Gripewater said a few seconds later. “We can do this
two ways. You can try to tell me a lot of malarkey. Or you can tell me the truth. And I can show you just how good a doctor I can be. Or I can show you what you’re likely used to.”
Fallon leaned deeper into the pillow, but he no longer looked at the ceiling. His eyes found Doctor Gripewater, who nodded, and returned to the suture job. But his hands and fingers became gentle again.
“So, no embellishments, and no rambling. This isn’t that big or bad of a cut. But you know that already. So it shouldn’t take me much longer to get you patched up. What happened?”
“They put me in a cell with Wagner,” Fallon said. “He came out with a knife—a big knife . . .”
“Not like the one in your other boot.”
Fallon nodded. You couldn’t get anything past Gripewater.
“Go on,” the doctor commanded.
“It wasn’t much of a fight.”
“I would think not. How Wagner’s still with us I don’t have a clue.”
For a man who wanted to hear a story quickly, the good doctor sure made a lot of interruptions.
“He almost went over the edge. We were on the third tier. I stopped that from happening. That’s when Kemp Carver recognized me. They were bringing him in with other prisoners from wherever he had been working.”
“Saddle-tree factory.” The doctor had interrupted again, but that corrected Fallon’s previous thought that Carver had been making furniture.
“He was on the other side of A-Hall. He came down the catwalk. I went out to meet him.”
The doctor stopped his stitches and studied Fallon long and hard. He even called the matron, Eve Martin, to push up his spectacles so he could see better.
“You fought Carver on the catwalk?”
Eve Martin reminded him: “The fool had only one arm, Thaddeus.”
“I know that. And I’ve also seen what that hard case can do with that one arm, Matron Martin!”
When that bit of nonsense had ended, Fallon said, “It seemed like the thing to do.” He wet his lips and explained, “I didn’t want the guards near me.”
“That, I understand. So you threw Carver over to his death.”
“No.”
“That’s right. Young Ryan said you tried to save his life, too.”
“That’s right,” Fallon said.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” Fallon felt the bitterness on his tongue. “I didn’t.”
Gripewater focused on the stitches. “What happened?. . . He pulled the sutures tighter and shook his head. “No. You can’t answer that one. Truthfully, I mean. You’ll just tell me that Carver slipped and fell to his death.”
“Something like that,” Fallon said in a dead voice.
“And the guards, those who saw it, will say the same thing.”
“Most likely.”
“But just for my own edification, let me ask and you tell me when to stop. Fowlson?”
Fallon just breathed in and out.
“I didn’t think so. Underwood?”
Fallon pushed his head back deeper into the pillow.
“Of course not. He’s a gutless wonder.”
“Ryan?”
Fallon laughed slightly.
“Yeah. I just wanted you to see how I can brighten a room with my levity.” He began tying off the stitching. “Brandt.” There was no question to this one.
“I think we’re done, Doctor,” Fallon said.
“As soon as I tie this in a knot,” Gripewater said.
* * *
Gripewater tossed a newspaper atop the table where he and Fallon sat in the far corner of the hospital.
“I recall reading in this . . . not this particular edition, but this paper . . . that a certain convict, bound for this level of Dante’s Inferno, had helped stop a train robbery attempt led by . . .” He glanced over his shoulder and whispered Linc Harper’s name before turning back to stare at Fallon. “That was a few days ago. I thought the newspaper got it wrong, that maybe the hero was going to the city jail or off to some other fine Missouri burg to await his trial. Yet here you are.”
Fallon lifted his cup of coffee in a toast. Grinning, Thaddeus Gripewater raised his glass of clear liquor and tapped the cup.
“That slice I stitched up is older than a few hours, even older than a day. Did you get that when you were playing hero?”
“I wasn’t playing hero, Doctor.” Fallon sipped his coffee before he added: “I was just trying to stay alive.”
“You’re pretty good,” Gripewater said.
Fallon looked at him. “At what?”
“Staying alive. I’ve seen what that man, sick as he is and dying of the lung illness, and what his cousin, with just one good arm, can do. Underwood put you in the basement at A-Hall?”
Fallon nodded.
“Figures. For how long?”
Fallon started to answer, but stopped, shrugged and shook his head. “I can’t say exactly. But I think four days. No, five. Or . . .” He shrugged.
“Gowd a’mighty. So who stitched up that leg?”
“The Mole,” Fallon answered.
Gripewater’s head shook again. He killed the rest of the liquor, about four fingers of raw gin, and set the cup on the edge of the table. After which, he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his dirty coat.
“The Mole. That can’t be.”
Fallon slid his cup of coffee away. He let out a soft chuckle that held no humor. “Maybe it can’t. I did not have complete control of my faculties. I’m pretty certain of that. I can’t be sure of anything else.”
“A ghost?”
“Can a ghost sew up a cut with his own hair that he has braided together?”
“No,” Gripewater said, “but only because I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Then The Mole is still in one of those dark cells.”
Gripewater slid his chair from the table and rose. “The Mole died sixteen years ago,” he said.
Fallon never felt chills running up and down his spine, but he did at that very moment. He felt the color leaving his face, too.
“Six months after I took over the thankless job of becoming the prison’s doctor.” He pointed in some vague direction. “The cemetery’s over there, and . . .” He stopped and shook his head, then barked an order at Eve Martin to refill his cup of gin. Once she had done that, Gripewater looked up at her and said, “Pour yourself a snort, too, darling.”
“I have perfect eyesight, Doctor,” the big woman said. “I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Then the hell with you, darling, but answer a question for me as my memory isn’t very good. I was going to tell this young whippersnapper that he can find The Mole’s grave in the cemetery. But that’s not right, is it?”
“The Mole?”
“Yeah,” Gripewater said. “Coleman Cain.”
That caused Fallon to sit up straight. “Cain?” he asked. “You mean Killer Cain.”
“None other.”
Fallon had to shake his head at the very thought.
“You’ve heard of him?” the matron asked, and she decided that Gripewater’s gin might not blind her, so she drew up a chair and sat between the doctor and Fallon.
Fallon nodded. “Every boy who grew up in Missouri has heard of Killer Cain.”
Eve Martin grinned. “I bet your mama and papa told you that if you weren’t a good boy, Killer Cain would come see you. Take care of you.”
“Like he took care of twenty-seven men,” Gripewater said.
Fallon said, “I heard that more times than I could count. He never came to me, though. I heard that he hanged, though. Back when I was just a button.”
“You hear everything about Killer Cain,” Gripewater said. “That he hanged. That he was shot dead by posses in every corner of the state. That he rode with Bloody Bill Anderson. That he killed Bloody Bill and chopped off his head. That he rode with ol’ John Brown. That he rode against ol’ John Brown. That he was a pirate on the Missouri River. That he . . .”
&nbs
p; As Gripewater talked, Fallon remembered. For all the legends and lies about Coleman Cain, Fallon remembered seeing a wanted poster tacked to the train station at Gads Hill when he was just a young boy. He was the first hired gunman that Fallon could recall. No, you couldn’t limit a killer like Coleman Cain to just guns. He killed with knives, with machetes, with bombs, wagon wheels, his large fists. He killed judges. He killed bankers. Even preachers. Farmers. Ranchers. Colonels. Congressmen. He killed at least one dance-hall girl. He murdered a madam of one of the most respected cathouses in St. Louis. He killed twenty-seven people. He killed for one reason. Money.
He was a killer for hire. Pay him money—the fee would be negotiated—and he would see the job done. Always.
At least, that’s what the newspapers and magazines all reported. That’s how the three or four dime novels written about him had read. Killer Cain. Few men were more dedicated to their job than this man with the blood and instincts of a rattlesnake.
“I haven’t heard that name since I was in my teens,” Fallon said.
Gripewater nodded. “He was captured in 1871, if my memory’s correct. One of the biggest and most sensational murder trials in Missouri. Reporters came from New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, even London and Paris. But the prosecutor could not make a murder charge stick. That’s how good Cain was. But they gave him a life sentence for kidnapping. So here he was when I joined the prison. And here he died.” Now, Thaddeus Gripewater looked at Eve Martin.
So did Fallon.
“He drowned swimming across the Missouri,” the matron said. “His body was never found.”
Gripewater’s head bobbed slightly. “Oh yes. Now I remember. A boot and a jacket were found, washed up ten miles downstream. But the coonhounds never found any sign. Nor did the Osage scouts the Army and the district marshal brought in. And if a hound dog or one of those tall, thorough Indians could not find a trace or even a sign left by the man, he was declared dead. Dead and good riddance. Dead. Drowned and feeding the fish in the bottom of the Big Muddy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Behind the Iron Page 21