by Cameron Judd
But hadn’t been that it. What had struck him was the butt of a Henry rifle, one stolen out of the town of Wiles marshal’s office by the man now bearing it: Scar Nolan. Nolan had crept out from behind the Outlaw Train as Luke left, and had sneaked silently behind the lawman as he led his horse away, getting ready to mount and finally return to town as the rest of his posse had already done.
Nolan looked down at Luke Cable’s senseless form and grinned. “Looks like you found me, Marshal,” he said softly. “And you thought I was gone for good. Sorry I had to disappoint you.” Nolan chuckled. “I got some advice for you, lawman. You need to get yourself some better posse members, and better jailers. It was easy as could be, breaking that stupid fellow’s neck back in your jailhouse. And just as easy to give your posse the slip. Hell, Marshal, I watched you boys most of the day, watched you running around like no-headed chickens, biggest pack of fools I ever run across! You might want to find you another line of work, Mr. Marshal. I don’t think you’re cut out for this one.”
Luke Cable, who could hear none of it, groaned unconsciously and earned himself another clout to the head for it. Then Scar Nolan dragged him away to a nearby small stand of trees, and set Luke up against one of them. He pulled the marshal’s arms back and tied his wrists together on the opposite side of the tree, using a length of rope taken from Luke’s own saddlebag. He tied off Luke’s horse to a bush.
Then Scar Nolan glanced up at the murky sky, watched a bolt of lightning fire down to some point on the mostly flat horizon, and shook his head.
“Lordy, Marshal, for your sake I hope none of that lightning hits this here tree,” he said. Then, laughing to himself, he headed back toward the display car of the Outlaw Train.
It was time to settle a small point of Nolan family honor.
Percival Raintree was occupied with dusting off a neglected area of the exhibit when Scar Nolan opened the door and entered the museum car.
“Did you forget something, Marshal?” Raintree asked before he looked to see that the intruder was not his previous visitor. He froze, breathless, as the big man with the scarred face walked in and stared coldly at him.
“I’m no marshal, not by a long shot,” Nolan said. “My name is Nolan, though lately I’ve gone by the name of Wesson just to make it a little easier to get by without trouble. But I’ve got to tell you, sir, that trouble has now come to you and your little curiosity train here.”
Imprudent though it was to do it, Raintree couldn’t restrain himself from glancing at the ugly display showing the severed hand and arm portion from Billy Nolan, one of Scar’s brothers. Nolan’s eyes followed Raintree’s, and his gaze locked on the preserved and ragged piece of flesh and bone.
“So it’s true, what I’ve heard,” Nolan said. “You truly are using the flesh of my own kin to make yourself money off their misfortune.”
“You are Scar Nolan, sir?” Raintree said.
“I am. And I’ve come to set right the wrong you’ve done to my family.”
“All I’ve done, sir, is to display items of interest to the public. It is a legitimate business that meets a demand of the people, and no dishonor is intended.”
“Well, I don’t like it, my poor brother’s hand being showed off like that, and I know my dear mother and his wouldn’t have liked it. I’ll have you take that down now, sir, and turn it over to me.”
Raintree, though, had other ideas, though he would have to move quickly if he was to carry them out. Scar Nolan was a criminal, a murderer, arguably the worst of the Nolan brothers…and having the preserved corpse of such a man would be a far greater coup than anything he had achieved so far.
“Very well, sir,” Raintree said, pulling a key from his pocket and moving toward the display case containing the blown-off, damaged hand. But as he turned to the side, he slipped the key back into his pocket, seized the pitchfork that had taken the life of gunfighter Curly Drake, and without hesitation or allowance of any time for Scar Nolan to see what was coming, jammed the tines of the implement into Nolan’s chest. He drove in hard, aiming for the area of the heart.
Nolan squeaked and groaned and staggered back, eyes bulging in pain and horror, staring at his killer in utter surprise. Raintree shoved the pitchfork again, and just as he went down to the floor of the railroad car, Nolan pulled a pistol from his belt and used the final three seconds of his waning life to shoot Percival Raintree through the forehead, splattered blood and brain across the colorful displays of the Outlaw Train.
Both men died at almost the same moment, neither living long enough to hear the incredibly loud roaring noise that suddenly surrounded the railroad cars.
The twister, massive, black, and powerful, lifted the Outlaw Train from the side track, pitched it about in the air like a bad child abusing his toy, and smashed it back to the earth, breaking it open like an eggshell and dumping the relics of dead outlaws all about on the ground and sending them flying like autumn leaves through the air.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dewitt Stamps laid his open Bible flat on the desktop and rubbed his tired eyes. “Lord, help me this evening,” he murmured softly, but aloud. “I’m drawn toward sin this evening. Help me, Lord, to stay strong.”
The window above the desk, which faced the street, rattled in a burst of wind, startling the jailer. Dewitt jumped and sucked in his breath sharply, and listened in alarm as the wind continued to shake the pane. It rose from a steady humming to nearly a howl.
Dewitt stood and shuddered, partly from a cool wind that had found its way in around the edges of the loose pane, partly because of an inner nervousness that made him cold.
“Lord, Luke, when you coming back?” he asked the empty room. “Your posse came back two hours ago. So where are you?”
He went out onto the jail porch to make a better assessment of just how strong the wind was likely to grow. If a damaging storm, or worse, struck the town, those in the marshal’s office would have many duties and public expectations thrown at them…and Dewitt wasn’t sure he was up to that kind of task. Where was Luke? Why had he not come back?
“Lord, I need help,” he said. “This is more of a task than I can bear. Send me help, Lord. Send Luke home.”
Movement on the street made him turn his head, and he saw a rider coming his way. Luke? He looked closely and saw that, no, it was not Luke…but it hardly mattered. Dewitt’s heart raced with happiness to see what appeared to be an answer to his prayer appearing right before him.
He stepped down from the porch and walked toward the rider with a big smile on his face. “Ben, is that you? Is that really you? Have you come back at last? Ben! It’s me, Dewitt! I’m working as a jailer now, thanks to Luke! Working right in your old office!”
The rider said nothing, but plodded closer. The impression that this was Ben Keely continued with Dewitt, but when the horse, which certainly looked like Ben’s horse that Dewitt had rubbed down many times back in his days as a stable worker, made its final step and was gently reined to a halt, he suddenly wasn’t so sure. Ben Keely was a man of small frame, certainly, but this individual struck him as even thinner. And when the dismounted rider stepped up onto the porch and looked Dewitt in the face, Dewitt was stricken with puzzlement and astonishment.
The face was remarkably like that of Ben, and the posture and general aura…but what Dewitt had taken to be a dust of whiskers on the cheeks and chin proved now to be a mere coating of grime.
And the eyes…they were like Ben’s in a way, but more richly lashed…feminine.
“Hello, Mr. Cable,” the newcomer said, and Dewitt might have choked in surprise. This was not Ben Keely, not by a far stretch.
This was a woman.
“I’m…I’m not Mr. Cable,” he said, voice faltering. “Mr. Cable is the marshal…well, the fill-in marshal. I’m just a jailer. My name is Dewitt Stamps.”
The woman reached up and took off her hat. There was no sudden spill of hair…this woman’s hair was chopped short, extending no farther
than the lobes of her ears.
She put out her hand toward Dewitt. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Stamps. My name is Bess Keely. Marshal Ben Keely is my brother, my twin, in fact, and I came to town hoping I would find him.”
“Well…come in, Miz Keely. Come in!”
Back inside the jail office, Dewitt did his best to play both insightful questioner and gracious host. He offered to build a fire in order to brew coffee for his visitor, but Bess declined.
“How did you know to ask for Luke Cable?” Dewitt queried.
“My brother was with me in Kentucky a while back,” Bess said. “He told us he’d left his deputy, Luke Cable, in charge of the office in his absence. I remembered the name, and that’s who I expected to find here. I’m sorry, Mr. Stamps, but I don’t think Ben mentioned your name.”
“That’s because it was Luke who hired me, after Ben had already left and been gone a while,” Dewitt said. “Ben don’t know I work in this office now.”
Bess looked forlornly at the toes of her own boots, thrust out before her. She was slumped in her chair, looking anything but ladylike in dress, attitude, and posture. Dewitt felt no surprise at all when she reached into a pocket and pulled out a cigar. She looked like the kind of female who would smoke a cigar. He lit it for her.
“I’m worried, Dewitt,” she said, puffing. “Worried that something has happened to my brother.”
“Everybody here’s been worrying the same thing,” Dewitt said. “It don’t seem like Ben to keep himself away like he has.”
“I fear he never left Kentucky, Dewitt. May I call you Dewitt?”
“ ‘Course you can, ma’am.”
“Call me Bess. ‘Ma’am’ ain’t something I’m used to.”
Dewitt was awash with curiosity about this strange woman. Why did she dress as she did? Why did she have such a masculine look and manner? Dewitt had heard Ben, in the past, talk about how he and his sister were not close, and how she was “odd” in some unspecified manner that created division within the family. Dewitt was beginning to suspect he was seeing some of that oddness right now.
“If Ben didn’t leave Kentucky, why did you travel so far looking for him?” Dewitt asked. “Wouldn’t you have seen him still there?”
“What I should have said was, I fear he might not have left Kentucky alive.”
“Oh no. What are you thinking?”
“I talked with a man back home, a fellow named Bug Otis, old family friend, who had a meal with Ben right before Ben was going to the station to leave on the train heading to Kansas. There was a stranger who came and talked to the two of them, but mostly to Ben, trying to get Ben to sell him something that our family has owned for years, and that Ben had just gotten as an inheritance from our father. A jar, with the crumbled skull bone of a famous outlaw in it.”
“I’ve heard talk about that. The Harpe’s head jar, I think it was called.”
“That’s it. Well, Bug said that Ben refused to sell it to this man, which don’t surprise me at all. He was proud to have inherited it, and I don’t think he would sell it. But anyway, Ben never showed up to get on the train. And his horse was found roaming on a back road some ways from Mutton Smith’s restaurant, which was where he and Bug had ate that meal together.”
Dewitt puzzled over it a moment, then said, “Oh no, you don’t think that other fellow followed Ben out and, and…and killed him to get that Harpe jar, do you?”
“That’s exactly what I fear, Dewitt. Exactly. Especially when I found out from the railroad stationmaster that he’d gotten a wire or two from Wiles, Kansas, asking why Ben had never showed up back here. That’s what made me decide I’d best come have a look myself.”
“Why’d you take so long to show yourself once you got here? I caught a glance of you one time, off through some trees, and some others saw you from a distance and thought they were seeing Ben. Why didn’t you come here to the office sooner than now? Seems like maybe…” Dewitt cut off speaking as a particularly loud clap of thunder shook the town. The glass in the jail office window rattled loudly.
Bess puffed her cigar until the coal was bright. “I didn’t show myself right off because I wasn’t sure how I was going to proceed with things,” she said. “You see, the fellow who tried to buy that Harpe jar from Ben is a traveling showman, that’s what Bug told me, and it ended up that fellow had come right here to Kansas himself, with his show train. And the truth is, I had it in mind to keep myself hid away, and track that showman for a while, and if I learned he’d killed my brother, by God, I was going to kill him in turn. Does it surprise you to hear me say that, Deputy?”
“I reckon not. But it still seems like you could have come and told Luke you was here.”
“At that time I had it figured I was likely going to kill a man. You don’t go announcing yourself to the local law when you’re thinking about such a thing as that.”
“I reckon you wouldn’t. So why are you telling me now?”
“Because I’ve given up the notion of murder. I ain’t got it in me to do that. Don’t get me wrong…I care about my brother, even though me and him had a big falling-out and never had much to say to each other…but won’t become a murderer over him. I ain’t willing to pay that price.”
“Well, you’re thinking right. Murder is wrong, ‘cording to God’s word.”
“You’re a religious man, I take it?”
“I reckon you could say that. I used to be a bad man, drinking a lot, but this old sheep has found his way into the fold. And I want to stay there, and live right and holy…but lately it’s been hard to not want to go back to my old ways. I want a drink mighty bad. Mighty bad.” He shook his head. “But that would go against God’s word.”
Bess Keely smiled oddly. “I can show you, right in the Bible itself, where you might be wrong about that.”
Dewitt gave her a wry look. “I got my doubts you can do that, Miz Keely.”
“Call me Bess. And yes, I can do that. You got a Bible here?”
“Always keep one nearby.” He reached over to the desk and produced his battered, much-handled copy, which he handed to Bess Keely.
Dewitt couldn’t help judging her familiarity with the book by how deftly, or in her case, undeftly, she found what she was looking for. She flipped about randomly for more than a minute before finally narrowing in within a range of a few pages.
“Here it is,” she said, smiling triumphantly and pointing at a particular verse. “I knew it was there! Want me to read it, or you want to read it yourself?”
“Go ahead and read it,” he said.
Bess reached over and cranked up the wick of the oil lamp that illuminated the office, cleared her throat, and read: “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” She looked up at Dewitt. “See? There’s some Bible for you. If you are heavy-hearted, feeling ready to perish, go get yourself a drink. Bible tells you to.”
Dewitt frowned and struggled for something to say, but could find nothing. Finally he said, “Let me see that,” and grabbed the Bible from her. He scanned over the page, and she watched him move his lips as he read silently.
“I’ll be!” he said, looking up at her. “You’re right! I thought you’d just made that up.” He looked back down at the page as his mind absorbed it. “Bess, I’m going to run down to the saloon and buy myself a drink. First one in four years.”
“I’ll go fetch it for you,” she offered. “That way you can still see to the office here. Four years! Mister, you must be dry as dust.”
“I am. You’re mighty kind, ma’am. I mean, Bess.”
“I do my best. I’ll be back shortly.”
When she was gone, Dewitt read the verse again and again. At last he set the Bible aside.
“Lord,” he prayed out loud in the empty office, “I know I promised you I’d not drink liquor no more. But I reckon there must be no sin in it after all, if it’s right there in your word. I’m heavy of heart, Lord. I’ll only dri
nk a little, Lord. Just a little. I promise.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wilton Brand was no drunkard, but on occasion he would tip a bottle if the mood struck him. That mood generally came at times he was lonely, or fresh from a visit with the wife who had divorced him three years earlier.
Neither of those situations applied this night, but Brand had been drinking all the same. Maybe it was the building stormy weather. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. He was drunk, and for the moment that suited him.
One thing didn’t suit him, though: he was much in need of feminine company and feminine charms this night. And if he was lucky, he’d do better than old Belle Hart, who had been the most active soiled dove in the history of Wiles and a frequent paid conquest of Wilton Brand. Belle did the job well enough, but she, like Brand himself, was past her prime, and constituted overly explored territory. He was ready for new and fresher terrain.
As fate would have it, at that moment Brand’s bleary eye was caught by a sweeping, graceful figure in pale blue, moving like a beautiful shadow down the boardwalk. Brand’s breath failed him and he stopped in his tracks, watching Katrina Haus in lustful admiration.
His impulse was to hail her loudly and trot across to where she was, but some lingering social sensibility in his alcohol-pickled mind restrained him. In the brief time Haus had been in Wiles, people in the town had come to know not only who she was, but what she was…in both her lines of work. Discretion was demanded.
So without calling out to her, Brand started across the street, walking, not trotting. But just when he was close to her, she turned into a dark alleyway and was out of sight. Glancing around, Brand entered the same alley and hurried his pace in hope of catching up to the beautiful woman.