Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

I let Dade tell the story—I was too busy eating. When he had finished Chuck said, ‘I always knew the Ainslees were bad.’ He shook his head. ‘But this…’ He stared at me. ‘An’ you kilt Earl?’

  ‘He’s dead, unless he can walk around with his brains leaking out,’ I said sourly.

  ‘Jeez! Leroy will be madder than a cornered boar. What’s to do, Pop?’

  Dade said, ‘Did Billy Cunningham say how long he’d be?’ ‘ ’Bout three o’clock,’ said Sherry-Lou.

  Dade hauled out an old-fashioned turnip watch and nodded. ‘Chuck, you get back to the house right smartly. When Billy drops by in his whirlybird you show him the big meadow near Turkey Creek. We’ll be there. No reason for Tom to walk more’n he has to.’

  ‘Jeez!’ said Chuck with enthusiasm. ‘Never flown in one of them things.’ He loped away. I thought that Dade Perkins’s kids could stand a chance in the Olympics marathon; they did everything on the dead run.

  Sherry-Lou snorted. ‘He’s never been in the air in his life—in anythin’.’ She finished knotting a bandage over the deepest gash on my arm. ‘You all right, Tom?’

  ‘I’ll be better when I know Debbie’s all right.’

  She veiled her eyes. ‘Sure.’

  Dade stood up. ‘Take us fifteen minutes to get down to the creek. Might as well start.’

  When the helicopter came down in the meadow Billy had the door open before the shock absorbers had taken up the weight, and came running across the grass towards us, stooping as people always do when they know rotors are turning overhead. He took in my condition in one swift glance. ‘Christ! How are you? How’s Debbie?’

  Dade and Sherry-Lou moved tactfully to one side, out of earshot, and were joined by Chuck who was talking nineteen to the dozen and windmilling his arms wildly. I gave Billy the gist of it, leaving out everything unimportant; just outlining the ‘whats’ and ignoring the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’. He winced. ‘Torturing her!’ he said incredulously.

  ‘She was screaming,’ I said flatly. ‘I was being shot at—I had to move fast.’ I paused. ‘I should have stayed.’

  ‘No,’ said Billy, ‘you did the best you could.’ He looked back at the helicopter. ‘The State Police and some of our own security men are coming up behind. We’d better get back to the Perkins place.’

  ‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘Seems Dade Perkins doesn’t like Cunninghams, and from what little he told me I know why. Now, he just saved my life, so from now on you haul off your dogs.’

  ‘It’s not up to me,’ said Billy. ‘Jack won’t…’

  ‘Jack doesn’t matter any more and you know it.’

  ‘Yeah, but Dad won’t be buffaloed either.’ He frowned. ‘Let me think about it. Come on.’

  A few minutes later we dropped next to the Perkins’s family residence and to two more helicopters with State Police markings. More were in the sky coming in. When all six were on the ground we had a conference—a council of war.

  Dade Perkins was in on it, and outlined on a table what the Ainslee place was like, using match books and tobacco tins. Then there was a brief argument when Sherry-Lou announced that she was coming along.

  The senior police officer was Captain Booth who was inclined to want to know the whys and wherefores until he was cut down by Billy. ‘For Christ’s sake, Captain, quit yammering! We can hold the inquest after we’ve gotten my cousin out of there.’ It was a measure of Cunningham influence that Booth stopped right then and there.

  Now he said decidedly, ‘No place for a woman. There might be shooting.’

  ‘Miz Mangan will need a woman if she’s…’ Sherry-Lou swallowed the words ‘still alive’, and continued, ‘I know Leroy Ainslee.’

  Dade turned red in the face. ‘Has he interfered with you?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t!’ she retorted. ‘Not since I laid a rock against his head an’ then got me a gun an’ told him I’d perforate him.’

  Dade glowered, and Booth said thoughtfully, ‘There’ll be one chopper in the air all the time. They might scatter and we’ll want to see where they go. I reckon Miss Perkins could be in that one.’

  We left in the helicopters and descended like a cloud of locusts on the Ainslee place less than five minutes later with the precision of a military operation. I was in the chopper which dropped right in the middle. No one shot at us because there was no one there to shoot. All the Ainslee menfolk were absent and only the women and a few kids were left. The children were excited by the sudden invasion but the slatternly women merely looked at us with apathetic eyes.

  Billy had a gun in his hand when he jumped out, and Dade carried Leroy’s shotgun. I looked about and saw cops closing in from all sides. Billy holstered his pistol. ‘They’re not here.’

  ‘Still out lookin’ for Tom, I reckon,’ said Dade. He squinted up at the helicopter hovering overhead. ‘They’ll know somethin’s wrong. Been nothin’ like this since I seen the Vietnam war on TV. They won’t be back in a hurry.’

  I said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s find Debbie.’ I picked out the biggest house, a ruinous shack, and began to run.

  It was Billy who found her. He came out of a smaller shack bellowing, ‘A doctor! Where is that goddamn doctor?’ He caught me by the shoulders as I tried to go in. ‘No, Tom. Let the doctor see to her first. Will you quit struggling?’

  A man ran past us carrying a bag and the door of the shack slammed shut. Billy yelled at me, ‘She’s alive, damn it! Let the doctor tend to her.’

  I sagged in his arms and he had to hold me up for a moment, then I said, ‘Okay, Billy, I‘m all right now.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I know you are.’ He turned and saw Booth. ‘Hey, Captain, better get the Perkins girl down here.’

  ‘Right, Mr Cunningham.’ Booth spoke to one of the pilots standing by, then came over to us. ‘Mr Mangan, I’d like you to come with me.’ I nodded and was about to follow him, but he was looking at Billy. ‘You okay, Mr Cunningham?’

  Billy had developed a curious greenish pallor and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He sat down on the stoop of the shack. ‘I’ll be all right. You go with the Captain, Tom.’

  I followed Booth to the shack in which I had been held prisoner. Earl’s body had been laid out parallel to the wall and beneath the window. The big pitcher was lying on its side, still intact, and a pool of water lay on the floor, as yet unevaporated. Tukey lay on the bed; he was dead and stank of faeces.

  Booth said, ‘Know anything about this?’

  ‘Yes. I killed them.’

  ‘You admit it,’ he said in surprise. I nodded, and he said, ‘You’d better tell me more.’

  ‘I thought about that, then shook my head. ‘No, I’ll say what I have to say in a courtroom.’

  ‘I don’t think I can accept that,’ he said stiffly. ‘Not in a case of murder.’

  ‘Who said anything about murder?’ I asked. ‘When you lift Tukey you’ll find the bed has been ripped up by buckshot. I happened to be sitting there when Earl pulled the trigger. I stabbed Tukey when he was going to shoot me. Don’t prejudge the case, Captain; it’s for a court to decide if it was murder.’ He made a hesitant movement, and I said, ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  He rubbed his chin and I heard a faint rasping sound. ‘You’re not an American, Mr Mangan. That’s the problem. How do I know you’ll stay in State jurisdiction?’

  ‘You can have my passport, if you can find it,’ I offered. ‘I had it on me when I was snatched. It may be around here somewhere. Anyway, Billy Cunningham will guarantee I’ll stay, if you ask him.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll be best.’ Booth seemed relieved.

  ‘There was a murder.’ I nodded towards the window. ‘It happened out there. Leroy Ainslee shot a man in the back. I saw it.’

  ‘There’s no body.’

  ‘Then have your men look for a new-dug grave.’ I turned on my heel and walked out of that stinking room into the clean sunlight. The hovering helicopter had come down, and I saw Sherry-Lou hurryin
g into the shack the doctor had gone into. I felt curiously empty of all feeling, except for a deep thankfulness that Debbie was still alive. My rage was muted, dampened down, but it still smouldered deep in my being, and I knew it would not take much for it to erupt.

  I went over and stood in the shade of a helicopter. Presently I was found by Chuck Perkins. ‘Jeez, you sure kilt Earl,’ he said. His face sobered. ‘Tukey died bad.’

  ‘They deserved it.’ ‘Pop’s been looking for you.’ He jerked his thumb. ‘He’s over there.’

  I walked around the helicopter and saw Dade talking to Sherry-Lou. His face was serious. As I approached I heard Sherry-Lou say, ‘…tore up real bad.’

  He put his hand on her arm in a warning gesture as he saw me. He swallowed. ‘Sherry-Lou’s got something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, real sorry.’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sherry-Lou?’

  ‘Did you know Miz Mangan was pregnant?’

  ‘Yes.’ I knew what was coming.

  ‘She lost the baby. I’m sorry.’

  I stared blindly into the sky. ‘Rape?’

  ‘An’ worse.’

  ‘God damn their souls to hell!’ I said violently.

  She put out her hand to me. ‘Some women are hurt more in birthin’ a baby,’ she said. ‘She’ll be all right.’

  ‘In her body, maybe.’

  ‘She’ll need a lot of love…lot of attention. She’ll need cherishin’.’

  ‘She will be. Thanks, Sherry-Lou.’

  They brought her out on a stretcher, the doctor walking alongside, and a nurse holding up a bottle for an intravenous drip. All that could be seen of her was her face, pale and smudgy about the eyes. I wanted to go with her in the helicopter back to Houston, but the doctor said, ‘There’s no use in it, Mr Mangan. She’ll be unconscious for the next twenty-four hours—I guarantee it. Then we’ll wake her up slowly. We’ll want you there then.’

  So the helicopter lifted without me aboard and I turned to find Captain Booth standing close by talking to Dade. I said bitterly, ‘If I find Leroy Ainslee before you, Captain, I can guarantee you’ll have a murder case.’

  ‘We’ll get him,’ Booth said soberly, but from the way Dade spat on the ground I judged he was sceptical.

  Billy came up. He had recovered something of his colour. ‘Dade Perkins, I want to talk with you. You too, Tom.’

  Dade said, ‘What do you want?’

  Billy glanced at Booth, then jerked his head. ‘Over here.’ He led us out of earshot of Booth. ‘I know we’ve been putting pressure on you, Dade.’

  Dade’s face cracked in a slow smile. ‘An’ not gettin’ far.’

  ‘All I want to say is that it stops right now,’ said Billy.

  Dade glanced at me then looked at Billy speculatively. ‘Reckon you big enough to make yo’ Paw eat crow?’

  ‘This crow he’ll eat with relish,’ said Billy grimly. ‘But there’s something I want from you.’

  ‘Never did know the Cunninghams give anything away free,’ observed Dade. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I want the Ainslees out of here,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t want to feel there’s folks like that dirtying up the place.’

  ‘The cops’ll do that for you,’ said Dade. ‘Why pick me?’

  ‘Because I saw your face when Sherry-Lou said what she did about Leroy back at your place. Where do you suppose Leroy is now?’

  ‘Easy. Hidin’ out in Big Thicket.’

  ‘Think the cops will find him there?’

  ‘Them!’ Dade spat derisively. ‘They couldn’t find their own asses in Big Thicket.’

  ‘See what I mean.’ Billy stuck his forefinger under Dade’s nose. ‘I don’t want that son of a bitch getting away. I’d be right thankful if he didn’t.’

  Dade nodded. ‘There’s a whole passel of folks round here that don’t like the Ainslees. Never have—but never gotten stirred up enough to do anythin’. This might do it. As for Leroy—well, if the devil looks after his own, so does the Lord. So let’s leave it to the Lord.’ Dade spat again, and said thoughtfully, ‘But mebbe he could do with a little help.’

  Billy nodded, satisfied. ‘That make you happy?’ he said to me.

  ‘It’ll do—for now.’ I was thinking of Robinson.

  ‘Then let’s go home.’

  I said goodbye to the Perkinses, and Dade said, ‘Come back some time, you hear? Big Thicket ain’t all blood. There’s some real pretty places I’d like to show you.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said and climbed up into the helicopter. I slid the door closed and we rose into the sky and I saw Big Thicket laid out below. Then the chopper tilted and there was nothing but sky as we slid west towards Houston.

  NINETEEN

  Medical science made Debbie’s wakening mercifully easy, and when she opened her eyes mine was the first face she saw. She was not fully conscious, lapped in a drug-induced peace, but enough so to recognize me and to smile. I held her hand and she closed her eyes, the smile still on her lips, and slipped away into unconsciousness again. But her fingers were still tight on mine.

  I stayed there the whole afternoon. Her periods of semiconsciousness became more frequent and longer-lasting, monitored by a nurse who adjusted the intravenous drip. ‘We’re bringing her out slowly and smoothly,’ the nurse said in a low voice. ‘No sudden shocks.’

  But Debbie did have the sudden shock of remembrance. In one of her periods of wakefulness her eyes widened and she gave a small cry. ‘Oh! They…they…’

  ‘Hush, my love,’ I said. ‘I’m here, and I won’t leave. It’s finished, Debbie, it’s all over.’

  Her eyes had a look of hazy horror in them. ‘They…’

  ‘Hush. Go back to sleep.’

  Thankfully she closed her eyes.

  Much later, when she was more coherent, she tried to talk about it. I would not let her. ‘Later, Debbie, when you’re stronger. Later—not now. Nothing matters now but you.’

  Her head turned weakly on the pillow. ‘Not me,’ she said. ‘Us.’

  I smiled then because I knew that she—we—would be all right.

  I talked with her doctor and asked bluntly if Debbie would be able to have another baby. His answer was almost the same as Sherry-Lou’s. ‘Women are stronger than most men think, Mr Mangan. Yes, she’ll be able to have children. What your wife has suffered, in terms of physical damage, is no more than some women suffer in childbirth. Caesarean section, for instance.’

  ‘Caesarean section is usually done more hygienically,’ I said grimly. ‘And with anaesthetics.’

  He had the grace to look abashed. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said hurriedly. ‘She may need a great deal of care of the kind that is out of my field. If I could recommend a psychiatrist…?’

  Sherry-Lou had said Debbie would need cherishing, and I reckoned that was my department; the cherishing that comes from a psychiatrist is of an arid kind. I said, ‘I’ll be taking her home.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor. ‘That might be best.’

  I was hedged about by the law. The Cunninghams retained a good lawyer, the best trial lawyer in Texas I was assured. His name was Peter Heller and his only command was that I keep my mouth shut. ‘Don’t talk to anyone about the case,’ he said. ‘Not to the police and especially not to newsmen.’

  One thing troubled him. ‘The reef we’re going to run on is that of intent,’ he said. ‘You see, Mr Mangan, you made certain preparations, way ahead of the event, to kill one of the Ainslees—and you did kill Earl Ainslee and, subsequently, Tukey. Now, we might just get away with Tukey because you could have had no knowledge he’d be there when you opened the door, but Earl is a different matter—that was deliberately planned. That pitcher did not walk up into the roof by itself. The jury might not like that.’

  Ten days after we came out of Big Thicket Leroy Ainslee’s body was found by the track of the Southern Pacific railroad. Apparently he had been run over by a train.

  ‘Where exactly did it happen?’ I
asked Billy.

  ‘Just north of Kountze. Little town which might be described as the capital of Big Thicket.’

  ‘“Leave him to the Lord”,’ I quoted ironically.

  ‘I got the pathologist’s report,’ said Billy. ‘Most of the injuries were consistent with tangling with a freight train.’

  ‘Most?’

  Billy shrugged. ‘Maybe the Lord had help. Anyway the cops have written it down as accidental death. He’s being buried in Kountze.’

  ‘I see.’ I saw that Texas could be a pretty rough place.

  ‘It’s best this way,’ said Billy. ‘Oh, by the way, Dade Perkins sends his regards.’

  The case did not come to trial or, at least, not to the kind of trial we have in the Bahamas where the law is patterned after the British style. It went to the Grand Jury which was supposed to establish if there was a case to be answered at all. I never did get to the bottom of the intricacies of the American legal system, but I suspect that a considerable amount of string-pulling was done by the Cunninghams behind the scenes.

  Because it involved kidnapping, a federal offence, the argument before the Grand Jury was not conducted by a local District Attorney from Houston but by a State Attorney from Austin, the State capital. I was represented by Heller and, as far as I could judge, he and the State Attorney—a man called Riker—had no adverse relationship at all. The whole hearing was conducted in such a way as to get a cool assessment of the facts.

  There was a tricky moment when I was on the stand and Riker was interrogating me. He said, ‘Now, Mr Mangan; you have stated that you made certain preparations—and quite elaborate preparations—involving a pitcher of water to kill Earl Ainslee.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I thought it would be Leroy Ainslee.’

  ‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Did you have anything against Leroy Ainslee?’

  I smiled slightly. ‘Apart from the fact that he was keeping me prisoner at gun point, and that he was keeping my wife from me—nothing at all.’ There was a rumble of amusement from the jury. ‘I’d never met the man before.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Riker. ‘Now, to return to the man you actually killed—Earl Ainslee. He actually had you at gun point at that time?’