A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

by Glenn Taylor

  He’d been fine on the way in, introducing the other men to Trent and Rufus Beavers as he’d rehearsed. “This is Mr. Boony Runyon from Cincinnati,” he’d said, “and this is Mr. Woodrow Peek and this is Bob Hill,” and so on. All was smooth, even the handing over of his locked metal case. “I trust your safe will be secure housing for what’s in here?” he’d said, and Trent had assured him that neither raging fire nor blast of dynamite could split his big steel bank.

  Now Jim Fort mucked his cards. He wiped his sweat and thought, This is the sweat of Chicago Phil.

  Across the dark room, Rufus Beavers whispered in the ear of Henry Trent. “Old man Tony Sharpley just came by the bar.” He showed Trent the telegram Tony had given him.

  RECEIVED at 1 RAILROAD AVE 413 PM.

  New York NY Jul 4 - 10

  Missed the first train. Will arrive Keystone on the 7 PM

  B says tell H. Trent sorry. Looks forward to meet.

  Max

  Trent felt young for the shortest of moments, seeing her B in line with his name. Were he physically capable, he’d have sprouted a hard-on.

  Rufus regarded the card players. He leaned into Trent and said, “That old man’s monkey stared at me funny.” He took out his hanky and blew his nose. “I don’t particularly care for that monkey,” he said.

  Abe felt the calm he’d always felt at a card table. He smiled. He looked at the faces around the Wobbler. Taffy Reed. Harold Beavers. Tiny Rutherford. Those who had always longed to sit and play against him. Those who’d practiced sufficient to clean out most professional men.

  Still, by any account, it was an odd four-man game.

  Taffy Reed had folded every hand.

  Rutherford played a more conservative style than he had as a younger man.

  Harold Beavers played loose as a goose.

  Abe had asked them already, “How do you find the cards?” They were playing with Big Sun Devil Backs.

  Taffy Reed said he liked the varnish. The other two said not a word.

  Now Taffy studied his hand and folded again.

  Rutherford pulled his chips and drank from the tall rye that Goldie had refilled a half hour prior. He stifled a belch.

  Harold Beavers yawned and asked once again, “When’s that whore comin back around with more?”

  Abe smiled. He said, “A madam is no man’s five-dollar chippy.”

  “Say again?”

  “She’ll be back presently I’d imagine,” Abe said.

  Rutherford was winning. His chip stack was plenty high, but still he was uneasy. He knew there was no reason to be—after Abe had frisked them, he’d returned the favor and searched every inch to be had on the body of the Keystone Kid. After that, he’d checked the table and chairs himself, running his hand along their undersides and legs. Nothing was hidden inside the little brick room.

  Harold Beavers lit a cigar and Abe shuffled before his own deal.

  Rutherford could wait no longer. “I’ve got to drain it,” he said. He stood and walked to the door and unlocked it. “That the piss hole I seen across the way?” he asked.

  “That’s it,” Abe answered. “Bucket’s in the back.” He thought a moment. “Watch out for the snakes,” he said.

  Rutherford’s neck skin pricked. He swung open the door and stepped through.

  “Leave that open,” Abe said.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to keep my eye on you.”

  “You want to shake it off when I’m done too?” Rutherford said. He shook his head and left open the door and walked to the pantry.

  “You’d have to be able to find it first,” Harold said.

  They laughed.

  Goldie came in with a tray of fresh drinks. She set one down in front of Harold. “Extra tall for you,” she said.

  “Well, I knew you were sweet on me.” He tried to put his arm around her but she was too fast on her feet.

  She went around the table and stood next to Abe. She set down his drink and regarded her fingertips. “This hangnail’s a cocklebur,” she said.

  Abe put his arm around her waist and stared at Harold Beavers. He smiled and moved his hand to the small of her back. Under the knot of the apron she wore, his five-shot .38 was snug at the base of her spine. He took the gun in his hand and slid his arm down and put it in his lap beneath table’s edge.

  To the two other men, it had looked to be only a back rub.

  Harold leaned back in his chair. “Madam, you say?”

  Rutherford returned from the pantry. He stepped inside and looked at Goldie.

  “Sugar, you look pale,” she said. “Did you want somethin different to drink?”

  Rutherford said he was fine. He smiled to her and held open the door.

  She called him a gentleman as she stepped back through.

  He locked it.

  Abe had finished his shuffle. He pointed to the deck before him, then leaned back, hands at his lap. “You want to cut that deck?” he asked Rutherford.

  Rutherford remained standing. From his side jacket pocket he withdrew both Derringers. He aimed one at Abe’s face and handed the other to Harold Beavers, who stood accordingly and aimed his at the heart.

  Abe smiled. He looked at Taffy Reed for tells. The young man was wide-eyed. He swallowed and breathed from his mouth. He’d had no idea.

  “Why the hell you smilin!” Rutherford screamed.

  Abe said, “Man can’t smile while he’s dyin?”

  Rutherford looked at Harold Beavers, who looked him back. They nodded and turned their heads back to Abe and shut one eye each and squeezed.

  The shots were loud inside that little brick room.

  Taffy put his hands to his ears and shut tight his eyes.

  Abe twitched little more than to blink.

  Harold and Rutherford looked dumbly at their guns.

  Abe drew his own and stood up. He put his back to the wall and his finger inside the guard. He two-handed his weapon’s grip, right arm extended straight. He thumbed back the blued hammer and said, “You didn’t know they made blank cartridges for a .41, did you?”

  Harold Beavers recognized his position. He thought it best to go on and make a move straightaway, so he threw the little gun at Abe’s head and was fixing to jump across the table when Abe dodged, aimed, and fired. The sound was thrice as loud as the blanks. He’d hit the man in the dick.

  Harold dropped to the floor and curled.

  “Lord Jesus,” Taffy Reed whispered.

  “Those smokeless soft points bark, don’t they?” Abe said. “I got four left. I think you’ve seen my aim.”

  Rutherford dropped his Derringer on the table and put his hands over his head.

  Taffy put his own up high.

  Harold moaned and cursed unintelligible.

  “Oh, hush now Harry,” Abe said. “That snake was syphilitic anyhow.” He moved to the door with his weapon still trained. He unlocked it blind.

  Goldie stepped inside with an armful of cut rope lengths, burned at the ends. She took the long way around the table and tossed the whole mess in Taffy Reed’s lap. She took out her own gun then, Abe’s little spur-trigger pistol. “Tie up these other two and after that I’ll tie you,” she said. Then she winked at Taffy Reed.

  Abe said to Rutherford, “After he binds Harry, take off your jacket and stanch that blood.” He motioned with his gun at the man’s crotch.

  When the blood was stanched and the hands and feet of all three bound, Abe and Goldie sat on the Ashwood Wobbler and looked down at the men, their behinds on the dirt floor, their backs against the brick. Taffy Reed tried his hardest not to cry.

  Abe trained his eyes on Rutherford, then Harold, then Rutherford again.

  Harold moaned low and worked his jaw and rocked.

  Rutherford stared at the floor.

  Abe said, “For a while, when I was cooking all this up in my head, I thought I’d interrogate you, play you one off the other, and then for another while I thought I’d just kill you both.�
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  Harold Beavers growled then. He looked up at Abe and snorted and spat on his pant leg.

  “You ought to save that spit,” Goldie said.

  He spat again, missing her shinbone.

  She shook her head. “Ought to save that spit to grease your shot-up prick. Pig might amble by.” She smiled and looked at Rutherford. “I’m sorry Rutherford,” she said. “I suppose I haven’t worked hard enough on my vulgar woman’s tongue.”

  Abe crossed his ankles where they hung from table’s edge. He went on. “I figure both of you was up on Buzzard Branch that day. Figure ole Sneakup is the only man capable of swiping that rifle and climbin up the ridge without a sound.”

  Now Harold hung his head as Rutherford had beside him. For once he’d shut his mouth. He’d not argue death. He’d welcome his last bullet with nothing.

  Taffy Reed looked on. He’d begun to understand Goldie’s wink. They didn’t aim to kill him. It was the other two they were after.

  Abe continued his thought. “Only man capable of the marksmanship with a stranger’s rifle too, I’d imagine.” He considered the thousands on thousands of birds Harold Beavers had shot from the Florida sky in order that rich women might don a more reputable hat. He wondered what that did to a man, such daily taking of life in flight. He looked at the crown of Harold’s bent head, the spiraling whorl of the small bald circle, the overabundance of staled hair dressing. “Maybe Rutherford paid you to pull the trigger,” he said. He remembered what Jake had once told him about the little man. Don’t ever do a thing he asks you to do, and don’t ask from him so much as pass the salt and pepper. His headache had ceased. He spoke without thinking. “More than likely it was Trent told you to track Jake and cut him down.” He uncrossed his ankles and slid from the table and stood. “But I’m not killing any man. My mother spoke nothing on killing. That’s not her way.” He considered a moment. “Not the way of her boys either.” Now Goldie slid from the table and stood at his side. They regarded the bowed heads before them. Abe said, “It’s the taking my mother was after.”

  He sat down on his heels in front of them, forearms against his knees. The gun hung lazy in his hand. “I’m taking everything,” he said.

  Trent stood on the passenger station platform and took out his watch for the second time. It was a quarter to seven.

  In his fist was a bouquet of wildflowers, still wet at the cut stem bottoms. He’d earlier sent Taffy Reed to pick them from a dry midden ditch out back of Fred’s club. “Put em in a dish a water,” he’d told Taffy.

  He hadn’t noticed until now the dirt and tiny brown glass shards spoiling the bouquet. The glass caught the station lights and sparkled along purple soapwort petals. He blew on the flower and brushed away the filth. He tried to stand straight.

  In the distance, somebody shot off a skyrocket.

  Tony Thumbs materialized from the station’s dark overhang. “Evening,” he called to Trent.

  The monkey was still on the man’s shoulder, and Trent thought immediately that Rufus had been right. The animal was staring him down. It wore a lethargic scowl.

  Tony’s bow tie was brightly colored. His pants were black satin striped. He held forth an old round flask in offering.

  “No thank you,” Trent said. He looked again at the monkey. “He looks like he could use it,” he said.

  “Oh no,” Tony said. He chuckled. “Baz only drinks ale.”

  Trent looked again at his watch.

  Tony forced a smile. “I trust you got the message about Mercurio’s delay?”

  “I wouldn’t be standing here if I hadn’t.”

  There was an ache in Tony’s hand. It happened when he grew nervous. There were times when he swore he could feel his old thumb twiddling. “I suppose not,” he answered. “I only—”

  Another skyrocket boomed in the gray cast air over the Union Club.

  Baz watched the outward yellow burst and screeched. He moved his head side to side and nibbled nervous at Tony’s ear.

  Trent squinted and regarded the far-off evening sky around his establishment, too distant to make anything out. “It’s not even dark yet,” he said. “Who’s shootin off fireworks?” He didn’t care for the wind’s present direction. It happened sometimes, a southerly gust. A carrying-in of the coke-oven cinders from across the creek. It was why he employed a man to scrub his palace. It was why he wanted land high up on a hill.

  Baz made a sound like a cat pushing hairballs.

  Trent frowned at the monkey and checked again his timepiece.

  Peering out from under the telegraph tarp, Chesh Whitt wondered who was firing skyrockets before dark. He watched the tail of smoke mix with the cinders blowing off the ridge like summer snow, their hot brick ovens of origin blurring night with day. He fanned himself with the top of a cigar box and tucked back under. “Anything?” he said.

  The telegraph operator was growing annoyed at the young man. She ignored him and took the latest wire. “Ninth round is over,” she said. “Johnson left hook to liver staggers Jeffries.”

  Chesh bobbed again from under the tarp. He took up the tin bullhorn. “You hear that men!” he shouted. “Left hook to Jeffries’ liver! He’s on his way out! Gettin chopped like a big white birch tree!”

  One man whooped and fell off his chair. Most ignored Chesh in favor of reconsidering how to best use their bankrolls. They were oiled up on booze and coiled and cocked at the thought of their black champion finally whipping white man’s best. The one-eyed policeman chalked the board and took side bets on round ten.

  Fred Reed whispered in the ear of the short policeman, “Watch that Whitt boy.”

  Chesh’s daddy came over on his way out of the yard. He’d seen enough. He scolded his boy for the second time. “You’re embarrassing yourself,” he said. “There are a few men here among the trash who have character.” He straightened the knot of his necktie. “Write up the fight as soon as it’s done. I want the morning edition off the press by four.”

  Chesh told his daddy he could give him the headline right then and there. He moved his hands and fingers on the air as if setting type. “How about this?” he asked. “Negro proven superior to white man in every regard?”

  “Stay off the whiskey,” J. T. Whitt said. He donned his hat. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  Talbert walked to the long lobby’s far wall. He moved aside a shear and looked out the side window and watched Rose Cantu pull the Chambers-Detroit into the alley. He stepped back and sighed and returned to the front desk. “You two,” he said to the stupid lobby men, “go cross the bridge stand in the Bottom and keep your eyes open. Don’t do a fuckin thing but look around unless I tell you, and stay posted until I come call you back in.”

  They walked out the big front doors without a word.

  Talbert watched them through the tall front window before he returned to his desk and double-checked that the grain bags were tucked inside the kneehole.

  It was quiet and dark at the side stage door when he swung it open. Abe and Goldie were there just as planned. They stood beneath the awning holding hands. No one spoke. Abe nodded to indicate they’d not been seen, and Goldie shut the door behind. She handed Talbert a black Russian dogskin coat left behind by a patron of Fat Ruth’s. It was Christmas Eve when the man’s wife had tracked him there, and she’d run him out onto Wyoming Street with a tack hammer raised over her head.

  Talbert folded the heavy coat over his arm.

  They followed him to the emptied lobby, where they crawled into the kneehole of the big front desk. It was dark. They pulled their knees to their chests and rested their chins. They faced each other and listened.

  Talbert stepped into the main card room at two minutes to seven. Three tables of midlevel poker men paid him no mind. He stepped to the long counter, put his boot on the foot rail, and waved over the barkeep with two fingers.

  The man set down his rag and ambled over slow.

  “Girl just come in out of breath,” Talbert told him. “
She’d run clear from the Bottom, your neighbor I believe. Said your wife had fallen off the short ladder and cracked her head on the range.”

  “What?” He’d stood straight from where he leaned. He untied his apron with trembling hands.

  “Best get home. I’ll tend to the drinks.”

  Nothing else was spoken. Barkeep was around the counter and gone.

  Talbert stepped behind the bar and bent low to the hay-hook shotgun. He broke it open quiet, replaced the two shot shells with black powder blanks, and hung it back.

  From the kneehole, Abe and Goldie listened to the barkeep’s footfalls as he passed and hit the big front doors. Abe squeezed Goldie’s hand tight. “Just one more and you’re on,” he whispered.

  Out on the bridge, the stupid lobby men leaned against the handrails and laughed at the barkeep’s desperate gait. “He ain’t got the wind for that,” one said.

  Munchy was on Trent’s office door. He’d noticed the barkeep’s hasty exit, and now he awaited Talbert, who presently approached.

  Before he stepped to Trent’s office, Talbert made for the corner partition wall, where he hung the heavy coat on the farthest hook. He remembered when Jake Baach had framed the wall up, and it seemed fitting to him then as he double-checked the right pocket.

  When Talbert stepped back out and came to the door, Munchy asked after the barkeep. “What’s crawled up his shit shoot?” he said.

  “It’s what’s crawlin out,” Talbert told him. “Venison had turned and he ate it anyhow. He’ll be out of the lavatory in five minutes or so.”

  “Well,” Munchy said. “We all got to eat a peck of dirt before we die.”

  Talbert said he reckoned we did. Then he made his customary tap on the door and waited a moment and went through.

  Munchy took up his halved paper again.

  Around the Oak Slab, it was quiet save the clack of thrown-in chips and the mumbled repeat of “check” and “fold.” The men paid Talbert no mind as he shut the door and took a seat against the wall next to Rufus Beavers. It was dark there in the corner, and Talbert leaned to the man’s ear and whispered what he’d rehearsed. “There’s trouble next door at Fred’s. Johnson is whipping Jeffries. Mr. Trent sent word from the station, said to have you step in.”