The Crack in the Lens

by Steve Hockensmith

  “You done any pluckin’ yourself lately?” I asked.

  Before Cuff could give me more answer than a scowl, someone came up the aisle behind us. I glanced back and caught a glimpse of bright robes and a dark glower.

  It was Milford Bales—and he wasn’t alone. Behind him was another member of the choir, a somber-looking fellow so young and gawky I pegged him for a soprano.

  I half-expected the marshal and his pal to grab me and Gustav by the collar and hustle us out to the gutter where we belonged. Instead, Bales just swung around next to Cuff and pointed a frown at us. His youthful, golden-robed compadre stopped in the aisle alongside our pew.

  “Mr. Bales,” Cuff said by way of greeting. “Tommy.”

  The lawman and Tommy—whoever the hell he was—ignored him.

  “Was that some kind of playacting up there, or were you serious?” Bales asked my brother.

  “You know me to do much playactin’?” Old Red replied.

  Bales narrowed his eyes. “So you’re truly repentant? You’re here to sincerely seek forgiveness?”

  “I’m here to set things square.”

  I didn’t think it possible, but Bales narrowed his eyes even further. They were now no more than little folds of fat I could hardly believe the man could see through.

  “That’s a tall order,” Bales said. “You’ve got a lot to make amends for.”

  My brother squinted back at him. “Don’t we all.”

  “Some more than others, Amlingmeyer.”

  “You got that right, Marshal.”

  By this time, Tommy and Cuff and I were doing some squinting of our own, though none of us was shooting for steely-eyed intimidation. We were just plain confused. Bales and my brother were doing so much talking in between the lines there didn’t seem to be anything on the lines but gibberish.

  “Well, what have we here?” a jovial voice boomed, and we all turned to find Brother Landrigan striding up to join us. “I don’t recall scheduling a prayer meeting after the service today.” He clapped a hand on Tommy’s back and beamed a blinding smile at Bales. “Or are you two recruiting for the choir?”

  “Milford was just welcomin’ me into the fold,” Old Red said.

  “Good, good.”

  Landrigan nodded, still smiling, but up close I could see he wasn’t as accomplished an actor as I’d at first thought. An undercurrent of anxiety swirled just beneath his cheer. His rictus grin twitched, his eyes darted.

  “I’ve got some welcoming to do myself,” he said, turning to Old Red. “Would you care to join me in the parsonage for a chat, Mr. Amlingmeyer? We’ve got a lot to talk about. A lot to pray about.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I was about to say.

  Bales piped up first…to say the exact same thing.

  Landrigan eyed Gustav warily, like a cowboy taking in a snuffy bronc he’s been tasked with breaking.

  “Oh, we’ll be alright.”

  He stretched out one arm, inviting my brother to slide out into the aisle and walk away with him.

  Old Red did indeed move toward him—but only to look down at the clunky black shoes poking from under the man’s robes. Then he swiveled around to eyeball young Tommy’s feet, too. Cuff and Bales he didn’t bother with.

  “Did you know drovers pride themselves on havin’ small feet? Means they don’t walk where they’re goin’. They ride.” Gustav looked back up at Landrigan. “You and Tommy here—you got yourselves some big ol’ walkin’ feet. Especially you, Reverend. Stick them things into stirrups, and they’d dangle there like a couple loaves of bread balanced atop a fence rail. I know that for a fact…because I’ve seen the like before.”

  “Uhhh,” Landrigan said.

  “’Course, a lot of fellers have big feet,” Old Red went on. “What’s more tellin’ is that you ain’t asked the marshal why you shouldn’t be alone with me.”

  “Oh…hmmm…”

  “I assume it has something to do with you callin’ me ‘Mr. Amlingmeyer’ a moment ago. Cuz I didn’t tell you my name when I was up there with you durin’ the service.”

  “I…ummm…perhaps…”

  My brother waved a limp hand at Landrigan, signaling him to stop. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, “I figured as much.”

  A look of grim chagrin spread over Landrigan’s face—then spread to Bales’s and Tommy’s.

  He knows, they were plainly thinking. Which told me all I needed to know.

  The fellow with the rope and the one who’d held the bridles. The men who’d helped Bales lynch us.

  Tommy and Brother Landrigan.

  A curse slipped from my lips so foul I was lucky the chapel’s stained-glass Jesus didn’t step down to slap me.

  “Well,” Landrigan said, and even in so small a word as that I could hear the change coming over him—his voice deepening, his tone toughening, his whole being smoldering with a rekindled flame. “It appears the marshal was right about you two all along. You need to go. Now.”

  “Oh, they’re leaving, alright,” Bales said. “Leaving town. There’s gonna be a train at the station in two hours”—he wrapped his chubby fingers around Gustav’s forearm—“and you’re—”

  My brother tore his arm away.

  “Get your damn hands off a me!”

  There was a sudden flurry of motion. Cuff hopping back agasp, Bales making another grab at Old Red, Tommy scooting along the pew behind us to get at my brother’s other arm.

  I cleared my throat and slipped a hand under my jacket.

  “Y’all ever hear of a shoulder holster?” I said.

  Everyone froze.

  I smiled.

  “Thought so.” I nodded first at Bales’s choir robe, then Tommy’s. “And it sure don’t look like you ladies are packin’ under your evenin’ gowns. So I’d suggest y’all back off so’s I don’t have to profane the house of the Lord by whippin’ out my hardware.”

  Tommy looked to Bales.

  Bales didn’t move.

  “You think I might be bluffin’?” I said to him. “Well, good for you. You might look like a two-year-old with a tin star pinned to his bib most of the time, but I reckon there’s more to you than meets the eye. Only the thing is—”

  There was a sharp click-clack as I thumbed back the hammer on my Webley.

  “I ain’t bluffin’.”

  Bales stepped away from Old Red, and his young friend did likewise, but Brother Landrigan stood his ground, eyes alight with righteous indignation.

  “Go! Leave this place and never return!”

  “That’s the general idea.” I put a hand on Gustav’s shoulder and gave him a gentle push. “Let’s get gone, Brother.”

  We moved out into the aisle and started backing away.

  “The next time I lay eyes on you, you’re going to jail,” Bales spat at us. “I can only hope so,” Old Red shot back. “Only you might be surprised who ends up on which side of the bars.”

  Bales, Landrigan, Tommy, Cuff—they all stared at him like he was a madman. I guess they were giving me the same look, for who’d follow a madman but another?

  My brother spun on his heel and broke into a scurry. I uncocked my Bulldog (few things ruin your day faster than shooting yourself in the armpit), and hurried after him. The church had already cleared out but for a few pop-eyed stragglers, so it was an easy dash down the aisle and through the doors.

  Once we were outside, our scurry became a full-on foot-pounding, arm-swinging sprint.

  The time hadn’t just come to check out of the Star. We needed to grab our things and look for a hole to hide in. Preferably a deep, dark one.

  Where we’d find such a hideaway was just one of a dozen questions I was longing to throw at my brother, but we were far too busy tearing up and down the sidewalks to pause for any talk beyond the occasional “Gangway!” and “Comin’ through!” We didn’t even slow down for our usual creeping and gun-drawing before barging into our hotel room and grabbing for our carpetbags.

&nb
sp; Which explains why it took us so long to notice the bulky shape under the blankets on the bed—and even longer to notice all the blood.

  29

  Obvious (And Not So Obvious) Facts

  Or, I Lose My Stomach for Detecting, and an Acquaintance Spills Her Guts

  There was a body under the bedsheets. A big one. That much was clear. What wasn’t so clear was what to do about it.

  The first two steps came easy enough: (1) jump three feet in the air shrieking “Shit!” and (2) shut the damn door. After that, though, I was stumped.

  As was, it seemed, my brother. The two of us just stood there staring at the bloody heap on our bed.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I know we parted on bad terms and all, but to go and do this…”

  A different (though very familiar) kind of incredulity—the “Are you crazy or just plain stupid?” kind—shoved the shock off Gustav’s face.

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “Bob and Lottie dumpin’ Stonewall on us ’stead of buryin’ him,” I said.

  “You think Bob ’n’ Lottie drove around back of the Star in broad daylight, dragged Stonewall up here with only Squirrel Tooth to help ’em, picked the lock on the door, and plopped the body here in our room? All just to spite us?”

  “Well…I suppose it don’t sound so likely when you put it like that, but I don’t know of any other dead bodies floatin’ around town just now.”

  “That’s the problem, ain’t it?” Old Red said, and he turned again toward the round-bellied mound under the sheets. “Someone can always go and make more.”

  He took in a deep breath, steeling himself, and started toward the bed. He moved slowly, and not just because he wasn’t anxious to get where he was going—he was trying to keep his boots out of all the blood smearing the floorboards.

  It wasn’t easy.

  When he was close enough, he pinched one corner of the bedsheet and gently lifted it up.

  “A www, hell,” he sighed, peering down at a face I couldn’t yet see. “A www, hell what?”

  With a quick flick of the wrist, Gustav threw off the rest of the bedding.

  “Uh!” he huffed out, sounding like he’d just taken a punch to the stomach, and even he—rawhide-tough witness to so much death he could just about compete with the Grim Reaper himself—was forced to look away.

  Me, I didn’t just look away. I stumbled away, barely making it to a chair before my legs buckled.

  It had been Big Bess, the gargantuan good-time gal from the Phoenix, under the sheets—and much of what belonged under her skin wasn’t any longer.

  I couldn’t (and wouldn’t if I could) tell you exactly which pieces of her had been pulled out and strewn about. Suffice it to say she’d been gutted, and Big Bess was a woman with a lot of guts.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I gasped. “He’s been here. The killer. Not only did we not stop him, he butchered a gal right in our own room.”

  Gustav was hunched over, hands on his knees, face still turned away from the bed.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Good Lord, what else could it be? Big Bess dropped by to apologize and accidentally gored herself on the doorknob? No, he was here, Brother”—I pointed uselessly at the thing neither of us could yet bear to look at again—“and he left us that.”

  “Maybe,” Old Red said again, and his next words he spat out like a curse. “‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’”

  It was a Holmes quote, of course, and I might have been glad to hear it—comforted that my brother had a grip on the Method even now—but for two things.

  First off, it was my least favorite of Holmes’s little truisms. A falseism, it seemed to me. A bullshit-ism, even.

  Then there was what Gustav said next.

  “And the only ‘obvious fact’ here is we killed Big Bess.”

  “Now, don’t be like that. You don’t have to feel guilty cuz some crazy bastard went and—”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about what I feel, ya idjit!” my brother thundered. “I’m talkin’ about what this is supposed to look like!”

  His meaning sank in quick—and just as quick, I hopped to my feet.

  I’d been in such shock I actually forgot to panic. But that was over now.

  “We gotta go,” I said. “We gotta run, and I ain’t just talkin’ about out of the Star.”

  Old Red shook his head. “No.”

  “Listen to me, Brother. You’re right about Bess there. Someone’s stickin’ our heads in the noose again, and there’s only one way to get ’em out. We can’t get rid of that body, and sure as hell no one’s gonna believe we didn’t kill her. So we ain’t got no choice. We gotta put San Marcos a long, long way behind us.”

  “No!” Gustav snapped up straight, his expression a muddle of revulsion and rage and regret that came close to agony. “If we run now, this follows us forever. We won’t have just come here and failed. We’ll be wanted for murder, and everything I hoped for and you hoped for…it’ll all be impossible. Our lives’ll be over whether we’re caught or not.”

  He paused to suck in a deep breath. When he went on, he was calmer—though not anywhere near calm.

  “It ain’t just about avengin’ Adeline anymore. It’s the only way to save us.”

  I knew he was right…dammit. Turn tail, and we were ruined. Yet a part of me—like nine-tenths of me—wanted to light out of there and never look back.

  Only there’d be looking back. Back over our shoulders. Back at our mistakes. Back at how close we’d come to being something other than drifters.

  Besides, that other one-tenth that wanted to stick with my brother, no matter what? It always won out anyway.

  I slipped off the chair and crouched down by our carpetbags.

  “I’ll get us packed while you do what detectin’ you can. But don’t dilly-dally, you understand?”

  “I never dilly-dally,” Old Red grumbled, and he finally turned himself toward the bed again.

  How exactly he went about inspecting Big Bess’s mangled remains I couldn’t say, for I made certain I couldn’t see, keeping my back to him as much as was possible. I heard plenty, though—a moist, sticky sound, like someone peeling a half-chewed licorice whip off a strip of soggy flypaper.

  “Throat’s cut,” Gustav said. “It’s a clean cut, too. Not hacked or gashed.”

  There were more soft, squishy sounds that made me thankful I had nothing but nice, bland doughnuts in my stomach—and even those I was having a hard time keeping down now.

  “Same with her stomach. Straight lines. And her hands are covered with blood.”

  “What were you expectin’? Cookie crumbs?”

  Old Red grunted sourly, and I heard footsteps and the creaking of floorboards.

  I risked a quick glance back.

  My brother was backing away from the bed, eyeballing the blood on the floor, tracking the splatter and flow of it around his half of the room.

  I got back to stuffing my carpetbag full of clothes. When it was filled, I snatched up my brother’s and kept at it till it was full, too.

  “Done,” I said, hopping to my feet, both bags in hand.

  Gustav was kneeling, still staring at the floor, and he pushed himself up with obvious reluctance.

  “Alright…I reckon that’ll have to do.”

  He turned and took in Big Bess one last time, holding his gaze steady on the mess that had been made of her. He was fixing the sight in his mind, like a photographer hovering over his camera while the light burns into the plate.

  “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he said.

  I didn’t ask where the hell we’d be getting to. First things first. We had to get clear of the Star.

  My brother moved to the door and cracked it open. After a quick peep around, he hurried out, waving for me to follow.

  The hallway was empty.

  We locked the door behind us before making for the stairs. It felt more than a little futile, doing that
, for surely what was in that room we couldn’t lock away forever.

  But a day? Maybe two? That at least we could hope for. It might even be enough.

  We slipped into the back stairwell we’d come to know so well and started spiraling down fast.

  “Smart thing would be sneakin’ outta town and comin’ back after nightfall,” Old Red said. “We wouldn’t last long ’round here while there’s light.”

  He was right about that, too—more right than he knew.

  All of two steps into the sunshine behind the hotel, and a gun butt came crashing down atop my brother’s head. Before he even hit the ground, the business end came swinging around to practically poke me in the nose.

  “Marshal!” Bales’s friend Tommy called out. The gawky young man had traded his choir robes for street clothes—and a deputy’s six-pointed star. “Marshal, come quick! I got ’em!”

  30

  Texas Jack

  Or, The Killer Still Doesn’t Have a Face, but He Finally Gets a Name

  My brother wasn’t knocked out. He just wished he was.

  “Damn,” he moaned. “Give a man a chance to surrender, why don’t you?”

  He was on his knees behind the Star, a steadying hand on the ground the only thing keeping him from flopping face-first into the dirt.

  His other hand was pressed to the top of his head. Or the top of his hat, more like. The blow from the deputy’s gun butt had come down on Gustav’s white Stetson, smashing the crown into a dimple like a hammer hitting a mound of mashed potatoes.

  “Marshal!” Tommy hollered again, a note of growing panic in his reedy voice. I couldn’t help but notice that his gun hand was shaking—this being a point of general interest to me, as said hand was pointing a Colt at my picture-perfect features, and stray bullets are hell on a fellow’s profile.

  I dropped the carpetbags I’d been toting and put up my hands.

  “Steady there, Tommy…”

  I was still inside the stairwell, and if I’d whirled around and bounded up the steps, I’d have had a good chance of getting away. Yet the thought that I could make a break for it didn’t occur to me till this very moment. At the time, it just seemed to me if Gustav was caught, I was, too.