by LeMay, Jim
“It would take awhile to put something like that together. Look at it like this: We steal the gold one November, but Downing doesn’t get back to Chadwick for the rest of that winter. Or maybe he does but wherever we’re going trucking the next season doesn’t lend itself to the perfect ambush.
“But during the next season we plan to stop at Summerfield Crossing on the way back to Nellie’s Fair. That’s the perfect place. No one lives for miles around, and it’s off
the beaten track for other gangs. Downing knows about it in the fall, slips away to tell Chadwick some time during the winter, can tell him within a few days when we’ll be there. So Chadwick sends Matheson, because army training had turned him into a professional murderer like it had Johnson, with a contingent of toughs to wait for us. Finally, one night Downing’s standing guard. He waits till we’re all asleep and gives Matheson the word....”
“Yeah,” breathed Lou.
“They didn’t have to be in any particular hurry to deal with us,” said Matt. “They already had what was most important to them....”
Lou thought about that for a moment and then turned suddenly to Matt, wide-eyed, “The stash! They already had the stash!”
“Watch out. Don’t fall off the bridge.”
“You’re saying Downing had already led them to the gold so they weren’t in any hurry to stiff us. They could afford to wait till it was absolutely safe.”
Matt shrugged. “He either took them to the stash before the ambush or he has since. Either way is the same for us. If this scenario is right, of course.”
They were both quiet as they thought all this over.
“Were you gonna tell the others your theory?” asked Lou.
“As soon as I ran it by you. I wanted to hear your thoughts.”
“Unfortunately, I think it could’ve worked like that. It answers a lot of questions, resolves a lot of coincidences. Downing would’ve gotten his revenge on Johnson and shared in the gold. Ditto for Chadwick, not only for us stealing the gold but for his disgrace in Kansas City.”
“Let’s sleep on it tonight,” said Matt, “and get our trading started in the morning. If I’m right, there’s no hurry digging up the stash anyhow.”
* * * *
The first task of the morning was an official introduction to Mayor Coleridge. Billy suggested that Matt and Mitch alone accompany him to what Billy snidely referred to as the “Mayor’s palace”, formerly the subdivision of Coleridge Gardens’ community center. She “held court” in its main room every day that the harvest market was open. She preferred to deal only with the two or three leading members of a gang, Billy said. She wasn’t particularly fond of scroungers, only the goods they brought to town. The former community center was the Mayor’s residence as well as the seat of government. It certainly was big enough, Matt thought as they approached it. It would have been a large community center for a subdivision in the city. It certainly seemed out of place here in the boondocks.
They walked up three steps onto a broad porch covered by a roof supported by pseudo-Corinthian columns. Billy doffed his hat – Matt and Mitch followed suit – and led them through large double doors, which stood open, into the huge octagonal main room. The once-opulent furnishings looked a little down at the heels. The thick carpeting and heavy draperies were worn. Carpet runners covered the most heavily-trafficked areas. Offices opened off two of the western octagonal walls, and double doors in the rear offered access to a conference room. The walls between the main room and all these rooms were glass so they and a couple of skylights gave the main room the appearance of being even larger than it was. Double doors in the east wall were solid and closed. That was probably the Mayor’s quarters.
A number of people stood around, including a burly man standing on each side of the doorway. Billy, apparently acquainted with most of them, exchanged greetings as he led Mitch and Matt to a long low dais in front of the conference room. Four people sat behind a long table on the dais. The middle-aged woman to the left of center had to be the mayor. A dark, handsome, clean-shaven man with curly black hair, her junior by at least ten years, sat on her left, and an older man with a vague beatific smile and a yellowing white beard sat to her right. At the far end of the table, separated a little from the others, was a grouchy-looking man with a clutter of papers in front of him.
The woman stood as Billy approached and put on a practiced politician’s smile. She was a handsome woman, tall, with rather severe patrician features and carefully coifed dark-blond hair graying at the temples.
“Mr. Kane, I’m so glad to see you.” She held out an elegant long-fingered hand. “I’m so sorry you missed the opening festivities last Saturday.”
“I’m right sorry we couldn’t make it, Your Honor.” He had told the men he always tried to miss that day of long boring speeches and religious goings on that marked the opening of the market. Billy shrugged. “You know how farm life is.”
“Indeed. Indeed.” Though Matt was sure she had no idea.
She was looking curiously at Matt and Mitch. “Let me introduce you t’ my colleagues,” said Billy. “This here’s Henry Mitchell, boss of a scrounger gang that’s new t’ our country. And this here’s his second-in-command, Matt Pringle.” That was the first Matt had heard of the promotion. And undoubtedly the last. That surely held true for Mitch.
She nodded slightly in acknowledgment to each man. “Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Pringle. So pleased to welcome you to our town. I am Ms. Coleridge, the Mayor of Coleridge Gardens. This is my husband, Mr. Gelden,” she indicated the young dark man who nodded slightly and looked at them with a bland, rather bored, expression, “and the Reverend Dr. Gates, our community’s spiritual leader.” White-beard. “At the far end of the table is my secretary, Mr. Gordon.” As Billy had said, she apparently liked titles, an anachronistic practice even in the world before the Last Days except for people of very high station.
“Did you gentlemen wish to participate in our market?”
“That was our hope, Ma’am,” said Mitch, “uh, Your Honor. Mr. Kane has oftentimes spoke so kindly of your fine community that we’ve long wanted t’ visit an’ trade at y’r market.”
Well said! thought Matt with surprise. Wily old Billy must have been coaching him.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve finally made it,” she said, though her interest in them was clearly beginning to wane. She seemed somewhat impatient to finish with the interview, as though other, more important, business awaited her. “Mr. Gordon will be glad to show you what stalls are available, help you make a selection, and discuss charges.”
Chapter Fifteen
Before noon all the truck that would fit in the stall was on display. They would bring out more as room became available through sales. They had decided to rent only one stall because of the cost though they had enough truck left in Bernie’s warehouse to refill it a number of times.
Lou wiped sweat from has brow. “Wish there was a close place to get a beer. It isn’t supposed to be so hot this time of year.”
“Remember what Billy said,” said Matt.
“I know, I know. Alcohol’s illegal in Coleridge Gardens. But I can wish can’t I?”
Billy had strolled up from the stall he had rented next to theirs. “You know what they say ’bout wishin’, Lou,” he said. He was holding his hands palm up. “Wish in one hand an’ shit in t’ other. See which one fills up first. Or, you can foller me over t’ Bernie’s for lunch. He’s got a whole basement full a beer. Fact, it’d be good for ever’body that wants t’ eat t’ do it now. We need t’ be here direckly for the honor of heronners’s traditional visit.”
So the men took turns having lunch at Bernie’s. They were eager to begin selling; a lot of people were wandering through the market dickering and trading and buying. They couldn’t open for business, though, until after the mayor’s visit. Billy had explained that it was customary for those renting stalls to invite the mayor to look over their wares first and select whatever she fancied. It
wasn’t mandatory, but those who followed this custom fared better at the Coleridge Gardens market than those who didn’t.
The mayor presently arrived with a small entourage: her husband, who acted bored; a young man and woman, presumably servants since they carried baskets filled with goods from other stalls; and two young girls, apparently her daughters. She greeted Mitch and Matt with brief formality and barely acknowledged the others, except for a curious look at John, probably thinking him too young for such a life.
Her attention went directly to the full-length mirror. She stood regarding herself for a moment. It was indeed an artifact that afforded a now-unique experience, allowing one to see his/her entire body reflected all at once. She turned to look over the other items on display in a cursory manner, but she glanced occasionally at the mirror.
Matt noticed that John was watching the older daughter with great interest, though not as covertly as the boy believed. Noticing his attention, the girl made a game of striking different poses for his benefit. She was two or three years older than John, about the right age for Billy’s description of the daughter who had survived the Last Days, blond, pretty, and petulant.
The other daughter was younger than John, but she eyed him with as much interest as he did her sister, and with no pretense at secrecy. Her dark curls and eyes and porcelain olive complexion gave Gelden away as her father. She was a gangling awkward little girl with a mischievous gleam in her eye, but she had a very pretty face and some day, Matt predicted, she’d be a knockout. Fortunately, both girls had inherited their mother’s body and would some day become tall, leggy beauties like their mother had been.
The mayor’s oldest daughter began to examine her reflection in the mirror, turning this way and that before it, glancing at John once in awhile to make sure he was watching. The mayor went over to her.
“Isn’t that a wonderful mirror, darling? It’s just what a young lady needs to make sure everything is properly together. Jaclyn, come over here, dearest. Let’s see what you look like in front of the glass.”
She pulled her youngest daughter over from where she had been appraising John from under long eyelashes to face the mirror. She stuck her tongue out at John on the way. She frowned at her reflection, then began to make faces at it.
Ms. Coleridge turned to Mitch. “Mr. Mitchell, Alicia and Jaclyn are simply entranced by that wonderful mirror. You have been so kind to invite us to receive a gift from your wares. Would you mind so terribly much if they were to have that mirror for their very own? Oh, my, thank you. They’ll be forever grateful. They’ll think of you every time they look in it. Isn’t it wonderful, Ronald?” This must have been the Husband’s name, though she didn’t even glance in his direction and didn’t wait for a response. “Not a flaw in it. And they must’ve brought it from god knows how far away.
“No, don’t bother bringing it over, Mr. Mitchell. I’ll send my man over for it later. Did you see anything you’d like, Ronald?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “Thank you all again. Now we must be off. Come, Ronald, don’t dawdle. I have a lot to do before the day is over.”
And she was off in a swish of skirts. There was something about her skirt, their clothes, that seemed familiar to Matt. All the clothing worn by the people in the mayor’s entourage were of homespun wool, finely woven and well tailored, with tasteful and permanent appearing colors. The Mayor had worn a full-skirted dress of pale green with a fitted bodice, threaded with tiny subtle stripes of an earthy orange, and Ronald a loose woolen shirt of pale blue with darker blue trousers. The older daughter Alicia had worn a simple blue dress that matched her eyes and the younger, Jaclyn, woolen shorts and loose short sleeved shirt.
Of course! Coleridge Looms. Some of the finer woolen clothing sold in Nellie’s Fair bore that name on their label. That’s why the name ‘Coleridge’ had sounded so familiar back at Kane’s Cove. Several of the gang members, including him, owned some of their shirts.
Matt saw John’s gaze follow the departing group a little wistfully and went over to him.
“I see you’ve made a hit with the ladies of Coleridge Gardens,” he said.
John looked away, face reddening. He looked confused and angry and didn’t answer.
As they opened the stall for business, Mitch fumed because the mayor had taken one of their most valuable items, the mirror. “That would a been a half day’s take,” he said with one of his most severe glares.
“Yeah,” laughed Stony, “but heronner’s little girls’ll think a you ever’ time they look in that there mirra. She said so herself!”
“You won’t be laughin’ like that,” said Doc, “when you’re layin’ out there in the western Kansas prairie on the way t’ Colorado some night with the wind blowin’ up your ass. You’ll be thinkin’, ‘Oh, if we just had the money from that mirra t’ buy some more blankets’. You ain’t never seen wind blow like they got in western Kansas.”
“Yeah, I heard their sayin’,” said Stony. “‘The wind don’t blow. It sucks.’ I ain’t never been there, but I’m used t’ wind. I’m around you all the time.”
“Would you two shut the hell up,” hissed Mitch. “We got customers.”
The trading was brisk. They tried to collect all the nellies they could but often had to take goods in barter. That was a limitation of these small country markets compared to places like Nellie’s Fair. Nellies were more plentiful there. Mitch would allow them to accept only items that could be easily sold to the traders for cash later, and he was a master of choosing which items that would be. He said he would ask Bernie if he would accept any kind of food items toward their room rent.
Another frustration was the mayor’s “blue book.” When they rented their stall, the mayor’s secretary, Gordon, gave them the blue book that established prices of innumerable items and which was to be used by every trader at the market. It wasn’t blue, of course, and paper was so precious they had to leave a deposit to ensure the return of the book at the end of the market. Only the costs of items not included in the blue book could be negotiated. “’Nother fatality a the Last Days,” Mitch had grumbled. “The fuckin’ free market.”
Trading was so brisk the young ones returned to Bernie’s warehouse a couple of times for more truck. The market stayed open until late in the evening. When it got dark, the mayor’s people put up rather smelly pitch-soaked brands for light. The men took turns returning to Bernie’s for dinner. At last people drifted away and the stalls closed, one by one. At Billy’s recommendation, Mitch trusted the mayor’s guardians of the market, who patrolled it day and night, enough not to require a guard from the gang to remain at the stall overnight.
After they closed the stall, Matt called a confab for only the older guys down by the river under the bridge. Matt told the young guys it didn’t involve them because it concerned the stash. When they had gathered, all squatting in a circle, he told them his theory of Downing’s betrayal. There was a little discussion and then quiet as they all chewed it over.
Finally Mitch said, “There’s a good chance Matt’s wrong – I hope t’ hell he’s wrong – an’ there’s no sense a panickin’ till it’s time t’ panic. But we oughta go check the stash as soon as possible.”
“We can’t, though,” said Doc. “We all said we’d dig the stash up t’gether, an’ we can’t trust the kids t’ run the stall by theirsel’s. Might as well give ever’thing away.”
Mitch sighed resignedly. “We gotta know, one way or t’other, if the stash is there or not. If it ain’t, we go on t’ plan B.”
“Which is ...?” said Lou.
“Yet t’ be determined,” said Mitch. “Anyhow, we gotta know. So here’s what we do. We wait a couple days till the market settles down a little. Then you boys go dig up the stash. I’ll stay here with the young’ns t’ run the market. When you git back, we’ll know.”
“But we said we’d all go t’gether!” said Doc.
“Hey, Doc,” said Mitch, “if I can’t trust you assholes after twelve year
s, who can I trust? We gotta know. Period. Only then can we head out for Colorado or....” He shrugged in the dark. Probably only Matt right beside him noticed.
“Mitch’s right,” said Matt. “I suggest we wait till Saturday, three days from now. Billy says the market’s closed Sunday; good Christians don’t do business on the Lord’s Day. If we leave on Saturday, we can probably make it back by Sunday evening. That’ll give us a travel day that we won’t have to worry about the market.”
“Perfect,” said Mitch. “And boys, t’ tell the truth, my leg ain’t what it should be yet. I can’t keep from walkin’ long ’nough t’ let it heal proper. I ain’t hankerin’ for a long walk for a spell.”
When they got back to Bernie’s, they found the main bar mostly deserted. Only two of Billy’s men, Ed Baines and the man who had ridden shotgun with him, Earl Keller, shared a round at a back table. The other gangs had probably preceded them and were now up in their rooms assessing their take for the day. The younger men from Mitch’s gang, except for John, were in a back room where Bernie kept his pool table, taking turns playing pool with two younger members of another gang.
The five joined Billy’s men at their big round table and ordered beer.
“Where’s Billy?” asked Matt. “He’s usually parties till the last dog dies.”
Baines grinned. “He may be partyin’ right now, for all I know. He’s down at the Mayor’s. On his first night in town, he delivers her the case a whisky she buys ever’ year. Has t’ be after dark a course. The fine citizens a this town ‘d be mighty put out t’ think a their glorious leader imbibin’ the devil’s drink.
“Don’t git me wrong, though. Billy ain’t up t’ no hanky panky with her Honor. I ain’t never known a man more honorable t’ his woman than ol’ Billy.”