The Shadow of Armageddon

by LeMay, Jim

  “That’ll be a en,” said the officious woman in charge of the corral.

  “A whole nellie?” In most places the rate for a day and a night for a horse was only half that. “But I’m not staying tonight.”

  “Don’t matter none. Boss Chadwick says it’s a en whether you stay a hour or a day.”

  “Chadwick? A guy named Sanderson used to run this corral.”

  “Well, he don’t know more. Boss Chadwick owns it now.” Making sure he was aware of the title. “Listen, Bud. You wanta leave your nag here or not? I got things t’ do.”

  He flipped her the nellie and walked away without a word, really pissed. He wondered what Sanderson thought of losing his livelihood to Chadwick. More information for his mental files. He’d try to find out what other citizens thought of their new regime. Elected officials had run Columbia the last time he and the gang had been through here, a mayor and town council.

  He walked down the midway of the market and turned through the broad gateway into the settlement. The double gates were open now, but he bet they closed at dark. Just inside the opening, a guard sat on a stool, a rifle resting across his lap. He read a cheap frazzled book, an “Action Western!” according to a blurb on its back cover. There had been a wide variety of print-on-demand books published just before the Last Days, from the highest quality to the lowest. This had been one of the latter, the kind that could be purchased at automated kiosks at subway entrances or along the street, the kind that had replaced the paperback books of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

  Matt stopped before the man and cleared his throat. The man ignored him.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t see me,” said Matt. He was still irritated at paying so much at the corral.

  “I see y’. I just don’t wanta be bothered.” The man slowly looked up. “But now that y’ bothered me, y’ better have a goddamn good reason. Whaddya want?”

  “I want to know where to find either Boss Chadwick or Del Matheson.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “Oh, y’ do, do y’?” he said with an exaggerated show of mock respect. “Well, that changes things. It ain’t often we git somebody as important as you.” Then the man stood up and got nasty. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he advanced toward Matt, rifle held across his chest. “Listen, fuckhead,” he said, “the boss ain’t got time t’ fuck with ever’ farmer that – aah!”

  The man lay sprawled in the dust; Matt held his rifle.

  Matt was of average strength and not a particularly adept fighter, but Johnson’s training had taught him the use of surprise and of leveraging an adversary’s own weight against himself. He was also pretty fast on his feet.

  The confrontation had taken less time than it takes to tell. The guard had advanced on Matt with the intent of striking him in the chest with his rifle. Matt took a couple of steps back. Thinking he had Matt on the run, the man advanced with greater confidence. He thrust the rifle forward, his body weight overbalanced to the front.

  Matt did the last thing the man expected: he grabbed the rifle and pulled it toward him, ducked to one side, placed a foot where the man would trip over it, and twisted the rifle out of his hands as he went down.

  As soon as Matt’s would-be assailant could breathe, he rolled onto his back, stared wide-eyed up at Matt and at the rifle, so recently in his possession and now cradled casually in Matt’s arm. Johnson’s drills in this and other maneuvers had paid off again.

  “Now,” said Matt calmly, “you can either tell me where Chadwick or Matheson is and I’ll give your rifle back, or,” he looked at the small crowd that had gathered, “I can ask someone else how to find ’m and give your rifle to your boss. I don’t give a shit which.”

  The man pointed somewhere down the street and started to speak.

  “Get up,” said Matt. “I hate talking to a man groveling in the dirt.”

  The man got to his feet, fuming with impotent rage. The first shock of the surprise counter-attack was wearing off. “Turn left at the next intersection. It’ll be the big house on y’r right.”

  Matt threw the rifle at the man as hard as he could, turned, and walked away without looking back. He felt an itch between his shoulder bladess, but the man wouldn’t shoot him in the back with so many witnesses. He hoped.

  Then even his slight anxiety evaporated entirely. He heard applause, sporadic at first, then gaining in volume and enthusiasm. That shows how much these people like the new order, he thought. He turned and waved to acknowledge the crowd’s accolades. As he turned the corner, he again glanced back at the gate. The applause was dying away, but the crowd had grown. Some of the people seemed to be heckling the guard. He never understood how news could travel so fast in these little hick towns, without any sign of an agent. Having lived in cities as he had, it seemed almost magical.

  Then he was standing in front of the house, one of the large two-story neo-Victorian smarthouses popular just before the Last Days, the exterior almost embarrassingly slathered with gingerbread. Another guard sat on a chair on the front porch, half dozing, the chair leaned back against the wall. Chadwick seemed to feel the need for a lot of guards; he had seen several toughs wending their way among the market stalls. Then he realized that Chadwick just needed to keep his men busy. He couldn’t trust over a hundred thugs sitting around with time on their hands.

  The first step up to the porch squeaked under Matt’s boot. The guard came awake startled. The front legs of his chair clomped onto the floor. He stood up, his hand going automatically to the holstered pistol at his side. Matt thought, Oh, shit. Here we go again. But the guard’s hand fell away from the pistol as he looked Matt over. Then he looked back in the direction Matt had come, suddenly aware of the heckling of the guard at the gate that was now lessening.

  “Whadda hell’s dat all about?” asked the guard.

  Matt shrugged. “Who knows? You know how it gets on market day.”

  “Yeah,” said the guard as if that explained everything. He continued to glare at Matt, but his hand stayed away from the pistol.

  Matt said, “I’m here to see Boss Chadwick or Del Matheson.”

  “Well, Matheson ain’t aroun’ no mah and d’ boss don’t allow just any fahma wit shit between ‘is toes in t’ see ‘im. Go on down d’ line, man; dat’s my best advice.”

  New York or New Jersey, Matt decided. People from different locales back there could identify each other’s accents, he knew, but they all sounded the same to him.

  “I got information Chadwick needs,” said Matt. “He won’t take it kindly if he finds out I wasn’t let in to tell him about it. It has to do with some people he’s looking for, the Johnson gang.”

  “You sawr ’m?” Like so many Easterners, the man couldn’t pronounce ‘r’s where they belonged so, as if to compensate, he inserted them where they didn’t.

  “No, but I know where they are.”

  The guard hesitated, then said, “Tell me what y’ know. I’ll take it t’ d’ boss.”

  Matt crossed his arms and stared blandly up at the guard.

  The man gave in. “Awright awready. You stan’ right dere an’ I’ll see if d’ boss even wants t’ heah yoah shit.” As he opened the door and stomped inside, Matt heard him mumble, “Dese fuckin’ yokel muddafuckas....” Then the door slammed.

  Apparently the boss did want to hear his shit because the man was back in a short time. He looked sourly at Matt, left the door open, and gestured for him to enter. Matt did so, walking into a rather gloomy foyer with a stairway leading up to the next floor and a hallway beside it that extended into the depths of the house. The guard hadn’t given him instructions where to go but, hearing quiet voices coming from the open doorway to his right, he went through it.

  He entered a rather dark, sparsely furnished room. The three men standing before the fireplace became quiet when he appeared and watched him expectantly.

  He had never seen two of the men, but he recognized the third with an inward shudder. His fears of mee
ting someone who recognized him suddenly became fact.

  The third man was his gang’s colleague and sometime participant in trucking, Big Mike McCutcheon. Standing there with the enemy.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Matt regarded McCutcheon and the other two men without speaking. The man in the middle, to the right of McCutcheon, was balding, rather short but built like a wedge, with broad powerful shoulders and chest narrowing to a slender waist and wiry legs. His outthrust lower jaw gave him a pugnacious look and he had the coldest eyes Matt had ever seen. The man’s reptilian look, fixed directly on Matt, didn’t waver as he took a long deliberate drink from the mug he held. He said, “Ah heah y’ got sunthin’ t’ tell me ’bout the assholes that took m’ stuff.” An accent from further south. This had to be Chadwick.

  Matt looked only at Chadwick, especially careful not to let his gaze stray toward McCutcheon, and said levelly, “I heard of a gang that might be them. Heard you’d be interested.”

  Chadwick watched him without speaking. The others were also quiet.

  “My name’s Jerry Jordan,” said Matt. “Some a your men came through our town ’bout a month ago, said you were lookin’ for some guys that’d stole something from you. Said it’d be worth my while to let you know if I heard tell of ’m.”

  The man still said nothing. He continued to watch Matt coldly.

  Matt continued. “I went to Coleridge Gardens to trade some coon hides. The folks there told me some guys came through that sounded kinda like the ones you’re lookin’ for.” And Matt told his story as he had given it to Matheson. “Your man said to ask for you or Del Matheson.”

  “Well, Matheson ain’t heah no moah.” Chadwick finally unlocked his eyes from Matt’s to look at the man who wasn’t McCutcheon. “Whadda y’ think a that tale, Hauptmann?” Matt recognized the name as the leader of the gang that had initially joined Chadwick’s.

  “Could be. Johnson’s boys know you got a long arm so they know it wouldn’t be too smart t’ stay ’round here. They’d likely figger the fu’ther they go t’ unload the goods, the safer they’d be.”

  “Wisht Matheson was heah,” said Chadwick. “He’d have some thoughts on this.” Maybe Chadwick was regretting his initial wrath at Matheson. Or maybe, as Matt had speculated in Columbia, he wanted to know Matheson’s whereabouts because he suspected him of a double-cross. He looked back at Matt. “Don’t reckon y’ run ’crosst a guy name a Matheson on your way heah.”

  “Nope. Not that I know of.”

  “Well, yo’ info ain’t wuth much t’ me, but ah tell y’ whut.” Chadwick pulled a few nellies out of his pocket and threw them at Matt’s feet, “I’ll stand y’ t’ a coupla beahs. If y’ run ’crosst Matheson on the way home, tell him I need him back, an’ if him an’ his boys comes back heah, then that’s wuth sunthin’ to me. I can use ’m t’ go aftuh the Johnson assholes. I cain’t git away m’self till the mahket’s done with. Now geddout. Hauptmann an’ me gotta figguh out what t’ do ’bout Johnson’s boys in case Matheson don’t come back.” He looked at McCutcheon.

  Mike took the hint. “I’ll leave too.” He shook their hands and reached for his hat.

  “Come see me latuh this ee’nin’,” Chadwick said to McCutcheon.

  Matt was so incensed by Chadwick’s arrogance that he almost left without the money, though at the last minute he did scoop it up on his way out. It would, after all, pay for a few beers which he was now in need of. He ignored the guard as he crossed the veranda and went down the steps, his anger increasing with each step. At the intersection he turned toward the gate, just hoping that asshole guard gave him some shit again. An idea was forming in his mind, even as he fumed. He wanted to get someplace where he could be alone to mull it over. He needed a little more information about the situation in Columbia before he left though.

  Suddenly a hand clamped over his shoulder. He stopped and wheeled around to see Big Mike grinning through his beard. He had forgotten McCutcheon.

  “Hey, Mr. Jerry Jordan,” said McCutcheon, “don’t glare at me like that! I was just gonna buy y’ a beer. I didn’t wanta let ’m know I knew y’ while we was still in view a the house, but now that we’re ’round the corner I don’t reckon they can see us.”

  Matt realized he had been about to take a swing at whomever had grabbed his shoulder. He relaxed.

  “Sorry, Mike. You’re the last person in the world I expected to see there.”

  “I can say the same for you, only double. Last I heard, y’ was dead.”

  Matt paraphrased Mark Twain. “News of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

  “So I see. C’mon. The sun’s gittin’ hot. Let’s git some shade an’ a beer an’ maybe some lunch. Though the beer ain’t very good here, thin an’ bitter. We got a lot t’ talk ‘bout.”

  “We sure do,” said Matt as they started toward the gate. “Like what the hell were you doing in there with those assholes? I thought sure you’d turned your coat, and I expected to be coming out of there feet first right about now. And why did you think I was dead? What have you heard?”

  “As t’ the first question, what I’m doin’ here, I’m runnin’ down some rumors. For example, a couple weeks ago, just afore the market opened, couple a Chadwick’s guys come t’ Nellie’s Fair lookin’ for news a you guys. Said you’d robbed somethin’ from Chadwick that was really valuable, an’ they was a reward out for you – a hunnert nellies apiece.”

  “We’re worth more in Nellie’s Fair than we are on the river!”

  “Hunh?”

  “They were offering folks up the Missouri River just fifty a head for us. This’ll make Doc happy. His feelings were hurt that we were only worth fifty.”

  “Yeah, somethin’ like that can really make a feller feel worthless. Anyways, we knew they had t’ be lyin’ ’bout you boys robbin’ Chadwick.” At least, thought Matt, the secret of their theft was still safe. “So we figgered Chadwick had somethin’ else stuck in his craw, like maybe the time he tried t’ ambush y’ over in Kansas City an’ Johnson made it backfire. A memory of somethin’ like that don’t rest easy on a man, ’specially one like Chadwick.

  “Then a fisherman come t’ market from up Parkerville way, said he heard they was some trouble between the Johnson gang an’ Chadwick, that Chadwick was chasin’ Johnson. Somebody else said the Johnson gang had seemed t’ just flat disappear. Another guy told us Chadwick an’ one a his main men was feudin’ – that must be this Matheson he talked about – an’ they was ’bout t’ have a big war. Then another guy says no, that ain’t right. Matheson just wanted t’ have his own scrounger gang like he used t’ have an’ took off with ’bout half a Chadwick’s men.

  When they went through the gate, Matt ignored the guard sitting on his stool, but he could feel the man’s glare all the way into the market.

  “All this was beginnin’ t’ worry me. We couldn’t have a renegade runnin’ around murderin’ any scrounger gang he wanted to, ’specially a powerful one like Chadwick.”

  Matt nodded. “It’s bad for business.”

  “An’ for nerves. So I rounded up my gang an’ we talked it all over. By then most a the other gangs was in town for the market, ’ceptin’ yours a course. Soon as the crowds leveled off a little, us bosses all got t’gether t’ compare rumors and try t’ figger out what t’ do. There must be some reason for these rumors. After all, you-all hadn’t made it to town yet, an’ you was never late. An’ the rumors was gittin’ wilder. Somebody in the meetin’ said that Chadwick would a been smart not t’ mess with Johnson a second time, an’ someone else said that he had snuck up on the Johnson gang an’ ambushed ’m. In less ’n a day after our meetin’ that story was all over town an’ people was sayin’ Chadwick had stiffed your whole gang.”

  Matt remembered wondering, in Stanley Market, how the news that Chadwick’s men had ambushed the Johnson gang had gotten around when Chadwick and Matheson wanted to keep it a secret. Ironically, a rumor based on idle speculation had probably s
pread the truth.

  “That’s probably how the story of our demise got started,” said Matt. “Rumor. It doesn’t surprise me. I was just thinking earlier today how fast news travels in these little towns. And between them. Whether it’s true or not.”

  “That’s why we decided that if we really wanted t’ know what happened, somebody had t’ go an’ talk t’ the man hisself, Chadwick. An’ since I was the one who made that suggestion, they voted for me t’ do the job. I had a good excuse t’ visit him. The Chadwick men that was lookin’ for you-all told us Chadwick was recruitin’ men, women too for that matter. Said he was really short a folks now that Matheson had took off with so many of his. Said he needed ’bout twenty, thirty t’ replace ’m.”

  “So that’s what you were talking to Chadwick about, joining his gang?”

  “I made it sound better. Told him my whole gang a fifteen wanted to join. There’s only six a us but I figgered the idee a pickin’ up several at one time would make him greedy, make him spill a little information.”

  McCutcheon stopped them before a grill, upon which an elderly, nearly toothless woman turned sausages. “Here’s the best grub at the market, Matt. How y’ doin’, sugar? Give us a couple a your hottest an’ biggest.”

  “They’re hotter ’n bigger’n yourn, honey,” she said.

  “Y’r just sayin’ that ’cause y’d like t’ try mine out.”

  “When I catch a fish the size a yourn, hon, I just th’ow ‘im back in till he grows up.” She grinned as she handed them each a fat sausage wrapped in a piece of bread. “That’ll be two bits.”

  “Susie’s the sweetest thing at the market, Matt, uh, Jerry.”

  Nellies were rectangular pieces of leather subdivided into ten sections of equal size clearly delineated by lines of dots punched into the leather. Each section, when cut from the main bill, was worth a tenth of a Nelson dollar. It was called a bit for a similar reason that the section of subdivided Spanish coin had formerly born the same name. Mike reached into his pocket, but Matt shook his head.