by LeMay, Jim
“Boss?” A tough-looking young woman, her face barely visible in the moonlight, moved in front of the door, holding a rifle across her chest. “Why’s it so dark in there?” Big Mike had said Chadwick didn’t like to recruit women, but apparently he had a few in his employ. She stood a little too far outside the door. Anyone standing in the yard could see if he attacked her.
“Come in.” She did. From his location half concealed behind the open door, he brought the dowel down over her head as hard as he could. She crumpled without a sound. He pulled her out of sight into the darkness behind the doorway and took her rifle. It was an antique twenty-two caliber single shot, probably over a hundred years old. He rifled through her clothes and found a few bullets, .22 caliber long rifles, surprised that ammunition could still be found for it.
He heard steps outside on the patio and a suspicious call: “Marcie?” Shit! There was another guard. Probably a second was unusual and was there only because of the prisoner in the basement. A young man by the sound of him.
Matt quietly stepped back into the shadows behind the door. A shadow filled the doorway. He swung the dowel.
The young guard was apparently suspicious and his reflexes were quick. He countered the blow with his rifle and then aimed it directly at Matt. Matt was equally quick. As the upper part of his staff was thrust backward, he allowed the momentum of the blow to bring the lower portion upward, with as much force as he could add to it. It struck the man’s elbow, sent the rifle flying. The young man made the mistake of watching its flight with open-mouthed amazement. Which gave Matt the moment he needed to smack the side his head with the dowel. He fell to his knees. Matt gave him another blow. He pitched forward onto his face and didn’t move.
If I haven’t killed any of these fuckers, thought Matt, they’ll have some hellacious headaches tomorrow.
He cautiously looked out the door, first one way and then the other. A few steps from the door was a wooden screen with stools behind it. This must be where the guards had sat, concealed from the street behind Chadwick’s yard. He saw no one about. He went out, watching all about him, retrieved the man’s rifle, an old Remington hunting rifle. It was loaded, but he found no additional ammunition for it on the man.
He cautiously crossed the rear lawn and Chadwick’s big garden to the next street. Chadwick’s back yard was unusually deep because it included the vacant lot behind his house, probably cleared for security reasons. To avoid the main gate, he went to the board fence at the south end of the subdivision. He hunkered down behind a shrub, looked around to make sure no one was about. All was quiet. There wasn’t a sound from Chadwick’s house; his escape had not yet been noticed. He took stock of his injuries. Though the various poundings and the choking had left him in pretty rough shape, no bones had been broken and only a couple of teeth felt loose. His breathing came a little less ragged now, though still painfully.
He tried to clamber over the fence, but his pain and the two rifles made the job overwhelming. He lay in the grass in the shadow of the fence for a few moments, suddenly realizing how badly he needed that brief rest. The adrenaline rush of a short time ago had abated. Then he examined the fence more closely. Even in the dark he could tell it had not been that well built. He worried at the base of one of its wide upright boards to loosen it and then the one next to it until he had a gap underneath to shove the rifles through and wriggle through himself. Sometimes being a skinny guy had its advantages.
Once outside, he pushed the boards back in place and followed the perimeter fence, staying in the shadows wherever possible, to the site of his ambush and beating. There, he retrieved his hat which he had lost in the struggle, and the sausages and bread, a meal for Tim and him on the way to Stanley Market (the beer sock lay on its side, empty). He left the rifles taken from Chadwick’s sentinels – no sense rousing suspicion by taking them to fetch Lady – and returned to the corral. Though he pulled his hat as far over his face as possible to hide his injuries, the sleepy youth who tended the corral watched suspiciously as he saddled the horse and secured his bed roll and scratch bag behind the saddle. He returned for the guards’ rifles and left town.
Later, much later it seemed to him, he was riding up to the barn, seen dimly in the moonlight. Tim ran out to meet him, said, “Where the hell ’ve you ...” and shut up when he saw Matt’s battered face.
“Saddle up,” said Matt. “We’ll soon have Chadwick’s whole gang on our ass.”
And then began the longest ride of Matt’s life. Especially since a new fear nagged at him as he rode: The riders Matheson had sent to Newcastle as insurance for his return did not necessarily have to pass through Coleridge Gardens, but they could have; it was on one of the routes to Newcastle. What if Matheson had told them to check for the gang in Coleridge Gardens just in case Matt was lying? As he rode along through pain and weariness, he realized that it had been a mistake not to finish off Chadwick and his accomplices. It was well for the rather aloof teacher he had once been to decide that there had been enough killing, but impractical for the semi-legitimate scrounger. His plan to entice the two gangs into potentially mutually destructive conflict while keeping himself and his men from harm now seemed hubristic and puerile. It had brought the gang closer to disaster than ever. Chadwick now knew the survivors of the ambush were alive and somewhere nearby. Matt had to bring this threat to an end himself. Now. Or die trying.
He knew how to do it. It only meant tweaking the original plan. He had to convince Matheson to attack Chadwick, and he had to return to Columbia with Matheson to make sure it got finished properly, once and for all. No more fucking around.
* * * *
They reached the compound at Stanley Market just as dawn brightened the sky. Despite the early hour, they went directly to report to Matheson. They found the big man sitting in front of his tent like he had been every time Matt had seen him. He was surprised to see them. “I thought it’d take y’ at least two days t’ figger things out,” he said, “an’ here y’ are back awready.” Then he noticed Matt’s face. “What the hell happened t’ you?”
“It seems there was a case of mistaken identity,” he said. “One of Chadwick’s men mistook me for one of your gang. They thought to beat your location out of me.”
Matheson’s eyes narrowed. “Did they succeed?” He stood up. So his ass isn’t grown to that chair, thought Matt irrelevantly.
“If they had, do you think I’d be here now? I’d either be dead or hightailing it away from here as fast as I could.” Matt’s story might be partially spurious, but his anger was not. His bruises made his story sound plausible.
Matheson slowly sat back down. “Maybe so. Okay, tell me ever’thing that happened.”
“First of all, I got right in to see Chadwick. That was before anyone accused me of being with you.”
“Anybody with him?”
“Just a guy name of Hauptmann.” No sense complicating the story by mentioning McCutcheon.
“Yeah, Hauptmann,” said Matheson. “Chadwick talked Hauptmann into joining him right at the git-go. Said they’d be partners, but Chadwick never let him have much say in anything. He just wanted Hauptmann’s manpower. So what did Chadwick have t’ say ’bout us?”
“It’s not too good, as you can tell.” Matt pointed to his face.
“Spit it out. I don’t kill the messenger that brings bad news. Most times.”
“He’s really pissed that you let Johnson’s gang get away, especially if they’re on their way to Chicago. And that you ran off with so many of his men. He also thinks you might a stole the goods from Johnson’s men and left the country.”
“Sounds like Chadwick. But I might figger the same as him if I was in his shoes. An’ he ain’t much for lettin’ bygones be bygones. Sounds like Chadwick hisself didn’ ’spect you was one a my men?”
“That’s right. Somebody else fingered me after I left Chadwick’s house, mistook me for someone else.”
“Tell me how that happened, who ratted y’
out, ever’ detail.”
So Matt told how he was mistakenly identified by one of Chadwick’s men as a man who had gone with Matheson for the ambush. Several of the toughs had then dragged him before Chadwick and falsely identified him as such. Since Matheson had recruited some of the men Chadwick wasn’t surprised at not recognizing him. Chadwick tried beating him into revealing Matheson’s whereabouts. Matt had passed out without betraying Matheson. He awoke alone in Chadwick’s office and, finding the back door of the basement unlocked and untended, had escaped. He said nobody had seen him go so they had no idea in what direction he had gone.
Matheson had a hard time accepting the last part. “Lettin’ you git away so easy ain’t atall like Chadwick.”
“It was probably those goons with him,” said Matt. “They were pretty drunk.”
“Maybe. But more likely they thought t’ tail y’.”
“Could be, but if so Tim and I must’ve lost them or they’d be here by now.”
Matheson sat quietly for a minute, thinking, scratched his short nappy beard. “How many men you figger he’s got there?”
“Looked to be twenty-some in town. The rest are out collecting tolls on the river and roads and on patrol. Chadwick seemed nervous about having so few in town. He’s trying to recruit more. Another thing I picked up is that folks in Columbia aren’t too happy havin’ Chadwick in control, said they’d back anybody that tried to boot him out.”
“Bet he’s nervous at that,” said Matheson. “Toll posts gotta be manned at this time a year, t’ charge folks goin’ t’ market, an’ goods gotta be c’lected from the farmers ’cause it’s harvest time, the only time they got anything t’ take.” He thought it over for awhile. He mumbled, “Only twenty-odd guys in town an’ the natives is restless.”
Matheson stood up. “If they’s any truth in what you’re tellin’ me, Mr. Jerry Jordan, then Chadwick’s lookin’ for us right now. Even with his market goin’ on.” Then, almost as if to himself, “He’ll figger if I’m close enough for one a my men, which he thinks you is, t’ be spyin’ on him, he’d better find me. I’m too big a danger to ignore. Even if he don’t know which way you went, he could come this way as well as any other. In any case he’ll be here sooner or later.
“I gotta talk all this over with my lieutenants – Tim, whyn’t you run an’ find ’m – an’ you, farm boy, don’t you leave this here compound till I finish with them. If you’re gone afore I give you leave, then your skinny white ass is in as bad a trouble from me as it is from Chadwick. If you stay, this here bag is yours.” He indicated the buckskin bag of nellies beneath his chair.
“You don’t have to worry ’bout me leaving,” said Matt. “In fact if you decide to go to Columbia, I want to go with you.”
Matheson looked surprised and a little amused. “Oh, y’ do, do y’?”
“Yes, I got a score of my own to settle.” He pointed to his battered face.
“Well, if we decide t’ go and if we decide t’ let y’ go with us, we’ll let y’ know.” Matheson turned away, dismissing Matt.
“Just one other item,” asked Matt.
Matheson turned back around, clearly irritated that Matt still had not gone.
“You can send someone to bring your men back from my town now.”
“An’ you can start addressin’ me as Boss Matheson.” Then Matheson’s upper lip curled into a slight grin. “I didn’t send them boys out. You don’t think I’d waste my men’s time runnin’ to watch over some pig farmer’s sty. Naw, just the threat was enough t’ make sure y’ did what I said. Now quit wastin’ my time. Get outta here till I call y’.”
So Matt left, immensely relieved that Matheson hadn’t sent anyone to Coleridge Gardens or Newcastle. He was also immeasurably weary; he fell asleep the minute he touched his blanket.
Somebody lightly tapping the sole of his boot brought Matt groggily awake. He sat up, disoriented and in pain. Tim squatted before him. Matt shook his head to clear it.
“The meetin’s over,” said Tim. “The Boss – uh – I mean, we all decided t’ git goin’ as soon as possible. The Boss says you’re t’ come with us. An’ he says you’re t’ have this.” Tim tossed him the bag of nellies that had been under Matheson’s chair. Matt was surprised that Matheson actually intended to give it to him. “Git ready. The Boss wants us outta here real quick. Chadwick’s boys could git here at any time.”
Matt painfully pulled himself to his feet. By the sun he knew he had slept no more than an hour, not nearly enough.
Tim’s message from Matheson, that they were going to “git going as soon as possible” could mean several things. Matheson could have decided to flee Chadwick and take Matt along because he didn’t trust him. Or leave him lying by the road some distance from Stanley Market with a bullet between his eyes and the bag of nellies back in his possession. But it also could mean Matheson intended to confront Chadwick and allow Matt to accompany them. The latter seemed most likely. It wouldn’t make sense for Matheson to give him the bag of nellies only to kill him and take it back.
While Matheson’s men packed the truck from their stall, Matt saddled Lady and led her in search of Tim.
“So what’s the goal?” Matt asked when he had found him.
“You ain’t s’posed t’ know till we’re on the road.” Matt’s anger flared. “Listen, goddamn it. I’m not going anywhere with Matheson except to Columbia to kick Chadwick’s ass. If he doesn’t have the balls to do it, I’ll go by myself.”
Tim looked around, as if nervous that Matheson would hear him.
“Shh! Watch how you talk! The Boss ast me t’ not tell nobody till we’re on the road in case somebody’s scairt a fightin’ Chadwick.”
“So you are going to Columbia.”
Realizing that he had let the secret out made Tim blanch.
“Don’t worry, Tim. That’s my goal too.”
Chapter Twenty-two
It took nearly an hour before the caravan was ready to move out. Matheson, worried that Chadwick’s men might arrive, moved among his men, exhorting them to hurry. Matt helped Tim and the others load the truck, tents, and cooking gear onto the pack animals. When they did leave, it was along the road to the east, instead of south to Columbia. Matt rode near the center of the group with Tim next to him. Tim had stayed close to him while they loaded the mules. Matheson must have assigned him to keep an eye on Matt.
Matt’s ride of the former night now became the second longest of his life. In the previous thirty or so hours, he had been terrified, beaten, and deprived of sleep except for the scant hour during Matheson’s meeting with his lieutenants. He had had little to eat and nothing since the sausages and bread he had shared with Tim on the flight from Columbia to Stanley Market.
Now he suffered another form of torture. Not used to riding, he was becoming incredibly saddle-sore. His buttocks and the insides of his thighs were chafed. The jolting ride shot pain up his back with Lady’s every step. This new source of pain began to compete for his attention with that from yesterday’s beating. He could relieve the pressure to his buttocks by standing up in the saddle though that did little to spare his thighs and back. But gradually he would doze and sink lower until his full weight settling on the saddle shocked him painfully awake.
At some point they turned south toward Columbia. And still they rode on. An unseasonably warm day exacerbated his sleepiness. His pain began to diffuse so generally throughout his body that it became impossible to identify which parts hurt the worst. Gradually, the immediate return to Columbia for revenge began to seem less urgent. How pleasant it would be to roll off Lady, who was also tired almost to the point of stumbling, sleep for a couple of days, and allow his poor derriere and the other body parts in its vicinity to recuperate.
Then, inexplicably, they stopped. Someone at the front of the caravan was speaking, loudly so that all could hear: Matheson. Miraculously, wonderfully, it seemed that they were to stop for a rest. Until nightfall! Matt slipped off poor Lady (car
efully! carefully!) favoring all those pain-wracked places), feet touching the ground before anyone else dismounted. He didn’t allow himself rest, though, until he had taken saddle, bridle, and gear off Lady and rubbed her down, led her to the little creek next to which they stopped, and tethered her near fresh grass to crop. Only then did he drop near her, head resting on bedroll, and fall into a profound sleep.
Much later Tim was shaking him awake. He came up groggily, painfully, into awareness. They had stopped where the trees were spaced farther apart beside a little creek. It was late afternoon. He still hurt in more parts of his body than he believed possible, and was tired, but felt far more rested than before.
“Y’ gotta git up,” said Tim. “We’re headin’ out.”
Matt pulled himself stiffly to his feet. When Tim tried to take an arm to steady him, Matt pushed him roughly away. He had to think. He remembered now what Matheson had been saying when they stopped: that they would wait here until evening and then proceed to Columbia under cover of darkness and attack near midnight. Hartman would draw attention by attacking the house from the front while Matheson broke into the rear. The goal was to kill Chadwick and his lieutenants and try to convince Chadwick’s men to join them. Matheson needed them if he were to control Columbia. Chadwick’s and Matheson’s men had, after all, once ridden together as one gang.
“Jerry, you okay?” Tim was saying. He had been talking as Matt tried to rally his senses.
After the moment it took Matt to remember he was now Jerry, he said, “Yeah, sure.” He had to stay alert. He had to take advantage of any opportunity to aggravate the two gangs’ animosity toward each other in Columbia. He thought of Big Mike. He would still be in town, though he wouldn’t be staying with Chadwick’s men, so the fighting shouldn’t affect him.
“I was just wonderin’,” said Tim. “You seem ...”
Matt turned on him. “Shut up. I’ve got to think.”
Tim drew back sullenly, not used to this side of Matt.