A Cold Place In Hell

by William Blinn

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know what you did?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You mind telling me why you did it? Why you blew the brains out of an innocent man who never did harm to another living soul?”

  He was a nice man, Starett. There was no point in getting disputatious. “Mr. Starett, I had a reason. Might not add up to a proper cause for you, but I had me a reason.”

  “You know how much you hurt this town?”

  “I don’t see that.”

  “This is just what the railroad and oil people were afraid of. This could turn them around.” His face looked like the back of a ladybug, all red with dark speckles.

  “Mr. Starett, as long as there’s oil, they’ll keep coming. We could be a tribe of three naked cannibals, and they’d keep right on coming.”

  Omar grunted a kind of laugh. Mr. Starett looked back at him sharp. It’d be some time before Omar grunted another laugh in Starett’s hearing. Mr. Starett swung back around to me. “We’re getting word to Cody and Judge Dewey. You know Judge Dewey?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  Starett’s neck was close to overflowing his collar. “I didn’t figure you’d be social friends with a circuit judge, Wilbur Moss. What I meant is whether or not you’ve heard of Judge Dewey.”

  I nodded.

  “And his reputation. You’ve heard of his reputation?”

  I gave another nod.

  “He’ll be the one coming to Salt Springs to hear your case. I wouldn’t take much comfort from that fact if I were you. As a matter of fact, if I were you, I’d be damned straight afraid.”

  “Mr. Starett, I don’t know how I could be any more afraid than I am right now, so you can leave off all the effort to make me even more afraid, because I think I reached my limit quite a time back.”

  Mr. Starett wasn’t pleased about me trying to save him all that internal commotion. He came loaded for bear and I kept acting rabbit and he didn’t like any of that, not one damned little slice of it. He turned and walked out of the Blackthorne barn like a man who had to pee at a fancy dinner who didn’t want to miss dessert.

  “Wilbur, I need some advice.” It was Omar talking.

  “I’m an odd choice for advice, Omar.”

  “You’re not actually. You’ve had experience with being a lawman. And I’ve got a lawman question to ask of you.” His face was pruned up. He was breathing deep.

  “Ask away.”

  “Marshal Ganeel gave me stone-hard orders about not leaving you alone, Wilbur. He was very forthright about that.”

  “I haven’t heard a question yet, Omar.”

  “I need to use the outhouse, Wilbur. But that would mean leaving you in here by yourself, which Marshal Ganeel was very forthright about not allowing.” Omar stood up and took a few steps closer to my stall. “So, I want your word that if I leave here, you won’t try to escape.”

  “I’d need an ax to get out of here, Omar.”

  “I still want your word.”

  “You’d take my word? I put a bullet through a man’s brain about six hours ago, Omar.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’d take my word?”

  “I would.”

  “Take the word of a murderer, you would?”

  “There’s nothing to say that a murderer can’t be an honest man. And that’s what I think you are. Yes, you killed Fergus and there’s laws about that, but you went straight on over to Marshal Ganeel’s and told on yourself and that’s what an honest man would do.” Omar hooked his thumbs in his belt and pulled his pants out from his gut. “I’d appreciate hearing your reply, Wilbur. Time’s running out for my lower bowels, I’m afraid.”

  “You got my word, Omar. I won’t budge. I’ll be here when you get back.” Omar smiled at once and turned away, heading out the back door in a wide-legged waddle. When he slammed the door shut, I stood there for a time looking around the little space they gave me. There was a certain restfulness about where I was and what I was looking at. I’d always prided myself about being a man with a good hold on the reins, a man who could turn any way that appealed to him and go where he wanted when he wanted. That was all gone now. Instead of being a man at the wheel of a ship with control of the rudder, I was just balanced on a little board now, bounced back and forth by a spinning sea of currents. Scary in some ways, but easy in others, because I had no choice to make about anything; all I had to do was stay balanced and see where I ended up. I lay back on the blanket and closed my eyes. Way off, I could hear some little girls singing a jump rope song. Forrester’s hound started barking about something. A wagon went by on the street outside, supply wagon sounded like, wheel noise too heavy and low to be a two-up rig. Fergus Blackthorne was rotting old meat in the back room somewhere, and I was facing trial for murder, and the business of Salt Springs wasn’t missing a tick. Then, I heard the front door hinge squeak its song, and knew someone was coming in. A few seconds later, I heard a step, then a foot drag, step and a foot drag, step and a foot drag. Billy Piper come to see his pardner.

  “Wilbur, you awake?”

  I sat up. “Looks like, yeah.” I looked past Billy to the front door. Pearline was standing just inside. “Hey, Pearline.”

  “Hey, Wilbur.” Her voice had a tremble to it.

  “Rooney told me you were looking for me last night,” said Billy.

  “I was.”

  “Rooney told me you asked whether or not I was carrying a gun.”

  “Rooney’s doing a lot of telling, isn’t he?”

  “Did you ask him whether or not I was carrying a gun? Did you?”

  “I don’t see as it matters, Billy. I’m not in this damned little box because I asked too many questions.”

  “You killed Fergus?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “He needed killing, Billy. We both know that. He needed killing.”

  “You don’t kill a man for no reason.”

  “There was a reason.”

  Billy put both hands on one of the new boards they nailed over the stall gate. “And do we both have the same reason in mind, Wilbur?” His eyes never left me. I looked away, but I knew his eyes never left me.

  I was losing my balance on that little bouncing board. I wasn’t sure my voice would be there or not. I just nodded my head. I heard Pearline give out a soft moan.

  “I need you to say it, Wilbur. I need to be sure. Was it about Nicholas?”

  Was and it wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him what got done to Nicholas was black and hard, but that the other thing was heading off Billy before he took and threw away all the years he had still coming to him. I couldn’t say that to him. That’d put an anvil on his back for the rest of his days. Couldn’t say it to him. Couldn’t. “Once a man does what Fergus done, he’s just wasting air and taking up space. I moved to address that error.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  I was a heifer being herded down the chute. No way left, no way right, no way to turn back. “You and Pearline were out at the schoolhouse yesterday afternoon. I was up on the roof. I heard.”

  Billy looked back over his shoulder at Pearline. Their eyes talked to each other, asking, answering.

  “Didn’t neither one of you say anything that needs regretting, Billy. Nothin’ like that got said.”

  He didn’t look comforted. Neither did Pearline, but it didn’t come to anything because Omar came back in through the door and started yelling, waving the lever-action around, telling Billy to back away from the stall, telling Pearline to stand still and not say a word, that he was the law here and things were going to be done the way he said they had to be done. The news about the new doctor coming in had taken some sorta toll on poor Omar.

  Billy lifted both hands high, edging his way back toward Pearline at the front door. “Omar, let loose of the reins a little. We’re leaving right now. Stop pointing that thing over here. We’re no bother to you.”<
br />
  “You just get on out of here! No one’s supposed to be in here without my permission!”

  “You weren’t here when we came in!”

  “Goddamnit, don’t go throwing that education blabber to me! You shoulda got my permission!”

  “You weren’t—” Billy stopped when Pearline’s hand rested on his arm. He swung around to me. “Honey’s trying to get in touch with a law counselor in Cody. He’s helped her with some legal knots she’s gotten into before.”

  “Billy, what the hell’s the man going to do? I did what I did. He can’t change the facts. Even a lawyer can’t change the facts!”

  Pearline was tugging on his arm. They were close to being out the door. “Wilbur, you’re going to go to trial. Everyone who goes to trial has to have someone to talk for him! That’s the way they do it!”

  Omar was still at full cock. “Out-out-out! And if you come back, bang loud on the door and let me know who it is!”

  The door was starting to swing shut when Pearline called out, “Wilbur! Is there anything I can bring you?!”

  “Cigars!”

  “OUT!”

  The door slammed shut. Omar trotted over to it and slammed the bolt. Omar walked back to his chair. He was puffing. He let out a groan when he sat back down. “You shoulda called out when they come in.”

  “Figured you were busy.”

  “Still shoulda called out.”

  “I’ll remember for next time.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “How’re your lower bowels?”

  “Better. Thanks for asking.”

  I couldn’t get a tighter grip on how come everything was slowing down for me, but there was no questioning that it was doing that very thing. It struck me that a man in a plight like mine, charged with murder and looking to do a rope dance if it went bad, ought to be nervous and twitchy, but it was the other side of the river with me. I was sleeping like a midwinter bear and eating like it was a one-price-eat-till-you-bust. I had me Omar during the day, and Rooney would send over one of the long-necked enforcers for the nighttime, though they mostly tended to nod off after it got too late and they got comfortable. Didn’t change my life one way or the other; I was sleeping, too.

  Pearline was good as her word about the cigars, and she was quick enough to show up with one for Omar, too. He wasn’t sure about letting me have one, said he thought I might start a fire and escape. I pointed out that a man locked in a place who starts a fire in that same place is buffalo dim at best. He saw the point and enjoyed his cigar.

  Fourth of July was hearing the bugle and drummer leading the people to the corral and speeches from Starett and Omar, not to mention a puff-belly railroad man who said the president of the railroad was all thrilled about getting rails into Salt Springs. There was a musical selection from Vera Monroe, and a recitation from John Everett Malone. I couldn’t see the fireworks, but I could imagine them, going on the crowd chiming in after each explosion, and what I imagined was almost for sure better than what was being seen outside the barn, where they was keeping me. Lord knows I was in prison, but Lord knows I was free.

  The fifth of July was notable only because of the tattoo of muffled drums that went past late in the day, close onto sundown. I knew it was the funeral procession for Fergus Blackthorne. When the rig wheels of the casket wagon went by, there was a whole lot of footsteps, but that was no surprise. People turn out in a prime herd when a rich man dies. Might be even more so when the dying happens with a little bit of help. Blackthorne would be buried in the place right next to his wife, who we planted nearly a year before. Hell wouldn’t hold no fear for Mr. Fergus Blackthorne.

  The hinges squeaked again, and Omar and me looked up from the game of checkers to see Billy standing there with a short man in a fat suit. It just seemed the suit was the fat part, not the man, because everything about the suit was so tight. Vest was shiny black, and you could hear the buttons ache with each mincing little step. The shirt was starched sun-bone-bleached white, and you could have bounced dice off the front. The pants turned his bottom half into something like a wool sausage, and his shoes had an inky glow. Billy walked him over, and Omar allowed him some space.

  “Wilbur,” said Billy, “like you to meet Eve Pacquette. Eve’s from Cody.”

  “Eve? Your name is Eve?”

  He was used to this. Didn’t drop a stitch. “Y-V-E-S,” he said. “It is a French name. But yes, it is pronounced ‘Eve.’”

  “Mr. Pacquette is the lawyer I told you about. He’s worked with Honey. She feels real strong on him.”

  “Shit on a duck, I got a lawyer named Eve.”

  He pushed out his lips, shook his head. “Mr. Moss, we’ll need to talk before either one of us knows whether or not I’ll end up representing you.” He swung around his whole body to look at Omar. “You’re the jailer?”

  “First assistant deputy.”

  “Well, First Assistant Deputy, I need to talk to Mr. Moss.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “In private. A lawyer and his client meet in private.”

  “I just heard you tell Wilbur you didn’t know for sure if you two was going to hook up at all.”

  Pacquette looked to Billy for help, then walked off to the other side of the stable. He took care where he stepped.

  “Omar, I think you better go get Marshal Ganeel,” I said. “We need a decision here and I’m not sure you’ve got enough cartridges in your belt to get us that decision.”

  Omar looked down to his belt. “I’m not wearing a—”

  “Go get Willard,” I said. “It’ll go easier all the way around.”

  That appealed to Omar. “You promise not to escape?”

  “We promise,” said Billy. Pacquette looked over at the three of us, trying to understand, then deciding it wasn’t worth his time. He watched Omar scurry out the door, then came over to us. “Is there a place we can meet in private?”

  “There’s the back room at Rooney’s.”

  “And Rooney’s is ... ”

  “Saloon halfway back on the other side of the street.”

  Pacquette’s expression took on some verve. “I remember passing it. I think I’ll go over there and wait for you. It’s been a long day and I could use a little bracer myself. A touch of the restorative.” He gave a little bow and moved after Omar’s route. When he closed the door, it was a quiet thing.

  “We’re going to get you out of this,” said Billy.

  “How? I did it.”

  “Pacquette will find a way. He’ll use the law. The law’s got all sorts of twists and switchbacks. There’s ways lawyers know that regular people never hear about.”

  We were quiet for a time. Billy and me had gone through a lot in this old barn. Seems like we weren’t through yet. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “When I came looking for you last night at Rooney’s, were you carrying a weapon?”

  “Would it make a difference to know?”

  “It would. That’s why I’m asking, Billy.”

  He hunkered down. His index finger drew some curlicues in the dirt. He looked back up at me. “I had a gun. I knew the Dutchman kept one in his trunk. I took it.”

  “You think you might have gone and used it on Fergus once you got sobered up?”

  “No earthly way of knowing, Wilbur. That’s what I had in mind when I came in to town. But if I had to get drunk to go through with it, there’s no telling what I might have done. But taking Fergus down was in my mind.”

  I smiled inside. “Then what I did was the right thing to do,” I said.

  “You did him so I wouldn’t? Is that the way?”

  “Billy, count it out. I got what, five years, ten years more? You got fifty, maybe sixty. The ticket’s a lot cheaper for me than it would have been for you.”

  He looked at me for a long time. His jaw worked on itself.

  The door banged open, and Willard Ganeel was standing there with Omar at his shoulder. There w
as something dangling from his right hand, something shiny that made a chiming metal sound when he started in our direction. It was only when he told me to hold out my hands that I saw they were cuffs and shackles he was holding. I stuck both hands out over the stall rail, and Willard made quick work of fastening them around my wrists. He still had a pair left over. I don’t know why he’d brought two pair, for God’s sake. He nodded to Omar, who set to work unlocking the front gate. Billy stepped back when Omar opened the gate wide and I walked on out.

  “Far enough,” Willard said. He nodded to Omar, who dropped to his knees and started to work the second set.

  “Oh, Jesus, Willard.”

  “There’s rules,” he said.

  It took Omar a couple of tries to get them around my boots, but when it was done, he looked up smiling, like a kid finally tying his own shoes.

  “A horse gets hobbled, Willard. Not a man. I don’t eat out of a trough or shit in the street. This ain’t right.”

  “There’s rules,” he said again. “I checked with Rooney. The back room’s available. Let’s go.”

  I started forward, and almost went on my nose, the length of chain was so short. Billy grabbed hold of my elbow and kept me upright. I started again, and could only take little tippy steps. I felt myself start to hunch over, pulling in somehow, my head going down. It was god-awful, the worst feeling I ever had in all my days, humiliating and hard. Billy still held hard to my arm when we got out onto the street. Omar and Willard were right behind us, and Willard had drawn his sidearm. People on the boardwalk all stopped and looked while I made my way to the other side of the street, moving like a gut-shot deer just before it goes down.

  “Almost there,” Billy kept saying. “Almost there.”

  A couple of little girls out with their maw hid behind her skirt and peeked out around her, looking at me. One of them pointed. They both giggled. Their maw hushed at them, but they all three kept looking. When we got to the boardwalk, the chain was too short to let me take a full step up, so I had to half hop up to the boardwalk level, getting my feet under me with a boost from Billy at my elbow.

  “Almost there. Almost there.”

  “Willard? How about we go in the back way?”