Callum said ‘I guess the fact they ain’t here means Wes and Lech ain’t dead.’
The queue shuffled forward.
‘Guess so,’ Red said quietly. He was watching the fellow in charge, a bald-headed man in spectacles and a suit. The man was spouting off about how safety was the railroad’s number one concern.
‘Excuse me, mister,’ Red said, louder now, catching the suited fellow’s attention.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Who shot ’em? I mean I appreciate you keeping us safe. I’d like to shake the feller’s hand who shot these two.’
Maxwell Higgs smiled. ‘Thank you. Yes, we do strive to keep you safe. The man who shot them? We have guards on every train. You wouldn’t spot them. But they’re there.’
‘And this was one of your guards?’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘I’d sure like to shake his hand.’
‘I’ll pass on your appreciation, sir. I’m sure you understand that we can’t reveal the identity of our guards.’
‘Thank you, Mister. . . ?’
‘Higgs. Maxwell Higgs. No thank you, sir.’
The queue shuffled forwards, and a few moments later Red Kelly was standing right in front of the body of his dead brother. ‘Don’t worry, kid,’ he mouthed. ‘Folks is going to pay.’
Happy Harvey’s wife was a fiery red-haired Irish woman named Caroline. He told anyone who listened – always making sure that Caroline wasn’t in hearing distance, and always prefacing his statement with ‘Don’t tell her I said this, but’ – that the reason he spent so much time at the livery was that even the wildest, most badly behaved, angry, and stubborn stallion was a darn sight easier to figure out and control than his wife. Yet whenever he said such things it always came back to bite him. Even if his confidantes never uttered a word it was as if she somehow knew. Karma, she’d say. It’s karma. Many a time she tried to explain to him what this mysterious magic was.
Here it was in action.
Only this morning he’d mentioned to that stranger with the grey mare that there was a feller down at the railroad liked to shoot train robbers under the pretext that they were running away, rather than go through the rigmarole (and possibility of acquittal) that came with taking them to trial. Now that fellow had walked through his door.
Happy took a deep pull on his cheroot. That was another reason for the long hours at the stables: Caroline wouldn’t let him smoke them at home. She said they smelled like the Devil was burning a trail-hand’s socks down in Hell.
He angled his head towards the ceiling, breathed out a stream of smoke, and said ‘How can I help you?’ He couldn’t remember the fellow’s name, but decided he wouldn’t have used it even if he could remember.
‘I’m looking for someone.’ The man’s voice was quiet.
‘All I got here are horses.’
‘Funny,’ the man said.
‘Not being funny. Just saying it as it is.’
‘The fellow I’m looking for has stabled up a grey mare.’
Happy thought back to his visitor earlier that morning, the train robber. Or at least that’s what he had assumed the fellow had been. He had seemed like a good man. But here was . . . Adams – that was his name. Here was Adams asking after the feller, and word was you didn’t want to mess with Adams.
‘A grey mare?’
‘Yep. Came in last night.’
Happy pursed his lips. He wanted to say nope, no grey mares here, mister, for no other reason than he’d liked the feller this morning. But there was growing knot in the pit of his belly. He recalled someone over at the Buffalo Bar telling him once how Adams had broken a man’s fingers one by one until the man revealed the whereabouts of a cowboy that this Adams was after. The chap said that Adams had done three fingers before the man had given up the information. Another man at the bar said that the feller had given up the information after just one finger had been broken, but that Adams had done two more just for fun, or rather because the man hadn’t offered up the information right away.
‘Yes,’ Happy said, not feeling good about it. ‘I do have a grey mare here. And yes, he came in last night.’
He breathed in smoke but it burned his throat and made him cough. He placed the cheroot into a cup of cold coffee on his desk. It sizzled. A moment later Happy realized he was clasping his fingers together as if to protect them.
‘Fellow give you his name?’
‘Nope.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Tall. Had a beard. Going grey.’ No point in lying.
‘Say when he’d be back?’
‘Said he might be leaving today, or might want another night.’
‘Did he say anything else? Where he was staying? Where he was going?’
The thing was Adams could check on the horse. He could walk out back and see the horse for himself. Sure there were many more grey mares than one, but it hadn’t been worth the risk to deny that the feller had come here. But now Happy was feeling bad, feeling like he’d given the tall man up. There was a different knot in his stomach now – a knot of disappointment in himself.
‘No,’ Happy said, hoping his voice sounded stronger than it felt. ‘Never said nothing.’
Adams’ eyes were the colour of gunmetal. They were as hard as gunmetal too. For a second Happy thought that Adams was going to call his lie and then break all of his fingers. He fumbled for another cheroot whilst his fingers were good for it.
‘I’m going to send a man over. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. If this fellow comes back before then you keep him talking. You do that?’
‘Sure.’
Happy flicked a Lucifer into life. He applied the flame to his fresh cigarette.
‘And another thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Those cigarettes stink. Next time I come in, if you’re smoking one, you put it out. If you’re not smoking one, you don’t start.’
Chapter Six
She had green eyes. He hadn’t noticed this before. The previous times they had met, her bonnet had shielded her eyes. But this evening her hair was loose. It fell softly over her shoulders. She wore a light blue blouse, blue trousers, and black boots. The trousers and boots were clean and new looking, but she was like a different woman to the one he had met on the train and again outside the government building. She looked far more at ease, far more relaxed, but no less pretty.
‘Divine,’ Jim Jackson said, smiling.
She looked at him across the table.
‘Divine?’
There had been a time, a long time ago, when he never thought he’d smile, laugh, or joke again.
‘You. . . .’ He let the word hang. It could go either way. ‘You look divine,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Thank you.’
‘This place, you described it as divine, too. You were right.’
‘Don’t spoil it,’ she said, smiling also.
He raised a wine glass and she followed suit. They touched glasses.
‘My sister told me off for having dinner with you on my second night in town. But then she’s always telling me off about something. She came right here to Austin because the jobs were good and plentiful. I went to Kansas and then Colorado. She told me off about that.’
‘It sounds adventurous. You were brave.’
‘I’m not brave. I wasn’t alone. There was a group of us.’
‘Nevertheless.’
‘Well, it didn’t last. I’m back now.’ She paused. ‘I was scared. I mean I was scared on the train. I was scared in Kansas and Colorado. Sometimes you just have to do things though, whether you’re scared or not.’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘You don’t strike me as a man who’d be scared of much.’
‘You might be surprised.’
A waiter appeared at their table and they ordered rare steak and vegetables.
‘You know, when she discovered who you were and who your friends were Roberta almost locke
d me in my room.’
‘But you’d have climbed out the window,’ he said, joking, but her eyes widened and she told him she had been about to say that very same thing.
‘Back east we used to make a wish if we said the same thing at the same time.’
‘Back east?’
‘Everybody started back east, didn’t they?’
‘I guess so,’ she said. Then: ‘You intrigue me, you know?’
‘Really?’
‘Jim Jackson. Train robber. Murderer. Convict.’
‘No wonder your sister didn’t want you to meet me.’
‘I told her I don’t see you as a murderer. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that I’d already seen you kill a man.’
‘She was right.’
‘But it wasn’t murder. You were protecting us. I don’t see you . . . I can’t see you as a murderer.’
‘I never murdered anyone before, either. They said I did. They framed me and my friends for it. But I didn’t do it.’
She stared at him; her pretty green eyes and soft curls made him feel warm.
‘I know,’ she said.
They sat quietly for a few moments.
‘How did it go? The interview, I mean.’
‘They hired me.’
‘I’m pleased.’
‘I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea when I was out west. Come back to a real town. Make something of myself.’ She paused. ‘Find a man. Raise a family.’
‘It sounds nice.’
‘Does it?’
‘If that’s what you want,’ he said.
They drank more wine. The silences were good silences, not awkward, but space that allowed the thoughts and considerations room to breathe. The waiter brought their steaks and more wine. In the corner a man in a bow tie started playing very quietly on a piano.
‘Your friends are dead,’ she said.
He had thought they would be. His heart sank into a new emptiness.
‘All but one. I’m sorry.’
‘All but one?’ That was something. He leant forward. ‘Who?’
‘I have to go through them in the order you told me – it’s how I remember.’
‘OK.’
‘Hans Freidlich: they hanged him. They hanged him right away. Said he was the leader of the gang.’
‘He was.’
‘Leon Winters—’
‘LT.’
‘LT?’
‘We called him LT. It was short for Long Tall Winters. He’s over six feet tall.’
She smiled.
‘He’s still alive. He’s the one.’
‘Where?’
‘He’s in a prison camp. I wrote it down. Roberta cursed me for asking but she did it. I actually think she liked you.’
‘It was a brief romance,’ he said, trying to keep the moment light, but feeling his insides churning. Leon was still alive. One of them was still alive. It was why he had come to Austin.
She smiled and handed him a slip of carefully folded paper. The writing inside was beautifully neat. The words chilled him.
‘Leasing Camp 13,’ he said. ‘Prairie City, Madison County.’
‘It’s about a hundred miles north of here. Are you OK? Your hand is shaking.’
He put the note down and clasped his fingers together. Back when he was just out of a leasing camp he had been known as Trembles. That’s what they did to you. They took everything from you and left you worthless, with nothing but fear coursing through your body every second of every day.
‘He’s still there,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
He took a long drink of wine. Wine and whiskey had been how, in the old days, he had taken care of those trembles. He had drunk so much that the nervousness was erased by alcohol. The trouble was, everything else – dignity, honesty, pride, hours of the day and night – were erased too. It had been a tough price to pay. This wine . . . it had been a risk to drink again. Would he slide backwards into something he had worked so hard to escape from? But he felt that the moment, the evening, with Rosalie had warranted it. So he had taken the risk.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, wiping his mouth.
‘You want the others?’ she said.
‘Yes, please.’
‘John Allan, with an A: there are no records.’
‘No records?’
‘None.’
‘Patrick Reagan: he died in Huntsville three years back from pneumonia. William Moore: he was shot whilst trying to escape from a chain gang.’
She leaned back in her chair.
‘I’m sorry the information isn’t better.’
He drank some more wine.
‘No, it’s good. I really appreciate it. Please thank your sister for me.’
‘Can you tell me about it?’ she said. ‘You did ten years, my sister said. Camp Number Five. I can see from your reaction that it wasn’t good.’
He shook his head. ‘Trust me, it’s not a story for this evening.’ He wanted to say it wasn’t a story for a pretty woman, someone so pure and innocent, so clean.
She looked at him. There was a sheen of wetness in her eyes as if she was holding back tears for him, and the story he was afraid to tell her.
‘Another evening, then?’ she said, blinking away those unshed tears.
The piano man launched into a soft version of an old song, ‘When You and I Were Young’ that he and Jennifer-Anne had once danced to a lifetime ago.
‘Are you staying in Austin?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mean now, tonight. I mean for good.’
‘I’ve got a job. I’ll be here for a while.’
‘Then yes, another evening.’ He smiled. She smiled back and for the first time in a long time he wanted to kiss a woman. ‘But I won’t lie. Tomorrow I’ll be gone.’
A look of disappointment passed over her face.
‘Just for a while,’ he said. But the truth was, if he was successful in what he was planning to do, staying in Texas – let alone coming back to Austin – might be akin to putting his head in a noose himself. But she was pretty. And he did want to kiss her.
‘LT,’ she said, as if those two letters explained everything.
‘LT.’
‘You’re a fascinating man, Jim Jackson.’
‘And you’re a beautiful lady, Rosalie Robertson.’
‘Am I not fascinating, too?’
‘I don’t know. Tell me about Kansas and Colorado.’
Ben Adams sat on a stool by the bar, nursing a beer. He looked across the room, through the large archway that led into the restaurant, and watched the man supposedly called Daniel Flanders talking to a very pretty young woman.
The way it happened, his man, George Dubois, whom Adams had installed over at the livery, had been sitting quietly in the corner of the stables when Flanders had come by to check on his horse. Flanders had spoken to the horse for a while, told the mare that he had a date with a pretty girl that evening. He’d checked the horse’s food and water, and told the horse that he knew she was being well looked after but that it never hurt to check. Then he’d said he’d be back, maybe first thing in the morning and had left.
George Dubois – he would do well that kid – had used his initiative and had followed Flanders.
George had waited outside the Alamo Hotel for a couple of hours in the late afternoon heat and, just about the time he was busting badly to relieve himself, one of his fellow Houston and Central guards had happened along. Dubois had collared the man to take over observation duties for a minute whilst George had done the business in an alleyway. After that he’d sent his co-worker to find Adams.
An hour later Adams arrived and had taken over the watching himself. Early evening Daniel Flanders had come out of the Alamo looking all scrubbed up, rested, and pretty jaunty.
Who wouldn’t be jaunty, Adams thought now, looking at the woman, with a lady as pretty that hanging on your every word?
When she handed Flanders a note that mad
e him go quite white, Adams sat upright. It looked like Flanders had seen a ghost, not a piece of paper.
Adams already had another man back up at the stables with orders not to let Flanders go anywhere. Meanwhile, Adams figured, it might be worth asking this woman what was in that note. Probably easier to ask her than Flanders. No point alerting the man to anything at this stage. After all, he might turn out to be a nobody, although the tenseness that had been in Adams’ neck and shoulders all day was like some kind of warning system suggesting otherwise. And why was Flanders hiding himself away if he had nothing to hide?
No, Flanders wasn’t a nobody.
But who was he? That was the question.
Chapter Seven
‘I can walk from here,’ Rosalie said.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘Austin is quite safe,’ she said.
‘How do you know? You only arrived yesterday.’
‘My sister has told me all about it.’
‘Well, I’ve enjoyed you company. The least I can do is to make it last as long as possible.’
That was the thing. She wanted it to last as long as possible, as well. He really was fascinating. Handsome, too. Tall and lean and rugged. Brave and fearless with a gun, and charming. But most of all he was intriguing. A self-confessed train robber who had been through some kind of hell that he wouldn’t talk about, but had voluntarily returned to the scene of that hell to rescue his friends from the same fate.
And tomorrow he was leaving.
Yes, it would be nice to have five more minutes of his company, but a girl had to make her own stand once in a while. He was leaving, and for all his talk of coming back, she believed she knew what kind of man he was. He was a man of the west, not of a city like Austin. He wouldn’t fit here, in an office, or even working on the construction site. That would be yet another kind of hell to him.
So it was goodbye, and no need to walk her home.
‘I’ve enjoyed your company, too. I hope you have some success with your friend Leon.’
‘I really appreciate you getting the information.’
‘Thank Roberta, not me.’
Dead Man Walking Page 4