Dead Man Walking

by Derek Rutherford

  ‘I’ve got a knife,’ Red said.

  ‘You going to kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just ask him who he is.’

  Adams couldn’t figure it. Who else would be trailing Jackson? Maybe he’d upset someone in town? He’d got plenty drunk enough. But these two . . . they looked like they ridden a hundred miles to get here. How would they know that Jackson would be here right now?

  He’d have to ask them. Simple as that. Neither looked like they had much about themselves. He couldn’t risk them messing things up.

  Damn it.

  Jackson was almost at the livery now. He turned a corner and was out of sight – but that was OK, since George would be picking him up in a moment.

  A few seconds later and the two fellows went around the corner, too.

  Adams raised his pace.

  Adams came round the corner and one of the men was waiting for him. The fellow grabbed Adams’ arm and spun him round, smashing his head up against the wooden wall of the livery stable. For a moment Adams’ vision wavered. Pain erupted from his shoulder blades where they had hit the hard wood.

  As the pain flared out he tensed his stomach muscles, expecting the man to punch him in the belly. That’s what he would have done.

  But instead the fellow let go of his wrist and stepped closer.

  Adams blinked, clearing his vision, and now the man was pressing a knife to his throat. The man’s breath was foul. The stubble on his face was light brown, almost red. His teeth were coffee-coloured.

  ‘Who in the hell are you?’ the man said.

  The fellow pressed the knife hard enough against his throat that Adams felt the skin give way and blood trickle down.

  The second man was standing behind the first. He had his gun drawn.

  ‘Name’s Ben Adams.’

  ‘Yeah, but who are you?’

  ‘What do you want with Jackson?’ This was the second man, darker hair and bloodshot eyes, dust in his beard.

  So they knew Jackson’s name.

  ‘Who’s Jackson?’ Adams said.

  ‘The fellow you were following.’

  ‘I’m not following anyone.’

  The red-haired man pressed the knife deeper into Adams’ throat.

  ‘He’s mine, you understand? You turn around and walk back the way you came.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That don’t matter.’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  Across the street a woman and a man had paused and were watching what was happening. A fellow was over there standing in a doorway, also looking on.

  Behind the second man, the one with his gun drawn, Adams saw George Dubois come into view.

  Time to take control of the situation and make these fellows pay for drawing a knife on him.

  He turned his head slightly to the left, easing the pressure against the blade, and at exactly the same moment he drove his right fist hard into the red-haired man’s side. The man’s eyes widened and evil-smelling breath exploded from his lungs. He doubled over. Adams twisted away from the wall and brought a knee up smashing it into the man’s jaw.

  The one with the gun said ‘Jesus’ and started to raise his gun, but George was there pressing his own revolver against the fellow’s neck, telling him to stay still and not to move a muscle. The man paused, his gun still pointing at the ground.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ George said.

  Now Adams kicked the red-haired man’s legs backward and the fellow, still gasping for breath, crumpled to the floor. Adams stamped on the man’s knife hand, and the man let go of the knife.

  The other man dropped his gun.

  Adams sensed there were more people watching now, a growing crowd. He knelt down beside Red and grabbed the man’s hand, twisted it in such a way that the man actually squealed, a strange pig-like sound as the pain and the need to breathe got all tangled up in his throat. Then he had hold of the man’s middle finger, bending it back.

  ‘Your turn,’ Adams said. ‘Who are you? Why are you following Jackson?’

  Red didn’t know that such pain was contained within his fingers. The fellow was doing something to his hand that made it feel like a knife was being drawn slowly and deeply along his entire arm, into his shoulder, up his neck and into his brain. He couldn’t breathe, either. He needed air to help with the pain but the fellow’s punch felt like it had crushed his insides.

  It was wrong. He was the one who had been in control and in a heartbeat he was on belly, face down in the dirt, and the pain was so bad that he could actually feel urine dribbling into his pants and he was helpless to do anything about it.

  Where was Cal?

  Cal should have been there behind him, with a gun. There were two of them. One of this fellow. It was wrong.

  Now the man bent his finger back so far that there was a sound like a dry branch snapping and all the pain that had gone before was nothing. This was like a sheet of white fire that filled his whole body. Air or no air, he couldn’t help but scream.

  Ned Donovan was crouched beneath Red’s horse trying to buckle up a saddle strap when he heard the scream. It was Red. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did. He’d heard Red yell a few times when they were riding alongside a train or chasing down a lone rider. But he’d never heard Red scream and yet he knew this was Red. It was an awful scream, a scream full of pain and anguish.

  Ned stood up.

  Across the livery, in another stall, Jackson stood up too. He’d no doubt heard it too. He looked over at Ned. It felt strange to have the man they had been tracking down staring right at him, blissfully unaware of what they were planning to do. For a moment Ned felt sure that Jackson could read his mind.

  But then came another scream and this one made Ned reach down and slip his gun from his holster, and without another look at Jackson he ran outside.

  When Ben Adams snapped the fellow’s second finger, George knew the man was about to start talking. He was weeping now.

  ‘Don’t move,’ George said to the one he was standing next to, his gun still pressed into the man’s neck.

  ‘Let him be,’ the man said. He was trembling.

  ‘Who are you?’ Adams asked the fellow on the ground. ‘Why are you following Jackson?

  The man took a great gulp of air and tried to stop the sobs in his throat long enough to speak, quickly enough to stop another finger being snapped.

  But before he could say anything another man stepped out of the livery. This one was equally dirty and unkempt, his clothes dusty, his face bearded.

  And this one had a gun in his hand.

  This one was raising his gun.

  This one’s finger whitened as he started to squeeze the trigger.

  George twisted, moving the barrel of his own gun from the back of the man’s neck in front of him, and lined up on the new fellow.

  George shot him.

  Jim Jackson heard the scream and turned just in time to see another fellow standing up in a stall. They looked at one another and Jim pulled a face as if to say what’s going on? The man stared at him. He looked scared, and when there was a second scream the man drew his gun and rushed outside.

  A moment later there was a gunshot, followed by a brief silence, and then the sound of a lady crying and men shouting, and beneath that another man swearing.

  The temptation was to take a look at what was going on. Gunshots and screaming weren’t good, yet no man could fail to have his curiosity roused by them. Nevertheless, he’d been witness to more than enough of both over the years, and today wasn’t a day to be getting pulled into the petty, if vicious, squabbles of Prairie City. Today was a day to be sticking to his plan.

  So he finished saddling up his mare, and then he rode her outside, turned away from the crowd and headed into the hills.

  The sheriff’s name was Tom August. ‘Like the month,’ he’d said to Ben Adams, a cocked shotgun in his hands pointing right at Adams’ belly. August had been across the street when the commoti
on had started. If it had just been a fight he may have left them to it, but when he heard the gunshot he had snapped that shotgun into readiness and had strode across the street. He saw that, in addition to the three standing men, there was a fellow dead in the dirt, and another on the floor with his hand tucked beneath his armpit and a look in his eyes like he wanted to burn the whole town down.

  ‘What a Godforsaken mess,’ August said.

  ‘I’m Ben Adams, trouble-shooter for the Houston and Texas. I need to speak to you in private urgently,’ one of the men said.

  ‘Do you now?’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘The Houston and Texas, huh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll check it out.’

  ‘We need to talk—’

  ‘What we need to do is to get Bones to have a look at this man’s hand, and we need to get this poor fellow covered up—’

  ‘It’s urgent!’

  ‘Then I need to talk to a few people, see if I can’t ascertain what happened.’ The sheriff looked around, registering the faces of those people who had witnessed events.

  ‘I figure the first thing, though, is you,’ he nodded at the man who still had a smoking gun in his hand. ‘You give your gun to. . . .’ He looked around the crowd again. ‘You give your gun to Louis.’ He nodded at a tall man in the crowd. The tall man nodded back. ‘Louis, you pick up that other gun that’s on the floor, too. Martin,’ he looked at another crowd member. ‘You go and knock Bones up – he’s probably still asleep – and tell him to get over to my office. And Maria, can you call on Skater and ask him to come and do something decent with this dead man.’ A woman in the crowd smiled and nodded.

  He turned back to Adams.

  ‘Trouble-shooter, huh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Looks to me like you might be a trouble-causer. We’ll get to the bottom of this mess, you can be sure of that. Meanwhile I’m afraid to say I’m going to have to lock all of you boys up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Now all of you, you walk in front of Louis and me. Any trouble and I’ll shoot you. I mean it. I hate paperwork and would you believe there’s less for a dead man than for a darn investigation. Come on. Move. I’ve got two cages and luckily they’re both empty. Now walk.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jim Jackson knelt at the edge of the tree line and whistled quietly. Too quietly – neither the boy nor dog heard him. They were too far away, over by the big brick house. The boy was wandering around with a stick, throwing it every once in a while for the dog to retrieve, but most of the time pushing it into the ground, turning over rocks with it, sometimes crouching down to see what he had uncovered.

  Jim had circled the camp when he had first arrived. It was quiet, as it had been these last few days: almost deserted, just the one guard spending most of his time leaning on the gate.

  It struck Jim that his plan was too complex, that it was full of holes. It would have been easier to just to have ridden into the camp with a shotgun in one hand, a six-gun in the other, and taken Leon in full view of the guard. And if the guard had put up a fight. . . . Well, so be it. That way would have worked. It was probably more liable to work than his current plan. But it still might have meant shooting dead the guard. The alarm would go up and they – the remaining guards, and whatever posse they could raise – would be on his and Leon’s tail quicker than if he did this thing surreptitiously.

  It might yet come to plan B. But this place never changed day to day, so he’d try it the quiet way first.

  He had picked a position where what gentle breeze there was blew over his shoulder. The skinned rabbit he had bought the day before in Prairie City was at his feet.

  He whistled again, louder. This time the terrier stopped mid-step, a front paw raised in the air, its head cocked to one side and its ears pointing up.

  Jim reached down and picked up the rabbit carcass. He couldn’t smell it, but he hoped the terrier could.

  Another whistle.

  Now the dog saw him.

  Its nose twitched and its tail wagged. It barked, looked once at the boy, and then came running towards him. It was within ten yards of him when the boy called.

  ‘Blue! Here boy.’

  The dog skidded on the dry dusty ground. It stopped but didn’t turn. Instead it stood looking at Jim Jackson, tail wagging, its tongue flicking out and moistening its nose.

  The boy looked over.

  ‘Rabbit?’ Jim said, reaching down, picking up the carcass and holding it out.

  ‘Blue!’

  The dog’s nose twitched faster. But it didn’t move.

  Now the boy was walking towards them.

  The boy saw Jim.

  The boy opened his mouth to yell.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jim said. ‘It’s all right.’ He dropped the rabbit and held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m a friend.’

  The boy stood there for a moment, his mouth still open.

  Then the dog shot forward and grabbed the rabbit carcass, turned and ran, taking the meat to a safe distance.

  Jim smiled. ‘It’s OK. I brought it for him.’

  The boy’s mouth closed. Then opened again and he said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Jim. What’s yours?’

  ‘You said you were a friend.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I don’t know you. How can you be my friend?’

  About twenty yards beyond the boy, the terrier was tearing at the rabbit carcass.

  ‘I brought your dog a rabbit.’

  ‘He can catch his own.’

  ‘Not many rabbits about this time of day.’

  ‘Are you hiding?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you crouched down in the trees?’

  ‘Well, maybe I am hiding. Just a little. You like secrets?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I guess.’

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How can I be sure?’

  ‘I can keep one. Besides, there ain’t no one to tell a secret to. Only Billy.

  ‘Who’s Billy?’

  ‘He guards the gate. He’s new.’

  ‘If I tell you a secret you won’t tell Billy, will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘OK. What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Alfie.’

  ‘How old are you, Alfie?’

  ‘I’m six.’

  ‘OK, Alfie, I’m going to trust you.’

  Whilst speaking, Jim had pulled the telescope from the inside of his jacket.

  ‘Wow, what’s that? An eye-glass?’

  ‘This? This is a telescope. It belonged to a soldier in the war. A general.’

  ‘What war?’

  ‘The war between the States.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  Jim handed the telescope to Alfie. He then knelt down next to the boy and showed him how to use it.

  ‘That’s amazing!’ Alfie said.

  ‘Listen,’ Jim said. ‘Do you know LT?’

  ‘LT?’

  ‘Leon.’

  ‘The only one I know is Billy.’

  ‘Leon is a tall man. He’s in the shed. The shed for men who can’t work.’

  ‘Oh, the tall man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s a dead man walking. That’s what Billy says.’

  The words made Jim go cold. His throat was suddenly dry. He swallowed.

  ‘I’m sure he is,’ Jim said. ‘But here’s my secret. I’m an old friend of Leon’s.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. And because he’s a dead man walking I’d like to get a final message to him. Just to say goodbye. Can you understand that?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Can you read, Billy?’

  ‘A little.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, you don’t need to read anything, just pass a message to Leon.’

  ‘I never talk to him. Not to any of them.’

  ‘I know. But sometimes you fill up the outhouse with paper.’

  ‘It smells!’

  ‘I’m sure it does.’

  ‘How about the next time you see Leon go into the outhouse, you run in and give him some outhouse paper. Could you do that?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘But you mustn’t tell anyone. Not anyone. Not even Billy.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll give you some special paper.’

  ‘I’ll need to get Billy to open the gate.’

  ‘Who usually gives you the outhouse paper?’

  ‘There’s a pile in the storeroom. I do it every day.’

  ‘You done it today?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then Billy will let you through?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK. Here’s the paper. You don’t need to read it. Tell Leon that Jim sent it. And Alfie. . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you do this and if you keep this secret and don’t tell anyone then tomorrow I’ll give you the telescope.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die!’

  Whittaker Gordon said to Billy Burke, ‘Is that Leon Winters?’

  ‘Yes, that’s him,’ Billy said.

  Billy was pleased to have the railroad guard with him. He hadn’t realized how lonely he had become in this job. Whilst the others rode off every day and watched over the men as they worked the timber, no doubt talking and laughing and sharing stories, he was here on his own, keeping a watch on a few weak men who could hardly raise themselves off their beds, let alone raise any trouble. Captain Fisher came down once in a while and had a chat, asked how Billy was getting on, but those conversations only lasted a few minutes and then the captain was off doing his rounds. Most of the time, though, the captain was up at the house or even away altogether. Billy wasn’t sure if Fisher didn’t own part of the business that all these men cut the lumber for. Then there was Webb Ellington. Webb was around a fair bit, too, though some days he went off with the gang. But he tended to keep himself to himself and when they did talk he was mostly grumpy and depressing, until these last few days when Webster had bucked up a bit.