“His vocal cords aren’t damaged, but it’s going to be while before he can speak normally again,” Doctor Stiles says. Hank’s eyes are red, he looks at his Ma, he thinks he sees Finn standing next to her. Jeremiah gets Hank back onto the table; he covers him with a blanket. They make the trip to Springfield, where Doc Lewis works on Hank; he took seven bullets, lost two of his fingers on his left hand, and lost the left side of his jaw.
“I’m gonna be real honest with you, ma’am,’ Doc Lewis tells Ma. “There ain’t no way for me to explain how he’s still alive and when those bandages come off, he’s gonna be angrier than a hornet’s nest. I’ve seen worse injuries but those men were all dead.”
“He told me he was a hard man to kill, he’s always been tough, even when he was young,” Ma says.
“He is an interesting specimen and hard to kill for damn sure,” Doc Lewis says, he wipes his brow. Three months later, Hank looks at his face in the mirror, he thinks of Suzanne and Sterling, his face turns red, he feels a weight in the pit of his stomach, he puts the black handkerchief over the lower part of his face, he places his fingers on the scars on his body, his chest, his thigh, his abdomen, he feels every thick scar on his body, he holds his left hand up in the light and looks at his knuckles where his fingers are now gone.
“Are you all right?” Jeremiah asks.
“It’s relative,” Hank says, his voice sounds like he gargled glass. “Did you send that money off to Slim that I gave you?”
“Yes, I signed it with the name that you gave me. There is a problem though.”
“What’s that?”
‘Yankee soldiers came back into town, they took anything of value they could find, they did the same in countless towns across the South. Rumor is they’ve taken a lot of gold as well dispersed all across this nation.”
“I’ll look into it. Did you send that letter to Susie too?”
“I did, everything you told me to do, I did. I guess the question is, what do we do now?”
“It’s simple Jeremiah. As a posse, we rob their trains, we rob their banks, we take it all back.”
“You give the order and we will follow.”
“Betty dyin’, the house burning down, it’s all my fault.”
“You killed that whole platoon on your own.”
“No, you boys saved me.”
“Hank, there was only five of them left. You’d killed all the rest.”
“I don’t take any pleasure in it, but it seems to be what I’m good at, it’s time I get back in the saddle both literally and figuratively.”
“That’s not all, Hank. They have a bounty on your head, enough to make any man wealthy for the rest of his life and there’s a southern writer that’s taken to writing stories about you.”
“In the penny books?”
“Yes, and he’s not the only one. We’ll be spending the rest of our lives on the run.”
“Send some of those penny books to your boys.”
“They were asking about you, Caroline told me in the letter she wrote to me.”
“You used a pen name too, right?”
“Of course.”
“You tell them Hank’s fine. When they’re old enough, we’ll tell them where we’re at. Tell them my offer still stands.”
“What offer?”
“They’ll be the next generation. All this loot we take, what we can’t return to the rightful owners, we’ll split it up and pass the gold down to our kin.”
“We’ve got to survive that long first.”
“We’ll do more than just survive, Jeremiah. Everyone always said I had a temper before but my rage now knows no bounds, we will unleash hell upon them; kill anyone that gets in our way. They sought to kill me, they took my brother, they took Betty, they took Pa’s house, we’ll take from them until there ain’t nothing left to take anymore, they made me into a monster, I can’t show my face on the street because it would frighten women and children. They left me like this, disfigured with more lead in me than thirty pencils; I’ll show them what a real monster is.”
“The man I know, the man I fought alongside, he is not a monster.” Hank pulls his black handkerchief down and reveals his face.
“The man you knew is dead; they turned me into a beast, now it’s time to show them my wrath.”
Hank is staring out the window twenty years later, contemplating their last job and what he’ll do about Billy. The next morning the gang enters the bank, Hank fires up at the ceiling, he shoots the officers who are guarding it. “Y’all get down on the ground now, when that black bag comes around, you empty all your valuables into it, your watches, your money, your jewelry, you givin’ it all up but we shall reward you with your lives. Now you, sir, you are Edgar Trask, if you don’t want your brains spilled all over the wall, you will open that vault or sure as hell, I will hollow out your head in front of all these people,” Hank says, his rough voice intimidates even hardened men.
“I can’t, I can’t, I know who you are,” Edgar says. Hank points the gun to his head.
“Then you’ve heard the stories about me and you know what I’m capable of, yet you say that you can’t open it. You see, but you can. If you don’t we will blow it open anyway. You don’t wanna die for nothin’. Think carefully for, if you refuse, I fear it will be the last thought you ever have.”
“I’m a Christian man, I don’t fear death,” Edgar says. Hank shoots him, the crack of the gun reverberates across the walls of the bank, women scream.
“It always has to be the hard way. Now, let’s blow that safe open,” Hank tells Jeremiah. The sound is deafening as the vault door is blown off. “Load it all into the wagons,” Hank orders. Once all of the gold and money along with the jewels are loaded into the wagon, Hank turns to address the occupants of the bank. “You stay on the ground for thirty minutes and not one second before for this bank was rigged with dynamite last night, one of my associates will be waiting to light it should you even lift one finger. It has been our pleasure to rob you today, thank you for being cooperative victims,” Hank concludes. He grabs Billy by the coat once they are outside, “You take my lighter and you stand around the corner, if any of them move or leave, you light the fuse and run. After thirty minutes, you come find us; you know where we’ll be.”
Hank gets in the first cart with Jeremiah. “Now let’s get back to the safe house,” Hank says, he pulls his mask down.
“Billy’s going to be pissed we left him behind again.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Billy thinks. I told you that kid was not trustworthy when we took him aboard.”
“He idolizes you.”
“He talked to the governor about arranging for my capture. The kid is the traitor. Luckily, the governor believed him as inept as I do. I mean to kill him before we get back to Missouri. He can’t be trusted.”
“He’s a twenty-three year-old kid. If you knew he was the one who tried to sell us out, then why didn’t you say so in the basement of the saloon? You said you had a feeling one of us would betray you, you never said anything about knowing who it was and what he did.”
“It’s just like poker, Jeremiah, you never let them see your hand until you have to, and even then, you do it begrudgingly. But I’m telling you now. He tried to betray us, if given the chance, he’ll do it again.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Don’t worry; we’ll have a proper shootout on equal terms, just so it’s fair.”
“Drawin’ on him isn’t fair; you’ll kill him before his finger twitches.”
“We haven’t spent all these years robbin’ and movin’ that treasure to be undone by a twenty-three year-old with too much ambition and not enough reasoning or skill. He wants to be one of us but he lacks the fortitude, I would blame it on his generation but your boys, on the other hand, they can be trusted.”
“I don’t want them drawn into this life, though. They seem to be hell-bent on it but they’ll always be lookin’ over their shoulder, not trustin
’ anyone.”
“We trust each other but our bond was forged in a war we lost.”
“Do you ever think about it anymore?”
“I think about it everyday. Sometimes I still see Finn in my dreams, I see those eyes and it makes me wake in a sweat every time.”
“You hardly sleep as it is.”
“A man like me doesn’t need sleep.”
“I do, I sleep any chance I get.”
“That’s because you’re still human.”
“You are too Hank, it’s just buried somewhere in there.” At the governor’s mansion in Missouri, there was a gala being held, Billy Callahan attended wearing a white suit and a white cowboy hat, a man named Zeke found him among the men in tuxedos and the women in their cotton dresses.
“The governor has asked to see you in his office upstairs, I’ll lead you there,” Zeke says, he is a large man with a scar on his left cheek; he is wearing a black suit that had to be tailored to fit his physique.
“William Callahan, thank you for accepting my invitation,” Governor Shepherd says, he rubs his hand over his slick, white hair and sits at his desk wearing a black tuxedo, he is smoking a cigar. “I trust you have enjoyed my booze and tried your best to fit in despite being the only orphan here.”
“What do you know about me?”
“I wouldn’t have invited you if I hadn’t looked into your past.”
“If he finds out I was here, he will kill me.”
“Then you are taking a risk. My whole life has been spent taking risks. Take that hat off so I can see your eyes while I speak to you. Ask Zeke Winslow there and he’ll tell you as long as Henry Wright is a free man, this great state shall be the source of mockery.” Zeke Winslow towers over Billy, Billy looks down at Zeke’s black cowboy boots and sees the shine on them, he takes off his white cowboy hat and holds it in his right hand.
“The man’s become a folk hero,” Zeke says.
“Do you know, Billy, how many Missouri men fought for the Union?”
“No, sir, I reckon I don’t.”
“Over one hundred thousand Missourians fought for the Union. Compare that to thirty thousand for the Confederacy. Now the war’s been over for twenty years, yet Henry Wright, who slaughtered a whole platoon of Union soldiers single-handedly over a god damn woman, after the war was over, is looked up to like a fucking folk hero.”
“He didn’t kill all those soldiers over a woman,” Billy says.
“I didn’t invite you here for your opinion, you little punk. I honestly don’t give two shits why he did it. All I care about is I’ve stood for a state divided obviously. Why else would they hide this man? It’s not like he should be difficult to spot, I’ve had that revolting countenance of his plastered all over this state, sickening anyone with common decency, the man is a butcher, cold-blooded, he’s a thief with the largest bounty on his head in the whole fucking state and we still can’t lay a finger on him or any one of his gang. But we got to you, didn’t we? You must be so insignificant in his eyes, that your absence does not cause him concern.”
“I know what you’re trying to do. You mean to isolate me so I’ll turn against him.”
“If I had my druthers, I’d chop your balls off and throw you in a pit in the backwoods for the rest of your miserable life. You lack the intestinal fortitude to kill Henry Wright or bring him to justice.”
“If you doubt my courage, you will not find me lacking. He’s just a man; he can be killed just like any other.”
“Do you know how many times we’ve tried to kill or apprehend him? Every time, the best shooters and trackers I can find come back in pine boxes. Not to mention that killing him might make him more popular than he already is. That is my predicament, not to mention where the hell is he hiding all this money and gold he’s stealing? I don’t suppose you have a fucking clue about that either do you, boy?”
“He has not divulged that information but the four of them know.”
“And you haven’t, in all this time, seen them stashing it anywhere?”
“I get sent on errands, I know it’s somewhere in this state.”
“You are about as useless as a cunt in room full of cocksuckers. Do you work for him for free?”
“He pays me well, the money he divides up among us, what he’s stashing is the gold. But you can’t stop him because you don’t know his weakness.”
“Weakness? The man was shot half to hell, his house was burned down, no one that knows him is willing to say anything of value and we have applied pressure, that’s what Zeke is for.”
“You can use his family to catch him, any of them really.”
“You truly don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, do you? Jack Dolon has no family, Ernest Gobbins doesn’t either after his wife was killed, all we have is Caroline Wilkins and her boys but Jeremiah hasn’t been back for twenty years, Zeke’s been watching. Suzanne Wright and Sterling have disappeared off the face of the fucking earth as far as we can tell.”
“That’s impossible, Hank writes them all the time. You’d think he was Mark Twain, as much as that man writes.”
“Now if you, in all your youthful ignorance, could see where he’s sending those letters or get your hands on one of them, then you may be of use to us yet.”
“I need to know what’s in it for me.”
“We won’t kill you and you’ll be pardoned for your crimes. Now if he is captured, then that bounty would be yours. You won’t be able to do it, but the information you provide us with could lead to his capture.”
“You use what he loves against him.” Unbeknownst to Governor Shepherd, Hank Wright had hired Zeke, turning the Governor’s own enforcer and informant into a man loyal to the gang and willing to look the other way while Caroline raised her three sons in peace with Jeremiah visiting when he could. Hank had adopted the philosophy that if the law is sent after you, the superior criminal buys them off or, even better, has them secretly working for him instead. Billy Callahan was not privy to this fact, just like he was unaware that Zeke told Hank by a frozen pond in winter that Billy had met with the Governor and offered to turn on the gang, suggested using Hank’s family to do so, and was told to watch for any proof of where Hank’s family was hidden. Hank considered killing Billy shortly after he was given the news but he thought it was better to wait a bit so the body wouldn’t be in Missouri and it would further delay the Governor’s next step of hiring an unknown to seek out the information.
Zeke had no knowledge of where the gold was hidden, but he was allowed to keep watch while Hank visited Suzanne and Sterling for the first time after his grievous injuries. Hank had desperately wanted to see them, he had been writing them every week and sending money; Susie would write him back but he needed to see them again, he had just been dreading what her reaction would be to his appearance, he wore his black handkerchief over the lower half of his face, up to his nose, he tied his horse to the hitching post and patted Zeke on the shoulder before he knocked on the door, he removed his hat.
“Hello?” Suzanne answered from behind the door.
“It’s me, babe,” Hank said. She opened the door, she hugged him hard and kissed him on the forehead, her hands were shaking. Sterling was in the living room playing with a train set that he had set up, he was twenty-one but he still played with trains.
“Boy, come say hello to your father,” Susie told him. Sterling had his head down, parallel to the floor watching the wheels of the train as he moved it along the track, he shot up and came to the door, he had a small black hat on and overalls. Hank put his arms out to hug him; Sterling looked at the mask and backed away a bit. “There ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of, this is your Pa,” Susie said. Hank hugged him, he smelled the boy’s hair, he smelled dirty.
“I’ve been away for a long time,” Hank said.
“Where have you been, Pa?” Sterling asked, his voice was still high-pitched, despite his age.
“I’ve been all over the country, I brought something
for you,” he said. He handed Sterling a gold coin, Sterling held it up and saw the light glimmer off the edge of it. “Are you staying out of trouble?” Sterling looked at his mother.
“Should I say the truth?” Sterling asked.
“The boy takes after you, he’s stubborn as hell and he’s constantly out playing in the dirt still, never outgrown it, he goes fishing, he catches frogs, he gets into fights, he needs a man around the house, he needs his father here,” Susie says.
“You know I can’t, I wish that I could but there’s too much risk. If even one person spots me, you will be in danger and I can’t stomach that. Besides, the boys and I are making good on our mission, we are reclaiming what they took.”
“But Hank, you don’t have to do that. We could be together. I mean, I know what happened, you’ve told me everything from the letters but I’m not afraid.”
“Boy, you go play with your train, your Ma and I will be upstairs.” Hank holds her hand as they walk upstairs; his hands are rough like chopped wood while her hands are soft like small pillows. Hank takes his holsters off and sets them on her dresser, he turns to look at his wife, he sets his hat down on the dresser too and takes off his brown duster.
“I want to see the rest of your face,” Susie asks.
“I’d prefer that you didn’t, it might frighten you. I’m not the same man, Susie.”
“You told me what happened, Ma told me the story too, hell I even read about it in those penny books, Sterling knows, there isn’t anything you can show me that would change the way I look at you, you are my husband.”
“What they did to me though, they changed me forever.”
“Hank, I’ve seen the wanted posters, I know what they did. But you’re still the same person.”
“Susie, I’m not, believe me,” he says, he turns to face the window, he looks out at the swing set, he watches the lone swing move gently in the breeze, he unties the black handkerchief in the back, he takes it off, he sees his reflection in the window for a moment, he turns to look at Susie. She sees her husband’s face and puts her face in her hands, she starts crying, she sits on the bed. Hank puts the black handkerchief back on, he sits next to her. “I shouldn’t have come, they turned me into this, I shouldn’t have let you see it, I wanted you to remember me the way that I was.”
Detective Tumbler and the Man in Brown (Detective Tumbler Trilogy Book 2) Page 15