Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  “Where's this fella?” the conductor asked.

  “Went out the side door. Dove over the bridge.”

  “Into the Kaw River?”

  “Damn lucky. If he'd gone head first into a ditch, Sonny'd broken his neck.”

  “Could still have. Water's shallow in this stretch.”

  “Let's go look for him,” Early said as he stuffed his pistol in his belt. He grabbed his hat and hustled up the aisle, down the steps, and out onto the gravel, the conductor close on his heels.

  “I got a trainload of passengers I got to look after,” the man in the black uniform said as he hot-footed it to keep up with Early running back along the tracks toward the bridge.

  The waiter who had served Early leaned out of the door of the dining car. “Hey, boss!” he called out.

  The conductor twisted back, stumbling.

  “What's the trouble?” the waiter asked.

  “Passenger jumped! Went in the river.”

  “You gonna need help?”

  “Won't turn you down, Tony!”

  The black man hopped down. He ran after the conductor already hustling away.

  Early, first to the bridge, scrambled down the embankment to the water's edge while the conductor, on the tracks, continued past him, out onto the trestle.

  “See anything from up there?” Early hollered as he waded into the knee-deep water.

  “Nothing. . . . Wait a minute.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hat in the middle of the river, drifting downstream.”

  “A body?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  The waiter plunged down the embankment and into the water. He sloshed after Early, who waded on, holding his pistol high to keep the gun from getting wet as the water rose to his waist.

  He glanced up toward the conductor. “What do you guess the fall?”

  “Thirty feet, maybe.”

  “Man could crack his head open just going in the water.”

  At midriver, Early yelped. He splashed from sight, a swirl of water taking his hat away. The waiter dove after him. Several moments passed, then the two surfaced, the waiter with his arm under Early's shoulder, Early flailing, spluttering. “There's a damn hole here!”

  “Deep?” the conductor asked.

  “Deep enough I didn't feel bottom.” Early, again established on his feet, stuffed his wet pistol in his belt. He twisted around to his savior. “You didn't have to come out here, but thanks.”

  “Admiral back there on the Mo made us all learn how to swim.”

  “Could the body be in the hole?” the conductor called down.

  The waiter touched Early's arm. “Only one way to find out.” He arched himself into a dive and disappeared.

  Early launched himself after his hat drifting away. He recovered it, slapped it on his head, and waded back to near where he felt the hole had to be. Early glanced up to the conductor. “How long he been down there?”

  “Minute. Minute and a half.”

  “I don't like this.”

  “You dive after him?”

  “My only swimming's been in a stock tank.”

  The water roiled and the waiter burst through the surface, sucking for wind, spitting. He swam to Early and let his feet down. “Nuthin' in that hole I could feel wasn't supposed to be there.”

  Early squeezed water from his shirtsleeve. “Then where the heck is he?”

  “Hole's big enough, deep enough a man could dive in and kick back up without ever hitting bottom, if he hit it just right.”

  “You think he swam away?” Early twisted around. He peered back up at the conductor. “You don't see nuthin' in the river?”

  “Just that hat floating sixty yards on.”

  “Damn. . . . Banks of the river?”

  “Lot of weeds, could hide an army. A couple cows down a ways. What you gonna do, sheriff?”

  “Search, I guess. How much time I got?”

  “Ten minutes and we have to have this train out of here to make a siding for a pass at Lawrence.”

  “When's the next eastbound?”

  “An hour.” The conductor pointed off to the side. “Sheriff, there's a water snake swimming your way. Big one.”

  Early twisted around. He saw a triangular head above the surface of the river, the head the size of a dime at the distance, propelling toward him. He brought his pistol up in one motion and jerked the trigger only to hear a click, then a second click when he jerked the trigger again. Wet powder in the cartridges. Early backpedaled. “Dammit, Tony, let's get outta here.”

  Both men turned. They high-stepped it for the opposite shore, churning up a froth of water as they ran. When they hit dry ground, both fell forward into the grass, breathing hard, Early wheezing. “Snakes. Gawd, I'm gonna have nightmares.”

  Early banged into an overhead compartment when he straightened up. He rubbed at his smarting scalp. Then as he had one leg up, to step into dry trousers, the railcar lurched. It threw him against the door of the men's lavatory. Early ooched and massaged his bruised shoulder. And he felt the clicking of the wheels slow.

  “Tony, we at that siding?”

  “Yessir,” came a voice from the other side of the door.

  “Sure not much room for changing in here, is there?”

  “Wasn't intended for that purpose. Hand your wet clothes out. I'll hang them where they can dry some.”

  Early gathered the pile he'd dumped in the sink—his suit pants, white shirt, undershirt, socks, shorts, and necktie—unlatched the door and passed them to waiting hands.

  After Early closed the door, he pulled on a tan shirt, his only spare, and, while fumbling with the buttons, caught his reflection in the mirror—a picture of hair spiked out from being towel dried. Early finger-combed his thatch into some semblance of order.

  Socks? Where'd I put my socks?

  Early poked through his suitcase on the toilet seat. Nothing. He peered around over the floor, then—Ahh!—he slapped his back pocket. The wad Early felt gave him his answer. He pulled his socks out and, doing a one-legged stand, got the first over a foot. A repeat of the one-legged stand—only the other leg—and Early had that job done. A rumble broke through his concentration. Early leaned down. He peered out the side window, at a westbound passenger train roaring past on the mainline, less than an arm's reach away. And then the train was gone, its absence revealing a vista of farmland and, perhaps half a mile away, the Kaw River, its waters, where they rippled, reflecting quartzlike glints of the late afternoon sun. Could Estes be out there?

  Early shrugged. He dumped water from his boots into the sink, gathered up his suitcase, and stepped out into the passageway, suitcase in one hand, boots in the other. Early padded back to his seat, sensing through the balls of his feet the train moving, picking up speed. It lurched through a switch onto the mainline, a lurch that threw Early to the side. He grabbed a seatback to keep from going over, twisted around as he did and found himself staring into the face of a woman, startled, into whose lap he had fallen.

  “Sorry,” he said, getting up. “Kinda dangerous here, isn't it?”

  “Certainly appears so.”

  “Well, again I'm sorry.”

  He moved on, away. At his seat, Early tossed his suitcase into the seat opposite, next to the one on which he'd left his not-too-wet hat. He dropped into his seat and there drummed his fingers on his knees and wiggled his toes in his lone pair of dry socks, and gazed about.

  The waiter—he, too, in dry clothes and, to Early's envy, dry shoes—came down the aisle. “Mister Early,” he said, “I got your things hanging in the pantry. Your pants, I'd get them to a cleaners when you get to Kansas City. They're going to wrinkle and smell of river water. Shirt, you can always wash that out in your hotel room. Room service might even get you an iron.”

  Early motioned to the seat across the aisle.

  “No, it wouldn't be proper,” the waiter said. “Mind if I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead.”<
br />
  “Why are you going to Kansas City?”

  Early rubbed his chin as he wondered how much he should say, then thought better of even wondering. “Investigating a murder,” he said. “I'm to meet some people who may be able to help me understand the woman who was killed.”

  “Got to be interesting.”

  “No, your job is interesting. My friend, you get to travel the country, and you get paid for it.”

  “ 'Fraid it gets old. I'm away from home a week, two weeks at a time.” The waiter steadied himself against a seatback as the passenger car rocked through a low spot.

  “Where's home?”

  “Bronzeville . . . South Chicago.”

  “Family?”

  “Wife and three children. You, Mister Early?”

  “Wife and a first child on the way.”

  A beaming, prideful smile spread across the waiter's face. “That little child's going to change your life, sir. . . . Well now, you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the dining car. I'm kind of behind in my work getting ready for supper.”

  “Supper served before Kansas City?”

  “No, after. When you get off, come by the dining car. I'll have your clothes for you.”The waiter brought two fingers up to his brow in a salute, then he left.

  Nice fella, Early thought as he gazed out the window. A town flashed by. Early thought he read Linwood on the sign on the end of the depot.

  “Your clothes,” the waiter said, handing Early a package wrapped in butcher paper. “I triple wrapped them so you can put them in your suitcase. The wet shouldn't come through.”

  Early opened his suitcase on a chair. He put the package in. “Don't know how to thank you,” he said as he buckled the flaps.

  “You don't have to.”

  “Tony, I don't even know your last name.”

  “It's Haskins, sir. Anthony George Haskins Junior.”

  “That's a mighty proud name.”

  “Thank you. Yessir. Where are you meeting these people?”

  “Under the big clock in the Grand Hall.”

  “It's—”

  “I know where it is. Been here years back on layovers when I was riding troop trains.”

  “Yessir. Perhaps I'll see you again, sir.”

  Early nodded and went on, carrying his boots, his suitcase under his arm.

  “Excuse me,” the waiter called. He gestured to the boots.

  “Still pretty squishy,” Early said. “I don't mind walking in my socks.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Early moved back into the flow of passengers making their way forward to the exit door and the steps down to the platform, others oblivious of him as they hurried away. He had time, at least half an hour, before he was to meet the Silverbergs. Early ambled on.

  Someone fell in beside him.

  He glanced over. “Tony?”

  “Said I might see you again. I'm stopping over, to see my sister and her family.” The waiter, hatless before, wore a cleaned and blocked fedora and a suit coat rather than the white jacket of his occupation. “Mind if I walk along?”

  “Not at all.”

  The two went over to the broad concourse on the west side of the terminal.

  “Sister, huh,” Early said. “Where does she live?”

  “On the Kansas City, Kansas, side. Twenty, thirty blocks from here.”

  “She waiting for you?”

  “No, I'll catch a city bus.”

  “Why not a taxi?”

  “Taxi drivers pick up Coloreds where you come from, Mister Early? They sure don't here.”

  “That shouldn't be.”

  “Maybe not, but that's the way it is.”

  They moved from the concourse through an entryway and into the Grand Hall, a magnificent specimen of a waiting room of rose-brown marble with a ceiling high enough that the room could enclose a seven-story building. In the swirling crowd, someone rammed into Haskins, sending him sprawling.

  “Hey. Hey!” Early called after the retreating figure. When the man failed to stop, Early dropped his suitcase and boots and raced after him, dodging and dancing through the crowd. He grabbed the shoulder of the man's coat and spun him around, swarthy, bulked like a professional wrestler in his black suit, tie, and black fedora.

  “Git yer hand off me!”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Early said, breathing hard. “You knocked my friend down back there. You need to go back and apologize.”

  “You're friend's nothing but a damn nigger. I don't apologize to you, and I sure as hell don't apologize to damn niggers.”

  “Oh, now you've gone and done it,” Early said. He brought his wallet from his back pocket and let it fall open, revealing his star.

  The man reached in his inside pocket. He, too, brought out a wallet and let it fall open. It revealed a gold shield. “Secret Service trumps county sheriff. Now if you don't mind, I'll be on my way.”

  “What's your all-fired hurry, mister?”

  “I'm with the president. His train's due in in five minutes.” The man moved on.

  “Hey, what's the name of your supervisor?”

  The federal man turned back, his lip curling. With one hand he slapped his biceps, the other hand shooting up as a fist. The man stepped away, into the crowd moving toward the east concourse.

  Early pushed his hat forward. He rubbed the back of his head. Maybe if I had my gun . . . Ah, he's probably got one too. Been a Mexican standoff. He turned and shambled back and found Haskins sitting on his suitcase, Early's suitcase and his boots between the waiter's feet.

  “You shouldn't have chased after him,” Haskins said.

  “He shouldn't have done what he did.”

  “White men been running over us for generations.”

  “Doesn't make it right.”

  “Didn't say it did. But there's change coming. We've got Mister Truman in office.”

  “You know who that was?” Early asked, gesturing back toward the east concourse. “Secret Service man assigned to your Mister Truman.”

  The muscles in Haskins's face went slack.

  “Anyway, thanks for watching my stuff,” Early said. He sat and pulled on his boots, then pushed himself up. “Not the first time I've marched in wet boots. Let's get you to your sister's.”

  “You don't have to do this.”

  “Tony, I'm a tad upset. Let's get you to your sister's, and we're going to take a cab.”

  “What about your people?”

  “When they get here, they'll wait.” Early grabbed up his suitcase. He marched off toward the doors that opened out of Kansas City's Union Station onto Pershing Drive, nine blocks south of the central city, Haskins moving at his side.

  “Mister Early, I wish you wouldn't.”

  “Well, by God, somebody's got to do the right thing here.” He waved at a Circle cab.

  The driver waved back and pulled over to the curb.

  Early opened the back passenger door. He leaned down. “I want you to take this man to—”

  The cab drove off.

  “I told you,” Haskins said.

  “Well, fool me once . . .” Early waved at a Checker and that driver, too, pulled up to the curb.

  Early opened the back passenger door. He pushed his suitcase ahead of him and got in. “Come on,” he said to Haskins.

  The driver glanced in his mirror. “I don't take niggers.”

  “Just a minute, let me get my money out,” Early said. He pulled his suitcase up on his lap and grubbed inside until he found his Forty-Five. Early slapped his pistol and his star in his gun hand, and held them out. “Will this do?”

  The driver swallowed his gum. “Do just fine,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Come on, Mister Haskins,” Early said, “lets us go for a ride.”

  As the black man settled in and pulled the door closed, Early asked, “The address of your sister's place?”

  “Ten twenty-eight B West Fifteen Street.”

  Early waved at the driver to
start. “That's in the Kansas side of Kansas City. How long it take you to get us there?”

  The driver, a ragged mustache like Early's warming his upper lip, glanced in his mirror. “We got some traffic. I'd say twenty, twenty-five minutes.”

  “That's fine. Mister, you'll be bringing me back here.”

  Early trotted up the several steps of Kansas City's Union Station and inside, through the oak and brass doors. He worked his way in against the flow of others leaving the terminal for waiting cars, taxis, and city buses idling at the curb. Inside, he glanced up toward the midpoint of the hall, to a half-ton clock suspended from the ceiling . . . a half-ton of machinery, six feet across the face of it. Amazing the stuff you gather, passing the time waiting for a train. Once, during the war, Early had waited here for two days for a troop train that would take him to Savannah by way of Memphis, Chattanooga, and Atlanta.

  Before he got to the clock, he recognized them, the man studying his pocket watch, chatting with the woman beside him.

  “Mister Silverberg, Missus Silverberg,” Early said as he came up, his hand out, “didn't mean to keep you waiting, but another matter kind of busted in. I'm sorry about that.”

  Silverberg clasped Early's outstretched hand. “Your train got in some time ago, didn't it? We were worried. I had them page you twice.”

  “I wasn't here to hear it, I'm sorry. The why, that isn't important.”

  Ethel Silverberg, wearing a broad-brimmed summer hat, slipped her arm around her husband's arm. “You will be staying with us, won't you, Mister Early? We have a room ready for you.”

  “Oh, now that would be an imposition. I got me a room at the Muehelbach.”

  “You should cancel it,” Mishka Silverberg said.

  “No, I wouldn't think of that. Tell you what, the hotel's got a fine restaurant. Let me make up for you having to wait by taking you to supper there.”

  Silverberg, chuckling, turned to his wife. “Should we tell him?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Mister Early, we were planning to take you there. We even made reservations—a table for four.”

  “More company?”

  “A friend of Judith's you should meet.”

  They rambled out the east entrance, onto Main Street, the Silverbergs gesturing to their right, toward a massive structure on a rise to the south of Union Station.