by Pat Frank
He strained his eyes through the dirty little rear windows. It was difficult to make them focus, like trying to train a gun from a bouncing jeep, and it was almost dusk. It was a late model light gray hardtop or sedan and Jim Hickey had owned such a car but all makes looked pretty much alike and it seemed half of them were either light gray or off-white. He called to Malachai, "Speed up a little. See what happens."
Malachai increased their speed to forty or forty-five. The car behind maintained its distance, exactly, as if it were tied to them. This proved nothing. This would be standard operating procedure for an honest citizen following a strange truck on a lonely, unfrequented road. He wouldn't want to get too close, but he was probably in a hurry to get home before dark. So if the truck sped up, he would too. "Drop back to twenty," Randy ordered.
The truck slowed. So did the car. Again, this proved nothing except caution.
Randy turned to Sam Hazzard and Bill McGovern. "This fellow behind us is either an innocent bystander or he's herding us."
"Herding us?" Bill said.
"Herding us into the gun of some pal up front." They hit a smoother strip of road and Randy could see two men in the car. He thought the back was empty but he couldn't be sure. "Two of them. Both men."
They rode on, silently. This was entirely different from a patrol in war when you went out in fear and despite your fear, hoping you would find no trouble. His only fear was that they might miss them, exhaust their gas in futile cruising, and lose their one best chance to wipe them out. This was a personal matter and a mater of survival. It was like having a nest of coral snakes under the house. You had to go in after them and kill them or certainly one day they would kill a child or your dog. In a matter such as this, the importance of your own life diminished. So he prayed that the men behind were highwaymen.
In a minute or two he knew that they were, because the opposite end of the narrow, covered bridge was blocked. They were being herded into a cul-de-sac and the tactical situation was changed and their plan useless. There would be no field of fire from the side ports of the truck. The fight would have to be made entirely from front and rear. He said, "Keep going." They had to drive right into it. If they stopped short of the bridge and jumped out to make their fight at a distance then the highwaymen could shoot and run. They had to get in close.
Malachai kept going.
"Sam, you and Bill take the ones in back," Randy said. "I'll help Malachai in front. Forget the sides."
The Admiral and Bill crawled to the rear. Randy crouched behind Malachai's back. He checked the carbine. It was ready. He shifted an extra clip to his shirt pocket where it would be handiest.
The block at the opposite end of the bridge was their Model-A, its boxy profile unmistakable. A man waited at each bumper. You could ram the car but you could not ram the men so this tactic would do no good. Randy recognized them from Dan's description. The one with gorilla arms and the submachine gun stood at the front. The gun was a Thompson. The man with the bat was on the other side. He carried a holstered pistol too, but from the way he hefted the bat, like a hitter eager to step to the plate, the bat was his weapon. Four men, then, instead of three. And no woman. Understandable. The personnel of these bands probably changed from day to day. "Right up to them," he told Malachai. "Close."
The wheels hit the first planks of the bridge and Malachai slowed.
Randy saw the muzzle of the Thompson rise. This was the one he had to get. He pushed the butt of the carbine into Bill McGovern's ribs. He said, "Let them come right up to you. Let 'em come right in with us if they want. We've got troubles up front."
Bill nodded. The rhythmic timpani beat of tires on planks stopped. They were twenty feet from the Model A. The man with the bat advanced toward the left side of the truck. The Tommy gunner stayed where he was. In his light Randy doubted that they could see anything in the truck body but he did not stir. He was immobile as a sack. He whispered, "Make the son of a bitch with the gun come to us. Make him move, make him come."
The man with the bat was three feet from Malachai and five feet from the carbine's muzzle. If he looked into the truck cab Randy would have to shoot him and in that case the Tommy gunner might get them all. There was nothing more Randy could say or do. He could not even whisper. It was all up to Malachai now.
The man whacked his bat viciously against the door. "What you got in there, boy?"
"I ain't got nuthin, boss," Malachai whined. From the set of his right shoulder Randy knew Malachai had his right hand on the .45, but he was acting dumb and talking dumb, which was the way to do.
The Tommy gunner moved a step closer and two steps right so he could observe Malachai. He said, "Come on, Casey. Get that dinge outta there!"
The man with the bat said, "Step down, you black bastard!"
Randy knew that the man couldn't use the bat while Malachai stayed in the truck and he prayed Malachai would wait him out. He watched the gunner. Please, God, make him take one more step so I won't have to try through the windshield. A shot through the windshield was almost certain to miss because of light refraction or bullet deflection. It would be foolhardy and desperate and he would not do it.
The gunner said, "Drag him out or blow him out. I don't care which."
Malachai cringed and cried, "Please, boss!" The fear in his voice was real.
The man with the bat put his hand on the door handle. At the instant he turned it, Malachai uncoiled, hurling himself through the door and on him, pistol clubbed.
The gunner took two quick steps and the Thompson jerked and spoke. The gunner's thick middle was in Randy's sights and he squeezed the trigger, and again, and again before the Thompson's muzzle came down and the gunner folded and began to fall. When he was on his face he still twitched and held the gun and tried to swing it up and Randy shot him again, carefully, through the head.
He had not even heard the shotguns but when Randy crawled over into the front seat and got out, looking for another target, the battle was over. Close behind the truck two figures lay, their arms and legs twisted in death's awkward signature. The Admiral stood over the man who had held the bat, his shotgun a foot from his head. Malachai was curled up as if in sleep, his head against the left front tire. It had lasted not more than seven seconds.
Malachai choked and groaned and Randy dropped to his knees beside him and straightened him and lifted his head. Malachai choked again and Randy turned Malachai's head so the blood could run out of his mouth and not down his windpipe. He tore open Malachai's shirt. There was a hole large as a dime just under the solar plexus. In this round well, dark blood rose and ebbed rhythmically, a small, ominous tide.
The Admiral said, "Shall I get rid of this scum?"
Randy said, "Just a minute." He picked up the bat and forced himself to think ahead. First, Malachai. Get Malachai home in a hurry so Dan could do something if there was anything to be done. Dan didn't have his tools, or much eyesight. He might make do with one eye if he had the tools these men had stolen. Randy ran to the Model-A. It was empty. The doctor's bag wasn't there.
He walked back to the truck where Sam Hazzard stood over their captive. One side of the man's face was scraped raw. Malachai's plunge had carried the longjawed, twisted-mouth face along the bridge planking. "Where's the doctor's bag?"
The man said nothing. Randy saw his right hand moving. He still had a holstered weapon. Randy tapped him on the nose with the bat. "Keep your hand still." The Admiral leaned over, unbuckled the holster, and took the weapon. A .38 police special. "Talk," Randy said.
The man said, "I don't know nuthin'."
Randy tapped his face with the bat, harder. The man screamed. Randy said, "Where's the black bag?"
The man said, "She took it. Rumdum took it."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. She goofed off with somebody last night - maybe it was this morning - I don't know - goofed off with some bastard with a bottle."
Randy called, "Bill! Where's Bill?"
Bill McGovern was on the other side of the truck. He said, "I'm here, Randy."
"Bill, go look in that car and see if you can find Dan's bag. And be sure those two back there are good and dead."
Malachai choked again. Randy tried to ease him over on his side but he began to bleed more from the stomach wound so he had to let him be.
Sam Hazzard said, "I don't think this one's doing us any good. He's just holding us up. I think we should convoke a military tribunal right now and pass sentence. I vote he be executed."
"So do I," Randy said, "but I want him to hang. If he makes any trouble let him have it, Sam, but I'd like to have him alive."
Bill came back with a cardboard carton. "Nothing in that car, except this. A little food in here. A few cans of sardines and corned beef hash and a box of matches. A couple of boxes of ammunition. That's all. Not a sign of Dan's bag. And the sedan is finished. It was in our line of fire and it looks like a sieve with all that buckshot through it. There's gasoline all over the road."
Randy started the Model-A and looked at the fuel gauge. It showed almost empty. He backed it away from the bridge entrance, put the key in his pocket, and left it. He said, "We'll lift Malachai into the truck and get going. First, I'll collect their weapons and ammo." He was thinking ahead. There would be other highwaymen and this was armament for his company.
"What about these?" Bill asked, pointing his shotgun at the bodies.
"Leave them." He looked up. The buzzards already attended. "I'll come back tomorrow or we’ll send somebody. Whatever they leave-" he watched the black birds wheeling and swooping - "we'll give to the river."
One of the highwaymen trailing them had been Leroy Settle, the drugstore cowboy. When Randy examined his two guns he was surprised to find that they were only .22 caliber, lightweight replicas, except in bore, of the big frontier .45's. His companion's pistol apparently had gone into the river, for it wasn't on the bridge although he had a pocketful of ammunition.
Then Randy leaned over the leader. He saw that his shots had all been good, the three in the belly making a neat pattern, diagonal ticktacktoe. When he picked up the Thompson the dead man's arm astonishingly rose with it, clinging as if his fingers were glued to the stock. Randy jerked it free and saw that it was glue, of a sort. The man's hands were smeared with honey.
It was after dark when Randy wheeled up to the front steps of the house. As he cut the engine he heard Graf barking. All the downstairs windows showed light. Lib burst out of the door and ran down the steps, saw him at the wheel, and was there with her arms and lips when he got out.
Preacher Henry appeared, and Two-Tone, Florence Wechek and Alice Cooksey, Hannah and Missouri, the children. Dan Gunn came out, robe flapping, carrying a lantern. They had all been waiting.
The Admiral and Bill were in back with the prisoner and Malachai. Bill stepped out, holding a pistol, and then the man with the bat, called Casey, prodded by Sam Hazzard's shotgun. Sam climbed down and that left Malachai. Malachai had been unconscious after the first mile. Until they reached Fort Repose, the road had been very bad.
Randy said, "Killed three, grabbed this one. They got Malachai through the middle. Look at him, Dan. Is he still with us, Sam?"
The Admiral said, "He was a minute ago. Barely."
Randy said, "Ben Franklin, get some clothesline."
"We going to hang him right now?" Ben asked, not casually but still as if he expected it.
"No. We'll tie him."
Dan crawled into the truck. He held up the lantern, shook his head in exasperation, and then tore the patch away from his right eye. The eye was still swollen but not entirely shut and any assistance to his left eye was helpful. He crawled out and said, "He's in shock and shouldn't be moved and ought to have a transfusion. But we have to move him if I'm to do anything at all. On what?"
There was a discarded door in the toolhouse. They moved him on that.
They laid Malachai on the billiard table in the gameroom and then massed lamps and candles so that Dan would have light.
Dan said, "I have to go into him. Massive internal hemorrhage. I've got to tie it off or there's no chance at all. How? With what?" He leaped on the edge of the table, swaying not in fatigue or weakness but in agony of frustration. He cried, "Oh, God!"
Dan stopped swaying. "A knife, Randy?"
"My hunting knife, the one I shave with? It's sharp as a razor, almost."
"No, Too big, too thick. How about steak knives?"
"Sure, steak knives."
The short bladed steak knives even looked like lancets. The Judge and Randy's mother had bought the set in Denmark on their summer in Europe in 'fifty-four. They were the finest and sharpest steak knives Randy had ever used. He found them in the silver chest and called, "How many?"
"Two will do."
From the dining room Helen called, "I've put on water to boil - a big pot." The dinner fire had been going and Helen had piled on fat wood so it roared and Dan would soon have the means of sterilizing his instruments.
Randy put them into the pot to boil. After that, at Dan's direction he put in his fine-nosed fishing pliers. Florence Wechek ran across the road for darning needles. Lib found metal hair clips that would clamp an artery. Randy's six-pound nylon line off the spinning reel would have to do for sutures. There was enough soap to cleanse Dan's hands.
Dan went into the dining room, fretting, waiting for the pot and his instruments to boil. It was hopeless, he knew. In spite of everything they might do sepsis was almost inevitable, but now it was the shock and the hemorrhage he couldn't lick. He wondered whether it would be possible to rig up a saline solution transfusion. They had the ingredients, salt and water and fire; and somewhere, certainly, rubber tubing. He would not give up Malachai. He wanted to save Malachai, capable, quiet, and strong, more than he had ever wanted to save anybody in his years as a physician. So many people died for nothing. Malachai was dying for something.
In the gameroom Helen was at work, quick and competent. She had found their last bottle of Scotch, except what might remain in Randy's decanter upstairs, and was cleansing the wound with it. Randy and Lib stood beside her. The pool of blood in the round hole ebbed and did not rise again.
The water was boiling in the big iron pot when Randy walked into the dining room and touched Dan's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid it's all over."
In a dark corner of the room where she thought she would be out of the way and not a bother, Hannah Henry had been sitting in an old scarred maple rocker. The rocker began to move in slow cadence, and she moaned in this cadence for the dead, arms folded over her empty breasts as if holding a baby except that where the baby had been there was nothing.
Dan Gunn went into the gameroom and saw that Randy was correct, that Malachai was gone. His shoulders felt heavy. He was aware that his head throbbed and eyes burned. There was nothing more to do except empty the makeshift sterilizer with its ridiculous makeshift tools. He did this in the kitchen sink. Yet when he saw the knives and the pliers and the hair clips steaming he realized they were not really so ridiculous. If he was very careful and skillful, he could make do with such tools. They had not and probably could not have saved Malachai. They might save someone else. A century ago the tools had been no better and the knowledge infinitely less. Out of death, life; an immutable truth. Helen was at his side. He said, "Thanks, Helen, for the try. You're the best unregistered nurse in the world."
"I'm sorry it was for nothing."
"Maybe it wasn't for nothing. I'll just keep these and try to add to them. I wonder if we could find a small bag somewhere? Any little traveling bag would do."
"I have one. A train case."
"We'll start here, then, and build another kit." His eyes hurt. Who in Fort Repose could build him another pair of glasses, or give him new eyes?
At nine o'clock that night Randy's knees began to quiver and his brain refused further work and begged to quit, a reaction, he kne
w, to the fight on the bridge and what had gone before and after, and lack of sleep. It was his wedding night. He had been married at noon that same day, which seemed incredible. Noon was a life ago.
But now that he was married, he thought it only right that he and Lib have a room to themselves and the privacy accorded a married couple. All the bedroom space was taken and he hated to evict anyone. After all, they were all his guests. Yet since it was inevitable that beds and rooms be shifted around, the victim would have to be Ben Franklin, since Ben was the junior male. Ben would have to give up his room and take the couch in Randy's apartment and Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Bragg would move into Ben's room.
He was sitting on his couch, trying to still his quivering legs, face in his hands, thinking of this. Lib sat behind the bar drinking a warm limeade. She was thinking of the problem also but was reluctant to mention it, feeling that it was the husband's duty and she should allow him to bring it up.
Her father came in, a thin and wan Caesar in his sandals and white robe. Bill McGovern had been standing guard over the trussed prisoner, wondering the while that he had killed a man that day and felt no guilt at the time or after. It was like stepping on a roach. He had just been relieved by Two-Tone Henry, who had left his house of mourning to assume the duty. Bill asked for Dan. Randy lifted his head and told him that Dan, exhausted by being too long on his feet, slept. "Well, I'll tell you, then, but I don't suppose it will do any good tonight."
He spoke directly to his daughter. "I didn't know what to give you for a wedding present, Elizabeth. There's a good deal of real estate in Cleveland but I don't suppose it'll ever be worth much now. There are bonds and stock certificates in our safe deposit vault right here in Fort Repose, and the cash - well, the Confederate money in Randy's chest is just as good. You can have the house and property down the road, if you want it, but I don't think anybody can ever live there unless electricity comes back. So I thought, what can I give Lib and Randy? I talked it over this morning with Dan. He made a suggestion and we decided to give you a present jointly, from the best man and the father of the bride."