Dead Man's Return

by Derek Rutherford

  Then Jim’s eyes adjusted and there were more. Men behind the second saw blade, men by the steam engines, men over there by the water tank.

  Jim clenched his teeth, locking the warning inside.

  Villemont broke cover to his left, racing over to the bodies of the two Rangers.

  And all hell broke loose.

  Rosalie Robertson had one arm around Leon’s shoulders, when the man with the shotgun burst into the room. The man was wearing a suit jacket with matching trousers and a tie. The tie was loose and there was dirt on his white shirt. He came through the door and in the same movement lowered the shotgun so that its double barrels pointed forwards, those barrels wavering this way and that as he took in the situation.

  ‘Wash’, what the hell!’ the one called Charles Beecher said. He’d been by the window, looking out. Rosalie thought that he had been quietly praying.

  When Jim and Will Baker had run outside following the sounds of the gunshots a few minutes before Leon had said to Beecher, ‘You’re staying here. Don’t move.’ And he’d drawn his gun to reinforce the point. But then he’d started coughing and choking again, and it was so violent that he couldn’t do anything but lean over and spit and dribble and expel long tendrils of thick blood. Even with the gunshots outside and Beecher – one of the two men that had started all of this hell all of those years ago – in the room with him the dark thing inside his lungs was stronger and he couldn’t resist the pain as it dug it’s claws into his insides. So Rosalie had drawn her own gun, a Colt 45 she’d been wearing since the days when they had been hiding out after Leon’s prison break. She put her arm around Leon’s shoulders whilst he retched and she told him that it would be all right, and she kept her gun aimed at Beecher. And now here was someone else, bursting into the room, his eyes red, bloodshot and crazy, the gun pointing at Beecher, then at Leon and finally, the man’s eyes focussing on her and the gun in her hand, the barrels swung that final inch towards her and the man squeezed one of the dual triggers.

  The darkness in the saw mill lit up like the sky over the western mountains in the wildest of lightning storms. A shotgun, several revolvers, another shotgun. Flames exploded from barrels, the sound of gunfire rebounded off the metal roof and Hero Villemont screamed, albeit briefly, as bullet after bullet slammed into him, lifted him off his feet, and deposited him on top of one of the very Rangers he had come to check for signs of life.

  In the darkness Jim stood up, the gun in his hand. He didn’t recall making the decision to draw or fire. It just happened. It was who he was these days. After everything that had happened he was a killer now.

  His gun blazed. Taking the men by the saw blade by surprise. One, two. All three of them. Then Jim turning, firing by instinct and hearing the man by the steam engine cry out. Several men shot back at him. He saw the flames from their guns, heard the cartridges exploding and the whistle of bullets in the air. But he was low again now, and although he heard bullets clanking off metalwork, nothing hit him.

  Now there were more shots, and a man by the water tank yelled out, fell backwards, and was still. Jim Jackson realized that Will Baker was there too, standing by the locomotive, ploughing bullets into the darkness, picking out the men from their muzzle flashes as they’d shot at Jim.

  Jim took the opportunity to reload, and by the time he’d done so, Baker had stopped shooting, and no one was firing back.

  Baker retreated behind the locomotive and Jim Jackson stayed crouched down at the platform edge.

  He held his breath.

  Nothing moved.

  Then he heard another shot. Maybe a shotgun blast. And another. And then a series of gunshots that sounded like a string of fire crackers going off.

  They were all coming from the office block back over to his left. The block where he’d left Leon and Rosalie.

  There had been a time, months before, when Leon had moved that quickly to save her and Jim’s lives. Then it had been to drive a bread knife deep into the guts of a man who had been about to kill them all. His action that day had saved them all, himself included. This time, she knew it was the last thing he would ever do. It took all his strength, all he had left, which she knew wasn’t much.

  He knew it, too.

  He’d always known it.

  The man – Washington Smith – was grimacing and there was fury in his face. From outside there was the sound of gunfire, so much gunfire, that it might have been two armies engaging. Rosalie felt her insides twisting up in terror and confusion and fear for Jim Jackson. Then Smith squeezed the shotgun trigger and nothing happened. He yelled at them for being interfering lowlifes and he squeezed the trigger harder, and in that brief instance Leon Winters rolled out of her arms, the arms that had been comforting him as the tuberculosis tore at his insides, and he somehow swivelled so that he was in front of her. The shotgun roared and the blast of it picked them both up and slammed them back against the wall. She felt a hundred burning wounds in her arms and her legs and her hair. There was warm horrible wetness all around and she couldn’t breathe because the air had been knocked out of her. Leon was on top of her. He wasn’t breathing either and she knew, just knew with a certainty and a knowledge that was the hardest knowledge that had ever come to her, that Leon was dead. That never again would he struggle to breathe, that his days of agonising lung-burning coughing were over, that he wouldn’t need the clean air and the vegetables and the milk that Doctor Koch had prescribed, that he would have all the rest in the world. Damn this world, but at least he was with Charlotte and Harvey, whom he’d spent so many late nights beneath the stars talking about.

  She heard someone – Beecher – begging.

  ‘Please,’ he was saying. ‘Please.’ Then: ‘Mary. What about Mary?’

  Another shotgun blast rocked the room. In the silence that followed, the silence caused by shockwaves dulling her hearing, she managed to gather in a lungful of air and she squirmed from beneath Leon’s ruined body and she rose up, covered in Leon’s blood.

  Washington Smith, standing over the body of Charles Beecher, smoke still coming from the barrels of his shotgun, looked over at her. His eyes widened.

  ‘This one’s for Leon,’ she said.

  And she shot Washington Smith, over and over again, until her gun was empty.

  Ike Landreth still hadn’t fired a shot. Killing was easy. He’d seen that. He’d seen that so many times in the last few minutes that he knew it to be an unquestionable truth. But it was easy in the same way that one of the girls – he forgot her name, Daisy probably – could play tunes on the piano over in the bar. She could make music burst out of that piano like it was the easiest thing in the world. She could stand up and make music and she could shake her chest and dance and flirt and make music. He’d even seen a fellow pouring wine down her throat as she played. It was easy. But only if you knew how.

  He was still crouching behind one of the engines. They – the bearded fellow, and the Slav and his brothers and the Mexican and all of them – had blown away three Texas Rangers as if it had been the most natural thing in the world. But then out of the blue someone – two people – had suddenly started blasting them.

  And they were all dead. Or so it seemed.

  No one was moving, least of all him. In fact he wondered if he’d ever move again.

  ‘Jackson, you all right?’ somebody called.

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘Yes. Back-up. Retreat, my friend.’

  ‘That shooting upstairs. . .’

  ‘I know. I’ve got it covered. Let’s go.’

  Ike Landreth’s legs gave way then and he sank to the floor behind the steam engine and without realising it, he began to weep again, just like last time there had been killing.

  The woman with red hair was standing in the doorway. Her shoulders were heaving and she had a hand over her mouth.

  ‘He shot them,’ she said. ‘He came in with a gun and he shot them.’ A sob caught in her throat.

  Jim pushed by the woman.
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  The room was hazy with gun smoke. The smell of cordite thickened the air. But there was also a horrible metallic tang in the atmosphere, so strong it was almost a taste rather than a smell.

  Two men lay on the floor just inside the door, by the window.

  Rosalie was standing against the far wall, a revolver in her hand. The wall behind her was covered in blood and at her feet was Leon.

  ‘Rosalie,’ Jim said. Then he saw Leon. ‘My God.’

  He rushed over to her, held her wrists, looked into her eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  For a moment it was as if she didn’t recognize him. Her eyes struggled to focus and when they did they filled with moisture and tears spilled down and mixed with the blood that was on her cheeks.

  Behind him he heard Will Baker saying.

  ‘They’re dead. The two of them.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Jim asked Rosalie. There was blood running from her hairline.

  She shook her head.

  Her eyes were magnified beneath the tears and she looked so terrified, but worse than that, it was as if those eyes had witnessed something that had forever changed what lay behind them.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said slowly. Then: ‘Leon.’

  ‘We have to go,’ Will Baker said. ‘Now.’

  Jim looked into Rosalie’s eyes. Then, his heart breaking, he tore his gaze away and looked down at her feet. He let go of Rosalie’s wrists and he crouched down.

  ‘He saved my life,’ Rosalie said.

  Jim rolled Leon over onto his back.

  ‘Leon,’ he said. ‘Leon.’

  But he knew there would be no response. His friend was almost unrecognizable. The shotgun blast had been too close. It had torn him open. He wasn’t breathing.

  ‘Leon,’ Jim said again.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Will Baker said. ‘Come on. We’ll be back for him.’

  In the doorway the red-haired woman said, ‘He was crazy, I don’t mean just today. These last few weeks. Crazier and crazier.’

  Jim Jackson felt Will Baker’s hand on his elbow.

  ‘Come on, my friend. We’ll be back before the sun goes down. I promise. But right now we have to go.’

  Jim Jackson looked down at Leon again.

  Then he allowed himself to be pulled away from his friend. Will Baker led them down the stairs and into the fresh air, into the blinding sunshine. Further along the yard people were stirring, coming out of their hiding places, their offices, and their sheds. A steam valve was shrieking, pistons were clanking, and horses were nickering. Someone somewhere said ‘What the hell happened?’ and Will Baker pushed Jim and Rosalie towards their own horses, which were standing along from the huge gate to their right.

  ‘Ride,’ he said.

  Then Jim Jackson heard, behind him, Rosalie say, ‘Abraham.’

  The bearded man was standing opposite them.

  ‘Rosalie,’ he said.

  He stood tall and still. He had two guns on his hips, and despite the heat he still had his coat on.

  Jim Jackson looked at Abraham.

  Their eyes met.

  The gunman’s hands hovered close to his revolvers. Jim felt his own hands tense. He recalled the moment when this man had thrown one of those very guns to him way back up in Leyton. The man had saved his life.

  ‘We need to go,’ Will Baker said.

  Abraham nodded, almost imperceptibly. A tiny smile crossed his lips.

  Then Jim Jackson turned away and he, Rosalie, and Will Baker leapt on their horses and raced out of the gate and away from Beecher and Smith’s lumber yard.

  Chapter Fourteen

  That evening Will Baker returned to Beecher and Smith’s yard. This time twenty-seven Texas Rangers rode with him. Every Texas Ranger that was in rounding up distance went. Not a single bullet was fired on that second occasion. The lumber yard was still running, the steam engines still smoking, and the saw blades spinning. The locomotive that Jim Jackson and Hero Villemont had hidden behind was gone, and there was already a stack of lumber awaiting the next train out. But there was an air of confusion and sadness, a darkness and a heaviness, around the camp. It seemed that people walked slowly and said little, and what they said, they said quietly.

  Nobody wanted to fight.

  The bodies had been taken to a large shed where tools were kept, and there they had been covered in canvas sheets.

  Three Texas Rangers, Leon Winters, Beecher and Smith, a Mexican, three Europeans, and a Canadian.

  In Washington Smith’s office, the redhead, who turned out to be called Evelyn, was still scrubbing blood from the floor and walls. In that office Will Baker found the photographs of all the members of the train-robbing gang of which Jim Jackson and Leon Smith had once been a part. He found a map of Texas on the wall, and there were blue pins in the map that he discovered later represented the camps where Commissioners Reynolds and Johnson would make sure the vast majority of leased prisoners were allocated.

  Reynolds and Johnson had been paid well, mightily well, by Beecher and Smith. And the next morning, exhausted, but determined to see it through, Will Baker had personally arrested both men in their Austin mansions, full of porcelains and paintings, polished floors, servants, and outrage.

  It would take weeks, long weeks in which the two politicians demanded that Will Baker be suspended, be fired, heck even be hanged for treason! The politicians called in favours and demanded to see the Governor. They threatened the Texas Rangers with disbandment and for a while they appeared to be gaining enough support and momentum that Will Baker wondered if they might get away with it.

  But little by little, diary by diary, notebook by notebook, and ledger by ledger, the truth came out. Signatures on lease approvals sending prisoners to prison lumber camps owned by Beecher and Smith were mapped against prisoner-allocation voting records – records that showed two-to-one voting every time, with Reynolds and Johnson always outvoting the third man on the Prison Board. The third commissioner had changed several times over the years, but Reynolds and Johnson stayed put. Now that the truth was starting to be uncovered some of those other Board members came forward and admitted they’d had suspicions about what was going on. Bank payment records were subpoenaed. The investigation would go on for months, but towards the end of it, Reynolds and Johnson started to talk about making deals, about giving up names of leasing camp captains, if maybe they could escape with lesser sentences.

  No deals were offered.

  Not long after the two men had been sent to Huntsville to serve out sentences that Will Baker thought far too short, legislation was proposed and passed that saw the end of the prisoner leasing programme.

  ‘It came too late for all of us,’ Jim Jackson said to Will Baker over coffee in the mess room of the Texas Rangers’ barracks.

  Will Baker said, ‘At least it came. No change comes easy. But, my friend, at least you made a difference.’

  They buried Leon Winters in the yard of a small, and fairly young, church out on the west side of Austin. The church was out beyond the edge of the growing city.

  ‘He wouldn’t want to be buried in town,’ Rosalie said. ‘He liked the open spaces.’

  ‘I’m not sure he would want to be buried in Texas,’ Jim said. ‘After all that Texas did to him.’

  They’d talked about trying to find where Charlotte and Harvey were buried. That’s where he should lie really, they’d both agreed. With his family. But they had no way of finding where Leon’s wife and son lay, and even as autumn progressed, the days were too warm to leave a body unburied.

  Jim and Rosalie, Roberta and Andrew Beaumont, Doctor Koch, Will Baker and several of his Ranger colleagues stood at Leon’s graveyard that day and Jim tried to say in faltering and tear-laden words how such a fine man had no place in such a cruel world and how every breath in Leon’s life had been taken for someone else, and Rosalie had said that even his last breath, his last action, had been taken so that she may live.

  A year later, she a
nd Jim would name their first son Leon.

  ‘After my best friend ever,’ Jim said.

  Throughout the months of the Reynolds and Johnson trials Rosalie stayed with Roberta. Jim Jackson took a room at a small hotel just a few streets away. He found it strange to be able to walk the streets of Austin without the fear of arrest.

  The city was expanding – or so it felt – daily. There were electric lights in his hotel room and sometimes Jim just flicked them on and off in wonderment. It was strange not to sleep in the open, beneath the stars, and it was hard not to have Rosalie by his side at night.

  ‘It’s just for a few weeks,’ she’d said. ‘Whilst we decide what to do.’

  And what were they to do?

  He was an eastern boy who had only ventured west to make a quick fortune in order to marry the girl of his dreams. He had indeed made a fortune, but it was long gone, as were too many years. He’d found another girl – this one even beyond his dreams. He’d lived through hell and he’d come out the other side.