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by Scott J. Holliday

  “Warden says we gotta bring him back,” Crittendon said. “I asked if he preferred dead or alive.” He smiled broadly. Cyrus Lee followed suit. “Want to know what he said?”

  “Yeah,” Cyrus Lee said.

  “He said he’s already dead, ain’t he?” Crittendon slapped the table. “Ain’t that something? That’s about as close as you get to a killing license, you ask me.”

  “Sure is,” Cyrus Lee said.

  Sandy elbowed Paul’s ribs. “Does he mean Roy?”

  Paul sucked through his teeth.

  “Well, well,” Crittendon said. “Seems like someone’s become awful familiar with the devil he’s chasing.”

  Unwilling to meet Crittendon’s eyes, Paul continued to watch the woman. Her foot still played with her gentleman’s leg. She took his hand into her own, giggled.

  “You listening to me?” Crittendon said.

  “I am,” Paul said.

  “All right,” Crittendon said, “then why don’t you tell me how it is our little freak got away from you?”

  Sandy elbowed Paul again. “Are they talking about Roy?”

  “I mean, I could understand if it was just you out there,” Crittendon said. “But with those Boyle twins it just don’t make no sense. Them boys are as big as the hills, and yet they came back looking like they got trampled by a horse team. What in the hell was you all doing out there, you managed to fuck this up so bad?”

  The woman slipped her shoe back on and stood. She collected her bag and hat and led her man by the hand. They headed toward a sleeper car. Paul felt a sickness in his guts. That man would take her in his arms. He would untie parts of her clothing and see parts of her body only a rich man could see. He would do things she would only allow a rich man to do. The woman looked back and Paul saw a young version of Gloria. He wanted to blackjack that lawyer and replace his hand with his own. He wanted to follow his wife back to a different time, a time before their daughter’s death had corroded their lives.

  Jeb Crittendon’s hand appeared before Paul’s eyes. He snapped his fingers. Paul blinked, sank deeper into his seat.

  “You want to know what happened?” Paul said.

  “That I do,” Crittendon said.

  “Yea-” Cyrus Lee started, but Crittendon silenced him with a hand gesture.

  Paul looked back and forth between the two members of his audience. Their eyes were alive with anticipation. He thought of the month he’d spent at Roy’s bedside while his new friend’s broken ankles healed. In the same way Paul’s mother nursed the boy with fresh splints and salve, Paul nursed him with fresh stories. It was his way. It was what he had to offer. He started each tale with a bang and drew out the tension long and slow, building toward a hair-raising finish. He watched Roy’s reactions and listened to his breathing, knowing just when to ratchet things up or slow them down. And every story, whether comedy or tragedy, was met with reverence and respect. Every story ended not with Paul’s words, but Roy’s bemused response, “That’s a humdinger.”

  Roy Pellerin had been Paul’s best audience.

  But these two?

  Paul sneered. Such effort would be wasted on Crittendon and Lee. They were ignorant creatures, existing only to destroy or be destroyed. They were no different than dogs, in that they lived life with limited tools. “Get used to disappointment,” Paul said.

  “Look here, you son of a bitch,” Crittendon said. “If we’re gonna track this thing down and kill it, we need to know what it’s capable of.”

  Cyrus Lee went back to nodding. The train was slowing down, coming to its first stop. Throughout the night they’d be coasting in and out of small stations along the way to the big city, stopping when necessary to drop off travelers or pick them up. This first stop couldn’t have been but ten miles from Colfax. All the rich had gone to their sleepers. Paul imagined no one would be getting off so soon, so someone must be getting on.

  “We need to know what kind of black magic the devil can throw at us,” Crittendon said. He drew out a revolver and clapped it down on the table. It was a battered, rusty thing that looked plucked from a swamp, but surely it would perform its single, powerful trick. Crittendon smiled, showing yellow and brown teeth. “I need to know if this little fella will tear holes through lizard flesh the same as any other.”

  “Please tell me they’re not talking about Roy,” Sandy said.

  The train’s brakes squealed. The car slowed. Paul looked at the bench seat where the woman had sat. He imagined her skin smelled of scented soap. He thought of her face, not with a smile, but alive with the pleasures of sex. Again she became Gloria, the way she used to be. Her face once expressed the same pleasures. Her body once moved both above and beneath him all in the same night. He tried to recall how long it’d been since he’d seen her like that, since she smelled like scented soap instead of whiskey, but couldn’t find the memory.

  The train stopped, the doors opened, and a lone passenger boarded the diner car. Paul closed his eyes at the sight of the scatter-gun man.

  25

  Correction—the man no longer possessed a scatter-gun, nor was he wearing his cross. His face was scratched and his nice clothes were torn. His neck was scraped where the cross seemed to have been ripped away. His bowler hat was in his hand, only now it was beaten and dirty. An elbow bled. A knee was red raw and exposed through a fresh hole in his pants. His eyes, however, were clear and direct. They were filled with unappeasable anger. He was whistling a slow, painful tune. Sounded like Clementine.

  The train kicked into motion. The scatter-gun man walked to a bench at the far end of the car. He slumped into the seat as if the string had been pulled from his spine. He was tired and hurting, but there was serenity about him, a peacefulness that seemed out of place. It was as if pain and violence were as common as breakfast and lunch to this man. And if so, Paul thought, supper would certainly be vengeance. He slid closer to the Sandy, hiding his face behind Crittendon and Lee. The less association with the scatter-gun man, the better.

  “You know that fella?” Crittendon said.

  Paul shook his head.

  “I do,” Sandy said. “That’s Judge Frank Ledger.”

  Cyrus Lee pulled an intake of breath. His eyes widened, his skin reddened in some parts, paled in others.

  “Don’t look like no judge to me,” Crittendon said. “Looks more like he’s off his chump.”

  “He isn’t a judge anymore,” Sandy said, “he’s an outlaw now. Haven’t you seen the posters?” She pointed at Cyrus Lee. “He’s seen them.”

  Crittendon looked at Lee, who was nodding gravely.

  “What’s he wanted for?” Paul said.

  “Killed a man in Bracken,” Sandy said, “shot him dead right in front of The Imperial. Opened his belly and knocked his guts clean out.”

  Crittendon snorted. “Fella probably deserved it.”

  “Waylon Fremont was the fella’s name,” Sandy said, “and apparently he did deserve it. He was a known cattle thief and bushwhacker. He’d been on trial in Judge Ledger’s court for killing that old married couple that lived out on the Bariat road. Took their life savings and left them to die and get eaten by the blow flies.”

  “Sounds like Mr. Fremont pissed off the wrong judge,” Crittendon said.

  “He got off is what,” Sandy said. “Not enough evidence to support the county’s case. Way I heard it, Judge Ledger told Fremont he was certain of his guilt, but without the evidence, he could do no sentencing. To that Fremont said-”

  “Jesus will be my only judge.”

  It was Cyrus Lee who had spoken. All eyes turned to him.

  “Fremont told the honorable Frank Ledger that a judge could do nothing to him,” Cyrus said, “even if he had evidence. He said the only one fit to judge him was Jesus, and he’d be meeting up with him on the day he died. To that the judge said, and I do quote, ‘Son, that day may come sooner than you think.’”

  Jeb Crittendon looked at Cyrus Lee like he’d just dropped down fro
m the stars.

  “What?” Lee said. “Don’t you read?”

  “Fremont was just the straw that took down the mule,” Sandy said. “I hear it was one after another getting off with no evidence in Ledger’s court until the judge went loony. They say he never sleeps.”

  Paul watched Frank Ledger lean against the window and close his eyes. He seemed to fall asleep in an instant. “Guess you can’t believe everything you read.”

  Crittendon holstered his revolver and pulled down his hat. Cyrus Lee mimicked him. They settled into their seats for some sleep of their own. Paul took off his hat and placed it over Sandy’s head, pulling it down to shade her eyes. Beneath the brim he could see her smiling. “Get some rest,” he said. She didn’t fight him on it. Paul, too, slouched down in his seat.

  Though his eyes burned with fatigue, Paul couldn’t rest. He’d already assumed he’d get no sleep, but with Frank Ledger in the same train car there was zero chance. From a distance he could see Ledger’s dreaming eyes moving wildly beneath the lids. His lips were whispering threats and his teeth were snapping like a dog chasing rabbits. He was chasing Roy, now, too.

  They all were.

  Paul stifled a chuckle. It was so absurd. The shopkeeper in Bracken had asked him, what makes one man follow another? Paul had given him what he thought was an acceptable answer. He was sure all these men would give acceptable answers, too. Answers they could give their wives and sons and still be held in proper standing, answers that society would regard as good and true. Keeping a job. Protecting society. Even vengeance could be respected, and in some cases heralded. But none of these answers were at the heart of the matter. These men cared little for right and wrong. They followed because secretly they wanted to bleed. They wanted scars. They wanted to taste bitter confrontation. They wanted to inflict pain and suffer wounds. They wanted to survive tests that make everything else seem small. They followed because they sought the kinds of answers good homes and comfortable beds can’t provide. They followed because sleeping awkwardly on a train a man can dream of agony and death, and when he awakens he can have them.

  Roy opened the black chest. It was filled with dozens of forks, knives, and spoons just like the spoon he carried. All the same, all in sets, and yet all different. Each piece was brilliant. Each with its own personality, an individual work of art with little nuances that made it just different enough from its partners to be special. Roy wondered if one set was missing a spoon, or if the spoon he carried was unique—a display model molded with the most amount of care. The best of them all.

  Yes, this had to be the case.

  He considered collecting one knife and one fork so he could have a complete set to carry with him, but there was something wrong about ruining the unity of the sets in the box. The box was pure. Whomever should find it should find it whole. That would be the glory of it.

  He moved the chest to the edge of the boxcar and sat next to it, his feet once again dangling out the doorway. He rested an elbow on the chest and continued rubbing the spoon. The ground sped by. Roy thought of the creatures living out there in the ditches and fields, sleeping in trees or holes, maybe hunting at night. They lived by their own terms. They moved through their own small worlds like kings. He imagined they were aware of humanity, but only in as much as it meant to their survival. Humans were to be avoided, their machines to be tolerated, their guns to be heeded. Cross them and death would follow. This was the capacity of animals. It was all they needed know.

  The train began to slow. As the train was a freighter Roy didn’t figure there’d be any stops between Colfax and the big city.

  No dice.

  The train stopped and whistled its arrival. Outside the car a sign read Knoxville. The station was a small wooden shack with two black eyes for windows. Every second or so a bell rang. It seemed like a ghost station until a worker lit the gas lamps on the stunted boardwalk.

  The freighters must be routed on a separate track, Roy thought, away from the commuters.

  More workers poured out of the station. They moved toward the boxcars wearing gloves and tired faces. Some carried boxes, some limbered up in anticipation of the same task. There would be more loading and unloading, just like at Colfax.

  Roy hopped back into the boxcar. He slid along the near wall and crouched down in a corner behind the wooden crates. He pulled his hat low and his collar high. He pocketed the spoon and produced his revolver.

  Shadows floated past and mingled on the walls. Voices carried into the boxcar and echoed. Some near, some far. Commands from a foreman to the laborers to hurry up and get to it, to load this, unload that. One command increased Roy’s pulse. Make sure you get everything off seventeen.

  A man appeared in the boxcar door. Above the man’s head, held in his left hand, was a lantern. The man wore brown overalls and a bowler hat. He had a young face with a patchy beard. He set down his lamp and placed his hands on the boxcar floor, ready to hop aboard, but the black chest gave him pause.

  “Now what in the hell is this?”

  From all his years of traveling, Roy knew accents like bankers knew coins. This man was Kentucky, straight through. He pushed the chest deeper into the car. He looked left and right and then hopped aboard. He crouched down to the chest and ran a gloved hand over it. He whistled, not like you would for a dog or for a woman’s attention, but like you would when you saw something impressive. He unlatched the chest and opened it, took off a glove and reached inside. An outside voice stopped his movement.

  “Get moving, Wade! We ain’t got all day.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wade said. He closed the chest and slid it along the floor until it was covered in shadow. He put the glove back on and began unloading crates, handing them off to a man on the ground outside the car.

  Roy breathed through his nose. His ears rushed with each heartbeat. He released his breaths evenly and soundlessly. Still crouched, he held the revolver down by his ankle. It came to him that he’d pointed the gun at everyone and everything he’d met since taking possession of it, and yet he still hadn’t squeezed the trigger. His hand yearned for the kickback. His ears wanted the explosion and the uneasy silence that only follows gunshots. A silence where the world comes to attention and petty things are forgotten. All the same, he wanted to throw the gun away. If he used it society would look upon him. Be they butchers or bankers, whores or thieves, they would stop what they were doing and look. They would point. They would talk. And they would eventually chase.

  Wade worked with purpose. He was wiry, but his forearms were furry and strong. One by one the crates disappeared. His pace was methodical. In thirty seconds he’d be removing the final crate and looking upon an armed freight-hopper.

  26

  The three other men and one girl in the diner car slept like babies rocked by the train’s rhythm. Jeb Crittendon snored. Paul, still awake, wondered how well his son was sleeping at his grandfather’s house. No doubt Jacob would be in a lush bed with countless pillows and servants at his call. Too much time there and the boy would come back soft. Jacob loved his grandfather for the reasons a boy should love anyone—toys and gifts. The old man rained them down like a god. A rocking horse, tops, marbles, a drum, and a cup and ball that the boy had yet to master. The old man confused gifts for affection.

  No, that wasn’t right. There was no confusion about it. Delmont Graves substituted gifts for affection, saving himself from the burden of the time and energy.

  To the point, Delmont Graves was spoiling Paul’s child. Paul had always bitten his tongue on the subject. Gloria would blast with both barrels if he said anything, and he hadn’t the will to fight her on it. His silence was pain avoidance, he knew that. He had come to terms with it, but the row was no less hard to hoe. He couldn’t offer gifts like Delmont. And even if he could, he wouldn’t. In Paul’s way of thinking, a boy needed only his imagination and a world to explore. A down tree could be a rocking horse, stones replaced marbles, and who needed a cup and ball, anyway? Gifts would
take away the boy’s imagination and drive. They would give him expectations when it was best to have none. They would make him think a man needed only to exist and the world would open its doors.

  But how do you tell a five-year-old the world is a cold and terrible place, and to move through it thinking you had a right to peace or happiness was a mug’s game?

  Jeb Crittendon snorted in his sleep. Paul looked at Cyrus Lee for a matching snort, but none came. He peeked at Frank Ledger to find the man’s eyes open. Ledger looked like a demon possessed him. He still slept, of that Paul was certain, but his open eyes watched a nightmare. The man’s mouth came open, slowly and steadily, to the point where the jawbone would either lock or crack. A silent, horrified scream. His body convulsed. A knee banged the table from beneath. His eyes widened and widened. His jaw worked up and down like he was mouthing, “Ah, ah, ah.”

  Paul grabbed the hilt of his Dragoon.

  Ledger’s legs extended and his boot heels banged the floor. Froth formed at the corners of his mouth. Some kind of seizure. Paul slid to the edge of his bench and pulled his legs underneath him, ready to pounce at God knows what. The seizure went on for several minutes. Paul wasn’t well-versed on such things, but the length of the affair seemed extraordinary.

  And then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Ledger’s body went flaccid. He blinked. Awake. He wiped froth from his mouth as his eyes searched the diner car. They paused for a moment at the revolver on Paul’s waist, and then moved up to match Paul’s gaze. “I’ve seen you.”

  “The Colfax rail yard,” Paul said. “You and your brothers.”

  Ledger nodded. “You know something about the lizard.”

  “I do,” Paul said.

  “Where’s he headed?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Ledger looked at Crittendon and Lee, and at Sandy, all still sleeping. He lifted a chin to them. “Who’re they?”