Dead Time

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Fallon glanced at the second wagon, but couldn’t see any movement, as he fired the pistol again. The bullet went wide. The Mexican fired, but he rushed his shot. Fallon steadied his aim, and his breathing, and touched the trigger again just a split second after the Mexican pulled his trigger. But the Mexican was out of bullets. The revolver Fallon held had one more cartridge, and the chunk of lead hit the man plumb center.

  Another bandit leaped his palomino stallion through a gap between wagons. He was shot off his horse by Merle, who had given up on his Gatling gun, as well.

  Fallon punched out shells from his pistol. Merle came over. “We’re finished!” he yelled. “We’re . . .”

  He stopped, turned to the north. His eyes became more focused. “Did you . . .” he started. Fallon finished the sentence. “Hear that?”

  It wasn’t faint—not if they could hear it over the roar of battle and their own ears numbed from the pandemonium of war. But it was a bugle. Sounding: Charge!

  Maybe the Mexican army had a charge call, but it certainly couldn’t sound like this one. Because echoing behind the bugle was a full band playing “Dixie’s Land.”

  Fallon lowered his revolver. He wiped his face. His shoulder was bleeding again, and his legs started to lose strength. He dropped the revolver and gripped a wagon tongue for support. Facing west, he saw General Justice moving forward, putting bullets in the heads of wounded Mexicans as they crawled over the blood-soaked desert sand. Men littered the desert.

  Fallon turned around, sat on an empty crate of ammunition, and saw the flash of sabers on the other side of their makeshift redoubt. The battle had turned. The New Confederate Army for Justice would win the day.

  Then Fallon was on his back, breathing air, feeling that dreaded void approach him—maybe for the last time. Suddenly a hand lifted him up, brought him to rest on another human, and gentle hands pushed the sweat-soaked bangs off his forehead.

  “Hank . . .” He must have dreamed it.

  He must be dead.

  For he was certain that he was looking into the beautiful eyes of Christina Whitney.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Only Christina had grown a brown mustache. Her hair was brown and short. And she wore the uniform of a Confederate soldier.

  “Hang on, honey,” the soldier whispered. The soldier sounded a hell of a lot like Christina Whitney, too.

  “I’m . . . dead . . .” Fallon said, and his eyes closed.

  “Listen to me, you picklebrain,” she said in a rasping voice. “Open your damned eyes. You’re not dying on me.”

  “I’m not dying,” he said, though he couldn’t be certain of that, and he kept his eyes closed. He didn’t think he had enough strength to open them. Fallon managed to add: “Yet.”

  “Open your eyes and look at me,” Christina demanded.

  He sucked in a deep breath, holding it, and finally let it out slowly. His eyes opened. Christina’s face softened.

  “What the hell . . . are you . . . doing . . . here?”

  “My name’s White,” she said. “Chris White. We partnered together in a Missouri jail four years ago. Liberty. Thirty days for disturbing the peace. Remember that.”

  His brain began to fog over.

  “What?” he managed to say.

  “Remember. Liberty’s jail. Thirty days. Four years ago.”

  She must have felt the presence of someone or heard footsteps because she pressed down harder on the bullet wound in his shoulder, hard enough for Fallon to cry out in pain. That closed his eyes, and when they opened, he recognized the towering figure of General Josiah Jonathan Justice standing just behind Christina Whitney . . . Chris White.

  “How bad is he, soldier?” Justice said as he wiped his face with a silk handkerchief.

  Christina turned to stare up at the General, and her voice lowered. “Don’t rightly know certain-sure, Gen’ral.” She turned her head, spit between her teeth. “Dis shoulder of his’n be a-bleedin’ like a stuck hawg hangin’ from a cedar branch.” She started tearing off her bandanna, wadding it into a ball. Then she pulled out a pewter flask from her back pocket—trousers.

  She’s wearing pants, Fallon thought. My God . . . Wait . . . yes . . . she’s . . . a man . . . pretending to be . . .

  “Chris White . . .” Fallon said.

  “That’s right, pard,” Christina said as she unscrewed the lid and poured clear liquid onto her checked piece of cotton. “You ain’t forgot Missouri, I reckon.”

  “Is that ardent spirits there . . . Private White?” The name came out as more of a question, more of an uncertainty, than the query as to what Christina’s flask contained.

  “Bona fide corn liquor, Gen’ral,” she said, and held up the flask in her left hand while bringing the bandanna, soaked with booze, toward Fallon’s bloody shoulder. “Pap’s very own recipe. Folks come clear from down in Pulaski County jes’ to sip some of Pap’s Cass County brew.”

  When Fallon had finished screaming, and when the blinding tears finally left his eyes, he saw and heard General Justice coughing savagely while holding the flask he had sampled as far away from his body as a person could.

  “Good . . . Gawd . . .” Justice shook his head, coughed again, and studied the flask. “You actually drink this filth?”

  Christina squeezed more of the liquor into the hole in Fallon’s shoulder, but now he couldn’t feel anything. It was like the rotgut had burned away every nerve in Fallon’s shoulder. Still, Christina took the flask Justice was handing back to her and swallowed down a swig. Fallon saw that. He tried to shake his head in amazement because Christina simply wiped her mouth and set the container down on a flat rock.

  “Ya gots to’ve growed up with it, I reckons, sir,” she said in her thickened accent.

  “I see.” Justice stepped around. He pointed at Fallon, but held his gaze on Christina. “You know this man, my captain, Harry Alexander?”

  “Ain’t got nary a clue as to what name he be usin’ these days, sir, but I knowed him for a spell up Liberty, Missouri, way. We both got into some tussles. Not ag’in each other. I don’t know who he was a-fightin’, but I was a-havin’ me a high ol’ time at a barn dance on Holtzclaw Creek.” She snorted, spat again, and peeled back the bandanna to look at the wound. “That be some spell back, though, Gen’ral. Two years. Nah. Longer’n that. Must be nigh four. Don’t rightly reckon it was five, though.” She laughed. “Too much of Pa’s corn liquor between that stay and today.”

  “I don’t think I know you . . . Private . . .”

  “White.” She turned and offered a lame salute. “Chris White. Cass County, Missouri. Pa rode with Quantrill. I wasn’t old enough to fit ’em damn Yankees back then, but I’s sure glad you’s givin’ me the chance to avenge Pa. He got kilt whilst he were a-ridin’ with Howell’s Renegades when they tried a-robbin’ that bank in St. Joe back in ’79. Deke Hollister tol’ me ’bout what you was a-doin’, so I tracked yer outfit down as soon as word reached me. Chris Ehrlander signed me up. That’s how come I knowed where to find ya.”

  Fallon’s fingers balled into fists at the mention of Ehrlander’s name. He tried to sit up, but Christina pushed him down.

  “Set still, ol’ hoss,” she said. Her eyes remained firm. “And drink some of Pa’s toddy.”

  She started bringing the flask toward his lips.

  Justice stared at the back of her head, then at Fallon before Christina blocked Fallon’s view. He heard the General say, “Take care of him, White. He’s too good of a fighting man to miss our next campaign.” Justice walked away.

  Fallon’s lips tightened, but Christina said, “You do need to drink this. Might not cure you, but it’ll stop the hurt. In your shoulder, that is.”

  She lifted his head, and he took more of the rotgut than he wanted, coughed about a dozen times after swallowing the first mouthful, then Christina brought the flask back to his lips and made him swallow even more.

  “From the carvin’,” she began, still using the phony accen
t, “around that hole there, I reckon they gots the lead out. That’s good. Maybe you won’t die from blood p’is’in. You jes’ sleep, ol’ hoss, and let Chris White take good care of you. Like the Gen’ral says. You’s too good a fightin’ man to miss our next campaign.”

  He did feel better. Well, he felt . . . tired . . . too exhausted to hurt. She lowered his head onto something soft, and he saw General Justice standing over another wounded man, a wounded soldier of the New Confederate Army for Justice.

  “This man is gut-shot,” Justice told the man tending the wounded man. Then Justice stared down at the man. “You served your country well, sir. You fought valiantly. But we cannot leave you behind. Just know that we are grateful for your service, and that your kin will know that you died nobly in battle.” The LeMat was in the General’s hand, and the last thing Fallon heard was the report of the giant weapon.

  * * *

  He woke to a rocking that was neither rhythmic nor rocking. His shoulder hurt, but no longer throbbed or burned, and he breathed in scents of what smelled like rotting fish and salt. A lot of salt. Wherever he was, it was dark, but he knew he no longer was lying on the ground somewhere in Mexico.

  “Welcome back,” Christina Whitney said, and she sounded like Christina Whitney, not a Missouri ruffian and son of a bushwhacker, although when Fallon’s eyes finally focused, after Christina lighted a match and brought it to the wick of a candle, she still looked like Chris White—only dirtier now.

  He tried to remember everything that had happened. He tried to speak, but his lips, tongue, and throat did not work. She was setting the candle into a holder and putting that on a box. Next she found a canteen, which she uncorked. Once again, she started to lift his head, but he pulled away from her.

  “Let me,” he managed to say. “See if... I . . . can . . . sit . . .”

  He made it. No dizziness sent him tumbling back into the purgatory of oblivion. The shoulder hurt no more—but no less, either. And he could breathe better, even smell better, but the latter only made him groan and gag. Wherever he was stank like the guts of a catfish.

  Now he took the canteen.

  “You are one hard rock,” Christina said.

  He drank. Drank again.

  “Not too much,” she warned.

  At least he could talk now without sounding like a dying frog. “Where are we?”

  “Aboard the C.S.S. Justice,” she said.

  She went on to explain. The survivors of the ambush—there were no Mexican survivors, Christina said—had regrouped with the main force on the coastline, which was where the frigate Justice lay anchored in water deep enough to support it and the weight it was about to carry. The Gatling guns that had been used had been cleaned and disassembled, returned to the boxes. Weapons had been issued to all soldiers for the New Confederate Army for Justice. The men did not seem overly thrilled that they would not be paid yet, but there wasn’t much they could do. Before long, some of Porfirio Díaz’s rurales would come this way—the buzzards were sure to invite investigation—so General Justice had given them a choice. They could stay here or sail away to Texas. All of them decided not to be mustered out of Justice’s army. Besides, they had seen just how Justice mustered out his soldiers.

  “How long have we been at sea?”

  She told him.

  He started to ask another question, but quickly put it aside. Instead, he drank more water, then handed her the canteen so he wouldn’t be tempted to drink again. “How the hell did you find us?”

  She grinned. Even with that mustache glued on her lips, even with the dirt, and grime, and the fact she had been in this ship’s hold, sweating profusely, she looked beautiful. Maybe that was Fallon’s imagination. Or the fact that the candle lit up only so much.

  “I am a detective, Hank,” she told him. “A pretty damn good one, too.”

  “I never doubted that.”

  “We had operatives near Justice’s operations, from Florida’s Panhandle to southern Texas. When no one reported you at Hell on the Brazos, we knew you had to be somewhere else. Didn’t take long before we got word that you were in Louisiana. And when the superintendent at The Walls reported that you had died, we knew, most likely, that the operation was starting up. When we found out for certain . . .”

  “But how did you get here . . . I mean . . . to Mexico?”

  “Chris Ehrlander. I thought you knew that.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Fallon stiffened. Hatred filled his heart.

  “I wasn’t lying, Hank,” Christina told him. “Not to Justice. Chris got me here. Well, he told me where to go. Chris gave me my cover.”

  “Chris?” Immediately, he regretted his tone. It sounded petty, or rather like he was jealous. Then it struck Fallon that was how he felt. It wasn’t the hatred he felt for Chris Ehrlander. He was jealous of the man because Christina was on such familiar terms with him.

  She took his hand and squeezed it. “Hank. Chris has been working for the American Detective Agency since before this operation. He’s the one who told Sean MacGregor and Dan all about you. He said that he had been trying to prove your innocence all these years, that he wanted to avenge the murder of your wife and daughter.”

  Fallon’s eyes closed. He pulled his hand away, but she brought it right back and squeezed tightly. And he was too weak to put up much of a fight.

  “He set me up,” he told her. “He killed Renee and Rachel.”

  “No.” The voice was but a whisper, but it came with a force. Fallon had to open his eyes. “Barney Drexel killed your family. Had your family killed, I mean. I thought you knew that.”

  “Drexel?”

  “Yes, Hank. He was a guard at the Missouri State Penitentiary before he came to Texas. He helped set up the operation there, at least from all that Chris—Chris Ehrlander—and Dan MacGregor found out. Well, Chris told Mr. MacGregor. I’m not sure when exactly Dan learned everything. I didn’t know—but I didn’t even know you until we started the operation—until Chris told me.”

  “Chris Ehrlander?” It hurt Fallon just to say the words.

  “He’s your friend, Hank. He’s been your friend for years.”

  He felt sick.

  “I’m a lousy detective,” he said. “I had it all wrong.”

  She looked up, and, satisfied that all remained safe, came down and kissed him gently on his lips.

  “It’s all right, honey.” Lifting her head, she said, “Where is Drexel?”

  “Dead,” Fallon said. Hell, he had gotten his revenge—and hadn’t even realized it.

  “Dead?”

  Fallon explained what had happened on the train, and as he did, a strange feeling came over him. He had killed Barney Drexel while performing his duty . . . in self-defense . . . not out of the bloodlust of vengeance. And this knowledge left him feeling whole. Maybe he wasn’t as cold-blooded as prisons had made him out to be.

  But something else struck him.

  “I was sent to Huntsville . . . The MacGregors, Holderman, Chris Ehrlander knew Drexel was there. Which meant they knew he might recognize me.” The fury started returning. Maybe he wasn’t so whole after all. “Hell, it’s only a miracle that Drexel didn’t remember me sooner than he did.”

  Christina leaned back. “Drexel was at Rusk, not The Walls.”

  Fallon stared at the woman. He knew she was a great actress, but she couldn’t have been that good.

  “He was at The Walls,” Fallon said.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “Why would MacGregor have sent me to Huntsville if the operation was based out of Rusk?” Fallon said. “Drexel was there, at The Walls.”

  “I don’t know,” Christina said after a long silence.

  “And why did I get sent to Yuma first? Jeff City I can understand. The Mole was there. But Yuma?” He shook his head.

  “Listen, Hank,” she said, her voice firm. “I don’t have those answers. I just don’t know. Remember, I didn’t meet you—except for a passing nod at
the elevator in Chicago—until we started planning for this. This is the case I’m working on. And you’re working on it with me. And there’s one important thing here. We need to get out of here alive.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

  “Where’s the money?” she asked.

  Fallon looked at her again. “From the train. The reports we have said you made off with more than two hundred thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. That can finance . . .”

  He finished the sentence for her. “A war.” His head shook. “You haven’t heard from Holderman?”

  She shook her head.

  Well, that had been a long shot. Fallon told her how he had tossed the money—all of it, or at least most of it—out of the express car along the side of the Houston-Victoria-Laredo Railroad. But he had told Holderman what he had done. It wasn’t what he had wanted to do, and it certainly wasn’t how he thought things would play out, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

  “Holderman wasn’t part of our convoy,” he said. “Justice sent some riders with wagons in the opposite directions. I have to guess that Holderman was with one of those groups.”

  “Maybe with the party that went east?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. And even if he did, he would have been outnumbered.”

  “Even if he did,” Christina said, “he’d still be Aaron Holderman.”

  Which, to Fallon’s surprise, caused him not only to grin, but to laugh.

  “I’ve been down here since just after the train job,” she told him. “So there’s a chance that Holderman did get the money.”

  He remained quiet. She kept on talking.

  “Without the money, Justice can’t fund a war. I was in camp long enough to know these men aren’t revolutionaries. They’re thieves, killers, and rogues—no better, no worse than those bandits that attacked you. If they don’t get paid, they’ll leave Justice in droves. This new Civil War will die before it ever truly begins.”