Ring Of Knives

by Daniels, James

  That was what the townsfolk of Heaven, Washington looked like now.

  The young girl's face dropped, then twisted into a mask of fear. The rest of the crowd stared briefly, then one by one turned around and walked sullenly back to the sidewalk.

  Matt stood frozen in place, trying to understand what had just happened.

  "You must think we're all crazy here," a voice said from behind him.

  He turned and found himself looking into the warm, blue eyes of a woman wearing a bright summer dress even in the cold. There were small lines in her face and her blonde hair was fading to gray, but she still had the look of someone who had just left girlhood behind.

  "I don't know what to think," Matt said honestly.

  "We're expecting someone," the woman said.

  Matt gestured up at the banner. "I got that," he said. "But I'm the crazy one. Because for a minute, I kind of thought you were all waiting for me."

  She looked at him, puzzled, and then broke into a smile. "You wouldn't be Matt, would you?"

  "Matthew Cahill, but Matt's what my friends call me," he said, then looked at the sea of backs moving away from him. "I guess that's not going to be an issue around here."

  "They're just disappointed," she said. "They've been waiting for such a long time."

  "Waiting for Matt."

  "Waiting for Matthew Delaney," she said. "We got word he'd been sent back from the war more than a month ago. We thought he'd be back right away after that, but there was some problem with his discharge papers. Then they told us he'd picked up some kind of bug, and he'd have to stay in the military hospital in Seattle until they were sure he was over it. Yesterday we heard he'd been released and would be heading home."

  Matthew hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he felt. "I'm sure he'll love the welcome."

  "He never was much one for sentimental displays," the woman said. "When he signed up, he didn't even tell anyone until the day he was due at basic, just so he wouldn't have to go through a lot of good-byes. So we're not taking any chances this time."

  The road was entirely clear now. The townsfolk had all drifted back to the sidewalks that ran the three blocks of the commercial district.

  "I'm sure it will be worth the wait," Matt said. "If I found a crowd like this waiting to welcome me home, it would be worth just about anything."

  "As long as you knew some of them," the woman said. "It must have seemed pretty weird thinking all these complete strangers were celebrating your arrival."

  "I've seen weirder," Matt said.

  He meant it as a joke, a quick exit line to be tossed off as he climbed back on his bike.

  But the woman didn't laugh. She grabbed his upper arm with surprisingly strong, calloused fingers and pulled him around so she could look directly into his eyes. After a moment, she released his arm, nodding thoughtfully.

  "Yes, I suppose you have," she said.

  "Do I look that bad?" Matt said, trying again to lighten the strangeness of the moment.

  This time it worked. She gave him a warm smile. "I guess I'm keeping you here," she said, although the tone in her voice suggested she wasn't sorry about it. "You probably have places you need to be."

  "Actually, no," Matt said.

  "That's good," she said, "because this road you're on doesn't really go anywhere. Couple miles up, it turns into a fire road. Except they keep cutting the forest service budget and road maintenance seems to be the first thing to go, so it's more of a fire trail now. Or maybe it's nothing."

  "Thanks for the information," Matt said. "I really just came this way because I saw the sign on the highway…"

  He trailed off, realizing how ridiculous the rest of the sentence would sound.

  "…and wanted to see what Heaven looked like, right?" she said with another one of those warm smiles. "You wouldn't be the first. So does it live up to your expectations?"

  Matt took another look around the tiny town. The people were drifting back towards the general store and the diner and the other businesses; some were heading up the dirt roads to their homes.

  "Small town like this isn't for everyone," she said. "But what it's got to offer you can't find anywhere else."

  Except maybe in Waco, he thought. Or Jonestown.

  "I guess not," Matt said, then lifted his helmet. "I'd better be going."

  She took his arm again, those surprisingly strong fingers digging into his muscle. "Do you have to?"

  Matt thought of all those jokes and stories he'd heard over the years about travelling salesmen and lonely widows. But the look she was giving him didn't have any lust in it.

  She was afraid.

  "Help us," she whispered.

  If you liked THE DEAD MAN, you might also enjoy James Daniels' upcoming novel GHOST BRIDE. Here's an excerpt.

  GHOST BRIDE

  Something everybody knows: if you're in a church in Idaho at midnight, and it's hung with banners painted Bolshevik red, and filled with shouting, stamping miners – well then, it better be Christmas Eve, and they better be shouting Amen, Hallelujah, or Can I get a witness? Because anything else is trouble.

  Everybody knows that.

  Even I know that.

  In fact, if there's one thing I know about after forty-five years, it's trouble: how to spot it, start it, shrug it, sell it, soup it up, side-step it, strong-arm it, swan-song it, so-long it. I know how to tilt it, milk it, and sweep it under the rug. So looking around the noisy gloom of Madre de Dolores this fine cold September night, I know damn well what I've gotten myself into…

  Trouble. Of the worst kind.

  Start with the kid standing at the altar.

  He's younger than I expected, uglier, too, and rail thin – a hundred pounds tops, with rocks in his pockets. But even so, I can see why the Agency wants him dead. He slaps the podium in front of the altar, and two hundred miners stamp their feet. He raises his fist, raises his voice, and they respond in kind.

  "Is this what we were promised?"

  "No!"

  "Is this what we deserve?"

  "No!"

  "What we sweated for?"

  "No!"

  "Slaved for?"

  "No!"

  "And what about our kids?"

  At the mention of kids the men leap to their feet and start chewing the pews. They're waving banners and shouting Hell no, call and response-style, like he's a preacher and they're the congregation. And why not? We are in church, after all. But the crucifix above the altar is covered with a bedsheet that says AFL in red slop letters, and there's no priest in sight, only little Sandy Cranovicz, with his orange hair and pitted skin and big mouth.

  He'll do, though, he'll fit the bill. The proof is all around me. He's worked these men into a lather. No small feat when most of them haven't eaten in days, and their families likewise. It's the fifth week of the strike, after all.

  "A tug for you, big fellah?"

  A toothless old miner to my left claps me on the back and puts a bottle under my nose. I slap it away. "Christ no," I say. He shrugs, cocks it himself. Glug glug. I watch him. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looks back to Cranovicz.

  But I'm still watching the miner. His bleary eyes slide over to mine, blank as nickels, and when Carrot Top yells, "Is this what Samuel Gompers died for?" The old guy yells back, "Hell no," with all the rest.

  I relax some. Though his hand clapped right onto the butt of my .32, he must not have felt it. I thought long and hard about whether to keep it in my pocket or shoulder holster or the back of my belt. Now I guess it doesn't matter.

  "How long are we gonna wait?"

  "No longer!"

  "How much are we gonna to take?"

  "No more!"

  "And what about those scabs?"

  The room goes nuts.

  Suddenly I'm dizzy, and grab the pew in front of me. The place is spinning. Too much smoke, too much noise. But the real culprit, I know, is the bottle of hooch the old miner shoved at me. Silver Dollar Special, the
bottle said, but that's a laugh; it was home-brewed stuff if ever I smelled it. This is Idaho, and the miners hereabouts distill potato peelings. It's in their bellies and on their breath, and every time they shout the air in the room gets thicker with the tang of shine, of wood grain, of kerosene.

  Now I've got both hands on the pew. I want a drink so badly that my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I'm dry as dirt, and the worst of it is, I have to stay that way. Doctor's orders. Said my life depended on it, and I believe him. But if I ever needed a drink, this is surely the moment.

  But that's out. And suddenly, breathing in this haze of smoke and bathtub gin is almost too much. I shouldn't have come, I should have waited out by the water-tower like we planned. But I wanted to be here, to hear Sandy, to see what all the fuss was about. And now, looking up, I'm glad I did.

  "What about Frank Little?"

  "Frank!"

  "Did he cave in?"

  "Hell no!"

  "When they starved him?"

  "No!"

  "When they beat him?"

  "No!"

  "Lynched him?"

  "No!"

  "And the thirty families Rock-a-feller machine-gunned in Ludlow, what about them?"

  "Ludlow!"

  "Did they die so you and me could sign some yellow-dog contract to line the fat-cats' pockets while our kids are eating dandelion greens?"

  "Hell no!"

  He's pushing toward the finish line, and they know it. Every man in Madre de los Dolores has both fists in the air, the miners in front of the altar and the bodyguards behind it. There's five guards in all, three more than I expected, and it has me worried.

  But then I see the girl.

  She's off to his left, the only one sitting. For a second I can't breathe. She's the spitting image of Ingrid. It is Ingrid.

  And then I squint, or the haze clears, or she leans forward, and I get a better look.

  Ingrid? Not even close. Too young. She's got the hair though, the thin wrists, the long neck, but the rest is pure Idaho. Her eyes are close together, her teeth every-which-way. Her dress is what you would expect, a place like this. But there's something in her look, in the way she watches Cranovicz, that makes me think of Ingrid.

  My head clears. I know Ingrid, the real Ingrid, is near. I can feel it. Either she's at the crossroads already, or she will be soon. Waiting. For the first time in six years. And that means the only thing between her and me is Sandy C.

  I let go of the pew. I elbow past the shouting men. By the time they're hitting their high notes, I'm out of the church and into the woods, my head clear, the .32 cocked and ready in my hand.

  # # # # # #

  The moon's out, but it's what old-timers call a rain-moon, where a light drizzle falls from a clear sky. The branches are black, the footing's slick. Soon I'm wet. Since we're in the mountains, wet means cold and I can see my breath in clouds in front of me. Twice I trip before reaching an outcropping of dark rock halfway up the slope. From here I can see the church and, farther off, the top of the water tower poking through the pines.

  I settle on my haunches, break the .32, check the chambers. Six dolls, all tucked in. One slides out, and as I pick it out of the weeds I see my hand is shaking. It's the cold of course, though the scent of the hooch still clings to my slicker, and that doesn't help. And neither does the lungful of mustard I swallowed in '18. Or the bullet I took working for the Agency two years later. It's all mixed together inside me like a cocktail, and when you think about it I'm lucky I can get dressed in the morning.

  I slip the shell back into the barrel, shut it, spin it. I hold it up at armslength, looking down the site through one eye at the doors of los Dolores. I should have brought a rifle. This isn't my sort of thing.

  Below, the church doors crack open and the miners come spilling out. Last but not least is Cranovicz, the girl, three goons. Three is better than five, I guess. They start down the path to the watertower. I start going from trunk to trunk. My gloves get sappy, some rocks underfoot break loose and rattle down the hill.

  I stop, they stop. I can see the glow of their cigarettes through the trees. Their voices go low. They've heard me. Christ. And then I hear laughter. Maybe not?

  I wait, I watch. Something strange is happening. The gang is breaking up. Some continue up the path, but a few are coming my way. I get behind a fat pine. This is going to be bad.

  The rain, which has been light, picks up. I can still hear their footsteps, though, and the laughter again, which is strange. And then I hear I different sort of sound altogether.

  I look around the trunk. It's Cranovicz and the girl. She gets him by the scarf, and pulls him to her. He goes with it, presses her against a tree. Her hands are buried in his orange mop, and his are everywhere else. She makes a noise like a pigeon, and suddenly he grabs the hem of her skirt and lifts it up above her waist. The moon's so bright, I can see the material, a faded cotton print of blue fleur-de-lis. Beneath it, a white slash of thigh. Both of them start to get serious.

  I'm many things, but a peep isn't one of them. I step out from behind the trunk, cocking the .32.

  She hears it. Even through the rain and the rasp of tree bark and love-talk, she hears it. And no wonder. The sound is like nothing else in the world. Before I've taken my third step Fleur-de-lis opens her eyes, and cries out.

  Cranovicz spins around, one hand holding up his pants, the other fumbling for his coat pocket. His eyes are big, and they should be. In a heartbeat I've crossed the space between us and snagged a handful of his orange hair. I spin him away from the tree, clock him twice with the butt of the gun. He goes down. Behind me I hear a suck of breath, and I turn and put my forearm to Fleur-de-lis's throat before she can let loose with the scream to end all screams. She gags. Her eyes are big with fear and she shoves off the trunk. I push her back, hard. There's a crunch as her head connects with the tree-bark. Her knees buckle and she's out.

  There's a wheezing noise behind me. I turn. Cranovicz is up on his knees and pulling something ugly out of his pocket. By the look of the handle it's a .45, and the handle's all I have to go by since he's holding it by the barrel. Before he can get a better grip the laces of my boot connect with his jaw and he goes sprawling. There's a soft sound in the darkness to my left. The .45.

  And that's that. I stand above him, breathing hard. My breath fogs the air between us. When it clears I see he's staring up at me. His face is black with blood, and the scalp is torn where I smacked it.

  I raise the gun. He doesn't blink. His mouth moves, he says something, but I don't catch it. The blood is pooling in his ears.

  I say, "You should have shut the hell up, Red. You were warned. This is no one's fault but your own."

  He hacks a little and makes a gargling noise. It can't be what I think it is.

  "You had this coming, I say." Rain trails off the barrel onto his cheek.

  Again the gargle. This time there's no mistaking it.

  He's laughing.

  "Do it then," he says through the mess of his jaw, "go on and do it."

  And I should, now's the time. But my finger's gone numb. I flex it, think to myself Ingrid, she's waiting, and start to squeeze.

  Suddenly I can't see. There's a body on my back, hands clawing my eyes, a voice in my ear saying "No, no, no!"

  Fleur-de-lis.

  I reach back, grab a hunk of her hair. I bend over and she comes off, taking some of me with her.

  There's blood in my eyes, and by the time I wipe it away Sandy is staggering to his feet. His girl is crouching between us like a shortstop. "Goddamn you," she says, "goddamn you, get back." Her coat's gone, and she's soaked. The wet dress clings to her flat chest. Her black hair looks painted on.

  "You get," she says, "get away from us."

  "I can't," I say. I lift the gun. She's right in front of him. If I take her in the neck he'll get the same. Or I can put it in her gut and when she buckles, take him high in the chest. Or I could ricochet it off the goddamn m
oon.

  "You should have known," I say. "Now it's just no good." My thumb tries to cock the gun but it's already cocked. "It's just no good," I say. "It's just no good."

  She's quicker than he is. She sees the barrel, how it shakes. She starts backing up, pushing Cranovicz out of the moonlight, into the dark brush.

  "You get," she says, backing up, backing him up.

  "I'm…" Sandy says, trying to hold his mouth together, "I'm…"

  I could still do it. It'd be easy. But now my piece is pointing past them, over their shoulders, to the West. "Get out of here, both of you," I say. "Get out while you can. They'll be back. We'll be back. Get out. Get out. For good."

  The woods swallow them.

  "You ain't nothing," her shaky voice says from the darkness. They're both in the darkness now. "You ain't nothing at all."

  # # # # # #

  I run through the woods, my heart pounding. The moon still hangs above me in the pine-branches, throwing crazy patterns on the ground, but the rain is easing off. Some of it is lifting into fog. I give the watertower a wide berth, but even so the crossroads is a lot farther than I thought. Then I see a flicker of light through the trees.

  Turns out there's two cars waiting. That gives me pause, until I see that one is from the Agency. The other is a black Mercedes I don't recognize. I slow to a walk and cross the field, wading through a knee-high fog. The cars' headlights cut a white path through it, which I follow. There's the clunk of doors opening, one, two, three. Three people come out to meet me. One's Lancy, the other two I don't know. I look from one to the other. No one's wearing a dress.

  "See you made it Frank, any luck?"

  "Yeah, they split up, came my way."

  "Cranovicz?"

  "And the girl, both of them." I squint. Both cars are running, but there's nothing in the nearest one but the moon's reflection on the glass. I ask, "Is Ingrid here?"

  "How'd it go with Cranovicz?"

  "All right."

  "What's that mean, all right?"

  "It means I took care of him. Ingrid here?"

  Lancy looks away from me, draws on his cigarette, taps the ash. When he turns back the moonlight shines off his glasses. "She's here. Now tell me, Frank. Tell me about Cranovicz."