Deadlands: For a Few Dead Guys More

by Shane Lacy Hensley

  Somebody opened the stable doors.

  Eli darted beneath the Palomino and came up the other side with his back against the wall. He heard no movement from the stranger, but it was hard to tell with his heart thundering like a piston inside his hollow chest. Then suddenly, a realization slapped Eli across the face and he uttered a silent curse: Lou-Anne, his scattergun, was back in the room. He was defenseless.

  Mustering a seed of courage, Eli looked over the Palomino's back. Standing at the stable doors, Marshal Bollace was shaking tenacious droplets from his hat. He surveyed the stables with a good measure of disdain, then walked straight to Sam. Eli held his breath while the Marshal pushed into Sam's stall and went fishing through Eli's saddlebags. The pouches were empty, so Eli had nothing to worry about; what concerned him, however, was the way Bollace went straight for Sam, like he knew what he wanted.

  A thoroughly unpleasant look crossed the Marshal's face while he searched the stall. Finding nothing, he grabbed Eli's saddle from its perch and hurled it into the corridor with a frustrated roar that frightened the Hell out of the horses. Bollace shoved his way out of the stall and slammed the gate shut. He kicked Eli's saddle for good measure, then made out the stable doors.

  Eli waited an appreciable moment before picking up his sullied saddle. With a huff, he planted them back on their perch and went to calm Sam down. He had a lot of thinking to do, not the least of which was cutting his reputation loose and, come nightfall, heading west as fast as Sam could carry him. Till then, though, he'd have to wait it out till the saloon cleared.

  ***

  Eli hid in the stables for hours, entertaining notions and making himself scant when two locals claimed their nags. Bollace was not what he seemed, that was obvious. He knew to head straight for Sam, and was searching for something in particular. That meant he knew Eli was the road agent, and he wanted something from him, possibly something stolen. Taking the theory a step further, that meant Bollace was waiting for the stagecoach. That would explain why he found the massacre so quickly.

  So Eli asked himself, what was he looking for? The jewelry was plain and the money slim pickings; the satchel and ledger were Eli's best guess. Jacob was fretful about the satchel, and that meant he had something to lose. The secrets of this entire fiasco probably rested within the scribbles of the ledger, and chances were Bollace wanted it badly enough to bargain for it. If that were true, Eli had some hope of clearing his name.

  Between Bollace's dramatic departure earlier that afternoon and Eli's musings, deep night had settled over Carverstown. The lights in Annie's were out, turning her saloon into a silhouette against the darker grain of storm clouds and torrential downpour. Eli padded his way down the partially flooded street. He peered through the saloon's engraved windows before stealing past the doors and making his way across the empty floor.

  Well, mostly empty.

  The click of a cocked hammer froze Eli in mid-step. He looked around cautiously, and found One-Eyed Jade standing behind the bar with a rifle aimed at his head.

  Shrewd woman thought Eli. She had hidden behind the bar, waiting for him to return.

  "I can shoot pennies with this rifle," Jade whispered in the dark, "so don't think I can't split your eyeball from here."

  She was educated, that much Eli could tell, but her whisper said it all. "That might wake up the Marshal," Eli mused in the same soft tones. "Now, neither of us would want that," he said a bit louder, allowing his voice to echo off the shadows.

  "I'm not going to kill you. Yet," Jade hinted. "Seems you've got something the Marshal wants."

  "How you figure that?" Eli asked.

  "By the way he went tearing through your room earlier. He's still there right now, probably waiting for you to come back."

  Eli's heart dropped. Both Lou-Anne and the gold watch were in the room. Without Lou-Anne, Eli was no better than a cub. If Bollace had the watch, that was all the evidence he needed to hang Eli from its gold chain.

  "He's got your firearm," Jade confirmed with a smirk, "but I got this." The gold watch dropped from her left hand which was cradling the rifle stock. The timepiece spun in the dark with a subdued glint.

  "You went through my room?" Eli snapped.

  "Just about the same time you checked my horse," Jade retorted. "Only I wasn't stupid enough to leave evidence lying around, especially evidence with an inscription."

  "Inscription?" Eli asked before silently kicking himself for the slip.

  "Yes, inscription," Jade repeated suspiciously. She opened the timepiece and recited, "To Jacob Mordecai. For years of steadfast and pious service. Signed, Cornelius 'The Commodore' Vanderbilt."

  The dedication hit Eli like a bullet. The Vanderbilts were east coast tycoons with fortunes in rail lines and shipping. Although they lost their bid to build a transcontinental railroad, it was rumored they were secret investors in Iron Dragon rails. Equally so, the tenacious Commodore was the family's greatest celebrity. Before his passing a few years back, he brought unprecedented prosperity to the Vanderbilt estates.

  "That's right," Jade continued. "That dandy on the stagecoach used to be a trusted employee of the Vanderbilt family. Jacob Mordecai was their chief accountant."

  Eli stifled a moan; he'd just stepped in a world of trouble. If the Vanderbilts ever got wind that he robbed a trusted wage-earner, he'd never find sanctuary anywhere in the US. Despite his flagging spirit, though, Eli was still shrewd enough to catch Jade's comment. "Used to be trusted?" he repeated.

  "That's right. Jacob fell out of the Vanderbilt way some weeks back and hightailed it west."

  "How d'you know?" Eli asked suspiciously. "Been chasing ol' Jacob?"

  "No," Jade responded with a wicked smile and a green glint in her good eye, "but the Marshal has, all the way from New York City."

  Eli snapped his fingers. "Bollace was following Jacob, and you've been following Bollace. That's why you're hiding from him."

  "Well, you've got other concerns now, murderer."

  "Hey, whoa!" Eli exclaimed. "I never murdered anyone in my life. Sure, I've wounded a couple of fools who pulled a gun on me first, but I never massacred anyone."

  "I'm supposed to take your word?" Jade asked, taunting Eli with the dangling watch.

  "I don't kill in cold-blood. Revenge is a mean business these days. Bad enough startin' a feud among the livin', but you can't even trust the dead to stay down neither."

  "Then how do you explain the watch?" Jade asked impatiently. "I suppose you found their bodies before Bollace did, right?"

  "No," Eli said quietly "I ain't sayin' I'm a pious man, but I am sayin' those passengers were breathin' the good air when I last saw them. I didn't put them in the Lord's way."

  Jade remained quiet a moment before finally responding. "Look road agent, I got a trust problem right now, and you're it."

  Eli stood silently in the dark, trying to figure a way out this mess. He was looking down the barrel of a rifle (not a position he liked), moments away from dying or arrest. Either way, he came out at the bad end of the rope. Eli had one last gambit left in his deck of cards.

  "Alright Jade," he responded carefully. "You've got me dead to rights, but, I ain't the man you're after. I'm just a nuisance. I can tell that by the way you look at me. You want Bollace bad, right?"

  Jade didn't respond, but, at least she was listening.

  Eli continued, "Right. Now I can't give you Bollace, but I can give you the next best thing: Jacob's ledger and fancy pouch. You get that, you got Bollace in your pocket."

  Jade smirked and whispered, "Alright then. You give me everything you took from Jacob, and we'll call it square."

  Eli shook his head. "I got your trust problem now. I still ain't sure if you killed those people. Hell, I ain't even sure if you're not goin' to favor me in the same way."

  "From where I'm standing, and trust me it's an inspiring view, you don't got much of a choice."

  "Look Jade," Eli said softly, "you'll never get your hands
on that pouch without me. I got that well hidden. Besides, where am I goin' to go? You've got my horse in the stables, and Bollace has got Lou-Anne, my scattergun. I can't get anywhere in this storm even if I was stupid enough to tenderfoot it."

  Jade studied Eli, then finally nodded. "Alright, what d'you propose?"

  Eli let out a small sigh before continuing. "Let me get the pouch and bring it here. It's close by."

  "You figure by bringing it here, I won't kill you?"

  "You're still hidin' from Bollace, right? You don't need me, but you do want Bollace bad. I'm just a horse fly to you."

  Jade nodded, then asked with a smirk. "Aren't you afraid I'll follow you?"

  "It's a risk, but the way I reckon it, you're too afraid I might give you the slip and come back for Sam. I figure you'll be watchin' the stables."

  "Fine," Jade said, "but before you go, leave your money and your boots..."

  "My boots!" Eli almost hollered. Jade silenced him with a fearful look and a wave of her rifle.

  "You expect me," Eli glowered, "to go traipsin' around this storm without my boots?"

  "That way," Jade responded cooly, "you can't steal someone else's horse. Now go, because I'm an itch away from shooting you, Bollace or not."

  Chagrined, Eli removed his leather boots and dropped his remaining loot into them. He silently paid Jade a disparaging wish before entering the noise some storm.

  ***

  The storm runoff congregated into one monstrous river inundating the streets of Carverstown; and it was still building. Eli's feet were dull like wood, and he felt his blood freeze into tiny rivers of ice. Gingerly he maneuvered through the remains of the small church. The silent ruin, gored by a fire years back, slept on the edge of town. Nobody bothered rebuilding it, probably because the parishioners and local padre were the first to leave. Now all that remained were black timber ribs trying to spear the sky and a pile of holy debris.

  Behind the ruins, in a shallow basin, lay an untouched cemetery with forty tombstones. The boneyard collected rain like a bog, burying crosses and headstones up to their shoulders in foul water.

  Eli had hidden the satchel and jewelry in the church because people feared desecrated places-like somehow the Lord's love had given way to His wrath and other bitter hosts. Eli knew his loot would be safe here, but he hadn't figured they'd be his last stack of poker chips.

  Perched on a backless pew, out of the cold water but not the rain, Eli stared at the satchel, pondering its importance. The ledger, dry as sobriety, held the answers he needed. It had doomed the passengers of the Concord, and now played judge with his life as well. With one flick of the brass lock, he could open the satchel and set the truth free. He could shed light on this mystery and justify eight deaths.

  If he could read.

  Eli was never blessed with words, except those he spoke. He barely recognized his own name on paper, and he sure as Hell couldn't mimic the strange flow of scribbles. He held salvation in his hands, but the ledger might as well have been in Chinese. Still, Eli never felt like a lesser man for not reading, and lived accordingly. With exception to this once, Eli would even say he was a better man because of it, or at least, shrewder.

  A shank of wood cracked under heavy heel. Startled, Eli spun around to find Bollace, some twenty wet paces away, staring him down with a pearl-handled Colt .45.

  "Nothing sadder than a dead man with no shoes on," commented Bollace through the downpour.

  Eli sighed. It just wasn't his day, and it sure as Hell was hard to bluff when everybody else kept getting the upper hand.

  "Alright Marshal," Eli said, raising his hands, "I ain't making trouble." Eli got up with the satchel pressed tightly to his chest.

  "Drop the satchel," Bollace demanded.

  "How'd you find me?" Eli asked suspiciously.

  "Followed you. I was in the corridor listening to you and that woman conspiring. What's her name?"

  "Y'know," Eli chuckled nervously, "I never asked."

  "Then you're of no use to me. Drop the satchel, boy!"

  Eli realized he was close to dying. Death was crawling up his back like a cold shadow using his spine as a ladder. He put the satchel down slowly, stalling for time, while he looked around, searching for salvation. He figured he was in the Lord's home, abandoned or not, so there had to be some dusty miracles lying around in wait.

  Then Eli found them-two miracles in fact.

  The first manifested in the form of Bollace's firearm. The second was Annie Green's face peering at both men from behind a pile of debris. Been outsmarted again, thought Eli. Ol' Jade didn't need to follow me-she had Annie do it while she watched Sam.

  "So I'm a dead man?" Eli asked.

  '"Fraid so," Bollace replied, bringing his gun to bear.

  "I mean, what's one more killin' after you bushwhacked an entire stagecoach, right?"

  Bollace smiled. "You grasping at straws boy?"

  "That gun you're holdin', Colt .45 with engraved pearl handles, don't see that much. It belonged to that pretty gunslinger on the stagecoach. Now either you got no problem robbin' the dead, or you killed her. I'm goin' for the last one on that."

  "I still see straws in your hands, boy," Bollace replied through the hammering rain.

  "Alright then. In the stables, you went after Sam, that's my horse, first. You tore through my saddlebags, found nothin', then left the stables all Hellbent..."

  "You were there?" Bollace growled.

  "Then, from what I hear," Eli continued, ignoring Bollace's question, "you also ransacked my room. You knew who I was from the start, didn't you? You knew I robbed the coach? The only people who could have described Sam and me were the dead passengers. Well, of course, unless they were alive when you met up with them." Eli noticed Annie was gone, probably with some interesting stories to tell Jade. All Eli had to do was stall until the cavalry arrived (if it arrived).

  Bollace, to his credit, didn't hesitate a step. "Sounds like flimsy reasoning, son. Nothing you said incriminates me."

  "True," Eli responded, gambling with his life on this next hunch, "but that was before I took a gander at Jacob Mordecai's ledger."

  Bollace froze for a second; his gun dropped a long inch, enough to tell Eli he stabbed a nerve.

  "Ol' Jacob worked for the Vanderbilts as their chief accountant," Eli continued, getting bolder with each word. "He saw to their millions, but he also kept their secrets tucked away as well. Profitable secrets I might add."

  "So," Bollace exhaled with no hidden exasperation to his voice, "the damned fool did write it all down. He shouldn't have gotten involved y'know? My grievance was with the Vanderbilts, not him." Bollace shook his head before snapping his gun up, but Eli was ready. Bollace opened fire.

  Eli was already diving over pews and aiming for a shelter of fallen beams. The wet floor nearly knocked the wind out of him, but he managed to scamper behind a large pile of debris; two errant shots cracked at his shelter, then brief silence. He could hear Bollace moving across the church floor, slowly approaching his cubby-hole.

  Eli looked around for an escape. There were two. One was past Bollace, and Eli wasn't eager to strain his luck further. The other was in front of him, through a section of collapsed wall leading outside. Without thinking, he bolted and dove through the large crack; two gunshots rang out, claiming fists full of mortar from the wall, but Eli was already outdoors, tumbling head over heels down a short slope.

  He was in the flooded graveyard.

  Crawling into the shallow bog, Eli kept his head above boards while moving from tombstone to tombstone. Bollace, satchel under arm and gun still in hand, cautiously stepped through the crack in the church wall and surveyed the dark graveyard. Although Eli couldn't see through the rain clearly, he believed the Marshal was reloading his gun. He had a moment to think.

  The only memorable advice Eli ever got from his pa was, "It don't matter whether a desperate man's got everything to lose, or nothing. In the end, he's still a desperate man."
That certainly fit the bill for Bollace. Eli suspected the Marshal had a personal stake in the Vanderbilts, a secret he didn't want out, and it was bad enough to scare Jacob out of New York. Bollace believed his shameful act was recorded in the ledger. That could work in Eli's favor.

  "Y'know?" Eli called out. Bollace looked around blindly, trying unsuccessfully to locate the source of the muffled voice; the marble-sized rain falling on the cemetery basin masked noise effectively. "It's kinda funny how much we're alike. Ignorin' your badge, you'd make a fine road agent."

  "I'm not a common thief!" Bollace roared. "The Vanderbilts are rich folk. What I got from them was a penny compared to their fortunes."

  "A sin's a sin," Eli called out. "Read the 10 Commandments. Says nothin' about excludin' rich folk from the Lord's laws."

  Bollace stampeded into the shallow bog before stopping and looking around. Knee-deep in water, he flailed his gun wildly. "Don't you preach to me, boy! Don't you dare preach to me! I'm making the Commodore pay for his sin. I'm justified here!"

  Eli was getting savvy to the marshal piecemeal, but Jade was still nowhere in sight. If Eli was going to die today, he at least wanted to know why. Best as he could figure, the Commodore had committed some wrong, and Bollace found out about it. But, he wondered, why did that spook Jacob? Eli needed more information.

  "Murderin' innocent folk ain't doin' right by anyone," Eli taunted, "and bleedin' the Vanderbilts for the sins of a man who died years ago ain't no better."

  Bollace spun around, his body tense. For a moment Eli thought he had betrayed his position, but then realized he just called his own bluff. It was the second time he'd done that, and now it was going to cost him. Eli closed his eyes and cursed his own stupidity.

  Bollace nodded slowly, finally understanding. "You little bastard," he rumbled. "You tricked my secrets from me, didn't you? You've got no idea what skeleton the Vanderbilts let out of their closet, do you? Well you're going to die the same way you came into this world boy... ignorant and wet." Bollace walked slowly through the submerged rows of tombstones, his gun ready, his legs pushing through the dappled water. He was almost on top of Eli.