Out of the Darkness

by Robert D. McKee

  “You think we should confront him with our suspicions right off?” Chester asked. Chester was a forward sort of man prone to getting to the point. He was a fine doctor, but Micah imagined he would have made a damn poor lawyer.

  “No need for confrontation, if it can be avoided. We’ll tell him we were riding out for a chat, and that’s when we found his father.”

  “I’d wager us finding his father won’t come as much of a surprise to the bastard. One thing puzzles me about all this,” Chester said after a bit.

  “What’s that?”

  “Why you got mixed up in it. Yes, yes, I know what the judge said, still this sort of quixotic thing I could picture you doing five or six years ago. You were pretty fiery back in those days. But it’s clear since studying the law and getting older, you’ve been trying your best—until now, anyway—to put your youthful fervor behind you.”

  “What I’ve tried to put behind me is my old stupid behavior. Unlike some folks.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “To me, your willingness to go to prison for no good reason was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Maybe so,” Chester allowed. “I often show symptoms of stupidity. But I like to think I choose my causes with at least some logic. A couple of tenderfoots riding in to arrest a killer doesn’t seem too logical. It even seems stupid.” He smiled and added, “But it does have a fiery kind of fervor.”

  They rode through the main gate of the Pratt ranch. “Do you have a point to all of this, doctor?”

  “My point is that this adventure reminds me of the old, wild-eyed, crazy Micah.”

  “Who’s to say I’m not doing the same as you, picking my cause?”

  “You may be. Although I’d bet it’s more than that.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you hate Sonny Pratt.”

  “Hate? That’s putting a little more of an edge on it than it needs, I’d say. I want to see the law deal with him. That’s all.”

  “You said yourself there’s no proof, so how’s the law going to deal with him?”

  “What the hell are you getting at?”

  “I think you’d like to kill the bastard.”

  Micah was silent.

  “You’re a city boy,” said Chester. “You haven’t touched a handgun in years, but you’ve taken on the duties of a deputy sheriff, and you’re going after some cold-blooded killer. Like the Micah of old, you’re putting logic aside and running on pure fervor. I only hope when the time comes you know when you should pull the trigger. And equally important, I hope you know when not to.”

  “So you think I want to kill Sonny Pratt? That’s why I’m mixed up in all this?”

  Chester shrugged.

  “Well, you’re wrong. I don’t want to kill Sonny.”

  There was half a minute of silence before Chester said, “I expect that’s a decision you’re going to have to make. But, hell, Micah. What do I know? I’m just making conversation. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I think.”

  Micah doubted Chester ever felt that it didn’t matter what he thought, but Micah played along. “No,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what you think. And do you know what I think? I think you think too damned much. You always have. What I’m doing out here has nothing to do with anything except it’s a chore that’s got to get done. That’s all.”

  “A chore that’s got to be done,” Chester repeated. “That sounds like a pretty practical attitude to me, Mr. McConners.”

  “Thank you,” Micah said.

  “But, my goodness,” Chester added with a smile, “you sure do say it with passion.”

  “I know you can make that machine go faster. How ’bout doing it?”

  “Why, sure,” said Chester. The cycle let out a deafening roar, and in an instant Chester was fifty yards ahead.

  Sonny Pratt could not have helped but hear them coming. He was standing on the porch as Micah and Chester rode into the yard.

  “Well, well,” he said with a broad smile, “isn’t this a nice surprise. Two of the county’s most upright citizens coming all the way out here for a visit.” Micah searched for the sarcasm in the boy’s comment. He knew it was there, but he couldn’t find it.

  It had been some time since Micah had seen Sonny. He remembered him from when Sonny used to come into the store. He had always been a lean, wiry kid. Now he was tall, his shoulders wide. He wore his gun low on the right, not like a cowboy. On the left side of the gun belt was a sheath holding a large ivory-handled knife.

  “Say,” Sonny said, jerking his chin in Micah’s direction, “that looks like Pa’s horse you got there. What’re you doing with him?” Sonny’s tone was without deceit. It was innocent and sincere. It was the voice of a caring son.

  “We found him up on the trail by the breaks,” Chester said. “Emmett’s down at the bottom of the cliff. I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’s dead.”

  Sonny jerked his head toward Chester. “Pa’s dead?” He inflected a flawless note of disbelief. “Dead?” He said again. “Are you sure?”

  “We didn’t go down and check,” said Micah, “but we didn’t have to. He’s dead. There’s no doubt about it.”

  Sonny slumped to the porch step in a heap and shoved the fingers of both hands into his hair. He sat like that, staring at the dirt. After exactly the right amount of time, he lifted his head and said, “It’s that damned soft ground up yonder. It washed out last spring. I told Pa we needed to do some work on it. It’s a dangerous spot, especially where it curves around.”

  Micah tried to imagine what it would sound like if Sonny was making that same statement from the witness stand, and he knew it would sound reasonable as hell. There was not a jury in the country that would think Sonny was telling anything less than the truth.

  “We’ll need a rope,” Micah said.

  Sonny looked up. There was confusion in his young eyes, and maybe fear. It was clear Micah made him uneasy. “Rope?” he asked, and a nervousness laced the edges of the word.

  “We need a rope to get Emmett out.”

  “Oh, sure, a rope.” He nodded and stood. “I’ll run into the barn and fetch one.”

  “We could use your help up there too.”

  “Sure,” Sonny said. “I won’t even take time to saddle my horse. I’ll ride Pa’s gelding.”

  Sonny disappeared into the barn and a moment later came out with a coiled rope. “This is the longest one I could find,” he said as he mounted up. He attached the rope to the saddle’s hornstring.

  “That’s fine,” said Chester, turning his moto-cycle toward the gate. “I expect we’ll need it all.” He gave the speed lever a shove, and the cycle’s rear wheel whipped a whirlwind of dust into the midday air. The two men on horseback rode at a gallop, but Chester led all the way.

  When they reached the top, Sonny dismounted, sidled his way to the cliff’s edge, and peered over the side. Sonny wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, and Micah watched as tears blossomed in Sonny’s eyes. For a moment Micah questioned his own cynical attitude toward this boy. Perhaps what he saw in front of him was not the cold-blooded killer Micah believed Sonny to be. Perhaps Sonny was nothing more than a sad young man trying without success to hold back the tears that welled up at the sight of his father’s body on the rocks below.

  But then Micah looked deeper, past the tears, and what he saw within those blue eyes was an empty, frigid landscape. It was a barren world, locked in ice—cold and dead. And there was something else in there as well, and this was even more unsettling than the lifeless plain Micah saw at first. What he saw even deeper in Sonny’s eyes was amusement. The boy enjoyed this little drama they played. With a shudder Micah realized Sonny Pratt was having fun.

  Micah walked to a heavy piece of granite that was three feet high and half that in diameter. After suffering a few million cycles of heat and cold, it had broken away from the rocks that rose above and found itself a new home.

 
“Bring me the rope, Sonny,” Micah said.

  “Sure thing, Mr. McConners.” Sonny pulled the rope from the saddle and took it to Micah.

  Micah dropped a loop around the boulder, pulled it tight, and tossed the other end over the side of the cliff. The rope reached the bottom with a few feet to spare.

  The first eight or ten feet of the cliff was ninety degrees straight down. For the remaining forty feet, it banked out to maybe eighty degrees.

  “I’ll go down,” Micah said, “and tie the rope around Emmett. You fellas hoist him up, then toss the rope back down.”

  Chester glanced over the side. “You be careful, Micah. That looks pretty treacherous.”

  Micah followed Chester’s gaze. “Oh, hell, Chester, don’t you remember when we were kids? We used to do this all the time up in the Laramies.”

  “What I remember,” Chester said, “is you spent the better part of a summer with your leg in splints, hobbling around on crutches.”

  “Now, isn’t it like you to remind me of that as I’m about to shinny down a cliff?”

  “I doubt you’d heal as fast as you did fifteen years ago, either,” Chester added.

  Micah pulled off his gloves, then his coat. He folded the coat and laid it on the ground. “You are full of encouraging words.” He then took off his hat and dropped it on top of the coat. He picked up the rope that dangled over the side. It was a new, thick piece of hemp, as fine as any rope made. He leaned his weight back and felt it pull taut and stretch against the opposing weight of the boulder.

  “Well,” he said, putting his gloves back on, “here goes.” He sat and dangled his legs over the edge, then took hold of the rope and lowered himself over. He let himself down hand over hand until the cliff’s angle became less severe. He was then able to use his feet to take some of the weight off his arms. He’d been living a sedentary life for the last three years, but he still felt strong. He enjoyed the climb down the cliff’s face and felt invigorated when his boots touched solid ground.

  “Nice work,” Chester called down. “You’re as agile as a monkey.”

  Micah had to admit to a nervous tingle in the pit of his stomach when he’d first lowered himself over the edge. Now that nervous tingle in his stomach was replaced with a pleasant tingle in his arms and legs.

  That pleasant feeling didn’t last long. It vanished as soon as he attached the rope to Emmett. There was very little blood, much less than Micah would have expected, but when he lifted the old man to cinch him up, there was a soft, unnatural feel to him that told Micah more than he wanted to know about the damage the old man’s body had suffered in the fall.

  As Micah worked, he remembered it was only a few hours before when he and this man had shared a cup of coffee. As he had that thought, he made a point not to look into Emmett’s face.

  Once Emmett was secured with the rope, Micah called to Chester and Sonny, “Okay, you can haul him up now.” First the rope went taut, creaked, and the body began to rise. Micah sat back and watched as it ascended in short little jerks.

  Now Micah could not help but see Emmett’s face. The man’s eyes were wide and bulging, as though in death he was seeing at a much slower speed the reverse of the last thing he’d seen in life.

  As Micah watched the body go up he also felt his anger rise, and he wondered if Chester’s rambling speculation about Micah’s wish to kill Sonny Pratt was true. Earlier he’d said without equivocation that it wasn’t true. But what else would he say? When first confronted with the possibility that he’d enjoy killing another human being, of course he was going to deny it. Now, though, within the privacy of his own thoughts, he wondered.

  No, no, he assured himself, he did not want to kill Sonny Pratt. Of course he didn’t.

  Micah was locked in his thoughts when the end of the rope, like a heavy, braided snake, hit the ground in front of him. “Grab hold,” called Chester, “and we’ll hoist you up.”

  Micah stood, looped the rope around an arm, and took hold with both hands.

  “You ready?” Chester asked.

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  No, what Micah wanted was to let the law handle Sonny, but there was no proof. There was never any proof.

  He looked down and watched the rocks beneath him grow smaller, then lifted his eyes to the spot where the rope disappeared above the cliff. He could see the tips of two boots protruding over the edge—Chester’s left boot and Pratt’s right—as they worked together pulling him in like some large fish.

  He spun around as they brought him up. First he would see the granite wall inches in front of his face; then his view would open to the wide expanse of prairie stretching out to the horizon; then, again, he would face the rough wall of rock.

  Someday Sonny Pratt would slip. Someday someone’s bullet would find him, or he would end up dangling from hemp like the rope that held Micah now. That was Micah’s hope, anyway. And he nursed the additional hope that he would be around to see it.

  Micah was less than ten feet from the top when, again, he looked up. He could now hear Chester and Sonny grunting with their effort. He could hear the scrape of the rope against the rocks. He could see the toes of the men’s boots extended over the edge of the cliff, and with every grunt and jerk the men made, their boots would dip with the effort, then rise, dip, and rise.

  “Damn, Micah,” Chester said, “I don’t mind telling you, you’re a lot heavier than you look.”

  Micah was less than three feet from the rim now, and that was when he saw it. At first what he was seeing didn’t register, but then like a light coming on—one of Chester’s electrical lights—Micah knew. The shock of it was damn near enough to cause him to lose his grip. But he held on until they had him all the way to the edge. He then threw his forearms over and pushed himself up the rest of the way, rolling onto his back. He gave out a sigh of relief and felt Chester’s big hands under his arms lifting him to his feet.

  “Well,” Chester said, blotting the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, “I’m glad that’s over.”

  Both Chester and Sonny were breathing hard. As they tried to catch their breath, neither was paying much attention to Micah. Because of that, they both showed the same amount of surprise when Micah pulled his Colt, pointed it at the middle of Pratt’s face, and said, “Chester, get his gun. I’m placing this shit under arrest.”

  Micah saw Sonny’s right hand twitch. He was thinking about trying something, but Micah shook his head, and Sonny stood still as Chester pulled the forty-four from Sonny’s holster and the knife from Sonny’s sheath.

  “What the hell’s this all about, McConners?” The innocent tones of youth that Micah heard in Sonny’s voice earlier were now replaced with harsher sounds.

  Chester wore a kind of befuddled smile. “I was wondering that myself,” he said. “What is this all about, Micah?”

  “It’s simple,” Micah said. “I’m arresting Sonny here for the murder of Hank Jones.”

  Chester led the way to the Jones place. This time he was so far ahead of Micah and Sonny that he had time to go into the barn and hitch a team to a buckboard. They would use the buckboard to haul the bodies into town. Chester pulled the wagon in front of the ranch house and was sitting on the tailgate waiting as Sonny and Micah rode up.

  Micah had tied Sonny’s hands in front rather than behind. He’d done this so Sonny could handle his own reins, and that would allow Micah’s hands to remain free to carry the Winchester he had taken from Emmett’s saddle scabbard. Micah wasn’t concerned about Sonny’s trying anything—not on the ride over to the Jones place, anyway. They had also tied Emmett’s body across the front of the gelding’s saddle. That should slow Sonny down enough that he wouldn’t be so foolish as to try to run, even if he was so foolish as to gamble on Micah’s marksmanship with a rifle.

  “Climb down,” Micah said to Sonny once they were up to the house. To Chester he said, “Help me get Emmett into the wagon.”

  Sonny had been quiet on the ride over
; now, as Micah and Chester loaded Emmett’s body onto the buckboard, Sonny began to chatter. “I don’t know what the hell makes you think I killed Hank. I didn’t even know the son of a bitch was dead till you told me I was under arrest.”

  Chester still wore that befuddled smile, but he didn’t say anything.

  Micah, without responding to Sonny, jerked his head toward the porch and said, “Inside.”

  The room was the same as it had been, except that the pool of blood had dried into a black crust.

  “Damn,” said Sonny, “Hank’s kind of a mess, ain’t he?”

  “Shut up,” Micah said, “and take off your boots.”

  Sonny blinked twice and asked, “What?”

  There were a couple of straight-back chairs next to an eating table. Micah placed his foot against one and shoved it in Sonny’s direction. “Sit down,” he said, “and take off your boots.”

  Sonny grumbled but did as he was told.

  Once they were off, Micah lifted the right boot and turned it over. “You need to take better care of your footwear, Sonny.” He pointed to a worn spot in the boot’s sole that was shaped like a backward S. It was at the point where the ball of the foot rested, about an inch in from the side. It was not all the way through, but the first layer of leather was clearly worn out. “You’ve got a hole forming in your boot here.”

  “So what?”

  “I noticed it when you and Chester were hauling me up the side of that cliff. I got to thinking I had seen something like that before, although not quite the same. At first I couldn’t place it, and then it came to me.”

  “What came to you, Micah?” Chester asked.

  Micah crossed to Hank’s body, stood for a moment staring down at it, then said, “It’s obvious the killer was standing in the bedroom in there, and he shot Hank in the back of the head as Hank was leaving that room to come in here. Hank fell blocking the doorway, and the shooter had to step over him to get out. When he did, he stepped in Hank’s blood.” Micah knelt down beside three undistinguishable marks on the floor. “These,” Micah said, “are footprints. I didn’t recognize them as that when we were here earlier, but that’s what they are, all right. There wasn’t as much blood right after the shooting as there is now, so the killer didn’t leave much of a trail.”