Twelve Dead Men

by William W. Johnstone

  Ace knew Miguel had tested the rope with a bag of sand and the trapdoor the day before, just to make sure everything worked properly.

  It was different, now that a man stood there waiting to meet his end. That made it all real in ways a bag of sand never could.

  Satisfied with the rope, Miguel stepped back and nodded to Judge Ordway, who stood at the bottom of the steps.

  The judge cleared his throat. “Peter McLaren, you have been convicted of the crime of murder and duly sentenced to death under the laws of this territory. That sentence will now be carried out. May God have mercy on your soul.” Ordway jerked his head in a curt nod to Miguel, who had wrapped both hands around the lever attached to the trapdoor.

  Miguel took a deep breath and shoved the lever across.

  Ace caught his breath as he watched McLaren’s hooded figure drop through the opening. The crowd gasped at the sharp crack of McLaren’s neck breaking. The man’s feet kicked spasmodically, but only once, and then he hung there limp and still except for a slight swaying back and forth that soon came to an end.

  It was over. No one had intervened on McLaren’s behalf.

  As he dangled at the end of the hang rope, thunder boomed louder than ever before, and a flash of lightning lit up the settlement. The crowd began to scatter before the storm broke.

  Because they all knew it was coming.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It took a while for the rain to get there, giving the undertaker and his assistant enough time to get Pete McLaren’s body down from the gallows and cart it off to be placed in a plain pine coffin. Ace and Chance watched from the boardwalk in front of the marshal’s office as the wagon carrying the coffin trundled up the hill toward the cemetery.

  “They’ll have to hurry to get that box in the ground before the storm gets here,” Chance said. “I wouldn’t want to be filling in a grave in a pouring rain. You’d be racing to get it covered up before it flooded.”

  “McLaren’s beyond caring now,” Ace said.

  “True.” Chance shivered as another peal of thunder rolled down from the mountains.

  “Let’s go down to the stable and check on the horses,” Ace suggested.

  Glancing toward the dark clouds scudding through the sky, they walked hurriedly along the street. When they reached the livery stable, they found Crackerjack trying to calm some of the horses spooked by the thunder. The Jensen brothers’ mounts seemed calm. They were used to the sound of guns going off, so real thunder didn’t bother them.

  “Gonna be a real gully washer, boys,” Crackerjack greeted Ace and Chance. “A pur-dee toad-strangler.” Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. “Tater wagon’s rollin’ over.”

  “You don’t get many storms like this around here, do you?” Ace asked.

  “Once ever’ two or three years, I reckon. We’re safe enough here in town from floodin’, but all the arroyos in these parts will be runnin’ bank deep before the day’s over, I’ll bet.”

  “Maybe it’ll just make a lot of racket and then not amount to anything,” Chance said.

  Crackerjack shook his head. “Not this storm. My achin’ joints are tellin’ me it’s gonna be a bad one.”

  The rain started while Ace and Chance were walking back to the hotel. Big drops splattered into the dust in the street, more and more of them falling with each passing second. The brothers broke into a run as the rain began falling in earnest, like someone pouring out a giant bucket over the town. The skies opened up in a deluge the likes of which the citizens of Lone Pine hadn’t seen in quite a while. The rain fell in blinding sheets felt like they could pound a person into the ground.

  Both young men were soaked by the time they reached the hotel porch.

  “Looks like Crackerjack’s joints were right,” Chance said as he took off his hat and wiped water off his face.

  “Let’s go inside and get some dry duds on,” Ace suggested.

  * * *

  After toweling off and donning fresh clothes, they went back down to the lobby.

  Colonel Howden stood by the front windows watching the downpour. “You fellows weren’t planning on leaving town right away, were you?”

  “No, not for a while yet,” Ace said. “I don’t know how long we would have stayed around if all this hadn’t happened, but we’re in no hurry to leave.” For his part, he hoped to get to know Meredith Emory better, without all the violence and drama that the clash with Pete McLaren had caused. He suspected that Chance felt the same way about Fontana Dupree.

  At the moment, neither of them wanted to go back out into that storm, so he nodded toward a checkerboard set up on a table in a corner of the lobby and asked Chance, “Interest you in a game?”

  “Well, you can’t really bet on checkers . . . but I suppose it’s a better way to pass the time than nothing.”

  * * *

  Over in the Melodian, Fontana sat with a glass of wine in front of her and listened to the rain falling outside. The atmosphere in the saloon was subdued. Men at the bar and the tables conversed quietly. Orrie was reading a month-old Denver newspaper.

  Hank Muller pulled out a chair at her table and lowered himself into it without waiting for an invitation. There was little if any formality between the two of them. They had been friends for quite a while. Muller had never expressed any lustful interest in her, for which Fontana was glad. As he had told her once, he enjoyed her singing on a personal level, and having her around was good for business, so he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.

  “You look a mite down in the mouth,” he commented.

  Fontana shrugged and toyed with her glass. “I thought it might make me feel better once McLaren got what was coming to him . . . but it really didn’t.”

  “It takes a while. The pain of Dolly’s death will fade sooner or later, and then you’ll be glad that justice was done.”

  “I’m glad now. But like I said, it doesn’t really help much.”

  Muller frowned. “McLaren sure seemed to think he’d get out of hanging somehow. Makes me worry a little that he knew something the rest of us don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” the saloonkeeper replied with a shake of his head. “Maybe this storm’s just given me the fantods.”

  The glass in the saloon’s windows shook a little as more thunder crashed.

  * * *

  Meredith Emory said, “If this keeps up, we’ll have to do a story about Lone Pine washing away in a flood.”

  “If Lone Pine washes away, we won’t be here to do a story about anything, now will we?” her brother asked with a gentle smile.

  Meredith laughed. “No, I suppose that’s right.” She grew more serious as she went on. “Lee, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so terrible.”

  They were sitting at their desks in the newspaper office with nothing to do at the moment other than wait out the storm.

  Emory leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together in front of his stomach. “I’ve witnessed hangings before, and it’s never pleasant. This one may have been worse than usual because of all the violence that preceded it. McLaren’s attitude—and the weather—didn’t help matters.”

  “I hope I never see another one.”

  “I hope there’s never a need for another hanging here in Lone Pine”—Emory smiled faintly—“but I wouldn’t count on it. The frontier is still a long way from being tamed. Anyway, civilization is often just a veneer.”

  “I suppose.”

  They fell silent in the gloom of the office, which was broken only by a single lamp. The shadows inside and out grew more oppressive as the clouds thickened and the sky grew ever more dark.

  * * *

  Miguel Soriano poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot staying warm on the stove. The office door was open, and a chilly gust passed through the marshal’s office.

  He had been trying not to think about what had happened that morning, but it was impossible to keep the memories
out of his mind. The pounding of his heart as he climbed to the gallows platform, the feel of the lever in his hands, the moment just before he had released the trapdoor . . . seemingly endless, yet less than the blink of an eye . . . the piercing crack when Pete McLaren’s neck had broken . . .

  Miguel had ended a man’s life . . . not that it was his fault. He knew no one was to blame for McLaren’s fate except McLaren himself. And as a lawman who carried a gun and knew he might be called on to use it to defend himself and others, Miguel knew that sometimes killing was necessary. He would lose no sleep over McLaren’s death.

  But it was easy to imagine that cold wind sweeping through the office as McLaren’s spirit, come back to taunt him one last time. He even thought for a second that he heard a contemptuous laugh.

  Miguel wasn’t the superstitious sort, but he had grown up hearing talk among the old women of his family about ghosts and witches and restless, evil spirits. A shiver went through him as he carried his cup over to the door to close it. He started to swing it shut, then paused abruptly.

  The rain was falling so hard he could barely see the buildings across the street, but for a split second he thought he had glimpsed something in the street during a lightning flash.

  A man on horseback?

  In the torrential downpour, it was difficult to be sure. Then the lightning flickered again, and he didn’t see anything.

  He put it down to the strain he had been under during the past week and closed the door.

  * * *

  Down at the livery stable, Crackerjack Sawyer used his pitchfork to throw some hay down from the loft. Just under the roof, the roar of the rain was almost deafening, though the old-timer thought he heard something—a fleeting fragment of a voice—over the racket. He went over to the opening through which hay was lifted into the loft and pushed back the door.

  He couldn’t see anything outside except the sheets of rain, but again he thought he heard someone speaking. He shook his head. That was loco. “Who would be out and about in a storm like this? Nobody in his right mind, that’s who.”

  He went back over to the ladder and tossed the pitchfork down, then followed, climbing down with a spryness that belied his years. As his feet touched the hard-packed ground, a couple horses in the stalls spooked again and started bumping and kicking against the slats.

  Crackerjack turned toward them. “Settle down, you blasted high-strung varmints. There ain’t a blamed thing to worry about—”

  Something crashed down on the back of his head and sent him plummeting into a darkness thicker than that closing in outside.

  * * *

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon, but it looks like night out there,” Chance said as he and Ace finished another checker game. “I’m ahead on the number of games won, by the way.”

  “There’s nothing riding on it,” Ace pointed out.

  “No, but I like to keep track anyway.”

  Ace chuckled. “Another game?”

  “Maybe in a few minutes.” Chance stood up and stretched to get the kinks out of his back. “I’ve been sitting too long.”

  Colonel Howden came into the lobby through the door that led back into his living quarters. “You boys want some coffee? I just brewed a pot.”

  “That sounds good,” Ace said as he stood up, too.

  “I’ll bring it out here.”

  As Howden went back into the rear of the hotel, Chance said from the front window, “Ace, come over here for a minute.”

  “Something wrong?” Ace asked as he joined his brother. He saw the frown on Chance’s face.

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw something out there.”

  “You did see something. A whole lot of rain.”

  Chance shook his head. “No, it was more than that. Just for a second, I would have sworn I saw a couple men walking along the boardwalk over there by the Melodian.”

  “So?”

  “I think they were carrying rifles.”

  Ace frowned, too. “Maybe they were, but that doesn’t have to mean anything bad.” He didn’t sound like he was completely convinced of that, however.

  “I think we should go check it out.”

  “We’re not deputies anymore, remember?” Ace reminded his brother. “Actually, we never were. We were just volunteers.”

  “That never stopped us from mixing in where there was trouble.”

  Chance had a point there, Ace knew. And if Chance, with his carefree nature, was worried about something, there was probably genuine cause for concern.

  “You want to make sure Fontana’s all right, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Chance admitted.

  “Let’s go upstairs and get our slickers and then take a look around town.”

  Chance nodded.

  They were headed for the stairs when Colonel Howden reappeared carrying a tray with three steaming coffee cups on it. “Here you go—” He stopped abruptly as he saw the intent expressions on the brothers’ faces and the brisk way they were moving.

  “Sorry, Colonel,” Ace said. “We have to step out for a few minutes.”

  “In this weather?”

  “We shouldn’t be gone long. Maybe the coffee won’t be too cold by the time we get back.”

  With that, Ace and Chance hurried upstairs to fetch their rain gear.

  * * *

  Orrie went over to the table where Fontana and Muller were sitting. “Would you like to sing something, Miss Dupree? I’m sort of getting bored, just sitting around and listening to it rain. I’ve already read everything I can lay my hands on.”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Muller said. “This place is blasted gloomy. It needs something to perk it up a mite.”

  Fontana didn’t feel much like singing. She had considered skipping it entirely, but Muller and Orrie were her friends. She could tell they wanted her to. “All right. I want to go up to my room first and change into something else.” She looked down at the dark gown she had worn to Pete McLaren’s hanging that morning. “If I’m going to sing, I want to be wearing something more appropriate. More cheerful.”

  “Good idea,” Orrie said, grinning. “While you’re gone, I’ll pick out a couple songs. A couple of bouncy tunes will make a big difference in here, I’ll bet.”

  Maybe they would make a difference in the way she felt, too, Fontana thought as she climbed the stairs to the Melodian’s second floor. As she reached the landing and turned toward her room, she caught a glimpse of movement down at the end of the hall. It was shadowy where the corridor made a right-angle turn and led back to the rear stairs.

  Fontana frowned. All the girls were downstairs, and none of the bartenders lived up there. No one else did except her and Hank Muller . . . and he was downstairs, too.

  No one should have been lurking around on the second floor. Thinking somebody might have decided to use the storm as cover for sneaking in to see what they could steal, she thought to turn back and fetch Muller, then abruptly decided to have a look for herself. She wasn’t afraid of a sneak thief. Besides, she thought she might have imagined it and didn’t want Muller to think she was going crazy and seeing things that weren’t there.

  She strode along the hall and turned the corner. “Is someone there?” She saw right away there wasn’t, that the short, narrow corridor was empty.

  Then one of the shadows close beside her moved. A hand clamped over her mouth and an arm looped around her waist to jerk her back against a solid, muscular form.

  * * *

  Orrie sat at the piano, noodling around on the keys. The notes were so quiet nobody in the room was really paying attention to them. He found playing like that soothing. It allowed him to work his way up to real tunes.

  He had picked out a couple comic opera tunes that Fontana seemed to have enjoyed singing in the past. He liked playing them, and listeners usually responded to them. As soon as she came back down, they would lift the spirits of the people, even on the dark, rainy afternoon that had followed a h
anging. Time to put all that in the past.

  A huge crash of thunder made Orrie jerk his head around toward the door.

  Standing there, illuminated by lightning, was a tall man in a long, black duster and a broad-brimmed black hat. He was silhouetted by the flash so that nothing was visible of his face except piercing, burning eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Rain sluiced down over Ace and Chance as they walked across the street. Mud sucked at their boots with each step. Water dripped from the brims of their hats. Cold trickles somehow found their way underneath the yellow slickers they wore.

  The frequent lightning lit up the street well enough for them to look around and see that no one else was moving. Lifting his voice to be heard above the rain, Chance said, “I must have imagined I saw a couple hombres with rifles. Nobody’s out here. Everybody else in town has too much sense to be out in this miserable weather.”

  “Well, we’re already out here, so we might as well go on over to the saloon and make sure everything’s all right,” Ace said.

  “I admit, I’ll feel better once I see Fontana for myself.” Chance grinned under the dripping brim of his hat. “Of course, seeing Fontana always makes me feel better.”

  They turned toward the Melodian. The light coming from the saloon’s front windows and entrance was nothing but a vague yellow blob in the downpour. Before Ace and Chance could start toward it, someone hailed them from behind.

  They turned and saw another slicker-clad shape coming toward them. Ace recognized Miguel Soriano’s voice as the marshal called, “Ace? Chance? Is that you?”

  “It’s us, Marshal,” Ace replied. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I could ask the same of you two,” Miguel said as he came up to them. “I thought I saw someone moving around a little while ago. I started to figure I was seeing things and tried not to worry about it, but it nagged at me until I decided to make sure. Reckon it was you boys I saw.”