“And to answer your question,” Richardson continued. “Brendan might have a limp by the time I cut him out of his cast, but that’s much preferable to a stump. Yes, he will walk again, but not for a little while. He’ll be on crutches, which I imagine will limit his extracurricular activities.” Richardson retrieved a pair of crutches from a walk-in supply closet and tilted them again the wall next to Brendan, and said, “You can use these when I’m done with you, but only temporarily. You’ll have to buy—rather, I suspect Mister Diggs will have to buy you a pair of your own once you get used to them.”
Lyle crafted a retort the moment he realized the doctor considered him less than a reprobate, but a knock on the examination room door interrupted his thought.
“Come.”
Deputy Noah Chandler entered and assessed the room, immediately disliking all but one of its inhabitants.
“Hi, Doc. Sheriff Clement said you needed someone to watch over who I suppose is lying on that table there.”
Richardson explained why he needed to leave.
Lyle ambled past the doctor and deputy and stood over Brendan, whispering, “I don’t know what the hell happened out there but don’t say a thing.”
“It’d make more sense coming from me now, drugged as I am.” Brendan’s eyes widened and his teeth chattered. “You wouldn’t believe—”
“Save it.” Lyle, as clandestinely as he could, nodded toward Noah.
“Just make sure they keep their hands to themselves,” Richardson reminded Noah as he left.
Noah leaned against the closed door and folded his arms. He looked at Lyle, then to Franklin, and finally Brendan.
“It’s been a little while since we last spoke, boys. So, what have we been up to?”
“Doc, you sound different,” Brendan said. “You get my morphine yet?”
“Either he’s playing dumb or he’s not lucid enough to explain to me how he broke his leg,” Noah said. “So which is it?” He directed his query to Brendan, who didn’t answer.
“Very well.” Noah extended his arms as if to welcome what he knew would be an inane explanation. “How about it, fellas? How’d your friend wind up back in the doctor’s good graces?”
“He was bird-watching,” Franklin blurted.
“Goddammit, Franklin,” Lyle hissed.
“No! He’s right.” Brendan tried sitting up but winced and reclined when he felt pain. “I was bird-watching and slipped outta the tree I was in—stupid me. I ain’t lying.”
“That so? Which tree? Where did you go to watch our fine feathered friends?”
“I’m sorry, I forgot who you are, Deputy”—Brendan drew out the last syllable get the name.
“It’s Deputy Chandler,” Lyle answered. “Deputy Noah Chandler. We’ve met him before, Brendan.”
Noah paid the taunt no mind. “Of course we have. Doc Richardson plucked a bullet from your butt.”
“A bullet? Right, a bullet,” Lyle said teasingly. “That’s when we met.”
Noah disregarded him and focused on Brendan. “Now, this tree you were perched in. Where was it?”
“Ain’t none of your damned business where it was, Noah,” Lyle said. “Watching birds ain’t illegal last I checked.”
“If anything they should be admired for their beauty—”
“Shut up, Franklin!” Lyle barked and glared at Noah. “Brendan doesn’t have to tell you a goddamn thing. Right, Brendan?”
“I sure don’t.” Brendan stared out the newly installed window and its frame—a rush job completed by the town’s carpenter—realizing there’d be no further purpose in conversing with the deputy.
“Since when did you become your friend’s mouthpiece?” Noah said to Lyle.
“Since you began poking your snout into our business. I believe the doc asked you to make sure we didn’t steal anything. Well, we ain’t. Our friend here had an accident and we’re checking on him like good friends do. That’s why we’re here. Or was there another murder last night that we’re somehow suspected of committing?”
“Who ever said I suspected you of murdering anyone?”
“I ain’t fuckin’ stupid,” Lyle said. “All the shit going on ’round here the last week or so? The way you questioned us the other day? But I don’t blame you. Gotta be diligent. Now, were any other freedmen or Klansmen or soldiers butchered last night?”
“No, all was quiet.”
“Happy to hear it. We’re done talking to you.”
Several tense minutes of silence passed before Richardson knocked on the door, allowing Noah time to move out of the way. He entered carrying a box with, among other items, linen bed sheets destined for the scissors.
“These boys behave themselves?”
“Yeah, Doc. A little childish, but what would you expect?” It was the best Noah could muster.
“That’s exactly what I’ve come to expect, deputy.” He placed the box of goods on a cabinet top near the examination table. “I appreciate you stopping by, I’ll be fine now. And you can take these two other characters with you. I’d prefer to cast Brendan here by myself and not be distracted.”
“We were just leaving, weren’t we Franklin? Don’t answer and follow me.”
Lyle brushed by Noah, using his shoulder to nudge the deputy out of the way, and winked at him. “Till next time.”
Franklin lumbered behind Lyle. The big guy could’ve easily used his girth to bump Noah aside, but he didn’t.
“Excuse me.” He spoke softly, and Noah stepped aside. Franklin replied with a quick head nod and exited the room.
Noah waited until he was sure the men had left the building.
“Doc, you got a second before you get to work?” Noah glanced in the direction of the waiting room. Richardson checked Brendan, who’d fallen asleep.
“I don’t see why not.”
Once they were out of earshot, Noah made a single request.
“Anything he blurts out, like, say you inject him with morphine and confuse him, and you ask him about his fall—”
“Are you suggesting that I deliberately get a patient under my care high on a drug in order to question him about whatever skullduggery he was up to when he fell?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious?”
Noah waited a beat. “Yes.”
“Look, I help the law however I can, but I do it without jeopardizing my ethics and my conscience. So, no, I can’t help you like that. You studied law, you know that.”
“I mean, if you have knowledge someone’s committed a crime or about to, and it puts people in harm’s way, aren’t you obligated to tell the law?”
“Now you’re making some sense. Doctor-patient privilege isn’t easily broken. I’m not certain how South Carolina law handles the topic, but—” Richardson stopped upon hearing the clinks of broken glass in the examination room.
The doctor, followed by Noah, burst into the room to find Brendan smiling while he injected morphine into his arm with the syringe Richardson had prepared. He’d used one of the crutches the doctor leaned on the wall to hook around one of the mobile table’s legs and wheel it toward him. A couple of empty specimen jars had rolled off the table as it moved. Richardson’s eyes followed the trail of broken glass to the burgeoning addict who reclined on the examination table.
“Thanks for the morphine, Doc.” The syringe rolled out of his hand and broke on the floor.
Richardson grabbed Noah by the shirtsleeve and led him back to the lobby.
“I guess that saves you the trouble of having to inject him,” Noah said. They stopped by the clinic’s front door. The doctor grabbed the knob.
“Here’s what I can do, I’ll keep an ear out for anything this man says that comes out unprompted,” Richardson said. “I’m not going to ask him questions and do your job for you. But I’ll pay attention,
and I won’t hesitate to report something to you, especially if it has zero to do with my treatment of him. I suspect his criminality extends beyond stealing morphine. And I don’t doubt for a moment he’s done worse.”
“Deal. I’m working late. I’ll check back with you later when I watch Brendan while you sleep.”
The doctor opened the door halfway and paused. “What?”
“Well, it could be me. I might also be at the jail watching over Culliver. We’re not taking a chance leaving Brendan alone in there, and not because I’m worried about him swiping more of your drugs. He said he broke his leg falling out of a tree while watching birds.”
“Nonsense.”
“Precisely. Given all that Henderson’s been through, I have every reason to believe Brendan, like Culliver, could be in danger from, from whatever’s out there. I hope I’m wrong.”
“So do I. I pray for the sake of the Army and the Sheriff’s Department that you’ll be in greater numbers tonight?”
“We’re gonna blanket your property. Nothing’s gonna slip by us. Not again.”
Chapter Twenty
“He still ain’t awake?” Sheriff Clement clanked his Colt against the iron jail cell bars. Culliver snored on his cot.
Noah and Harrison stood in the archway separating the cell room and the hallway leading to the Sheriff’s Office’s lobby, waiting for their boss’s instructions.
“I just assume not wake him ’till he’s ready.” Nurse Yarnell, sat on her stool outside the locked cell. “I suppose you could try to jostle him awake.”
“No, ma’am, I won’t. Let him come to on his own.” Clement, who’d returned from his shift at the doctor’s office, faced Yarnell. “How long you been here?”
“Oh, better part of twelve straight hours, more or less.”
“Go on home then. You’ve done more today than we could’ve ever asked.”
“It’s eleven o’clock at night, Sheriff, and I live a little ways outside of town. All due respect, I don’t feel safe riding my little buggy back home.”
“I’ll take you over to the hotel. You’ll be a guest of the good folks of Henderson this evening. I insist.” Not waiting for her to reply, Clement turned to Noah and Harrison, who were itching for their shifts to end at midnight.
“I won’t be too long putting Nurse Yarnell up in the hotel—heck, maybe I can convince them to cook you up a meal.”
“Splendid,” she said from behind him.
“All right then, you guys keep watch over Culliver. Call the soldiers outside, if you need them,” said Clement, referring to the two soldiers stationed in the hallway. The sheriff required two men inside the cell room and two men guarding its locked door. Two more soldiers paced in opposite directions the perimeter of the building’s exterior, constantly crossing paths in the front and back. They stopped upon seeing Clement escorting Yarnell by the arm out of the office. “One of the boys moved your wagon and stabled your horse out back. I won’t be but a second getting them.”
The sheriff steered Yarnell’s small one-horse rig from behind the building and extended his hand to help pull her to sit on the wooden seat next to him. He called to the soldiers. “It won’t take me long to walk back,” and then Clement clicked the horse to trot.
“Deputies Ellison and Boudreaux should be here soon.” Harrison slouched against a wooden wall, speaking to Noah, who stood before the cell housing Culliver. “I mean, they’re spelling us, right?”
“Yeah, Ellison’s usually early.” Noah clutched the cell’s crossed bars and leaned in, framing his face in a steel square. “I tell you, I’m bored out of my skull. I wish this guy would wake the hell up.”
“If and when he does—think he’ll talk?”
“Well, of all the people who’re trouble over the Elkton massacre, Culliver’s pretty low on the list. I think he’ll say something when he finds out all of his buddies are dead, if he doesn’t know already.”
The two adjacent cells wedged against the back wall stood ten feet in every direction, just big enough for a bed and a water bucket. The surrounding wooden walls sandwiched similar iron crossbars, giving the impression that mere planks stood between a prisoner and freedom. Windows were deliberately nonexistent in the cell room to disorient prisoners. Cement ten feet deep rooted the cell bases. Even though they were free, the deputies nonetheless felt imprisoned because they were required to stay within the small area, no more than twenty feet by twenty feet, fronting the cells.
Both Noah and Harrison turned when they heard a knock on the cell room’s locked wooden door, similarly sandwiching iron. Each man had a set of keys that would unlock the door from either side.
“Come in.” Harrison stood and greeted the two soldiers guarding the hallway. Shift change. Two sets of two soldiers took over for their comrades, both indoors and outside, and all the men exchanged pleasantries. The soldiers locked the door and there they all waited for monotony to break. The small table next to the lone stool in the cell room held two glowing lanterns, providing enough light to make one sleepy.
“Damn deputies are taking their sweet time, it must be midnight by now,” Harrison said.
“Take off then,” Noah said. “I think I can handle this.”
Not one to argue, Harrison obliged. “I owe you,” he said, before announcing, “I’m coming out!” to the new guards. He unlocked and swung open the door and then closed in Noah, who patted his pocket containing his key. Just in case.
Noah eased himself to sit on the lone stool in the room and watched Culliver sleep. Should’ve brought a deck of cards. At least I could be playing solitaire.
Ten more minutes passed. Noah couldn’t take it. “So,” he began, deciding to make conversation simply to hear his own voice. “What laid you up and killed the sheriff? Please, make my job easier.”
“One was a man and one wasn’t,” whispered weary voice.
Noah stared at Culliver and rose to see the Klansman’s eyes had opened.
Culliver, unmoving, looked skyward.
“At least the one that killed your boss was a man—I’m pretty sure of that.” Culliver inhaled deeply to speak and sounded spent at the end of the answer.
Not asking, Noah unlocked the cell and grabbed the empty cup next to the full water bucket next to Culliver’s bed.
Culliver heard the cup filling with water. “Please, tilt my head.”
Noah did and delicately poured water into the wounded man’s mouth.
“That’s better. Thanks,” Culliver said.
Noah laid Culliver’s head back down, returned the cup to its place, and stood in the cell but far enough away in case Culliver lunged—a move Noah doubted Culliver would or could make.
“What happened to you, Robert? I mean out by the farm.”
Culliver’s eyes moved around. He appeared to brood before replying.
“My friends are all dead. Killed.”
“So you know? I wasn’t sure,” Noah said.
“Saw it from where I was. Just hacked like hogs.”
“By what?”
Culliver looked at Noah for the first time. “Wraiths. Not men.”
Noah didn’t let his mounting frustration show. “You gotta give me more than that.”
“I rolled away after I saw the one with the machetes cut off one of my guys’ heads.” Culliver thought some more before continuing. “There wasn’t much light ’cept for the torch I dropped and the lanterns on the soldiers’ rig, well, before the horses took off. The one with machete had no eyes—well he had ’em, but they was all white. And I guess you could say his face was brown—maybe a freedman, Mexican or an Indian? Wasn’t white, the skin, I mean. I saw that much when he sliced up the soldier who shot him. Torch was right there.”
“Wait, this, uh, wraith was shot? Where?”
“In the chest by a scatter gun, and then one bullet in
the gut after he got back up. Didn’t see no blood. You usually do when a scatter gun’s involved.”
Noah, incredulous. “He got up?”
Culliver nodded yes, followed by “Wraiths. The way they moved. Almost graceful-like, if that makes sense. I saw a few more appear from the dark, including the Mexican that axed the other soldier, and that’s when I closed my eyes, controlled my breathing, and prayed they wouldn’t see me.”
Neither men spoke. The roof began pattering. Culliver’s eyes widened.
“They’re coming.”
Noah, befuddled, listened. “It’s just rain. Christ, I’m glad—we need it.”
The drops intensified. Noah continued. “Can you guess how tall the one was who attacked the soldier? If you got the best look at him—”
Noah stopped himself, remembering the mud-splattered road strewn with human remains. Thunder rumbled distantly. He backed out of the cell and locked it.
Noah said, “Coming out!” and pulled open the door. The two soldiers stood there, glancing back at one another.
“Something wrong?”
Noah saw their faces. Lanterns indiscriminately placed on tables and bookcase tops reflected enough light to see the men were already going stir crazy. “One of you please go in there for a second, keep an eye on him. He’s awake. I’ll be right back.”
The soldiers did as ordered and Noah walked into the lobby, grabbed a glowing lantern from the reception desk, and carried it outside to stand under the office’s covered porch.
A frigid wind gust greeted him, along with rain needling him from both sides. Noah closed the door and held the lantern back to keep it dry and scanned the streetscape and the mostly dark buildings, with only a few still alight with candles in the windows. Noah squinted and stared at the second level of the seamstress’s building—as it was called—about one-hundred feet directly opposite the Sheriff’s Office. The seamstress kept shop on the bottom and lived in the room up top. Her shutters were open, and the window yawned with a candle centered on the sill. The flame lingered, unmoved by the gales. Rainwater stung all sides of the Noah’s face and the thunder grew louder.
Sentinels Page 13
