Sentinels

by Matt Manochio

  “I’d have done it if you hadn’t told me,” he said without emotion as he climbed down and made his way to Chandler. “I ain’t that stupid.”

  He handed the weapons to Lyle, who tucked the Colt in his belt and gazed at the Winchester.

  “This is nice. Never seen one like this one.” Lyle figured the mechanics and fired a round into the treetops to scatter the birds.

  “Day keeps getting better and it’s barely morning.” He admired his new prize.

  “We don’t got no rope.” Franklin, with some effort, tossed Noah into the wagon bed and the closed the gate.

  “Just keep your eye on him.” Lyle waited for Franklin to sit and clicked the horses to turn around the rig. “If he moves, bang his head against the floor.”

  “Fine.” Franklin dare not tell Lyle he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “It won’t take us long to get back to Jenkins’s place,” Lyle continued. “Diggs’ll be happy when he sees what we brung him.”

  “You could’ve just killed him back there.”

  “The thought crossed my mind, but since we don’t have the freedman’s wife, and this feller was the last one with her, I think we might first want to ask him where she is.”

  Franklin thought about it before replying.

  “Lyle, he asked you for help.”

  “What? You think I was gonna give it to him?”

  “No, I mean, he seemed really worried. He said ‘I can’t find’ before you clocked him. He seemed lost.”

  “You got all that from him based on a couple of words?”

  “No, from the way he looked at you.” The wagon trundled along a few seconds before Franklin capped his thought. “What if he don’t know where the woman’s at?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I saw some branding irons in Toby’s barn yesterday. Start a fire outside when we get back. This boy’ll tell us what he knows—and I’m looking forward to making him.”

  Chapter Forty

  Diggs smacked Brendan on his shoulder, jarring him awake in his seat.

  “I’m not paying you to sleep.”

  Brendan rubbed his eyes and greeted the dawning sunlight.

  “Well, now I can finally see something. Sometimes you get tired looking at nothing.” Brendan viewed the empty sitting room. “Where is everyone?”

  “Probably waking up,” said Diggs, disheveled in the formal attire and top hat he’d worn the day prior. “I sent Lyle and Franklin out early to see if they could turn up anything.”

  “Huh, I didn’t hear them leave.”

  “Really? Now why would that be?”

  “Sorry, Mister Diggs.” Brendan hastily resumed his job and glanced through the shutter while Diggs walked upstairs to roust the other men. “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh what?” Diggs turned to Brendan, who stiffened in his chair, rigid and alert, deconstructing what he’d seen.

  “I think it’s easier to open the shutters and show you.” Brendan didn’t wait for a go-ahead and pushed open the panels. Diggs gave Brendan an odd look as he approached the window.

  “My Lord.” Diggs rested his hands on the sill. “It’s not possible.”

  Brendan snagged his crutch, propped himself up and lurched out the front door, trailed by Diggs, who flicked his Derringer into his palm. Brendan drew his Colt.

  They kept their distance from the clawed dirt trail. Brendan and Diggs followed it from the window’s base to where it originated: Toby Jenkins’s grave. Both men exchanged mystified glances, waiting for the other to take the first step. Diggs blinked and circuitously approached the disturbed plot.

  “Where’s the shovel?” It wasn’t a question so much as a demand.

  “Dunno—I didn’t dig it,” Brendan said.

  “Get the other men. Right now.”

  Brendan turned to the house, screaming variations of “Wake up” and “Get your asses out here!” He turned to Diggs. “Didn’t you have someone in the horse pen watching the barn?”

  Diggs surveyed the paddock while opening the swivel gate. The horses grazed in its north side. Diggs kept alert for horse dung as he walked and saw one of the railroad men slouched against a tree with low-hanging branches. Diggs aimed and fired his Derringer, the bullet buried into the bark a foot above the man’s head, causing him to flail his arms and legs.

  “Your presence is requested!” Diggs sneered and returned to Brendan, and gave orders to the sleepyhead when he reported for duty.

  “Name?” Diggs said.

  “Edward.” The man panted.

  “Edward, find a shovel in the barn and dig through this grave.”

  He fled and returned to furiously fling dirt out of the plot. By the time he finished digging deep enough to see what wasn’t there, the trio had been joined by the Clement, two deputies, and the three remaining railroad workers.

  Edward rammed the shovel into the loose soil a final time—and hit something.

  “It’s metal.” Edward ignored the men and focused on his work, now curious himself about why Toby Jenkins’s body had vanished.

  He jabbed the object with the scoop and found a spot where he could fish it out of the dirt.

  “It’s a shovel blade,” he said.

  Deputy Bruce Hughes squatted and retrieved the iron piece, finding no trace of wood in its empty metal shaft.

  “You wanna see it?” he asked Diggs.

  “No. Does it look old?”

  “I ain’t an archeologist, but I don’t think so. I mean, it ain’t rusted and it don’t look funny from being in the dirt that long.”

  “There was a broken handle in the barn,” Edward said. “Now we know why. Must’ve snapped it on a rock.”

  “But why leave the blade and keep the handle?” Brendan said.

  Hughes spotted something slick and glistening through the dirt. He used the oversized trowel to lift a piece of meat that dangled halfway off the blade.

  “You think it’s an organ? Like they took out his liver, or something?” Insects infested the meat.

  “It would appear so,” Diggs said. “Leave it.”

  Hughes let the festering thing slide off the blade back into the earth.

  “Who are these guys, Mister Diggs?” Brendan couldn’t hide his fear. “Why didn’t they come back to the barn like you said they would?”

  Lyle raced the wagon down the path to Toby’s front door, eager to show Diggs his bruised catch. He steered the rig to where the men had gathered. Lyle turned and climbed into the bed from the driver’s seat, lowered the gate, and kicked Noah Chandler out and onto the ground. The weakened lawman grunted in pain when he hit.

  Franklin remained seated, his head bowed, ignoring the other men.

  “Time to get up, boy.” Lyle again booted Noah in the gut. “I can see you’re awake. Let’s have some fun.”

  “Lyle, a second of your time.” Diggs explained the situation loud enough so that Franklin could hear. Still, the big man remained somber and unmoving.

  “Well, we know they steal dead bodies, right?” Lyle said. “Maybe they don’t differentiate between their friends and enemies, like with the Klan and the scalawags. Think they’re gonna set Jenkins on fire like they did Culliver?”

  “They took my wife.” Noah, lying on his side with his back to the men, strained to get it all out. “They took my son too. And Toby’s wife and child and two other people.”

  “You’re just saying that to throw us off,” Lyle snapped. “You know full well where your kin’s at. In fact, that reminds me—Franklin, go fetch those branding irons from the barn.”

  “Edward will do it.” Diggs looked at the trembling railroad man who stared at the grave. “Won’t you?”

  It broke Edward’s concentration. He dropped the shovel and returned to the barn. The men heard the fumbling of metal objects, and Edward appeared with
a lone iron. The rod was tipped with TJ.

  “Toby Jenkins,” Lyle said. “That’ll look nice on your belly, won’t it? Edward, get a fire going, I don’t care how.”

  Edward found a box of safety matches that Jenkins kept on the fireplace mantel, took some logs and hay from the barn, and lit the pile not far from Toby’s grave.

  It took twenty minutes of steady fire for the brand to glow red.

  “Lyle, I appreciate you wanting to extract information from this man, but aren’t you the least bit concerned about Jenkins being gone?” Diggs never sounded so deferential to a man he considered his lesser.

  “Just trying to scare us.” Lyle rotated the brand from side to side to make certain all ends would scorch Noah’s flesh. “Like they did with that Culliver guy. They’re trying to send a message.”

  “Then they’re sending it very effectively,” Diggs said.

  “Why ain’t they attacked us yet, then?” Lyle finally looked at Diggs. “I mean, from what you were saying they could’ve killed Edward out in the field and nobody would’ve known.”

  “Toby Jenkins crawled up to my window,” Brendan said.

  “No, he did not. Psychological warfare, that’s all it is.” Lyle commanded two railroad men, Peter and Max, to hold Noah. “The sooner we find out where that nigger woman’s at, the sooner we have a bargaining chip.”

  “You gonna let this happen, Sheriff Clement?” Noah said. “So you can retire early, is that it?”

  Clement’s cheeks flushed. He felt all eyes on him. “If it were up to me I’d put you out of your misery now, Noah. No sense in making you suffer.”

  “And that’s where the sheriff’s wrong,” Lyle said. “Gotta dot our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s before we hand this boy over to the maggots.”

  Lyle placed the iron handle down, allowing the brand to continue heating, and ripped open Noah’s shirt.

  “Look at that scar, boys.” Lyle grinned while the other men grimaced upon seeing Noah’s chest wound.

  “That’s a humdinger, ain’t it, Chandler?” Lyle squatted and glared at Noah. “The bitch of it is this: I remember making it.”

  Noah squinted and then came the reckoning.

  “Yeah, I could’ve killed you years ago had your big brother not convinced me to be a softie. I’d have stuck that bayonet through your windpipe and moved on to the next Yankee. But no. Your brother was looking out for you. And for what? So one of your compatriots could blow off his head? What a damn shame.”

  Noah continued his fruitless attempt break free.

  “You just need to know that the man who could’ve killed you on that battlefield all those years ago is gonna kill you today. And when I’m done, I’m gonna find your wife, rape her, and put a bullet in her head. And your little boy? I’ll leave him out in the woods by himself. One night ought to do it.”

  Noah lunged at Lyle but couldn’t break free of Peter and Max, who forced Noah to his knees.

  “And you know I’ll do it,” Lyle taunted. “But you’re gonna hurt first. You’re gonna be begging for it to end.”

  Noah exhaled and let his body go limp. He’d save his strength to meet the pain of the brand.

  “Or I can be magnanimous. Tell me where the woman is, and when we find her and have her, you’ll get a bullet in the back of the head. You won’t know what hit you.”

  Noah glowered. “I told you they took her.”

  “Bullshit.” Lyle slapped his face. “If they took her, why didn’t they go to the Army?! They’re working for her just as much as Toby Jenkins, right?! She could’ve gone to the Sheriff’s Office too. Riskier? Sure. But they didn’t do either and had plenty of time. Right, Bruce?”

  “Nobody showed when I was there with Preston,” the deputy answered. “I checked in with the Army too. Asked the commander how everything was going. Nothing out of the norm.”

  “If I was Sarah Jenkins, I’d want deputies and soldiers overrunning this place, looking for the men who killed her husband.” Lyle grabbed Noah’s face. “So where are they?”

  “Don’t know.” He wriggled free of Lyle’s grip and spat in his eye.

  “Uh, Lyle, let’s say those fellers did stash the Jenkins lady and whoever the hell else in some safe house,” Brendan said as Lyle wiped gunk from his eye. “Why wouldn’t they then go to the sheriff’s office to get help?”

  Lyle didn’t have an answer. But Noah did.

  “Because they don’t want anyone interrupting what they plan to do to you all.” Noah saw scared men surrounding him. “Maybe they left me alone so I could be bait for the rats, and now here y’all are, out in broad daylight.”

  Lyle grabbed the white-hot branding iron from the fire pit.

  Nonplussed, Noah continued. “They want revenge. And they don’t want the law getting in the way.”

  “Hold him tight.” Lyle brought back the brand to strike.

  Peter and Max braced themselves for Noah to writhe.

  “I don’t care what this boy knows,” Lyle said. “He’s had this coming for a while.”

  Noah heard the sizzle and felt the swelter of the oncoming brand. He steeled himself, staring at Lyle, hoping to absorb the pain and suppress the screams that would reward his tormenter.

  Edward abruptly lurched forward with enough force to kick dirt onto Lyle, who turned to berate him.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?!” Lyle shoved Edward by the gut and cussed as he whipped his hand back. Lyle gazed at his palm’s punctured flesh.

  Edward’s legs buckled and he fell to his knees, revealing the pitchfork that speared through his back. Three tines beading with blood poked out of his belly. Edward died as his face smashed into the dirt.

  “Christ almighty.” Lyle rammed the branding iron back into the fire and reached for his LeMat. Max and Peter released Noah and drew their weapons.

  Every able man fired across the lawn into the cornfield where Brendan had fled weeks earlier. Noah, still on his knees, wobbled to the side of the railroad workers, stretching and twisting his knotted wrists. Cornstalks and their floppy leaves snapped and disintegrated as the bullets obliterated them.

  “Stop!” Diggs ordered, in part to let the haze of gun smoke dissipate. “Reload. Hughes, go see if we hit anything.”

  “Why me?”

  “Load your weapon and get into that field, right now!”

  Hughes, not wanting to seem the coward he was fast becoming, reloaded his revolver. “Gimme another one. I’m going in double-fisted.”

  “Here.” Lyle reached into his belt and handed over Noah’s Colt. “Take this.”

  Hughes began his unenviable trek into the cornfield, hoping, praying, he’d see trickles of blood leading to a dead body. No fuss. No muss.

  Fat green leaves brushed by his face. Hughes, seeing no trace of anything hostile being hit, walked about ninety feet when halting before a large square hole in the ground.

  He crouched and guessed the sides were eight-by-eight inches—wide enough to accept the thick wooden block nestled in soil between the cornstalks. Hughes lowered the revolver into the pit, making contact with nothing. He kept dipping until his shoulder blade prevented him from delving deeper. He withdrew his arm, holstered his gun and reached for the block. He couldn’t say why it intrigued him and felt compelled to fit the block into the hole.

  It weighed a ton. He pulled it toward him but it wouldn’t budge. Hughes moved his hand along the smooth surface and realized it wasn’t a block, but a construction beam stretching into the field.

  And the cool wood vibrated. Hughes snatched back his hand like he’d touched a whistling teapot. The beam buzzed, enough to be heard and scatter the soil by its sides.

  How the hell’s it moving? Hughes drew his gun and stood—at the same time the beam began hovering an inch off the ground.

  Its vibrations rattled the stalks
around it, and the base of the block glided to the edge of the pit, as if drawn by a magnet.

  He heard Clement from a distance. “Whaddya see?!”

  Hughes’s breath escaped him when the beam dropped to the lip of the hole and simultaneously tilted upward to slide into the shaft. And up from the back stalks, rising toward Hughes like a drawbridge, came a monstrous cross.

  He heard the confused shouts of the men behind him—for they could also see this twenty-foot-tall symbol of crucifixion slant toward the heavens to anchor itself in the pit with an earthshaking thud.

  A shriveled old scarecrow—so skinny it couldn’t be distinguished from the weather-beaten wood—hung like Christ. Its stuffed leather sack of a head dangled so low that Hughes could see the ridge of its back right before his eyes. Hughes reached up and tugged on the floppy field hat adorning its head and found it had been stitched in place. He released the hat so the head would loll back in place.

  But the head craned upward.

  Hughes’s insides fluttered and he stumbled backward as the scarecrow drew itself up on the cross so its outstretched arms and body formed a perfect T. Its torso expanded, as if it deeply inhaled. The blue suspenders it wore widened as its girth emerged. But Hughes saw it did not draw breath. He looked at its arms—no rope tethered its wrists to the horizontal beam. Its fingers were pressed into well-worn grooves, somehow keeping the scarecrow level. One by one its fingers—with straw for fingernails—lifted from grooves formed by unnatural strength that pressed into wood. Its untied feet—leathery, deformed things that ended in twisty points of hay—appeared somewhat human.

  The shriveled head expanded to reveal recognizable things: ragged, chapped lips that appeared sewn shut, red eyes. Perhaps they were bloodshot, Hughes thought as he cocked both guns. He knew otherwise, though, figuring malice and rage brewed the crimson.

  The thing dropped to the ground and stood level with Hughes, who fired both guns at its chest, knocking it against the vertical beam. The thing straightened itself. Its chest and arms took a sinewy, muscular form. Hughes realized he wasn’t looking at a leather dummy, but a thing of skin. It moved not for Hughes, but for the two-handled scythe that hung hidden on hooks strategically wedged into the back of the cross. And the scarecrow advanced on Hughes.