Hell's Half-Acre

by Nicholas Nicastro

  “Are you sure you won’t take coffee? Something else?” Mr. Morris said.

  They continued north. When they had ridden fifteen minutes, and the curl of smoke from Morris and Crane’s campfire was no longer visible, Billy Toles shook his head.

  “Can’t say I like those sons of bitches.”

  “None of us do,” said George. “But we can’t stop to correct every shitheel we see, can we?”

  Leroy and his horse issued simultaneous snorts, though for different reasons.

  They made fifteen miles by the time the night chill crept into the hollows and their stomachs growled for a respite. Hobbling the horses, they let them loose to browse on fresh grass by the river. Leroy stretched his bedroll the farthest away he dared without triggering suspicion. He also made sure he was close to the stream, where the horses would doze.

  The men spent a few hours after sunset sitting around camp as they usually did, envisioning the fate of the Benders. Their revenge fantasies took on an increasingly baroque cast the longer the murderers evaded them, with punishments that would make Torquemada blush. Leroy had never taken part in this talk. As much as he despised the Benders, he’d had some direct dealings with them—­especially Kate—­and found it hard to connect those living persons with evidence of their acts. Taking pleasure in loping off their body parts, or burying them alive, or “giving that witch the one-­fer she deserves,” could never sit well with someone who had actually seen such acts performed, not so many years before.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” said Silas Toles, a light sleeper who was often seen wandering the camp in the small hours anyway.

  “I’m for the second,” Leroy volunteered.

  The camp settled and the moon rose. After the usual chorus of bodily orifices, Leroy and Silas were left the only ones awake. It seemed only moments to Leroy before he heard the soft chiming of Toles’s watch from his breast pocket. Leroy sat up, signaling the other man that he was ready to take over.

  Silas Toles was under the blankets only a few moments before he too sawed wood. Leroy went into the bushes and retrieved his horse. Packing his things, he mounted and, from that height, scrutinized the camp again, assuring himself that no one was pretending to be asleep. Then, at a pace deliberate enough for his tack not to jangle, he headed southeast, toward the moon.

  Chapter Twenty-­Five

  Where Leroy’s Foolish Act Prompts a Detour

  HE REACHED THE camp of Messrs. Morris and Crane just after dawn. They were exactly where the posse had left them. Dismounting some distance away, Leroy tied his horse and proceeded with gun drawn.

  Just rekindled, their fire was still smoky. Morris was bent over a cook stand, fiddling with its chain; Crane was leaning against a tree in his underwear, flap open, emptying his bladder. The latter left his gun belt hanging on a branch. Leroy walked up without announcing himself and waited for them to notice him.

  “Hello again,” said Mr. Morris, eyes finding at Leroy’s weapon. “Come to take us up on our offer? Where are your friends?”

  “Here presently. Stand away from that fire. And you”—­he indicated Mr. Crane—­“move away from that belt.”

  “Might I complete my task?” the latter asked over his shoulder, in a tone that grated him. Leroy let off a shot that shattered the bark a foot from Crane’s head. Crane performed a sort of reverse broad jump, irrigating his leg.

  Leroy tossed a rope to Morris’s feet.

  “Tie him to that tree.”

  “Tend this first?” asked the moistened Crane.

  “Please do.”

  Mr. Crane holstered his johnson. As he presented his arms for his partner to tie, Mr. Morris looked at Leroy with a pitying expression on his face.

  “Would it be imprudent to say that this kind of theater is hardly necessary, given that we’d gladly have bargained for the girl?”

  “That would imply she was your property to negotiate,” replied Leroy.

  “We bought her square off a pimp in Denver.”

  “Then someone needs to have a word with that pimp.”

  He glanced at the tent to find the girl halfway out, an inquiring curve to her brow. Her hair was pinned high on her head, revealing fresh red marks on her neck.

  When Morris had Crane secured, Leroy shoved the former against a different tree and tied him himself. The man kept up a constant, derisive patter as he worked, inquiring whether Leroy would like a turn with Ah Quim in the privacy of their tent, hinting that he’d better tie a good knot because he’d have a company on the trail soon enough. Leroy suffered him for as long as he could.

  “Keep talking if you want a blown kneecap for your trouble.”

  With words and gestures, Leroy invited the girl to collect her things to leave. Ducking within, she came out with only a single item: a handful of bronze coins that were holed in the middle and tied with a piece of red ribbon.

  “That all you got to take?”

  She replied in Chinese.

  “You speakee no English at all?”

  Messrs. Morris and Crane laughed. “Isn’t it obvious she’s fresh from finishing school?” the latter mocked. “A regular doctor of philosophy!”

  Leroy spied a canteen by the fire. Bringing it to Morris, he said, “Better drink now. Liable to be a long time before you can again.”

  He fixed Leroy with a look of refreshingly genuine hostility. After he’d downed half the canteen, Leroy took it to Crane, made to tilt to his lips—­but then closed the cap.

  “This is for that smart mouth,” he said, and hung the shut canteen over his neck.

  “God damn you, sir,” said Crane.

  “He may yet.”

  The girl sat a horse like someone who had never encountered one before. Unable to gallop, they made slow progress west, toward the headwaters of the Verdigris River, as Leroy considered what he might do next. The girl kept a guarded eye on him the whole way, evidently expecting some fresh humiliation. No temptation of that kind crossed Leroy’s mind, but he tried to reassure her by keeping his eyes to himself. Whether he felt more guilt for his race or his sex, he couldn’t say.

  They paused to drink, and Leroy ventured to try speaking with her again:

  “You know where they bought you?”

  She stared, answered unintelligibly.

  “Was it Denver?”

  Her eyes widened. “Den war,” she said.

  “Yes, in Colorado. Is that where you’re from?”

  More Chinese. Denver was too far away to ride in anything like the time he could spare, but it was a plausible destination. He would have to take her straight north, overland to the Kansas-­Pacific road. They could have doubled back to the LL&G, which joined the Kansas-­Pacific at Lawrence, but that would have been the obvious choice to Morris and Crane too. More worrying, he was more likely to run into someone he knew—­some merchant or preacher or paper-­pusher out of Topeka—­riding the LL&G. And he would soon as not avoid explaining why he was not with the Bender posse, but riding the rails with a celestial whore.

  “Better get your ass under you,” he said, confident she could not understand. “We got a ways to go.”

  To that, she fetched up a sound that sounded like humpf, as if she did understand. Leroy, confused, kept his peace for the rest of their ride.

  BACK IN LAWRENCE, the natives were puzzled by the behavior of a certain newcomer. The young man who had checked into the hotel under the name “Hancock” was seen wandering the thoroughfare, asking if anyone had seen his wife. The spectacle caused much amusement; more than once he was invited to try his luck at the whorehouse.

  But Junior was in no state for jokes. When he woke up alone in the room, he immediately had an inkling that the worst had happened, for part of him had never believed Kate’s change of heart. He checked the privy, outraging a woman in midstream. He checked the restaurant, ac
costing diners at their meals with such persistence that one man threw a heel of bread at him.

  He interrogated the hotel clerk, who said nothing at first. Junior offered him cash. The clerk declined, and continued to do so until offered the sum of fifty dollars. Then he abruptly recalled that a woman matching her description had come down several hours before and gone out.

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “It is not in the habit of this establishment,” the clerk bristled, “to importune its guests.”

  Though it was a sizable town, Junior covered it all in the first day of Kate’s disappearance. It was dark before it occurred to him to check if he still had his bankroll. Sprinting back to his room, he found that he did. This further convinced him that some terrible thing must have befallen Kate, for if she had run out on him, she would have taken his share too.

  He started over again the next day, stalking the place with his hair wild and his shirttails hanging out. Crawling under buildings, he came out covered with dirt. He bought a shovel at the hardware and commenced digging up suspicious piles on the edge of town. The owner of an apple orchard had to chase him away at gunpoint.

  When he got around to attacking fresh graves in the churchyard, the good ­people of Lawrence had had enough. The sheriff ordered him to collect his things from the hotel and be on his way. Junior, who was in the middle of reversing the burial of a child, begged to continue. He said, “This is something I know. She may be buried alive!”

  The sheriff marched him back to the Eldridge and waited outside his door until he’d packed his things. Then, after Junior had paid his bill, he demanded, “Which station?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You got someplace to be? Any friends or relatives to get to?”

  He blinked. “No.”

  In the end Junior told him he’d rather just walk. The sheriff, who was by this time ready to toss him in the Kansas River, escorted him some way down the trail and turned him loose.

  “If you need supplies, the next town is Sibley. See you go there and not come back.”

  Junior nodded like a man bearing a full load of guilt. The sheriff watched him proceed west until he was out of sight, hoping the episode would end there.

  He was right—­with one exception. Two days later a posse of fifteen riders thundered into town. The sheriff, who was sitting and smoking in front of the town jail, watched them come up the street, their carbines gleaming and their faces hard. Evelyn Whistler dismounted.

  “You the sheriff?”

  The other glanced down at his badge. “Appears so.”

  Whistler unfolded a paper and gave it to him.

  After carefully placing his lit cigar on the arm of his chair, the sheriff withdrew his reading spectacles from his breast pocket. He wiped the lenses with his shirtfront and perched them carefully at the end of his nose as Whistler, fidgeting, governed his impatience.

  The letter was lengthy. Bearing the letterhead of “Senator A.M. York, & Colonel, ret.,” it identified the bearer as leader of a duly deputized peace force in pursuit of the notorious Bender clan. Its descriptions were more detailed than in the governor’s proclamation, but it likewise did not anticipate the clan would separate, more or less assuming that family ties would keep them together.

  The sheriff returned the letter. “Haven’t seen a party like that here, sorry.”

  “We would make inquiries around your town, if that doesn’t presume on your position.”

  “My position is how you see.”

  The sheriff didn’t move a muscle. If he were pressed on the matter, he would grant he didn’t like gangs of self-­appointed avengers invading his town, be they well-­connected or not.

  Whistler pulled out a kerchief to mop the sweat from his bald head. His search had forced him into some of the hardest riding he had done in years. He was dusty and exhausted and had no time to indulge the vanities of provincial lawmen.

  “Then we’ll try the livery first,” he said, mounting. The sheriff watched him over the top of his reading glasses, waiting until the last moment to say, “There was one fellow a ­couple of days ago.”

  Whistler turned his horse around.

  “Tell me.”

  “It was one man, not four. A young man, sort of dim. Spoke with a touch of Dutch accent. Matches the description of the younger man.”

  “Where is he now?”

  The sheriff grimaced, tossed his head. “Couldn’t say now. He was making himself a public nuisance, so I sent him packing over the Sibley road. That was two days ago.”

  “You didn’t hold him?”

  “Had no reason to. He was a fool, not an outlaw.”

  Whistler grimaced. “Which way?”

  The sheriff stuck his thumb east.

  “Let’s go, boys!” Whistler cried.

  The posse rode out of Lawrence without watering their horses or taking some grub, but not soon enough for the sheriff, who pocketed his glasses and resumed his smoke.

  Colonel York sat at his desk on the floor of the Senate chamber in Topeka and stared across the aisle at his fellow senator from Pottawatomie County. Dressed in his governing duds, with fine shirt of French silk and a watch chain of twenty-­four-­carat gold stretched across his belly, Senator Spruance Halls was engrossed in picking his nose. He had made a habit of it since York had arrived at his post, never showing any awareness he was anywhere but his own privy. Once, York had tried to remind him of their august surrounds by clearing his throat. Halls, alas, had the statesman’s gift of selective deafness.

  The time came for a procedural vote. When the H’s came around, Hall instantly recorded “Aye!” His eyes were down, his finger was in his nose, but his ear was never less than superbly tuned to parliamentary procedure. Thereafter, York held a begrudging respect for his neighbor on the Senate floor. However much his colleagues had their fingers in unsavory places, their legislating skills were never to be underestimated.

  The day was given to consideration of further land grants to the Kansas-­Pacific Railroad, which sought titles beyond the nearly one-­quarter of the state already granted by Congress. It was a prospect York looked dimly upon, suspecting a plot to enrich eastern investors. He was not likely to support state grants no matter what arguments were advanced, but he listened to them all, bearing in mind that gracious sufferance was the portion of all elected representatives.

  He was poised to fall asleep when his secretary grasped his shoulder.

  “Mr. Whistler is here.”

  It took a moment for York to realize what this meant. Coming out, he found Whistler alone in the gallery, still in his riding clothes. At his feet was a package about the size of a hat box, clad in burlap. York gave his secretary the look that caused him to disappear. Neither he nor Whistler spoke until they were alone.

  “Which one is it?”

  “The son. Junior. Outside of Lawrence.”

  “Figure he’d be halfway to Montezuma by now.”

  “If you ask me, he wasn’t in his right mind.”

  York knelt, examined the package. The bottom was moist with a black, viscous substance. At its contents, the colonel showed neither expression nor comment. Truth to tell, he barely recognized the face—­he would have preferred that she-­wolf, Kate.

  “There’s the matter of certain funds that were recovered from the body . . .” Whistler was saying.

  “Which are of no concern in this quarter,” said York, raising a hand. “Should there be any expenses beyond what you have anticipated, you may square them. Otherwise, let there be an anonymous donation to the widows and orphans.”

  “Understood.”

  York weighed the package. It was heavier than he would have thought, but just a weight. A thing of mass and extension that had once embodied its own universe, now merely an object.

  “You know what to do.
Fetch me the others.”

  “We will.”

  He returned to the Senate chamber with his trophy slung over his shoulder. After all the days and weeks of fruitless searching, and the bitter harvest of his grief, he was not quite ready to let John Bender Junior go to his rest.

  None of his fellow legislators took particular notice of his burden. Reaching his desk, and heedless of the congealed blood, he dropped it among his papers on the leather blotter. The thud distracted Spruance Halls from his excavations.

  “You been huntin’, Senator?”

  “After a fashion,” York replied. “After a fashion.”

  Chapter Twenty-­Six

  Pests

  FROM ELDRIDGE HOUSE, Kate proceeded to the Kansas-­Pacific station on the east-­west line. The alternatives discussed back in Thayer—­to go back east or to the outlaw colonies in the South—­inspired her to take neither. She opted instead to go west, to try her luck in the Colorado Territory. A city like Denver, only recently linked to the transcontinental railroad and growing fast on mining and timber, would have a large pent-­up demand for the kind of extraordinary ser­vices she could provide. And even if it didn’t, she could always try her luck further west, in Salt Lake, Virginia City, or San Francisco. At the very least, she could take solace in the fact that every mile she went was another mile between her and Almira.

  Her train was a few miles out of Salina when, weary of hearing her voice in her head, she picked up the little volume of Horace she could never seem to get through. She was particularly struck by a line from Book 1: “Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man’s cottage door and at the palaces of kings.”

  She became aware of the steady pinging of raindrops against the roof of the carriage. The noise became so loud she raised the window shade and peeked out. There she saw what she first took to be a storm of soot swirling around the train, as if the contents of a coal hopper had become airborne. The true nature of the “storm” became clear when one of the swirling black projectiles struck the pane, leaving a smudge of green innards.