by Abe Dancer
‘I’m trying,’ Jim grunted, the bouncing of the wagon over the rocky trail making him struggle to direct the gun in towards Hyde’s body.
Then the speeding wagon hurtled over a large rock. A wheel bucked and the rigging and timbers in the base of the wagon protested so loudly that Jim thought the whole wagon would split in two.
Jim felt himself thrust up into the air before he came crashing down again on to the seat. Worse, the jolt gave Hyde the momentum to lever himself to a sitting position and throw himself at Jim. The two men tumbled backwards, knocking into Barney and sending him sliding across the seat.
‘Hey,’ Barney shouted. ‘The reins.’
From the corner of his eye, Jim saw the reins fluttering free, but he put that from his mind as Hyde pressed against him. His arms wrapped around Jim’s chest and he strained, aiming to throw him from the wagon. Jim slid towards the edge but then realized he still had a grip of his gun and so with a deft nudge of the wrist he twisted the gun into Hyde’s chest, then fired.
At point-blank range the sound was deafening, sending a hot flash across the back of Jim’s hand, but he also saw Hyde’s eyes glaze with pain before he slipped away to fall from the seat.
‘Got him,’ Jim said, turning to help Barney regain the reins.
‘Too late,’ Barney murmured, his pointing and shaking finger making Jim turn, then flinch back in shock.
He had forgotten about the tight bend. It was now just thirty yards ahead and Barney had no control of the horses. They were slowing and surely they wouldn’t be so frightened by the gunfire as to carry straight on, but he still leaned forward and lunged for the reins.
While Barney searched for the wheel brake, he grabbed a trailing end then looped it around his wrist to get a firm grip.
‘Whoa!’ he shouted, dragging back hard, but he was already too late.
The yawning chasm of the slope down to the river was just five yards ahead of the horses. They tore to the side, struggling to escape their rigging, frightened by what lay ahead, but it was too late to slow the wagon’s momentum and it carried on inexorably towards the edge.
Timbers snapped and the rigging fell free giving the horses a chance to save themselves, but Jim didn’t see whether they took that chance as the wagon reached the edge then tipped over the side.
Below was a long slope, the angle so steep the wagon would struggle to roll down it for more than a few dozen yards.
‘Get off!’ he shouted, moving to slip over the side, but Barney grabbed his arm before he could leap.
‘Staying up here on the high trail is death,’ he shouted back.
Jim looked down at the speeding earth below and accepted Barney was right. If jumping didn’t kill them, the men up on the trail would.
‘All right, but going down there is too,’ Jim shouted as the wagon trundled downwards, picking up pace. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Hanging on,’ Barney shouted. ‘And praying!’
Jim slapped Barney’s shoulder, then looked back up the slope to see a line of men appear on the edge of the trail to look down at them. As one they raised their guns, took a bead on the departing wagon and fired.
Jim ducked and pushed Barney’s head down too, saving them from the lead that tore into the bouncing wagon. But just as every turn of the wheels let them pick up pace it also moved them out of firing range and soon the gunfire was splaying wide.
Jim chose that moment to turn in the seat to return fire but the shaking of the wagon was too great for him to take steady aim. After a few poorly directed shots, he concentrated on holding on to the seat as they barrelled down the slope, the wagon kicking up a huge cloud of dust, the river approaching fast.
‘You must be praying hard,’ Jim shouted over the cracking and grinding of the wagon. ‘It looks as if we might reach the river.’
‘And then what?’ Barney shouted. ‘At this speed we don’t stand a chance.’
‘We’ll worry about that if—’ Jim broke off with a screech when a solid object slapped him on the back of the head.
His hand came up in an involuntary reaction to find that a sack of corn had shaken loose from the back of the wagon and had now propped itself against his head. He batted it aside but that only freed the produce behind it to lurch forward. Barrels and crates and sacks came cascading down on him.
Jim pushed the first wave aside but they kept on coming and he felt himself pushed off the seat. He threw up his hands to cushion what was sure to be a bone-breaking fall but then a firm hand slapped down on his back halting his progress.
With Barney holding him up he lay sprawled half-off the seat, looking down at the ground blurring along below just inches from his face. Then Barney tugged, a fortuitously timed bounce over a rock aiding him in dragging Jim back on to the seat.
Jim grabbed a firm hold of the seat to steady himself and nodded his thanks to Barney, but Barney shook his head and pointed.
Jim swirled round to look ahead. The river was now just yards away.
‘You remember what you said to me yesterday?’ Barney said.
‘What?’ Jim murmured, still disorientated.
‘Jump!’ Barney shouted.
Jim didn’t need a second warning and as the wagon reached the river’s edge he hurled himself to the side. He somersaulted once before he hit the water on his back as beside him the wagon slewed into the river with a huge splash.
Under water and winded Jim fought to reach the surface, suffering a few moments of stunned silence before he broke through to the air.
In the choppy waters he floundered as in front of him Barney fought to stay above water. The strong current also took them out from the side as piece by piece Dave’s produce and wrecked sections of the broken wagon floated to the surface. When a particularly wide plank bobbed up, Jim put his dwindling strength into making firm strokes towards it.
Three powerful lunges got him to the plank, where he rested his arms over the makeshift raft. With it supporting his weight he relaxed and let the current take him. A few moments later Barney joined him.
‘How do we get to the side?’ Barney shouted.
‘Ain’t sure we should do that,’ Jim said, jerking his head towards the high trail, which was now receding from view. ‘We’re moving away from Pike and the others.’
‘Get shot or get drowned,’ Barney mused. ‘Ain’t much of a choice.’
‘For now I’ll settle for being alive and besides, we’re heading downriver and that means we’re getting closer to White Ridge.’
‘We are, aren’t we?’ Barney said, brightening.
Jim noted Barney’s unexpected pleasure at that thought before he concentrated on staying above water as the current swirled them off into the gathering gloom.
CHAPTER 10
Although Mayor Nixon had said that a growing town like White Ridge needed a newspaper, as yet he’d failed to find an editor he approved of, so the newspaper office was still boarded up.
Sheriff Price stood on the boardwalk outside, wondering if he should try to find a way in. It was clear from Deputy Carter’s attitude that Nixon thought he had pushed his luck by quizzing so many witnesses. But the facts surrounding Sherman Donner’s murder made less sense the more he thought about them.
Now he was getting a feeling that the same might be true in the case of the earlier murder of Orson Brown, and an old and rarely heeded instinct told him they could even be connected. Unfortunately, it was also clear that Nixon was pleased with his initial assertions of Billy’s guilt, so carrying on an investigation would annoy him.
Price shivered at the thought, his movement breaking him out of his reverie and making him realize he’d been standing in front of the office for several minutes. A group of men was looking at him oddly with that mixture of contempt and pity he always saw in people’s eyes these days.
To avoid making an immediate decision he made his way round to the back of the office. He found that the back door had also been boarded up, but only two boards cover
ed the framework.
Idly, as if he were just checking that it was secure he tugged on the topmost board. He told himself that if it was firm he’d leave, but the board came away. So, with a sigh, he admitted that this had committed him.
The second board required more tugging, but it still came away from the frame cleanly. Then, before anyone might happen to see him, he slipped inside the darkened interior.
He stood before the door, noting what Orson’s killer would have seen if he had stood here. Most of the office was visible but not the part where Orson had fallen.
He paced forward, looking for the moment when that area came into view, but he had to cover ten paces before that happened and he judged that Billy ought to have been able to hear someone moving that far.
Feeling more confident now that he hadn’t made a mistake in his judgement of the situation he walked to the area of stained wood where Orson had breathed his last.
He turned and conjured up an image of Billy kneeling beside the body. Again, he thought that he had seen a gun, but when he moved off he noted that several metallic objects were lying around the office. What their function might be he didn’t like to guess.
One such piece caught his eye, lying on the floor as if discarded. It was a short length of metal with a flattened end, which Orson used to align blocks of text.
Price picked it up and ran it through his hands. Perhaps Billy had been holding this when Orson had died, he conjectured. He had been working here, after all. Or maybe Orson had held it.
Then another more distant memory came to him of Orson pacing back and forth, talking through a story for the paper. He had been punctuating his points by slapping the metal length into his other hand.
And Billy had said Orson was pacing.
In a rush he saw the situation in a different light: Orson pacing back and forth with the metal object in his hand, then getting shot from the back door and taking a few stumbling paces before he fell. The shocked Billy ran to his side, knelt, picked up the length of metal, holding it as if it were a gun….
‘Perhaps Billy Jameson didn’t kill Orson Brown, after all,’ he said to himself, ‘and perhaps Barney Dale didn’t kill Sherman Donner either.’
Now sure that he’d learned something vital he left the office. He used the metal to hammer in the nails and replace the boards. Then he tucked the metal length into his pocket and turned to leave.
But while he’d been working three people had arrived silently: Mayor Nixon and two of his hired guns.
‘What were you doing in there?’ Nixon demanded.
‘I was looking around,’ Price said with an audible gulp in his drying throat. ‘A trial will be coming up and I thought I ought to refresh my memory.’
‘Did I tell you to do that?’ Nixon paused, although his glaring eyes suggested he didn’t want an answer. ‘I didn’t. Neither did I tell you to bother people with your pointless questions about what happened in my office two days ago.’
‘But there will be trials for both cases and—’
‘There will be, but they have nothing to do with you. You got it right about Billy two weeks ago and as for Barney Dale….’ Nixon leaned forward. ‘You’ve spent enough time on him. Go back to doing what you usually do. Parade up and down the boardwalk behind your shiny star while my men take care of the law in White Ridge.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Price said, surprising himself with the audacity of his response and the confidence in his tone. ‘I don’t mind you helping me out when the guilty get dealt with, but I’m not sure yet that you got it right this time.’
Even Nixon’s usually unresponsive hired guns winced at that comment, and so they should have. Price reckoned he’d never spoken such defiance before and it must have shocked Nixon too, as he took several seconds to find his voice. When he did he paced up to stand toe to toe with the sheriff.
‘I am helping you?’ he intoned, barking out every word. ‘And I, who have run this town for the last eight years, got it wrong, and you, who’s only fit to slop out prisoners, got it right?’
‘What I said probably didn’t come out well,’ Price mumbled. ‘What I meant was—’
‘I don’t care what you meant! Your role isn’t to think or say or do anything anyone cares about. The only reason I’ve tolerated you is because nobody with any self-respect could do what you do. The moment you start getting ideas, I’ll replace you with someone who knows his place, like Deputy Carter.’
‘You can’t. I got re-elected last month for another term.’
‘And so did your predecessor and you know what happened to him.’
Nixon’s right eye twitched before he glanced away. Price had never considered that anything had happened to his old mentor Sheriff Martin Overton other than he’d got shot in the line of duty. But he considered it now.
When Nixon looked back at him Price saw in his narrowed eyes an acknowledgement that while he’d been angry he’d revealed more than he should have.
‘I’m sorry,’ Price said, his bowels turning to ice as he accepted that he was perhaps seconds away from suffering the same fate as Overton. ‘I was just doing what I thought you wanted me to do.’
Nixon sneered. ‘I liked you better when you were drinking, Price. Then you didn’t waste my time by thinking. Now you need to know what happens when you do.’
He gave a quick gesture to the hired guns and turned away. Price moved to follow him but a hired gun threw out an arm, blocking his way. Price turned the other way, but found that the other gun was blocking his way too.
This man gave him a resigned shrug that said that what was about to happen wasn’t personal, then thundered a low punch deep into Price’s guts that had him folding over, coughing and gasping in pain.
A bunched blow on the back of his neck sent him to his knees before a contemptuous light kick tipped him over on to his back. He lay, knowing fighting back would get him only a worse beating and hoping that those blows would be enough to satisfy Nixon, but they hadn’t finished with him yet.
The second man dragged him to his feet and delivered another swinging blow to his ribs that sent him to the ground again, whereupon he was raised up and knocked down again. Price tried to roll with the punches while he waited for the men to tire or to decide they’d given him enough of a warning.
But the men seemed incapable of tiring and they went about their task with grim determination.
He consoled himself with the realization that they were avoiding hitting his face, presumably to ensure that nobody would see any outward sign of his beating, so at least that meant he still had a second chance to redeem himself.
His life contracted into a steady rhythm of punch, pain, falling, being pulled back to his feet, punch, pain … and so it was with some surprise that when he tensed himself for the next blow it didn’t come.
Through pained eyes he watched the hired guns walking away, neither man having said a word throughout the beating, but even though the next punch wouldn’t come Price still fell over to land on his side.
How long he lay there he didn’t know as his concentration remained fixed on the small patch of dirt before his face.
Part of him wanted to defy Nixon and continue investigating the murders until he uncovered the truth, especially as he knew why Nixon didn’t want him to pry. Eight years ago Nixon had had Sheriff Overton killed. He had been a good man whom Price had trusted and admired, and that meant Nixon had probably been behind the other recent murders too.
But the larger part of him never wanted to be in pain again, especially as that beating had been just a warning. What would come later if he persisted would be far worse.
His mind remained blank, perhaps refusing to consider his dilemma for fear of what it might decide until eventually he started to wonder whether he should head back to the law office and inspect the damage. But he felt so numbed he couldn’t make himself stand up and instead he curled up into a ball. He wished he could stay here until he quietly died and didn’t have to face
any problems ever again.
He could have stayed there until sleep claimed him, but he heard slow footfalls approaching. Feeling worried that Nixon had returned he shook himself out of his cataleptic torpor and looked up.
He saw black boots and raised his gaze to consider the black-clad man who wore them. Only when his gaze reached the face did he recognize Isaiah Jones, Nixon’s enigmatic rival.
Isaiah contemplated him, his face a blank mask, then he reached down, stopping with his hand inches from Price’s wrist. Price stared at the hand without understanding. Only when Isaiah withdrew the hand, then thrust it out again, did he realize what his intention was.
He grabbed the hand and let Isaiah pull him to his feet where he stood stooped.
‘Obliged for your help,’ he said, rubbing his ribs.
‘And I’m obliged for yours,’ Isaiah said. He patted Price on the shoulder, making him wince. ‘You’re doing a mighty fine job, Sheriff, a mighty fine job indeed.’
With that comment he turned away and headed off. Price watched him leave, bemused but uncomprehending as to what that odd encounter had meant. Then he made his slow way round the newspaper office.
By the time he arrived on the main road Isaiah was nowhere to be seen but at least meeting him had taken his mind off his pains and had helped him to get moving. Standing as tall as he could in case anyone saw him he walked to the law office.
Walking straight helped to free some of the tightness in his chest and limbs, but what he saw when he arrived in the office made him stumble. Carter wasn’t there but all the statements he’d painstakingly collected and collated had been torn into strips and stomped into the floor around his desk.
The desk itself was clear except for a whiskey bottle and a glass standing gleaming in the centre. He hadn’t had whiskey in the office for two years and he’d never seen Carter drink while on duty. Someone must have left it for him.
Price paced over to the desk and flopped down onto his chair. He checked his top drawer, but confirmed that all the evidence that detailed the anomalies in Nixon’s story had gone. Worse, he was sure that if he tried to requestion anyone, it would be the last thing he did. There was no way he could prove….
