Ax & Spade: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 1)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  He held fast to the side of the hopper until he was certain that the tracks had veered from the road. Kamp moved back to his original position and inspected the wound. The bullet had passed through the flesh of his upper arm, but other than the pain, he felt all right. He knew the wagon couldn’t travel fast enough to meet him at the train yard, and even if it could, the men wouldn’t be brazen enough to come after him there. Once the train came to a halt, he climbed down and hustled across the yard, picking his way across the tracks, out of the yard and onto the street. In the condition he was in, he knew he’d attract attention, and at this point, he couldn’t even guess how many people might be looking for him. He cut down the alley behind the building that housed E. Wyles’ drugstore. He found the back door to the shop and broke in.

  Once inside, Kamp took off his coat and shirt. He felt dizzy from losing blood and from the pain, which appeared first as a dull thud and now throbbed. He washed the wound in E. Wyles’ sink and dried it with clean towels. Kamp remembered that Wyles had a carbolic acid spray device. He’d once seen such a machine in the war, and he knew it might be the difference in whether or not he kept his arm. He found the device and set it up. He lit the fire which produced the steam that delivered carbolic acid. He held his arm in front of the spray and tried not to breathe any of it, lest he vomit. Kamp put out the fire and wrapped his arm in sterile bandages. He searched the drugstore until he found a jar of willow bark extract, two vials of morphine and a syringe. By now, the pain was clouding his thinking, and he thought it best to take some of the morphine. He tied off his left arm and injected the needle. He depressed the plunger half-way, knowing that if he took the full dose, he wouldn’t care to carry out his work and would probably just pass out on the floor.

  Kamp felt warmth spreading through his body, beginning at the base of his skull and then moving outward. The sensation easily overtook the pain in his arm and transported him back before the battlefield, before any realization. He sat down and allowed himself to rest in it for a minute and then willed himself back to his feet, fighting the languor. Kamp gathered up the medical supplies, including additional bandages and dressings, and he left the way he came. He didn’t bother pulling the brim of his hat low on his face, because the morning sun felt good and because he felt like enjoying it. He told himself he should worry whether he was discovered, especially so close to the courthouse, but found himself incapable of taking care. The town was waking up, and it felt glorious to let it do whatever it wanted. And yet, he continued on his mission. He broke a window in the side door of the courthouse, opened the lock and proceeded straight to the records section. The clerk had not yet materialized, and until he did, Kamp had free rein. The records room was stacked high and full with shelves, boxes and slots that held all the official information amassed on paper since the founding of the county.

  Normally, he would have conducted a careful and precise search with the aid of the clerk. He would have assiduously written down the relevant information, leaving the records complete and intact. Now, he rummaged for all of the records that might have had any value. Loose sheets of paper, entire books of county information, anything that might be useful he dumped into the canvas bag. He pilfered as many records as the bag could hold, and then he picked up a couple more books and carried them under his good arm. He headed out of the records room just as the clerk appeared.

  The clerk said, “What in god’s name?”

  Kamp said, “I’ll be right back,” knowing he’d probably never return.

  He left the building via the side door and hustled into the street, mixing with the morning mass of souls. He made a beeline for the train yard. It had already been more than an hour since the shot of morphine, and he wanted to be certain that he’d be in a safe place when the agony returned. He lugged himself and his canvas bag across the train yard once again to the Unlimited, which was being prepared for its return trip to Easton. As such, it was unladen. Kamp situated himself inside an open boxcar, as far inside as he could get. It occurred to him that the man who shot him might be waiting for him again, though it seemed unlikely. He reasoned that they knew he was on the morning train, because they’d watched him leave the house. They would not, however, have known when he’d return, or how. He also reflected on the likelihood that the men had gone after Nyx. He wanted to think they hadn’t, though he knew he had no basis for the assumption.

  THE TRAIN LURCHED forward and started to roll. Kamp’s thoughts shifted to how he’d get off once he reached his destination. The injury to his arm made the thought of hurling himself out of the car unpleasant. Then again, he still felt no pain and figured it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. The creek had frozen over in places, particularly around the waterhole he typically aimed for, so that wasn’t an option. There was deep snow, however, even under most of the trees. If he cleared the rocks beside the tracks, depending on what was under the snow, there was a chance for a soft landing. As the train rounded the last curve before Jonas Bauer’s former house, he tied the canvas bag closed and flung it into a patch of brambles. He moved to the opposite side of the boxcar and readied himself for the leap. Kamp saw what looked like a snowdrift a few feet from the tracks. He ran across the floor of the boxcar and jumped, sailing over the rocks and hitting the spot exactly. But what he thought was the top of the snowdrift turned out to be a discarded railroad tie sticking out of the ground and buried under a few inches of snow. He took most of the impact with his right hip and then came down hard on his elbow.

  He tumbled into a deadfall and came to rest upside down with a mouthful of ice and leaves. He waited for a surge of pain that didn’t come. He breathed a few times, trying to tell if he had any broken ribs. He wiggled his fingers and toes. Slowly, he got right side up and extracted himself from the deadfall. The Unlimited’s caboose rolled out of sight, and the only sound he heard was a mockingbird. Kamp stood up and inspected his body. A ragged hole had been ripped in his pants where he made contact with the tie. Other than that, no visible problems. Since he’d landed on his right side, he knew he hadn’t injured his left arm further. He felt a renewed urgency to get to a safe place. He couldn’t know the full extent of the injuries until the morphine wore off, but when it did, the pain would be unbearable. And if he’d broken bones, he might soon be incapacitated.

  Kamp staggered through the snow and the underbrush and found the canvas bag which had burst open on impact. He retrieved the files and stuffed them back in the bag. He picked up the trail back to the road, passing the tree from which Daniel Knecht had swung and the open grave that briefly held his corpse. Kamp shuffled through the snowy underbrush until he reached the road in front of the house. He paused to listen and observe for a moment. There was no light in any windows, no smoke from the chimney. He saw that a sheet of paper had been affixed to one of the planks covering the doorway, at eye level. Kamp scanned the landscape for movement and saw none. He walked as quickly as he could across the road, though he noticed a hitch in his gait, meaning that his hip had begun to swell.

  He made his way to the front door and read the notice: “By order of the Honorable Tate Cain, this house is CONDEMNED. Under penalty of law, KEEP OUT.” He went to the bulkhead doors. A heavy chain had been looped under the door handles and secured with a large iron padlock. The back door had been sealed shut as well. He could think of a number of reasons why the Judge would want to keep people out. The house did, after all, belong to the Judge, and so perhaps he was protecting his investment from squatters and vagrants, categories into which Kamp himself had begun to fit. At some point the Judge would want to rent out the house again, or sell it. He might have thought it too soon to do either. Most likely, though, he reasoned, the Judge caught wind that he and Nyx were there, and he wanted them out. And whether that was for his own good was the question.

  He considered breaking back into the house, because there remained the possibility that the Judge wanted to keep him from finding something that, as yet, no one had been able to
locate. More important, Kamp needed a roof over his head. Snow, then sleet and now a cold rain had begun to fall. He tested one of the planks on the back door by pulling on it with his right hand. He felt a twinge of pain in his elbow. He tried it with his left hand and felt an even stronger jolt in his arm. Kamp went to the tool shed, looking for an implement to pry off the boards, but the shed had been picked clean. He checked all the windows on the ground floor, searching for a loose board, a way in. But whoever had hammered the planks had been thorough, and the house was bound up tight. His thoughts turned to Nyx’s whereabouts. He walked to the spot where he’d given her the shooting lesson. The ground was covered with cartridge boxes, now disintegrating in the rain. She’d predictably ignored his instruction not to fire the gun in his absence. Kamp counted the boxes on the ground. There were nine. He knew that he’d taken ten boxes from the police station and that he’d left all of them with Nyx. Either she’d been interrupted before she finished shooting, or she’d saved one box. Either way, he didn’t know where she was. She may have been taken into custody by the police, in which case they’d have the Sharps. Or she may have gone back to the Fogels. A fear skittered through his mind. She might have been left in the house. Apart from seeing her himself or getting the definitive word, for now, Nyx was missing.

  THE RAIN CAME HARDER. Kamp took off his coat and wrapped it around the canvas bag. He walked out of the yard and onto the road, head down. No one else was out and so he took no care. The idea of bedding down at a neighbor’s house would have been appealing but for the fact that he didn’t trust any of them. Not that they weren’t good people, as far as that went. But they were the same people who, when given with the opportunity to execute Daniel Knecht, didn’t hesitate. And considering the attempts on his life as well as the general hostility of the populace toward him, Kamp thought it wise to keep to himself. He trudged up the path to where his house had stood. Water ran down through icy ruts. He stifled the memories of the many times he’d walked this path before, happy and relieved to see the lantern in the window and smell wood smoke on the breeze. He didn’t even glance at the scorched foundation. Instead, he went for the slaughterhouse. The wide front door was singed but intact, as was the rest of the stone building. Someone had removed all the tools, and so it was empty except for the large table he used for butchering. A few sizable leaks in the roof let in enough water to soak most of the floor.

  Kamp found a dry place next to the door, sat down and opened the canvas bag. Some of the records had gotten wet and were now unreadable, but most had stayed dry. He stacked the books and papers next to him. Underneath the records, he found the medical supplies from E. Wyles’ office. They too were nearly dry. He took the gauze off his left arm and surveyed the damage, an all-around ugly, red and purple mess. He splashed ethyl alcohol on his wounds. The pain, which had been gathering force like a far-off storm, now thundered in. Kamp pressed a large dressing against his arm and wrapped it as tightly as he could with gauze. The pain in his left arm now came in sturdy waves. His right hip and elbow, the parts of his body that took the brunt of the fall from the train, also began to throb. For a moment, he thought he might lose consciousness.

  At the very bottom of the bag, he found the vials of morphine and the syringe. Both vials were broken, their contents drained. The bottle containing the tincture of willow extract was unbroken, and he drank the bitter liquid. He knew it couldn’t erase the pain, as the morphine had, but it would help. He tried lying down and found it impossible to get into a position that didn’t cause extreme discomfort. He sat back up, leaning his back against the door with his legs stretched out in front of him. In similar situations in the past, Kamp had learned to focus on pain in one part of his body, as opposed to letting it all pour over him or trying to escape it. He pictured the place on his hip that had struck the railroad tie. He narrowed his attention to the smallest point imaginable and observed every sensation, until only the pain existed. Within minutes, he slipped deep within himself, and moments after that, he lost consciousness, head slumped forward.

  What followed was a series of nightmares, each more ferocious than the last, as the retreat of the morphine gave way to the full effect of the trauma. He awoke in total darkness. The rain had stopped, and he heard nothing but howling wind. He discovered that he couldn’t raise his left arm or bend his right elbow, which he assumed was broken. And though his left leg moved easily, the pain radiating from his right hip made moving his right leg impossible. Kamp tilted his head back against the door and listened to the wind. He brought Shaw’s face to mind. He pictured the few strands of straight black hair falling across her forehead, the three freckles across the bridge of her nose, the crescent scar above her eye. He imagined himself cradling his daughter in his arms and rocking back and forth. He held these images in his mind until he saw the grey morning light through the cracks in the slaughterhouse roof. He’d grown so cold that his body shook uncontrollably. And even though he didn’t have an appetite, Kamp knew he needed to eat in order to survive. He wanted to stand up to try to shake off the cold and scrounge for food but found his injured limbs wouldn’t work. He also noticed he’d pissed his pants. He considered screaming for help. The worst that could happen would be for his attackers to discover him and finish him off, which didn’t seem so bad, all in all.

  But given the hour–he estimated that it was six or so in the morning–no one would be on the road. And even if they were, his voice wouldn’t carry far enough. He concluded that if he waited long enough for the pain in his hip to subside, even a little, he could try to get to the road. He waited throughout the day, to no avail. Late in the afternoon, he tried to put his hand on his right hip. He immediately became dizzy, lost his balance and toppled sideways so that the right side of his head lay flat on the ground. He could not right himself. He lay on the floor and watched his breath, puffing out in rasps. He’d stopped shaking and noticed while his breath slowed that he’d begun to feel warm. Kamp had a vague recollection that this change signaled extreme danger, but he couldn’t remember why and certainly could do nothing about it. He felt a strong urge to crawl into the corner but decided instead to try to get outside one last time.

  He rolled over so that he was facing the slaughterhouse door. He used the muscles in his torso to angle himself out of the door’s path. Then he curled his fingers around the edge of the door and opened it enough to be able to see outside. The orange sun slid over the horizon, and he tilted his head to see the first stars dotting the eastern sky. He wiggled like an earthworm out of the slaughterhouse so he could feel the wind on his body. He rolled onto his back in order to stare straight into the sky, and when he did, he saw Joe, standing above him and looking down.

  Kamp said, “Where’d you come from?”

  “You look like you could use a little help.”

  “How so?”

  Joe hooked his hands under Kamp’s arms and started dragging him. He said, “I’m not that far ahead of them. They’re on their way.”

  “There’s a bag. In there.”

  “We can’t take it now. I’ll come back for it.”

  “No, they’ll find it.” He stiffened his body in order to make it harder for Joe to drag him. “Get it.” In the distance they heard the sound of a carriage and men’s voices. Joe let go of him and went into the slaughterhouse. He came out with the canvas bag slung over his shoulder.

  Joe said, “You have to get on my back. You have to get up.”

  Kamp barely moved. Without hesitation, Joe rolled him onto his belly, pulled him to his knees, then raised him to his feet. Joe put one of Kamp’s arms over his head and hoisted his body across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Joe made for the tree line, hauling both Kamp and the canvas bag. The sound of the carriage grew louder, though they heard no voices. In a moment the carriage would make the turn that would bring them into view. Joe couldn’t turn around to see whether they’d been discovered. He had to move forward. Kamp heard Joe’s breath growing louder, but the ma
n did not slow his pace or falter. They heard shouting behind them.

  Joe carried him into the woods, and in one motion, he set Kamp and the canvas bag on the ground and wheeled around to see three men pursuing them. One of the men was raising a gun at a distance of a hundred yards. The other two sprinted toward them. Joe picked up a rifle and dropped to one knee as the man fired the shot. The bullet whistled through the trees just above Joe’s head. Joe fired and dropped the man. The second man running toward them was bearing down. Joe dropped the rifle and pulled a pistol from a vest rig. He stood up and shot. The man tumbled to the ground a few feet from Kamp. The last man turned and ran back toward the road. Joe trained the pistol on the retreating man. He held it there until the man reached the road, and then Joe put the gun back in the holster. He picked up the bag, then Kamp and finally the rifle.

  Kamp said, “Where are we going?”

  “Over.”

  As Joe started trudging up the trail, they heard another pair of approaching footsteps. Heavy laden as he was, Joe was essentially defenseless. He swung around with Kamp still draped over his back and saw Nyx Bauer standing in front of him. She was carrying the Sharps.

  She said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not,” Joe said, and he turned around and started walking.

  Nyx reached for the canvas bag, took it off Joe’s shoulder and slung it over her own.

  “Don’t touch that.”

  She said, “Let me carry that rifle too.”

  “Get out of here. Go.”

  Kamp mumbled, “Don’t bother, Joe. She won’t listen. Trust me.”

  Nyx took the rifle from Joe and walked the trail ahead of them. “I’ll make sure no one’s up there waiting for us.”