by Cameron Judd
The aging physician joined the coroner. Both men looked intently at the leg. Artemus spoke first. “I’ll be! I do see it!”
“What is it?” Crowe asked.
“This leg was not cut off by a train wheel,” the doctor said.
Brand jumped in. “And beyond that, it was not severed from the body of a living man.”
“What?” Crowe moved around to join Brand and Artemus at the wound end of the severed limb.
“Wilton, you’re right,” Dr. Artemus said. “I’d not even noticed that.” He probed the exposed, cut muscle with his finger, causing Crowe to shudder and pull back reflexively. “Very strange,” Artemus said. “Almost like…I don’t know…leather. Or jerked meat. This is embalming beyond any degree I’ve ever encountered before. This leg is essentially…mummified.”
Wilton Brand nodded. “The very word that came to my mind, too. That might explain the lack of great interest on the part of the dogs. The flesh has been altered enough to have a scent that puts them off rather than appeals to them.”
Crowe spoke. “Before we wander too far afield, gentlemen, let’s get back to the first thing you said. How do you know this was not cut off beneath a train, especially considering that the leg was found beside the tracks?”
“Two reasons, the first being that this leg has been heavily embalmed, and in a manner quite uncommon. Second, there’s the nature of the cut. The edges of the sever wound are sharp and precise,” said the doctor. “And I see no evidence of the kind of massive pinching and crushing that would have been caused by train wheels. It appears to me that this leg was removed in a much more surgical fashion. And look…see the bone? See how cleanly and neatly it is cut? And there are marks visible on it that appear consistent with those left by a surgical bone saw.”
Crowe frowned. “So somebody cut the leg off a mummified dead man, cut his trouser leg off, too, and slid the leg back into it, boot and all, and laid it beside a railroad track on a Kansas flatland so it would look like it had been cut off by a train at the same time. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Odd as it may seem, that is the evidence that my eye sees.”
“And mine,” said Brand.
Crowe turned to Charlie Bays. “Nobody actually saw the accident or whatever it was that resulted in this leg being where it was, right, Charlie? Nobody ever saw somebody actually getting his leg pinched off under a train wheel?”
“That’s right.”
“But you still think it was cut off by a passing train.”
“I did…but now these men have raised my doubts,” the rancher replied. “It just don’t look…well, messed up enough to have been cut off by train wheels.”
“It’s the mummification that mystifies me,” said Brand. “I’m no undertaker, just a coroner, but I think I can tell you authoritatively that dead flesh is not commonly preserved in this kind of state. The leathery condition of the internal flesh…I can’t account for it. This leg was preserved by uncommon, highly expert means.”
Crowe shook his head and spoke to Luke. “See why I wanted you here, Luke? This whole situation is so damn strange that I wanted somebody else along to understand it, too.”
Luke scuffed his foot in the dirt. “ ‘Understand’ isn’t the right word in this case,” he said. “This just has me perplexed.”
“What do you want me to do with this leg?” asked Bays. “My Franny is all worked up about it being out here in our shed. She wants it gone, and truth is so do I.”
Luke turned to Wilton Brand. “Wilton, it ain’t a corpse, but it’s part of one. Could you as coroner take charge of it for now? Keep it stored? If it’s mummified, it ought not to decay on you, at least not very fast.”
“I’ll put it in the morgue,” he said, referring to what was in fact little more than a small barn with a tightly enclosed room he used as a coroner’s facility and short-term morgue. It stood on the edge of town, near his home and on his property, and he leased it to the county for a dollar a year. “I want to study it, anyway, to see if I can figure out some of how that thing got into that preserved state. I’ll bring in Mr. Edgar from the undertaking parlor and see what he has to say.”
“Thank you, Wilton,” Crowe said. “I suspect that leg may prove to be evidence in a crime.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Luke said. “You’re thinking that whoever cut off that leg and put it out where it was found was trying to make it appear that it had been cut off by a passing train. Which means they were trying to disguise what really happened.”
“Right. If the intention wasn’t deception, why include the trouser leg? Why leave the boot on the foot? The goal was to make what had happened seem obvious. But in this case, the ‘obvious’ isn’t actually obvious, if you take the time to look closely.”
“Now, I guess, all we need to do is find a mummified dead man hopping around town because he’s missing his left leg,” Luke said, grinning.
“Wilton, fetch up that leg,” Crowe said. “Charlie, we’ll take our leave of you now. And you can tell Franny she won’t have to hesitate to come out to her shed anymore.”
The battered coffeepot steaming on the stove in Luke Cable’s office filled the entire jail with a strong but delicious coffee aroma. Luke, Dewitt, Harvey Crowe, and Wilton Brand sat lazily about the room, cups in hand, talking over what had just gone on.
Dewitt, having not been part of the group that traveled to the ranch, was full of questions.
“So how can they be so sure it wasn’t a train that cut the leg off?” he asked for the third time.
Crowe rolled his eyes in exasperation, so Luke fielded the question this time. “It’s because of how it was cut,” he said. “Think about it, Dewitt…even though it’s not pleasant thinking. If a train cuts off a man’s leg, that’s going to mash the wound area right considerable, and crush through the bone. Not very neat work. But this leg was sliced as neat and clean as if some surgeon had worked on it. And the bone looked sawed. Not crushed, but sawed.”
“Another thing, too,” Brand added. “And I didn’t think about this until we were riding back. That leg was severed about as high up as you could cut off a leg. Nigh up to the hip, and straight across. I can’t figure how a man could lie on a railroad track and get his leg cut off at that particular angle without losing more of himself than just that one leg. Not if he’d just chanced to pass out and fall down. You’d pretty much have to lie crossways on the track to lose your leg at that straight of an angle, and if you were doing that, the other leg would be cut off, too. But they only found the one leg. That alone to me is evidence that somebody placed that leg there after it had already been surgically removed from a corpse. A corpse, by the way, that had been embalmed in some manner unknown to the science of undertaking.”
“Strangest thing I’ve ever run across,” Crowe said.
“I wonder if that leg was throwed off the train by somebody riding on it,” Dewitt said.
Crowe rolled his eyes again. It was his habit to perceive and treat anything said by Dewitt Stamps as derision-worthy. “Riding the train, or the leg?” he said, then laughed heartily.
“Sheriff, come on now,” Luke said, reflexively slipping into a defensive attitude toward Dewitt.
“Well, it was just how he phrased it,” the sheriff replied.
“We all know what he meant, and I think Dewitt has a point,” Luke said. “This is a small community. Somebody loses a limb around here, people would know. And I doubt there’s a lot of mummified corpses lying around, either. I’d say odds are high that somebody passing through on the train disposed of that leg, figuring everybody would think exactly what we first thought…that somebody lost the leg underneath the train.”
“Makes a man wonder what’s going on, what the real story is,” Crowe said. He sipped his coffee. “Hell, this town is full of mysteries, if you look close enough. Like who the devil was it I saw looking out of that upper window of the emporium earlier today? I was out in the street talking to old Mrs
. Selfrighteous Ashworth. I looked up at that high window on the front of the emporium, and there was somebody looking out. I thought it was old Montague at first, for it was a man’s face and looked like his, but this fellow had a full white beard, and Montague is clean-shaved.”
“It probably was Montague,” Luke said. “The ‘beard’ part was probably just light shining on the glass.”
“I don’t think so,” said Crowe. “I’m putting a few years behind me, no question of that, but my eyes are still strong.”
“Anybody can be fooled by shadows and reflections,” Luke said. “I’m not aware of anybody living at the emporium except for Montague himself and his nephew Macky. You know any different than that, Dewitt?”
Crowe spoke first. “Hell, as much as Dewitt has drunk over the years, he’s probably seen Jesus Christ and Moses working down at the saddle shop while the prophet Isaiah pees in the outhouse out back.”
Dewitt ignored the jibe and answered Luke. “I ain’t aware of anybody but them two living at the emporium, either. Mr. Montague’s got his big house in behind the emporium, and Macky’s room is off to the side. But nobody lives in that upper part. Up where that window is, there’s nothing but a big old storage attic. I know. I was up there once, carrying something up for Mr. Montague.”
“My eyes are good. I seen what I seen,” Crowe said.
“Good Lord, I know what I’m seeing right now!” said Wilton Brand. He was half raised out of his chair, propping himself so he had a better view out the window. “Look at that, gents! You ever seen a woman hauling around such a pair?”
Every man in the room, save Dewitt, was at the window in a moment. Dewitt closed his eyes and seemed to be praying silently. He knew who they were looking at. Had to be the same woman, Katrina whoever-she-was, who’d come down the stairs at the hotel that morning he’d had the conversation with Jimmy Wills over in the Gable House. Wanting to avoid the sin of lust, Dewitt knew better than to let himself look out that window.
The other men clearly had no similar scruples. They stared and commented lewdly and stayed so fixed on what they were watching that Dewitt could tell the moment the woman went out of sight. They all moved as one back to their chairs, shaking their heads as if they’d just witnessed an awesome marvel of nature.
Wilton Brand, known by all as a lecherous soul, could hardly keep from stirring out of his seat. He grinned at Crowe. “Tell you what, Sheriff, if I was a lawman, I’d find cause to investigate that there woman! Just for the chance to look at her!”
“I never knew you to need a pretext for looking at a woman, Wilton,” Crowe replied.
“You’re right about that, my friend!” declared Brand.
“Well, the law might have good reason to look into what that woman’s doing,” said Dewitt.
“How so?” asked Luke.
Dewitt hesitated. “I hate to talk about such things, not knowing for sure. A man’s accusations ought to be firm, you know.”
Crowe sighed loudly. “Ah, hell, Dewitt, quit fretting over every little thing and say what you got to say.”
Dewitt nodded. “All right, then. A while back I was over in the lobby of the Gable House, morning hours, just reading my Bible. Jimmy Wills had been up night clerking and said that all through the night, there was men coming in and going up to see that woman. Katrina…Katrina…”
“Haus, I think,” Luke said.
“Yeah. Anyway, Jimmy had it figured she was selling herself up in her room, you know.”
“Well, if she is, she’s got a good product for drawing customers,” said Wilton Brand. “Lord, I might find myself paying a visit to her myself, if I can do it without Lawman Luke here catching me!”
Luke tried to keep the conversation more maturely focused. “Is she really whoring herself, Dewitt?”
“That’s what Jimmy said. That’s all I know. I never saw none of it happening myself. Just saw her come down the stairs and go out onto the street, that’s all.”
“Well, all joking aside here, if she’s using the hotel for the practice of prostitution, I intend to see that brought to an end. Ain’t going to happen in my town!”
Crowe snorted with laughter. “Luke, boy, who do you think you’re fooling here? There’s always been soiled doves in Wiles County, and in Wiles itself. I’ve locked a few of them up from time to time, but the fact is there ain’t much gain in trying to halt that kind of thing. It’s been around as long as there’s been people, and it ain’t likely to go away.”
“Not without the power of God,” threw in Dewitt, to Crowe’s obvious annoyance.
“Well, I can’t sit back and let it go if I’ve been told about it,” Luke responded. “That would be negligence of my duty.”
“Do what you got to do, then,” Crowe said. “I, for one, am an officer of the law who prefers to spend his time fighting crimes that actually hurt people.”
Luke shrugged.
“Would I be gossiping if I told you something I seen that might have something to do with this?” Dewitt said.
“If it’s something we need to know to enforce the law, I think you ought to tell,” Luke replied.
“Well…all right. It was two nights ago. I was out walking in town because I’d finished up my work here and there was nobody to watch in the jail. I figured a little exercise might make me sleep better, so I walked. Kept an eye on things while I did, kind of like making rounds like you do, Luke.”
“I appreciate that, Dewitt.”
“Anyway, I was over near the Gable House and thought about stopping in to say hello to Jimmy Wills, figuring he was working the night duty as usual. But I never actual went into the hotel lobby. I stopped in the alley for a piss there across the street from the hotel, and when I was coming out to cross the street, I seen somebody I recognized going into the hotel. And I wondered why he’d be out visiting the hotel at that hour of the night. So I kind of watched, and through them front windows that look into the staircase over near where it goes down into the lobby, I could see him going up. And I remembered that woman living there, and it come to me what he was up to. Surprised me, I got to say.”
“Who was it, Dewitt?” asked Crowe.
Dewitt opened his mouth and closed it again, frowning. “Go on and tell, Dewitt,” Luke said.
“Howard Ashworth,” Dewitt said softly.
There was silence as the group took it in. Then Crowe chuckled softly, the chuckle growing into a full laugh that spread to the others. Luke managed not to join the laughter, but couldn’t suppress a smile.
“Oooh, Lordy!” Crowe said. “Can’t say I can hold old Ashworth much at fault for that sin, considering what he’s got to go home to!”
“Typical old hypocrite!” said Wilton Brand in a tone almost triumphant. “Just the kind of thing you can expect from them what wave their religion like a banner over everybody else they think they’re better than! Old church elder Ashworth sits there on that pew with his old cow of a wife Sunday after Sunday, singing praises to heaven, and all the while he’s sneaking out in the night making his own kind of heaven with a whore in the hotel! Bah! That’s what keeps me out of church. All the damned hypocrites!”
“Why, Wilton, even if you ain’t a churchgoer, I thought you professed to be a man of faith,” Luke said. “Ain’t that so?”
“I got faith. I just ain’t one to go strut it down the street every Sunday morning to put on a show of going to church.”
“So you got faith. To that extent, then, you’re the same as Ashworth.”
“Yeah, to that extent.”
“But just now you were looking out that window at that woman and talking about how you might go dally with a fallen woman. So you’re like Ashworth to that extent, too.”
“What are you saying, Luke?”
Luke shrugged and winked at Dewitt on the sneak. “Just saying, Wilton, that apparently you don’t have to go to church to be a hypocrite.”
“Hell, I ain’t no hypocrite! I don’t go waltzing down to the Presbyteria
n church every Sunday and put on a righteous show so everybody can see what a ‘fine Christian’ I am like Ashworth does!”
“No, but you said just now you were a man of faith. And that right after talking about your plan, or at least your wish, to go sin with a whore. Sinning with a whore is against the law of the Lord, Wilton, last time I checked. So that makes you as big a hypocrite as Ashworth, whether or not you sit on the pew at the Presbyterian church. That’s the gospel according to Luke Cable, anyway.”
“Amen!” Dewitt Stamps bellowed out. “You preach it, Luke!”
Brand nearly came out of his chair. He aimed a finger at Dewitt. “I’ll hear no more from the likes of you, you old drunk!” Then he looked at Luke. “As for you, Marshal Cable, I never thought I’d hear such an insult from somebody I took to be a friend.”
“Why, we are friends, Wilton. And friends can talk honest with each other. That’s all I was doing, just talking honest.”
“Calling me a hypocrite, that’s what you were doing!”
“Same as you were doing about Ashworth.”
“But I ain’t a hypocrite, and he is!”
“Whatever you say, Wilton, even though I think I’ve made a strong case otherwise.”
“Hell, Luke Cable, I’m as damn fine a Christian man as you’ll run across! I ain’t got a hypocrite’s bone in my whole damn body! Hell fire, man!”
“Glory hallelujah to you, too, Wilton.”
Brand swore again, came to his feet, and stomped out of the office, slamming the door as he went.
Crowe laughed. “You got his goat that time, Luke! Got his goat, roasted it whole, and ate it with taters! Ha!”
CHAPTER SIX
Two days later, Luke had cause to think back on the conversation in the jail office when he was walking along Emporium Street and two things simultaneously caught his eye. One was a flyer freshly tacked to the wall of the empty dress shop at the intersection of Emporium Street and Smith Alley, across the street from the emporium. The other was the attention-grabbing form of Katrina Haus flouncing and bouncing across the street, stack of papers in her hand, toward the big staircase of the emporium. On that staircase, sweeping with his usual seriousness and intensity, was Macky Montague, the mentally underdeveloped nephew of the emporium’s founder and operator, Campbell Montague.
