Outlaw Train

by Cameron Judd

  “No, this isn’t at all common,” the district attorney agreed. “I’ll grant you that.” He paused. “Have you noticed how it seems like nothing is ordinary or common around this town anymore?”

  “Believe me, Jim, I’ve noticed. It’s about all I can think about these days.” Luke paused. “Along that same line, look at what was in our prisoner’s pocket.” He reached beneath his coat and removed a folded piece of paper he handed to the other.

  Jim Crandall opened and examined the paper briefly. “Interesting,” he said, looking up. “I’ve seen some of these around town, hung up on walls and poles. But I’ve never really heard of such a thing as this. What the devil is an ‘Outlaw Train’?”

  Luke said, “Dewitt and me paid a visit out to this ‘Outlaw Train,’ but didn’t go all the way to it. We were just curious about what it was, like you are.”

  “Well, did you find out?”

  “It appears to be a traveling show and exhibition of some kind. Something to do with outlaws and things having to do with them, I think.”

  Crandall frowned in thought. “This outlaw circus shows up, and then one of the best-known outlaws in this part of the country happens to ride into town and kill the sheriff. And this flyer turns up in his pocket. Reckon there’s a connection between this traveling show and Scar Nolan?”

  “One thing at a time, Jim. Before I try to figure out these Gypsy showmen, or whatever they are, I’ve got another question needing clearing up. And I’m hopeful I can maybe clear it up tonight, or get a better notion of the lay of the land, anyway.”

  “Going to go communicate with the dead this evening, are you, Luke? I saw that flyer around town, too.”

  “You got me figured, Jim.”

  “I’ve got some questions about that young woman,” Crandall said. “The fact you are going to hear her lecture makes me suspect you have questions yourself.”

  “I do. The kind of questions you don’t ask out loud unless you really know what the hell you are talking about. Because asking them out loud could get somebody killed.”

  So Crandall didn’t speak out loud but whispered. “Bender?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind.”

  “Mine as well. And some others here in town. And many of them are not as discreet as you are being. It will be intriguing to find out what happens when she makes her presentation this evening.”

  “You going?”

  “I’d half go just to look at her. I’ve not seen such a beauty before. Just don’t tell Hannah I said that.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut. I’d not want to get you in hot water with your wife.”

  “Speaking of wives, Luke…when do you think you’ll get one of your own and settle down?”

  “God only knows. And so far He’s not talking out loud, either.”

  “You still paying call on that young woman over near Ellsworth?”

  “Haven’t made the journey since Ben left town. Can’t get free to do it, you know. But we write each other letters now and again.”

  “What’s her name? I’m forgetting.”

  “Sally. Sally James.”

  “No kin to Frank and Jesse, I assume.”

  “Not to my knowledge. I hope not.”

  They finished their beers and talked a little more about innocuous topics. When they rose to leave, Crandall caught Luke by the arm. “Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but you should know you’re already being talked up by the county leaders as a replacement appointment for Sheriff Crowe.”

  “You’re joshing me!”

  “Not at all. I reckon they’ve been impressed with how you’ve handled your town office since Ben cut out on us. And it’s not like there’s a whole slew of experienced lawmen hereabouts to form a pool of candidates.”

  “In Dewitt’s figuring, Bailey will put himself forth as a candidate for the job. Point out that it was him who restrained Nolan after the shooting, and try to ride that into office.”

  “I’d not have thought of that myself, but Dewitt may be right,” Crandall said. “But the county won’t buy that particular bill of goods, I’ll wager. Bailey’s got no real experience under his belt. You’re the man they’ll want.”

  “I’m not sure I want the job.”

  “It would be a good position for a young man such as yourself. Better pay than the town alone gives you, and respect. The kind of position a man wants in case he decides ever to turn Sally James into Sally Cable.”

  “Good Lord, Jim, first you got me as county sheriff and now you’ve got me married off! Who put you in charge of living my life for me?”

  “Just trying to help an old friend find his best opportunities.”

  “Well then, I appreciate that. But the opportunity I want to find is the opportunity to go back to being just a simple deputy of Wiles, Kansas, working for Ben Keely. But I don’t know that’s ever going to happen. I’m believing more every day that goes by that something has happened to Ben. I’m afraid he’s gotten himself killed somewhere, somehow.”

  “I worry the same thing, Luke.”

  They said their farewells and parted. Luke walked slowly through the streets and alleys of his town, not patrolling so much as simply letting his thoughts roam free. He wasn’t looking forward to the evening’s presentation by “Prophetess Katrina Haus,” finding the whole spiritualism concept to be grim and morbid. But, he reminded himself, if the talk grows hard to bear, at the very least he could enjoy the beauty of the speaker.

  He turned onto Emporium Street and heard the atonal singing of Macky Montague come wafting down the avenue. The swish of his broom on the emporium steps almost kept time with the song.

  Luke crossed the street so he could pass the emporium without directly encountering Macky, not being inclined just now toward conversation. Sure enough, Macky did not look his way as he passed the huge store on the opposite boardwalk. But Luke did happen to glance up as he passed, and caught a glimpse of something moving behind the attic window. He strained his eyes and thought he saw a face, or part of a face, peering back at him.

  Reflexively he almost waved, but didn’t, not being sure that the old man living a lonely existence in that upper area would want to know he had been seen.

  Feeling strangely dejected, Luke pressed on while Macky kept sweeping and singing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Prophetess Katrina Haus looked solemnly across the crowd gathered on the second-floor Wiles Lecture Hall, closed her eyes suddenly as if stabbed by pain, and said, “I feel the presence tonight of many spirits, many departed loved ones who wish to give comfort to those remaining behind and grieving them.”

  A faint, anticipatory murmur swept through the gathering. Several people scooted forward in their seats in postures of eagerness. Jimmy Wills, who had been recruited by the speaker to collect admission at the door and who had taken his seat in the back row when Haus began speaking, moved forward in his seat, too, and when he had arranged himself so as to have the best possible view of the shapely speaker, smiled. She was what he’d come to see. Let the show go on.

  Haus waved her hands to signal for silence, and when the only noise in the room came from the muffled creak of a passing wagon on the street outside, the woman spoke softly, her Germanic accent thickening. “I sense that someone here grieves for the loss of one taken before his time…someone who died young, tragically and violently.” She paused, closed her eyes again, and rocked from side to side as if swayed by a great, unseen hand. “Tell me, my people, by the raising of your hands, if you have lost a young loved one to violent and premature death!” She opened her eyes, still swaying, and raised her own hand.

  Out in the crowd, hands rose…slowly, except for one that shot up like a bolt before Haus even finished speaking. This was the hand of Clara Ashworth, who was seated in her usual Sunday-best dress, her fancy hat held on with one of the French hat pins she had shown Luke out on the street. Beside her was her husband, Howard, who looked extraordinarily uncomfortable to be there.
Luke, who was seated on a row end three-quarters of the way back in the lecture hall, recalled Dewitt’s recounting of seeing Ashworth making a nocturnal visit to Haus at the hotel. Luke studied the Ashworth couple and pitied them: Clara for the secret unfaithfulness her husband hid from her, and Howard for the pain he had suffered through the loss of his only son, Michael, in the late war, a victim of bushwhacking redlegs. Michael’s death weighed far more heavily on Howard than Clara, because Michael had been the product of Howard’s first marriage, and though Clara always referred to him as her son, he was not in fact so. Clara had accepted the youth for the sake of convenience and familial harmony. Howard, though, had truly loved the boy. The trauma of the young man’s death had led to Howard’s move to Wiles from the town of Lawrence, or so everyone said. In Wiles he and Clara had settled, and being an aging couple they had borne no children of their own.

  Haus took note of the raised hands and nodded. “I’m…I’m sensing a military connection, something to do with war and battle…”

  Several voices rose to let the “prophetess” know that she was connecting. Clara Ashworth was visibly trembling, perched on the edge of her seat, hand still uplifted and now waving. Luke was surprised that it was Clara and not Howard who was reacting so strongly…until he remembered that Howard was far from likely to call attention to himself in the public presence of a woman with whom he had cheated on the wife seated by his side. Howard no doubt wished he could be invisible at this moment.

  Haus’s voice became singsong: “Yes…yes…there are spirits here, eager to communicate with their living loved ones, to tell them they are well, happy, joyous in the life beyond…”

  Clara turned to her husband. “Did you hear that, Howard? He is well and happy!”

  Howard, speaking more loudly than he’d intended, could be heard by most of those present when he said, “We don’t know that it’s Michael she’s talking about, Clara. Could be some other soul.”

  Luke noticed that Prophetess Haus did not seem to have heard Howard, or acted as if she had not, even though Howard was seated close enough to the front that he should have been easily audible to her. Luke had heard him from several rows back.

  Haus’s next words made Luke sure she’d heard him after all. “The letter M…I’m sensing the letter M…”

  For his part, Luke was sensing an F, for “fraud.” It wasn’t hard to see what this woman was doing: casting a wide net in search of subtle information from the audience, and gradually narrowing it based on the responses she received. In a group of this size, particularly a group gathered for a spiritualist exercise dedicated to contacting the dead, obviously there would be many there grieving for lost loved ones. And given the reality of the war that had cost so many lives mere years before, it was inevitable that many of those lost loved ones were young, killed violently before their times. No special insights or skills on the part of Haus were needed.

  “Letter M, did you say?” a woman on the opposite side of the lecture hall asked.

  “Yes,” replied Haus. “But there are others as well…”

  “Is there a Julia?” asked the woman, voice frantic.

  “Yes. She draws nearer to us…Julia…”

  “Oh, Julia!” the woman wailed, coming to her feet and looking toward the ceiling as if she expected to see Julia come floating through the wall itself. “Let me hear from you! Are you well? Are you in heaven?”

  “Sit down, Amelia!” the man behind the frantic woman demanded. “You’re blocking my view!”

  “And lovely Miss Haus is a view not to be blocked, ain’t she?” said a nearby man, too loudly, drawing chuckles from men and reproving glances from women.

  The wailing Amelia didn’t heed any of it. She remained afoot, cringing and crying, tears staining her twisting face. Luke watched it all and marveled at the gullibility of the human race. Luke’s mind was open; he was willing to believe in communication with the dead if Prophetess Haus could clearly demonstrate it. So far she had not done so.

  Haus came nearer to Amelia. “Madam, I will speak next with your Julia. Until then, there is comfort that Michael seeks to give to his family.” She waved her hand in the direction of the Ashworths…and only then seemed to realize who Howard Ashworth was. So at least was Luke’s assessment, based on the demeanor of both. Howard stared at the floor and would not look at Haus, who was momentarily at a loss for words, and coughed in what struck Luke as a deliberate manner. Luke could imagine how clumsy the situation was for her, dealing in public with a man who had made a nocturnal, carnal visit to her hotel room, and him with his unwitting wife standing right beside him.

  After the moment had passed, Haus regained composure and control quickly. She stood tall, body going rigid, and closed her eyes tightly, trancelike. She began to sway slightly.

  When she spoke next, her voice was different. Deeper, almost masculine. Luke was initially startled by the change, but quickly recognized that it was a practiced effect, probably a standard part of her program of deception.

  “Father,” she said. “Mother. It is I. It is Michael.”

  The crowd murmured in awe, but Clara Ashworth was not as impressed. “I was not Michael’s mother, and he never referred to me as such,” she said. “And that is not his voice.”

  Unfazed, Haus turned her face toward the woman, eyes fluttering partly open for half a moment. “No…it is my voice, but Michael speaks through me. Though you were not his mother by birth, he valued the raising you gave him, and from the perspective of the other side, he now views you as Mother.”

  Clara seemed stunned and confused, and found nothing to say. Haus stepped closer to her. Luke, watching, noticed that Howard looked as if he wanted to vanish into the floor. He surely felt threatened by Haus: with one word she could reveal his tryst with her and destroy his reputation. And she could do so without revealing her own involvement, simply by passing off as information from “the other side” the fact that Clara’s husband had betrayed her with another woman.

  Clara spoke, weakly. “Michael sees me…as his…mother?”

  Haus used her deeper voice again, just for a moment. “I do, Mother. You made yourself mother to me. You earned my love.”

  Clara’s eyes suddenly brimmed and she raised a hand to her face. “Oh…Michael…did you hear what Michael said, Howard?”

  Howard grunted and nodded, still not looking at Haus.

  Clara sank to her seat again and buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Haus turned away and Howard slumped in visible relief, no doubt hoping that she was through with the Ashworth family.

  He tensed again when Haus turned and looked at Clara. “He is telling me more,” she said, normal voice again. “Michael is telling me more.” Her eyes flicked to Howard Ashworth for a moment.

  Luke heard Howard breathe a quiet “Oh, God…”

  “Michael is in heaven,” Haus said. “He is in heaven, and he is happy. He stands with the angels in eternal joy.”

  Clara nodded. “Thank you, Prophetess Haus. Thank you for sharing this wonderful message. And tell Michael that he is loved, and missed. And that I am proud to be called his mother.”

  “He hears you,” Haus said. “Your words increase his joy.”

  After the “communication” involving the Ashworths was complete, the pattern of the evening was established. Haus gave similar comforting words on behalf of the spirit “Julia,” then spoke again to the group as a whole, cleverly moving from broad comments and questions to more narrow, specific “facts” regarding persons present and the spirits who supposedly had come to communicate with them. In each case Luke was able to trace the pattern of how she achieved this, and see that there was no mystical power involved. Merely clever manipulation and careful listening and response. The only communication going on was unwitting, drawn from the minds of the gullible believers who had come to hear the “prophetess.”

  In each case, the “spirits” showed up as wished, and in each case their news was comforting and positive. All were in
heaven, all were happy, all were protecting their loved ones left behind and would welcome them on the “other side” when the time came. Before long Luke was realizing how effective a fraud Katrina Haus was…and now that he knew what she was, he was wondering all the more who she really was.

  The more he thought of such things, the more unsettled he felt, the more overwhelmed by how this town, this job, this life of his was changing. Not long before, he’d been a mere small-town deputy whose duties involved, at worst, hustling drunks into a cell, rattling shop doors after dark, breaking up the occasional squabble or brawl, steering a straying child back in the direction of his or her parents, fetching horses that had strayed from hitch posts. Low-paying work, but easy, and usually safe. And always with higher-ranking lawmen in the background to carry the final responsibility if things took a turn. Now, though, he was dealing with a murdered sheriff and a prisoner in that case who seemed likely to be a noted, long-sought outlaw. Furthermore, he was seated in a public gathering at that moment, facing a woman who very well could be the infamous fugitive murderess Kate Bender, hiding behind a false identity.

  For the first time since entering the law enforcement profession, Luke was wondering if he’d made an error of judgment.

  Prophetess Haus was on the opposite side of the room, declaring she was getting a strong impression of a communication coming from someone whose name had begun with a B and who had died from “difficulties within his or her upper body,” when the hallway door nearest to where Luke sat rattled and squeaked open. He glanced over and was surprised to see that it was Dewitt who had opened it. Dewitt peered shyly into the little auditorium and quickly found Luke. He signaled with his hand for Luke to come out into the hall.

  Luke might have ignored Dewitt if not for the desperate look on his face and the possibility of trouble back at the jail. Though Dewitt was not on jail duty that night, that task having fallen to Bailey.

  As Katrina Haus began to tell yet another family that their lost loved one was fine, eternally happy, and eager to communicate the same to those who grieved them, Luke rose and hurriedly slipped from his place and out to the hallway.