Thorn the Bounty Hunter in The Amber Bones

by Brom Kearne

14

  Thorn estimated that it was getting towards six or seven o’clock. The farmers were going to have their meeting, but he wasn’t entirely sure that he was going to attend. As much as the allure of free food attracted him, he thought it was more important to get into that hospital so he could speak with Brad Hadlik. And more than that, he wanted to get back to the other side of the river simply because Melina Bann had forcefully exiled him over here. Thorn could feel that old spirit of competition burning within him and he was determined not to be outdone.

  Getting past the pale greens wouldn’t be much of a problem. In Thorn’s dealings with them they were usually inept and lazy, only doing the bare minimum that was required of them to continue receiving a paycheck. If they were challenged, or if their job suddenly became too demanding, they tended to be fine with taking the live and let live approach. But Len Dietrich’s private police force was a different matter entirely. They were far better trained, and would be far more loyal to their employer.

  Melina Bann had planted the idea of using misdirection to achieve his desired result. She had assumed that Thorn’s obvious and, in retrospect, idiotic display in front of the L & D headquarters was a diversion so someone could slip in the back. And it wasn’t a bad idea.

  As he was sitting here watching the police and the workers across the river, Thorn’s thoughts were frequently interrupted by the wooshing sound of the water rising and falling in the lock. Most of the barges were flat enough to fit under the bridge, and so were unimpeded on their journeys up or down the river. Some of them, whether due to their special cargo, or due to the design of the boat itself, required the use of the lock because they wouldn’t fit under the bridge. The lock was a stone canal into which the barges went. The water was lowered by opening an underwater gate downstream, to the south. Workers pushed the barge along with poles against the stone bulwarks until they were safely on the other side of the bridge, at which point the underwater north gate was opened and flooded the canal back to the level of the river.

  Thorn had concocted a wild idea in his mind of swimming across the Old Foss under the cover of the bridge, climbing the bulwark of the lock, setting fire to a barge that was in the canal, and then jumping off, allowing the river to carry him downstream to the wharf, where he would pull himself up and carry on with his mission while the police were distracted with the fire.

  He chuckled because he knew it wasn’t a very good plan at all. The river current would probably sweep him away before he even made it halfway across. And even if he did make it over there he’d be dripping wet and easy to follow should anyone take the notion. But sometimes it was fun to let his mind wander in these flights of fancy. When he was telling this story later on at Nate’s that’s how he’d infiltrate the town.

  As he was pondering his tale for Nate’s, Thorn was again reminded that the river was not the only means by which goods were shipped in and out of the town of Webster Grove. Overland shipping, though much slower, was required to reach those places where the Old Foss couldn’t. Most of the overland shipping was done in the horse-drawn wagons clearly stamped with the L & D logo, and one of these wagons was coming down the path from the west right now, heading into town.

  The wagon was weighted down with cargo under a heavy burlap tarp. The driver was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. This hat was pulled low on his head, so it also did a fine job of obscuring his vision as Thorn crept down along the roadside. He crouched behind a thicket of rough bushes until the wagon had passed, and then climbed into the back.

  Before he pulled the tarp back over himself, Thorn noticed that the crates were labeled as carrying hops from Crooked Crag. Thorn had to laugh because he could not think of himself in better company.

  The transition onto the bridge was jarring and Thorn nearly rolled out. He had to brace himself against the inner walls of the wagon, and kept his muscles tight as he was bounced uncomfortably over the heavy paving stones. The hops never moved, as their housing crates had been well secured.

  From his observations on the wharf this morning Thorn had a decent idea that the wagon would be taken to an alley behind one of the warehouses on the river. There its cargo would be checked against the manifest and it would be unloaded so it could be shipped to wherever it was off to next. Thorn kept watch from under the burlap tarp to see where they were. He could not see the river from this perspective, but he could see the white bridge and the wharf falling away behind them.

  The driver turned down the road behind the warehouses. Thorn waited a couple of seconds, took a deep breath, and slid off the back of the wagon. It was getting late and the shadows from the buildings were long upon the road. There were still plenty of workers around, but Thorn had not been seen. The shadows had concealed him, and would continue to do so until the street lamps were lit. Thorn felt light and giddy that he had infiltrated the town so easily. It felt good not to have charged in and banged his head against a wall for once. The wagon continued down the alley towards an open loading bay that was expecting it.

  Thorn knew exactly where the Len Dietrich Public Health Care Clinic was, as he had passed it that afternoon while looking for Len Dietrich Way. Getting there was no difficulty, as he stayed in the shadows and crept along the alleys between and behind the buildings. When he came to the hospital he climbed the wall into the patients’ yard and entered through a back door.

  Thorn found himself in a sitting room with some reading material and board games stacked on a shelf. The walls were glass to give a view of the yard through which Thorn had come, with stained glass pictures above. This wall was facing east, and Thorn imagined that in the mornings, when the sun was rising, it was a spectacular view through these windows. A couple patients were playing sticks together at one of the tables. They looked up as Thorn entered, but didn’t give him any further acknowledgement as they returned to their game.

  Thorn usually hated hospitals and doctors, but this one didn’t feel like a hospital to him at all. It had a stone floor and wood paneled walls decorated with tasteful art. As he moved from the sitting room through a hallway he heard and followed the soft tinkling of water. Entering into a large open-air atrium, he found the source of the sound was a fountain. It had a stone work-up of a man Thorn suspected was Len Dietrich, or at least one of the Len Dietrichs since there were, apparently, four of them, surrounded by sylvan sprites pouring out water from gourds. Around the fountain grew a well-tended garden with lots of flowering plants. The whole display, while catering to the ego of the man whose name was over the door, yet provided a very happy and natural feeling that Thorn didn’t doubt aided in the recovery of the patients here.

  From the atrium branched five hallways. Having entered through the east at the back of the hospital, Thorn suspected that the western hallway would lead to the front entrance, so that left two hallways to the north, and two to the south. With no way of knowing which was the correct one, Thorn picked the northwest hallway at random, determining to work his way through them in a clockwise direction. He was not far before the sounds of plates and cooking told him that this was the wrong one. He returned to the atrium and was heading for the northeast hallway when someone accosted him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. It was a nurse coming from the front.

  The sudden accusation in the otherwise tranquil room gave Thorn a bit of a start, but he recovered himself quickly.

  “I’m looking for my, um, my friend, who was brought in a few days ago. Bradly Hadlik.”

  Thorn had no idea if he went by the name Bradly, but he thought it leant familiarity and perhaps a touch of integrity to his ad-libbed cover story.

  The nurse’s face turned a touch paler and she stuttered his name. “B—Brad Hadlik? I’m sorry, but no visitors are allowed in the mental ward at this time of night.”

  “The mental ward?” Thorn asked.

  The nurse flicked her eyes to the southwest hallway. “But Ms. Bann left instructions that no one was to see that pa
rticular patient at all. What was your name again?”

  “Um—“ Thorn began, but he was cut off by a commotion from the front room.

  “I need some help in here!” yelled another nurse as she and a doctor burst into the atrium carrying a man on a gurney.

  The nurse with whom Thorn had been speaking did not hesitate at the call. She was quickly at the man’s side taking his vitals as they rolled him into the northeast hallway. Thorn caught a glimpse of the man’s face as he was rolled past. He looked bad, like he had been beaten near to death. Thorn was not surprised at all to find that he recognized the man. It was Jol Levey from earlier in the day.

  “They found him in the river,” the second nurse was saying. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

  Thorn knew from painful experience that loan sharks could be extraordinarily cruel when they didn’t get what they wanted. Thorn didn’t feel any kind of remorse or responsibility for Jol’s current condition, even though he had been in a position to put a stop to it earlier in the day. Thorn had seen the kind of desperation in Jol’s eyes before, and he had been fooled by them into compassion while he was working for a loan shark in Level Shore. The thing about people like Jol is that they’d promise you the world. They’d beg and plead and make themselves look just as miserable and pathetic as you wanted. Then they’d stab you in the back and crawl over your corpse to go right back to their old habits. And no matter how badly they had beaten him up today, Thorn had no doubt whatsoever that Jol would be right back in that same predicament in a month or two. Probably sooner.

  But Thorn did greatly appreciate the distraction.

  He started down the hall that the nurse had unintentionally acknowledged as the mental wing but did an abrupt about-face as he found a couple of Len Dietrich’s private police standing outside of one of the rooms. Thorn surmised that one had to be the one he was looking for. He wondered why Brad Hadlik would require so much security. Was it for his own protection? Or was it to prevent him from talking?

  The police hadn’t seen him, thankfully, but there was no way he was getting into that room without going through them. But perhaps he didn’t need to. Thorn leaned into the hallway far enough to get a general idea of how far down that room was. It was the fifth room. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find from the outside.

  The nurse had returned to her station at the front of the hospital. She gave Thorn a narrow glare as he passed, and Thorn returned it with a grin as he walked out the front door.

  Once he was out of view of the windows he crept along the side of the hospital and began counting rooms. The sun had gone down by now and the street lamps had been lit. There were lamps at the corners of the hospital, but none along this stretch of wall, so Thorn was able to enjoy complete stealth.

  As he was counting rooms he discovered a new dilemma. On this side of the building, which was the mental wing, the windows all had bars on them. So he wasn’t getting in this way, either. But, perhaps, he could still ask Brad Hadlik some questions.

  Thorn found the fifth room and peered through it. The rooms seemed to be as comfortable as the rest of the hospital. They had the same stone floor and wood paneling, with a thick rug, a comfortable-looking bed, and a writing desk and chair with a crystal-powered lamp. Brad Hadlik, if that was indeed him, was reclining on the bed with the lamp turned down low. He had a washcloth over his eyes as though he were suffering from a migraine.

  Thorn tapped on the window. When he didn’t get a response he tapped again, a little harder. He was afraid that Brad Hadlik was asleep, and he didn’t want to rap any harder than he had for fear of alerting the guards to his presence.

  He reached through the bars and attempted to lift the window. It was awkward at this angle, but it wasn’t locked and soon slid up enough for Thorn to be able to speak through it.

  “Psst!” he called in an audible whisper. “Brad! Wake up!”

  Brad began to stir, but he didn’t awaken, so Thorn called again, this time more loudly.

  Brad jumped upright in the bed. The cloth fell from his face, which was as white as the sheets on which he was lying.

  “Who is there?”

  “I just wanted to—,” Thorn began, but Brad cut him off.

  “It’s you! It’s Court Raleigh; you’ve found me! You’ve come to finish me off!”

  Brad was getting loud.

  Thorn said quickly, “No I’m not. I’m a bounty hunter and I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Help! Help!” Brad shrieked.

  The two policemen stepped into the room, looking around for what had upset their ward.

  “It’s Court Raleigh! He’s found me! He’s come for me like I told you he would!”

  The policemen exchanged glances.

  “Come, now, Brad, you know nobody’s there. You’ve been seeing yellow eyes at your window every time you’ve turned out the lights.”

  “No! He’s there! He’s really there! He’s out my window! He’s come for me!”

  One of the policemen humored him and had a look out the window while the other one went for a doctor. Thorn ducked against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen.

  “See, now, there’s nobody there. You’ve got a nice breeze coming in here and it looks like a pleasant evening.”

  Brad clung to the policeman’s shirt and said, “Don’t let them put me to sleep. That’s when he’ll get me. Please don’t let them put me to sleep!”

  “No one’s going to get you,” the policeman said. “We won’t let anyone get by us.”

  “I had two guards with me that night,” Brad shrieked. His voice kept getting higher and higher. “I had two guards, armed guards, and he took them! Just as silently as the night. They had guns! I emptied an entire cartridge and it didn’t do anything. He’s not real. He’s a ghost. There’s nothing you can do to fight the dead!”

  The other policeman returned with a doctor, who had a syringe ready. Brad Hadlik panicked at the sight of it. He shrieked and tried to climb the wall until the two policemen got their hands on him and held him down.

  “Now hold still, this will just take a moment,” the doctor said as he emptied the contents of the syringe into Brad’s arm.

  He continued to fight as the sedative began taking effect. The policemen had to continue holding him down as he thrashed and shrieked, “The eyes! The eyes! The eyes. The eyes . . . The . . . eyes.”

  Soon he was mumbling in his sleep.

  The doctor was shaking his head. “This is one of the worst cases of shock that I have ever seen. I don’t know if his mind will ever be made right.”

  “Do you suppose he really saw something out there?” one of the policemen asked.

  “Rubbish,” the doctor responded. “His mind was playing tricks with him, as it is now. I’ve seen it happen to people who break and succumb to madness. It is never easy, or pretty.”

  The policemen nodded, but they seemed unconvinced. Their faces were ashen, and they looked positively unnerved by Hadlik’s shrieking. One of them stopped to close the window by the bed before they returned to their posts outside the door.

  Thorn wasn’t going to get anything more out of him; that much was for sure. Brad Hadlik’s shrieking had unnerved him as well, and the night felt a little bit colder than it had a moment ago. Suddenly the darkness in which Thorn was hiding seemed now to be hiding among it ghouls and ghosts of all sorts.

  As he walked back to the road and towards the light from a lamp, Thorn thought back to the report describing the attack. He could not remember if there had been any mention of armed guards accompanying the shipment. In fact, he was sure of it. And for Brad Hadlik himself to have a sparker pistol, when Len Dietrich wouldn’t even allow his personal police force to have one, spoke a great deal towards the nature of his mission that fateful night.

  And Thorn disagreed with that doctor. Brad Hadlik had seen something that had just about scared him to death. Thorn didn’t believe in ghosts, but Hadlik’s shrieking had made the hair on his neck stand up.
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