The instant Thomas saw it, he drew. Antrim never cleared leather.
“Bang,” said Thomas and, before Antrim could react, returned the pistol to its holster and drew it again, faster than the human eye could follow. “Bang. You’re dead. Twice.”
Antrim’s mouth dropped open a bit, and a little silver thread of spittle drooled from his lower lip. He blinked once. Twice. And removed his hand from his gun.
Finally, the perpetual drone of Amadeos’s narrative ground to a halt. He crossed himself several times in quick succession. A cricket chirped somewhere. A shooting star streamed across the horizon, all its icy fire and fury swaddled in silence.
“Maybe you’d best let me have your gun, butt first, if you don’t mind,” said Thomas matter-of-factly, trying to keep his hand from shaking and betraying his excitement.
Antrim gently pinched his pistol between the thumb and forefinger of his off-hand, drew it from its holster and passed it to Thomas. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said, his voice cracking. “I guess I’d best be goin’.”
“Best thing,” said Thomas, who wondered if his heart had stopped beating. “Good luck with that horse’ve yours. You walk ‘im easy, keep your weight off him and, if it’s just a sprain, he’ll likely heal up.”
“I’ll do that,” said Antrim, backing into the shadows.
Thomas followed him to the edge of the clearing. “I expect you’ve got a rifle in your saddlebag.”
Antrim didn’t reply.
“Good place for it, don’t you think?”
Billy the Kid, intermittently silhouetted against the white trunks of the aspens, disappeared into darkness and shadow, leaving behind a silence that thundered in Thomas’s ears.
Two and a half months later, at the home of Pedro Maxwell outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico, sheriff Pat Garret killed Henry Antrim, William Bonney, and Billy the Kid with a single shot to the heart.
The second shot was for good measure.
Chapter Fifteen
Second Ward
Jersey City, New Jersey
Monday, October 19th, 1879
“Where’s this lead?” Sadie asked for the third time. “Where we goin’?”
“I told ya. West,” said Thomas. Again. “We’re goin’ west.”
“But, ‘ow do you know which way’s west?”
Thomas stopped, finally, allowing Sadie – tightrope walking the train tracks to keep the ragged fringes of her skirts above the mud and puddles – to catch up. “See that light over there?” He pointed to the miasmic glow of Manhattan. “That’s New York City. East.” He was remembering Tiffin’s map and wishing he’d paid closer attention. “Right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. That means that that,” he pointed in the opposite direction, “is west.”
Sadie accepted that. “Then why’re we walkin’ south?”
“‘cause that’s where the tracks lead.”
“Then why’re we followin’ ‘em?”
“‘cause they’ll get us to where we’re goin’,” he replied with much more confidence than he felt. Why were the tracks headed south if they were meant to carry westbound trains? “You wouldn’t understand. Just keep up.”
The tracks terminated at a place marked by a weathered sign. Thomas climbed up on the platform and, squinting in the dark, read it aloud. “‘Exchange Place.’”
“Never ‘eard of it,” said Sadie, hitching her skirts up a bit higher than necessary and holding her hand up. Thomas took it and tugged her up beside him.
“It’s just a station, not a place,” Thomas said, more prayer than statement.
Sadie took in their surroundings. “Looks like the kind of place ‘ell goes on ‘oliday.”
Inwardly, Thomas had to agree. The dingiest, dirtiest streets of Boston didn’t suffer by comparison. As they walked from the tomb-like station, it became apparent that the rail hub was more or less embraced by a horseshoe-shaped neighborhood of dismal tenements, a number of which had been turned into make-shift taverns, churches, workman’s bars, political clubs, and whorehouses. He was reminded of a passing comment he’d overheard in Cobh. “Don’t see why they got political clubs and whorehouses in town. Redundant, ain’t it?” He wasn’t sure of the significance of the remark, but it must have been funny, because it met with raucous laughter. It wasn’t until much later he learned the truth of it.
It was an Irish neighborhood. The air was redolent with the pall of cooked cabbage. Every tumble-down dwelling had a little plaster statue of Mary or some saint in the window, or on the stoop or, if they had one, in a miserable little scrap of dooryard. Then there was the music, as definitive as the mother tongue – beer-stained, tear-stained, and plaintiff – wailing from the pubs as they passed by, tripping drunkenly out into the mists that floated through the maze of streets. Lyrical shadows in search of a soul.
“They’re for it,” Sadie whispered. “Wot time’s it? Free? Four o’clock?”
“Thereabouts.”
“Gone closin’ hours ago.”
“Maybe they don’t ‘ave closin’ time in America.”
That struck Sadie as a novel concept. “Then the Irish will never be sober. Pity their poor wives and livers. Here! Wot’s this!” She stopped outside a filmy window, staring in.
“What?”
“C’mere.”
“What is it?”
“C’mere!”
Thomas retraced a few steps and pulled up beside her. He looked in the window. “What? A bunch’ve drunks and . . . ”
“Aha!”
“That’s Feathers!”
“Just what I thought. An’ look wot ‘e’s got ‘n’is belt?”
“My pistol!” For no particular reason, he ducked out of sight. “What’s he doin’ here?”
Sadie ducked below the window as well. “Musta come on the train wot got separated from us along the way.”
“Which means he knows all those people are stranded out on the tracks back there.”
“Like I said.”
“And him an’ his cronies are here wastin’ what they took from ‘em. He’s a liar . . . ”
“Like I said.”
“And a thief.”
“Like I said.”
“And he’s got everything we own.”
“Not fer long, ‘e don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
A strange look veiled Sadie’s eyes. She removed her outer garments revealing an under layer that would have passed without remark in these districts. “‘ere. Take me cloak, my good man. An’ meet me back at the station in two hours time.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“God’s work,” Sadie replied enigmatically.
“I can’t leave you here,” said Thomas, not particularly relishing the thought of returning to the station alone, either, and with no guarantee of a successful rendezvous.
“This is me nursery, Tommy boy. This ‘ere’s where I grew up and got me private education. Don’t you worry ‘bout me. Take yerself along now.”
“What if you need help? Why don’t I just stay and . . . ”
“You ain’t got the necessary fer this kinda work, Thomas. Now, go on with ya. I’ll be along afore the boogie-man gets ya.” She laughed and swore in punctuation.
As he watched her up the steps, Thomas knew she was entering a world where he was a stranger, but she was perfectly at home. Her easy familiarity with it troubled him because, while he had no personal knowledge of what went on in such places, he knew it wasn’t good. And good was what he wanted for Sadie.
Sitting on the platform with his back against a grimy stone column, Thomas was awaken from semi-slumber by the sound of running footsteps. He looked up and perceived a banshee running headlong toward him, its ragged shrouds billowing in the wind, it’s wild hair haloed intermittently by helter-skelter shafts of yellow light from a multitude of lanterns in hot pursuit.
“Sadie?”
“Get off yer arse, boy!”
She blew by him creating a trembling
slipstream in which he was soon running as fast as his sleep-sodden brain could manage in his attempt to follow her across the ties, rails, crushed stone, and mechanical debris that littered the rail yard. He flashed a look behind. Whoever they were, her pursuers were fortunately faring no better. Worse, in fact as, obviously under the influence, they spent a fair amount of time retrieving themselves and one another from the ground. This was making them angrier and, in their anger, less effectual and their curses had farther to go to catch up. Nevertheless, Thomas knew that falling into their hands, in their present state, would be sure death, however trifling the offence.
So he ran, with his heart trailing one or two steps behind. “What did you do?” he panted.
“Shut up an’ run!” said Sadie, laughing almost hysterically.
Hiding places were not hard to come by, but Sadie seemed to be looking for something in particular. Rounding a bend that concealed them temporarily from the sight of their pursuers, she found it in a set of steps leading to a water tower.
“Up ‘ere!” she hissed.
Thomas was beyond questioning anymore. He tumbled up the steps and tripped.
“Shh!”
“I tripped!”
“Shh!”
A narrow footpad and handrail circumnavigated the base of the reservoir some fifteen or twenty feet above ground. Maneuvering around this, they kept the tower between themselves and the men chasing them who stumbled, at last, to within easy ear-shot below them.
“We’re trapped up here!” Thomas rasped in Sadie’s ear.
“Not a bit of it,” Sadie said with galling confidence. “Drunks don’t never look up.”
It was a ludicrous observation, but she said it with such confidence that Thomas couldn’t help but suspect it might be true. He hoped it was, with all his heart.
“She doubled back, she did!” said a fat man. Crouching over – propping himself up with his hands on his knees – he wheezed loudly.
One of his companions disagreed. “Don’t be stupid. Doubled-back where to? She’s off to the ferry.”
“Ferry don’t run ‘til seven in the mornin’.” The fat man consulted his watch. “Near three hours yet.”
“She’s fresh off the boat. ‘Ow would she know that?” said Feathers, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his pants up.
One of the other men, having caught his breath a little more readily, laughed. “Oo’s fresh off the boat? Plucked you like a spring chick, she did Feathers.” The pun dawned on him. “Hah! Hah! Chicken! Feathers! Hah! Hah!”
The joke elicited a rowdy chorus of derisive laughter from his fellows that contributed nothing to Feather’s scant reserve of human kindness. He shot a pistol into the air, which had the dual effect of stopping the laughter and commanding their undivided attention.
“Man ‘oo finds ‘er and brings ‘er to me in one piece gets fifty gold dollars.”
“From where?” said the fat man. “She gonna loan it to ya!”
Once again drunken caterwauling erupted around him, once again he fired his gun. This time it took two shots to bring the rabble to heel. “All right. She robbed me blind. She played me like a fiddle. There. ‘appy? An’ now, I’m gonna cut ‘er throat slow as you please from ear to ear an’ let ‘er bulgin’, dyin’ eyes watch as I count it all back into my pocket.”
The dire threat sent shockwaves through Thomas. Sadie, however, seemed barely able to contain her laughter. She slapped both hands over her mouth.
‘She’s gone mad,’ Thomas thought. ‘And she’s going to get us both killed.’ He added his hands to hers and squeezed hard.
“Now,” said Feathers, mastering the heat of his wrath, “find ‘er an’ bring ‘er to me at the Swan an’ Onion, an’ you can keep anything you can shake out’ve ‘er, if it’s fifty dollars or a t’ousand. But ‘er life, is mine.”
Judging from the voices, Thomas counted seven men, including Feathers and his goons. That trio departed the way they had come, apparently content to leave the dirty work, and whatever further running it might entail, to the remaining quartet of inebriated lackeys, who milled around at the foot of the tower for a little while, fortifying themselves with a few swigs from their pocket flasks, exchanging comments that would not have endeared them to Feather’s bosom, and, true to Sadie’s expectations, never once looking up.
“How’d she do it, Patrick?” said one, the neck of his flask clicking against his teeth.
“‘Oo knows, the little whore,” Patrick laughed. “But she took the whole three on ‘em f’r everything they ‘ad on ‘em.”
They muffled their laughter in their sleeves, lest Feathers – not yet out of sight – might hear.
Thomas pressed his lips to Sadie’s ear. “What did you do?”
Her eyes flashing with merriment, she held up a cautioning finger.
“I’d’ve give me Aunt Aggie’s knickers to’ve been there,” said a short, mousey man in a felt hat who had been referred to at some point in the proceedings as ‘Much’ Adoo.
Patrick found the remark amusing. “You would, would ya, Much? She’d’ve ‘ad y’er balls on the wall an’ yer pocklets picked afore your little man got the blood up!”
“You know what I ‘ope,” said the fat man. “I ‘ope she’s after gettin’ off with it. ‘less it’s me as finds ‘er, that is. That’d be what they call Divine Restitution which, if ever a man ‘ad it comin’ it’s Feathers.”
“What’d she do with it all’s what I want to know,” said Patrick.
“Must’ve ‘ad someone out the window or somewheres.”
“Must have.”
The haze of alcohol, combined with the exhaustion of the chase, the slim likelihood of success in catching one so young and agile, the even slimmer likelihood that Feathers would actually deliver on his promise should they return her to him, and the lateness of the hour, conspired to defang the aggressiveness of the party as they stumbled off across the yard.
When they were out of sight and hearing, Sadie and Thomas descended the tower and ran ‘til they could run no more.
In the middle of a wide place in the dirt road, someone had planted a tree, put a cast-iron fence around it – now mostly toothless – and placed a sign that said ‘Maureen O’Feely Memorial Park.’ More a guilt offering, Thomas thought as he lowered himself, breathless, to the granite curbing. Sadie, glistening with sweat and good humor, deflated beside him. He looked at her as if she had arrived from a strange and distant planet. “What have you been up to?”
“We got packin’ to do.”
“What?”
“You ‘eard. Packin’. We got packin’ to do.”
“Packin’ what?”
“Everything?”
“You stole somethin’ from Feathers, didn’t you?”
Sadie looked hurt and stunned, sticking out her lower lip. “I swear I never took a single thing from the bastard.” She crossed her heart, then broke out in a grin. “I took everything!” The morning air scintillated with her disconcerting laughter that, in the mist, seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Chapter Sixteen
Tiffin stood up. “I’m headin’ up the Ridge, Ray. You comin’?”
Regan looked from Maryellen to Tiffin. “Tell your ma I’ll be along for supper, Tif. I’m just going to show our guest around town a little. I feel like I’ve got to prove the streets of Chama are safe, as long as you have an incredibly handsome man on your arm.”
“Sorry,” said Tiffin flatly, “I don’t have time. Like I said, I’m goin’ up the Ridge. Guess she’ll just have to make do with you. Sorry, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat exaggeratedly. “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” He turned away and, mimicking John Wayne’s crablike walk, departed.
Maryellen laughed. “He’s crazy.”
Regan knew it wouldn’t do his romantic prospects any good to share his high opinion of Tiffin Conllan, but in the months he’d known him, they’d become best friends. “He’s a great guy.”
&n
bsp; “Mm,” she said, her attention on the door as it closed behind Tiffin. Then she surprised him. “So, is that the diary?”
Regan patted his ever-present valise. “Doc had the men gather it up for me, up on the mountain.”
“You said Thomas took it over. I can’t tell you how upset I am that Tiffin didn’t . . . that he died. And what became of Katy? I need to know.”
“The light’s not very good in here. Let’s go down by the train station.”
As they walked, Regan removed the journal and, handing the valise to Maryellen, shuffled through the pages. “Thomas isn’t the writer Tiffin was. In fact, he’s terrible, but he had no problem conveying the general idea. The journal picks up again in Junction City, Missouri.”
“Junction City? How did they get there?”
“He doesn’t say.”
“That’s a long way from Boston.”
“Maybe Soledad can tell us.”
“Soledad?”
“Thomas’s wife.”
“Thomas? You mean . . . the original Thomas?”
Regan nodded. “She’s half Spanish, half Jicarilla.”
“And still alive?”
“Well, she was last night, if you believe Mrs. Dunham.”
They had reached the station, decked with banners announcing the sad news of the D&RG line’s last regularly-scheduled passenger train, but she took no notice of it. She sat down on the outside bench. “How old is she?”
“Soledad? Becky says the nearest guess is eighty-seven. Thereabouts.”
“Nearest guess?”
“Birth records in general were pretty sketchy back then. The Spanish did a pretty good job keeping track in the family Bible and church records, and so on, but dates aren’t as important to the Indians. That’s who Soledad was raised by, so . . . There might be a birth record in the Catholic church down in T.A. I’ll have to look into that.”
Maryellen took a deep breath. “I’m having a hard time taking this in.”
Regan questioned her with his eyes.
“I mean, here I am thinking all this is ancient history, and I find out Thomas’s wife is still alive! That’s amazing. Is she . . . ” she tapped her temple with her forefinger.
Silence the Dead Page 17
