Black as Death

by George G. Gilman

  ‘Shit, the dumb cluck left a trail a near blind man could follow.’ Sam Grogan, the town’s butcher, said.

  ‘Didn’t I say that’s been botherin’ me?’ Glazer replied. And sounded anxious still.

  ‘What we gonna do, Walt?’ a fourth man asked, as sour-voiced as Grogan. It was Slim Wilder who owned the Silver Lode Saloon.

  ‘You men wait here,’ the lawman said. ‘I’ll go check the stable. If that new horse of his is in there, we’ll call for the boy to give himself up. If it ain’t, then we’ll rouse the old timer and have some breakfast before goin’ out over the flats.’

  There was no sound of the sheriff dismounting. Just of his footfalls, which were carefully measured as he sought to tread lightly.

  Expressing no sign of how puzzled he was by the whispered conversation, Barnaby Gold had already made several moves by this time. Aware that the men from Standing would hear any carelessly loud sound he made, he rose from the sofa and with his boots under his arm crossed to the row of pegs by the door. Buckled the gun-belt around his waist, tied down the holster and then donned his frock coat and hat.

  The dawn light was still grey and the air was chilly, the leading arc of the sun not yet above the eastern ridges.

  He reached the door to Brodie’s bedroom just as the gate in the corral fence squeaked when Glazer opened it, and one of the horses in the stable whinnied softly at the approach of a man.

  The catch on the door clicked but the hinges operated silently. Brodie slept peacefully, breathing deeply and emanating more foul odors into the bad-smelling room. His Winchester leaned against the wall at the bed head. The room’s only window was in the building’s end wall, offering a view of the pinyons and a section of the trail.

  Fifty yards had been about right. For it was at this distance that the trio of Standing merchants waited for the sheriff to return. Looking cold and weary, trail-dusty and unshaven. Dividing their nervous attention between the main building of the way station and the higher one across the yard out back.

  The first shaft of the new day’s sunlight angled low from the east, its intensity dissipated by the trees.

  The chickens began to cluck.

  Barnaby Gold moved from the threshold toward the bed, boots still held under his left arm, his right hand fisted around the wooden-butted grip of a Peacemaker.

  Out on the trail, the three men from Standing were directing all their attention to the stable now.

  The corral gate squeaked again.

  Steve Brodie grunted, on the brink of awakening.

  Walt Glazer’s footfalls could be heard.

  Gold set down his boots on the floor and remained in a stoop, extending his left hand toward the round, heavily bristled face of the man in the bed. He clamped the hand hard over the mouth and thumbed back the hammer of the .45. Pressed the muzzle to the suddenly violently pulsing temple.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Brodie,’ he said softly as the man’s eyes snapped wide open and raked along their sockets to stare in terror at the expressionless face of his captor. ‘Looks like it’s going to be another nice day. Bad one to die on.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT was a similar fine day when Barnaby Gold Senior suffered the heart seizure that killed him.

  Mid-afternoon, just an hour after he left Jeb Stone’s saloon where he had played some hands of five card draw with John Hogg, Jack Cater and Stone. When these men heard of his passing, they recalled that he had coughed a great deal during the game. But no more than on many other occasions when his bronchial condition refused to respond to the warmth and dryness of the Arizona climate. And maybe he had not been his usual cheerful self. Less talkative and slower to smile. Preoccupied with some problem that he could not relegate to the back of his mind despite the diversion of the low-stakes card game in pleasant company.

  Certainly he stayed longer in the saloon than was usual: and drank a good deal more than his normal quota of the expensive bourbon Jeb Stone stocked specially for him.

  But, since he was known not to enjoy the best of health, there never was any question raised about the manner of his death.

  He entered the carpentry workshop where his son was smoothing down the frame of a Massachusetts-style ladder-back chair, only a vividness of color in his cheeks revealing that he had taken more than his usual number of drinks. A man in his early sixties, five feet ten inches tall with a paunchy belly and a thick neck. Silver grey hair that added a distinguished look to otherwise nondescript features. Clean shaven and, as always, neatly turned out Attired in a dark city-style suit complete with vest which had a watch chain hung across the front.

  ‘I’m late, son,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing to do.’ The younger Gold continued to rub down the carved wood of the chair which stood on the bench.

  ‘Took a few more drinks than I do usually.’

  ‘It’s a hot day.’

  The father came into the brightly sunlit room that smelled of sawdust and glue and varnish and paint. ‘Ever since you made that shovel handle I knew your skills should be put to better use, Barnaby, than making boxes to be buried to rot in the ground.’

  The young man interrupted his work to join his father in examining the chair, which was a perfect copy of one illustrated in a catalogue. ‘Maybe if I had to do this for a living I wouldn’t enjoy it so much.’

  A nod. ‘You should go to Europe one day, son. See all that fine furniture in those mansions and castles and palaces.’

  ‘Intend to.’ He began the smoothing process again.

  His father watched him but, as at the saloon, his mind was elsewhere. He said suddenly: ‘Something you should know.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s been troubling me for some time.’

  From the tone of his voice, Barnaby Gold Junior sensed the enormity of the burden his father was carrying and he curtailed his work to turn to look at him.

  ‘About Emily Jane, son.’

  Only the younger man’s mouth line altered: tightened.

  His father looked down at his hands, which always smelled faintly of formaldehyde.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘The day before she left, you were off somewhere in the hills. I wasn’t too well, if you recall. Stayed in bed. She came into my room. To tell me she was thinking of going off, son.’

  He looked up at Barnaby Junior, expecting to see some reaction in his face. But there was nothing.

  ‘She cried a lot. Said how she felt buried and useless living here in Fairfax. Was missing the way she was always on the move to new places and meeting new people when her father was alive. How she’d come to look upon me as a substitute father. But had never had the courage to talk to me this way before.’

  He paused and this time got what he expected.

  ‘You said she should leave?’

  ‘She asked my advice, son. I told her we only have the one life and if we live it in misery when we can do something about it, it’s our own fault. But I said that if she wanted to leave Fairfax, it didn’t have to be alone. That, if you wanted, I wouldn’t try to talk you out of going with her.’

  ‘She didn’t want that, or you would have...’

  ‘No, son, she didn’t want that.’ He gazed down at his hands again. ‘Because it wasn’t just the town she was bored with.’

  He looked up in time to see the nod of understanding. And hurried on: ‘Don’t take it personal, son. God, that sounds stupid. What I mean is, she said it would be the same with any one man. No matter who he was. She was desperate for new experiences — of every kind. But she felt she owed you a great deal, Barnaby. For taking care of her after her father died. And she was sick with remorse for not realizing the way she was then.’

  ‘Walt Glazer said she got on the Tombstone stage by impulse,’ the younger Gold put in.

  His father nodded. ‘I’m sure she did, son. I told her she should think very carefully before doing anything that might Cause her more remorse. And when she left town the n
ext morning, I’m sure her mind was not made up. Which surprised me, son.’

  He swallowed hard and met the green eyes of the younger man levelly again. Swallowed hard. ‘After what happened.’

  His mouth line lost some of its tautness now, and the breath was drawn in and expelled quickly. One hand clutched at a leg of the unfinished chair on the bench, as if for support. But the tall, slim frame was held rigidly erect

  ‘Barnaby?’ The color of drink had left his father’s face, which was now pale. Beaded with sweat on the brow and along the top lip.

  ‘It may be best if you leave it to my imagination, sir.’

  ‘Dear God, I have to tell someone, son. All this time I’ve kept this secret it’s been like I’m in a living hell. Sleeping in the next room to you, terrified I might talk in my sleep. Afraid, too, that I might drink too much — enough to loosen my tongue.’

  Abruptly, the uncharacteristic tension drained out of the younger man. And he invited, as tears spilled from the eyes of his father: ‘Okay, sir. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘She was weeping, Barnaby. Sittings by my bed and holding my hands like I was some kind of anchor keeping her from drifting into insanity. She looked real beautiful.

  In that white dress with the gingham apron. Her hair done in the bun the way she used to.’

  ‘I can recall what she looked like,’ his son said dully. ‘In those clothes and her others. Out of them, too.’

  ‘Dear God, son, it just happened. Like neither of us intended it to. She needed comforting and I... well, I was just as... as troubled as she was. If it hadn’t been in the bedroom. With me just in my nightshirt. If she hadn’t reminded me so much of your mother that– ’

  ‘Don’t use her as an excuse,’ his son interrupted tersely.

  The older man shook his head, so violently the tears on his cheeks sprayed away. ‘I don’t want to make excuses, Barnaby. I deserve to be loathed and despised by you. But I want you to know why I’ve been able to ease my conscience just a little over the years since it happened.’

  ‘Why? Isn’t it working anymore?’

  The older man mopped at the beads of sweat and tears with a handkerchief. ‘I’m going to die soon, son. In our business we’ve heard from enough bereaved people to know that it’s not unusual for some who are close to death to have premonitions of what’s going to happen.’

  ‘I’ll take care of the arrangements, sir.’ Because of the lack of emotion in the words, they sounded cruelly callous.

  His father grimaced his anguish.

  ‘Damnit, boy!’ he flared, and a deeper shade of red patched his cheeks. ‘Now I’m telling you, I’ve got no reason to lie to you, I believe it’s true that Emily Jane didn’t want it to happen, just like me. But when it did happen, she showed herself in her true colors. There’s no other way to tell it but crudely. I never got it in her. She tore her clothes off like she was hysterical. She was stark naked and it had been too long for me. Soon as she slid under the bedcovers, it was over for me.’

  His voice began to rise and a strange glittering light altered his eyes. And even though he spoke, his mouth held the line of a grimace of disgust ‘Then she really did get hysterical. Panting and sweating like an animal in rut. First she cursed me for doing it before I was inside her, Then she used every trick every whore knows to try to get me interested again. And you know I’ve got good reason to know about them from that time after your mother died.

  ‘And when that didn’t work, because I was feeling sick to my stomach over the whole rotten business, she did it to herself, boy. With my night-time candle. And I did throw up then, Barnaby. While she was sprawled but on the bed at my side, doing that to herself. And telling me she had to do it every night. Sometimes twice. In the daytime when we were out, as well. Even those nights when you and she –’

  That’s enough!’ his son cut in, his eyes squeezed tight closed as if he could see a vivid image of the event taking place in the workshop.

  For a few moments, it seemed that the older man was too deeply enmeshed in the blurting out of his confession to call a halt. But he won the struggle with the inner force which had been driving him. And he looked and sounded totally drained as he said: ‘Yes, son, that’s enough. Just to say that I eased my conscience with the knowledge that I didn’t... didn’t touch her. And every night since she’s been gone — driven off as much by her shame as by the way she is, I’m sure — I’ve given thanks to God that it was me and not some other man in this town, or in Standing, whom she came to. And after her lust had been satisfied, she was ashamed, son. Deeply ashamed. Begged me to help her. But all I could tell her was to see a doctor. Not that I’d ever heard of any remedy for what ailed her.

  ‘That’s it, Barnaby. Like I say, you’re probably going to hate me for as long as I have to live. But I won’t mind that, now you know it wasn’t anything to do with you that Emily Jane took off. And I beg of you not to hate her. Because she’s sick, son. She can’t help the way she is.’

  He started to cough. Just a clearing of the throat at first But it rapidly took a hold of him, and its effect went deeper — reaching down to its cause in his lungs.

  His son opened his eyes and stood silently watching as the older man’s body spasmed, his face going purple and the veins standing out like cords under his skin.

  The younger Gold lifted the chair off the bench, still held in a one-handed grip. Then he took hold of another leg and thrust the chair above his head.

  His father stared at him with eyes that were filled with the tears of agony. He reached out with both hands’ palms toward the chair-toting figure, fingers splayed in a tacit gesture of defense.

  ‘No, Barnaby!’ he pleaded between wracking coughs.

  Then he moaned, and withdrew both hands to clasp at his chest. His face was suddenly contorted into an ugly mask as a bolt of pain shot through him.

  His son began to crash the chair downward.

  The father dropped to his knees, mouth gaping to its widest extent but venting no sound. The eyes became glazed with the film of death.

  The son continued the down path of the chair, but swung from the waist So that the skillfully crafted timber smashed against the edge of the bench. The back snapped from the seat He raised and brought down what remained. The frame broke off. Another blow and the stretchers came away from the legs. But he was not satisfied until he had picked up the back and smashed the slats from the supports.

  He remained expressionless as he committed the act of wanton destruction. And was just as unemotional when he checked that his father was dead, tossed the remains of the chair on to a heap of discarded waste timber and only then left the workshop. To go along the street in search of Doctor Trask to ask for a death certificate.

  Since he was never to give the matter any thought, he was never to know if, had his father not suffered the heart seizure, it would have been the man or the bench against which he smashed the chair.

  *****

  ‘Barnaby Gold! This is Sheriff Glazer of Standing! I know you’re inside! And I’m orderin’ you to come on out with your hands up! Have a sworn-in posse of deputies along with me!’

  While Steve Brodie was held still and silent by the pressure of a hand over his mouth and a gun muzzle against his temple, the black-clad young man watched through the bedroom window while the quartet from Standing were positioned to the orders of Glazer.

  Grogan in the trees to the east, Murchison sent to the rear and Wilder and the lawman moving across in front of the way station. Glazer announced his presence out front, which probably meant the saloon owner was in the cover of the trees to the west. All the men had drawn revolvers from under their overcoats before moving to their designated positions.

  ‘Any sound from you before I’m through and you’re dead, Mr. Brodie,’ Gold warned levelly as he released his grip on the man and sat down on the bed to pull on his boots.

  The foul-smelling old timer swallowed hard and shifted his eyes to look at the rifle leaning ag
ainst the wall.

  Thoughts I don’t mind,’ Gold said. ‘It’s words and deeds you have to beware of.’ He stood up, his boots on, and raised his voice: ‘I hear you, Mr. Glazer! I’m coming out! To find out what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Hey, Walt! He’s got the oldster with him!’ This from Sam Grogan who was able to see into the sunlit bedroom as Brodie rose naked from his bed at a gesture from Gold.

  ‘Don’t anybody do anythin’!’ the lawman yelled anxiously. ‘We got plenty of time to talk.’

  ‘Ain’t you gonna let me get dressed, mister?’ Brodie asked. ‘They’re all men out there. And the sun’s up.’

  The old timer glowered defiantly at Gold, dragged a blanket off the bed and folded it, skirt-fashion, around his waist. Then complied with another gesture of the .45 and shuffled out of the bedroom. Gold was close behind him, not aiming the gun until they were at the door which opened on to the trail. When he rested the barrel on the scrawny, naked shoulder: angled so that the muzzle was in line with the underside of the man’s jaw.

  ‘Appreciate it if you would open the door, Mr. Brodie.’

  ‘But what if that sheriff starts shootin’ soon as —’

  ‘Walt Glazer never shot at anything except quail in all his life.’

  ‘And what if I won’t?’ he countered, his voice not quite attaining the tone of reckless defiance he intended to express.

  Barnaby Gold made a clicking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘In the past two days I’ve killed four men, Mr. Brodie.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He hurriedly lifted the latch and pulled open the door with one hand while the other continued to hold the blanket up around his waist. Walt Glazer stood in the centre of the hoof printed and wheel-rutted area where the stage teams were changed Despite the warmth of the newly risen sun he was hunched in his sheepskin coat, the collar turned up to brush the underside of his hat-brim at the sides and back. He was holding his revolver, low at his thigh and aimed down at the ground. He stared hard at the opened doorway, the frown on his fleshy face becoming more firmly set when he saw the threatening .45 resting on the shoulder of the almost naked old timer.