The Violent Peace

by George G. Gilman

  “Terrible thing,” the dapper man muttered, sipping his whiskey, his face heavy with sadness in vivid contrast to his earlier good humor.

  “That's a great man, one hell of a great man.”

  The bartender looked anxiously up from his glass-washing chore towards the newcomers.

  “Hey, Elmer,” the Englishman called. “Service, please.”

  He led the others to the bar and they all bellied up to it, hooking boot heels over the brass rail. The dapper man looked at them with a melancholy expression and nodded. He drew no, response.

  “Four whiskeys,” the Englishman requested.

  He was a tall, slim man in his late twenties, with handsome, evenly-tanned features out of which blue eyes looked with an air of superior self confidence. He was dressed in a well-cut suit with a gold watch chain slung across his velvet vest. There was something military in the neatness of his dress and his upright bearing.

  “Coming right up, Mr. Carstairs,” Elmer replied with a hint of deference, quickly setting out four shot glasses and tilting a bottle over them.

  “You hear what happened over at the theatre, mister?”

  The old man who had been hit so badly by the tragedy at the theatre realized he was being addressed and turned to look at the newcomer standing next to him. “We heard the shouting,” he answered, and gestured with a motion of his head. “Then some gentlemen came in and told us about it. Terrible thing.”

  “Here you are, Jack,” Carstairs said, sliding one of the brimming glasses along the bartop.

  Jack Logan was twenty-two, short and fat with a round, unintelligent face. His suit was too small and looked like a hand-me-down. As he surveyed the man in the cape beside him, he pulled absently at the crotch of his tight-fitting pants, trying to relieve the pressure.

  “Here's to the capture of the bastard that did it to Lincoln.”

  The speaker, who lifted his glass and tipped down the drink at a swallow, was named Edward Binns. He was a foot shorter than Carstairs, but his build was broader. His age was the same as the obvious leader of the group, but his face was more ravaged by the elements and his meaty hands - showing traces of grimed-in dirt - suggested he was a manual worker. Although his suit fitted him well, he nonetheless seemed to be uncomfortable in it, as if more used to less formal attire. He had a shock of black hair on which a derby was balanced precariously.

  “Right,” the fourth member of the group grunted.

  Like Carstairs and Binns, Frank Monahan was in his late twenties, but that was the only similarity he shared with them. He was short and wiry, with a thin face that had been altered from its natural line by a broken nose. His mean eyes and the determined set of his sharp jawline suggested a man well able to defend himself against anybody who mistook his size as a sign of weakness. In contrast to the others, he wore a black shirt with a bootlace tie and a sheepskin jacket and his pants were Levis with twin holsters tied down to his thighs. A matched pair of Colt revolvers fitted snugly into the holsters.

  “They reckon as how it was an actor guy who done it,” Binns announced, gesturing pointedly with empty glass.

  Elmer began to pour him a new drink.

  “Fellow named Booth,” Carstairs augmented, savoring the taste of the whiskey.

  Elmer stopped pouring. The man in the cape and the four at the poker table all stared at the Englishman in wide-eyed surprise.

  “John Wilkes Booth shot the President?" the sullen-faced Elmer gasped.

  “In the head,” Logan replied.

  Carstairs nodded in confirmation, still the centre of attention. “That's right, Elmer. He was seen, Escaped through a side door into an alley after firing a derringer at Mr. Lincoln.”

  The man in the cape sensed a pair of eyes burning into the side of his face and turned slowly to find the bartender staring at him with blatant distrust. He tried to ignore it; and lifted his glass.

  “That's sure how it happened, Elmer,” Binns said into the stilt tense silence filling the bar. “Rumor that there's a conspiracy to kill all the top men in the Government tonight. Host of Johnnie Rebs reckons as how Appomattox didn't finish the war - not really.”

  Binns seemed about to continue, but caught sight of Elmer's suddenly venomous stare. His own eyes swiveled to discover the object of the barman's loathing and settled upon the smartly dressed old man. In their turn, Logan, Monahan and Carstairs became aware of the mounting unease in their midst and turned their heads to find the cause. Beyond the group at the bar counter, the other patrons felt the tension and craned their necks to see the old man's discomfort as the silence forced him to look up.

  “Something you boys want?” he asked nervously, blinking as he surveyed the faces of the men around him.

  The barman's suspicion had expanded into hatred. The others were confused as they alternated their attention between Elmer and the old man.

  “You ever hear a man speak who sounded, more Deep South than him, Bill?” Elmer asked, flicking his eyes momentarily towards Carstairs.

  “Can't say that I have, Elmer,” the Englishman allowed, puzzled. “Why do you ask old son?”

  “Ed talked about a conspiracy,” Elmer answered with heavy menace. “Now, just a few minutes before Mr. Lincoln got shot, John Wilkes Booth was in this very bar, drinking. Right alongside this here southerner.”

  Confusion was replaced by intrigued interest on the faces of the watchers. The old man set down his glass on the bartop and a sudden spasm in his hand toppled it and set it rolling. The sound it made was like a rumble of thunder in the menacing stillness.

  Carstairs reached out a well-manicured hand and caught the glass with cool ease as it dropped over the edge. The old man made a small move to push himself away from the bar, but the Englishman's voice halted him.

  “What are you trying to tell us, Elmer?” he asked evenly, putting down the glass.

  Elmer picked it up, dunked it in a pail of water beneath the bar and began to wipe it with a cloth. “I'm telling it like it was,” he answered, refusing to unlock the stare fixed upon the old man's fear-clouded eyes. “This here southerner suddenly goes outta his way to point out what time it is. Then Booth goes outta my place like he bad a mighty important thing he had to do. But on the way, he kinda bumps into this here southerner—”

  “I resent the implication of what you are—”

  “Shut up, southerner,” Binns growled, stepping back and to the side. This placed him immediately behind the old man, who had to grip the edge of the bartop to keep his mottled hands from trembling. There was a shuffling of boot leather each side of him as Logan and Monahan moved in close to him.

  “Now, I couldn't see, because I'm one side of the bar and they're on the other,” Elmer continued. “But maybe that bump wasn't accidental. Maybe this here southerner passed a derringer over to Booth.”

  A rumble of angry conversation rose among the patrons seated at the tables. Panic sprang into the eyes of the old man and he shot fast glances to left and right, then over his shoulders. There were some twenty men in the barroom, and only one of these was looking at him with a degree of sympathy. He was a grizzled old-timer with an untidy grey beard and watery blue eyes.

  The expressions of the others ranged from shocked surprise to glaring hatred.

  “Gentlemen, please!” the man blurted out, his lower lip quivering.

  “Sounds mighty suspicious to me, Bill,” Monahan said gruffly, his right hand folding around the butt of the Colt at his hip.

  “Search him,” Carstairs instructed.

  Sweat broke out on the old man's forehead and upper lip as Binns dropped into a crouch and ran his gnarled hands roughly over the expensive suiting, exploring every place where it would be possible to conceal a weapon. “He ain't heeled, Bill,” he reported.

  The drunk under the table began to snore again, after a period during which he had unaccountably been silent.

  “Now that is suspicious,” Carstairs muttered thoughtfully, staring hard at the petrified old
man. “Southerner up here in Washington amongst all we northerners - and he doesn't have a gun.”

  “I reckon he had one, but give it to Booth,” Elmer supplied.

  “This is rid … ridiculous,” the old man stammered. “I demand to—”

  “You don't seem to be in a position to make any demands, old son,” Carstairs pointed out evenly.

  Logan jerked at the crotch of his tight-fitting pants. “Reckon Elmer's right, Bill,” he said. “He musta passed his iron to Booth.”

  “He helped to kill the President,” Binns put in with a note of awe in his voice. “We ought to string him up,” Monahan growled.

  The old man squeezed his eyes tight shut and the skin of his face was suddenly drained of color. He seemed on the point of fainting. Monahan's comment was greeted with a moment of utter silence. Then the drunk dropped the empty bottle and as it thudded to the bare boards the sound signaled a menacing murmur of approval. A chair leg screeched against the floor as it was pushed back from a table.

  “Hold on there, men.”

  The almost physical pressure of concentration upon the caped man at the bar was lifted as all eyes swung towards the old timer, who had stood up.

  “Is this southerner a friend of yours?” Carstairs asked with disdain.

  The old timer refused to be provoked by the Englishman. “No, he ain't,” he replied with soft-voiced slowness. “But you got any complaint against him, you oughta tell the military or the police.”

  “You sound like a sympathizer to me,” Carstairs accused.

  The expressions of most of the men surrounding the old timer indicated they were prepared to agree with the Englishman's contention.

  “For God's sake, he's right!” the old man exclaimed. “I'm innocent and I can prove it. I was just here waiting for my—”

  Monahan drew the revolver and jabbed it viciously into the old man's side. “Shut your slobbering trap,” he rasped. “I can't stand to hear that Southland talk of yours.”

  The old timer took a step forward, towards the group at the bar, “This is Washington, he blurted, “You can't lynch a man here in the city. We got law and order here.”

  “That how it was so easy to kill the President,” a man called derisively.

  “You just can't do it, that's all,” the old timer insisted.

  Carstairs' well-formed mouth took on a cruel set and his clear blue eyes clouded with anger. “Jack?” he said softly.

  “Yeah, Bill?” Logan replied.

  “This insect is beginning to irritate me,” Carstairs told him, staring levelly at the old timer.

  “Swat it?” Logan asked, a quiet smile adding life to his unintelligent face.

  “I'd like that.”

  Logan was fat, but he was fast. One moment he was standing beside the caped man, absently tugging at his pants. Then he side stepped with incredible speed, his free hand streaking inside his jacket. Fear leapt across the features of the old timer as he turned to meet the attack. But his reflexes were far too slow. A foot-long wooden club with a two-inch diameter swung towards his head. it stung the tips of the fingers of his upraised hands and then landed with a sickening crack against his forehead. The ancient skin split open and thin blood squeezed out and flowed towards the closed eyes. The old timer crumpled to the floor with a sigh, his bloodied head thudding on to the highly polished toecap of Carstairs' right .shoe.

  The Englishman pulled back his foot and lashed out with a kick. It caught the unconscious man in the back of the neck and flipped him over on to his stomach. Blood dripped and was soaked up by the sawdust on the floor. The old timer breathed shallowly.

  “Anyone else got any objections?” Logan asked, his eyes raking over the faces of the men as he hefted the club, as if testing its weight.

  The inquiry was greeted with silence, except for the snores of the sleeping drunk.

  “Good,” Logan said.

  Carstairs nodded in satisfaction and fixed the old man with an evil stare. “Make your peace,” he invited.

  For long moments, the old man's anguish struck him dumb. Then, finally, he gasped: “You're making a terrible mistake…”

  His voice trailed away as the strain became too much for his mind to bear. His legs buckled and his hands lost their strength, releasing the grip on the bartop. As he toppled backwards, Binns stepped out of the way and the unconscious form thudded heavily to the floor.

  “Got a rope, Elmer?” Monahan asked. Every man in the bar still in possession of his senses was caught in the grip of a high excitement as the bartender reached behind him and thudded a coil of rope on to the counter top.

  “Lock the doors,” Carstairs ordered and a man stood up from a table to comply.

  Monahan exhibited the strength in his wiry frame by stooping and hoisting the limp form of the old man with utter ease. The drunk under the table spluttered to a degree of awareness and surveyed the scene before him with drink-blurred eyes. His alcohol-sodden brain could not reconcile the tableau with the surroundings in which he had passed out and accepted the images as part of a terrifying dream.

  The old man in the cape was lifted on to a table and slapped into consciousness by Monahan as Binns formed one end of the rope into a noose. For a long time, the old man's brain was as befuddled as that of the drunk. He felt himself being forced to stand upright, then the constriction at his throat. He knew a man was holding him, but was not aware of another looping the free end of the rope over a ceiling beam and knotting it there. He saw a sea of faces in front and below him, but they were merely pale blobs against a blurred background and he was unable to discern their expressions.

  Then, as the drunk sank back into his stupor, the old man's mind and vision cleared. And memory returned, filling him with trembling terror.

  Monahan and Binns jumped to the floor. The men crowded in closer to the table on which the old man stood, their eyes bright with an almost sexual arousal of excitement. Terror rose into the old man's throat, swelling it against the fibrous harshness of the rope. His hands were free and he clawed at the noose, but there was no slack between the knot at the nape of his neck and the stout beam above him.

  “You can't hang a man without a trial!” a voice called weakly.

  The old man's distended eyes sought the source of the plea and focused upon his sole ally, sprawled behind the crowd in a pool of his own blood.

  Carstairs sighed and nodded curtly to the waiting Logan. The fat man approached the old timer, who had rolled on to his back and was starting to struggle into a sitting position. But when he saw Logan looming above him, he groaned and fell back, throwing up his hands to protect his bloodied face.

  Logan grinned and changed his grip on the club, holding it like a dagger, pointing downwards. His arm swung and the flat end of the club's end thudded into the base of the old timer's stomach. The breath rushed out of the toothless mouth and the old timer jack-knifed his body, his hands streaking to clutch at the source of the new pain.

  “Hush up,” Logan instructed softly.

  Nobody witnessed the vicious assault, for attention was divided between the pathetically helpless form of the old man on the table, and the slim figure of Carstairs, who had stepped to the forefront of the watching group.

  “He may have a point,” the Englishman allowed, stroking his clean-shaven chin reflectively as he surveyed the old man. “So you may consider yourself on trial. The charge is conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. As a foreigner, I feel I am sufficiently unbiased to act as a fair judge. How do you plead, old son?”

  The man on the table was still c1utching at the noose, but he was unable to relieve the pressure on his windpipe. “You can't—”, he croaked.

  “He's guilty,” Binns said nonchalantly, picking at his teeth with a filthy fingernail.

  “Sure he's guilty,” Logan agreed, swinging the club before the pain-filled eyes of the old timer.

  Monahan, resting a hand on each of his holstered guns, looked around the ring of eage
r-faced watchers, his menacing stare daring any man to complain against the arbitrary verdict. “Guilty as all hell,” he muttered.

  “A judge can't argue against, that kind of unanimity,” Carstairs told the trembling old man, then stepped up closer to the table.

  The drunk had ceased snoring again, but his heavy breathing reached stentorian pitch against the blanket of silence which descended over the barroom. Behind the bar, Elmer continued to wipe the glass of the condemned man, his hand movements increasing in speed as the moments were ticked away by the clock on the wall.

  “Anything to say before I pass judgment?” Carstairs asked in a mock funereal tone.

  The old man in the cape suddenly dropped his hands to his sides, but not in dejection. The nightmare in which he had found himself was reaching a climax, and there would be no waking from it. He was going to die and nothing he could do or say would prevent his tormentors from completing the cruel act. Fear became a diamond-hard mass filling his stomach, but it withdrew the physical manifestations of the emotion. He stood stiffly to his full height and his features grew calm. His stance and his expression were composed and dignified.

  “May you all rot in hell,” he whispered.

  “May you welcome us there, old son,” Carstairs said. “Judgment of this court is…” He raised his right leg, then thrust it forward. The table tilted and toppled. Gasps ripped from the throats of the spectators in a single sound as if from one man. The old man's high-buttoned boots slid off the canting surface and there was a sharp crack as his neck was broken. His body swung gently in mid-air above the overturned table.

  Carstairs looked around the faces of the men, many of them betraying the shock of remorse in the knowledge that the senseless act was done and could not be undone. A few turned away from the gruesome sight of the hanging man. The Englishman reached behind him and pushed against the dangling legs of the dead man, setting the body swinging at a faster rate. A personable grin spread across the young man's handsome features as he completed the phrase he had started: “…a suspended sentence.”