The Deadline

by Ron Franscell

  “A judge would do the right thing,” Fenwick repeated aloud to himself.

  “Yes. He would do the right thing.”

  Grasping the rigid beam with white knuckles, Fenwick leaned out to see the river below.

  “The right thing,” he murmured.

  Then he simply stepped off the rail, into oblivion.

  EPILOGUE

  A ripe August moon lolled like a fat peach on the eastern edge of the prairie.

  Morgan watched it rise from Neeley Gilmartin’s hospital window. In a few hours, it would pour its light down the Black Thunder’s steep canyon walls, illuminating the boiling whitewater and the foamy pools where a dozen men were still searching in the dark for Simeon Fenwick’s corpse. It might be days before the angry river spit him up.

  Neeley Gilmartin had not awakened. His breathing was shallower than before. He hovered near death in the soothing embrace of morphine, dripping into his veins like whispered words of comfort.

  Morgan knew there could be no life without pain, any more than there could be dreaming in death. When his son died, a look of calm passed over him, like a soft shadow across the moon, even though Bridger had been comatose for several days before the end. His sleep had been full of pain.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  Dr. Snyder stuck her head in Gilmartin’s door. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a denim shirt.

  “They paged me at home and told me you were here. I wanted to talk to you.”

  Morgan nodded. “I thought I’d stay with him. Is that okay?”

  “Certainly,” she said. She came inside and leaned against the door as it closed silently behind her. “Can we talk off the record?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  Dr. Snyder spoke quietly.

  “The news you had for Mr. Gilmartin this morning, how important is it?”

  Morgan searched Dr. Snyder’s eyes for some glint of hope. She had stood in the way before and he wasn’t sure he could trust her.

  “It would remove a great burden from his heart.”

  He told her Gilmartin’s story. When he finished, her eyes were full of tears.

  “There’s something we can do, but it’s got a downside,” the doctor said.

  “What could be worse than this?” He pointed at Gilmartin’s wasted body.

  A sterile silence settled between them. Dr. Snyder crossed her arms protectively in front of her before she spoke.

  “There’s a drug called Narcan. It’s fast-acting and can counteract the morphine in his system, very briefly. It’s mostly used in treating drug overdoses, and I am pushing the limits of medical ethics to suggest it in a case like this. But we can bring him around for two to three minutes. Long enough for you to tell him.”

  “What’s the downside?”

  Dr. Snyder touched Gilmartin’s hand.

  “The morphine in his veins will be neutralized. He’ll be in excruciating pain. It might kill him.”

  Morgan turned his back to her and watched the moonrise.

  No life without pain, no death with dreaming.

  “Do it,” he said.

  Dr. Snyder immediately called the attending nurse to the room.

  “Annie, bring me an amp of Narcan,” she said.

  The nurse looked confused.

  “Are you sure, doctor?”

  “Just do it.”

  The nurse left the room, but was back within a minute with a small vial and a syringe.

  “Draw point-four milligrams IV,” Dr. Snyder ordered her. “Are you ready, Mr. Morgan.”

  Morgan pulled a chair close to one side of Gilmartin’s bed and held his hand. Dr. Snyder turned off the morphine drip and injected the Narcan in the old man’s left arm. She pulled back her sleeve and looked at her watch for several seconds.

  Almost a minute passed before Gilmartin stirred. Morgan leaned close.

  “Neeley, it’s Jeff Morgan. I have news.”

  “Wait,” Dr. Snyder told him. “Just a few more seconds.”

  Gilmartin arched his neck, struggling for air. He tore at his oxygen mask and groaned, a deep and mournful cry that never passed his lips but rattled deep inside him. Finally, he opened his glassy eyes. They were unfocused and dilated.

  “Now,” Dr. Snyder said.

  Morgan spoke quickly.

  “Neeley, it’s Jeff Morgan. We have proof you didn’t kill Aimee Little Spotted Horse. You’ve been cleared. Do you understand me?”

  Gilmartin’s eyes rolled back in his head as his body was wracked by a jolt of pain. Air gusted from his tumorous lungs as he tried in vain to fight it off.

  “Neeley, did you hear me? It wasn’t you. I’m sorry for everything, but it wasn’t you. We cleared your name. Oh god, I’m sorry.”

  Gilmartin began to convulse. Monitors beeped frantically as his heart raced. Morgan held his hand tightly. Dr. Snyder re-opened the morphine drip.

  “We’ll keep it wide open for a few minutes to give him a bolus of morphine,” she said, keeping a close eye on her wristwatch. “You’ve got less than a minute.”

  “Neeley, please hear me. You’re free forever. You didn’t do it. I know now. Everybody knows. You’re innocent.”

  Gilmartin’s body relaxed. He turned his head toward Morgan and opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

  “Neeley, can you hear me? Show me.”

  He felt the old man’s fingers tighten. His lips moved but made no sound.

  “You’ve got to hear me! It wasn’t you! It was Fenwick. Fenwick killed Aimee. He confessed. He’s gone now. It wasn’t you.”

  Suddenly, there was no more pain in the old man’s face. His dry mouth curled in a fragile smile. With one hand, he touched his chest, at the top of his ribs just below his neck. His fingers searched for something beneath his hospital gown.

  The Navy Cross. Morgan stood up and fished the medal out of his pants pocket, where he’d carried it since the young paramedic had given it to him. He pressed it into Gilmartin’s hand.

  But the old man pushed him away, and pointed weakly at him. Morgan knew what he meant.

  “I will take care of it,” Morgan promised him.

  Gilmartin nodded. His eyelids began to flutter.

  “Neeley, don’t go!” Morgan said. He held the old man’s hand tighter, the medal clasped between their hands.

  The old man floated away, like a leaf on a cool stream. Morgan watched the muscles in his neck and shoulders slacken. He was nearly gone when his eyes opened again, a glimmer of life still there.

  He mustered all the wind in his festering body to whisper. He strained to speak. Morgan put his ear next to Gilmartin’s chapped lips.

  “Remember me,” he said.

  The morphine filled him again and he sank beneath the surface once more, drifting downstream, out of their reach.

  That night, Morgan went home and called Kate Morning. He told her almost everything. He couldn’t bring himself to say, over the phone, that her daughter had been brutally raped.

  When she learned Gilmartin was near death, she wept on the phone. Not knowing what else he could say, Morgan said he was sorry for all her pain, promised to return her daughter’s photograph soon, and hung up.

  Old Bell Cockins was buried beside his wife, mother and father, beneath the sweet woodruff in Mount Eden’s hidden pleasance.

  More than three hundred townspeople paid their respects, many of them — like Cassie Gainsforth, who dropped one red rose on the casket — the secret beneficiaries of Old Bell’s many kindnesses. Some came because they read Jefferson Morgan’s touching story about Old Bell’s life in The Bullet; others came because a small town cannot bury its dead the way it buries its secrets.

  The Bullet had missed its weekly deadline and came out two days late, but devoted three full pages to the forever-entwined stories of Aimee Little Spotted Horse, Neeley Gilmartin, Old Bell Cockins and Simeon Fenwick. It overshadowed the second biggest story in town: Trey Kerrigan’s withdrawal from the sherif
f’s race. Within a day, every copy was sold and advertisers were calling to reserve space in the next week’s edition.

  After a brief graveside ceremony, Morgan lingered behind. He poured some ashes from The Bullet in Old Bell’s grave. A new building was already being planned on the site of the old one. Cal Nussbaum had even sketched a new backshop for himself, complete with computer ports and a long wall for his collection of nudie calendars. With any luck, The Bullet would be printed again in Winchester before the leaves changed.

  After the mourners left, an unfamiliar man in a double-breasted charcoal suit sat beside Morgan on a garden bench overlooking Old Bell’s fresh grave. The silver-haired man had a refined bearing, but Morgan saw a red rim around his eyes. He’d been crying.

  “Are you Jefferson Morgan?” the man asked.

  “Yes.”

  The man held out his right hand to Morgan.

  “My name is Ty Clancy. From Cheyenne. I was Old Bell’s lawyer. He was one of a kind, he was.”

  “He sure was.”

  “I grew up here and he put me through law school back in the late Sixties. When he called me to do some legal work for him, I offered to do it for free, but do you think that crusty old fart would accept it? No way.”

  They sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence. The sun was bright and hot. The fragrance of roses wafted through the garden.

  “You related to Hug Clancy?” Morgan asked, recalling Old Bell’s special compassion for the old ballplayer.

  “My grandfather. My dad named me after Ty Cobb, which really pissed off my grandad. He hated Cobb.”

  “Well, look on the bright side. He could have named you Rube,” Morgan said, and they both laughed.

  Ty Clancy cleared his throat and got down to business.

  “Look, Mr. Morgan, I’m here to wrap up Old Bell’s estate,” Ty Clancy said, pulling some documents out of his briefcase. “If you’d just sign off on some of these papers, I can get the probate started today.”

  “What papers?”

  “The will and so forth.”

  Morgan was puzzled.

  “Why me?”

  “Didn’t Old Bell tell you?”

  The lawyer looked for some hint of recognition in Morgan’s wide eyes, then he just laughed. “Jesus Christ! He didn’t tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Old Bell called me three days before he died and changed his will. He doesn’t have any heirs so, pretty much, you get it all. This whole place is yours free and clear. And minus taxes, the loan pay-off and a couple of small endowments, you get most of, let’s see ...” Clancy flipped through several legal-sized papers. “You get most of one-point-eight million bucks in trust, and half a million in life insurance. That part’s tax-free, you know.”

  Morgan felt unsteady, but Clancy continued.

  “Old Bell also provided that in the event of his death, the estate would pay the balance of your loan on the newspaper. He was very specific about this when I talked to him last week. He said he didn’t want you to be — let’s see if I can remember his exact words — ‘at the mercy of peckerheads.’“

  Morgan couldn’t speak. He just shook his head as he tried to read the documents Clancy shoved before him. It was a blur.

  “One more thing,” the lawyer said, handing Morgan a sealed envelope as he stood to leave. “He wanted me to give this to you. Hell if I know what it is. I’ll file these papers up at the courthouse today and we’ll be in touch.”

  Morgan waited until he was alone again in Old Bell’s magnificent garden, then opened the envelope. Inside was a short, handwritten note.

  “If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably already written my obituary and you know I’m dead. If you got scooped, I’ll haunt you forever.

  “Please tend my mother’s garden and take care of my newspaper. Both require a heart that knows how the seasons change, an eye that sees beauty where there is only barrenness, and a mind that accepts only the possibility we are utterly wrong about everything.

  “That said, I cannot resist a few last instructions to the new editor: Meet your deadlines. Have the courage of your convictions. Always put your money where your heart is. And if your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

  Belleau Wood Cockins

  Claire returned to Winchester the next day on the afternoon flight into Blackwater. Morgan embraced her as she emerged from the jetway, never wanting to let her go again.

  On the way home, she cried when he told her about Old Bell’s bequest, happy and sad at the same time. And after a long silence, she asked Morgan if there might be a place in Old Bell’s garden for Bridger’s ashes. Then he cried, too.

  When they arrived, they were astonished to find Kate Morning sitting on their front porch. She’d come to visit Gilmartin, to cleanse her own heart of the misplaced hatred she’d felt for him for most of her life.

  Together, the three of them went to the hospital to see him.

  Gilmartin had wasted away. He was a living skeleton, suspended between life and death by tubes and electronics, unaware that he even existed.

  Kate hung a small dream-catcher over his bed. Aimee had made it long ago, and Kate had saved it. For what was left of Gilmartin’s life, it would capture the good in his dreams.

  Before they left, Kate spoke privately to Dr. Snyder. When they were finished, the doctor came to Morgan and Claire with tears in her eyes.

  “If you still wish to take him home, you can,” she said.

  “What’s changed?” a startled Morgan asked her.

  “Mrs. Morning is a nurse and she says she will stay with him until the end, if you approve.”

  Morgan looked at Claire, who agreed immediately.

  The ambulance brought Gilmartin to the bungalow on Rockwood Avenue later that night. The paramedics made him as comfortable as they could on a rented bed in the living room, delivered a few final instructions from Dr. Snyder, and left.

  Morgan stayed beside him until dawn, dozing off occasionally. In one of his dreams, Gilmartin was a young man again, walking off across the prairie toward the edge of the earth, free. Several times, he’d wake up and listen for the sound of Gilmartin’s arduous breath, the only sign that he still clung to life.

  Morgan balanced between waking and sleep until the morning sun came through the front window and warmed them both. It was the sound of sparrows in the trees outside that woke him. A dog barked somewhere. But he heard nothing else.

  He touched Gilmartin’s cold hand.

  He was gone.

  Neeley Gilmartin died on a Wednesday, having never awakened again.

  That afternoon, Morgan took the old man’s money and paid his hospital bill. What was left, a little more than seventeen thousand dollars, he put in an envelope for Celestina and her fatherless children.

  Morgan had arranged for a military burial at the Black Hills National Cemetery, not far from the long-gone railroad town where Gilmartin had been born seventy-three years before. A Navy honor guard escorted the old man to his grave among the orderly ranks of white headstones, and fired a salute while a bugler sounded taps. A Navy captain gave Claire the freshly folded flag and she hugged it tightly.

  Kate Morning wiped away her tears and put a garland of yellow tickseed on Gilmartin’s casket.

  High above them, a red-tailed hawk circled against the azure sky, riding a column of rising warm air.

  Free.

  Note to the Reader

  The USS Terror (CM-5) was an authentic American warship in the Pacific Theater during World War II. In the smoky dawn hours of May 1, 1945, off Kerama Retto, a Japanese kamikaze slipped through the minelayer’s defenses and crashed into the communications deck. Its two bombs exploded after impact, killing 41 and wounding 123. To this day, seven sailors are missing in action from the May Day attack, according to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Navy Department). In 1971, the USS Terror, winner of fo
ur battle stars in World War II, was sold for scrap.