Dead Man Walking

by Derek Rutherford

  ‘Rosalie,’ he said. ‘How? Why?’

  She stepped backwards and he allowed his fingers to slip along her arms, over her wrists, and when he held her fingers she cried in pain.

  He looked down and saw that one hand was roughly splinted and bandaged.

  ‘What happened? Who did this?’

  ‘It was . . .’ Tears rolled down her cheek as she remembered.

  He held her again. ‘It’s OK,’ he said.

  ‘He followed us. After our meal. I should have let you walk me home.’

  ‘Who? Tell me.’

  They sat in a pew in the darkest corner of the church, and she told him how the man had forced her inside a deserted building and had broken two fingers, and how she had told him all she knew about Jim Jackson. She told how, afterwards, the man had left her sobbing in a doorway on the street and how she had somehow made it home, where Roberta had helped splint and fix the fingers and had told her off and comforted her in equal measures.

  ‘Who was this man?’

  ‘He said he was one of the good guys.’

  She described the man as best she could, his dark stone-like eyes, his beard, and especially the quiet voice that somehow still felt loud and strong and chilling.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Jim Jackson said, his own voice quiet. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Roberta will kill me. I couldn’t do anything the first few days. I just hurt so much. Not just my fingers. But inside. Everything. But I knew I had to come and find you and warn you. Tell you what I’d done.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I told him all about you. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right. Anyone would have.’

  ‘No, it’s not all right. So when Roberta was at work I arranged a horse and some food and I just . . . I just set out. I left her a note and I just rode. It was crazy. I got lost. I slept in the woods two nights.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘And you would never have known that they’re here. Watching you. Waiting.’

  He held her. He kissed her sandy hair and when she looked up at him, the tears magnifying her beautiful eyes, he kissed her on the lips for the first time.

  Leon Winters lay in bed and listened to the sound of his fellow prisoners marching out of camp, their footfalls becoming quieter as they walked away quickly.

  Earlier, one of the guards had tried to get him to stand, telling him he’d been long enough in the sickbed and it was time to get back to work. Leon had stumbled deliberately, but he was still weak, and he wasn’t sure himself how much of the stumble had been real.

  ‘Let him be,’ Webster Ellington had said. He’d been standing over at the door. ‘Another day or two’s rest won’t hurt.’

  The guard had looked at Ellington.

  ‘You’re getting soft. He’s fit enough to carry water for the others.’

  ‘Let him be.’

  So Leon had lain back in bed, smelling the sweat and sickness that permeated the wooden floor and walls of the hut, feeling the temperature rise as the minutes ticked by. He watched spiders up there in the dark angles where the ceiling met the walls. He looked at the smeared finger and nose grease on the dirty windows. He listened to Harry across the room moan with every breath, his chest rattling and wheezing like a train engine that was about to expire.

  You’re getting soft.

  It worried Leon. Webster Ellington was the cruellest of them all. He’d never shown an ounce of compassion before. Not once. Why all of a sudden did he not want Leon to be back out there with the gang?

  On this day of all days.

  But it was too late to worry about it.

  At midday what would be would be.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Rosalie asked.

  ‘I have to be there at midday for him,’ Jim said. ‘Come what may.’

  ‘But they’ll be following you.’

  ‘I can’t leave him alone.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re not following me. They don’t even know I’m here.’

  ‘No. You’ve been through enough. Look at you – you’re exhausted. Your fingers. . . . No. That’s crazy.’

  ‘So you’ll go up there anyway? Knowing that it’s a trap. All I went through to get here – it’s worth nothing?’

  He looked at her, at her pretty eyes, at the stubbornness of her expression. She meant it.

  ‘I didn’t do all of this for nothing,’ she said. ‘Tell me. Where do I need to be? What do I need to do?’

  ‘It’s crazy.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  He told her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Wait,’ Adams whispered. ‘We know where he’s going. There’s no hurry.’

  They watched Jim Jackson riding north, pushing his horse a little but not too hard.

  ‘He looked a bit worried to me,’ George Dubois said.

  ‘He’s been up and down every day. Maybe today’s the day. He can’t keep watching. Sooner or later he’s got to act.’

  The dust that Jackson’s horse had kicked up had settled when the two railroad men eased their horses out of cover and started to follow.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling in my bones,’ Adams said. ‘It’s going to be a good day.’

  Jim Jackson felt the sweat rise somewhere up between his shoulder blades and trickle down his back. It burned like an ice-cold blade and where the sweat settled in the small of his back it felt like a target.

  He knew that they were out there somewhere. They, he, whomever. The one that had broken Rosalie’s fingers. Bastard. He figured there’d be more than one. Maybe they were ahead of him. Maybe behind. Possibly both. He resisted the urge to look around. He didn’t want them to know that he knew.

  What he did was push his horse on. He had to assume that they would be following him. He wanted to be a long way up the trail with them behind him by the time Rosalie came along.

  ‘Just like I told you it would be,’ Red said. ‘First the one that shot my brother and then the one that broke my fingers. What did I tell you?’

  Callum Short said, ‘Yep. Exactly as you called it.’

  ‘I should be a poker player. I can read men. I can read situations. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when all of this is over. I’ve seen ’em doing it in saloons. A good card player can make a fortune.’

  They watched the two railroad men ride by, and when they were half a mile or so away they followed.

  ‘I’d like to break his fingers before I kill him,’ Red said. ‘But I doubt I’ll get the chance. Maybe if I can gut-shoot him first.’

  ‘Don’t take no chance though.’

  ‘I won’t. He’s dangerous, I know that. He’s quick like a snake. But then, once you know that, you can take steps to . . . you know, to accommodate what you know.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Like I said, I can read situations.’

  Rosalie had watched Jim Jackson walk down the aisle and out of the church. He had smiled at the doorway, his face caught in a shaft of light from one of the windows, but once the door was open he didn’t look back. She understood. He was being watched – but neither of them knew where the watchers were – so they had to play it careful. If anyone were observing him now they would likely assume that he’d just been saying a prayer. But even with that understanding, his leaving the church still felt too much like their parting moment back in Austin. There had been no looking back then. It was as if they were always fated to be walking away from one another.

  She gave him plenty of time to reach the stables, saddle up, and leave town.

  Then she followed.

  Jim Jackson worked his way to the high ground above the camp. He’d told Leon that it would happen at noon. That at noon Leon should make his way to the outhouse and drop down into the creek. Follow it upwards, under the fence, and into the tree line. There will be a distraction, Jim had written.

  It wasn’t quite noon. There was still a morning sh
adow being cast by the whipping post standing in the yard.

  But it was close.

  Staying in the tree line, he circled the camp. His senses were heightened – the intense blue of the sky hurt his eyes. Had he ever really noticed the smell of the trees before? Or truly felt the caress of the gentle wind on his skin? Sounds, too. Birdsong, his horse’s shoes on the stones and rocks, the rustle of dead leaves as she walked. It was as if life itself was pulling him closer, holding him tighter. He wondered if this was an omen.

  Once or twice he thought he heard the snorting of distant horses. Imagination maybe? But at the same time he was hoping he was being followed. His plan had been turned upside down and twisted inside out. Now he had to draw the men away from the camp.

  And after that? After that he would play it by ear. He would trust in his horse to be faster than theirs. Or his draw to be faster. Thinking about what the man had done to Rosalie’s fingers he actually wondered if he would prefer the second option – instead of leading them clean away and avoiding the confrontation, maybe deep inside he actually wanted to look into the man’s eyes and pull a trigger.

  But no, that way would hold more risk. He needed to get back for Rosalie and for Leon.

  He came down out of the trees, the horse slipping a little on the scree.

  The lumber piles were ahead of him. He urged his horse to move faster. A few minutes were all he needed. After that it was all about running and, hopefully, being chased.

  The high sun told him noon was approaching. That whipping post shadow back in the yard would be gone.

  He was here.

  It was time.

  He raced down into the gaps between the piles of lumber where only yesterday he had strategically hidden bags of gunpowder and shells and homemade fuses.

  He leapt off his horse, pulled the box of Lucifers from his pocket, and ran to the first fuse.

  He was breathing too fast. His hand was shaking. The first match slipped, unlit, from his nervous fingers. He forced himself to stop, take a deep breath, hold the air and then let it out through pursed lips.

  Now try again. His thumbnail scratched a match into life and he lit the first fuse.

  He ran along the pile of lumber and lit a second.

  He whistled to his horse as he ran alongside the huge pile of lumber, lighting more fuses. The horse followed him.

  When the first bag of powder went up it sounded initially like nothing more than the whistle of wind through the gap in a roof. He turned and looked back along the rows of piled up timber. There was a cloud of blue and grey smoke coming out from between two logs. A few flames too. But it was underwhelming. Doubt filled him. He needed to create something big that would be seen for miles. A little puff of smoke and some small flames would not be enough. Had he misjudged? Should he have found dynamite from somewhere?

  A second bag of gunpowder went up.

  Then several shotgun shells went off somewhere deep inside the log pile.

  Another bag exploded.

  This one was louder as if the confines of where he had buried it had magnified the explosion.

  He leapt upon his horse and urged her forwards.

  Somewhere behind he thought he heard shouting. More shotgun shells exploded and he could smell burning gunpowder in the air.

  As the last bag of powder exploded he glanced back.

  The smoke was rising upwards now, thickening already. Flames were licking around the outside of the log-pile. Through the smoke he could see two riders in the distance.

  ‘Follow me,’ he whispered. ‘Follow me.’

  It was midday.

  Leon Winters felt livelier than he had in months, possibly years. He was weak, sure, but there was a different strength in him this morning. It didn’t come from his muscles; it came from his heart. It was the strength of hope. It was energy that came from doing something, instead of being done to.

  He stood on one of the bunks on the yard side of the hut, looking out through the dirty glass and watched the shadows shrink.

  ‘You got the . . . fidgets . . . today, Leon?’ Harry asked. Harry’s breathing problem made it sound like he’d always just finished a mile-long run when he talked. Even when he wasn’t talking there was a wheezing in his chest and throat as he tried to catch and hang on to each breath. His condition was worsening daily. When he could summon the energy to talk, Harry would often say that this was it. He was going to die in this stinking hot hut that even the rats avoided on account of the smell. He was going to die here just because someone figured it was cheaper to get convicts to cut timber than to pay for it to be done. He was going to die because he’d shot a man over a hand of cards. ‘I didn’t even kill him,’ Harry would say, and then struggle for another breath.

  ‘I’m going to the outhouse,’ Leon said.

  ‘Bring a jug of water back,’ Bennett said. ‘I’m as dry as a dead rattler.’

  Bennett had a broken ankle. A log had fallen on his leg several months back. No one had set the leg properly and even though the bones were mending they had mended in such a way that it hurt him too much to walk. Twice or three times a day he made it to the outhouse, or to get water, but that was it. There was talk that they – the captain, the prison system, someone – wanted to send Bennett back to Huntsville but there was some issue with his broken leg. If he went back with the leg not treated properly the camp owners might get fined, or inspectors might turn up, or both. Bennett had been told they’d probably have to break the ankle again and then send him back with it freshly snapped. But the way this camp was, no one knew whether they were just telling him that to cause him mental anguish or if one day they were going to come for him with a hammer for his ankle and a stick for him to bite on.

  ‘I’ll come back for the jug,’ Leon lied. ‘I ain’t carrying it into the hole.’

  Leon stepped outside. The heat of the day was physical. It was a different heat to that inside the hut. Inside all of the air was warm but there was no one-place it came from. Outside, with the sun directly overhead, it was like standing in front of a raging fire. He took a breath of clean air, as he always did when first leaving the hut. He hitched his trousers up around his waist and started shuffling towards the outhouse.

  In the distance he thought he heard someone shouting.

  He could feel aches in his bones, tendons, and muscles, but most of all excitement, fear and hope coursing through his veins.

  He looked up at the sky and his lips hardly moving he mouthed a prayer: please God, let today be good. After all that he had been through, please let this be his moment of redemption. Amen.

  At the outhouse door he turned and looked back across the camp.

  The lumber piles were burning.

  White smoke was billowing upwards. There were tendrils of grey and great swathes of black amongst the white. Flames leapt skywards and he thought he could hear the crackle of burning. The guard called Billy was racing down towards the fire.

  All that timber, all that work. The reason for them being here.

  Leon smiled and opened the outhouse door.

  He stepped behind the door, hiding himself from view if anyone was over by the gate watching him – but why would they be? Not with that great fire happening.

  ‘You diamond, Jim Jackson,’ he said aloud, and instead of entering the outhouse he stepped along the side, and looked down into the creek.

  ‘Not so good,’ he said. ‘But what the hell.’

  The creek was stagnant and stinking. Men’s faeces were layered down there below the outhouse. A rat saw him and darted for cover upstream.

  He’d been through worse. He slid down the side of the creek, managing to stop the slide before he landed in the dark water.

  He crouched down as far as he could without dropping to his knees and, holding his breath, carefully manoeuvred his way through the piles of waste. The stink was worse than he’d imagined. The need to vomit was almost irresistible. Flies rose around him in a dark cloud. There was another rat. This
one braver and not moving, just watching him, its tail and nose twitching, its teeth yellow. Leon clamped his own teeth together, balled his hands into fists, and forced himself to pass beneath the outhouse which most of the men had used only that morning.

  At least it was cool under there, he thought, and had to stop himself opening his mouth as he laughed.

  Four poles held the construction in place above him. One of them was rotting, he noticed. One of these days someone was going to be sat on the hole when the pole gave way and dumped the whole thing in the creek.

  He wanted to laugh again, and now he recognized that it was nervousness and fear, not humour, that was causing the laughter. He trembled and, despite the smell, breathed rapidly through his clenched teeth.

  Then, almost abruptly, the smell vanished and the air was clean and dry. The worst of the mess was behind him. The water was clean, and the steep banks of the creek were fresh and green.

  Now he dropped to his knees, keeping his head and body as low as possible.

  He began to crawl.

  Webster Ellington looked across at the young railroad man and said, ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  Whittaker Gordon said, ‘I knew he was coming after Leon Winters. I didn’t know how. You?’

  ‘About the same,’ Ellington said. He looked to the south where the plume of smoke from the burning lumber piles hung high and impressively in the sky. Even against the wind one could hear the crackling of the fire and smell the burning.

  ‘It’s a good distraction,’ Whit said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Would probably have worked if we hadn’t known.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ellington said. But there wasn’t really a maybe about it. The truth was, had he been none the wiser about Jim Jackson’s plan to free Leon Winters he probably would have been caught up in trying to put the fire out. As it was, he’d sent Billy Burke down there. There wasn’t anything that Billy could do, but at least it showed willing. It looked right if Jackson was watching.