Bushwhacked

by C. Courtney Joyner

  Lem said, “I’ve only seen Bishop twice in my life. The second time was in his house, and the first time I was in my cell, right after I’d had the living shit kicked out of me. Remember Smythe?”

  Howard snorted. “Wanted to kill that bastard every day.”

  “He damn near killed me. Probably would have if Dr. Bishop hadn’t forced him to put me in the prison hospital. Remember? He was standing at your cell, saying something to Dev, and you hung back. Dev gave him a letter, then he was walking out and saw me lying on my bunk, and said I needed to go to the hospital.”

  Beaudine turned from Lem. “You’re saying you owe him?”

  “Nope. Just getting our history straight.”

  * * *

  White Fox jammed the knife through the side of the sleeve, cutting the cloth along its seam, then pulling it back to the shoulder. Bishop watched her while laying out the pistols and ammunition he’d gotten from Widow Kate’s weapons cache. She cut the sleeve off at the elbow, tossed the rag into the small fire that warmed their campsite, before threading a needle to sew up the torn edges. The flames ate the cloth.

  She sat on a blanket, the coat in her lap, and looked up to see Bishop looking, but not recognizing her. “Beaudine?”

  Bishop loaded a Smith & Wesson .44. “You know the last time I saw his face?”

  “I asked if you wanted this. You said yes.”

  “And I say it again. There’s no doubt. Tóséé’e.”

  Bishop emphasized the final e, so Fox knew he was sure. She shrugged. “Then do your work.”

  Fox leaned closer to the fire, catching the light as she hemmed the jagged edge of the sleeve so the hammers of the shotgun wouldn’t catch when Bishop raised his arm for a kill. The coat was special-made for an ammunition drummer who had secret pockets sewn into the lining for bullet samples, and he would never have left it behind except he had been shot by a drunken cowboy who’d thought one of Kate’s China dolls was his personal property.

  The drummer had been carried home naked with three holes in his chest, and his coat had gone into the closet, until Bishop and White Fox exchanged their bloody rags for what Kate had stashed. The widow opium-slurred, “It’s purr-fect for your purr-poses.”

  Fox tugged on the tight denims she’d chosen, bringing them down to her hips so she could sit cross-legged, before drawing a last stitch on the coat sleeve, and biting through the heavy thread. She looked to Bishop, who was struggling to load the same pearl-handled Colt that Short Gun had tried to kill him with the day before.

  Someone said, “Beaudine.”

  It was a distant echo in Bishop’s mind, thick with a cigar smoker’s hack and a Swedish accent. The name repeated itself, and Warden Allard became more and more anchored in memory: the voice, the cigar between his teeth, the wide mustache, and the wider belly that struggled not to burst the top button of his pinstriped trousers.

  “Condemned men do get privileges for their last week. I insist on that. Good food, good drink.”

  Allard tried to stick out his sunken chest with pride at the declaration, even as he cigar-hacked again in his struggle to get out of his chair. John Bishop slipped his hands under Allard’s arms, lifting the warden to his feet. “Your brother was given a chance to have a private cell these final days, but he refused. Wanted to stay with this crazy Beaudine.”

  “My brother can’t write, sir. I think this prisoner’s been his voice.”

  “He was being punished for an infraction, not his first.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “He chose to stay in the punishment cells with the other prisoners, rather than be moved.” Allard spit his words out around his cigar. “Whatever the reason, I want it declared on record that I’ve offered him all possible comforts before his final day. And he’s refused everything.”

  “It’s on the record.”

  “With the family?”

  “I’m all that’s left, so yes.”

  “Then, you shall see him.”

  Allard took up almost half the width of the narrow stone hallway that connected his office to the cellblocks. Bishop walked alongside him, medical bag in hand, sometimes turning sideways to make room for the warden, as they maneuvered the corners. He listened dutifully, and the cigar never left Allard’s mouth: “I’ve been given charge of the worst types this side of the Mississippi, and I do my best by them. That’s not an easy task, if you think of what they’ve done.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t.”

  Allard agreed with Bishop’s agreement. “Every letter a prisoner mails, I read first. What your brother claims about his time here is slop for hogs.”

  Bishop nodded. “He’s been a liar his whole life.”

  “But you’re going to see for yourself? Fine. I am within the law, always. You treat all your patients the same, Doctor?”

  “I try to.”

  “A killer comes to you with a bullet in his stomach, and you treat him the same as an old woman dying from consumption? I don’t think so, because what you do is between you and your conscience. But here, the law dictates that I see every man the same way.”

  “Since one of them’s my brother, what way is that?”

  They had reached the end of the hallway and stood before a large door made of riveted steel plates, with a drop bar braced across it. The stone floor was spatter-stained, rust mixing with blood.

  Allard pulled wet tobacco from the end of his tongue. “These are the cells. Smythe.”

  A guard, his skin and hair the same apple color, stepped from an anteroom jangling a set of keys. He lifted the cross-brace, then unlocked the door. The tumblers cried of old metal as Smythe grunted them open. He was shiny with the brown sweat of last night’s whiskey, and wiped his face with a stained handkerchief he kept balled in one of his enormous hands. He looked to Allard, then to Bishop. “Well?”

  “Take the good doctor to Devlin Bishop’s cell, then escort him safely off the premises. And answer any questions he might have about our policies, my policies.”

  Bishop said, “What has you worried? I’m not here for an inspection.”

  “You’re here for family, but you will talk about your experience, I’m sure. We don’t have statehood yet, but this institution operates within the letter of territorial law. I insist on that.”

  “You’ve made that clear, Warden.”

  Allard said, “Letter of the law,” again, pushing each word for emphasis, then added, “No favorites, no compromises. And that includes your brother’s execution.”

  Allard extended his hand, and Bishop started to shake it.

  “Your medical bag.”

  “I have no intention of cheating the hangman. Believe me.”

  “For your own protection, Doctor. These are desperate men—why tempt them? You’ll get it on your way out.”

  Bishop handed over the bag, then stepped around Smythe into the shadowed corridor that led to the cellblock. The guard snickered at the formality, before pulling the huge steel door closed behind them.

  The only light coming into the corridor was from the end that opened into the prison’s common area. A heavy chain strung along the wall guided the way. Bishop regarded Smythe’s near-blue knuckles that had been skinned almost to the bone. “Must have been a hell of a fight.”

  “Haven’t met me match yet.”

  “Looks like a few knuckles are broken.”

  “After ten years on the job, I don’t feel nothing.”

  A din of shouted curses, laughter, and crying rose as they got closer to the common. Incoherent, hysterical screaming hit Bishop between the eyes.

  Smythe plugged his ears with thick fingers. “He sounds happy, don’t he?”

  Grinning, the guard fell back a step, letting Bishop into the common area first. This was the heart of the prison: a large structure that seemed chiseled from a single piece of rock, with curved, arena-like walls that supported a high, domed ceiling. There were no windows, and there was only a single stovepipe for ventilation.

&n
bsp; The pitched screaming came from one of the community cells that were on all sides of the ground level: six prisoners together, with a piss bucket and a straw mattress for comfort. The air was choked by noise, stench, and the smoke from the torches mounted on the walls.

  The middle of the commons was taken up by rude tables for meals, and a pair of whipping posts, while guards with Winchesters took position around the area like the points on a compass, kerchiefs shielding their faces.

  Bishop said to no one, “The letter of the law. God almighty.”

  “Don’t be getting yourself in a twist, Doc. It stinks worse than it is. Ain’t nobody been on them posts since the war, and most of this bunch drew short stretches. Get caught with something that ain’t yours, settle here for six months, and you’ll never steal again.”

  “I sure as hell wouldn’t.”

  “Hell’s the word all right, but they eat pretty good. The circuit judge favors our example right well.”

  The scream ripped again, then became a laugh, then a sob. Bishop edged toward the catwalk that led to the cells, but Smythe’s busted hand was instantly on his shoulder. “Bastard’s all yelled out.”

  “Sounds possible, but he might need medical attention.”

  “But you don’t have your little black bag. Want to see that brother of yours or not?”

  Smythe took a step closer. Bishop said, “Where is he?”

  “That way.”

  On the other side of the whipping posts, a bone-thin guard hooked one end of the crow bar through the metal ring on a trap door, and pulled, straining like hell and swearing through his kerchief. Smythe lent an arm. The door lifted up from the stone floor, revealing a set of iron stairs that descended into pitch-dark.

  Bishop looked down into the opening. The skinny guard said, “Want your brother?”

  The din around them was now the roar of prisoners banging tin plates and cups on their cage doors, slopped with a thousand obscenities in ten languages. Some chanted, “Smytheee!”

  An old guard with a Spencer rifle fired a shot into the ceiling, a blast of thunder that stun-silenced them.

  Then, in the last cell, Chester Pardee hurled his piss through the bars, trying for Smythe. “You’re goin’ to the Tombs, give my regards to Major Beaudine! Hope he guts ya like a deer, you son of a bitch!”

  Pardee’s gift didn’t come close enough to splash. Bishop started down the stairs, with Smythe right behind, and the trap door closed above their heads, leaving them in total darkness. Smythe lit a small candle, a yellow flicker barely showing Bishop the way down the broken, wet stairs, and the squealing swarm of rats darting from the shadows.

  The guard nudged Bishop down. “Rats. That’s all what’s down here.”

  “I thought it was prisoners who’re being punished.”

  “Ain’t that what I said?”

  * * *

  Devlin Bishop leaned back against the cell wall, almost totally lost in the complete dark that swallowed it. Even though he was just feet away in the same cell, all Dev could see of Beaudine was the shape of a man, sitting on the floor, with something resting on his knees. Not that Dev cared. He knew what his cellmate looked like, and more importantly, what he was worth.

  Beaudine hunched over the student’s tablet using the nub of a pencil to write on cream laid stationery. “We’re truly suffering without a pen.”

  Dev half-smiled. “We’re suffering anyway,” he said and then, quietly: “And me, for not much longer.”

  “I meant this letter is your will and testament, Dev. It should have permanence.”

  “I don’t get a real funeral. So if that can be read when I’m gone, it’s enough.”

  “No need to fret, it’ll be read.”

  “Just what I said?”

  Beaudine continued writing. “Exactly your words.”

  Dev traced the edges of his mustache with his fingers, neatening its edges. “Maybe you could write something out for the hangman. Make sure things go just right.”

  “I don’t think you’ve got much choice in that.”

  Dev shut his eyes for just a moment. “Just thinking out loud,” he said, and then he snapped his eyes open at the sound of footsteps coming toward the cell, accompanied by the ghost of a yellow light.

  One of the prisoners yelled from another cell, “Is that chow comin’?”

  Dev Bishop sat up, wiping the stink of the Tomb from his eyes, as he focused on the man now standing by his cell door. Dev answered back, “It ain’t chow! I’ll be damned if it ain’t my baby brother.”

  John Bishop stood near the bars, but not too close, with Smythe holding the candle just over his shoulder. Beaudine was on the edge of the tiny circle of candlelight.

  “It’s a fine thing to see you at last.”

  Dev took the five steps to the door. “You should introduce yourself, Major. It’s been so long, my brother may think you’re me.”

  “I recognize you, Dev.”

  “Don’t see how. I never favored Ma or Pa, except her temper. And we sure don’t look alike, but you haven’t changed. Even as a kid, polished and respectable. But I guess brothers always know each other.” Dev gestured toward Beaudine, who kept on writing. “The invitation to come was the major’s. He’s the reason you’re here, Johnny. He puts down my thoughts better than I ever could.”

  “I’m here because of you. No offense, sir.”

  Beaudine didn’t look up. “None offered, none taken.”

  “I’d want to see you, whether you wrote or not.”

  Smythe yawned. “And when are you bein’ hung, boy-o?”

  Dev paused as if he was figuring his answer. “Four days.”

  “Good. I’ve got duty that Wednesday. Wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  Bishop said, “Can I talk to my brother?”

  “I ain’t stopping you.”

  Dev extended his hand through the narrow opening between the bars. “I wish we could have met at the Metropolitan House instead, but fate stepped in. They call this part of the prison the Tomb, ’cause it feels like you’re buried. Gets you used to the idea.”

  Smythe low-whistled a little tune. “Better to be dead-alive, than dead-dead. And you’re gonna find out the difference, boy-o.”

  Bishop shook his brother’s hand. “Warden said you had a chance to get out, and wouldn’t take it.”

  Someone in the dark snorted a laugh. Dev said, “I have business to tend to, and the major’s been my—”

  Beaudine threw in, “Representative. You wouldn’t assume it, but during my time in the army, I became a top-level assistant to a number of generals and I’ve put those learned skills to use. Even here.”

  Bishop said, “I appreciate your writing letters for my brother.”

  “He’s finishing one now. Something to remember me by.”

  “Dev, we haven’t seen each other since before Mama and Pa died. I’m glad I’m here, but don’t know what I can do to help. Tell me.”

  “That’s your Christian side coming up. There’s nothin’. You’re the only family I’ve got, and I figured we should be together one last time before Wednesday morning.” Dev took a step back, calling out to the Tomb, “My baby brother, the doctor! Who got the chances I never did! I know you’ve got a fine, fine life, with a wife, son, folks who respect you. You ever tell anybody about your brother, the outlaw? I’d bet Union money you don’t.”

  “It never really comes up.”

  “Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure. Nobody wants a doc with mud on his boots, or blood on his family name.”

  “I don’t think that way.”

  “My own fault. I’m the law-breaker, and you’re the one everyone ass-kisses.”

  Smythe said, “This here candle’s almost burned down.”

  Bishop turned away from the cell. “It’s all right, I think my visit’s done. Good luck, Dev.”

  Dev laughed. “You can’t go yet. This is a special treat for us. They only bring candles when we eat. The rest of the time, we’re in the dark.�
��

  Beaudine handed Dev the finished letter. “And I have learned to write that way, with a decent hand.”

  Dev folded the letter into neat threes, before holding it out to his brother. “I hope this will clear things up between us. I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off, because I’m proud of what you’ve become.”

  Bishop slipped the letter into his coat. “Forget it. But, I haven’t done anything, and I wish I had.”

  “I’m talking about our partnership, brother.”

  Beaudine stood, his eyes narrowed on Bishop’s puzzled reaction: “We’ve never been partners, Dev. . . .”

  “You don’t have to say more, Johnny. Just know that I’m grateful. For everything you did, and helped with. And after Wednesday, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

  The rest of the Tomb busted into laughter fits, filling the tiny space. Dev Bishop dropped back on his iron bunk. “I’ll see you on the other side, brother! Now get out of here so that mule’s ass can fetch us our dinner!”

  Smythe roared, “You want me to put somethin’ special in it?”

  Bishop gave Dev a puzzled nod. “God have mercy, Dev,” he said and started away. He stopped, using the last bit of yellow light to peer into the next cell. Lem Wright’s body was twisted on the filth-thick floor, almost folded over, lying on his side. His face was a mush of purple folds, with dried blood outlining his mouth, nose, and ears. His cellmate, a massive, dark shape taking up most of the cage, snored in the corner.

  “What the hell happened to this man?”

  Smythe’s breath was corpse-fresh. “Your visit’s done!”

  “Get him out of here, or he’ll die. And I’ll bring a murder charge!”

  Dev said, “Better listen up, screw. My baby brother takes his doctoring very, very seriously.”

  Smythe placed his heel on Bishop’s foot, shifting his enormous weight. Something cracked. “The thing about the Tomb is, you can get forgotten down here.”

  Bishop didn’t flinch. “That could be true for you as well. The best thing to do is help that man, and I’ll have no reason to say anything to the warden, or the territorial authorities.”