The Hanging of Samuel Ash (21 page)

“There's a rule against hopping trains, Frenchy, or didn't you know?”

“I got to go before this gets any deeper,” Frenchy said. “I'll be in touch.”

Hook stood on the platform and watched Frenchy's engine disappear. Mixer jumped down and headed off into the weeds. He circled wide, marking his territory as he went. The afternoon sun beat down, and heat waves quivered up from the tracks.

Mixer soon returned, his tongue hanging out. Hook filled his food and water dishes and set them outside near the casket. Mixer lapped his water before curling up in the shade.

From the siding, Hook could see the wheat elevators, concrete fortresses rising into the sky. Beyond them sat the spare buildings of Avard, a town failed from the Depression and the ravages of tornadoes, hell-bent screamers that bore in with regularity to destroy everything in their paths. Each time, the residents rebuilt the town, only for it to be torn asunder once again. Now, no one any longer cared.

Hook dug the Bronze Star out of the shoe box he kept pushed behind the coal stove. Dropping it in his pocket, he headed for town. Main Street, being no more than a dirt road a couple blocks long, had a general store at its end. A small hotel stood across the street, a structure built so close to the tracks that the railroad mounted its mail hook just outside the back door. By not making a full stop, the railroad saved both fuel and time for more important stops farther along the way.

Next to the hotel, a tin shed leaned to the south, the remains of a once-active blacksmith shop. The door hung at an angle from the top hinge, and a streak of light shot through the hole in the roof.

Hook peered into the blackness and could see the anvil still mounted on a walnut stump and the forge with remnants of cinders in its hearth. The smell of heat and sweat still resided in the soot and in the packed-earth floor.

A sign on the front door of the hotel read
EAT
. Hook dusted off his britches and went in. A single light shone from the kitchen, and a fan hummed from an opened window. He found a booth, its vinyl cover cracked with age and wear, and sat down.

A little girl in the back booth, ten or eleven, he calculated, sucked on a straw to make noises with her drink. Her yellow hair lay in matted curls about her face, and a wad of bubble gum clung to the side of her empty plate.

Bobbing her foot, she relocated her straw in the ice and sucked up the last of the contents. She wore oxford slippers with scuffed toes, and her socks drooped from weakened elastic. A scab on her knee, the size of a half-dollar, testified to some recent mishap. She watched Hook through her hair.

The cook, a woman in her fifties, ducked her head under the serving window.

“What will you have?” she asked.

“Burger and fries,” Hook said. “Coke.”

She turned to her stove without answering. Hook looked around for something to read, finding an auction bill lying on top of the high chair next to the front door. He searched in vain for books.

Pretty soon the little girl got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with her glass refilled. She sat in the booth, her chin in her hand, and nursed the straw.

The cook arrived with his burger, a mountain of fries, ketchup, and a bottle of Tabasco. Lines drew at the corners of her eyes, and her hands shook with tremor.

“Anything else?” she asked, writing out his ticket.

“No, thanks,” Hook said. “What's going on in town tonight?”

She tore off his ticket and dropped it on the table. “Oh, just the normal things, a parade at six and then a ball after. We're expecting the king and queen to show up about seven.”

“Right,” Hook said, turning to his burger, which tasted as good as anything he'd eaten in a month, including the Harvey House fare.

By the time he tabbed out, the sun had slipped lower on the horizon. He paused outside to watch a westbound thunder by. It rattled the front windows of the hotel and sent dust spiraling off down Main.

He walked toward the caboose, taking his time to enjoy the quiet and peace. Iron-red hills jutted into the sunset, and a flock of blackbirds banked away like kamikazes. He stopped and lit a cigarette, and that's when he noticed her standing back a hundred feet or so behind him. She still carried her drink and had transferred her bubble gum from plate to mouth.

Hook went on to the caboose and sat down on the steps. She stopped at a distance, but when Mixer joined him, she idled on up to the caboose.

“Hello,” Hook said.

“Hello.”

“You live here?”

She nodded. “My name's Bet Haimes. That was my daddy's name. I live with my grandma at the hotel. Sometimes I'm the waitress when she gets sick.”

“That so?” he said.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Hook.”

“Oh. Is that your dog?”

“His name's Mixer.”

“That's a funny name,” she said. “I had a cat named Felix, but the train ran over him. I found his tail.”

“That's too bad,” he said.

“Yeah. Did a train run over your arm?”

“No.”

She stretched her bubble gum out and ate it back to her fingers. “What's in the box?”

Hook turned. “That?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that's a body,” he said.

“What's its name?”

“Samuel Ash.”

She took Mixer's ear and felt the scars in it.

“His ears are icky.”

“He likes to fight,” Hook said.

She sat down next to Hook on the steps and bobbed her legs.

“You smoke a lot, don't you?” she said.

“It's a bad habit.”

“Yeah. What are you going to do with Samuel Ash?”

“I'm taking him home to Carmen soon as I find his people.”

“One time I hid in the culvert under the tracks when the train went over,” she said.

“That's dangerous,” he said.

“Yeah.”

She climbed up on the caboose porch and looked at the casket.

“Does Samuel Ash want to go home?”

“Everyone wants to go home,” he said.

“I don't,” she said. “That's why I live with my grandma.” She wiped at her nose. “How do you know Samuel Ash is in there?”

“Why wouldn't he be?”

She climbed down. “I don't know. I got to go now and help Grandma with the dishes.”

“Listen,” he said, “I'm going on to Carmen tomorrow and will be gone a few days. Do you think you could feed and water Mixer for me?”

“For a dollar,” she said.

“Okay, for a dollar. I'll leave the door to the caboose open.”

“Are you taking Samuel Ash?”

“Not yet. You don't have to be afraid.”

“I'm not,” she said, turning. “Bye, Hook. Bye, Mixer. Bye, Samuel Ash.”

 

23

 

H
OOK WAITED BY
the grain elevator until the next to the last hopper car rolled by before he swung up on the ladder. He crawled into the opening over the trailing wheel truck and secured a place to sit. While not the most comfortable spot to ride, he didn't have that far to go.

The old switch engine chugged downline at a slow clip. Within a few minutes, they'd moved into the countryside, an expanse of wheat fields reaching to the horizons. The wheat, nearing harvest time, rippled off in waves of gold from the train's turbulence. Soon combines would move in like giant insects and chew their way across the landscape.

Within the hour, the short haul approached Carmen, and the engineer blew his whistle. From where Hook sat, he could see the elevators rising into the blue sky. The train slowed, and Hook maneuvered to the side of the hopper car to bail off.

A great building rose up to the north, a grand and elegant structure isolated from the town proper. A sign out front read,
SPIRIT OF AGAPE ORPHANAGE
.

Hook counted four floors, including the basement, and, sitting atop of it all, a turret with windows encircling its circumference. Steps, bolstered by Greek columns, ran from ground level to the first floor, where a carved wooden door awaited entry.

A picketed balcony rested atop the columns, with the entire structure repeating itself and extending yet again to the next floor. In spite of the building's splendor, no life moved about in the yard, and the windows lay darkened and gloomy.

Behind the house, a dairy barn stretched the length of the grounds. Its cedar roof sported two cupolas, and a half-dozen bay windows ran down its length. Two silos with conical tops rose from the barn's east end, and the entire southern exposure opened onto a maze of corrals churning with matched Holstein cows.

As the short haul slowed to uncouple the hoppers at the grain elevator, Hook jumped off and headed into town. A filling station sat on the corner across from the newspaper office, and down the street, a small grocery store touted sale prices in its window. A cobbler's shop, with weathered sign, huddled near the back of the end lot. The town café, funeral parlor, and a beer joint with painted windows made up the remainder of downtown. A block over, three church steeples all rose up within shouting range of heaven.

Hook found the proprietor of the filling station sitting out front on a bus seat that had been bolted to the concrete drive. His hat bill, covered with greasy fingerprints, stuck out over one ear. He clamped an RC Cola between his legs and poured a package of peanuts into its neck.

When he looked up, he said, “Toilet's around back. There ain't no paper, though. Damn kids plug up the stool.”

“Thanks, anyway,” Hook said. “I thought you might give me some information.”

He tipped up his RC and maneuvered some of the peanuts into his mouth. He chewed, pushed his glasses up onto his nose, and took a long look at Hook.

“What happened to your arm?” he asked.

Hook held up his good hand, which still bore cuts from his scrap with Barney.

“A little misunderstanding,” he said.

The proprietor took another swig of his RC and said, “The other one.”

Hook turned over his prosthesis. “Hardly skinned it up at all,” he said.

“Say, you ain't one of them goddang carnies from the state fair, are you?”

“I'm the Santa Fe railroad bull, which comes mighty close to the same thing,” he said.

“The hell?”

“Have you lived in these parts long?” Hook asked.

“Long enough,” he said.

“You ever know a fellow by the name of Samuel Ash?”

He took another pull of his RC and set the bottle next to him on the bench.

“I knew a Samuel Newsome, 'fore he died of the lockjaw. They fed him gravy with an eyedropper, but it didn't make no difference.”

“Do you know anyone who might know?”

“Well, there's Patch Hunter, the cobbler over there. He's lived here since the parting of the sea. According to Patch, there ain't much he doesn't know.

“Then there's Juice Dawson, the digger. In the end, no one gets by him. And course you got Doc Tooney. Doc's probably pulled a couple thousand squealers into this world over the years. In the day, wasn't nothing for a woman to shell out ten, fifteen kids for helping out with the harvesting and chores.”

“Thanks,” Hook said.

The proprietor ducked his chin. “Name's Bill,” he said.

Hook held up his prosthesis. “Hook Runyon.”

“You come sit in the afternoon anytime you take a notion, Hook. My oil changing's in the mornings.”

“Thanks, maybe I will.”

*   *   *

Hook found Doc Tooney's office, a remodeled bungalow, two blocks down from the funeral home. Unwilling to complicate matters just yet, Hook passed up the funeral home until a later time. Once he'd identified Samuel Ash's kin, then he'd contact the mortician. At this point, getting a professional involved could only tangle things.

“Doc Tooney's not in,” the nurse said. “Is it an emergency?”

“I'm trying to find the relatives of a Samuel Ash,” Hook said. “I thought the doctor might be able to help me.”

“Sorry,” she said. “The doctor's not feeling well, so he went to see the doctor over in Cherokee. Should be back after lunch.”

“Second opinion?” Hook asked.

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Have
you
ever heard of Samuel Ash?”

She clicked her pencil against her teeth. “No. No Samuel Ash. We had a Samuel Newsome, but he's dead now.”

“Maybe I'll come back later,” he said.

“Hang on,” she said. Going to the file cabinet, she thumbed through a few of the folders and then shook her head. “No. You might try Patch down at the shoe shop. Patch is an expert on about everything.”

“Thanks,” Hook said.

*   *   *

Patch Hunter's cobbler shop looked like something out of the nineteenth century. There were pinchers and pliers of every imaginable shape lined on the wall over the workbench. On the other wall hung awls, hammers, knives, and wooden shoe stretchers. Great treadle sewing machines, hole punchers, and buffing wheels sat about everywhere. There were balls of thread, piles of tailings, and sheets of cow leather, calf leather, and sheepskin. There were buffing wheels, vises, nippers, tacks, pots of glue, waxes, and saddle soaps. The smells of leather and shoe polishes permeated the air. An artist's easel sat near the back of the shop with a partial pencil sketch propped on it.

A tall man stood at the high workbench pounding nails into the heel of a shoe. He wore a leather apron that hung to his knees. The apron shined where his ample belly had rubbed it smooth against the workbench over the years. The tacks in his mouth were nearly hidden in the thick of his handlebar mustache. He pushed his glasses up and took out the tacks one by one and laid them on the bench.

Hook waited until he'd finished. “Are you Patch Hunter by chance?”

“That would be me,” he said, laying down his hammer. “You must be that feller rode in on the grain hopper.”