The Hanging of Samuel Ash (35 page)

At the driveway entrance, he coasted to a stop and cut his engine. He'd walk in from there. For all he knew, someone could be waiting for him.

As he approached the orphanage, he spotted Buck's pickup parked by the barn. Somewhere in the distance, a lone coyote bayed, and the moon slipped from behind a cloud.

He knocked on the back door and turned to make certain no one came from behind. Celia, still in her house robe, opened the door.

“Hook,” she said, “I'm glad you're here.”

He could smell baked bread, and the heat of the ovens still lingered in the kitchen.

“What is it?” he asked.

She pushed back her hair, which, now unfettered, fell nearly to her shoulders.

“I went to bed about the usual time,” she said. “Something startled me awake. I didn't know what, and I couldn't go back to sleep.” She took his arm, and he could feel her trembling. “And then I heard it again. It came from upstairs, from Eagleman's office.”

“Go on.”

“Then I heard shouting and things being thrown about.”

“You didn't go up?”

“No,” she said. “Pretty soon it stopped, just like that. Nothing. That's when I called you. Something bad's happened. I just know it.”

Hook pulled his weapon. “You did the right thing,” he said. “I'll go check it out.”

“I'm coming with you,” she said.

They climbed the stairs in the darkness. At the landing, Hook could see a slice of moonlight cutting from out of Eagleman's office door. Stepping to the side, he eased the door open. Silence. He handed the flashlight to Celia and pointed to the opening. After taking a quick glance inside, he then stepped in with his weapon leveled.

The filing cabinets were shoved about, and Eagleman's desk lamp lay broken on the floor. The window curtains had been ripped from their moorings, and Eagleman's fedora lay crumpled in the corner of the room.

“Oh my god,” Celia said. “What's happened?”

“I don't know,” Hook said. “But it can't be good by the looks of it. I want you to call the sheriff. Tell him what we've found in here.”

“Where are you going?”

“To have a look around,” he said. “After you've made the call, go to where the kids are sleeping. Make sure they stay there until the sheriff comes. Will you do that?”

Celia nodded her head, and he took her hand.

“Good,” he said. “Don't worry. It's going to be okay.”

*   *   *

Once outside, Hook circled wide, checking for lights in the barn. He figured Buck had been alerted, maybe had seen them at the cemetery, or discovered the missing letter. He could be anywhere, and he could be armed.

Hook put the flashlight into his hip pocket. Handling both a weapon and flashlight at the same time didn't work so well for a one-armed man.

He eased open the barn door and stepped in. He stood, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He could see the moonlit corrals out of the front of the barn, and the smell of manure hung heavy in the air. He listened, turning his ear into the blackness at the back of the barn. If Buck Steele suspected that things had turned sour, he could be dangerous.

Hook moved into the interior, inching along, stopping to listen, and then moving forward again. Suddenly, his head bumped into something, and chills shot through him. He struggled to see what it might be, a saddle maybe, strung up by its horn from the rafters.

He holstered his weapon, reached for his flashlight, and turned it on. There, only inches from his face, a pair of wing-tip shoes twisted in the stillness.

Hook panned his light upward into Bain Eagleman's distorted face. His hands had been tied behind his back, and he stared down at Hook with dead eyes. His lips, strutted with blood, stretched over his teeth in a mocking grin. A lariat, tied in a honda knot, had been secured around his neck, and he'd been hoisted up to strangle in the darkness.

Hook traced the rope with his flashlight to where it had been tied off. Working his way over, he double hitched the rope around a barn post and lowered Bain Eagleman onto the barn floor.

He scanned the area with his light. By the looks of it, Buck Steele had fled, a man on the run, a man now unpredictable and dangerous in his escape from justice.

When Hook heard the motor start in the distance, he whirled about. Suddenly, headlights flashed beyond the corrals, turned around, and tore off down the orphanage drive.

“Buck,” he said to himself as he headed for the door. If this bastard got out of his sight now, he could be gone forever.

Cranking up the road-rail, Hook goosed her hard. Already Steele's taillights faded in the distance. The road-rail roared but with her heavy undercarriage, she failed to gather up much speed. In the end, the rails were her home. On the road, she floundered along like a landlocked whale.

When he looked again, Steele's headlights had made a sharp left turn as he cut onto the dirt road leading to Avard. The move would cost Steele time, but he probably figured to avoid roadblocks that could spring up quickly on the main highway. Hook pushed the road-rail hard, and she groaned in protest.

Ahead, he could see the crossing signs of the Frisco line. From here it cut a straight run right into Avard. He slammed on his brakes, nearly overshooting the crossing before he got her slowed down.

Pulling onto the crossing, he dropped the pilot wheels onto the rails, and within minutes raced along at a fast clip down the track. At this rate, and a crow's flight route, he just might get there in time to cut Steele off.

Twenty minutes later, he topped the grade coming into Avard. From his vantage, he could see car lights just pulling in near the elevators. Dousing his headlamps, Hook coasted in. Easing to a stop just short of the scale house, he cut his engine. Avard had long since turned in for the night, and darkness prevailed.

Pulling his weapon, he climbed out. He figured Buck to be about somewhere. If he left town on the road, he would have seen his lights. Little traffic, if any, passed through town this time of night.

He eased his way around the scale house with his weapon at the ready. On the far side, he spotted Steele's pickup bumper glinting in the moonlight. He knelt. The door on the pickup had been left open, and the gas-tank cap sat on the fender.

Hook unlocked the safety on his weapon and aimed at the open door.

“Climb out of there, Steele,” he said. “And with your hands up.”

Not many things in life did Hook know with a hundred percent clarity, but a cold pistol barrel jammed under his shoulder blade happened to be one of them.

“Nice of you to drop by,” Buck Steele said. “I could use the ride.”

 

41

 

“
I
'LL TAKE THAT
sidearm,” Steele said.

Hook handed it to him, butt first. “You have to put in gas now and then, Steele.”

“Climb back into that contraption you're running, Runyon. I've always wanted to ride one of those things.”

“This is the end of the Frisco line,” Hook said.

“Throw that switch onto the Santa Fe track, and do it now.”

Hook threw the switch and got back in. “This is a high rail, Steele, not some wheat run.”

“I figure you got the cops on the way. The odds they'll be looking for me driving down the railroad tracks is pretty damn slim, wouldn't you say?”

“There's heavy traffic on this line, Steele. It isn't safe.”

“We'll jump off at the first crossing and be halfway out of the country before they figure out I'm not hiding back there in the elevator. So, if you've no more objections, let's get on with it.”

“It's your call, Steele. Eastbound or west?”

Steele looked both directions. “West, toward Mexico,” he said. He leveled his weapon in Hook's direction. “And never doubt whether I can use this thing, Runyon. I can, and I will.”

Hook eased off westbound and brought her up to speed. Moonlight lit up the rails, and the rubber wheels sang against the iron.

“Mind if I smoke?” Hook asked.

“Ain't good for your health,” Steele said. “But then, why worry about it?”

Hook lit a cigarette and checked his watch in the light: 1:50
A.M.

“You're pretty good with a rope, Steele. First you hang Bruce Mason and then you hang Bain Eagleman.”

“One for money. One for fun,” he said.

“So, Eagleman paid you to kill Lucy the night Mason robbed that station and bury her in the orphanage cemetery. Then later you took out a little insurance by stealing Mason's letter that Eagleman had intercepted?”

Steele leaned forward and pulled his chew out of his back pocket. He loaded his jaw, all the while watching Hook.

“I couldn't think of a single reason to trust Eagleman. Can you?” he said.

“So, Eagleman laid the whole damn thing at that boy's feet?” Hook said.

“Eagleman was a son of a bitch but not a stupid one. He knew everyone would figure those two robbed the station and then ran off together. No one would have ever known the difference had you not come snooping.”

Hook flipped his cigarette ash on the floor and looked over at Steele.

“When Eagleman learned from Juice Dawson that I was escorting a body back by train, he figured out who it had to be and sent you as the welcoming party?”

“You're lucky, Runyon. I usually don't miss.”

Hook drew on his cigarette and checked his watch again in the glow: 2:10.

The moon rose overhead like an ivory button, and Steele's nickel belt buckle glinted in the moonlight. Steele took his hat off and laid it on the seat.

Hook spotted the wigwag signal in the distance, and beyond that, the faint glow of the eastbound's glimmer as she raced to Chicago.

“Tell me, Steele,” Hook said. “How did you know we were on to you?”

Steele smiled. “When I came back from the pool hall, that mongrel dog of yours tried to take my leg off. Not hard to figure you were around somewhere. I checked to see if anything had turned up missing. It had.”

“You mean your blackmail letters?”

“My protection,” he said. “I've been keeping a watch on that cemetery since.”

“And so that's when you decided to kill Eagleman and bust out, leaving no witnesses behind?”

“Until you showed up again, Runyon. Say,” he said, leaning forward, “ain't that a crossing signal up there?”

“Where?” Hook asked.

The moan of the eastbound's whistle lifted like sorrow in the distance, and her glimmer broke in a pinpoint on the horizon.

“Up there,” he said. “Hey, that's a goddamn train!”

Hook said, “I'll run her to the crossing and bail off. There's plenty of time.”

Suddenly, the wigwag signal lit up, its light, the color of blood, swinging to and fro, and its bell clanging out the danger of the oncoming train.

“Get the hell from behind that wheel!” Steele yelled, brandishing his weapon. “You're going to get us killed.”

Hook released the wheel and moved onto the passenger's side, letting Steele climb over him and into the driver's seat. The eastbound's glimmer lit the track, and her whistle screamed into the night as she bore down toward them.

“You crazy son of a bitch!” Steele yelled, shoving the gas pedal to the floor.

The road-rail hunkered down, gathered up all she had, and roared toward the crossing. Hook waited, gauging his time, his eye on the red lights of the wigwag. At the right moment, he clenched his jaw, opened the door, and jumped.

He tumbled down the right-of-way and veered off into a sagebrush thicket that grew along the fence row. He struggled to his feet just in time to see the road-rail reaching the crossing.

The brake lights lit up like red eyes in the darkness when Steele hit the pedal, but the road-rail shot right on through the crossing. The eastbound's glimmer turned the night into day, and her brakes shrieked as she locked down in a last-ditch effort to slow the massive tonnage at her back.

The eastbound hit the road-rail like a bundle of dynamite, and sparks sprayed into the night. The road-rail skidded down track at the engine's nose, flipping and crumpling into a jagged metal ball.

She passed by Hook and ground to a stop a quarter-mile down track. Hook climbed from the sagebrush and dusted the dirt off his pants.

He checked his watch under the moonlight. “Two twenty,” he said. “Late again.”

 

42

 

H
OOK, CELIA, SKINK,
Bet, and Esther stood at Bruce's and Lucy's graves in the Spirit of Agape Cemetery as the mortician finished lowering the caskets into the ground. Hook took the Bronze Star from his pocket and dropped it into Bruce's grave.

As they walked back to the orphanage, Celia looped her arm through his.

Bet said, “Samuel Ash is home, isn't he?”

“Yes, he's home,” Hook said.

“I'll visit him every day,” she said.

Hook turned to Celia. “As the new superintendent of the Spirit of Agape Orphanage, maybe you could have proper markers put up.”

“They have already been ordered,” she said.

Mixer, who had been out in the field chasing blackbirds, came bounding up.

“Miss Feola said I'm getting a dog, too,” Bet said. “And he can sleep with me.”

Hook looked at Celia. She shrugged. “New policy,” she said.

When they came to the orphanage, Hook stopped. The grand old building lifted up into the prairie sky, and her windows blinked away at the sun.

“And what about you, Skink?” Hook asked.

“Patch is retiring and turning the shop over to me. Said that in another twenty or thirty years I might be as good as him.”

“That's a possibility, Skink, providing you get your sleep and keep your mind on the job.”

Skink grinned and looked at his feet.