The Hanging of Samuel Ash (5 page)

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, setting down his luggage. “I'm looking for a Mr. Walter Runyon. You wouldn't happen to know him?”

Hook studied him against the sun.

“He have one arm with a hook on the end of it?”

“Yes, a prosthesis, I believe.”

“Like this?” Hook said, holding up his arm.

“Why, yes. I believe so.”

“Never heard of him,” Hook said, turning away.

“Oh wait. Sir? Sir?”

“Me?” Hook said.

“If I could have a moment.”

“You can have a couple of 'em, providing you aren't selling snake oil or saving souls.”

“You wouldn't be Walter Runyon yourself, would you?”

“I would be if I had a choice,” he said. “But I don't, so I'm Hook Runyon, not Walter Runyon.” He held up his prosthesis. “You might figure why?”

“I see,” he said. “Are you the security agent?”

“I would be if I had a choice,” he said. “But I don't. There's not enough security around here for me to be a security agent, so I'm a yard dog instead.”

“My name is Junior Monroe,” he said. “I've been assigned to you.”

“Look, Junior Monroe, Eddie can assign you wherever he chooses, but what you need to know can't be taught by me. It's got to be experienced, and you got to do that on your own.”

“Look, Mr. Runyon, Hook, I know you have your hands full.”

“
Hand,
” Hook said. “I've got my
hand
full, and I have enough trouble keeping out of the deep end without worrying about a greenhorn.”

“I won't be of any trouble,” he said.

Hook looked through his brows. “I don't own this railroad, Junior, and I can't keep you from hanging around. Just don't expect me to teach you anything. I'm not your instructor, so don't get in my road, and don't interfere with my way of doing things. I'm too goddang tired to change.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Keep your eyes open and carry your own water.”

Junior stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled up on his toes. “I will,” he said.

“Come to that caboose over there in the morning, after ten.”

“Right,” he said.

“In the meantime, you might want to meet my dog, Mixer.”

“Your dog?”

“The one whizzing on your luggage there,” he said, walking away.

 

6

 

H
OOK AWOKE TO
someone knocking. Sunlight shot through the cupola window and into his eyes. He rolled out of bed and opened the door to find Junior Monroe standing on the platform. He sported a bow tie, vest, and a Panama cocked down over one eye.

“I thought I told you after ten,” Hook said.

Junior checked his watch. “I guess I'm a little early.”

“Look, I haven't slept for two days and then what with trains coming and going all damn night.”

“Sorry,” he said again, looking down at his feet.

“Nice outfit,” Hook said.

Junior looked at his arms. “A man's clothes are the key to…”

“Right,” Hook said, scratching his face, which had grown dark with a beard. “You just as well come in, Junior. I'm damn sure awake now.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, taking off his hat.

“Coffee?” Hook asked, searching for his prosthesis.

“Tea, please,” Junior said.

Hook pulled his prosthesis out from under a stack of clothes.

“I didn't ask you if you wanted tea. I asked you if you wanted coffee.”

“Coffee's fine. With cream, please.”

Hook slipped his britches on and looked over at Junior. “I didn't ask you if you wanted cream, 'cause I don't have cream.”

“Black's fine,” Junior said, holding his hat in front of him.

“Sit down,” Hook said, working on his shirt.

Junior looked around for a place to sit, deciding to move a stack of books off the bench by the stove.

“You live here?” he asked.

“No, I just visit, 'cause it's so goddang peaceful and quiet,” Hook said.

Hook lit the fire and set the water on to boil. He looked out the window. Mixer sat on the dock waiting for the eastbound.

“You read all these books?” Junior asked.

“I collect them,” Hook said.

“Collect them?” Junior said, fanning through one of the books. “Why would you want old books around if you don't read them?”

“I didn't say I didn't read them. I said I collect them. Sometimes I read them. Sometimes I don't. It's no different than someone collecting measuring cups. Just 'cause they have a hundred measuring cups doesn't mean they go around measuring a hundred things with a hundred cups.”

“But I don't see why anyone would need more than one cup in the first place.”

“Something tells me you never will.”

“I could understand dry measurements versus liquid measurements.”

“It's not about
using
the damn things. It's about
having
them. Don't you have things that you don't use?”

“I've a couple shirts that are way too garish,” he said.

“Jesus. They're my books because I want them. If you don't like that, just keep it to yourself.”

Hook found his cigarettes. The knuckles on his hand had swollen even more from banging Moose Barrick's hard head.

“Cigarette?” he asked.

“Smoke irritates my skin,” Junior said.

Hook lit up and blew smoke out the corner of his mouth. He looked at Junior through the blue haze. Junior dropped an eyelid.

“Irritates your skin?” Hook said.

“Makes me prickly,” he said.

“That so?”

“I've very sensitive skin. I was in the hospital once with second-degree burns in my crotch.”

“Someone set your crotch on fire?”

Junior flushed and straightened his bow tie. “No, of course not; my mother washed my boxers in bleach. Any kind of bleach product, I get these enormous blisters.”

Hook drew on his cigarette. “Well, you're safe enough from any bleach products around here.

“So, Junior, what kind of experience you had working law enforcement?”

“I have an undergraduate degree in political science and a minor in criminology,” he said. “I plan on going to law school eventually and then into public service.”

Hook poured the coffee. “Public service?”

“Prosecutor.”

“So what does that have to do with being a railroad dick?”

“My father feels I should have some real-life experiences with the darker side before I make my decision. He's an acquaintance with Eddie Preston, so here I am.”

“An acquaintance?”

“Mr. Preston owes him money.”

“Well, it can get fairly dark around here at times.”

“That's what Mr. Preston said.”

Hook swirled his coffee and examined the grounds in the bottom of his cup.

“I remember one time when a new prosecutor showed up down in Pecos. He swore to clean up the whores working Main on Saturday nights. Folks advised him against it, whores being a long-held tradition in that particular part of town. But the prosecutor, being highly educated like yourself, and knowing the ins and outs of criminal behavior, couldn't be discouraged.”

“Being informed of the law can be critical in these situations. What happened?”

Hook rubbed at his whiskers. “Within a month's time there wasn't a whore within two hundred miles of Pecos. The crime rate dropped, and church attendance soared to an all-time high.”

Junior nodded. “The theory is to stamp out the small crimes and the big ones will take care of themselves. It's a tried and true concept of criminology.”

“So, the deacons got together and voted to make the prosecutor citizen of the year,” Hook said. “Only one problem.”

“Oh?”

“They couldn't find him. The cops looked everywhere, even called his aging mother back east, who swore she hadn't seen nor heard from him since he left for Pecos.”

“What happened?”

“A year later, his body, shriveled up like an old shoe, turned up in the Chihuahuan Desert.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Just remember, Junior, that doing the right thing is good but never as good as staying alive. There's always some bastard willing to kill you, eat you, and spit your bones in the desert dirt.”

Junior, his brow wrinkled, looked at Hook. “That's a rather cynical view of life, isn't it, sir?”

Hook looked out the window. “Yesterday I cut a boy down from the wigwag signal out on the potash spur. He'd been hoisted to the top of the cantilever with a rope around his neck. They left him there to strangle. It's the sort of thing that can make a man cynical.”

When a knock came at the door, Junior jumped, sloshing his coffee onto his hand.

Hook opened it to find Popeye waiting on the platform. He took off his hat and dabbed the sweat from his bald pate with his bandanna.

“Hook,” he said. “Eddie Preston called and said to tell you them pickpockets are working the Clovis to Amarillo run. Said they stole the conductor's watch right out of his pocket. Said if you were sober and able, he wanted them rounded up before they closed down the entire line.”

“Right,” Hook said.

“So I told him you were most likely able, but I couldn't be certain about the sober part.”

“Thanks, Popeye.”

“He said there'd be hell to pay if them pickpockets ain't caught soon and that you were to take the boy with you, 'cause he needs the experience if he's ever going to become an executor.”

“Prosecutor,” Hook said. “Jesus. What time is the Amarillo run?”

Popeye checked his pocket watch and snapped the cover shut. “She's due in a couple hours, providing the wildcatters don't shut down the system somewhere.”

“Alright. Radio them that we'll be hitching a ride, will you, Popeye?”

*   *   *

Hook met Junior on the platform thirty minutes before the Amarillo passenger train was due to come in. He secured Junior's wallet to a piece of string, tied a pencil on the other end, and poked a hole through Junior's hip pocket

After threading the pencil through the hole, he said, “Let them try to steal that.”

Junior examined his pocket. “This is a brand-new suit, sir.”

“Stop calling me that, Junior. I don't know who the hell you're talking to half the time.

“Just keep in mind that yard dogs are called upon to make sacrifices now and again in the fight against crime. A hole in your pocket is little enough to pay to catch these bastards.”

“How will we recognize them?” Junior asked.

Hook lifted the wallet between his index and middle fingers. “Feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. They look just like everybody else, Junior, except more so. That's the problem, and they can lift a thought right out of your skull.

“Now, when we get in there, I want you to sit up front, and I'll sit in the back. At some point you parade up and down the aisle a few times to make sure you're seen. What with you dressed up like a penguin and with that fat wallet in your pocket, they'll be certain to cut you out from the herd.”

Junior turned to look back at his wallet. “Shouldn't I have a weapon?”

“If worse comes to worst, I'll shoot them myself. Most likely, they'll make their move when things crowd up on arrival at a depot. Soon as you feel a tug on that wallet, let out a yell, and I'll move in.”

In the distance the whistle of the train rose and fell. Hook hollered at Mixer to get off the tracks. He slinked away to the caboose, crawled under, and peeked out from the shadows.

“Now,” Hook said. “Remember, you're to look around as if you don't know where to go. You let me take care of everything else. Do you understand?”

Junior nodded his head. “You want me to board first?”

“I'll board first, and don't look at me when you get on.”

“Okay, Hook, but I'd feel better if I had a weapon to carry.”

“Well, I wouldn't. Anyway, prosecutors don't carry weapons, so you just as well get used to it.”

When the train arrived, Hook boarded and worked his way to the back of the car. From there, he had a good view of the passengers.

Junior found a seat near the front and put his hat on the overhead rack. An old lady with knitting in her lap sat in the seat next to the window. She looked at Junior over the tops of her glasses before returning to her knitting.

Hook considered the back of Junior's head, which struck him as particularly large for his neck. He had the look of a boy headed to summer camp. If there was ever a mark in the making, it had to be Junior Monroe, public servant.

The passenger train slid away from the platform and climbed up to speed. A young couple sat near the back. The girl's hair, raven black, fell about her face as she leaned into the boy. She popped a stick of gum into her mouth and reached up to fondle his face.

Across from Hook, a soldier slept on his duffle, his hat drawn over his eyes. His jacket, having fallen onto the floor, displayed a variety of multicolored ribbons that had been pinned over the pocket.

Hook looked the passengers over once again. They struck him as unlikely candidates for being pickpockets. Maybe Eddie Preston had it wrong. Maybe they'd already moved to a different run.

*   *   *

When the train pulled into the Hereford depot, Junior stood, ran his hand through his hair, and then walked slowly to the end of the car and back, the top of his wallet visible in his back pocket.

Several more passengers got on and fanned out across the car. The old lady with white socks and varicose veins walked to the back. Two women, each with a blond kid in tow, took up seats near the middle of the car. A businessman with a calfskin briefcase moved as far from the others as possible and proceeded to go through his notes.