Dead Man's Return Read online

  ‘And if they do know everything?’

  Abraham spun the cylinder on his Colt again. And smiled.

  The man at the gate was a short fellow with a wide-brimmed hat, a black vest over a white shirt, and a rifle in his hand.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, when he saw the riders approaching. ‘Just hold on there.’

  Will Baker raised a hand, the reins resting lightly between his thumb and fingers.

  ‘Don’t recognize you,’ the gateman said. ‘And you don’t look like no lumber dealers.’

  ‘What does a lumber dealer look like?’ Will asked.

  ‘Normally the fellow wears a suit. Makes him look important, like.’

  Will nodded.

  ‘We’re important. We’ve come to see Mr Beecher and Mr Smith.’

  ‘Important, huh? Who are you?’

  ‘Tell him the Texas Rangers are here.’

  The gateman told Harry, who was twelve years old and couldn’t ever remember not working at the lumber yard. Harry ran into the man building and told Evelyn.

  Evelyn knocked on Smith’s office door and without waiting for any response opened it. The heavy oak felt weightless on its oiled hinges.

  Washington Smith was standing by the window, an empty glass in his hand.

  He turned.

  ‘Who are they?’ he asked.

  ‘Texas Rangers,’ she said. ‘Seven of them. One’s a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘That’s what Harry said.’

  ‘Texas Rangers, huh.’

  It wasn’t a question, but Evelyn nodded anyway.

  ‘Tell Harry to tell them I’ll be down.’

  ‘You don’t want me to show them up?’

  Smith cast a quick look at the other two men in the room.

  He looked back at Evelyn.

  ‘I’ll come down in a minute.’

  Evelyn closed the door.

  Smith looked at Abraham.

  ‘How do you feel about killing Texas Rangers?’

  The Texas Ranger called Hero Villemont eased his horse between Jim and Leon’s horses. He pulled a slim leather wallet from inside his jacket.

  He looked at Leon. ‘Smoke?’

  Leon smiled and said, ‘No, thank you. My lungs. . .’

  Hero looked at him.

  ‘Nothing fresh air and milk won’t cure,’ Leon said.

  Hero smiled and turned to Jim.

  ‘Would you like one?’ Hero had a faint French accent.

  ‘I used to,’ Jim said. ‘Gave it up for ten years, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get started again.’

  ‘Well you two are really something,’ Hero said. He turned to Rosalie. ‘Would the pretty lady like a cigarette?’

  Rosalie smiled. ‘Why not?’

  Hero handed a thin rolled cigarette to Rosalie. He flicked a Lucifer into life and leaned across towards her. He lit her cigarette.

  ‘So why?’ he asked. ‘Why are you here? All of you, I mean.’

  Rosalie breathed out smoke.

  ‘This is where we’ve been led,’ she said. ‘This is where it ends.’

  ‘What ends?’ Hero asked.

  ‘Everything,’ Rosalie said.

  ‘No way,’ Charles Beecher said. ‘It doesn’t matter whether there’s one or seven. No way. No killing. Not Rangers.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ Smith said. ‘Talk nicely to them?’

  ‘You don’t even know what they want?’

  ‘We know they . . .’ Smith tapped his fingers on the photos of Jim Jackson and Leon Winters, ‘. . . were in Leyton. We know that Anderson likely mouthed off. Probably about us. So they know about you and I. There was a woman with them. Isn’t that right?’ He looked at Abraham.

  ‘That’s right,’ Abraham said. ‘A pretty woman.’

  ‘There’s a woman with those riders down at the gate. It’s them. And you know why they’re here.’

  ‘So you’re going to kill them? All of them?’

  ‘It’s an idea.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘What do you suggest? Go out there with our hands up?’

  ‘You think if these men disappear they won’t send more? You think they haven’t discussed it? Written it down on a report or a plan somewhere?’

  ‘Seems to me you fellows don’t know what you want,’ Abraham said. He stood up. ‘I’m heading down to the saw mill. I’ll talk to your fellow, Ike Landreth, like you said Mr Smith. You want me to kill any of these fellows you just walk them on down to the saw mill. If nothing happens in thirty minutes I’ll assume you’re both in jail.’

  ‘No,’ Beecher said. ‘Let me talk to them. You’ll just make it worse.’

  ‘And if you fellows don’t pay me,’ Abraham said. ‘It’ll be worse still.’

  ‘Someone coming,’ Will Baker said.

  The man was wearing a dark suit, with a vest and a gold watch chain. He looked warm. His shaven cheeks were red. He walked out of the office, not too fast, and came towards the gate. He looked up at Will Baker.

  ‘My name is Charles Beecher. I believe you want to see me?’

  ‘You and Mr Smith.’

  ‘Mr Smith isn’t here right now. Would you care to come up to my office?’

  ‘Where’s Smith?’

  ‘It’s a big site.’

  ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  Will Baker looked at the man who had been manning the gate when they had arrived.

  ‘You know Mr Smith?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Baker turned to two of his men. ‘Fellows, you go with. . . Sorry what was your name, sir?’

  ‘Bolton. Bolton, sir.’

  ‘Fellows, you go with Bolton and you find Mr Smith and bring him back here. Back to Mr Beecher’s office.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Beecher asked, his cheeks even redder now, a tremble in his voice.

  ‘You recognize these fellers?’ Baker asked. He nodded at Jim Jackson and Leon Winters.

  ‘No.’

  ‘See, that’s the trouble. Folks like you, you don’t actually look people in the eye when you do them wrong.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will,’ Baker said. He turned to Hero Villemont. ‘H, you just wait here. Anyone looks like they’re making a run for it. . . . Well, you know.’

  ‘Yessir,’ Hero said and winked at Rosalie.

  Baker looked back at Beecher. ‘Let’s go up to your office then, and wait for Mr Smith.’

  Evelyn brought in a large pot of English tea, on a tray, with bone china cups, a small jug of cream, and a silver bowl of sugar lumps. She set the tray down on the polished mahogany table. That table was, Jim thought, almost as big and empty as the plains not far north. Beecher tapped his finger tips on the table top. The table reflected them back better than many a mirror. Beecher’s hand shook when he picked up one of the cups from the tray, and the cup rattled against its saucer.

  ‘You might be interested in these,’ Will Baker said to Jim.

  Jim took a couple of steps over to where Will was looking at several photographs piled on the sideboard. His own photograph. Leon’s, too. And the others.

  ‘What the hell,’ Jim said.

  He turned, and was just about to ask Beecher why he and Smith had these photographs when Leon started coughing blood and, simultaneously, they heard a volley of gunshots from outside in the yard.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ike Landreth thought how easy killing was when you had someone like Abraham telling you what to do, where to stand, and when to do it. Abraham’s voice was low and serene, his body still and tall and commanding. His beard almost biblical. No matter how scared Ike was of pulling the trigger the way Abraham had ordered him to, he was even more scared of disobeying the man. Hell, he wouldn’t have disobeyed the Greek either, if he had still been alive. And no doubt the Greek would have had him shoot the Texas Ranger, too. That was the way with these people. Killing was easy.


  Washington Smith had come down to the vast saw mill a minute before. He’d told the men, all of them to clear out. ‘Leave the saws and the engines running,’ he told them. ‘This won’t take a moment.’

  He’d been carrying a shotgun. A real shiny Winchester with a lever action.

  One of the men, a Polish fellow that Ike knew only as Slav, had looked at that Winchester, and he had looked at Abraham and he’d said to Washington Smith. ‘Do you need some help, boss?’

  Which was how it came to be that Washington Smith was standing there, looking at the spinning blades as if taking a note of how slick his operation was, with Abraham leaning against the brick base of one of the great steam engines, and Ike himself behind the second engine, with that shiny Winchester now in his trembling hands. Behind one of the big circular saw blades was the Slav and two of his European cousins, and over where the main water tank was were two more fellows, a Canadian and a Mexican, and they had guns too, although their guns were still in their waistbands.

  ‘How do you know this is where they’ll look?’ Ike asked Smith.

  ‘They’ll look everywhere,’ Smith said, his voice sounding slightly strange to Ike. There was a hint of a slur to the words but at the same time they rang out hard and clear, as if the tenseness and gravity of the moment was overriding the alcohol that Smith had clearly drunk. ‘And when they get here. This is where they’ll find me.’

  It was only a few minutes later that Bolton Hardy came wandering along with two mean-looking fellers behind him. Bolton was smiling as if he knew exactly what he was doing, but then Bolton was always smiling. That’s why Smith left him on the gate duty most of the time. The two mean looking men were both holding rifles. They walked a few feet behind Bolton and they were turning this way and that as they walked, looking left, right, and behind, fingers real close to the triggers of those rifles. They had on dark coats and dark hats, and it was hard to see their eyes. But the way they walked – they were standing straight and they held themselves as if they knew that whatever was coming they could handle it.

  Bolton walked them right up to the edge of the sawing area. There was a high roof over two very long and wide saw benches. The benches were long enough to hold a whole pine log two times over. The great wheeled blades were halfway along the benches. Metal rods linked to the steam engines turned with a high whine and the saw blades spun round and round, faster or slower depending on how the operator set the pressure and the gears. The logs were pulled slowly forwards with chains and ropes, which themselves were controlled by smaller steam engines. The room was noisy and hot – despite being open to the breeze on all sides.

  ‘There he is,’ Bolton said. ‘That’s Mr Smith right there.’

  The two men followed Bolton’s pointing finger.

  They were just about level with the left cutting blade. They were on the outside of the building, the sun illuminating them as if a clear white light was aimed directly on them.

  One of the men started to lower his rifle in the general direction of Smith. The other, still on his guard, continued his surveillance of just about everything.

  ‘Gentleman,’ Smith said, smiling, stepping away from the bench on which he’d been leaning.

  ‘You’re needed in the office,’ the first of the men said, the one who’s gun was half lowered.

  ‘Shoot them,’ Smith said quietly.

  Ike stepped out from his hiding place, lowering his own gun – Smith’s shotgun – levering a cartridge into the breech, when Abraham’s guns blazed, one in each hand. The Slav and both of his cousins stepped from behind the saw blade and they had guns in their hands, too. They all fired pretty much simultaneously. The Mexican drew as well, but Ike didn’t know if he actually pulled the trigger. Saws were whining and the steam engines were hissing and banging and a furnace door was open on one of them and the heat was burning Ike’s legs and those two men. . . One moment they were standing, full of confidence, albeit a little wary, looking around for trouble, and the next moment there were clouds of blood and flesh exploding from their necks and their backs as the bullets smashed into their bodies and burst outwards into that white light in a red mist. The two men, as if one, crumpled to the ground, a surprised look in their fading eyes.

  And killing was that easy.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Will Baker yelled, and Jim Jackson had no idea if the Ranger was talking to Charles Beecher, or to him, Leon, and Rosalie.

  Leon was still doubled over from the coughing fit, a string of blood suspended from his lips.

  Jim caught his friend’s gaze, nodded, and hoped that the understanding between them was enough, then he raced down the stairs behind Baker.

  The building entrance was on the main thoroughfare of the yard, the gates and their horses to their right, the long railway platform in front of them. A train of flat wagons, most still piled high with lumber, stood at the platform. To their left, beyond the building they’d just stepped out from, the thoroughfare opened up into a wide space, with the massive saw mill over to the right beyond the end of the platform. Jim Jackson saw piles of cut wood, steam engines, several hand coal trucks, water tanks, and lying in the sun light about fifty yards ahead of them, over by the mill, the bodies of Will Baker’s men.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ Baker said. He had his revolver in his hand.

  ‘Get down, boss!’ Hero Villemont yelled. ‘There’s dozens of them!’

  Villemont was crouching by one of the flatbed wagons across the yard.

  ‘Warren and Gid are both dead, boss,’ Villemont said.

  Jim Jackson was in the doorway behind Will Baker. The wound in his shoulder was burning with the sudden exertion, but adrenaline was keeping most of the pain at bay. He held his own gun – Sam McRea’s gun – in his hand.

  The thoroughfare was deserted. Engines still clanked and there was a hiss of steam from the locomotive but there was no one in sight, not even the gateman.

  ‘What happened?’ Baker said, he had darted out of the doorway and was crouched behind a large pile of wooden packing cases, the top one of which was stencilled Chicago Steam Co. ‘They might not be dead.’

  ‘It was like a volley from the army,’ Villemont said. ‘Must have been six or seven people waiting for them.’

  ‘I need to know for sure.’

  ‘Don’t go down there, boss. I’ll go.’

  ‘No. I’ll—’

  ‘I can get down there behind the train,’ Villemont called. Even as he said the words he was stepping out from behind the cover of the wagon, crouching low, and running alongside the train, each flatbed wagon in turn offering him cover as he neared the saw mill.

  Without looking at Jim Jackson, Baker said, ‘I told you to stay put upstairs.’

  ‘We can cover him,’ Jim said. ‘I’ll get the opposite side of the train. They must be down there in the saw mill.’

  ‘If you get killed the paperwork’s going to be horrendous,’ Baker said.

  Villemont was twenty yards along the train now, edging towards the locomotive, which sat quietly smoking and steaming. The whole area was still deserted, seemingly devoid of life. Just the two bodies of the Texas Rangers lying in the sun where they had been ambushed.

  Jim stepped out of the doorway and raced across the open thoroughfare to shelter against the flat wagons where Villemont had been twenty seconds before. He looked back at Baker. The Texas Ranger nodded at him and Jim saw him rising up from behind the Chicago boxes. Then Jim turned, climbed between two wagons and started running towards the area from where the hidden men had shot down the Rangers.

  Even before the echoes of the gunshots had stopped ringing in his ears Washington Smith told Abraham, and anyone else who was listening, that they knew what to do. That he expected them to finish the job. Then he turned and walked as fast as his fifty-year-old legs would carry him across the yard and around the back of the main building. He spied a few workers peering out from the various places hiding places they had rushed to when the first bullets had started fl
ying. Some were peering through windows, others were behind sheds and piles of timber. ‘Just stay out of it,’ he called, waving his hands, palm down. ‘It’ll be over in a minute.’

  He went through the back door of the office, and from a cupboard on the wall, he grabbed a shotgun and a box of shells. He cracked open the gun as he walked through the office where a few of his administration workers looked at him, their faces pale and ghostlike in the dark interior.

  ‘Stay still,’ he said. ‘It’s all in hand.’

  He fumbled two shells from the box and slotted them into the gun barrels as he strode past his own telegraph room and up the back-stairs, his feet sounding loud on the uncarpeted wooden stairs.

  Everything felt unreal. That singular blast of how many guns? Six? Seven? Those Texas Rangers literally disappearing. One moment carefully looking around and the next crumpling as if they were nothing but screwed up paper bags thrown on a fire. It was almost dreamlike. Maybe a drunken memory that you weren’t sure had happened. But it had happened and he now felt invincible. He found himself smiling. This was only the beginning of it. But that was OK. He’d finish what he had to right here and now. Then they could clear up. Hell, within ten minutes with the steam engines and furnaces and saws they had here those men, all of them – including the woman – would just disappear, truly disappear. Maybe then he’d take a ride into town. Talk to Commissioners Reynolds and Johnson. And then what? Hell, he’d worry about that once this situation was taken care of.

  And this situation included Charles Beecher.

  Beecher was the only other one who knew the truth.

  He snapped the barrels of the gun into place and he pushed open the door to his outer office, smiled at Evelyn, who was standing by her window looking out, her face pale.

  Then he burst into his own office.

  Jim Jackson made it as far as the locomotive. He ran through the steam, past the smell of hot oil and he crouched low and pressed himself up against the metal buffers that marked the end of the line. He glanced to the left. There was no sign of Villemont. He must still be behind the other side of the locomotive. From here Jim could more clearly see the bodies of the two Rangers. They were dead for sure. They lay still and blood pooled around them like dark growing shadows. Jim’s hands were slick with fear and his shoulder now sent pulses of pain across his neck and the top of his back. He tried to control his breathing, keep the sound of the air rushing into his burning lungs quiet. At least the engines in the area were still turning, the pipes clanking, valves hissing, a furnace somewhere roaring. Long rods that linked from engines to saw blades were spinning although the blades themselves were still. He could smell burning, coal and fire and gunpowder. He was just about to yell out to Villemont and Baker, wherever they were, to get out of there, that he could clearly see the Rangers were dead, when he noticed the three men standing behind one of the massive circular saw blades. The inside of the saw room was dark. The men were just silhouettes, but silhouettes with guns. Another shape became a man as he shifted his weight in the blackness alongside a steam engine cylinder.