Outlaw Train (15 page)

“Legal ways?”

Raintree gaped a moment, then grinned. “I suppose I cannot take offense at that question. You are, after all, a lawman. To answer you, yes, my means are legal. I display criminals, Marshal, but I am not one myself. Consider me a seller, not a buyer. Unless what I’m buying is something that can become part of my Outlaw Train.”

Luke was still staring at the ugly piece of severed meat that once had been the right arm of one of Scar Nolan’s younger brothers. “What are you thinking about, Marshal?” Raintree asked.

“I’m thinking about a couple of things. One is the warning I need to give you.”

“Please. I’m listening.”

Luke looked the tattooed showman in the eye. “I spent today leading a posse, looking for an escapee from my own jail. We looked all day with no luck. Know who that prisoner was?”

“I’ll take a guess: Kate Bender.”

It was Luke’s turn to gape. “Kate Bender? Why would you guess
that
name?”

“My associate, Mr. Anubis, stumbled across some story regarding the woman in your town communicating with spirits. There are those who believe she is actually the infamous Miss Bender, it would seem.”

“I’ve heard the same speculation, which to my knowledge is all it is. Speculation. The escapee we chased today was not her. It was Scar Nolan.”

“You are sure?”

“I can’t prove it. He claims the name of Wesson. But I’m confident he is Scar Nolan. And I doubt I need to say what my concern is regarding what his attitude might be toward your Outlaw Train here.”

“He might be resentful regarding the display of his brother’s lost arm and hand,” Raintree said.

“Yes. And believe me, you don’t want such a one as Scar Nolan angry with you. I saw what he did to my jailer. Killed him bare-handed through the bars of his cell.”

“I’ll be quite cautious, Marshal, and thank you for the warning.”

Luke squinted at the ruin of an arm. “How do you keep it from decaying?” he asked.

“Therein lies the contribution of Mr. Anubis. He possesses certain ancient skills he applies to keep flesh from decaying beyond the most superficial degradation.”

Interesting, Luke thought, suddenly pondering the mysterious mummified leg Charlie Bays’s son had found beside the railroad tracks. It might be worthwhile to have a conversation with this Anubis fellow.

Luke noted a vacant spot in the crowded display. “What’s supposed to be there?” he asked.

“That’s where the preserved corpse of the late Tennessee Kid usually is seated,” Raintree replied. “He is one of our best displays, a favorite of the public. One of our more recent additions, too.”

“Where is he now?”

“He is in your town, on a wagon seat, being paraded about by Mr. Anubis in hope of drawing visitors
to our train,” Raintree replied. “Tennessee’s head, of course, is covered, given that the poor fellow died from a shotgun blast to the face. That’s not something we’re willing to show the public. Our goal is to entertain, not to sicken.”

“That blown-off arm there comes close enough to sickening, as far as I’m concerned,” Luke said, nodding at the ugly display. “There’s another thing you’ve got I’m interested in: the thing on the sign outside. The jar with the crumbled-up skull of Micajah Harpe.”

Raintree’s mind worked fast. He knew what was probably prompting the marshal’s interest in that particular item, and it was important to handle the situation carefully.

“I know why you ask. You ask because the jar was formerly in possession of a Kentucky family named Keely,” Raintree ventured. “Am I right? And that same Keely family is the family of your own missing town marshal.”

“Exactly. So naturally I have to wonder how you came into possession of that item, and if it has anything to do with the fact that Ben Keely has not returned to Kansas.”

“Marshal, I obtained that jar…you can see it over there…directly from Ben Keely himself. I had tracked the lore of the Harpes for some time and had learned the name of the family into whose hands the jar had passed, and where they could be found. I paid a visit to Kentucky and was fortunate enough to locate Marshal Keely in a backwoods restaurant. We talked and he agreed to sell me the jar of bone.”

“Did he say anything about returning to Kansas? Because he has not done that.”

“Our discussion didn’t run in that direction. We shook hands, passed the jar, parted, and that was the end of the story. I am surprised to learn he has not come back here.”

“Well, maybe he has. I think I saw him today.”

Raintree seemed to freeze. “Saw Marshal Keely?”

“Yes. From a distance, admittedly, but it appeared to be him. And I’m not the only one who saw him today, or for that matter, earlier. My own jailer, for one, saw a rider he swears was Ben, near the jailhouse.”

“I…I don’t think…I…”

“What’s wrong, Mr. Raintree? Why do you seem so surprised? If you parted from Ben Keely in Kentucky, maybe he just decided it was time to return.”

“Uh…yes. Yes. You are right, of course.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Mr. Raintree? You seem shocked at the notion of Ben Keely being back in Kansas.”

“No, no, sir. I’ve told you all I know.”

“Truth is, Mr. Raintree, I’m surprised Ben would sell that Harpe jar to you. When he was leaving Wiles he talked about how much he wanted to bring that back with him, to remember his father by. It was an important item to his father, it seems.”

“All I can tell you is that he did sell it to me, Marshal. Every man has his price. Beyond that, I know nothing of what he did or whether he has come back here, or sprouted wings and flown off to the moon.”

“Why are you angry, sir?”

“I’m…I’m not. I apologize. Tense days, these, with business being slack.”

Luke looked around a few moments more, pausing longest at the Harpe jar, though there was little there to look at. “Thank you for showing me around, Mr. Raintree. And good luck with your train here, and in the future. And do keep a lookout for anybody coming around who could be Scar Nolan. I don’t know he’d cause you a problem, but I got a feeling he might.”

“Thank you, Marshal. Good evening to you.”

“Maybe I’ll see your partner when I get back to town.”

“Maybe so. He’ll be easy to spot. He’ll be the one on a wagon with a dead outlaw beside him.”

Luke began to leave, but turned suddenly. “One more thing, Mr. Raintree. There was a leg found very recently beside the railroad tracks on the far side of Wiles. A cut-off leg.”

“Interesting. Terrible reality of railroads, how sometimes people are struck and mangled.”

“This leg had been surgically removed. And it was preserved. And I mean well preserved. Like that severed arm you got displayed there. And the leg was found right about the same time your Outlaw Train here would have been rolling through these parts on its way to this particular sidetrack.”

“Marshal, I know nothing about any such thing.” Raintree paused and grinned. “It’s good that our friend the Tennessee Kid isn’t here to listen to us. He might want to borrow that leg to replace his own.”

Luke gave an obligatory chuckle and again started to leave. But again he paused and turned.

“Mr. Raintree, just what kind of trousers are on the corpse of the Tennessee Kid?”

“I…I don’t recall. I’ve never thought to pay attention. Why?”

Luke shrugged. “No reason. Just asking.”

He left.

Luke had moved only twenty feet away from the train when it hit him. He couldn’t have said what “it” was, though, because it came so fast and without warning. A sense of being physically jolted from head to toe, a flashing pain and a brilliant flash of light, and suddenly he was on the ground, blacking out before he even had time to finish the thought:
I’ve just been struck by lightning.

But hadn’t been that it. What had struck him was the butt of a Henry rifle, one stolen out of the town of Wiles marshal’s office by the man now bearing it: Scar Nolan. Nolan had crept out from behind the Outlaw Train as Luke left, and had sneaked silently behind the lawman as he led his horse away, getting ready to mount and finally return to town as the rest of his posse had already done.

Nolan looked down at Luke Cable’s senseless form and grinned. “Looks like you found me, Marshal,” he said softly. “And you thought I was gone for good. Sorry I had to disappoint you.” Nolan chuckled. “I got some advice for you, lawman. You need to get yourself some better posse members, and better jailers. It was easy as could be, breaking that stupid fellow’s neck back in your jailhouse. And just as easy to give your posse the slip. Hell, Marshal, I watched you boys most of the day, watched
you running around like no-headed chickens, biggest pack of fools I ever run across! You might want to find you another line of work, Mr. Marshal. I don’t think you’re cut out for this one.”

Luke Cable, who could hear none of it, groaned unconsciously and earned himself another clout to the head for it. Then Scar Nolan dragged him away to a nearby small stand of trees, and set Luke up against one of them. He pulled the marshal’s arms back and tied his wrists together on the opposite side of the tree, using a length of rope taken from Luke’s own saddlebag. He tied off Luke’s horse to a bush.

Then Scar Nolan glanced up at the murky sky, watched a bolt of lightning fire down to some point on the mostly flat horizon, and shook his head.

“Lordy, Marshal, for your sake I hope none of that lightning hits this here tree,” he said. Then, laughing to himself, he headed back toward the display car of the Outlaw Train.

It was time to settle a small point of Nolan family honor.

Percival Raintree was occupied with dusting off a neglected area of the exhibit when Scar Nolan opened the door and entered the museum car.

“Did you forget something, Marshal?” Raintree asked before he looked to see that the intruder was not his previous visitor. He froze, breathless, as the big man with the scarred face walked in and stared coldly at him.

“I’m no marshal, not by a long shot,” Nolan said. “My name is Nolan, though lately I’ve gone by the
name of Wesson just to make it a little easier to get by without trouble. But I’ve got to tell you, sir, that trouble has now come to you and your little curiosity train here.”

Imprudent though it was to do it, Raintree couldn’t restrain himself from glancing at the ugly display showing the severed hand and arm portion from Billy Nolan, one of Scar’s brothers. Nolan’s eyes followed Raintree’s, and his gaze locked on the preserved and ragged piece of flesh and bone.

“So it’s true, what I’ve heard,” Nolan said. “You truly are using the flesh of my own kin to make yourself money off their misfortune.”

“You are Scar Nolan, sir?” Raintree said.

“I am. And I’ve come to set right the wrong you’ve done to my family.”

“All I’ve done, sir, is to display items of interest to the public. It is a legitimate business that meets a demand of the people, and no dishonor is intended.”

“Well, I don’t like it, my poor brother’s hand being showed off like that, and I know my dear mother and his wouldn’t have liked it. I’ll have you take that down now, sir, and turn it over to me.”

Raintree, though, had other ideas, though he would have to move quickly if he was to carry them out. Scar Nolan was a criminal, a murderer, arguably the worst of the Nolan brothers…and having the preserved corpse of such a man would be a far greater coup than anything he had achieved so far.

“Very well, sir,” Raintree said, pulling a key from his pocket and moving toward the display case containing the blown-off, damaged hand. But as he turned to the side, he slipped the key back into his
pocket, seized the pitchfork that had taken the life of gunfighter Curly Drake, and without hesitation or allowance of any time for Scar Nolan to see what was coming, jammed the tines of the implement into Nolan’s chest. He drove in hard, aiming for the area of the heart.

Nolan squeaked and groaned and staggered back, eyes bulging in pain and horror, staring at his killer in utter surprise. Raintree shoved the pitchfork again, and just as he went down to the floor of the railroad car, Nolan pulled a pistol from his belt and used the final three seconds of his waning life to shoot Percival Raintree through the forehead, splattered blood and brain across the colorful displays of the Outlaw Train.

Both men died at almost the same moment, neither living long enough to hear the incredibly loud roaring noise that suddenly surrounded the railroad cars.

The twister, massive, black, and powerful, lifted the Outlaw Train from the side track, pitched it about in the air like a bad child abusing his toy, and smashed it back to the earth, breaking it open like an eggshell and dumping the relics of dead outlaws all about on the ground and sending them flying like autumn leaves through the air.

Dewitt Stamps laid his open Bible flat on the desktop and rubbed his tired eyes. “Lord, help me this evening,” he murmured softly, but aloud. “I’m drawn toward sin this evening. Help me, Lord, to stay strong.”

The window above the desk, which faced the street, rattled in a burst of wind, startling the jailer. Dewitt jumped and sucked in his breath sharply, and listened in alarm as the wind continued to shake the pane. It rose from a steady humming to nearly a howl.

Dewitt stood and shuddered, partly from a cool wind that had found its way in around the edges of the loose pane, partly because of an inner nervousness that made him cold.

“Lord, Luke, when you coming back?” he asked the empty room. “Your posse came back two hours ago. So where are you?”

He went out onto the jail porch to make a better assessment of just how strong the wind was likely to grow. If a damaging storm, or worse, struck the town, those in the marshal’s office would have many duties and public expectations thrown at them…and Dewitt wasn’t sure he was up to that kind
of task. Where was Luke? Why had he not come back?

“Lord, I need help,” he said. “This is more of a task than I can bear. Send me help, Lord. Send Luke home.”

Movement on the street made him turn his head, and he saw a rider coming his way. Luke? He looked closely and saw that, no, it was not Luke…but it hardly mattered. Dewitt’s heart raced with happiness to see what appeared to be an answer to his prayer appearing right before him.

He stepped down from the porch and walked toward the rider with a big smile on his face. “Ben, is that you? Is that really you? Have you come back at last? Ben! It’s me, Dewitt! I’m working as a jailer now, thanks to Luke! Working right in your old office!”

The rider said nothing, but plodded closer. The impression that this was Ben Keely continued with Dewitt, but when the horse, which certainly looked like Ben’s horse that Dewitt had rubbed down many times back in his days as a stable worker, made its final step and was gently reined to a halt, he suddenly wasn’t so sure. Ben Keely was a man of small frame, certainly, but this individual struck him as even thinner. And when the dismounted rider stepped up onto the porch and looked Dewitt in the face, Dewitt was stricken with puzzlement and astonishment.

The face was remarkably like that of Ben, and the posture and general aura…but what Dewitt had taken to be a dust of whiskers on the cheeks and chin proved now to be a mere coating of grime.

And the eyes…they were like Ben’s in a way, but more richly lashed…feminine.

“Hello, Mr. Cable,” the newcomer said, and Dewitt might have choked in surprise. This was not Ben Keely, not by a far stretch.

This was a woman.

“I’m…I’m not Mr. Cable,” he said, voice faltering. “Mr. Cable is the marshal…well, the fill-in marshal. I’m just a jailer. My name is Dewitt Stamps.”

The woman reached up and took off her hat. There was no sudden spill of hair…this woman’s hair was chopped short, extending no farther than the lobes of her ears.

She put out her hand toward Dewitt. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Stamps. My name is Bess Keely. Marshal Ben Keely is my brother, my twin, in fact, and I came to town hoping I would find him.”

“Well…come in, Miz Keely. Come in!”

Back inside the jail office, Dewitt did his best to play both insightful questioner and gracious host. He offered to build a fire in order to brew coffee for his visitor, but Bess declined.

“How did you know to ask for Luke Cable?” Dewitt queried.

“My brother was with me in Kentucky a while back,” Bess said. “He told us he’d left his deputy, Luke Cable, in charge of the office in his absence. I remembered the name, and that’s who I expected to find here. I’m sorry, Mr. Stamps, but I don’t think Ben mentioned your name.”

“That’s because it was Luke who hired me, after Ben had already left and been gone a while,” Dewitt
said. “Ben don’t know I work in this office now.”

Bess looked forlornly at the toes of her own boots, thrust out before her. She was slumped in her chair, looking anything but ladylike in dress, attitude, and posture. Dewitt felt no surprise at all when she reached into a pocket and pulled out a cigar. She looked like the kind of female who would smoke a cigar. He lit it for her.

“I’m worried, Dewitt,” she said, puffing. “Worried that something has happened to my brother.”

“Everybody here’s been worrying the same thing,” Dewitt said. “It don’t seem like Ben to keep himself away like he has.”

“I fear he never left Kentucky, Dewitt. May I call you Dewitt?”

“ ‘Course you can, ma’am.”

“Call me Bess. ‘Ma’am’ ain’t something I’m used to.”

Dewitt was awash with curiosity about this strange woman. Why did she dress as she did? Why did she have such a masculine look and manner? Dewitt had heard Ben, in the past, talk about how he and his sister were not close, and how she was “odd” in some unspecified manner that created division within the family. Dewitt was beginning to suspect he was seeing some of that oddness right now.

“If Ben didn’t leave Kentucky, why did you travel so far looking for him?” Dewitt asked. “Wouldn’t you have seen him still there?”

“What I should have said was, I fear he might not have left Kentucky
alive.
”

“Oh no. What are you thinking?”

“I talked with a man back home, a fellow named Bug Otis, old family friend, who had a meal with Ben right before Ben was going to the station to leave on the train heading to Kansas. There was a stranger who came and talked to the two of them, but mostly to Ben, trying to get Ben to sell him something that our family has owned for years, and that Ben had just gotten as an inheritance from our father. A jar, with the crumbled skull bone of a famous outlaw in it.”

“I’ve heard talk about that. The Harpe’s head jar, I think it was called.”

“That’s it. Well, Bug said that Ben refused to sell it to this man, which don’t surprise me at all. He was proud to have inherited it, and I don’t think he would sell it. But anyway, Ben never showed up to get on the train. And his horse was found roaming on a back road some ways from Mutton Smith’s restaurant, which was where he and Bug had ate that meal together.”

Dewitt puzzled over it a moment, then said, “Oh no, you don’t think that other fellow followed Ben out and, and…and killed him to get that Harpe jar, do you?”

“That’s exactly what I fear, Dewitt. Exactly. Especially when I found out from the railroad stationmaster that he’d gotten a wire or two from Wiles, Kansas, asking why Ben had never showed up back here. That’s what made me decide I’d best come have a look myself.”

“Why’d you take so long to show yourself once you got here? I caught a glance of you one time, off
through some trees, and some others saw you from a distance and thought they were seeing Ben. Why didn’t you come here to the office sooner than now? Seems like maybe…” Dewitt cut off speaking as a particularly loud clap of thunder shook the town. The glass in the jail office window rattled loudly.

Bess puffed her cigar until the coal was bright. “I didn’t show myself right off because I wasn’t sure how I was going to proceed with things,” she said. “You see, the fellow who tried to buy that Harpe jar from Ben is a traveling showman, that’s what Bug told me, and it ended up that fellow had come right here to Kansas himself, with his show train. And the truth is, I had it in mind to keep myself hid away, and track that showman for a while, and if I learned he’d killed my brother, by God, I was going to kill him in turn. Does it surprise you to hear me say that, Deputy?”

“I reckon not. But it still seems like you could have come and told Luke you was here.”

“At that time I had it figured I was likely going to kill a man. You don’t go announcing yourself to the local law when you’re thinking about such a thing as that.”

“I reckon you wouldn’t. So why are you telling me now?”

“Because I’ve given up the notion of murder. I ain’t got it in me to do that. Don’t get me wrong…I care about my brother, even though me and him had a big falling-out and never had much to say to each other…but won’t become a murderer over him. I ain’t willing to pay that price.”

“Well, you’re thinking right. Murder is wrong, ‘cording to God’s word.”

“You’re a religious man, I take it?”

“I reckon you could say that. I used to be a bad man, drinking a lot, but this old sheep has found his way into the fold. And I want to stay there, and live right and holy…but lately it’s been hard to not want to go back to my old ways. I want a drink mighty bad. Mighty bad.” He shook his head. “But that would go against God’s word.”

Bess Keely smiled oddly. “I can show you, right in the Bible itself, where you might be wrong about that.”

Dewitt gave her a wry look. “I got my doubts you can do that, Miz Keely.”

“Call me Bess. And yes, I can do that. You got a Bible here?”

“Always keep one nearby.” He reached over to the desk and produced his battered, much-handled copy, which he handed to Bess Keely.

Dewitt couldn’t help judging her familiarity with the book by how deftly, or in her case, undeftly, she found what she was looking for. She flipped about randomly for more than a minute before finally narrowing in within a range of a few pages.

“Here it is,” she said, smiling triumphantly and pointing at a particular verse. “I
knew
it was there! Want me to read it, or you want to read it yourself?”

“Go ahead and read it,” he said.

Bess reached over and cranked up the wick of the oil lamp that illuminated the office, cleared her throat, and read: “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of
heavy hearts.” She looked up at Dewitt. “See? There’s some Bible for you. If you are heavy-hearted, feeling ready to perish, go get yourself a drink. Bible tells you to.”

Dewitt frowned and struggled for something to say, but could find nothing. Finally he said, “Let me see that,” and grabbed the Bible from her. He scanned over the page, and she watched him move his lips as he read silently.

“I’ll be!” he said, looking up at her. “You’re right! I thought you’d just made that up.” He looked back down at the page as his mind absorbed it. “Bess, I’m going to run down to the saloon and buy myself a drink. First one in four years.”

“I’ll go fetch it for you,” she offered. “That way you can still see to the office here. Four years! Mister, you must be dry as dust.”

“I am. You’re mighty kind, ma’am. I mean, Bess.”

“I do my best. I’ll be back shortly.”

When she was gone, Dewitt read the verse again and again. At last he set the Bible aside.

“Lord,” he prayed out loud in the empty office, “I know I promised you I’d not drink liquor no more. But I reckon there must be no sin in it after all, if it’s right there in your word. I’m heavy of heart, Lord. I’ll only drink a little, Lord. Just a little. I promise.”