Sentinels (7 page)

“To let other Klansmen know this is what could happen to them.”

“Klan could've gotten the same message had they gone ahead and killed him.”

“That leads me to my second theory.”

“And what would that be?”

“They want him to think about what happened to his friends—let that set in real good before they finish the job. They ain't done with him. Just a theory.” The freedman swished tobacco around in his mouth before spitting the juice away from Noah. “Whoever did it, I like 'em—I feel bad for the soldiers, or course. But they brought death to them others,
and
it rained last night.” The freedman spread his arms and twirled to get Noah to look at the wheat and the water droplets clinging to the stalks. “Them boys might be good luck.”

Noah waved the man away, about to resume plopping bodies in the bed when he made a beeline for the sheriff.

Cole, hunched over a lower half of a Klansman's body, dragging it by the boots to the wagon, saw the deputy's approach and dropped the feet.

“Slouching on me?”

“Nossir, not at all. Did it rain in town last night?”

“I'm sorry?”

“It rained here a good amount,” Noah said.

“That's not hard to see.”

“My wife and I didn't get a drop at our place. We don't live that far from here.”

Cole stood upright, resting his hands on his hips and thought.

“Nah, no rain. At least I don't recall it. Road wasn't muddy like it is here. But what do you care? You don't grow anything at your place.”

“I know that. Just curious.” Noah walked past a body he meant to haul but mounted his horse instead.

“The hell you doing?” Cole said.

“I won't be but a minute or two.” He rode Wilbur down the road from whence the dead soldiers came and doubled back toward town but stopped near where Elkton's property ended. He looked things over, returned to the mess, hitched Wilbur to a fencepost and resumed stacking bodies. Cole lifted a severed right arm into the wagon bed at the same moment Noah rested a head next to it.

“What the hell was that all about?”

“You mean my ride? I was curious, that's all.”

“You think we missed some parts?”

“Not at all. It rained here.”

“That's well established, Noah.”

“No, I mean it rained
here,
and only here. On Elkton's property. I'm guessing if we walked back as far as the wheat goes we'll find dry land just over the perimeter.”

Cole said nothing.

Noah pointed down both ends of the road, waiting for Cole to look. “The mudwater ends just beyond where Elkton's fencing turns a corner.”

“That's odd,” Cole said.

“Yeah,” Noah said. “It is.”

Chapter Eight

Lyle, Brendan and Franklin stood at the base of the ten-step stone stairwell leading into Thomas Diggs's mansion. Diggs, lording over the three, paced back and forth as if he were on a stage.

“Do you find it at all coincidental that those hicks were brutally killed one night after you three bungled your assignment?” Diggs had earlier been in town when the covered wagon, its white canopy appearing to be a deranged artist's bloody canvas, headed to the undertaker's. Traffic on Main Street had stopped. Passersby and shop keeps on each side of the road fell silent as the wagon creaked by. Deacons sat next to the ashen-faced kid driver. Cole and his deputies, and the horse-mounted soldiers, brought up the rear of the grim procession.

“You mean, like, you figure whoever attacked us killed those Klansmen and the Army guys?” Franklin said.

“Outstanding, Franklin!” Diggs clapped. “How silly of me for thinking Lyle or Brendan or any of the horses that you rode in on would answer me first. That's precisely what I am figuring.”

“Mister Diggs,” Franklin said, genuinely confused. “How would the horses even answer?”

Lyle and Brendan watched their feet and sighed as Franklin continued. “I mean, a horse could stamp its hoof once for yes or two times for no. I think a parrot would have an easier time answering—”

“Franklin!” Diggs waited for the big man to quiet. “Let Brendan and Lyle worry about thinking and speaking for you from this point on. In fact, I think Desiree has brewed a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. Why don't you go inside and have some?”

“Yes
sir
!” Franklin jumped two steps at a time.

“Just don't touch anything!” Diggs snapped as Franklin slid through the front door.

“Now, gentlemen, back to my earlier thought.” Diggs walked halfway down the steps.

“You think Toby Jenkins and Leroy Elkton are in on this somehow?” Lyle said. “Coordinating? But how the hell would either of them know when us or the Klan would make our moves? And did they not realize there were two scalawags in the mix?”

“How indeed.” Diggs resumed his pacing.

“But we didn't tell a soul, Mister Diggs,” Brendan said. “Ain't no way anyone could've known we were coming. You asked Lyle to do the job, he contacted us that day and we went that same night.”

“He's right. We didn't meet in town or nothing,” Lyle said.

“Then that means Toby Jenkins is skilled at keeping up his guard,” Diggs said. “This, when you think about it, makes sense—I'm certain you three stellar examples of sophistication were not the first group to try to make trouble for him. Are we certain those negroes who live on the Elkton farm weren't the murderers?”

Lyle raised his hand to respond but before he could:

“Don't answer that.” Diggs wagged his finger at the two. “How would you know? You most certainly wouldn't. But I suspect the sheriff and his merry men will take further interest in what happened at Toby Jenkins's home, and thanks to Franklin, Sheriff Cole or one of his minions will seek to speak with you, again. Now, I have ways of finding out what the lawmen know—that doesn't concern you, though. But should my typical channels of information somehow be closed, I want you three—” Diggs furrowed his brow like he was solving trigonometry in his head— “check that, I want you
two
—dump Franklin into a mine shaft for all I care—to see what you can glean from the sheriff or whoever it is who interrogates you. In fact, don't even tell Franklin I want you to do this because I'm quite certain he'd manage to confess that he was on Toby's property and that he's really sorry and that it won't happen again. As far as the law is concerned, you weren't there. You experienced a hunting accident like you so brilliantly said. Franklin was at home sleeping. How hard is that to bungle? But ask questions to elicit answers from the sheriff. At least try to.”

“Mister Diggs, so
what
if this is connected?” Lyle said.

“I want that negro's property. And if Elkton and Jenkins are—how do you Americans say it?—in cahoots with one another, then it requires some creative planning on my part. But not right away. The Army will be out in full force tonight, and for the foreseeable future until this all dies down. And as inbred and stupid as Klansmen are, even
they
wouldn't be foolish enough to seek revenge so soon after the last night's shenanigans. We all must wait, but
while
we wait, we will make prudent use of our time.”

“Understood,” Lyle said. Brendan nodded.

“Very good,” Diggs said and then sighed. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to rid my house of Franklin and his odor. Be a dear, both of you, and wait here for him.”

“Ain'tcha gonna invite us inside for a cool glass of sweet tea?” Lyle said with a smile.

“
Fine
. One glass each.” Diggs grimaced at the prospect of such filthy men soiling his abode. He got Lyle's attention before he entered. “Take the glasses with you.”

Chapter Nine

“What do you expect me to do with them?” Brady Young, Henderson's undertaker, directed the soldiers to park the wagon behind his office building, a lonely two-story structure hidden by a hangman's oak and some evergreens off a Main Street side road.

“I didn't know where else to take them,” said the young coachman. “I mean, it ain't like a battlefield funeral, unless you want us to dig a ditch and throw them in and mark it. Except for the soldiers, I don't know who they are.”

“Someone does.” Noah Chandler stayed mounted on his horse next to the wagon. “Sheriff Cole's back in town, and he expects word will spread enough so that whoever knows these gentlemen and finds out they didn't come home last night will stop by the office for any news.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” said Young, a scrawny, bespectacled, sixty-year-old imp of man, whose head came up to Noah's chest. “Lay out the bodies and try mixing and matching the parts? Good Lord, you're asking me to solve a human jigsaw puzzle.”

“We can't have their loved ones poking their heads in the back of a wagon, Mister Young,” Noah said. “That's unseemly.”

“You don't understand, there's no way I can embalm this—uh—
assortment
. And I'm not about to try to figure out which arm or head goes with which body.”

“The deputy's right, sir,” said Deacons, the wagon's passenger. “There's no way you can ask some potentially grieving widow to keep plucking heads out of the wagon to see if it belongs to her husband. This ain't like trying to pick the ripest melon. I'm thinking you should lay out the seven heads and the bodies with heads right next to each other, and keep 'em covered.”

“And where do you want me to do this? In my office? I don't have the room. I've got
one
table.”

“Deputy Chandler, I counted three bodies with heads and four severed heads,” Deacons said. “Maybe it's possible to place the torsos on the doc's table and strategically place the heads—”

Young raised his hands to halt the conversation.

“First, I am not a doctor, and you're asking me to arrange my embalming table to look like an offering to Satan. No
sir
.” Young, a transplant from Maine, ran his hands through a tangle of gray wiry hair. “The best I can do is line them up like the soldier said, and underneath a tree for some shade. They're gonna start stinking in this heat. Hell, they already are.” Young stood at the rear of the wagon and waved his hand through a vortex of flies.

“Closest morgue to us is at the hospital in Greenville,” Noah said. “We could make that trip and drop off the bodies, but I think it's cruel to ask whoever's attached to them to travel that distance.”

“What's next? Do you think I'm going to use my bed sheets to cover them?”

“Ain't you got a bunch of tarps back there?”

“No, I
ain't
got any. Well, a couple, but nowhere near enough to properly display this—”

“Assortment.” Noah completed the sentence. “Tell you what, I'll head into town and buy some sheets or blankets. The good taxpayers of Henderson will spring for it.”

“Might as well just get pillowcases,” the coachman said under his breath.

Young glared at the kid while Noah continued. “I'll play it safe and get more than we need to properly cover them. Look, I know we're dealing with the same piles of excrement we fought against, but if you think it's wise to treat your fallen brothers' remains with reverence and the Klansmen's like shit—in a town full of people who hate us—then be my guest, but don't ask me to cover your butts when their hysterical relatives come after you.”

The kid looked at his feet and said nothing.

“Doc—sorry, Mister Young,” Noah said. “I'll be back with the supplies as soon as I can. In the meantime, please work with what you got. Whatever sheets of yours you can spare, please get them. These two fine soldiers will be happy to assist you.”

Deacons and the kid groaned in unison.

“All right, please hurry,” said Young, casually attired in brown pants and a white shirt. “Allow me to get properly dressed. I hate wearing black in this heat, but I, like you, realize the importance of professionalism, Deputy Chandler.”

The men turned their attention to a lone individual, a woman wearing a white bonnet and field dress. She held the reins of two horses that pulled a small uncovered wagon down the side street toward the undertaker's. Even though they stood a distance away from her, Noah and the men saw her aggrieved expression when she spotted the wagon holding what they guessed was her disassembled husband.

Young turned to the soldiers. “Gentlemen, start picking some cantaloupes.”

Noah galloped away, passing the woman and tipping his hat to her, not wanting to discuss with Young where the bodies could be stored overnight should no one claim them.

Chapter Ten

“How's he doing?” Noah Chandler looked at Robert Culliver's sedated body splayed on Doctor Richardson's operating table. He opted for a quick stop at the doctor's office before buying the sheets. The physician had stripped the injured Klansman of everything save for his white undershorts. He'd also placed cold, wet rags on his forehead and neck to combat the heat.

“Cleaned the wound a bit better. I re-stitched him—took my time,” Richardson said. “Someone cut him good—a few inches deeper, based on the direction of the slice, and it would've yanked everything out.”

“He say anything?”

“In his fleeting moments of lucidity I got his name, Robert Culliver, and asked him what happened? He kept sputtering something about wraiths.”

“Do what now?”

“Wraiths—death, like the Grim Reaper,” Richardson said. “I don't know if he was referring to their appearances or weapons—I'd say weapons, as these men weren't shot. Based on the cursory looks I gave to the bodies, I saw no powder burns.”

“Me neither, I'm assuming we all know what they look like by now.” Noah directed the conversation back to what mattered. “Did he describe these wraiths in any more detail?”

“Sorry, deputy. He grabbed me by the collar when I was examining him and just kept mumbling ‘wraiths, like the dead.' Over and over, just like that. Oh, and ‘that Mexican should be dead. Rain washed him off my face. How can he live?' Then he passed out. Probably for the best. Did you find a Mexican out there?”

The doctor saw Noah's frustration. “No.”

“And I haven't treated one. Keep in mind, deputy, this man could be hallucinating.”

“Yeah, I know. I'd like to be able to tell the sheriff and, consequently, the public, a little bit more than to keep an eye out for an injured Mexican and some wraiths, and report them if you see them.” Noah bit his lower lip and arched an eyebrow. “What'd he mean by washing a Mexican off his face?”

The doctor shrugged. “I haven't the earthliest idea. I'll keep my ears open to anything and everything he says.”

Noah eyed Culliver. “Could he take a turn for the worse?”

“I need to watch his fever,” Richardson said. “He has one, which is to be expected, but he doesn't seem so bad now. He's been kept away from insects. I doubt he'll contract dysentery or that the wound will become gangrenous, but one never knows. It's amazing what you can accomplish when your hands and clothes are clean, your patients aren't discarded on planks, and bullets and cannonballs aren't flying overhead.”

“I'm gonna send a deputy over here to watch him, Doc, if you don't mind.”

“By all means. I suppose the people who did this might want to finish the job, so to speak.” Richardson placed his finger on Culliver's neck to check his pulse.

“Steady, strong.” He nodded at the sleeping Culliver. “Keep it up.”

“I'll send over Harrison, the one you rode with.” Noah opened the door to leave through the waiting area. “I doubt the sheriff will mind. Better a deputy than a soldier. It'd only make you more of a target.”

“It's getting bad out there, Deputy Chandler. It's tense enough with these Klansmen dead. The Army doesn't like seeing its own killed, either. Be careful.”

Noah left, his last thought being
How bad could it be?

A white man wearing wide-brimmed straw hat brought down a black man with a right-hand uppercut. The skirmish erupted in the middle of Main Street.

“Get up, boy. It's on account of you my brother's dead.”

“I ain't killed your brother!” The black man's back was to the ground. He'd propped himself up on his elbows. “I don't even
know
your brother. I just came to get a drink, that's all.”

“Really? Who else but you boys would wipe out Klansmen like that? Maybe you got carried away when those soldiers tried to break it all up.”

Noah placed his hands on his hips and shook his head.
It's never easy.

The white man took up a boxer's stance. His spear-shaped left hand looked out of place, as if he was going to karate chop—and not punch. The black glove covering the hand told Noah all he needed.
Prosthetic hand. War veteran. Probably drunk.

“Well, I was going that way anyhow,” Noah grumbled. Then he noticed the six-shooter strapped to the white man's leg, and that the black man lay defenseless. He ran to them before it escalated to shooting.

“I've had enough of you niggers taking our land, taking our jobs, spending our money, and fucking
our
whores. If I swing for this, so be it. I got no more family anyways.” The pugilist dropped his stance and drew his piece in a fluid motion.

Noah stopped twenty feet away, drew his Colt, fired square at the white man's torso, and completely missed.

The bullet sizzled through the corner of the barber shop's window. The sound of cracking glass echoed down the street as women screamed.

The gunman and the black man both twisted their heads toward Noah. Fred Greeley, the barber, stormed out of his shop and into the road.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Greeley yelled at Noah after seeing the smoking tip of his Colt pointed in the general direction of the window.

Street traffic halted. The men, women and children who didn't want to get shot scurried indoors.

Noah, coming to grips with the population of Henderson realizing what a horrible shot he was, tried regaining control.

“That was a warning shot,” he barked to the gunman as he steadied his Colt. “Put down your gun, now.”

“Warning shot my sweaty white ass. You couldn't shoot a horse even if you shoved a gun in its mouth. Butt out. This is between me and the nigger.”

“Nossir, it ain't,” Noah shouted it as one word. He thumbed back his Colt's hammer, slowly letting the revolver cock to assure he held the gunman's attention. “Trust me, you won't get away with shooting an innocent man dead in the street with the law watching. This ain't Mississippi.”

“Why'd my brother have to get hacked up like that?” The clearly inebriated gunman looked about thirty. “Why'd he have to survive the War only to see his state degraded by these animals?”

Noah spied in the distance Lyle, Brendan and Franklin emerging from the Tavern, along with the other patrons who'd heard the ruckus. Everyone would see and hear how the town's new deputy would resolve the mess.

“I lost my brother too.” Noah trained his revolver on the gunman, who nervously jiggled his piece over the petrified black man. “Killed at Fort Sumter right in front of my eyes as I bled on the ground. I couldn't do nothing for him. But that's what happened.”

“Hurts like hell not having him, don't it?!” The gunman's voice cracked. A single tear trickled down his cheek.

“Does to this day, but I moved on, hard as it was—and still is. And that's what you're gonna have to do if you want a chance at a meaningful life. Put down the gun.”

The white man looked at the black man and then back at Noah.

“I won't miss twice,” Noah said.

“Thought you said it was a warning shot.” The gunman knew a city would watch either his last moments of life or what could be perceived as a cowardly act of surrender. Deep down he wanted to live. The gunman devised a grand finale that, while dramatic, outwardly seemed a bad idea as the rum drowning his brain helped orchestrate it: Cock the gun pointed at the black man, wait a few seconds as if mulling the ramifications of the act, ease down the hammer to indicate he'd spare the life, then toss aside the weapon, but keep staring daggers at the black man. Then say, “I surrender.” He had a plan.

The gunman looked at the black man breathing heavy on the ground and then cocked the revolver.

Noah aimed and fired at what he thought was the gunman's ribs but instead shot him on the back of his trigger hand.

He screamed as the bullet split apart the bones, forcing him to drop his gun. The black man kicked himself backward from the scene and finally stood and ran. Noah ambled toward the injured drunk, keeping mindful that the louse might have friends watching who might also want to jump into the fray.

The crying man knelt, trying to cradle his bloody hand with his wooden one.

“You crazy asshole,” he snapped at the deputy without looking at him. “You shot my hand!”

“Ain't you used to that by now?” Noah picked the revolver off the ground and tucked it into his belt.

“I was gonna surrender. Why didn't you let me toss aside my gun?”

“Because I didn't know you were gonna do that. Cocking a gun and pointing it at a man doesn't indicate one's about to surrender. Then again, you stink of booze.”

The gunman wept.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. He was my baby brother.”

Noah pitied the blubbering wreck and squatted beside him.

“I know what you're feeling. I do. The pain won't ever go away, but you can manage it. It takes time—and alcohol won't help it.”

“All right,” he croaked. “I'd like to apologize to that nigger.”

“Um, maybe start by not using that word. If I see him, I'll tell him you're sorry, I promise.”

Two soldiers and Deputy Harrison sidled up to Noah, who rose.

“Where the hell were you boys?” Noah asked.

“Watching
you
,” Harrison said. “Damn, what a show. Don't worry—we had our guns on him just in case you missed again. But good for you. He's alive and nobody else wound up getting killed today. Nine's about as much as I can take on my first day of work.”

Noah pulled rank—even if it was only by one day.

“Harrison, I'd like you and the soldiers to take our friend here to Richardson and have him look over his hand. Whenever the doctor's done fixing him up,” Noah spoke to the soldiers, “bring him back to the Sheriff's Office so we can figure out what to do with him. Harrison, stay at the Doc's office and keep guard over the Klansman in there. I'll make it right with the sheriff. Someone'll relieve you. I've got to take care of some business then head back to the undertaker's. Trust me—you've all got the easy jobs.” Noah spoke with enough authority so that the men didn't question him.

Noah then walked to Greeley, the barber, and placed a hand on his soldier.

“I'll arrange to get your window fixed today, okay?”

The barber nodded, partly because there was no sense in arguing, and also because he admired what he'd just seen.

“I'm glad you didn't kill that boy,” Greeley said.

Noah, finally realizing he still held his Colt, holstered his weapon. “Upon further reflection, so am I.”

Greeley didn't quite get that part, and then it hit him.

“Take some shooting lessons, son, for all our sakes,” he told Noah before returning to the half-shaved man he left sitting in a chair.

Henderson returned to its normal pace as Noah Chandler walked into the mercantile and spoke to the shopkeep.

“I need some of your cheapest bed sheets, or anything close to it.”

Lyle Kimbrell, alone, sauntered by the mercantile and spied on Noah through the wide glass window. He squinted to get a good look at him. Ten seconds passed and then Lyle smacked his thigh, as two plus two equaled four. Lyle took one more reaffirming glance at Noah, who was examining a large swath of fabric. Convinced he knew all he needed, Lyle walked back to the tavern.