The German (31 page)

Taylor’s logic was sinking in, but Tom struggled against it. Doc Randolph had said Lang suffered from a sickness, and though it may have been an unwholesome affliction, Tom didn’t believe it constituted a valid excuse for four young men to all but murder him in his bed. He reached for the only light he could see.

“What about the Randall boy?” Tom asked. “I didn’t notice him here this morning.”

“Timothy Randall is still traumatized,” Taylor explained.

Which meant the lawyer had not gotten to the boy, or the kid actually had a shred of integrity and would be sticking to his story. Still it would be Tim’s word against the other three, and he was the youngest and by far the least credible to a jury.

“I highly suggest you consider these facts before proceeding against my clients. If Lang retracts his statement then the judge will have little choice but to throw the case out, and honestly, nothing would be better for this city than to have this wicked business packed away in the basement.”

~ ~ ~

Tom stewed in his office for an hour. He’d forgotten about his promise to Doc Randolph that they’d share lunch over at Bob’s Stop, and he was surprised when the man appeared in his doorway, looking annoyed.

The sheriff apologized and rose from his chair. He led Doc Randolph back through the office and down the street to the restaurant. He looked around the room, grateful to find no signs of Buck Taylor, Burl Jones or the three boys. Noting his distraction, Doc Randolph asked what was on Tom’s mind, and though he’d come to no conclusions of his own, he described Buck Taylor’s visit and detailed the man’s legal strategy to twist the blame for Ernst Lang’s attack on Lang himself. The whole thing made a riot of Tom’s gut and when he ordered his lunch, it consisted of four slices of toast and a glass of buttermilk.

“I know,” Tom said. “If I hadn’t been there with those little monsters, Buck’s take on the situation would have carried some real weight.”

“It’s really for the best,” Doc Randolph said. “For Lang I mean.”

“How do you figure that?” Tom asked.

“Right now, between your office and those boys’ families and a few of the hospital staff, very few people know about Lang. Gossip will get the word around, but it’ll be nothing compared to what the newspapers will do with that trial. Lang is going to be vilified and condemned before this even reaches a court. Right now, he has the opportunity to recuperate from the attack and leave town quietly ahead of the mob. And you can keep your mind on our Cowboy.”

“On the night I took Lang to the hospital, I stayed with him for a while. That place needs its forms and its questions, and I sat there while a nurse took down Lang’s information. When she asked him his date of birth, do you know what he said?”

“You know I don’t.”

“He said eighteen eighty-seven, which would make him nearly sixty years old.”

“For the love of Christ, Doc, he was delirious. If I went through what he did, I’d have a little trouble with dates myself. Hell, I probably wouldn’t remember my own name.”

“As a point of fact, he got that wrong, too.”

“Come again?”

The doctor drank from his water glass and leaned back in his chair. “The first question they want answered is the patient’s name, so I gave it to them when he was admitted, but the nurse asked for verification while she was taking down his medical history, and he said something like Roe. He wasn’t speaking well, and most of what he said was in German or badly slurred, but when she asked his name, he said Ernst Roe. So while I can imagine that his advanced injuries contributed to delusional behavior, you might also want to consider the possibility that he’s here under an assumed name, and if that is the case, why did he change it, and what is so interesting about Ernst Roe?”

“Or I can just leave the man alone,” Tom said. “What I know is Lang is not the Cowboy, and he’s been through enough. There’s not a sentence a judge could pass for his crime that Hugo and his friends didn’t mete out tenfold. So I’m going to go to his house and ask him to drop the charges, and I’ll be choking on my tongue while I do it, and then as far as I’m concerned he can go wherever he pleases and be whoever he wants to be.”

“He might go looking for revenge.”

“And I wouldn’t blame him,” Tom said. “I’d arrest him in two seconds flat if he goes after those boys, but I wouldn’t blame him one bit.”

~ ~ ~

On his way out of the office to deliver his difficult request to Ernst Lang, Tom ran into Estella on the sidewalk. Her blue dress was buttoned up to her neck and the handle of a large basket looped over the crook of her elbow. In the basket she carried sundry vegetables and a tin of coffee. She stopped upon seeing Tom and smiled at him and wished the sheriff a “Good afternoon.”

He still hadn’t grown used to hearing her voice, and with everything else on his mind, he managed a simple parroting of her greeting and then stood there like a statue with a badly etched smile. Tom no longer knew how to behave with the girl. Estella averted her eyes and gazed at the sidewalk, and Tom felt like a fool for not being able to form a single pleasant word for her. He thought she looked particularly pretty today. Her cheeks seemed fuller and healthier, as did her figure, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her breasts strained against the soft blue fabric, but the apparent physical changes brought shame fast as a flint spark, noticed but quickly snuffed as more pressing matters demanded his attention.

Tom drove to Bennington and turned left, his sick belly and rapidly beating heart making poor passengers. On Dodd Street, he parked just beyond the Randall’s driveway and crossed the street to knock on Lang’s door.

The man opened the door and regarded the sheriff with half lidded eyes. He wore a loose-fitting green shirt and a pair of short pants the color of wheat. Two of the fingers on his left hand were bandaged and the knot above his eye still looked like a split plum, but his clothing hid the worst of the damage.

“How are you feeling?” Tom asked.

“What can I help you with, Sheriff?” Lang said, tersely. “I feel my company is less than pleasant just now, and since we are not friends, it would be best if you were direct.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes, you may come in, but only for a minute. I need to rest.”

Tom walked into the sparse living room and Lang closed the door behind him. He took a deep breath, hoping it would settle his nerves sufficiently for him to spit out what he had to say, but his throat had closed tight. He cleared his throat as quietly as he could.

Tom closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to gather his thoughts. He thought through Buck Taylor’s explanation and only succeeded in angering himself.

“After the boys heard that we were chasing a suspect – the real suspect – the same night they attacked you, they changed their stories and they’re all saying the same thing.”

“And what are they saying?”

“They’re saying that you invited them in,” Tom said. “They said you gave them whiskey and….” He grew frustrated at his inability to express the situation. “Ernst, they’re saying you attacked them first, okay?”

“Jesus Christ, would you listen to me? You’re a queer. A judge and jury are going to believe those boys because they want to believe them. They are going to crucify you. In school we picked on kids for being pansies. Somebody got the label and we’d beat the shit out of them in the playground. I didn’t know why. I certainly never thought it through. Most of us didn’t. It didn’t fucking matter. And this is just another playground.”

Lang stepped forward. His scarred cheeks flushed red.

“Do you want to know about my playground?” Lang shouted, sending Tom back a step. “At my school, I was the boy that decided which children bled and which children went unharmed. I grew up smart enough to know my place in the world and strong enough to defend it. And I became a soldier, and I became a captain, and men died because I told them to and men were killed because I ordered it and I have worn more blood than you can even imagine.” The German paused. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, and he winced from the pain to his broken ribs. When he spoke again, his fury was controlled, “And those bastards, those little shits humiliated me.
Me.
They made me lie in my own filth while they cut me and laughed at me. And you’re telling me that if there is a trial, I will be defending myself?”

“Ernst,” Tom said as evenly as he could manage, “right now, no one knows what happened that night. The newspapers are too caught up with the Cowboy, but if this goes to trial, every damn man in this county is going to know you’re a queer, and your life is going to be ground down like a weed, and that’s if one of those yahoos doesn’t decide to blow your brains out over this.”

“So now we know what the life of a German deviant is worth.”

“I’m not saying it’s right,” Tom told him. “I’m just telling you the way it is. I could arrest you right now for what you’ve already admitted to me, but I figure you’ve been through enough.”

“You are so kind,” Lang said.

“Maybe you can find some help in one of the cities. If it’s a sickness they might be able to treat you.”

“That’s enough, Sheriff,” Lang said. His voice came across flat and weak. He walked to his front door and grasped the knob. “I am very tired now. Thank you for coming by.”

“Think about what I said.”

“I have spent a lifetime thinking about these very things,” Lang replied. “Perhaps I will spend the next lifetime thinking about something else. Good afternoon, Sheriff.”

Lang pulled open the front door. Burl Jones stood on the porch, holding a Colt revolver. Tom saw the man and the gun, but not before the German did. After a momentary pause, Lang turned in a precise, military step and faced Jones. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin as if about to receive a medal.

Jones fired twice at point blank range. Blood blossomed on the back of the German’s shirt like two great crimson eyes opening as the bullets passed through, and Lang shuffled back soundlessly. Then he crashed to the floor, his eyes gazing blankly at the ceiling, his mouth set in a defiant line.

I saw Burl Jones walk up to the German’s house, and I saw him standing in front of the door, but I never saw the gun in his hand. For much of the afternoon, I’d taken frightened peeks through the living room window, certain that at any moment I would see the German stomping across the street and climbing the porch stairs to return the brutality I’d shown him. Ma had forbidden me to play in the front yard – partly as a punishment for my crime, and partly to protect me from my victim’s retaliation. When I saw Mr. Jones walking down the sidewalk, I took a permanent place at the window, unease covering me like sweat. Sheriff Rabbit had relayed the lie Hugo Jones was telling, and I couldn’t imagine how his father would react to it.

Then the gunshots. I heard five in all. The pops like firecrackers startled me and I pulled away from the glass, sank to my knees and peered over the windowsill at the street beyond. Burl Jones stepped into the afternoon light, head low with his hat brim pulled down, and returned the way he had come.

I shouted for Ma, and she rushed into the living room. Her eyes were again stained red from tears, but there wasn’t time to entertain further guilt. I told her what I’d seen. She doubted me, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d introduced her to as much violence as she’d ever known firsthand, and the idea that I was again its messenger seemed impossible and overwhelming, but I persisted until she called the sheriff’s office, and I stayed close to her right up to the time Deputies Burns and Niall arrived, and I told them what I saw. Then my mother told me to go to my room and wait until she said I could come out. In my room, I went to my window and pressed against the frame, so that I could see the front of Mr. Lang’s house. The deputies crossed the street and climbed into the shadows of the porch. My heart beat rapidly, unsure of what I expected to see. Then Deputy Burns came back out and he stood on the German’s porch, looking upward with a wracked face and clenching his hat in his hands. Deputy Niall appeared behind Burns and put his hand on the distraught officer’s shoulder and this seemed to anger Burns, who jerked his shoulder away from the touch and began shouting and waving his hat around like a bronco rider about to be tossed. Both men went back inside, and ten minutes later more police officers appeared and five minutes after that Doc Randolph walked up the porch steps to the German’s house, and then an ambulance came, and a long time later two police officers carried out a stretcher covered in a white sheet, and two minutes after that, two different officers carried another stretcher with a bulkier cargo, and though he was covered in a white sheet, I knew the man on that stretcher was my neighbor, Mr. Lang, and I knew that he was dead.