The Road to Reckoning (15 page)

I looked out to the fire from under Jude Brown’s head and watched Henry Stands’s neck go back with his bottle to the sky. That would be the end of one of them gins. I went to the saddle of his horse for the rope but never made it.
A hand on mine!

A skinny arm hoisted me up and round and into the filthy face of Thomas Heywood, grinning at me like a skull.

I tried to yell but my throat had shrunk to nothing and he pulled me close so I could smell the whiskey on his breath and the sickly sourness of his clothes.

‘Well, well, I’ve been following you like the moon, boy! I’ve been watching you sleeping,’ he hissed. ‘I found your wagon. Followed your horse.’ He pushed me into the giggling belly of Indian-hatband, who dragged me away toward the trees.

God bless the horse of Henry Stands! Jude Brown just stood like a steer but Henry’s horse leaped backward with his head whipping when the trash went for the wind-rifle’s holster. Heywood cursed and let him go, then grabbed me again so I was held between the two by my shirt and hanging like meat.

Over the fire I watched Henry Stands rise at the commotion, but he stopped moving as the two other roadmen stepped to the fire with their rifles at their waists. His horse snorted to his side too late to warn him and resumed gnawing at the grass instead now his excitement was over. I will give Thomas Heywood and his boys some credit: they moved quietly when they had need to. Cowards do.

Henry Stands looked to his belt on the ground, and the two on him cocked guns to cool his thoughts.

With the fire amid I could see them only as half figures, their faces under their hats just shadows, but I could see the silver hair and whiskers of one and the black coat and lifted collar of the other, he who I had perceived before as just coat and hat.

At the snapping of the rifles Heywood and Hatband threw down also, but their guns to my head.

I stared into the barrel of first one and then the other of my father’s guns. Heywood pushed me forward, his fist tight on my collar, his knuckles against my neck.

‘Don’t move, old-timer!’ Heywood put the cold steel hole on my cheek. ‘Move and I kill the boy!’

Henry Stands scratched his beard, looked at all four of them, from boots to guns.

‘Reckon you kill the boy whether I move or not.’

Heywood shook me. ‘That’s a fact. But how it happens is up to you. Shoot him in the face. Quick for him. Or hang him in front of you. Slow for you both. Which will you have?’

Henry lowered his face, now black under his hat-brim. ‘You lousy son of a bitch.’

And Henry reached down for his belt.

‘I said stop, you bastard!’ Thomas Heywood fired high into the trees, shot to warn, to tremor the wood and our nerve. The birds woke again. Jude Brown reared away and to Henry’s stud for protection, and Henry stopped moving as the rifles went to shoulders.

Henry Stands straightened, sucked in his gut, and raised his chin.

‘So you be Thomas Heywood? The bravado that shot the boy’s father in the back? Or are you some other nameless son of a bitch?’

Heywood brought the gun back down to my head. ‘Well, ain’t that digging your own grave, old-timer. That’s a bad step. Bad step. I was just going to take the boy. You scratched yourself now. You know my name. That’s not good. Not good at all. You leave me no choice, mister. No choice. I would have to save my neck.’

‘We’ve already gone to the law, son. Judge Tanner in Danville. Marshals are out for you. You thought on that? You put up now and you might get good jail-time. Any more killing won’t go better.’ He turned to the others. ‘And you boys. No-one’s looking for you. No sense in letting this sorry bastard hang you. Clear out.’

He spoke as if that were the only thing for them to do, as if he had known them all his life, their trusted friend. The rifles pointed at him were just candy canes that he had given them as appeasements. ‘Think about that,’ he advised.

I could not see if they contemplated and it was Heywood who spoke for them.

‘Go through his bags. See if he’s got any papers from the law,’ he said. ‘Get his rifle and powder. If he moves, shoot him so he can’t walk.’ He put his gun to Henry. ‘And I’ll shoot the boy in the belly with his own guns. And you can watch him die. Might take days if I do it right.’

I wanted to say dozens of things but I was numb. I moved my frozen face from Henry to Heywood, to the fire, to my feet, and the play went around without me.

Henry did not move and I watched Silver-hair go to the stud. Henry never looked at me, I was sure. He watched everything but me, his head steady on Heywood, as Silver-hair went through his saddlebags one-handed, his gun still trained with the other.

Silver-hair pulled out Henry’s leather book, let it fall. It opened out on the ground to show us the
discordant pleasing forms within and Silver-hair cocked his head to it.

‘Birds!’
He laughed. ‘Hey, Tom! Look at that!’ he said. ‘The old man likes to draw birds!’ His hand went further through the bag and took out the string-bound pencils. ‘He has pretty pencils too!’

Heywood haw-hawed. ‘Is that ribbons tying them up?’

Black-coat did not laugh. In his black form he kept his piece solid on Henry, and Henry kept himself straight and patient because of it. I think they measured each other well. In any group there is always one who knows his business.

But I could hold out no longer. I could do nothing to defend my situation but I found my voice to Thomas Heywood.

‘That is my book! My drawings! Little you know about anything, you son of a bitch!’

Hatband giggled faster and Heywood striped me with the pistol across my head, and my legs went light.

‘You little bastard!’ he spat, and raised to hit me harder.

‘Hold there,’ Henry said calmly, and Heywood
quit his blow.

Henry Stands took a step.

‘We all know you can shoot men in the back and want to kill their children. How are you against a real bastard?’

He moved farther, ignoring the iron on him. They let him come.

‘I know I don’t have a problem’—Heywood leveled the Colt—‘killing an old man.’

The gun did nothing to stall.

‘Yes, I’m old,’ Henry said, and folded his arms. ‘Old enough to have made cemeteries of men younger than you. Killed in wars. Killed in peace. Knifed and shot my way most of my life. Killed Indians and white men with my hands or the guns I took from them.’

Another step, his arms unfolded.

‘I get paid to bring in escaped men that have done worse.’

One more foot.

‘And there is nothing in you that don’t stand thin against me, and you know it. And this ain’t the first time I’ve had guns against me and you know that too.’

He looked at them all, weighed them all.

‘And I’m done talking.’

He came past the fire, stolidly forward at two pistol mouths and two rifles, and I guess they did not know what to do for they stayed their hands. The two riflemen looked to Heywood, and he answered with cocking the despicable, treacherous Colt again, and though this made no difference to him in his coming on, I would not see Henry Stands cut down. I would not. I would not see such again. I could not help him either. But I would not see it.

I kicked at Heywood’s shin, as children do. He howled and I broke free. He fired uselessly to the ground. I wrenched myself from Hatband and streaked into the woods.

I ran.

I heard shots behind. A booming discharge ringing off the rocks, or the conflagration of Hell striving to claw me back to what I deserved. My rhadamanthine judgment.

Still, I ran.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen.’ The ringmaster in the tall silk hat circles, his white greasepaint glowing.

‘I show you the worst of Thomas Walker’s crimes. His worst testament against. His judgment not for us but for a higher order.’

He pulls back the curtain and a white lantern shines on a whiter body standing naked and alone and bloodied like the Lord, but dying of more than his wounds.

‘I give you his abandonment of Henry Stands for your scrutiny and horror. His savior and guardian. Left to the wolves. Left while Thomas Walker flees for his life.’ He holds out his hat.

‘It is only one more cent to see more.’

I ran and scrambled upward. I could hear voices. My shirt and knees were wet with the ground as I slithered to mount rocks and mud where their horses could not go.

The wooden thing slipped from my belt and tumbled below. I reached after it but it mocked me with its skill to tumble over itself. I could just make it out against the leaves.

I could hear nothing, could see nothing except my own body in the pitch, but I knew I was only a shout and one good look away from it all. Leave it. I should leave it. It had been nothing but trouble.

I slid back down and found it with my foot. I could hear them coming; the trees shook with them. I reached down and brushed the gun clean and tucked it behind me again. Higher was hope. Think of where fat men will slip and curse and convince themselves that boys will get lost and starve alone and forget about them.

I was on a trail, a path. A wall of rock all along, pale now as the moon came over the hills as I went higher. The stone giant and square with flat tables above. If I could climb up there it could take them hours to follow. They would have to work round with the horses or if on foot, and huffing and slipping, they could not go where boys could. The advantage to the child. Endless energy when fear comes and the whole world just a place to hide.

The Lord helped me up. I climbed rock formed when he made the earth and yet it seemed each crevice and pattern in it had been designed with careful thought for this night and my escape and the moon just peaking the trees and lighting just enough to show me each step to take.

I reached the plateau but still climbed forward on my belly for a few yards so I would not be near the edge when I stood to be framed against the sky for a lucky shot. I got up and looked about. The ground before was made up of white broken rock like the metaled road of a titan.

I stepped, and the stones complained and moved under my foot, but I went on. Once or twice I heard a rattle and changed my footing but kept heading forward for the higher ground and the trees.

I did not think about earlier. I spoke to myself, talked to my feet and rubbed my arms. I had left my coat and hat, and the wind was flintlike as I went higher, but it would be better in the cover of the trees. Everything would be better in the cover of the trees. I thought only on the importance of the moment, realized that was the way I had got through all things until now. What was important was that my belly was full, I was not tired, and I was alive. That much was right. An hour or so later and I had improved on that even: I was alone. And although I knew that was bad, the trees were my church and sanctuary.

I had evaded.

I had my compass and I talked to it when I did not talk to my feet. I put it close to my face and angled it to the moon’s light. I asked it where I was and it showed me north and so gestured me east and I was not that green to know that if I went down and hit a creek I would hit a river and a town soon enough or at least a grist mill with some kindly gentleman.

I did contemplate and asked the compass if there was not too much iron in these hills to differ but he reminded me that the moon was going east to west and I could judge him by that.

But I would need shelter soon and the night agreed with me on that as I felt rain on my cheek and looked up to see nothing above, but over my shoulder clouds were chasing the moon and me.

I went on, stopped and caught my breath when I needed, for I was still heading upward, which was wearing me down, but the rain caught up on me and despite the trees I was cold and wet by the next time I broke cover. The moon got blanketed and put me in a hole of blackness.

I stumbled along with one hand feeling along rock, against trunk, and inched my feet like I was stepping on ice, but this was good for I was confident I could not be followed.

I had put more than a good couple of hours behind me but my woolen clothes got real soaked and I began to shiver against my bones. That would not go well if I did not find somewhere to hide.

I recalled Henry Stands had described this land as anthracite rich and I had passed a few slits like evil mouths in the rock, not big enough for me to rest in but ably suited for snakes. I hoped for a path that might lead to a mine, abandoned for my best hopes as Henry Stands had said they often were.

As I thought and hoped on this I slipped and landed my rump hard on a rock. It was a foolish injury that would have brought loud laughter from anyone watching but it hurt like hell and soured me further. Pains on my head from the lumping Thomas Heywood gave me, and now an aching rear and muddied clothes.

Maybe this was some holy intervention to keep my mind off deeper troubles. Sometimes I guess the Lord can only do little things to ease, and pain is one of those. I rubbed the back of me but the wet and cold gave no comfort and I concentrated on it so much that it was some time before I noticed I was on a dirt path, overgrown for sure, but civilization had been here and my tripping over a wooden track made my heart leap.

I followed the cart-track and was surprised and welcomed by the rubbing and mewing of a cat at my legs. I walked on and was joined by another, who led me down the track flicking its tail at me. Neither of them seemed bothered by the rain and this encouraged me.

At the turning of a bush that had grown at head height over the track I came to a sanguineous glowing blanket suspended in midair across the path. Closer and I saw it was a brattice covering across the opening of a mine and a lamp within shining through.

I hurried forward and then stopped with the cats spiraling around my feet. The lamp meant someone was behind that curtain. My immediate past meant that I distrusted even the natural world, let alone the hands of men in it.

But Henry Stands had been a good bad man. There could be others. I am sure I had known more good men than bad and you have too so that is how you should measure the world if it came down to numbers, as it might, come Judgment.