The Violent Peace (3 page)

“I resent the implication of what you are—”

“Shut up, southerner,” Binns growled, stepping back and to the side. This placed him immediately behind the old man, who had to grip the edge of the bartop to keep his mottled hands from trembling. There was a shuffling of boot leather each side of him as Logan and Monahan moved in close to him.

“Now, I couldn't see, because I'm one side of the bar and they're on the other,” Elmer continued. “But maybe that bump wasn't accidental. Maybe this here southerner passed a derringer over to Booth.”

A rumble of angry conversation rose among the patrons seated at the tables. Panic sprang into the eyes of the old man and he shot fast glances to left and right, then over his shoulders. There were some twenty men in the barroom, and only one of these was looking at him with a degree of sympathy. He was a grizzled old-timer with an untidy grey beard and watery blue eyes.

The expressions of the others ranged from shocked surprise to glaring hatred.

“Gentlemen, please!” the man blurted out, his lower lip quivering.

“Sounds mighty suspicious to me, Bill,” Monahan said gruffly, his right hand folding around the butt of the Colt at his hip.

“Search him,” Carstairs instructed.

Sweat broke out on the old man's forehead and upper lip as Binns dropped into a crouch and ran his gnarled hands roughly over the expensive suiting, exploring every place where it would be possible to conceal a weapon. “He ain't heeled, Bill,” he reported.

The drunk under the table began to snore again, after a period during which he had unaccountably been silent.

“Now that is suspicious,” Carstairs muttered thoughtfully, staring hard at the petrified old man. “Southerner up here in Washington amongst all we northerners - and he doesn't have a gun.”

 
“I reckon he had one, but give it to Booth,” Elmer supplied.

“This is rid … ridiculous,” the old man stammered. “I demand to—”

“You don't seem to be in a position to make any demands, old son,” Carstairs pointed out evenly.

Logan jerked at the crotch of his tight-fitting pants. “Reckon Elmer's right, Bill,” he said. “He musta passed his iron to Booth.”

“He helped to kill the President,” Binns put in with a note of awe in his voice. “We ought to string him up,” Monahan growled.

The old man squeezed his eyes tight shut and the skin of his face was suddenly drained of color. He seemed on the point of fainting. Monahan's comment was greeted with a moment of utter silence. Then the drunk dropped the empty bottle and as it thudded to the bare boards the sound signaled a menacing murmur of approval. A chair leg screeched against the floor as it was pushed back from a table.

“Hold on there, men.”

The almost physical pressure of concentration upon the caped man at the bar was lifted as all eyes swung towards the old timer, who had stood up.

“Is this southerner a friend of yours?” Carstairs asked with disdain.

The old timer refused to be provoked by the Englishman. “No, he ain't,” he replied with soft-voiced slowness. “But you got any complaint against him, you oughta tell the military or the police.”

“You sound like a sympathizer to me,” Carstairs accused.

The expressions of most of the men surrounding the old timer indicated they were prepared to agree with the Englishman's contention.

“For God's sake, he's right!” the old man exclaimed. “I'm innocent and I can prove it. I was just here waiting for my—”  

Monahan drew the revolver and jabbed it viciously into the old man's side. “Shut your slobbering trap,” he rasped. “I can't stand to hear that Southland talk of yours.”

The old timer took a step forward, towards the group at the bar, “This is Washington, he blurted, “You can't lynch a man here in the city. We got law and order here.”

“That how it was so easy to kill the President,” a man called derisively.

“You just can't do it, that's all,” the old timer insisted.

Carstairs' well-formed mouth took on a cruel set and his clear blue eyes clouded with anger. “Jack?” he said softly.

“Yeah, Bill?”
Logan replied.

“This insect is beginning to irritate me,” Carstairs told him, staring levelly at the old timer.

“Swat it?” Logan asked, a quiet smile adding life to his unintelligent face.

“I'd like that.”

Logan was fat, but he was fast. One moment he was standing beside the caped man, absently tugging at his pants. Then he side stepped with incredible speed, his free hand streaking inside his jacket. Fear leapt across the features of the old timer as he turned to meet the attack. But his reflexes were far too slow. A foot-long wooden club with a two-inch diameter swung towards his head. it stung the tips of the fingers of his upraised hands and then landed with a sickening crack against his forehead. The ancient skin split open and thin blood squeezed out and flowed towards the closed eyes. The old timer crumpled to the floor with a sigh, his bloodied head thudding on to the highly polished toecap of Carstairs' right .shoe.

The Englishman pulled back his foot and lashed out with a kick. It caught the unconscious man in the back of the neck and flipped him over on to his stomach. Blood dripped and was soaked up by the sawdust on the floor. The old timer breathed shallowly.

“Anyone else got any objections?” Logan asked, his eyes raking over the faces of the men as he hefted the club, as if testing its weight.

The inquiry was greeted with silence, except for the snores of the sleeping drunk.

“Good,” Logan said.

Carstairs nodded in satisfaction and fixed the old man with an evil stare. “Make your peace,” he invited.

For long moments, the old man's anguish struck him dumb. Then, finally, he gasped: “You're making a terrible mistake…”

His voice trailed away as the strain became too much for his mind to bear. His legs buckled and his hands lost their strength, releasing the grip on the bartop. As he toppled backwards, Binns stepped out of the way and the unconscious form thudded heavily to the floor.

“Got a rope, Elmer?” Monahan asked. Every man in the bar still in possession of his senses was caught in the grip of a high excitement as the bartender reached behind him and thudded a coil of rope on to the counter top.

“Lock the doors,” Carstairs ordered and a man stood up from a table to comply.

Monahan exhibited the strength in his wiry frame by stooping and hoisting the limp form of the old man with utter ease. The drunk under the table spluttered to a degree of awareness and surveyed the scene before him with drink-blurred eyes. His alcohol-sodden brain could not reconcile the tableau with the surroundings in which he had passed out and accepted the images as part of a terrifying dream.

The old man in the cape was lifted on to a table and slapped into consciousness by Monahan as Binns formed one end of the rope into a noose. For a long time, the old man's brain was as befuddled as that of the drunk. He felt himself being forced to stand upright, then the constriction at his throat. He knew a man was holding him, but was not aware of another looping the free end of the rope over a ceiling beam and knotting it there. He saw a sea of faces in front and below him, but they were merely pale blobs against a blurred background and he was unable to discern their expressions.

Then, as the drunk sank back into his stupor, the old man's mind and vision cleared. And memory returned, filling him with trembling terror.

Monahan and Binns jumped to the floor. The men crowded in closer to the table on which the old man stood, their eyes bright with an almost sexual arousal of excitement. Terror rose into the old man's throat, swelling it against the fibrous harshness of the rope. His hands were free and he clawed at the noose, but there was no slack between the knot at the nape of his neck and the stout beam above him.

“You can't hang a man without a trial!” a voice called weakly.

The old man's distended eyes sought the source of the plea and focused upon his sole ally, sprawled behind the crowd in a pool of his own blood.

Carstairs sighed and nodded curtly to the waiting Logan. The fat man approached the old timer, who had rolled on to his back and was starting to struggle into a sitting position. But when he saw Logan looming above him, he groaned and fell back, throwing up his hands to protect his bloodied face.

Logan grinned and changed his grip on the club, holding it like a dagger, pointing downwards. His arm swung and the flat end of the club's end thudded into the base of the old timer's stomach. The breath rushed out of the toothless mouth and the old timer jack-knifed his body, his hands streaking to clutch at the source of the new pain.

“Hush up,” Logan instructed softly.

Nobody witnessed the vicious assault, for attention was divided between the pathetically helpless form of the old man on the table, and the slim figure of Carstairs, who had stepped to the forefront of the watching group.

“He may have a point,” the Englishman allowed, stroking his clean-shaven chin reflectively as he surveyed the old man. “So you may consider yourself on trial. The charge is conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. As a foreigner, I feel I am sufficiently unbiased to act as a fair judge. How do you plead, old son?”

The man on the table was still c1utching at the noose, but he was unable to relieve the pressure on his windpipe. “You can't—”, he croaked.

“He's guilty,” Binns said nonchalantly, picking at his teeth with a filthy fingernail.

“Sure he's guilty,” Logan agreed, swinging the club before the pain-filled eyes of the old timer.

Monahan, resting a hand on each of his holstered guns, looked around the ring of eager-faced watchers, his menacing stare daring any man to complain against the arbitrary verdict. “Guilty as all hell,” he muttered.

“A judge can't argue against, that kind of unanimity,” Carstairs told the trembling old man, then stepped up closer to the table.

The drunk had ceased snoring again, but his heavy breathing reached stentorian pitch against the blanket of silence which descended over the barroom. Behind the bar, Elmer continued to wipe the glass of the condemned man, his hand movements increasing in speed as the moments were ticked away by the clock on the wall.

“Anything to say before I pass judgment?” Carstairs asked in a mock funereal tone.

The old man in the cape suddenly dropped his hands to his sides, but not in dejection. The nightmare in which he had found himself was reaching a climax, and there would be no waking from it. He was going to die and nothing he could do or say would prevent his tormentors from completing the cruel act. Fear became a diamond-hard mass filling his stomach, but it withdrew the physical manifestations of the emotion. He stood stiffly to his full height and his features grew calm. His stance and his expression were composed and dignified.

“May you all rot in hell,” he whispered.

“May you welcome us there, old son,” Carstairs said. “Judgment of this court is…” He raised his right leg, then thrust it forward. The table tilted and toppled. Gasps ripped from the throats of the spectators in a single sound as if from one man. The old man's high-buttoned boots slid off the canting surface and there was a sharp crack as his neck was broken. His body swung gently in mid-air above the overturned table.

Carstairs looked around the faces of the men, many of them betraying the shock of remorse in the knowledge that the senseless act was done and could not be undone. A few turned away from the gruesome sight of the hanging man. The Englishman reached behind him and pushed against the dangling legs of the dead man, setting the body swinging at a faster rate. A personable grin spread across the young man's handsome features as he completed the phrase he had started: “…a suspended sentence.”

ADAM Steele reined his bay gelding to a halt at the crest of a rise and split his mouth in a gentle smile as he surveyed the lights of the city spread before him. It had been a long ride from Richmond and he spent a few relaxed moments in quiet contemplation of the end of the journey. Then he sighed, and heeled the horse forward down the gentle incline towards a turnpike which led into Washington.

He rode upright, but not tall in the Western saddle. He was just a shade over five feet six inches in height, his build compact rather than slight, and suggested adequate strength instead of  great  power. Like so many young men who had survived the bitter fighting of the war just ended, he looked older than his actual years, which totaled twenty-eight. He had a long face with regular features which gave him a nondescript handsomeness: likely to interest women though certainly not sweep them off their feet. His mouthline was gentle, his nose straight and his black eyes honest. His hair was pre-naturally grey with only a few hanks of dark red to show its former coloration. It was trimmed neat and short and this was the only obvious sign of the five years he had spent in the army of the Confederate States. A more subtle indication of how he had used the war years could be seen in his clothes. Black riding boots, dark grey pants, oddly slit at the seam about the calf of the right leg; a white shirt with a neckerchief decorated by an ornate pin; a hip-length sheepskin coat in dark brown; a low-crown black hat and black leather gloves. All were brand new with the store stiffness still in the material - purchased immediately upon his discharge to replace the grey uniform of a cavalry lieutenant. All over the country, tailors were growing rich supplying new clothes to men anxious to shed uniform serge.

The city was very quiet as Steele entered the streets of its southern section and he was mildly surprised at this, Washington was the capital of the victorious northern states and he had expected it still to be in the throes of triumphant revelry even this long after Lee's surrender.

But he did not give too much thought to the matter, beyond appreciating that he was spared the expected humiliation of seeing his former enemies rejoicing in the defeat of the Cause. For he had another, more important subject on his mind. And it was this upon which he ruminated as he rode the gelding along the silent meagerly lit streets of Washington.

He had no trouble finding his way to his destination, for he had been a frequent visitor to the city in pre-war days and little had changed during the intervening years. So it was not until he turned onto Tenth Street that he pulled up short in surprise.

The street was as quiet as all the others had been, but there was a difference. Where the others had been deserted, this one was crowded with people. The great majority of them were huddled together in a large group before a house diagonally across the street from the darkened facade of Ford's Theatre. Most of the buildings lining the street were in darkness and this seemed to emphasize the wedges of light falling from the house which held the crowd's interest. In the splashes of yellow, the faces of the people were wan and sad. The rifle barrels of the soldiers ranged in front of the house, keeping the crowd well back, gleamed with an oily sheen.

Occasionally, one or more of the silent spectators would drift away from the crowd. One such was an old woman who stepped unwittingly, in front of Steele's horse as he urged the animal forward. She looked up at the rider, showing no emotion at almost being trampled. Deep shock dwelled behind her moist eyes.

“What's happening here, ma'am?” Steele asked, his voice smoothed by a Virginia drawl, as he touched his hat brim with a gloved hand.

The old woman blinked, and a tear was squeezed from the comer of each eye. “Mr. Lincoln,” she replied tremulously. “They’ve shot Mr. Lincoln.”

Under different circumstances, Steele knew he might have felt a surge of joy and expectation that the event could signal new hope for the South to rise against defeat. But he had come to Washington determined to forget the past and adjust himself to the best future he could make.

Even so, he had difficulty in injecting a degree of the mournful into his voice as he asked: “Is the President dead?”

The old woman shook her head as she turned away to go around behind Steele's horse. “But he's dying. Won't last out the night, they say.”

Steele took a final look down the street towards the house and the melancholy crowd before it, then jerked over the reins to angle his horse towards Elmer's Barroom. It was not in complete darkness, for a dim light flickered far in back of one of the windows. After he had looped the reins over the hitching rail at the edge of the sidewalk, he approached the doors and they swung open in front of him.

“We're closed, mister,” Elmer announced as the newcomer crossed the threshold. “Mark of respect for the President.”

The doors squeaked closed behind Steele and he halted abruptly. He saw Elmer standing behind the bar, using the turned down light of a single kerosene lamp to count the night's takings. He could hear one man snoring and another groaning, but they were beyond the reach of the flickering light. He could smell stale cigar smoke and spilled whiskey. He could sense death.

“I just heard,” he said, moving forward towards the bar, feeling the sawdust beneath the soles of his new boots. “After getting news like that, a man needs a drink. Whiskey.”

He pulled up short again, as something brushed against his shoulder. His pupils had distended to the low level of light now and as he looked up, he could discern the limply banging form of the dead man. The body revolved slowly from where he had collided with a dangling leg.

“Turn up the lamp, bartender,” he said softly.

Elmer continued to chink loose change, taking it from his apron pocket and stacking it on the bartop. “Told you, mister, the place is closed up for the night,” he growled.

The sleeping drunk stopped snoring and smacked his lips as if his imagination was enjoying a good meal.

“The view's lousy anyway,” the old timer rasped, crawling towards the bar and using the rail to push himself on to all fours.

“You don't turn up that lamp, I'll kill you,” Steele said, his drawling voice still pitched low. But it was high on menace.

Elmer's head snapped up and he peered intently through the darkness towards the newcomer. His face in the lamp light was made uglier by a scowl. He could not see Steele clearly and it was for this reason he reached out and turned up the wick. His free hand dragged a Manhattan Navy Model out from beneath the bar. When the pool of light had spread far enough to illuminate Steele and the hanging man, the revolver was cocked and aimed.

“You don't look capable, mister,” Elmer said, noting that Steele wore no gunbelt and his hands were empty.

Steele was staring up
at the swollen face of the old man. His own features were empty of expression and when he turned, to look at Elmer and started to walk towards him he still gave no outward sign of what he was thinking.

“What happened here?” he asked, the threat missing from his low tones. But neither was he concerned with the pointing gun in the bartender's hand. He glanced casually to his right and saw the bearded old timer with the bloody forehead climbing painfully to his feet. Then to the left, where the sleeping drunk was just a lumpy shadow against the deeper shadow beneath the table.

Elmer's sullen eyes met Steele's open stare, then took in at close range the man's easy-going features and unprovoking build. He clumped this all together with the lack of visible weapons and decided his unwanted customer had a tough mouth but nothing with which to hack it up. He put the gun down beneath the bar and started to dig for more coins.

“A guy blasted the President over at the theatre,” he rasped. “Got clean away.” He nodded towards the man hanging from the beam. "That guy passed the gun to the murderer. Didn't have the sense to take it on the lam.” A sour grin glowed in his eyes and twisted his mouth. “Me and a few others kinda forced him to hang around.”

The old timer was leaning his elbows on the bar, nursing his broken head in the palms of his hands. “Weren't no proof of that!” he snapped, without looking up. “Ed Binns and his pals just up and hanged the old man on account of what you told 'em.”

Elmer glowered hatefully at the old timer. “He give the gun to Booth, I'm telling you,” he snarled.

“And you can give me a drink,” Steele said.

Elmer sighed, seemed about to refuse, then swung around and swept a shot glass and bottle from the shelf behind him. He set the glass on the bartop and poured the right measure without looking. Steele proffered no money, and neither did he reach for the drink.

“What if you were wrong?” he asked.

Elmer banged the bottle down angrily. “Just drink your drink and get out so I can close up,” he snarled. “I weren't wrong.”

“You were wrong,” Steele said. With his left hand, Steele tugged at his earlobe
.
His right hand came fast out of the pocket on that side of his jacket and Elmer's eyes widened with terror as he saw the tiny two-shot derringer clutched in the fist. The gun went off with a small crack. The shattered whiskey bottle made a louder noise. Elmer fell backwards, crashing against the display shelf. His hands clutched at his bulbous stomach. Small shards of broken glass glittered against the dark stains of whiskey covering his apron. He looked down at himself and gasped when he saw the blood oozing between his fingers. The old timer forgot his own pain as he savored the agony of Elmer.

“His name was Benjamin Steele. And my name is Adam Steele,” the man said softly. “That was my father you killed.”

The pain had had time to reach Elmer now, and it overflowed his eyes in the form of tears as he brought his head up to look at the man he had so badly misjudged. Steele held the shocked, stare of the other, as he slid the derringer back in his pocket and used his left hand to draw out a match. He struck it on his thumbnail and in the sudden flare of yellow light his eyes seemed not to be as one with the rest of his features. For the lines of his face had a composed, innocuous set—while the eyes, pulled wide, blazed with a seemingly unquenchable fury.

Then the flaring match was arced forward. Elmer emitted a strangled sob of horror, throwing up his bands. The match sailed between them and bounced against his chest. It fell to the floor, but not before a fragile flame licked up from the whiskey-sodden material of his shirt. He beat at it with a blood-stained band, the motion fanning the fire. Within a terrifying few seconds, as the fury died within Steele, the bartender's massive body was enveloped in searing flames. As shreds of charred clothing fell from him and the intense heat swept over his naked skin, his sobs became strangled cries, pitched so high they sounded almost feminine. He threw himself to the floor and began to roll backwards and forward as he beat at hungry flames. But the whiskey soaked sawdust behind the bar counter only added fuel to the agonizing fire.

The old
timer's horror at the lynching was as nothing compared to the revulsion he felt as he watched Elmer's pitifully ineffectual attempts to beat out the flames. But he made no attempt to intervene, conscious of the evil lurking beneath the deceptively gentle surface of the young man standing beside him. “Innocent man getting lynched,” Steele said, still softly. “Fair burns a man up, doesn't it?”

The old timer was at last able to tear his gaze away from the weakening struggle of the human torch. But he discovered that Steele had not been addressing him. Instead, the blank-faced young man had muttered the comment to himself as he turned and moved towards the limp form of his father. He set the table upright and the lifeless body took on a curved posture as the high buttoned boots rested on the top. Steele leaned to the right, bending his leg so that the slit in the seam of his pants gaped open. His hand reached inside and drew from his boot a wooden-handled knife with a six inch blade. There was not a single sign of grief in his expression or his actions as he climbed on to the table. The finely-honed blade of the knife sliced through the hanging rope in a matter of moments. He pulled the noose from around the neck to reveal an ugly red weal in the dead skin. After sliding the knife back into the sheath strapped to his boot, he lifted the slight form of his father in both arms and stepped down from the table. His empty eyes surveyed the old timer across half the width of the barroom.

“You mentioned a name?” he said softly.

The old timer swallowed hard and glanced over the bartop. The charred body of Elmer was still. The smell of him masked the more familiar odors of the room. A wide area of sawdust was smoldering, only needing a draught to explode into renewed fire.

“Sure, Mr. Steele,” he said hoarsely. “Ed Binns. There was a feller name of Logan with them. And I heard Elmer call another guy Carstairs. He was a foreigner. Talked English, but not like an American.”

The weight of the body was no strain to Steele. “Know where I'll find, them?” he asked.

The old timer shook his head. Then said hurriedly: “I used to know Ed Binns' old man. Had a drapery store out in Foothills, Tennessee. Ed always was the wild one: even when he was a young shaver, Mr. Steele. Bigger he got, worser he got.”

“He's got as big as he's going to get,” Steele said. “Grateful to you.”

He turned and walked towards the door, carrying the body of his father as if it weighed no more than a baby. When he pushed out through the doors, frosty night air wafted in and a heap of sawdust exploded into fire with a dull plop.