The Violent Peace (8 page)

HARRY Binns was fat, forty and a practicing Christian. He had a tidy mind and liked his life to run on well-ordered lines. Thus, when he opened the rear door of his premises to take out the ashes of yesterday's cooking fire, the shock at seeing Mona stretched out among the cartons was a very strong one indeed. For not only was it a traumatic departure from his daily routine, which was upsetting enough in itself. But the sight of the woman was an explicit reminder of the only two events in his life of which he was ashamed - being the brother of the no-good Edward and allowing himself to make free with the willing body of Edward's wife.

After glancing hurriedly at the windows overlooking the store's yard, he roused the sleeping woman and implored her to stay silent until he had ushered her into the stockroom. Nobody saw what happened, because the only person watching the store was doing so from a window with no view of the rear. Adam Steele, his stubble thicker and his clothes even more crumpled after a night's sleep, kept a careful surveillance on the store's frontage, waiting for a sign that it was open for business. He was seated on the room's only chair, the presentation Colt Hartford resting across his knees. Behind him, the room was spartanly furnished - a bed, a bureau and a wardrobe in rough painted walls on one of which hung a crucifix.

There was a gentle, tentative knock on the door. He did not turn around, but craned forward and glanced towards the east. He judged the sun to be in its seven o'clock position.

“Come in,” he called.

A girl of about twenty entered and halted in the doorway. She was slim and pretty, with shoulder length black hair and brown eyes filled with fear as she regarded the back of the man seated at the window. Her white dress was cut on simple lines, closefitting enough to show she wore little or nothing beneath it.

“You wanted me, Mr. Steele,” she said nervously. “My name's Jennie.”

Steele glanced quickly over his shoulder, his eyes showing nothing of what he felt upon seeing the girl. “If you're the one who's been here the longest, I do.”

Jennie closed the door. “Is a year long enough for you?” she asked.

“I reckon,” Steele replied, concentrating upon the store across the plaza. The girl's dress was buttoned from its high neck to its low hem. She inserted the index finger of her left hand beside the top button and ran her hand down. The buttons popped open in rapid succession, all the way to the bottom. When she straightened up, the dress gaped
wide. She wore nothing beneath it. Her brown crested breasts were small and retained their conical shape. Her stomach had a youthful flatness and her slim legs quivered slightly with a muscular spasm. The redness of her bodily hair gave the lie to her long tresses. Her firm white flesh showed several old bruises left by an over-enthusiastic patron of the house.

“You want anything special, Mr. Steele?” she asked softly, arranging her features in an expression of professional allure.

Steele meant to glance quickly over his shoulder, but the girl's nakedness captured and held his attention. “Hey,” he said hoarsely. “The bathroom's down the hall.”

Jennie showed her confusion. “But madam said—”

“That lady thinks all men want the same thing,” Steele cut in with a sigh, and dragged his gaze away, resuming his study of Binns' Drapery.

“Well, don't they?” Jennie asked, continuing to hold her dress wide. “You paid.”

“For talk,” Steele said. “I've been paid for some funny things, but—”

“So broaden your mind,” Steele interrupted, unprovoked by the hint of annoyance which had entered her tone.

“I do most things better with no clothes on,” Jennie said, softening her voice. “Even talk.”

“But I won't listen so well,” Steele muttered. “Cover yourself.”

The girl was offended. Steele had hurt her professional pride He didn't even want to look at her body. But she didn't make the mistake of rebuking him. As she re-buttoned the dress, she consoled herself with the thought that the man, no matter how tough he looked, had to be a fag.

“What do you, want to know?” she asked when the fastening was complete.

Steele was fingering the head of the tiepin. He saw movement behind the glass door of the store across the plaza and leaned forward suddenly. The man who shot the bolts at the top and bottom of the door appeared only as blurred shadow from such a distance.

“Man at the drapery,” Steele asked, leaning back in the chair. “He the Binns with his name over the door?”

Jennie grimaced. “He's too mean to employ help. If you figure to buy anything, watch him. He gives short change.”

“He was out of town recently, wasn't he?”

As fully dressed as she ever was when in the hotel, Jennie, leaned her back against the door in the age old pose of the oldest profession. “What if he was?”

“I figure he went to Washington,” Steele said.

The girl realized she was wasting her time in trying to interest a man who didn't even want to look at her. She moved wearily away from the door and draped herself across the bed. There was nothing seductive in the action. She merely seemed tired. “You sound as if you know it all, already.”

Steele whirled around on the chair. For a moment, she hiked up the hem of her dress and filled her lungs with air, thrusting forward her small breasts. But the bright anger in Steele's dark eyes swamped her sensuality. She hauled herself into a stiff sitting posture and dropped her nervous gaze to the bare boards of the floor.

Steele kept his voice low. “Be grateful if you'd just answer the questions, lady,” he said.

Jennie shrugged her slim shoulders. “Okay. If Binns went anyplace, he went to Washington. He goes to Washington a lot. On buying trips, All the dresses he stocks have Washington labels on them.”

The man's anger died and he smiled at the girl. But only with his mouth. The expression had no warmth in it, for the dark eyes had become menacingly blank. This mood frightened Jennie more than his fury. Anxious to please him, she swung her feet to the floor and stood up, raising a hand to the top button of her dress.

“Sure,” she said. “This one has got one in it. You want to see, Mr. Steele?”

He shook his head. “No thanks,” he replied wryly. “I already saw what was in the dress. It didn't do anything for me.”

She whirled and stormed to the door. She jerked it open and, with her escape route secured, allowed herself the luxury of venting her anger.

“Mister, there ain't nothing will do anything for a man like you,” she hurled at him.

The door was slammed and Jennie's bare footfalls in the hallway were heavy, a further sign of her rage. The taunt left Steele unmoved as he turned to look out of the window again.

“There's something, lady,” he said softly to himself. “There's something for sure.”

Over at the store, Harry Binns listened with mounting agitation to Mona's account of what had happened out at his brother's farmstead.

“You did that?” he asked, aghast.

It was a large, well-stocked store, with a neat, businesslike look about it. There was a counter down, one side, backed by shelves and glass-fronted drawers filled with clothes, yarns, tapes and braids. Racks of dresses and suits, with a number of model dummies took up a great deal of space in front of the counter. Along the opposite wall and at the rear was more shelving, stacked with bolts of cloth. It was neat, clean and colorful and Mona, in her ill-cut and dirt-streaked dress, looked out of place in the store. Binns was well aware of this fact and, since he was now opened for business, was anxious to be rid of the woman. But at least he had been able to place himself on one side of the counter and Mona on the other, and this was an important achievement. For, as far as the citizens of Foothills were aware, Harry's low regard for his brother had sunk still further when he married a whore. And, as Harry had been at pains to state on many occasions, he only allowed Mona in his store because of family ties.

“I had to, darling,” Mona answered, not seeing Harry's slight wince at the endearment. “There were four dead as it was. If it had gone on, how many would have been killed?”

Her eyes implored understanding from Harry. He could not hold her gaze, and saw only the dirt beneath her broken fingernails as she brushed a strand of matted hair from in front of her eye.

“Ed might have been among them,” he put in suddenly, aware he had to say something.

Mona reached impulsively across the counter and clasped one of his pudgy hands. He glanced nervously down towards the display windows, grateful that no one was passing on the plaza. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he jerked his hand from beneath hers.

“Please, Mona. Not here.”

Mona nodded, understanding his embarrassment while not suspecting its depths. “He's as good as dead to us, Harry. Even if he gets away from the soldiers, he'll never dare to come back to the farm.”

She looked hard into his soft, moist, fleshy, unhandsome face, love shining in her green eyes.

“And what about the soldier who brought you into town?” Harry asked, swallowing hard as a wagon lumbered across the plaza.

“I thought if I offered him money,” Mona blurted out suddenly. “You have some money, don't you, Harry? He might let me go. Tell his officers I escaped.”

The wife of the undertaker halted on the sidewalk outside and peered through the thick lenses of her eyeglasses at the window display. Binns was sure the woman intended to enter the store and he was panicked into hasty thought.

“Go back to the farm, Mona,” he said quickly, almost stammering as the words spilled over his trembling lower lip. “I'll talk to the soldier. I'll come out tonight and tell you what he says.”

The undertaker's wife was dividing her attention between the contents of her purse and a red skirt draped in the window.

“That's wonderful, darling,” Mona exclaimed, reaching out for his hand again. But he drew it away. “You will come?”

Binns nodded. “Best if you go out the back way,” he implored.

“Yes. Yes, Harry. I'll wait for you. Please come as soon as you can.”

She backed away towards the door in the rear wall which gave on to the stockroom. just before she went from sight, she raised a hand to her lips and blew him a kiss.

Binns groaned and waved her away with an angry gesture before turning to look with trepidation towards the front of the store as the bell jangled at the top of the door.

The unresponsive eyes of Adam Steele locked on Binns' gaze and held it for several seconds. When the sweating storekeeper was finally able to look elsewhere, Steele crossing the threshold and half turning to close the door, he saw that the undertaker's wife was moving away, eyeing her purse ruefully.

“Yes, sir?” Binns asked anxiously. “Something I can do for you?"

"Steele approached him casually, glancing disinterestedly to left and right at the colorful displays. “Reckon so.”

The man looked tough, but that was nothing new. To
the soft and portly Binns, most men looked tough. But there was something else about this one - a certain quiet menace that seemed to emanate from him without needing physical expression or an aggressive action to mark it.

“Happy to be of service,” Binns offered, blinking and shooting, a glance towards the rear of the store as the back door of the building was closed with a slight sound. “What precisely are you looking for?”

Steele halted immediately in front of Binns and rested the Colt Hartford along the counter, gripping it lightly in his gloved hands: Neither his expression nor his tone changed. “The four bastards who lynched my father,” he said. “Hear you were one of them.”

Binns gulped and staggered backwards, coming up hard against the display shelf behind him. A sign, which proclaimed CLOSED FOR LUNCH, fell to the floor.

All color drained from his cheeks and his lips were suddenly very red by contrast.

“What ... what ... do you me ... mean?” he stammered.

Steele spun the rifle a half turn and jabbed it forward. The muzzle made a dent in the storekeeper's pot belly and held it. Binns stopped breathing.

“Your name Binns?” Steele asked.

The fat man's terrified gaze swept towards the front of the store, but the plaza was as empty as a summer sky. The blank-eyed stare of the stranger recaptured his trembling attention.

“Yes … ye ... yes. But ... I, don't—”

“Buy your supplies in Washington?”

Binns nodded vigorously and ran a finger along his top lip. New beads of sweat were immediately squeezed out to replace those wiped away. “What's this all ... all about, mister?”

“Something you haven't got to worry about - for long Steele suddenly withdrew the rifle. Binns experienced a moment of relief. Then the muzzle was driven towards, him again, smashing hard into his middle. Air gushed out of his lungs in a gasp and he started to fold over double. Steele jerked the rifle clear. He raised it and brought it down hard. The barrel cracked against Binns' skull and crushed his forehead against the counter top. The fat man went limp and crumpled out of sight behind the counter.

Steele pursed his lips in a silent whistle and toyed with the lobe of his left ear as he glanced around the store. His blank eyes roved along the shelves, of rolled cloth and settled on a reel of black serge. After a quick glance out over the deserted plaza, he rested the Colt Hartford against the counter and moved across to the shelves. The cloth was heavy - several yards long and a yard and half wide wound around a wooden reel.