Peacemakers (Peacemaker Origins Book 1) (15 page)

Mr. Vault continued, “Soon our time will come.  We will rise from the shadows. Soon the world will know its new rulers, its new order; it will witness the rise of a Third Triumvirate!”

Thirty feet below the library, the screams of Kasper Holstrom surged through the flue and into the night air, where it was lost amidst the sounds of the bustling city.

PART II

Heroes & Has-Beens

Wage W. Pascal

July 3, 1914

Algiers Point

New Orleans, Louisiana

His new beard itched.  Relief came when he rested his face on the cool concrete wall of his cell.  A cell with one barred window too small for a man to fit through, but not large enough to effectively funnel out the smell of his waste bucket.  Occasionally, Wage would jump up to the window, grab the smaller bars to hoist himself up, and peer out over the rushing Mississippi River.  In the distance he could see the French Quarter.  Wage figured he was probably somewhere in Algiers Point.  He would hang there on the bars, soaking in the little sunlight until his arms gave way. 

He used a concrete fragment to etch in the number of days he thought he had been there on the wall.  Twenty-four days, counting his initial three-day stint in the Orleans Parish Jail for disorderly conduct.  The first few marks were light and crooked.  His body had not reacted well to the abrupt deprivation of bourbon, but after a week or so, his body and mind came around.  He did not understand the reason for his transfer to this place, nor had he heard from Ol’ Bill.  He constantly asked the deputy for answers.  What is he charged with?  Where is he?  Why was he transferred here?  Where might he find a lawyer?  When would he see a judge? But he received none.  He was on his own with no plan for escape. 

Because there was no way to plan ahead, he reflected back.  The death of his mother.  Mink leaving him at the cypress altar.  He had lost the only women he truly cared for.  The reason his father made him board a train for the east coast, destined ultimately for the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Heavy rains washed out some northbound tracks, which is why they stopped in Jacksonville.  Waiting in the terminal, he met Dr. Jethro Goodnight, a Texas cattlemen looking to expand into new markets.  The reason why he never made it to the Sorbonne and chose a life as a cattle hand in San Antonio instead. 

While driving cattle, drinking whiskey, and deflowering debutantes, he met a number of new acquaintances, including the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who was assembling young men for a Cuban invasion.  The reason why, at the ripe age of eighteen, he joined the Army.  He out-rode, out-fought, and out-shot all but three men in the unit.  He couldn’t out-ride Colonel Roosevelt, he couldn’t out-box Ol’ Bill, and he couldn’t out-shoot a pesky corporal with an annoying and unsightly widow’s peak.  Nevertheless, his abilities were the reason he made lieutenant.  He became an Army officer, like his father.  That is how he came to befriend his Sergeant 1
st
Class William MacDonough, Ol’ Black Vomit Bill.  The reason why he survived San Juan Hill in the first place, even after the untimely death of their own superior officer on the charge.  The reason for Wage’s own battlefield promotion to captain.  After Roosevelt’s Rough Riders disbanded in August of 1898, he still had the spirit for adventure and his father’s trust fund.  Ol’ Bill joined him.  Together they took odd jobs, putting their skills to work all over the Americas.  And that is how they met Mr. Jade, and then, Mr. Hamilton.  This chain of events leading back to his youth was the reason why he was sitting in a cell—location unknown— with dirty clothes, unkempt hair, bare feet, and a scratchy beard.

“Wake up, wake up!” the approaching deputy yelled as he rattled the bars with his baton.  “Wake up, Pascal.  You gettin’ a visitor today.”  Deputy Leblanc smiled, showing only a handful of teeth that matched his brown uniform.  He tucked away his baton on his belt and began tapping on the ivory handle peeking out of his holster.  Wage recognized part of the snapping gator etched in gold.  “You like my new gun?” asked the deputy, whose first language was clearly guttermouth.  “Just picked it up today.” 

Wage remembered when he picked up the polished Colt Peacemaker himself from a card shark in Baton Rouge.  When he was 13, he had run into town on an errand for his father after dinner.  Wage was to drop off some kind of deed into the mail slot of the title company.  It was normally an errand his brother would have done, but William Jr. was escorting mother to a charity function in New Orleans.  After dropping off the sealed document, he wandered about the gas-lit city in the summer dusk.  For a while he stared through the windows of Ms. Lilly’s, watching fancy girls dance about and lift the spirits of the gruff and weary patrons who stumbled in there after work.  He had glanced into those windows before whenever his family would forgo the carriage and instead walk home from a steak dinner in the city, but his mother was always quick to wrangle him the ear and drag him back to Pascal Manor.  This time, there was no one to wrangle him.  He watched the shenanigans and debauchery unfold as though it were a bawdy version of one of the three-act plays his parents usually forced him to go to.  The first act, like his mother had always explained, was an introduction of characters, a perfect picture of a life, free from conflict.  This was gregarious Ms. Lilly, her gorgeous girls, their eager patrons, and a group of stern poker players in the corner.  However, the second act always presents confrontation for your main characters, and in this case, it was a done-wrong-gambler firing a solitary gunshot at the card player across from him before nonchalantly walking out the front door during the ensuing commotion.  The gambler stopped in front of Wage, who was still standing stunned out front.  The gambler tipped his white cattle hat and half-smiled before walking down the street, and disappearing into another tavern further down.  He disappeared before the authorities arrived or other angry patrons could find him.  After Wage’s curiosity beat out his better judgment, he followed the man’s trail to the small tavern a few blocks over.  The man had ditched his hat and was sipping something clear as he sat in a dark, smoky corner by himself, watching the entrance.  The dark-eyed gambler with long hair and stubble the color of tree bark noticed Wage immediately and calmly called him over with a gesture.  Wage walked over slowly. 

“You plan to turn me in, boy?” the gambler asked in a rough voice.  His face, Wage decided, was permanently etched with a one-sided grin. 

“I . . . I . . .” Wage stuttered.

The man drew an ivory-handled Peacemaker from his hip, spinning it a few times before catching it by the six-inch barrel and slamming it on the table.  Wage saw the gilded alligator on the handle, its body bent back as its jaws snapped open.  The gambler pointed to the etching that seemed to glow in the dark.  “When I was about your age, I saw a pelican fly through the creek I was fishin’ in.  It landed on a small stump in the water, only it wasn’t no stump.  Downright powerful jaws jumped outta the water and snagged that pelican just as fast as man could holler.  It was then I figured it out.”

“Fi . . . figured what out?” Wage asked nervously.

“Figured out that no man can predict when it’s his time to go.  You could be mindin’ your business, not harmin’ nothing or no one and BOOM!”  The gambler slammed his hand down on the table.  Wage jumped and nearly wet himself.  “You’re as dead as a doornail.  Dead as that pelican.”  He pointed back to the etching.  “I had this done by a fella outside of Monroe.  Only I didn’t have him draw on no pelican.  Because it don’t matter who or what you are. 
Ol’ Snapper
will
getcha
.  Remember my words:  Ain’t no man escape the jaws of death, boy.”  The alcohol from the gambler’s breath began to fill the corner they were in like a cool fog.

Then a copper walked into the tavern, eyeing all the patrons who suddenly went quiet.  “Go ahead, boy.  Take it,” the gambler whispered.  “Pretend like you ain’t never seen me and Ol’ Snapper is yours for the keeping.  Take it and never tell a soul you got it from me.  Go on, boy.”  Without thought, Wage grabbed the pistol and buried it inside his trousers.  “Now get outta here, and remember our deal.”  Wage turned and walked for the door.  The policeman grabbed his shoulder before he made it to the porch.  “Hey!  You seen a man in a white cattle hat?  About my height?  He’s a card shark.  Goes by the name of Daniel?”

“No, sir,” Wage replied calmly, as if his new gun, uncomfortably hidden in his pants, had instilled a new confidence in him.  “I ain’t seen nobody like that.”

The policeman eyed Wage carefully.  “You one of the Pascal boys, aren’t ya?”

“Yes, sir,” Wage replied.

“Now what in the hell are you doin’ in a place like this?” the policeman asked.

Wage looked around. Most of the patrons were staring at him.  “Thought I might have myself a drink,” he said, causing an eruption of laughter in the tavern.

The policeman shook his head.  “This ain’t no place for the likes of you.  Hurry on home, now.  It’s getting past curfew.”

Wage returned home and never heard from Ol’ Snapper’s
previous owner again.  He convinced himself that he provided the gambler’s resolution.  Resolution, he remembered, which was always found in the third act.  Wage hid his new gun with his folded, heavy sweaters, which were rarely used in the swamp.  He retrieved the gun every night before bed.  For years, it would be the last thing he saw at night, and the first thing he’d look at when he awoke.  Every time, he traced the snapping alligator with his finger and thought about his own first act. 

The deputy drew Ol’ Snapper and aimed it from the hip at Wage, who still lay on the floor, his head propped up against the concrete wall.  “
Whoooooooo
,” the deputy said in a high pitch before quietly making the sound of gunfire.  He holstered the gun as his tongue danced around his teeth.  Wage remained silent and wondered how many times the deputy must have practiced that move before convincing himself he was good at it.  “It sure would be ertonic to kill a man with his own gun,” he said before belting out a wheeze-like laugh.

“Ironic,” Wage corrected.

“What?” the deputy asked, scratching a red scar above his eyebrow.

“Irony.  It’s ironic to kill a man with his own gun.”

“Shut up!” the deputy yelled, hitting the bars with the palm of his hand.  “And stand up!  The judge is here to see you.” 

Another deputy, clearly kin to Deputy Leblanc, came into view carrying a small table.  He set it down and left, but he returned shortly with a large black bag, a valise like a traveling doctor might carry.  He set it down on the table and left again.  He returned one last time to put a chair down just outside the bars to the cell.  Wage sat up but did not stand when a thin, effeminate gentlemen in a seersucker suit and straw boater hat walked into view.  He had rounded gold spectacles and a thin, groomed pencil mustache.  He removed his hat and set it on the table.  His face was long with narrow features and hair so thin it looked like fishing line.  His voice, as delicate as it was, still commanded a certain power.

“Good evening, Mr. Pascal.  My name is Eric Jerome Delacroix,” he said, adjusting his glasses and crossing his legs. 

“Why I am here, Eric?” Wage asked.

“That’s the Honorable E.J. Delacroix to you, maggot!” Deputy Leblanc yelled.

“Calm down, Perry.  It’s quite all right,” Judge Delacroix said.  “Why don’t you give us a moment.”  The deputy adjusted his gun belt and walked away.

“I don’t take kindly to being imprisoned, your honor,” Wage said.

“We are all imprisoned, Mr. Pascal.  It’s just so happens that some of us have smaller cells than others.”

“Then why am I in this smaller cell, your honor?  Two months is quite a while for a drunken bar fight, don’t you think?”

“This facility is . . . well, let’s just say it’s off the books.  We reserve it for . . . special prisoners.”

“What makes me so damn special?” Wage asked.

The judge smiled briefly.  “A few things, really, but regardless, I am willing to grant you your freedom this evening, that is of course, if you agree to my demands.”

“And if I do not agree?”

“Then you will be tried for murder,” Judge Delacroix replied.

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I didn’t murder anybody,” Wage replied simply.

“Ah, but you did.  That night at the brothel.  You shot a man to his death.”

“I didn’t even fire my gun that night!”

The judge leaned over his chair and pried open the nearby black bag by its handles.  He reached in and grabbed a leather folder.  Inside the folder were papers of all sorts.  He pulled one out.  It was a photograph of a deceased man, his eyes closed and with a permanent grimace.  The judge held it up.  “This man, here.”  He looked inside the folder for a moment and found the corpse’s name.  “Guy Jardin.  You killed him that night.  Shot him in the chest and head six times in the alley behind the House of Black Curtains.  Made his little boy an orphan.”  He put the picture back in the folder and pulled out more papers.  “Here are the signed affidavits of witnesses that saw you do it.  It doesn’t look good for you Mr. Pascal.”

“What motive would I even have to kill a man I don’t know?” Wage asked.

“Ah, I am glad you asked!  It appears your confinement and utter lack of libations has not affected your senses after all.  Mr. Jardin was to be your accomplice in a robbery.”

“Robbery?”

“Yes, it appears you were planning on robbing the Louisiana State Bank but could not agree on how to split the money, so you killed him.”

“How do you figure I was going to rob a bank?” Wage asked.