Powder Keg (11 page)

Mike said: “I found Clarice but Connelly grabbed her before I could.”

Pepper laughed: “And then we found both of them. Worked out real nice.”

Connelly laughed. “That Mike’s a real hero, though, isn’t he? How much of that bank money you stole did you hide away somewhere?”

“None,” Mike snapped.

Connelly said: “I got to give you one thing, kid. You sure have a way with the ladies. But if a certain man I know ever finds out that you were with
his
lady you’re in bigger trouble than ever. And I think you know who I’m talking about.”

“Shut up!” Mike half-shouted. He sounded as much nervous as angry. Made me wonder who Connelly was talking about.

But Connelly was finished stirring up Mike. “If you’d be kind enough to empty your weapons and then throw the bullets into the woods, I’d be most appreciative.”

Pepper: “You do that and we’ll hand the girl back. And then we’ll take the killer here into town.”

Jen glanced at me. She wanted to fight. She’d be
angry that I didn’t agree. But Connelly and Pepper were running this particular face-off. They had the girl and they had Mike.

“I want your guarantee you won’t hurt him,” I snapped.

“You’re a bossy bastard, you know that, Noah? And it’s not just me and Pepper say that, either. A lot of men in the agency do. ‘He’s a nice fella, that Noah Ford,’ they say, ‘but he thinks he runs the whole show.’ They say that a lot, don’t they, Pepper?”

“They sure do. You mention the name Noah Ford and that’s all you hear. How he always puts himself in charge of everything.”

“But this time, Noah, we’re in charge. And we’re telling you to empty your guns and then drop them. And then throw the bullets into the woods. Same with the gal. You do the same, miss.”

Jen glared at me. Then glared back at Connelly.

“Takes a tough man to hold on to a little girl the way you are.”

“You can’t insult me, miss, because I don’t give a shit whether you like me or not. And when you don’t care what people think of you, you can do just about anything you care to.”

Clarice started wrestling around under his grip. Forcing him to demonstrate that she wasn’t as easy to hold on to as he’d just insinuated.

I had to make a decision, and I had to make it fast. I knew that I couldn’t trust Connelly and Pepper to keep their word. They were a lot of things, but honest wasn’t one of them. But what choice did I have? If we tried to fight, we’d be killed before we even got off a single shot.

On the other hand, I didn’t really think they would kill us, not now that they had Chaney. He’d be a witness against them, and even two senators couldn’t save Connelly and Pepper if they were accused of killing a federal agent. So they had a choice, too. They could kill all of us, including Chaney, and lose the glory that would come with taking him in alive, or they could leave Jen, Clarice, and me alive, knowing that it would take a long time for us to get back to town—and we might not even make it.

Not much of a choice. One way we died for sure, and one way we had a small hope.

I did the only thing I could. I emptied the carbine and then I emptied my .44. I hurled everything into the woods.

“Now you, ma’am,” Connelly said.

He was enjoying himself. I wondered if this was as much fun as taking a broom to a defenseless woman. Or killing a little boy. Probably not.

“We don’t have any choice,” I said to Jen.

She frowned at me, then set about doing what I just had. But she did it at her own pace, purposely irritating Connelly and Pepper.

She hurled her bullets into the woods.

“You’ve got a nice throwing arm there, lady. You could be an outfielder.”

He encircled Clarice with his right arm and then carefully climbed down from his horse. Once they were on the ground, Clarice tried to kick him. “I don’t know what it is about gals around here. That Jen gal there, she’d put a knife in my back first chance she got. And this little one here—”

He shoved Clarice toward Jen. The girl, sobbing
suddenly, fell into Jen’s arms. Jen picked her up, holding her tight.

Pepper kept his carbine trained on Mike.

“I want an understanding here,” I said.

“Yeah,” Pepper said, “and what would that be?”

“That would be that Mike is alive when you get him back to town.”

“You sure worry a lot about a cold-blooded killer,” Connelly said.

“I want him alive,” I said. “And you better remember that.”

“See, Noah, there you go again,” Connelly said. “Bein’ the boss. Tellin’ me this and tellin’ me that. And now you’re threatening me on top of it. I don’t like that. And I’ll bet Pepper doesn’t like it, either.” He called over his shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Pepper?”

“I don’t like threats and I don’t like Ford.”

Connelly smiled. “Now there’s a vote of confidence for you, Mr. Ford.”

“Just remember what I said about getting Mike back safe, Connelly. I’m going to hold you responsible.”

In the moonlight, Mike’s young face looked sad and scared. He had to know that these men would shoot him for anything he did that so much as irritated them.

“I’ll see you in town,” he said. His voice was shaking.

Jen’s attention was divided. Clarice was still crying, the sound muffled because her face was buried in Jen’s shoulder. But Jen also wanted to comfort her brother in some way, too. Reassure him so he wouldn’t be so afraid. But all she managed was: “I’ll see you in town, Mike. You’ll get a fair hearing. Noah will see to it.”

Pepper dropped down from his saddle, crunched through the snow to Mike. The soaring mountains outlined in the moonlight, the blue-tinted snow, three deer crossing the mountain path just below us—an ideal picture of the mountains. Connelly and Pepper shouldn’t have been in that picture at all. They were vulgar, profane.

Mike started to talk but before he got three words out, Pepper whipped out a pair of handcuffs and clamped them on Mike’s wrists. Then Pepper went back to his horse and produced a good stretch of rope. He tied this around Mike’s neck. Pepper went back to his horse and climbed up in the saddle. Connelly helped Mike up into Pepper’s saddle, in the front position. If Mike tried to escape, he wouldn’t get far. The rope wasn’t very long.

“Probably be tomorrow before you folks get back to town,” Pepper said. “Be a hell of a cold walk for ya.”

Connelly came over to me. I knew what to expect. With Pepper’s carbine on me, Connelly could do what he wanted. I just hoped he didn’t break anything. We had a long cold walk back to town ahead of us.

He put his fist wrist-deep into my stomach and just when I was buckling, he brought his right fist up and caught me square on the jaw. When I lunged for him, Pepper sent a bullet searing right past my shoulder.

“You try to hit him again, Ford,” Pepper said, “I’ll kill you on the spot.”

Connelly went for my groin with his knee and then when I was in enough writhing pain there on the ground, he decided to stomp on my hand. His spur jangled as he raised his boot for the stomping.

And then I didn’t give a damn. Let Pepper kill me. Right then all that mattered was getting to Connelly. Just when he was ready to crush my gun hand, I reached up and grabbed his boot with enough force to jerk him off balance. Then I was on my feet and ready to get some vengeance. I slammed a fist to his forehead and then returned the favor to his groin.

I was just ready to start stomping him once I had him on his knees and ready to spill over backward when Pepper must have sighted his rifle because suddenly Jen was there, standing in front of me and screaming, “You’ll have to shoot me to get to him! Are you ready to do that?”

Any other time, I would have smiled at Jen’s words. Anybody who’d done to a woman what Pepper had done to Clarice’s mother wouldn’t hesitate to merely shoot a woman. That was a nice, clean, civilized job compared to what he’d done back there in that cabin where Clarice and her mother and brother had been staying.

But for right then I was grateful to Jen for so foolishly shielding me. Pepper probably understood that he might get away with killing Mike in cold blood—he might even get away with killing me that way, too—but killing Jen? Nordberg wouldn’t stand for that. He’d make Connelly and Pepper pay for sure.

“Put the rifle down,” Connelly said, rising uncomfortably to his feet, grimacing from groin pain every few seconds. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

He walked bowlegged over to his horse. Any other time watching him walk would have been funny, but now it was just grotesque. Like Connelly himself.

“G’bye, Jen,” Mike said from atop Pepper’s horse.

“You’ll be fine, Mike,” she said. “I know you will be.”

Connelly laughed, though pain was evident in his voice.

“That’s right, little brother. We’ll take real good care of you.” Then to me: “This isn’t over between us. You know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t say anything. I was tired of all his bad-guy bullshit. There comes a point when people like Connelly talked tough just to hear their own voices.

Then they rode off.

O
ur first thought was to start after them right away. But then I suggested we try and get some sleep and then set out.

At first, Jen balked. I didn’t blame her. If Mike was my brother, I’d want to go after them immediately.

But he wasn’t my brother and so I could look at things with a clearer eye. Clarice had already fallen into a fitful sleep. And Jen and I were tired, too. Why not use the lean-to Mike and I had thrown together?

Jen needed to curse somebody so she cursed me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t give a damn about her brother. I was going to get reprimanded when she wrote a letter to my boss.

But after she choked down a piece of bread and positioned herself next to Clarice under the lean-to, she was asleep in just a few minutes. She worked up some good snoring pretty fast, too.

For a time, I couldn’t sleep. I dwelt on some of those bad memories that never seem fresher or more urgent than when you’re lying awake like that. People who hated me; things they’d said. People I hated; things I’d
said. People who’d failed me; people I’d failed. Nothing about the present time, nothing about Jen or Clarice or Mike or Connelly. Just things from the past. Too bad they couldn’t be cut out with a scalpel.

Then I finally slept, but on my arm, crooked, so that it hurt some when I woke up.

When I finally fought my eyes open, I had one of those moments when I wasn’t sure where I was.

Darkness. Snow. Broken moonlight.

“Let’s get going.”

I raised my head. Jen carried my rifle in one hand and was holding Clarice over her shoulder with the other. I took the rifle and loaded it with the extra bullets I kept in my pocket.

I walked down trail and pissed and came back and said, “I’ll take her.”

“I wouldn’t want to make you actually work.”

Still pissed off.

“Even if you didn’t, I needed to rest.”

“Maybe you’re too old for this job.”

“I’m forty-one. I’ve probably got a few good years left.”

“They’ll kill him.”

“Maybe not. I warned them.”

“Yeah, and they really looked scared.”

I glared at her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m tired of weak men. I’ve never met a so-called man who could measure up to my father.”

“Lead on, General.”

She led on.

When we’d gone no more than ten yards, she turned around, Clarice in her arms and said, “You could’ve done something.”

“I tried. But it’s hard to do anything when somebody’s pointing a carbine at you, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, Pepper was doing.”

“You’re a federal man. That’s supposed to mean something.”

I laughed bitterly. “Mean what? That bullets don’t hurt us? You’re being stupid, Jen. I’m sorry they took Mike. I hope they take him in alive. I warned them.”

As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. I’d just handed her a weapon.

“The big brave federal man warned them.” She smirked. “I could’ve done that myself. It doesn’t take any guts to just warn somebody—especially if you don’t back it up with anything.”

She turned around and started walking.

There were birds before there was light. There were birds and then there were wolves and then there were more birds. And then there was that streaky half-light. By then, Clarice had been set down and was walking just behind Jen.

The sun was starting to send brilliant lances across the still-dark sky. Stars were starting to vanish. A mist lay across the moon. Between our own footfalls you could hear the animals in the snow in the forest on either side of us.

I was working over her remark about her father. That went a long way in explaining why she was still not married. We talk about mamas’ boys a lot but we never pay much attention to women who are under the sway of their fathers. And the sway can imprison them even beyond the grave. I knew I wasn’t tough but I also knew I wasn’t weak. I did my job and I’d survived quite a few different times that other men
wouldn’t have. So her words stung. I didn’t have much of a life except for my job and when somebody attacked me for not doing that well—

“I need to do my business.”

That was the official way we now discussed toilet needs. “My business.” Clarice said it curtly, then headed off into the woods.

“Don’t go very far,” Jen said.

“She’ll be all right.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.”

I smiled and the smile and the ripe golden dawn starting to break on the horizon were enough to stop me from sulking anymore.

“You calmed down any?”

“I’m not up to talking right now.”

“Glad you don’t hold grudges.”

That got me a scowl.

I did some mountain gazing. The snow, blue gone with the night sky, was slowly becoming white again. The lowest clouds on the mountain were starting to thin. Somebody down mountain rang a breakfast bell. There was a chance that somebody who lived higher up than where we stood, tucked away somewhere, might come down to town in a wagon and tell us to hop on.

Clarice came back and said, “I saw a mama deer.”

“A doe.”

“How come they call them that?”

“Maybe you should ask the federal man.”

I looked at Clarice. “She’s mad at me.”

“She called you a name last night. I told her I liked you.”

“I appreciate that. And I like you, too.”

“How come she’s mad at you?”

“I guess you’ll have to ask her, Clarice.”

She looked up at Jen and said, “How come you’re mad at him?”

Then Jen surprised me and I assumed she surprised Clarice, too. “I’m just worried, honey. About my brother Mike. And I needed somebody to take it out on.” Her gaze rested on me. “Sometimes I’m petty.”

“Gosh, I hadn’t noticed that,” I said.

“You’re supposed to be gracious when somebody’s apologizing.”

“What’s ‘gracious’ mean?” Clarice asked.

“It means you’re supposed to be nice about it when somebody says they’re sorry about something.”

“Oh. You mean you’re sorry for calling him that name?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “And it wasn’t a very bad name, anyway.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So, I’m sorry, Noah.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

“Can we start walking again?” Clarice asked. “It gets cold when you just stand in one place.”

Jen studied my face for a time and then looked down at Clarice, who stood next to her, and said: “Let’s go, honey.”

We held up pretty well most of the morning. We ate jerky as we walked and shared what was left of the canteen. The kid had slipped into herself again. She rarely said anything. I hated to think of what she was reliving in her mind over and over.

Around noon, the sky started turning gray again.
The morning had glowed with sunlight. The deer to the west, and there must have been a hundred of them spread out over the long slope, noted our passage with that quick animal curiosity that never seems to last more than a few seconds.

Clarice just gave out. She’d been walking upfront with Jen, who had slowed down so that Clarice could maintain her normal pace, when she just tripped and flopped down face-first onto the snowy trail.

Jen and I were over her in seconds. I grabbed her underneath her arms, picked her up, held her in front of Jen for inspection.

“You just tired, honey?”

Clarice just nodded. Then she started crying. “I want to see my mommy.”

“I know you do, sweetie.”

“Can we go back to that cabin where Mommy is?”

Jen’s eyes flicked to mine.

“We’ll be there by nightfall, hon.”

Clarice yawned. “I’m sleepy.”

“I’ll carry her,” I said.

After finishing off the canteen, we started walking again. We wouldn’t want for water. Not with all the snow around us.

You could see the tracks left by Connelly and Pepper. By now they’d be in town. I wondered what they’d tell Nordberg. Connelly was always good and quick with stories for any situation. They’d likely be gone by the time we got there. Chuck Gage had been afraid of them. I doubted he’d gone to the sheriff’s office. Connelly and Pepper knew their time with the agency was over. They’d know I’d come after them for what they’d done in that cabin. For people like
them, there were banks to rob and con games to play and Mexico and South America to hide in if things got very bad.

Mike was another matter. Nordberg and I between us had to find out who’d actually killed Jim Sloane. And who’d killed Tom Daly.

But even after we found the killer, Mike was headed for prison. The James Gang always said they were robbing banks and trains for the sake of the people, too. You might have noticed that the law hadn’t looked kindly on their pleas. As much of a greedy bastard as Flannery might be, Mike had no legal right to do what he’d done. His best hope was of finding a sympathetic jury that would be swayed by this homegrown Robin Hood legend.

The snow started about an hour into the afternoon. A confetti snow. The temperature drop had its effect on the bones. You have arthritis or rheumatism on a long, cold walk and your bones begin to remind you of who is in charge of your body. The bones ache, they burn and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it except waste your money on some kind of quack patent medicine.

Jen talked Clarice into singing some songs. They both sounded girlie and sweet.

I broke away once to find food for the night. The jerky was about gone. One thing I wasn’t, was a hunter. Three rabbits escaped me before I was finally able to shoot one.

I carried it along on the walk, keeping it as well
hidden as I could. I didn’t know how Clarice was doing and I wasn’t sure she’d want to see anything dead. I trailed behind a good twenty feet.

But of course that concern became moot just as the long shadows from the mountains started to wrap us in their cold dark shroud. The sunset was almost the same color as the drops of blood from the rabbit.

We came up over a little hill and Jen stopped suddenly, swooped up Clarice and ran back to me.

She stood Clarice down and said, “Wait here, honey.”

She grabbed my arm and took me over to the side of the trail. It was almost dark, the dense woods on either side becoming shadowy walls.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Down there. There’s a dead man—he looks dead, anyway—in the middle of the trail. And there are two horses. I didn’t see anything else. The horses looked like the ones Connelly and Pepper were riding.”

I walked the rabbit over into the shadows and kicked snow over it. Then I stuck a long twig up to mark the spot. Too easy to lose without some way of identifying the spot.

Clarice hugged Jen around the waist. They both looked like statues.

This time of day, with shadows playing games, it was easy to mistake what you were seeing. Especially if you were worried about somebody the way Jen was worried about her brother.

I had to damned near walk to the man before I believed it was a man. I walked around, looking everything over, trying to imagine what had happened there.

When I came back, I said, “I’ll go down there now. You wait here.”

Jen clutched my arm. “I really am sorry for what I said, Noah.”

I patted her hand.

“Is it Mike?”

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t go all the way down. There may be a shooter in the woods. I wanted to grab my carbine.”

She gripped my wrist.

“I’m sorry I’m not handling this better.”

“You’re handling it just fine.”

I walked over and grabbed my carbine. Then I walked down to where the two horses and the man waited in the sudden wind. I’d lied to her. It was Mike I’d seen all right and he was dead all right. I couldn’t lie to her again, though. This time I’d have to tell her the truth for sure.