Day of Independence (22 page)

Horace Wilcox, the stage depot manager, greeted Hank Cannon with a face even sadder and longer than his own. “Not an auspicious day for your lady wife to arrive, Ranger Cannan,” he said. “Oh, I don't mean Independence Day, I mean—”

Cannan nodded. “I know what you mean. Yes, she could have chosen a better one.”

Cannan stood on his own feet, the wheelchair parked outside, big Simon Rule keeping close and stern guard lest some unscrupulous thief try to steal it.

“Will the stage arrive on time, you think?” the Ranger said.

“My dear sir, the Butterfield stage always arrives on time, give or take a day or two,” Wilcox said. He glanced at the solemn railroad clock on the wall. “It's noon now, Ranger Cannan. I can say with some confidence, but not with certainty, that we will welcome the arrival of your bride in short order.”

“How short?” Cannan said.

“That, I cannot say. But short order is short order in the busy world of the Butterfield stage line.”

“If I don't see the stage pull in, you'll let me know, huh?” Cannan said.

“Indeed I will, sir. I am your obedient servant.”

Cannan touched his hat. “Much obliged,” he said.

“And a happy Independence Day to you, Ranger Cannan, if it's in keeping with the doleful circumstances.”

“You'll come a-running when the bell rings?” Cannon said.

“Depend on it,” Wilcox said. The man nodded to a corner where a Winchester leaned. “I have my rifle and a hundred rounds of ammunition, Ranger. I plan to aim well and do great execution once the battle starts.”

Cannan smiled. “Good man. You're true blue.” Then he wound it up, “About the stage...”

“I won't forget,” Wilcox said.

 

 

Hank Cannan stepped down from the stage depot into the street. He felt like a ninety-year-old with arthritis.

“Chair?” Simon Rule said.

“Hell, I can't walk.”

“Then chair it is,” Rule said, his usually dour face cheerful.

Cannan sat and the blacksmith said, “Where to, master?”

“Damn it, Simon, have you been drinking?” Cannan said.

“God forbid.”

“Then quit being so all-fired cheerful. It doesn't become you.”

“Anything you say, master.”

Cannan sighed.

He studied the street, now thronged with people and children. They were doing their best, the Ranger decided. To a casual observer it would seem that the folks of Last Chance were enjoying their Independence Day.

Firecrackers snapped like mousetraps and smoked like fog. Tin-panny pianos jingled in the saloons and men stood in the street and sampled fruit pies that covered their mustaches with crumbs.

But the celebrations lacked spirit. Lacked joy. Lacked life. And Ranger Cannan felt the loss deeply and blamed it on himself.

 

 

Cannan swiveled his head and said to Rule, “Think we should go check on Ephraim?”

“No,” the blacksmith said.

“How come?”

“We're planning a surprise party, aren't we? We don't want a bunch of folks stomping all over the riverbank and giving the game away.”

Cannan thought about that, then said, “Yeah, I guess you're right.”

“Ephraim will stick,” Rule said.

“If he don't, I'll shoot him.”

“If he don't, we'll both shoot him,” Rule said.

“Ranger! Ranger! Ranger!”

Half a dozen kids ran toward Cannan, the girls hiking up the skirts of their go-to-Sunday-school dresses.

“Slow down,” Rule said, his voice stern. He pointed to a small boy with sandy hair and round glasses. “You, Cad Price, what's going on?”

“It's Andy Kilcoyn,” the boy said.

“You found him?” Cannan said.

A pretty, pigtailed girl in a sky blue dress answered. “We... we...”

“We think he's dead,” Cad Price said.

“Where is he?” Cannan said.

“Behind the Cattleman's Hotel among a pile of boxes.”

Rule needed no bidding from the Ranger. He immediately pushed the wheelchair in the direction of the hotel, the excited, yelling kids running alongside.

Attracted by the commotion, people tagged along behind, speculating about what was amiss. Cannan and Rule, their faces like stone, said nothing.

But the children, eager for attention, let the cat out of the bag, and the crowd's speculation turned, first to concern, then to wonder.

Little Andy Kilcoyn dead? What on earth happened? Oh, his poor mother.

Rule pushed the chair into the alley and scraped Cannan's elbows along the walls until he pulled them closer to Andy's body.

The kids said they'd been searching for empty pop bottles they could trade for candy sticks, and had dragged away most of the crates and boxes, exposing the boy's body. He'd been stuffed into a tea chest that was labeled CEYLON.

Cannan almost leapt from the wheelchair, an effort that cost him dearly in pain, and kneeled beside acting, unpaid Texas Ranger Andy Kilcoyn. He took the boy from the chest, cradled his head in his arm, and helplessly stared at Rule.

The big blacksmith looked like a man lost.

Andy's face was as white as marble, his eyes wide open in death, a death that had not come easily or without fear. “Bruises all over him, the side of his face smashed from a blow,” Cannan said. “And then he was strangled.”

“Seems like,” Rule said, his voice broken.

“Who?”

Rule said nothing.

Yells of sympathy rose from the people who'd crowded into the alley as Edith Kilcoyn, accompanied by Dr. Krueger, pushed her way through. The woman took in the scene at a glance.

She screamed and ran to her son's body and took him into her arms.

“I'm afraid he's dead, Mrs. Kilcoyn,” Cannan said. “I'm real sorry.”

Andy's mother said nothing. She hugged Andy close and her tears fell on his shattered face.

Dr. Krueger got as near to the boy as Mrs. Kilcoyn would allow. He spent a few minutes examining the body, at the same time trying to calm the hysterical mother, then rose to his feet.

“He was strangled, Hans,” Cannon said.

The doctor shook his head. “No, Ranger Cannan, the boy suffered a terrible blow to his face and was then suffocated.”

“Dr. Krueger, you mean by a pillow or something?” Rule said.

“Or something,” the physician said.

A couple of women kneeled to comfort Mrs. Kilcoyn, and Krueger said, “I'll take care of things here. You've got other matters that demand your attention, Ranger.”

Cannan nodded. “Thanks, Doc.” He glanced at the crying women and Mrs. Kilcoyn, who was quiet now, but was in a state of profound shock, numb. “This is a terrible thing,” he said.

“Find out who did it,” Krueger said.

“The killer was strong enough to cause the boy terrible injuries, and he took the pillow with him,” Cannan said. “Are those clues or not?” He turned joyless eyes to the doctor. “Damn it, Hans, I'm not a Pinkerton.”

“Speak to the hotel guests,” Krueger said. “Maybe somebody heard or saw something.”

“I don't have time for that,” Cannan said. “You know what we're facing.”

“And this heartless murder could be part of it. Who might have had an interest in what happened at the riverbank?” Krueger said. “For some reason did he figure Andy knew?”

Cannan frowned, reaching deep. Then, “Andy wore a Ranger's star I gave him. It was found near the alley.”

“The star may have attracted the killer,” Krueger said.

“I deputized Andy as an acting, unpaid Texas Ranger,” Cannan said. “He may have told his killer that.”

“And the man wanted information from him,” Krueger said.

“Andy was tough,” Rule said. “He wouldn't spill.”

“And that's why the man murdered him,” Cannan said. He was silent for a while, deep in thought.

Then he threw back his head and yelled, “HAAACKER!”

The door to Abe Hacker's hotel room was locked. “Simon, kick it down,” Hank Cannan said.

Rule was horrified. “Ranger, this is private property,” he said.

“Kick it down,” Cannan said, his face grim.

Rule said, “I hope you know what you're doing.”

He raised a great, booted foot and smashed the door at the lock. Timber splintered and the door crashed open.

Gun drawn, Cannan limped inside.

And smelled death.

A woman's slender arm, the hand lying beside a towel, stuck out from under the bed. Cannan pushed the cloth aside and his breath caught in his throat.

The hand had been stamped into a blue-black claw, the index finger bent and beckoning, demanding that the living draw closer to the dead.

“Simon,” Cannan said, “get her out from there.”

The blacksmith bent and, gently for a man of his size and strength, pulled Nora's body into the middle of the floor. She was wrapped in a man's bloodstained robe.

Her horror at the manner of her death frozen on Nora's face, the woman's slim neck showed the deep bruises of strangulation.

“Hacker murdered her,” Rule said.

“Yeah, he did,” Cannan said. “And Andy Kilcoyn.”

“But why his woman?” Rule said.

“Did she know he'd killed the boy and accused him?” Cannan said. “By the size of it, that's Hacker's robe. There's blood all over it.”

“And then he silenced her like he did Andy,” Rule said.

“Seems like,” Cannan said.

“Where is he?” Rule said.

“I don't know.”

“Still in town?”

“Damn it, I told you I don't know.” Cannan regretted his snappishness and said, “Simon, go bring Doc Krueger. It's one of the law's traditional death rituals, and we'll observe it.”

“Poor lady,” Rule said, glancing at Nora's body.

Cannan holstered his gun and leaned against the wall. He looked as exhausted as he felt. “Poor lady. Poor town. Poor Andy. Poor you. Poor me. We're all poor, Simon, every last one of us,” Cannan said.

After a while the blacksmith said, “You've got to hold it together, Ranger Cannan. The enemy is at the gates and if you give up, then we're lost.”

“Don't worry, I'm not giving up, especially not now,” Cannan said. “I'll stand on our ground.” He managed a smile. “Now go get the doc. Maybe he has the courage I need in a medicine bottle.”

A search of the town proved fruitless. Hacker had flown the coop.

“He must have crossed the river,” Mayor Frank Curtis said.

“And the only spot shallow enough for miles in either direction is guarded by Ephraim Slough,” Cannan said.

“Maybe Slough has him,” Curtis said. He waited until a string of firecrackers banged to silence. “Ephraim is not a man to desert his post to drag Hacker into town.”

“Simon, roll me down to the river,” Cannan said. “We'll go talk with Ephraim.”

 

 

When a man expects to see someone at a certain place and time and that someone isn't there, the empty space seems even emptier. So it was with Ranger Hank Cannan.

It was as though the absence of Ephraim Slough had left a huge hole in the fabric of the day.

“Where is he?” Simon Rule said.

“Not here,” Cannan said.

“Hacker?”

The Ranger shook his head. “We heard no gunshots. Hacker wouldn't go up against a tough old coot like Ephraim with his bare hands. It's never wise to pick a fight with an old-timer. He won't fight you, but he'll kill you.”

“A club?” Rule said.

“A man the size of Hacker wouldn't get close enough to use a club. Or a knife.”

“Well, that means Ephraim was gone when Hacker got here.”

“Seems like,” Cannan said.

Cannan's eyes reached out across the white-hot inferno that was the Chihuahuan Desert. Nothing moved but a far-off dust devil.

“Any sign of him?” Rule said.

“Not that I can see,” Cannan said. “Damn the man. Where the hell did he go?”

There was no answer to the question, and Rule stayed silent.

Finally Cannan said, “We'll stay here, Simon. When we spot a dust cloud in the distance fog it for town and ring the church bell.”

“And leave you here alone?”

“Yeah, only I won't exactly be on a high lonesome.”

Cannon built himself a cigarette. Then, “Listen up, Simon, as soon as the bell rings I want a half-grown boy with a rifle, a couple of white-haired old-timers, a woman with sand—Polly Curtis the mayor's wife would be ideal—and you. Stash your rifle until the shooting starts. I want you to be armed only with a hammer.”

“I'm not catching your drift,” Rule said.

Cannan smiled. “You will if my brilliant strategy works,” he said. “Just make sure Mrs. Curtis and the rest get here before Sancho Perez attacks.”

Rule was a slow-thinking man. But finally he said, “Suppose your brilliant strategy don't work. What then?”

“Then we'll all be dead and it won't matter,” Cannan said.