Fallout (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 2) (24 page)

Joshua drew his revolver and made a mad dash for the back porch. As soon as he neared it, he saw a man coming out the backdoor. He did not have time to think. Instead of yelling ‘freeze’ as he probably should have, he pulled the trigger and dropped him in his tracks. The man landed at the foot of the steps. Once he hit the ground, the man doubled up and began moaning. Joshua was tempted to shoot him again, but his worry over Emma’s wellbeing caused him jump over the prone man and run into the kitchen. Emma lay in an ever-increasing pool of blood, her throat slashed.

Joshua ran into the bathroom grabbed a towel and hurried back to her. He used the towel to staunch the flow of blood by wrapping it tightly around her neck, but not tight enough to cut off her breathing. She was trying to talk, but he shushed her, telling her not to try to speak, that it could cause her to bleed more.

From out of nowhere, he felt someone behind him. He reached for his revolver, but it was not in his holster. He had laid it down somewhere while trying to help Emma!

“It’s me, Sheriff,” he heard someone exclaim. He turned to see John Metcalf standing behind him. “Here, let me do that. You take care of that man out there. He’s not dead, but he is in bad shape,” Metcalf said hurriedly, squatting to take over holding the towel around Emma’s neck.

Joshua stood up, looking for his weapon. He wanted to get it before going outside in case he had to shoot the intruder again. He found it on the floor beneath Emma’s shoulder. Picking it up Joshua headed for the back porch.

When he stepped onto the porch, he saw the man trying to crawl toward the river. He jumped off the porch, caught up to the man, grabbed him by the hair of the head, and jerked him backward. As soon as he got the man turned over, he realized that it could be the Train Track Killer. The man appeared to be part Hispanic or maybe even an Indian - he was dark complexioned but had green eyes. Joshua unsnapped the handcuffs off the back of his belt, twisted the man’s left arm behind his back and snapped the cuff into place. He did the same with the right arm. After he cuffed him, he raised the man’s sleeves to look at his forearms. Sure enough, the man had an encircled nautical star tattoo on his right forearm. It has to be him, thought Joshua, as he dragged the man back to the porch and laid him by the steps. He collected a length of rope that hung on a nail by the door, tied the man’s hands to a rung of the doorsteps, and went into the house to check on Emma.

“Call an ambulance, Sheriff. I think I can control the flow until they get here. If we try taking her ourselves, she might not make it alive.”

Joshua went to the phone and placed the call. Then he called the station and told Ida Mae to call Deputy Calvert on the radio and have him come to his house ASAP.

“Do you need me to relieve you?” he asked Metcalf who replied, “No, Sheriff. I got this; you take care of the prisoner.”

“He can bleed to death for all I care,” Joshua replied. He saw Emma raising her hand toward him. He squatted and took her hand. She squeezed his hand tightly, her eyes showing how afraid she actually was.

“Don’t be afraid, Emma,” he said softly. “I shot him and have him tied up outside. You’re gonna be fine as soon as they get you to the hospital and sew you up,” he said with more conviction in his voice than he actually felt. She had lost an awful lot of blood.

“Yes, you
are
going to be fine,” Metcalf assured her. Emma looked at him, smiled, and then looked back at Joshua. She smiled at him too. Her resilience always surprised him. She is one tough young woman, he thought to himself as he smiled back.

Joshua eased his hand from Emma’s, and John Metcalf took her hand. Joshua stood and walked to the screen door and looked out at the man tied to the doorsteps; he was still alive. He then walked to the kitchen sink and washed the blood from his hands. By then, he could hear sirens wailing in the distance. He walked onto the back porch and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and releasing it slowly. The river water shimmered through the trees, beckoning him to walk there. He wanted to go but knew he had to wait. He had to wait on Calvert to transport the prisoner, the ambulance to transport Emma, and to see if he would need to go with her. Too many things needed to be done. He inhaled again and blew it out. The man on the ground raised his head and looked at him.

“You should had killed me, Sheriff,” the man said, his Spanish accent thick.

“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Joshua replied dryly. “If I had followed my first instincts you’d be dead.”

“Kill me, now,
please
, amigo” the Mexican begged.

“I think I’d rather watch you die slowly,” Joshua replied, adding, “If that girl in there dies, you can bet your sweet ass you’ll get your wish,
Ese
.”

The Mexican chuckled at Joshua’s use of the Spanish word ‘Ese’. Joshua wanted to kick his teeth in.

“I should had know de whip will lash back a hit me. Even when you expect de worse, you can get worsen…” the Mexican’s words trailed off as Calvert’s cruiser came flying up into the yard. Calvert jumped out and came running up to the prisoner.

“Is that the Mexican we’ve been looking for?” he asked as he put a hand on his hip and spat on the ground.

“Yep, I do believe so,” Joshua replied.

“Good work, Sheriff. I’m glad he didn’t get any further. Its funny how he ended up here at a lawman’s house,” he said and spat again. This time the brown spittle of his chewing tobacco hit the Mexican’s foot. “I hate that
you
had to be the one to shoot him. Another shooting, on top of what they’re already wanting to have an inquest about… they’ll chock it up to just another notch on your trigger finger.”

“I know they think I’m trigger happy and shot someone just to be shooting them, but they can believe what the hell they want to believe. I know the truth and so does God.”

“That might not help though, Sheriff. I can take this shooting if you want me too. It might take some of the heat off of you.”

“I appreciate it, Deputy, but I cannot let you do that. I shot him; I’m responsible for my own actions.”

“Sheriff!” Metcalf called from inside. “How long before that ambulance gets here? Emma’s still losing a lot of blood,” he said. Calvert started up the steps.

“You watch the prisoner,” Joshua said, thumping his cigarette butt out into the yard. “I’ll go help John with Emma. That Mexican right there slit her throat.” In the distance, he could hear the sirens of what he hoped was the ambulance coming.

“Sure thing, Sheriff, and if he tries to run, I’ll shoot him” Calvert calmly replied.

Joshua stopped, looked down at the Mexican and said, “No worries, Paul, he ain’t going anywhere; at least on his on steam he ain’t. I think his tank is empty.”

Joshua walked inside. Emma had lost consciousness. He could tell by the look on Metcalf’s face that he was deeply concerned that Emma might not make it. The towel was nearly soaked through. He squatted down and placed a hand on John’s shoulder.

“She’ll be alright, John. I hear the ambulance coming. Now that she is unconscious, her heart will slow its beat; the blood flow should slow down, too,” he said calmly, trying to reassure Metcalf, although in his own mind he was not so sure…

Flesh heals. With the correct amount of oxygen and proteins in the blood, tissue regenerates and renews itself. And with a good amount of care to the injured site, it can be as good as new in no time. On the other hand, the human mind is not as quick to snap back into shape. Oftentimes, even though their psychical wounds are healing, humans are degenerating, especially mentally. Joshua hoped that was not the case with Emma - He was not a medical doctor, nor a psychiatrist, but she seemed depressed beyond what he thought she should be the last time he visited her in the hospital.

He hoped that all the attention Metcalf was showering on her would get her out of her funk. He could tell that John Metcalf liked Emma a lot, but Emma was harder to read. She seemed interested in John, but the last time he visited and Metcalf was there, she looked at Joshua with sad eyes, or maybe it was pity. He hoped that she was not holding herself back from falling for John for fear of hurting his feelings. He wanted her to fall for John, and he tried to push her and John together every chance he got.

Joshua knew Emma had a crush on him. That she may even think that she is in love with him. He knew for sure that she enjoyed the sex they shared; however, he still felt that she was somehow using the sex to try to repay him for rescuing her from the Dixon brothers. Now that he had done it again with the Mexican, she probably felt even safer with him. He understood that, but she needed to learn to cope without being under his watch twenty-four seven. He had wanted her out of his house, but not like that. He had not wanted anything bad to happen to her, but it did.

He was glad Emma had not died from the attack; he could never have forgiven himself if she had… It had never dawned on him that the Mexican might make it to
his
house. He knew the railroad tracks crossed the river not even a mile above his cabin, but he was so used to the sound of the train that he never paid it any mind when it passed through. There was no stop there like there was near Jesse Vice’s place.

Joshua propped his feet on the railing, swallowed a shot of whiskey, and then lit a cigarette. The radio played softly from inside the house. He needed to thank Emma for that. As much as he liked listening to music, it had never dawned on him to do that. Before Emma began staying there, he had always sat outside and listened for the field hollers and slave songs. He enjoyed hearing ghosts of the past singing as they made their way to and from the fields; and, he would listen to the sounds of nature that surrounded his house. In his isolated location, there was an abundance of nature…

He gazed toward the river and felt his chest swell with pride and satisfaction. Several days working with an axe, a shovel, and a sling blade had made a huge difference. With the underbrush removed, he had a clear view of the river as it flowed southward toward the gulf. He picked up one of the twenty dollar gold pieces he had found and fingered it, turning it over and around in his hand.

Joshua wondered if it belonged to the overseer of the plantation that had lived there over a hundred and fifty years ago, or if it was one of the stashes of gold, he had heard that different political groups and secret societies stashed back in the 1800’s. He heard they used the stashed money to pay off those that helped them and for emergency funds when they needed money.

Each coin in the jar was dated 1856. Each had the liberty head surrounded by stars on one side, the eagle emblem on the other, the United States of America, and Twenty D with an O above. The Mason jar he unearthed from beneath the cottonwood tree contained ten of the gold double eagles. The cottonwood was located about halfway between his back porch and the river. It was an unlikely amount for an overseer to have in his possession, he would think.

He knew that the Copeland gang had lived in and pillaged the area of South Alabama and Mississippi during the mid-1800’s. Tales of their misdeeds had been passed down through the generations and the stories were still told around campfires. However, he also knew that other outlaws had frequented the area back in the mid to late 1800’s such as Jesse and Frank James and their bunch. Many of the unsolved murders back in those days were laid at the feet of those outlaws whether they had done them or not…

He had also heard a story about a secret society that members of the Confederacy formed during the Civil War that stashed large amounts of gold to fund a second Civil War, a ‘Rise of the South,’ to regain its power and to try to take back what the Yankees had taken away from them. He and Boone had talked about that one time. Boone told him that both of his grandfathers, James Nathaniel and Phillip Perry were Confederate Soldiers, and that both of them had told similar stories - therefore he would think that there had to be some truth to the story. One was from Tennessee, the other from Georgia - they had no connection during the war so it had to be common knowledge within the Confederacy for them to both know about the stashes of gold.

Joshua had found the Mason jar when he struck it with the shovel as he dug around the base of the old, nearly dead cottonwood tree. He was trying to rid the tree of the suckers that sprouted up from its roots and grew around the bottom of it. He hoped that it would perk up and get more nutrients from the soil with the suckers removed.

The cottonwood was the only one of its kind on his property that he knew of, which would make it an easy place to locate or to hide something under. Of course, there could be other cottonwoods growing further away than where he had taken the time to explore. He really did not know for sure, but where one grew, there were usually others.

When Joshua heard a vehicle coming down his driveway he reached for his shirt, slipped it on, and snapped it closed. He knew it was Hook, he could tell by the rattle of tools and equipment as the vehicle rolled over the potholes. Joshua poured himself another shot of whiskey and lit another smoke.

“Damn, looks like I might’ve come at the wrong time,” James exclaimed as he walked up to the back porch.

“Nah, I’m through for the day, maybe for the year,” Joshua said seriously.

“Looks as if you’ve been busy, Hoss.” James said as he sat down in the other rocker and pulled out a cloth pouch that contained some pot and rolling papers.

“Yeah, I have been, but like I said, I’m done for now.”

“What you got there,” James asked, noticing the coin in his hand.

“A double eagle, I think.”

“A double eagle,” James echoed, “Let me see it,” he said. Joshua handed him the coin. “Damn, Hoss, I think you’re right. Do you how much this thing is worth?” James asked excitedly.

“Nope, I don’t have a clue.”

“It’s worth upward of ten thousand or more.”

“Dollars?”

“Yes.”

“A piece?” Joshua asked doubtfully.

“Yeah, Daddy collects coins. He has one of those coin books that has pictures and tells values and such. These double eagles are extremely rare. Hardly any show up at auctions. You might even get twenty grand for it.”

“Doggone, I have ten of them. That would be two hundred thousand dollars. That would buy an awful lot of whiskey and cigarettes, wouldn’t it?”

“And some of this,” James said as he began rolling a joint. “You sure you’re done for the day, I wouldn’t mind helping you clear out some more of that underbrush,” James said with a grin.

“I bet you wouldn’t. We might do that another time, but I’m done for now.”

“Where did you find it?” James asked as he lit the joint and sucked on it.

“I found it right out there at the base of that cottonwood tree,” Joshua pointed. “It was about eight inches below the surface, nestled betwixt a couple of roots.”

“Dang - I’ve heard of people finding jars of gold coins that was buried back in the 1800’s, but this is the first time I ever actually seen it happen,” James said after blowing out the smoke he’d been holding in while Joshua talked. He then handed it to Joshua.

“Makes you wonder what might be buried around the old plantation don’t it,” Joshua asked before he hit the joint.

“Yeah, it does, Hoss. We need to get us one of those portable metal detectors they’re selling down at the mall and start searching around the plantation and out here.”

“We might look into that, Hook. I was about to wash my crusty, old ass and go to the hospital to see Emma.”

“I meant to ask how she is doing but got sidetracked by your gold. How is she?”

“It’s hard to say. Physically, I think she is fine; I don’t know about mentally. She still wants to hang onto me when I go there. Metcalf has it bad for her, and I think she likes him too, but damn it, I think she thinks that if she goes with him that it will hurt me, or something. Hell, I want her to go with him. I wanted her out of my house, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her… The doc said that if the Mexican had cut just a fraction of an inch deeper, she’d be dead.”

“Well, like I said the other morning, you might just have to hurt her feelings.”

“I know, but she’s in a delicate state right now-”

“When
ain’t
she in a delicate state, Hoss? You’re gonna keep making excuses for her until you’re stuck with her for the rest of your life. Is that what you want? Huh, I thought not.” James said, seeing the look on Joshua’s face. “You’re gonna have to have a sit down with her and talk about it. And her being there in the hospital is the best place for her to be when you do it.”

“I’ll do it when I get down there, if I get a chance to-”

“There you go again…”

“Alright, I will do it. Do you want to ride down there with me?”

“Nope, this is one you’re gonna have to do all by yourself-by the way, what happened to that crazy joker that did that to her, did he make it? Is he in jail?”

“He bled out before they got him to the hospital… of course, he might have made it if I had a let them put him in the ambulance with Emma. There was no way in hell, that I was going to let that happen. I throwed him in the back of Calvert’s patrol car and told him to follow them to the hospital, get him looked at, and then lock him up. I started to tell him to book him first… that would’ve been a little too cruel.”

“I don’t think so, but it might have made you look bad… when is that inquisition?”

“Day after tomorrow - I’m dreading it. I don’t care for all that legal garbage.”

“If you need a character witness, tell them to call me. Most of the folks in this county would witness for you if you needed them to.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, Josh. Why do you think you’re still wearing that badge-cause folks like you being the sheriff of this here county. They know that you are fair and honest. That is what folks like. They want an honest sheriff they can trust. After all this is over, maybe you’ll look as refreshed as you did the other morning. Speaking of which-”

“Drop it, Hook. I’m still not going to tell you; at least, not yet,” Joshua replied, taking another hit and then handing James the blunt.