Judgment at Red Creek (16 page)

Harmer saw Clayton pushing his way into the angry gathering. When he took his sister's arm she jerked it away.

“I don't care! You made a promise to father and you're just as low as that man if you break it.”

Clayt took her by the shoulders. “You were there when we voted. That is our law and the majority voted to hang the man in the morning.”

A sudden cry of agreement went up from the dozen or so gathered. It seemed to Harmer that the girl and only three or four others were for waiting until he could be taken to the law. In the midst of the argument, Henry Deyer appeared.

“Alright now. I don't want to take the law into my hands either, but we have no choice. Our law says we act by majority. You've had your say. In the morning we'll do the necessary. Get on back to fixing your suppers. It'll be over with and he'll be buried up top with his cronies by sunrise.”

Harmer watched the crowd disperse. The girl was still arguing with Clayton and Oss as they walked away. She was obviously very upset by the decision. He was about to leave the window when he saw the older man take the hanging rope from Oss.

Moving deliberately, he examined the noose and measured off several arm spans of rope as they walked to an old sycamore about twenty yards away. They stopped beneath a stout limb some ten to twelve feet above the ground. Deyer studied it briefly then tossed the free end over it and secured it to a smaller limb lower down.

Anxiety ran to the edge of fear as Harmer watched Clayt test the noose then slip it around his neck. Holding with both hands to keep it from choking him, he signaled them to pull. When his feet hit the ground he motioned for them to pull it higher. Jerking and writhing, he struggled to touch, then signaled his approval. On the ground again, they freed him and secured the rope in place.

As he watched with morbid fascination, Harmer saw two men approaching pulling a heavy hand cart. On it was a newly nailed together, rough box coffin. Suddenly he caught a vision of himself, hands and feet trussed, swinging by the neck until he was blue in the face, his tongue protruding, dripping saliva, and his body contorting in death throes. The older man's words came back now, whispering through his mind. They were not a threat, just a cold, quiet promise: “Alright, Harmer, we'll take you at your word. I'll make you a promise. A week from today you'll be begging us to hand you over to the law.”

Again, as he stared at the dangling rope, already measured to his neck, and the ample coffin ready to receive his stinking body, Harmer felt a change, felt himself slip from anxiety and the bravado of hollow threats to the first real fear he had known.

Grasping the bars, he jammed his face against them and screamed, “Alright! I'll tell ya what really happened! The God's honest truth! I'll tell ya who done it, who put me up to it. I swear to God it's the truth. It weren't my doin'!”

Clayt turned when he heard him. He listened for a moment then walked a few yards closer.

“You want the God's honest truth, Jake? I'll tell it to you. We know what happened. We know what Oakley told you to do and why, and we know why you did it!” He paused briefly. Then, in a chilling, matter of fact, voice, he added, “Tomorrow morning, Jake, you can tell the God's honest truth to the devil!”

When Clayt rejoined the others and they started to leave, Harmer remained silent. For a time he clung to the bars, then let them slip from his hands as he crumpled on the bunk.

Clayt and Oss found him lying helpless, face down when they brought the food. He made no sign that he heard them enter and leave. He was lost in a hell, mostly of his own making, not caring now what happened.

When he finally stirred and found the food it was cold and he had no stomach for it. Standing on the foot of the bunk, he peered through the window again. Even in the moonless night he could make out the ragged silhouette of the old sycamore tree and the limb with the rope hanging from it. Several yards away he could see the darker shape of the work cart and the coffin. In the distance a lantern bobbed along, carried by someone on an after-dark errand.

It caused an eerie feeling, for it reminded him of those other lanterns swinging crazily as they were carried out of their homes by panicked settlers minutes after he and his two gunslingers had blown the dam. He remembered what easy targets they had made, and the trails of flame as they were thrown into the pond or dashed to the ground by those who fell with them to scream for help...or to die.

He remembered other screams, those of innocent women and children, murdered in cold blood when he had ridden through Lawrence, Kansas, with Quantrill and his raiders eight years earlier. Somehow he had managed to block out the vision, if not the memory of them. But now, unaccountably, he could hear them again harking back through the years—and even clearer, through the last weeks since he, with perverted glee, had followed Oakley's order to the letter...and then some.

As he stood, still older memories assailed him, going back to his childhood in West Virginia, the pain of punishment and the fear of more, that he had blocked out since his tenth year, when his drunken father had beaten him near to death for stealing a gallon jug of raw White Mule and selling it to a hunter for five cents and a rusty, bone-handled skinning knife with a broken point. But this was a new fear. It parched his mouth, blurred his eyes, and knotted his guts. After he had put that first terror behind him he swore he would never know fear again. And he proved it to himself and to those he rode with during the war—always up at the head of the column, just behind Bloody Bill Anderson, who tied scalps to his bridle reins, and Bill Todd, whose rage fed on blood.

For a time he paced the ten-foot-square room like a caged animal. It was easy to tell yourself you weren't afraid to die when you were sure you never would. You didn't say it. You just proved it. You proved it most when you risked it most.

Punching a fist into his palm, he said, half aloud, “By God, I'll prove it again! When they come fur me in the mornin', I'll prove it again. I'll kill at least one of 'em with my bare hands, but I swear to God they'll never hang me to die slow. They'll have to shoot me first. If I'm gonna go, that's how I'm gonna go. Not like some yella-bellied horse thief!”

Harmer did not know how long he'd been trying to stifle his fear with rage when suddenly something struck one of the iron grill bars in the little window and fell to the floor at his feet.

Startled, he picked it up and discovered that someone had thrown a smooth pebble through the window. Cautiously, he climbed up on the foot of the bunk and peered out. Suspecting some sort of trap, he remained silent. Then, as he was about to leave the window, he heard a female voice calling his name softly. The voice called several times more before he decided to answer.

“Who is it? What d'ya want?” he answered in a hoarse whisper.

“Never mind. Just listen to me, Harmer. They're going to hang you in the morning. They're not going to wait for the law.” There was a pause. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear ya.”

“Some of us have had enough. We want you out of here. You can't go back to the Gavilan. Oakley's going to put all of the blame on you. He thinks you're dead. If you try to go back he'll kill you for sure, to keep your mouth shut.”

Suddenly he realized that if he could not go back to the Gavilan there would be no way he could square up with the Red Creekers. He had counted on T.K.'s anger to finish the job. Desperate now, he pressed his face to the bars.

“I swear to God, I told ya the truth. It was Oakley's idea. He figgered the whole thing out.”

“It doesn't make any difference now,” the voice replied. “You've admitted that you did it and so has he. We know that. But we want you out of Red Creek, now—tonight. If you're smart, you'll get out of the territory. It's the only chance you've got!”

“I can't go anywheres 'til I git out of this stinkin' box,” he replied.

“I know that, Harmer. Now listen—I've got a pinch bar here. I'm going to push it through to you. Pry up a couple of floor planks. There's room under there for you to crawl. Crawl to the right, away from the houses, then head for the big willow clump downstream past the last house. There's a horse waiting for you there. Cross the creek down there, then ride back up the other side to the trail. Do it right or you're dead, Harmer. We know Oakley put you up to it. The law will take care of him when the time comes. We just want you out of here. We don't want any more taking of life. Do you understand?”

“Gimme the bar!” Harmer whispered eagerly. “I'll go! You'll never see me agin!”

A moment later the pinch bar scraped against the metal grill. He snatched it, jumped down, dropped to the floor, and ran his hands over the planks.

Unable to believe that it was happening, he forced the flattened end between two of the lengths of rough flooring and began prying. As he put more pressure on the pinch bar the old plank began to bow and crack.

On the side of the house where they could not be seen, Clayt waited with a lantern. Oss had a hammer. Both were kneeling beside the open crawl space.

Nelda joined them. “He's got it,” she whispered.

Clayt gave her neck an affectionate squeeze. “You did a fine job.”

“I hated it!” she replied. “Anything to do with that man makes me feel dirty!”

Oss touched her arm. “When we get through with him, you're going to feel as clean as a hound's tooth. We all are.”

“You've still got Oakley.”

“Sure we have,” Clayt answered, “but when he finds out we've got his dead foreman very much alive, we're not going to have much trouble with him for a long time.”

“That's more hope than we'd have with Harmer on the loose. It's a chance we've got to take, I guess,” Nelda replied.

The exchange was interrupted by the loud squeaking of rusty old handmade square nails pulling away.

Harmer broke off prying, afraid to breathe. When he heard nothing outside, he went to work again. In spite of his caution, the old nails groaned as they began to move.

It took him ten minutes to get the first plank loosened enough to move it to the side. The second one would be easier. He'd have an edge to pry against. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he wedged the flattened end of the bar beneath the edge of the second plank and the floor joist. It would not go easily. Using his hand for a maul he pounded against the notched nail's pulling end and managed to get a little leverage. When he applied downward pressure on it the first nail came loose with a dry screech.

Harmer cursed under his breath and held the bar in place, not daring to move it. Just as he was about to continue, he heard footsteps outside. Freezing, he listened and a cold sweat broke out on his face when he realized that someone was coming to the door.

“Harmer! What's going on in there?” It was Clayton!

“You having a restless last night on earth?”

Terrified, Harmer dropped the pinch bar through the opening and reset the plank. Frantically, he tried to fit the nails back into their original holes. Bent in the prying, they wouldn't go. When he heard the padlock open and the chain hang free, he had no recourse but to stand on the planks to try to bend them flat.

When Clayt entered with the lantern in one hand and his six-shooter in the other, Oss was right behind him, carrying a hammer.

For a moment, Clayt held the lantern high, looking around.

“Go sit down, Harmer. We were on our way to fix up a little something for your going away in the morning and we thought we heard some nails pulling loose. Don't usually hear that around here after quitting time.”

Lowering the lantern to inspect the floor, he pretended surprise to find a loose plank. “Good thing we came by,” he said. “If you'd kept your eyes open, you might have found this one and missed your necktie party.”

Oss kneeled down and spiked the plank back in place.

As he got up, he turned to Harmer. “Unless you've got real good fingernails we'll expect to find you here just before sunup. We thought about hanging you by lantern light tonight to save a breakfast, but it seemed like a waste of good oil.'

For one fleeting moment, Harmer braced his muscles for a suicide attack. Clayt smiled. “Don't try it, Jake. We want a good turnout for your last trip!”

When they had gone and the lock had been reset, Harmer sank on the bunk, sick with disappointment. The pressure of frustration and unscreamed threats filled his eyes with tears. Sitting hunched over, he jammed his fists viciously into his middle to keep from sobbing. There was no chance to loosen the planks again. His fingers moved involuntarily to his throat. The hangman's knot would come up behind his left ear. They'd stand him on the cart—probably on top of his own coffin to get a longer drop—then jerk it from under him. He'd drop no more than six feet—not enough to break his neck—and they'd stand there enjoying their hatred of him as he slowly strangled doing the Mexican rope dance.

He jumped up, shaking his fists over his head. “Oh, God!” he moaned, “gimme one more chance at 'em. Just one more chance!”

The stream of half sobbed curses that followed was interrupted by another pebble. Harmer jumped up on the bunk and jammed his face against the bars.

“Are you down there?” he gasped.

“I'm here,” the voice answered. “It's all clear. You can go now. Hurry up!”

“I can't!” he cried in a broken voice. “They almost caught me. I had to drop the bar under the floor!”

For several minutes there was silence, then he heard the voice again. “I've got it. Take it!”

He grabbed the tool and with near recklessness, he pried both planks loose and lowered himself to the ground under the house. It was pitch black.

For a long moment he stayed dead still getting his wind. Then he began to crawl to his right as the voice had instructed. In the clear, staying low, he scurried along the creek bank. He passed two houses. Both were dark. Beyond them was another house. A light shone in the window. Undecided, he stayed stock still, crouched below the bank. Just as he was about to continue, he heard a door open. A moment later Jakob Gruen emerged carrying a lantern. Harmer watched as he moved to the outhouse. It was part of the plan to add to Harmer's frustration. Jakob left the door open, lingered briefly, then returned to the house. Instead of reentering, he carried the lantern around, deliberately pretending to be looking for something.