Red Dog Saloon (28 page)

Bart
flipped the blood off his hand, splattering it onto the snow as he eyed his
son.

“I
mean you killed them before I could. Eddie, Stevie, Rhody and even Glenn,” Ben
went on. “Even I couldn’t believe you were cold-blooded enough to kill your
best friend, well, your only friend actually. It seems the sheriff didn’t keep
me in the loop on their little stakeout at the mayor’s house that night. I
almost got caught while you were killing your friend. I hated having to hurt
the officers but I couldn’t let them take me in while you were still walking
around free.”

“The
honorable mayor would have killed me,” Bart said spitting out
another mouthful of blood. “I just beat him to it is all.

“Yeah,
I suppose he would have,” Ben agreed. “And the funny thing is if you hadn’t
come back when you did that night at city hall I would have taken care of him
myself. He was about to take a terrible spill onto the sidewalk from three
stories up when you showed up. It’s a good thing you didn’t open his closet
that night when you came back or, well, we wouldn’t be here having this
conversation.”

Bart
realized the fact he was hearing the deputy’s confession likely meant he
wouldn't live to repeat what he’d heard. The dread of death, Bart reckoned,
would be worse than death itself.

“What
are we doing out here chatting like it’s a family reunion?” Bart asked. “Get it
over with already. A big man you are, shooting an unarmed man. I guess you got
that from your mother's side of the family, huh?”

His
father’s words brought a laugh from Ben. He had waited months for this moment.

"Oh,
you're not going to be unarmed," Ben laughed. "We're going to do it
just like they did back in the good old days. A showdown at the Red Dog Saloon except
this time it's not at high noon."

Bart
looked incredulously at his son. While ending many lives himself, Bart had no
taste for a fair fight.

“I
didn’t kill your mother,” Bart responded, hoping to escape his fate. “She was
very much alive when she left that night.”

“Oh,
you killed her alright,” Ben declared with a crazed look in his eye. “You
killed everything that was good in her that night. It just took her twenty-two
years to finish dying. Now you’re going to join her, well, figuratively anyway,
since I suspect you’re going to a far different place.”

Bart
snarled despite his hopeless predicament.

“The
way I figure it, your mother was a tramp so she’ll be right there with me,”
Bart snapped. “Maybe me and your precious mother will have a happy reunion.”

Ben
resisted playing executioner. He simply smiled as he pulled out another gun
from under his coat.

“It
would give me nothing but pleasure to take my knife and cut you limb from
limb and make you suffer a slow, painful death,” Ben said. “But then if I did,
that’d make me just like you - a heartless killer who delights in inflicting
pain on others. I’m not like you, dad. I’m not like you at all.”

Ben
extended the gun to his father while his own gun was still trained at his head.

“You
can go to hell!” Bart exclaimed as he defiantly extended his middle finger to
his son.

It
was the wrong move as the appendage disappeared in an instant as the sound of
the deputy’s gun set his ears ringing. Pain tore through Bart's body. His son
had blown off his middle finger.

“Looks
like you’ll have to draw with your left hand now,” Ben said calmly as Bart
watched the blood pump from where Bart's middle finger used to be. “Here,
do it before you bleed to death. Ten paces and then we fire.”

Fighting
off shock, Bart reached out to take the gun from his son, realizing he had one
last chance at redemption. Ben had made a fatal mistake handing him a loaded
gun. He wasn't going to make it a fair fight.

“Just
one bullet,” Ben said as his father took the gun in his hand. “You got just one
shot.”

Taking
the gun in his hand, the pulsing pain from his right hand numbing his mind,
Bart gave his son a defiant grin. 

"It'll
only take me one shot," he winced through the pain.

It
was at that instant the sound of a siren could be heard approaching in the near
distance. The sound distracted Ben just for an instant. It was the break Bart
was hoping for. He raised the gun and fired.

Click.
The gun didn’t fire as Bart pointed it point-blank at his son’s head. Click ...
click ... click. Bart repeatedly pulled the trigger to no result. The gun
wasn’t loaded.

“I
just had to be sure,” Ben said.

There
would be no showdown at the Red Dog. Ben, this night, would serve as his
father's executioner. He pulled his trigger, putting a bullet between Bart's
eyes. The real dark man was dead.

No
sooner had his father's body hit the ground than he was bathed in the
blue lights of the sheriff’s cruiser. He reached down and retrieved the
unloaded gun Bart had tried to use moments before and concealed it under his
coat.

Ben
went from playing the role of executioner to that of nervous rookie deputy in
an instant as the sheriff ran up behind him. His gun still pointed toward the
prone body of Bart Foster, Ben looked nervously at the sheriff.

“I
pulled up and found his father like that, strung up with bullets all in him,”
Ben began. “Then he comes running at me with a gun. I had to shoot him.”

“I
understand deputy,” the sheriff began. “Are you hurt?”

“No,
sheriff. I think I’m okay,” Ben replied believing the sheriff was buying his
tale. “He didn’t get a shot off.”

His
performance ended quickly with the sound of the sheriff cocking the hammer back
on his gun.

“I
need you to toss the gun in front of you and put your hands behind your head,
deputy,” Sam said in a firm voice with his gun pointed at his officer.

Ben
stood in shock for a moment, considering his options.

“I
won’t tell you again, deputy,” Sam warned.

“I’d
never hurt you,” Ben declared as he tossed his gun into the snow and placed his
hands behind his head. “You’ve got to believe me. You’re a good man, too good
really.”

The
two lawmen stood looking at one another in the vacant lot of what used to be
Red Dog Saloon.

“They
had it coming. They were past due, long past due,” Ben volunteered, his
explanation causing no change in the sheriff’s expression.

“The
things they did to my mother, they were unspeakable,” Ben continued after not
getting a reply from the sheriff. “They were going to get away with it if
somebody didn’t do something. Where’s the justice in that?”

The
sheriff looked at the bodies littering the snow-covered field and then turned
his gaze back to his young deputy.

“Here’s
how this is going to work,” Sam said as he slowly lowered his gun. “I’ll expect
your resignation on my desk first thing Monday morning.”

Ben
stood in shock for a moment. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“After
that you leave Castle County forever, and I mean you don’t ever come back
here,” Sam said with a determined look in his eyes.

He
was letting him go despite knowing he was involved in the killings.

“Why?”
Ben simply asked.

“I
had a mother too,” Sam replied. "I assume there's evidence that will tie
Bart to all this?”

“Yes,
more than enough,” Ben replied realizing there would be no problem pinning the
murders on his now deceased father, especially given the fact Bart had
committed most of them himself anyway.

Giving
Ben a knowing look, Sam nodded toward his patrol car.

“Get
on out of here before I change my mind,” Sam ordered.

Ben
paused for a moment. He was tempted to tell the sheriff the whole story. Or, at
least, thank him for letting him go.

 “I
said get on out of here!” the sheriff shouted.

It
was a word to the wise for Ben as he headed toward his patrol car which was
parked next to where the sheriff had parked.

“And
one last thing,” Sam called out as the deputy was about to disappear into the
darkness. “You let time take care of Earl Cutts. He was going to do the right
thing back then. Agreed?”

Ben
nodded in agreement before stepping into the darkness and heading to his patrol
car. He had never planned to return for Earl in the first place. He didn't kill
old people.

“And
my cruiser better not have a scratch on it,” Sam called out into the darkness
as he now stood alone with the bodies of Bart and Bill Foster, father and son
breathing their last on the same evening.

Hearing
Ben pull away, Sam made a call for an ambulance and the crime lab team which
was staying at a hotel in Easton, deciding to stay in town for the next murder
which they figured would come sooner than later. They would pull double duty
this evening. Actually, once they checked Bart’s trunk, it would be a night’s worth
of work for the lab boys.

The
quietness was cathartic for the sheriff as he stood in the vacant lot waiting
for the distant wail of sirens. Time had in fact flown. It seemed like just
yesterday when he picked up the young girl as she walked alongside the dark
highway leading toward town from the old Red Dog. Sam flashed back twenty-two
years as he stood alone in the snow.

He
had been in on leave from the Army visiting Carly, who he would soon marry. He
figured he would go out to the Red Dog one last time for a drink. He knew once
he was married Carly wouldn’t allow him to frequent such places. He reached the
bar only to find it closed. That was unusual since the tavern generally stayed
open to all hours, especially on weekends.

He
could see it like it was yesterday. The young girl’s clothes were torn, her
hair disheveled, and her makeup smeared as she wept uncontrollably.

“What
happened?” Sam recalled asking the girl, her shoulders heaving from her deep
sobs as he continued toward town with her in the passenger seat of his old
Camaro.

“Where
do you live?” he asked, noticing some blood on her arms, her lips visibly
swollen.

“I
can’t go home like this,” the girl said through her sobs. “Just take me to a
phone.”

Sam
did as the teenager tearfully requested and found a payphone in downtown
Easton.

“Do
I need to call the police?” Sam asked as she climbed out of his car.

“No,
please don’t!” she begged. “Don’t tell anybody. I’ll be okay. Let's keep this
our secret.”

With
that, the girl walked over to the phone and lifted the receiver, waving him to
leave. While he obliged her wishes, he had never forgiven himself for leaving,
for not doing more to help the young girl.

He
never learned her name that night but he knew it now - It was Gina Porter.
He had his suspicions when her picture was pointed out in the annual by his
wife. He now knew it for sure.

While
his role that night was more of an act of omission rather than commission, it
still bothered him. He should have done something more to help her. Perhaps if
he had taken initiative things would have turned out differently.

For
Sam, this night would be a night he would never forget. It was a night
stranger than fiction. For Sam’s grown children, they would remember it as the
evening their father called them in the middle of the night just to tell them
he loved them.

With
the head of one of the murder victims found in his bowling bag inside his car
which also contained the bodies of two of his business associates not to
mention his finger prints all over the smoking gun that killed former Sheriff
Bill Foster, it was easy to pin the reign of terror on Bart.

The
way the story bearing the byline of Cliff Chapman read in the local paper, Bart
suffered from paranoia believing his old friends were going to inform on him
and turn state’s evidence for the murder of Earl Cutts. Therefore, giving in to
his delusional thinking, he went about silencing the potential witnesses. He
even killed his own father before dying in a shootout with Deputy Ben Faulkner.
It was an open and shut case that never had to go to trial since Bart had
already received the death penalty at the hands of the young deputy. No one was
the wiser.

A
smaller story later in the week revealed the young hero who brought down the
crazed killer had resigned his post, opting to return to the military, saying
law enforcement work proved too dangerous for him. No one knew it but he had
never left the service in the first place. He took the deputy job with the
sheriff while he was just on leave. The sheriff would improve his background
checks for future hires.

He
reported back to active duty the next week. He and Sam would never speak again,
Ben true to his word to never again set foot in Castle County.

Press
conferences, television appearances and paperwork monopolized Sam’s time for
the next several days giving him little time to even breathe. The public was
fascinated by the nightmare which had visited his small town. However, like
other hot headlines, the press found another story, another flavor of the week,
leaving Castle County to return to its peaceful self even as the snow from the
historic snow storm melted away.

It
was then Sam made a two-hour drive to tie up the one loose end. It had been
only a week since his visit so he remembered the way to Earl Cutts’ room.
Pausing at his door, the sheriff rapped lightly. The door swung open at his
touch.

Like
déjà vu, the sheriff found Cutts again sitting at his favorite place by the
window overlooking the lake where he had fished his retirement away. Ben had
been true to his word, leaving the old man in the hands of time.

Walking
over to the old man’s chair, Sam announced his presence, his voice getting no
reaction. Realizing something wasn’t right, the sheriff walked over to the
old man's perch at the window. Earl Cutts was dead, the victim
of the world's most notorious serial killer - Father Time. The Red Dog had
claimed its last.