Strong Darkness (14 page)

“We're gonna fall behind if they don't smarten up. And that means less money for everybody else, including me. I heard Pinkerton men are already en route. The Chinks know what's best for them, they better come around.”

“So you never thought to report these murders to the authorities,” William Ray surmised.

“You hear what I just said?”

“I must've missed the part about how you dealt with a bunch of killings.”

“I reported them all right, to the only authority that matters: the Southern Pacific Railroad. You got no authority here and neither do you, Judge. This here land doesn't even belong to Texas anymore—it belongs to the Southern Pacific and the railroad makes the only law I abide by.”

“What do you say about that, Judge?” William Ray asked him.

“Nothing I can say, Ranger. The chief engineer here's right, so far as the track goes. That's Southern Pacific territory for sure, the whole six-foot-wide stretch of it for as far as it goes, all the way to hell for all I care.”

William Ray kicked at the dirt at his feet, fully dried since it got sun all day without benefit of shading even from mesas towering to the west. “Well, it doesn't seem like there's any track bed here.”

“You're right,” Roy Bean said, scratching his forehead. “This here's Texas land, which means I can issue any legal order I so choose, and right now I think I'll have every man not standing on that track there yonder thrown in jail.”

“You can't do that!” Kincannon protested, starting to spit before he remembered he'd tossed his tobacco away.

“You can raise that at the hearing, son. I'll schedule it to give your bosses plenty of time to send their lawyers, say a week's time. Of course, we'll have to order you to cease and desist all work in the interim.”

Kincannon stamped the earth hard enough to cough dust on the two Texans' feet. “All right, just tell me what you want.”

“Any of your men show any signs of blood on their clothing?” William Ray Strong asked him. “You catch any of them wandering around between here and the Chinese camp? Anything about any of them strike you as standing out in a way that made you take notice? Any of them have the kind of violence in their past that suggests them capable of killing women?”

“They were whores, each and every one of them, not women.” Kincannon's expression crinkled. “And pretty much all the men in this camp have some violence in their past. Too many suspects for you to bother with.”

“Well, I'll be the judge of that, Mr. Kincannon. What about men with prison records?”

“Imagine we got our share of jailbirds, but 'long as they do a good day's work, I let their pasts be.”

“You got records I can look at?” William Ray asked.

“I got records, but not that you can look at, not without permission of my superiors at the Southern Pacific.”

“We back to that again?” Judge Bean spat at him. “You seem hell-bent on pissing me off here, Mr. Kincannon.”

William Ray looked toward one of the tents with flaps rustling in the late-afternoon breeze, something striking him about it. “Nice sewing job somebody did on that tent,” he told Kincannon, thinking of how the heads of the victims had been sliced off and sewn back on. “You can see the stitch lines where he meshed the material together.”

“You've done wasted enough of my time,” Kincannon said and took a single stride with his boot, big enough to put William Ray's eyes even with his. “And I mean to get back to work now. You've wasted enough of my time and I ain't got no more to give. You hear that—”

Before he got his next word out, William Ray slammed a knee into his groin that dropped him to the hardpan where Kincannon's face went beet red under the sun, grimacing in pain and letting out huge gushes of breath. William Ray yanked him up to his knees by his mustache and stuck his Colt Peacemaker into Kincannon's mouth while he continued to gasp.

“When I remove my gun,” William Ray said, conscious that all work had ceased for the moment, the entire site gone quiet with its attention turned toward whatever was transpiring here, “you're gonna tell me what I want to know or I'm gonna jam it back in and break all your teeth. Nod if you read me, asshole.”

Kincannon nodded.

William Ray removed his Colt but held it firm. “Now, who's the man that sewed those tent flaps for you?”

 

33

S
AN
A
NTONIO,
T
EXAS

“I've shot that Colt,” Caitlin told Sharon Yarlas, when she finally stopped. “My great-granddad William Ray gave it to his son, my granddad Earl.”

“But I'd bet you never stuck it in a man's mouth.”

“No, not that gun anyway,” Caitlin winked. “I still own it and it still shoots.”

“Well, being old doesn't mean you can't work as well as you need to. I can tell you that much from personal experience.” Sharon started playing with the kerchief strung round her neck again, taking notice of Caitlin watching her. “I'd like to go on, Ranger,” she said, suddenly sounding impatient, “but the next part of the story's kind of a fog.”

“You mind taking off that kerchief, ma'am?”

“Excuse me?”

Caitlin pointed toward the red cotton with her finger.

“Well, I don't see why.”

“I'd like to see what you're hiding beneath it, if you don't mind.”

Sharon frowned, but finally started to unwrap the kerchief with a deep sigh that seemed to compress her chest.

The glass door leading from the next car opened and the four clowns entered, yammering it up with the seated patrons enjoying the ride in odd counterpoint to what Caitlin found herself looking at.

A neat line of raw, inflamed tissue ringed Sharon Yarlas's neck like a collar. It made Caitlin think of the ligature marks she'd seen on victims of strangulation and recalled how Doc Whatley described what an awful death that was.

“Who did that to you, ma'am?” she asked the older woman, fresh laughter from the middle of the passenger car telling her the clowns were making their way up the aisle.

“It's my husband,” the older woman finally said, with another sigh, her voice cracking with subdued tears. “He's not … well.”

“Are we talking about Alzheimer's, ma'am?”

Sharon Yarlas started to take a deep breath and let it out halfway in. “Early stages. He's still aware enough to know what's happening to him, how he's deteriorating, and his lucid moments are full of anger and rage. He takes it out on me because he doesn't know what else to do.”

Caitlin looked into the woman's sad, moist eyes, seeing in her a portrait of unrecognized heroism standing by a loved one no matter what because it's what people were supposed to do.

“I'd like your phone number,” Caitlin told her.

Sharon dabbed her eyes with the kerchief she'd unwrapped from her neck, then looped it back into place. “I want to keep this private, Ranger.”

“I understand. But there are programs and funds available in some places for those who know how to look for them. I'm pretty good at such things and, if you'll pass on that number, I'll check into things on your behalf.”

Caitlin started to ease the cell phone from the pocket of her jeans to switch it back on. Her gaze spotted a father using an identical phone to snap a picture of his son between two of the clowns just fifteen feet away from her now. The train continued shimmying over the uneven track bed, bending into the curve that jostled the clowns across the aisle with the young boy still between them. As Caitlin waited for her phone to power up, she glimpsed the clowns steadying their sneakered feet and then realized what had seemed all wrong before.

Where were their clown shoes?

The sneakers were all wrong, and the presence of the clowns had come as a surprise earlier to Sharon Yarlas, Caitlin remembered as her eyes locked with one of the clown's in the same moment the two she'd lost sight of stormed up the aisle with pistols drawn.

 

34

P
ROVIDENCE,
R
HODE
I
SLAND

Dylan clearly didn't want to talk much about whatever had happened between him and the Chinese girl Kai, but Cort Wesley didn't give him a choice.

“This her?” he asked, unfolding the picture one of Dylan's friends at Delta Phi had printed out for him and Caitlin.

“I've gotta go to the bathroom,” the boy said, still achy after a nurse had removed his catheter.

“No, you don't.”

“What, you can read my bladder now?”

“Nope, I can read you.”

Dylan rolled his eyes, the simple motion enough to send a bolt of pain that tightened his features into a grimace that straightened only when the boy settled himself with some deep breaths.

“Let me ask you a question,” Cort Wesley said when he thought Dylan was ready again, leaving the picture atop his bedcovers in the same place the pink rose had been. “If this were Caitlin asking, would you answer then?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

“Because she's a Ranger.”

“And I'm your father.”

“You just made my point.”

Cort Wesley was left shaking his head. His oldest son having been away for over two months now, since late August, left him with only the good memories and allowed him to push the perpetual conflict between them into the far recesses of his mind. Cort Wesley figured it was just part of the process of the son growing up and the father not ready to let go. He'd had so much time to make up for and Dylan's high school years just hadn't lasted long enough.

“You said her name was Kai,” Cort Wesley persisted. “What else can you tell me about her?”

Dylan tried to meet his gaze.

“You still seeing double?”

The boy nodded, not looking at him as he took the shot lifted off the porn video in hand again. “Where'd you get the picture?”

“One of your friends in that fraternity printed it out for me after showing us the video.”

“
Us?
Caitlin saw it too?”

Cort Wesley nodded. “But it's all right, 'cause she's a Texas Ranger. I figure the next question she'd ask you is when exactly you first spotted this girl, Kai, you recognized from the video.”

“At Viva.”

“That be the place across from Spats, both managed by your friend Theo.”

The boy's eyes widened, then narrowed again when holding them that way made his head hurt. “Theo? Is there anyone at Brown you
didn't
talk to about this?”

“I was with a Texas Ranger, remember?”

“Where's Caitlin again?”

“She had to go back home for some Ranger business. I already told you that.”

“When?”

“A while ago.”

“I don't remember. I got a concussion, don't I?”

“That's what the doctor says.”

Dylan shook his head deliberately. “Avoided one all season in football and look what happens. Sucks.” He paused and steadied himself with another series of deep breaths. “I want to call Caitlin.”

Cort Wesley handed him his phone. “Give it your best shot, son.”

Dylan held the handset, smirking. “I thought you were gonna get a new one.”

“What's wrong with what I've got?”

“Dad, it's a piece of shit. You don't even have any apps on it, except that flashlight one you never use.”

Cort Wesley was left staring at his oldest son as if the boy had just landed from another planet. “How do you know I don't use it? I can't wait until you have kids of your own, son.”

“Why?”

“So you can share in my misery.”

Dylan had the phone pressed up against his ear now. “Very funny, Dad.”

“You see me laughing? I want to hear more about this Kai.”

“Like what?”

“You met up with her the night you got jumped.”

“That's right.”

“She texted you after your meetings and she met you at Spats.”

Dylan nodded.

“Your pals in the fraternity had the feeling she was in trouble or something, that you were trying your best to help her.”

“She was in trouble for sure,” Dylan affirmed and extended the phone back toward Cort Wesley. “Straight to voice mail.”

And that's when all the lights in the hospital went out.

 

35

S
AN
A
NTONIO,
T
EXAS

Caitlin shoved Sharon Yarlas all the way behind her and whipped out her SIG Sauer. One of the clowns being photographed brought a young boy in close against him for cover, fumbling his own pistol from its holster in the process.

Thoughts and visions whiplashed through Caitlin's mind, holding on the image of the clown makeup melting off the impersonators' skin, revealing splotches of flesh color amid the white. She shot the trailing clowns first before either managed to get off a shot. Her bullets punched them backward, into and over seats where several train riders bore the brunt of the impact.

The rest of the car, though, thought this was hilarious, part of the show for which they'd purchased an overpriced ticket. Well, not so overpriced anymore it seemed, what with a gal Texas Ranger shooting it out with four clown gunmen in a pretend gunfight.

Applause rippled through the car as the clown holding the boy in one hand and a pistol in the other got off a shot that splattered an
EXIT
sign and sent shards of the red letters spraying in all directions. Several ended up in Caitlin's hair, clinging there, and drawing more applause from an audience captivated by the show that now featured trick shooting.

One of the clowns she thought she'd put down for good was stirring in the aisle and the fourth had thrown himself over a seat. He opened fire from there, kill shots for sure, if Caitlin hadn't stooped low, dragging Sharon Yarlas down with her. She couldn't shoot him through the cushion since the seat behind which he was crouched was occupied by a red-haired girl busy recording the whole thing on her cell phone, impervious to the bullets flying around her. To a man, woman, and child, no one in the car had yet realized this was very much the real thing.