The Hanging of Samuel Ash (3 page)

Hook paused. “You wouldn't spot me five 'til payday, would you? I'm a little short.”

“Someone pick your pocket or something?”

“That Carlsbad operator's on my list,” Hook said.

The operator grinned. “Here's a fiver. It's worth it for the laugh.”

“Thanks. I'll get even with you come payday. You have the key to the road-rail?”

“Key's in her, far as I know.”

“Pretty slack security, isn't it?”

“No one in his right mind would steal that thing,” he said.

“I could use a flashlight, too. It can be pretty dark at those crossings.”

“They keep one in the glove compartment and extra batteries under the seat,” he said. “Never know when you might need to flag off an oncoming freighter.”

“But you'd know if there
was
an oncoming, you being the operator. Right?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. “Most of the time.”

*   *   *

Hook walked around the old road-rail, and then he walked around it again. Pilot wheels hung underneath like a cat crouched on a sandbox. A cable wench had been mounted on the front and the cable end looped around the bumper to keep it from dragging on the ground. The front fender had been crushed like an accordion, and a grease rag plugged the gas tank.

Hook got in and searched for the ignition. The cab smelled of oil and sweat, and empty cigarette packages covered the dash. A hole the size of a coffee can had been poked through the door by something, and a wad of electrical tape served to hold on the gearshift knob.

Hook pumped the accelerator a half-dozen times and cranked her over. To his surprise, she fired up, and a cloud of blue smoke drifted away.

He took off down the road, rumbling like a thrashing machine. When he hit forty, the front wheels started wobbling, and a high-pitched squeal emanated from the differential.

By the time he got to the crossing, his arm ached from hanging on to the steering wheel, and his eyes burned from the smoke boiling into the cab.

He checked his watch. The mail run should have passed Artesia and be headed for Clovis by now, so he pulled onto the crossing, lined up his tires on the rails, and lowered the pilot wheels. Dropping her into gear, he eased off down the tracks.

The old road-rail, transformed into a track vehicle, clipped along as light and easy as a summer breeze. As he sped into the desert, he released the steering wheel and leaned back. With luck, he'd make the wigwag and be on his way home before the short haul left from the potash mine.

Vandalism had taken its share of his time over the years, and odds were that's what awaited him at the wigwag. Boys, cranked up on beer and testosterone, had probably covered the signal lights as a prank. Kids often didn't know the difference between fun and funerals. Tampering with a crossing signal came as close to murder as a person could get without pulling a trigger. He'd picked up enough body parts at crossing accidents to know.

After switching onto the potash spur, he brought her up to speed. The moon climbed into the sky, and the stars slid overhead like sequins. Out here in the desert, the clatter of the world fell away, and a man's thoughts lined up one behind the other like soldiers.

When the wigwag signal rose up in the darkness ahead, he coasted in. At first, he figured the engineer to have been right, that someone had covered the lights. But as he drew near, he could see a body hanging from the cantilever, and it had blocked the signal arm. Heat rose into his ears. He'd seen his share of death over the years, but it never came easy.

At the crossing, he lifted the pilot wheels, pulled off the tracks, and backed down the slope of the road until the headlights lit up the body.

“Bastards,” he said.

For a man with only one arm, getting a body down from that high up would be impossible. Maybe he could drive back for help, but that would take hours. In the meantime, the crossing would be unprotected, and the railroad hated nothing more than paying compensation for crossing fatalities.

He climbed out, kicked his foot up on the bumper of the road-rail, and that's when he spotted the cable wench again. Getting back in, he pulled up to the wigwag, tied off the rope, and hit the switch. The body turned in the moonlight as the wench lowered it inch by inch to the ground.

When it had come to rest at Hook's feet, he knelt for a closer look. He guessed it to be the body of a young man, no more than a boy, though in the darkness he couldn't be certain.

The rope had been knotted and then looped over the victim's head. Whoever did it hadn't bothered to secure the boy's hands. A ligature mark cut deep into his neck, and the veins in his eyes had ruptured and bled. Without a fall to break his neck, he'd strangled in the slowest and most cruel way.

“Bastards,” Hook said again.

He sat back on his heels. Sometimes his work pressed in like a weight, and then there would be the images flashing in his head for months to come.

He searched the victim's pockets, finding nothing, no identification, no indication of who he might be or what brought him to die in this place.

The moonlight reflected from the signal's red eye. The victim could be a hobo, he supposed, though he doubted it. Most boes hit the rails to escape their pasts, moving from place to place, broke and hungry most of the time, and of little consequence to anyone. On occasion there would be a knifing or a beating, some random act of violence over a stolen meal or a bottle of whiskey. But rarely did boes suffer anything as deliberate and time-consuming as a hanging.

He looked for prints in the hard-packed road. He walked the tracks with the flashlight and found nothing that might reveal who had been there.

The Artesia operator had been right about the anger generated in a strike. Given the absence of individual responsibility in a group, men's capacity for violence increased. If strikers had been involved here, there would have been a number of them trampling about, a gang of fired-up and angry men, which would increase the chances of leaving behind some sort of clue. But he'd found nothing, not a cigarette butt, not a shoe print, not a hint as to anyone having been there.

Suicide, while always a possibility, struck him as unlikely as well, given the proximity of the body to the cantilever, which was easily within arm's length for the victim. What man, given this option, could have resisted reaching up and liberating himself from suffocation? This fellow was either dead or unconscious by the time he got up there.

Hook looked at the time. The search had taken longer than he realized, and he needed to contact the New Mexico State Police, who complained if they didn't get their hand in from the outset. They'd probably run prints on the chance that something would turn up in their files. If that failed, they'd write the whole thing off as just another dead tramp, and he'd be right back where he started.

When the short haul's whistle lifted in the distance, he turned up track to wave it down. Two-way radios had been installed in most of the equipment by the end of the war, and with luck, the engineer might be able to call in and save him a trip back to Carlsbad.

When the engine's glimmer broke, the wigwag, freed of its encumbrance, fired up behind him, its lights swinging and its bell clanging.

Hook swung his flashlight in a stop signal, and the short haul set her air. The ground trembled under Hook's feet, and the heat from the engine warmed him as the engineer eased her up next to him. He leaned out of the cab window and pushed his hat back.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“I'm rail security out of Clovis,” Hook said. “A man's been hung off the wigwag. Could you radio the Carlsbad operator and have him send out the state police?”

“Hold on.” When he poked his head back out he said, “The fireman's putting in a call.”

“Appreciate it,” Hook said.

“Know how it happened?” he asked.

Hook shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Some folks need hanging,” he said. “Like this fireman I got in here.”

“Hanging a fireman isn't illegal,” Hook said. “Long as he doesn't obstruct the wigwag signal.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” he said. “There are wildcats popping up here and there, you know. Maybe they hung a scab?”

“Think you could tell them to send out a meat wagon, too?” Hook asked.

“Hang on,” he said.

Hook listened to the thump of the diesel engine as he waited.

The engineer leaned out over his elbow. “They're sending a trooper out and an ambulance. Anything else?”

“No. Thanks,” Hook said.

The engineer nodded and brought up the engine. The rumble filled the night as he bumped out the slack and eased off down track. Hook waited until the end light disappeared before going back to the crossing.

He sat down on the bumper of the road-rail. Moonlight cast onto the body lying crumpled and silent in the road. Hook rubbed the tension from his neck and wondered what plans and hopes had also died on this night. He pulled his collar up against the evening cool.

“They're on their way, my friend,” he said. “They'll be here soon.”

 

4

 

T
HE PATROL CAR,
with the ambulance close behind, rolled down the road with its emergency light on.

Hook stepped into the road and signaled with his flashlight. The adrenaline could run high in these situations, and he had no intention of being mistaken for a criminal.

The officer opened the door and stood behind it. “Identify yourself,” he said, his voice tight.

“Hook Runyon. I'm the Santa Fe bull out of Clovis, the one who called in.”

Closing his door, the trooper came forward, his hand resting on the grip of his weapon. His hat was squared, and gray stripes ran the length of both pant legs. The gold badge on the front of his uniform shined.

“Officer Payne,” he said. “Step into the headlights, please.”

Hook moved forward and waited as Officer Payne looked him over.

“You only got one arm,” he said.

Hook looked at his prosthesis. “Been wondering why it took so long to button my shirt.”

“I'll have some identification. You don't look like no bull I ever saw.”

Hook rolled his eyes. It had been two years since anyone asked to see his badge. Now that he didn't have one, every son of a bitch between here and Pecos wanted a look.

“Must have left it on my bedside table. You can call my supervisor if you got a problem.”

“Well,” he said. “I guess you wouldn't be driving no railroad vehicle otherwise. You might want to consider carrying it in the future. Someone might mistake you for a bo.”

“Yeah, I'll keep it in mind,” Hook said. “The body's over there.”

Officer Payne walked around the body, knelt, and then looked up at Hook.

“How many goddamn ways can a man figure out how to die?”

Hook said, “A call came in that the wigwag had malfunctioned. Turned out to be this fellow hanging from the cantilever up there.”

Officer Payne shined his light onto the wigwag and then back onto the body.

“You ought know better than to move a corpse. This here is a crime scene.”

“A short haul was scheduled in from the mine,” Hook said, shrugging. “Had to get that signal up. Safety, you know.”

“Who is he?”

“No identification.”

Officer Payne stood and clicked off his light. “Maybe he left it on his bedside table,” he said.

“Or maybe the sons of bitches who hung him took it,” Hook said.

Officer Payne searched for a cigarette. Hook offered him one. He popped it between his teeth and lit up.

“Bums, be my guess,” he said, blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth. “The country's crawling with them, what with the war over. Found one in a grain elevator the other day after he'd eaten a bellyful of treated seed corn.” He shook his head. “Blew up like a goddamn toad.”

“Times can get hard on the rails,” Hook said.

Officer Payne flipped his cigarette ash onto the ground. “I figure this one here bailed off the wigwag his own damn self.”

“Possible,” Hook said.

“You could search from here to hell and not find out who he was, 'cause he didn't want no one to know. He maybe didn't know hisself.

“In the end, it don't matter a damn, if you ask me. All of 'em got the same story one way or the other. Their wives left 'em; they couldn't find work; they've been jilted or otherwise screwed by society. Or maybe they're just plain too lazy and stupid to get along.”

He dropped his cigarette next to the body and squashed it out with his foot.

“Every man's story should be worth a hearing,” Hook said.

“Right,” Payne said, motioning for the ambulance to pull up. “I'll have the coroner in Carlsbad take a look-see. We'll run prints, but I wouldn't count on it coming to much.”

“I can be reached through the Clovis operator if you come up with anything,” Hook said.

The ambulance driver and his assistant dropped the gurney and lifted the body onto it.

Hook turned to the patrolman. “Who's the coroner over there?” he asked.

Officer Payne rubbed the toes of his shoes against his pant legs.

“Broomfield, the local dentist. I know as much about ballet as he knows about being coroner.”

*   *   *

Hook arrived at the Artesia depot about dawn. The operator, busy digging an apple out of his lunch box, looked up.

“Get them little bastards rounded up?” he asked. “I tell you, kids nowadays.”

“Turned out to be a dead body jamming up the wigwag,” Hook said.

“I'll be,” he said. “Never know what's running the tracks these days. I took to keeping a pistol in the desk drawer over there just in case.”

“Mind if I use your phone?” Hook asked.