Neal Barrett Jr. (29 page)

H
e was sure he hadn’t hit the trooper hard. He would sleep off the blow and be fine. Howie was relieved to find they followed the same pattern here as they did in the building where he stayed. The name of a Loyalist officer or high official was written on a small piece of paper and tacked to each door. The hall was nearly dark, but he could still read the names. Mason’s room was the third door down.

He stood there a moment, but couldn’t hear a thing. Carefully gripping the knob, he quietly opened the door, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him. He could hear Mason breathe. A faint light came through the window, enough to show him a man’s shape in the bed. Going to his hands and knees, he made his way across the room. Mason’s clothes were draped neatly over a chair. On the table by the bed was a pitcher of water, Mason’s army pistol, and a knife. Howie was glad to find the knife; a blade was easier and quicker than having to use your hands. He slipped the knife from the table and stood.

Mason was on his side, turned toward the wall. Howie eased one knee on the bed, then jerked Mason over on his back, straddling him quickly, using his knees to pin the man’s arms to his sides. At the same time, he clapped a hand firmly across Mason’s mouth and pressed the point of the knife just below Mason’s eye.

Mason came awake at once. He stared wildly at Howie and tried to jerk away. Howie pricked him harder with the knife.

“You do that again and that’s it,” Howie said quietly. “You get what I’m saying?”

Mason nodded and tried to talk through Howie’s hand. Howie jabbed him hard, and Mason went quiet.

“I ain’t got a lot of time,” Howie said. “I wish I had all night, but I don’t. My name’s Howie Ryder. I want you to know who I am and why I’m here. You had my sister at Silver Island. I know what happened to her there, and to all them other folks, too. I know what you did. I don’t reckon you bothered with names in that place, but she
had
a name, mister. It was Carolee Ryder. You think on that. Think on it good. That’s how I want you to go. Thinking on her.”

Mason screamed, the sound all but lost under Howie’s firm grip. He touched the knife to Mason’s right eye, then drove it in hard with all his strength. Mason shuddered once. Howie waited a moment, then drew his hand from the man’s mouth. A long, final breath escaped Mason’s lips. Howie turned him back to the wall and drew the covers about his neck. He left the knife where it was.

Seconds later, he was out of the window and on the ground. He listened, but heard nothing but the sounds of the night. Moving quietly below the other open windows, he made his way toward the front of the building. The fence he’d climbed was twenty yards away, lost, for the moment, in the shadow of a giant tree. Howie moved toward the fence, keeping low to the ground.

They were on him in an instant, coming out of nowhere at all. He couldn’t tell how many, but it was enough. He fought as best he could, kicking out and taking one blow after another on his arms. He struck back until something hard as iron found the base of his skull, and he didn’t have to fight anymore….

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

W
hen he woke, he was aware of light and the pain. The hurt was centered in the back of his head and throbbed clear down to his eye. The light came from a lantern somewhere off down a hall out of sight. The light was broken up by lines, vertical stripes of black like a fence where the boards are spaced wide. He looked at the lines for a while until his eye was working right. Bars. They weren’t lines, they were bars.

He tried to move, but nothing worked. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs. When he moved his head and looked at himself, he saw he was sitting in a chair. In a chair in a room, with his arms and his legs bound painfully tight. And that was the moment when his head started working, and it came to him what he had done, and what the bars were for.

H
owie woke with a start, the sudden motion bringing the pain alive again.

“Here,” the voice said. “I expect this will help.” The cup touched his lips. Howie drank cool water until he choked.

“Easy now.”

The cup went away. Howie looked up and saw a Brother he didn’t know.

“What—what are they goin’ to do to me?” The moment he opened his mouth, he knew it was a fool thing to say.

“I have to do this,” said the Brother.

“Do what?”

The Brother leaned down and pressed Howie’s cheeks hard, forcing him to open his mouth.

“Dammit, wait—!”

Howie tasted a mouthful of cloth. The Brother stuffed it in tight, then wrapped another length across his mouth and tied it behind his head. When he was done, he stepped back and looked at his work.

“I think that will do. Can you breathe all right through your nose? Good.”

The Brother turned and left. Howie heard the harsh, final sound of iron as the bars clanged shut.

H
e was wide awake when the Brother came again. No, not the same one—this one was taller and had a rifle strapped across his shoulder. He opened the bars and stood aside. A Loyalist trooper came into the room. He hung a lantern from a chain a few feet from Howie’s chair and turned the wick up high. A moment later, two troopers came in with a small wooden table and three chairs. They set the chairs and the table in front of Howie, then everyone left except a single armed soldier. He stood at the open cell door and looked straight ahead. He never glanced at Howie.

Howie heard boots on a stone floor. The trooper looked quickly to his right and snapped to attention.

Three men came into the room. Howie’s heart sank when he saw them. They were high-ranking Loyalist officers, two colonels and a cavalry general. They all wore clean dress greens with rows of medals on their chests.

The general was heavyset, with thinning gray hair and leathery skin that had seen the sun. He took the center chair; the colonels stood until he was seated.

The general cleared his throat. One of the colonels handed him a folder; the general opened it, glanced at it briefly. He looked curiously at Howie, then turned his attention to the contents of the folder. He never looked at Howie again.

This is the defendant named Howie Ryder, also known by the alias of Cory?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” said the colonel on the general’s right.

“Defendant Howie Ryder is charged with the mutilation and subsequent murder of Colonel Eligh Jacob, late of the Second Army of the Western Expeditionary Force of the United States Army, this action having occurred in or about the state of Colorado. Is this a true and valid charge?”

“Yes sir, it is a true and valid charge.”

“So noted, then. Said defendant Howie Ryder is also charged with the murder of Senior Administrator Harriver Mason, this action having occurred in High Sequoia, in California state. Is this a true and valid charge?”

“It is a true and valid charge, sir.”

The general closed his folder. “Said defendant Howie Ryder has been charged and tried on two counts of murder; these charges have been deemed true and valid. Therefore I declare this hearing closed.”

The general stood. The two colonels rose quickly and came to attention. The three officers turned and walked stiffly out of the room. Troopers entered at once and removed the table and the chairs. The soldier closed and locked the barred door and disappeared, and Howie was alone once again.

Howie tried not to think. There wasn’t a whole lot to think about. They had caught him red-handed, there wasn’t any way out of that. The
trial
was over and done, though why they’d even bothered, Howie couldn’t say. Except the army liked to write things down.

The business with Colonel Jacob—that had surprised him somewhat, but not a lot. They’d caught him for killing Mason, and while he was out cold, some trooper or officer who’d been in Colorado had recognized his face and the missing eye. Probably got a promotion for it, too. Better than what the trooper who’d spotted him in Alabama Port got for his trouble, Howie thought.

That little problem had worked out fine. Only this time, Ritcher Jones wouldn’t likely walk in and get him off with a bribe. Even if he did sit right next to Lawrence at supper. Lawrence wouldn’t forget who’d brought a killer into High Sequoia, and someone would have to pay for that.

Howie didn’t look forward to facing Jones. Saying he was sorry for the trouble he’d caused wouldn’t do a lot of good. The thought suddenly struck him: Lord, what was Lorene going to think? Finding out the man she’d been loving every night was a man she didn’t know.

The thought of Lorene brought Howie a sense of sadness and regret. He’d thought about them maybe going off somewhere, dreamed about it, anyway, thinking how it might turn out to be true. Would she cry a whole lot when he was gone? Dying was supposed to be a fine thing to do, the Church had taught her that. But he figured that she’d cry some, too.

Somehow, knowing it was going to happen soon didn’t bother him at all. Dying just hadn’t hit home. It likely would, he decided, when they took him out under a tree. A bunch of troopers with a rope would get a man’s attention quick.

N
o one had bothered with windows in the place, and Howie had no idea if it was daylight or dark. Sometime after the officers left, the Brother who’d stuffed a gag in his mouth came back and took it out. He fed Howie soup and another cup of water, and checked to make sure the ropes weren’t cutting off his blood. Howie said he appreciated that; he didn’t think it looked right for a man to have a case of gangrene when they took him off to hang. The Brother paled at this remark and hurried quickly from Howie’s cell.

He tried to stay awake, but the dull, throbbing presence in the back of his head seemed determined to pull him under. He dozed off again and again, waking each time with a start. His head felt heavy, as if it might be full of sand. The light from the lantern was fuzzy, strangely indistinct. He wondered if the blow had done something real bad to his head, maybe damaged vital stuff inside. He’d been hit once or twice before, and the hurt had gone away, so maybe this was temporary, too.

He caught himself and tried to laugh. The effort sent a sharp surge of pain through his skull. What the hell difference does it make? Howie thought. I’m temporary all over, it ain’t just in my head.

He drifted off again, then came awake abruptly as a key clicked sharply in the lock of his cell. Howie looked up, blinked, saw the blow coming and couldn’t jerk away.

“Damn your filthy
soul
, boy!” Brother James struck him again across the face. Howie sucked in a breath.

James grabbed him by the throat and brought his face close to Howie’s. “God’s mercy, what have you done to me? I’ve nothing to do with this business!” His voice trembled with rage. Howie could smell his sour breath, count the beads of moisture on his flesh.

“I haven’t done nothing to you,” Howie said. “You ain’t even—”

James hit him again. Howie groaned and thought his head was coming off.

“What have you told them?” James said. “What did you say about me?”

“I didn’t say a thing about you. Why the hell should I?”

“I am not involved in this foulness of yours,” James said. His hand closed tightly about Howie’s throat. “My name … must
not
be spoken. It will
not
be spoken by you.”

“I told you, dammit. What the hell’s the matter with you, mister?”

“You have spoken to no one about our—little agreement?”

“No, honest. I—”

“I think F shall have to make certain of that.” James showed Howie a terrible grin. “I think I must be sure.”

James brought both his hands to Howie’s throat. He pressed his thumbs hard, cutting off Howie’s breath at once. Howie tried to cry out. Bright spots of light began to dance before his eyes. He strained at his ropes, knowing it would do him no good. The face before him began to fade. An odd, almost comical expression appeared on Brother James’s face. His eyes rolled up, and one corner of his mouth twisted awkwardly toward his jaw. He released Howie’s throat, backed away a step, and tried to turn around. Something happened to his legs and he collapsed to the floor.

Howie gasped for air. Ritcher Jones stepped over James. Concern spread over his features; he found a cup of water and brought it to Howie’s mouth. Howie threw up half of the water, and drank again.

“Thank the Lord,” Jones said. He wiped Howie’s face with the edge of his robe. “Are you all right, son?”

“I reckon so,” Howie said. His voice sounded like a frog’s. “Thanks—for getting here.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” Jones said. He turned and spoke over his shoulder. “You’d best take him out the east door. Use Samuel and Micah.”

Howie looked past Jones and saw Brother Michael. He held a pistol in his hand. Something long was attached to the end of the barrel; it looked like a piece of black pipe.

“You won’t need me here?” Michael asked.

“No. Tell Samuel to come back when you’ve disposed of James. Tell him to stay here, outside the room.

Michael nodded and disappeared. Ritcher Jones turned to Howie.

“You came rather close, I’d say. We’ve been trying to find Brother James. I had no idea he’d turn up here.” Jones looked curiously at Howie. “Can you tell me why he did come to you? Why he was so interested in your silence?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Howie said. “He just came in here and—”

“No.” The preacher shook his head. “I want the truth now, boy. I must know what passed between you two.”

Jones turned as two Brothers came into the room, picked up the limp form, and left.

I have to know this,” Jones said gently. “It is very important to me.”

Howie looked at the floor. “He caught me doin’ something once. I ain’t going to say what it was. It don’t matter. He—wanted me to tell him what Brother Michael said. Whatever he said to Lawrence.”

“Ah, I see.” He shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. “And he enlisted you in his scheme. Poor Brother James. What a tragic mistake.”

“I don’t know nothing about any schemes,” Howie said.