Render Unto God... Page 5

  “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity. That’s in the Old Testament. You know your Bible boy? Hebrews Chapter 13?”

  “Yessum sir. Went to Sunday School sir. Not now of course,” he hastened to add. “Too old for that now, sir.”

  A yell from the kitchen called the boy away, but he returned with the Preacher’s order then left to greet a new customer. The place was maybe half full now. A couple of Texans lining their stomachs for a hard night’s drinking. One or two more smartly dressed gentlemen who were probably, what? Buying and selling? Money to be made in Abilene.

  The Preacher took a couple more mouthfuls of his dinner then called the boy over. “Good steak this. Guess there’s always steak and beef a-plenty in a cattle town such as Abilene. Get me some water can you, boy?” A couple more individuals came in and sat down. Clearly Mrs. Tucker was doing good business. The boy kept being called away to take this or that order, deliver this or that plate to this or that customer. The Preacher was keeping him busy too. “Nehemiah son, get me some salt could you?” Then: “Bread? You got any bread, Nehemiah?” and “Lovely gravy this. Be sure an’ tell your ma I said so.”

  But when it was time to settle up the boy was outside, busy clearing the tables. So the Preacher made his payment to Alice. “Fine boy that Ma’am. Just you and him?” A good lookin’ woman, thought the Preacher. And evidently both a good cook and a sound business brain. A man could do worse. And for sure a good mother also. Wonder where Old Man Tucker was. No evidence of anyone else running this establishment. If he were still alive, then he was missing out.

  Inside the jailhouse the turnkey heard a kicking at the door. Then a man’s voice. It was the Preacher, returning with the food. Knowing that there was something there for him, the jailer was pleased to act as a welcoming doorman. The Preacher strode into the office bearing a tray covered in a red check cloth. Laying it on the desk he removed the cover with a flourish to produce two huge sandwiches, bursting with steak and onions. “Yours,” he said, handing one of the plates to the turnkey, “with my compliments.”

  “That fer the prisoner?” the turnkey gestured to the other sandwich. The Preacher had made good and sure that, large as they were, one of the sandwiches was larger still and it was this that he handed to the gate keeper.

  “Yes. I already eaten. Best I take this one through while it’s still hot.”

  “And while he’s still got a neck to swallow it with!” laughed the turnkey. It was the first time he’d made any semblance of a smile, allowing the Preacher to see, as his seemingly one-piece grey beard and moustaches parted, that the few teeth he had left in his mouth were as yellow as mustard. Or more accurately, tobacco.

  The cell door closed behind the Preacher and the turnkey shuffled back to his desk and dinner. Williams was still sitting on the stool. Probably hadn’t moved. He meekly took the tray as the Preacher stood over him. Started to eat, then paused and said, “Where’s the boy?” Still had some curiosity left.

  The Preacher resumed his seat on the bed. “His ma said he had too much to do. I said I would help. The least I could do, seeing as how I was already eating there an’ everything.” He considered a period of silence on his part would help. Let the wretch eat and think on his sister.

  And he did eat. Ate the whole piece. Maybe he was a-thinking as well. Hard to tell. Huge chunks of fresh bread either side of maybe 10 ounces of prime beef steak and onions. Nothing would make him feel real good anymore, but it did put Williams temporarily into a slightly better mood. “Guess I gotta trust you ‘bout ma sister’s ‘heritance,” he said, fixing the Preacher square. “S’not likely I’ll see the boy agin, as from what they tell me they’re a-doin’ the deed at sun-up. An’ I don’t want him to be around to, you know, see.” This brought on a fit of coughing and the Preacher wondered again whether the cough would beat the noose.

  “Do you want to tell me about the money friend? The story I mean. What was her name again, your sister?” The Preacher spoke quietly. He thought that keeping the conversation intimate would loosen Williams’ tongue. Would also ensure the turnkey didn’t get to hear. The Preacher wondered if this was the bedside manner country parsons adopted when visiting old ladies on their deathbeds.

  “Martha.”

  “Oh yes, I think you said. Ellsworth isn’t it? Near the army fort?”

  “Yeah. So here it is: Me and Pickens, we held up a stage that was on its way from St Jo to Fort Larned. Or was it St Louis to... No matter. It was a mail coach, Wells, Fargo. Had a soldier on board and he was a-guardin’ some special mailbags. Money bags. Maybe it was wages or summin’ I dunno. $15,000 we reckoned when we saw it so maybe not just wages. Anyways, shots were fired, but that was the soldier. We didn’t ‘xpect that. Didn’t know about no soldier see. Just expected to rob the passengers. Meant there was summin’ worth having though. Soldier got shot, but that weren’t me.”

  Never is you, is it.

  “No one else put up any struggle and the driver had the good sense not to try to outrun us. We just took the soldier’s money bags ‘coz they looked the best prize and skedaddled.”

  This effort took its toll on Williams and the next few minutes were spent in such a violent coughing fit that the Preacher had to appeal to the turnkey for water. Maybe Williams was beginning to run a slight temperature. But after a drink he calmed down. The Preacher reached deep into one of his pockets, fishing for something inside. “NO!” said Williams in a voice almost of alarm. “I told you, I don’t want no Bible!”

  The Preacher paused before removing his right hand from his pocket and smiled, “Whisky?” he said, producing a bottle. He held it up in the half-light. Bottled courage.

  “Got some of the ol’ Kansas Sheep Dip have yer, Preacher Man?” grinned Williams in response. “What sort of Sunday School did your pappy send yer to eh? A good ‘un, that’s what I says.” He made to move from the stool to get hold of the bottle. But the Preacher gestured that Williams stay put. He produced two tumblers from the same pocket. Having decided that it was worth spending the night with the prisoner and hearing his ‘confession’, the Preacher had borrowed the tumblers from Nehemiah. The whisky was his. Sitting himself on the edge of the bed, he pulled the cork from the bottle, poured a generous measure for Williams and a much smaller one for himself. Well, no point in hearing the prisoner’s story if he couldn’t remember the details the next morning. Then he rose from the bed where he was sitting and handed Williams the drink. “Get that down your…” he paused, searching for the right word, “...self, friend. And there’s a-plenty more where that came from, for sure.”

  The Preacher resumed his seat, making sure that the bottle stayed safely with him, between his leather-booted feet. He raised his glass to Williams and said, “So you decided to lie low at your sister’s...”

  Maybe afterwards the Preacher should’ve let Williams sleep in the bed, what with it being his last night on Earth. But Williams had fallen asleep where he sat and seemed comfortable enough on the three-legged stool, wedged in the corner. The effect of the whisky would give him a taste of what oblivion would be like. The Preacher had become a light sleeper during the war, when the threat of a night attack was constant and the demands of commanding an ever weakening and demoralized troop incessant. This night he spent his waking time thinking of what he had learnt from Williams. The two villains had got together a week before the hold-up. Pickens had had the idea to ambush the stage, but needed an extra pair of guns, the better to make the conductor think twice about shooting it out. Hence Williams’ involvement. They pounced as the stage approached the crest of a steep incline. There wasn’t enough room for the coach to turn and attempt to outrun the highwaymen. And the driver had had the good sense to realize that any such attempt would merely result in the robbers shooting the lead horse dead. That would have just added to his problems.

  The man riding shotgun was also overwhelmed with more than his fair share of wisdom, which made him thro
w down his coach gun. All of that meant there wasn’t enough good sense left to reach inside the passenger compartment and stop the soldier boy (and he was young, said Williams) jumping out and levelling his carbine. “It was Pickens what shot him,” Williams had repeated. “Warn’t killed though. But whether he lived I don’t know. Only two other passengers and they done nothing.”

  The two robbers couldn’t believe their good fortune when they broke open the strongbox, which revealed freshly wrapped oilskin bundles of what were clearly dollar bills. But they knew that this would raise a hornets’ nest of troopers tracking them down, ‘specially if it was payroll for the fort. Pickens made the driver unhitch the team and scatter the horses, the better to cause a lengthy delay in getting the news back to town. And in a piece of (for them) far-sighted thinking, they realized the authorities would be looking for two men carrying huge amounts of cash. Made sense to stash the money somewhere safe and lie low. Williams knew that his sister had been living in Ellsworth, on the Smokey Hill River. It was about half a day’s hard riding away. There was an army fort near there and no doubt it was to that fort the soldier and the money were headed. The two desperadoes had to get in, hide the money, and get out before the alarm was raised.

  There was no real risk of the stage making it to town in anything like the time it took Williams and Pickens. In fact, the two made it into Ellsworth comfortably before sundown the same day. Williams’ sister, Martha, was a deal younger than him and the Preacher had some notion that she was just a half-sister. Whatever which way, she was working in a whore-house run by a husband and wife team that went by the name of Lowe. It stood on the outskirts of Ellsworth and, like the town itself, did a roaring trade with the fort, and with the drovers who passed through on the way to the railheads further north. Being a bustling cattle town, no one would pay any attention to two drifters arriving early in the evening. And what could be more natural than paying a visit to a local brothel?

  Martha had not been best pleased to see her brother and she argued that if he wanted to see her right away he would have to pay for her time like anyone else. Otherwise he could return the next morning when she’d not be working. Williams couldn’t really argue as his sister’s view was backed up by Madam Lowe and she was a fierce looking woman with a fierce looking shotgun.

  Williams had no desire to see Martha. He hadn’t even worked out how she could help. He didn’t trust her enough just to give her the money for safekeeping. Pickens it was who had the idea, once he’d realized where it was that Martha lived and worked. Said they would hide the money under a floorboard. The intention would be to return in maybe a month, retrieve the cash, split it, and go their separate ways. To do this they decided, in order to allay suspicions, that they needed to avail themselves of the establishment’s facilities. Williams had arranged to take his pleasure with a slim and quite pretty half-breed, leaving his sister to his partner. But they needed to get the ‘Doves of the Roost’ out of the coop for long enough for them to hide the booty. So they persuaded both the women to leave them in the bedroom and go buy them liquor and food.

  While the women were doing that, the men took their opportunity. In the room was a large oak sideboard. Heavy. Too heavy for one person to move, so this made it all the more likely that it would still be there, standing sentinel over the moneybags. And no, Williams and Pickens had no idea as to how much there was, not having the time to open the oilskins, let alone count the bills. They shifted the sideboard, lifted a couple of floorboards and hid the money still wrapped, the better to protect it.

  “Will Martha remember which room that was?”

  “Well if’n she don’t, it’s the room under the staircase. You’ll see when you get there. Though what they’ll think of a Preacher standing on their threshold...” His laughter turned into another coughing fit. However, this was the news that Williams wanted the Preacher to pass on to his sister. And if he did have a soul to save, would this be enough to save it?

  The Preacher said that it would. And he poured Jed Williams of Joliet, Illinois a good measure of whisky, it being his final reward in this life.

  Chapter 3

  The journey from jailhouse to gallows is never a pleasant affair. And this was just like most of the others the Preacher had witnessed. They were awoken by the marshal at sun-up, although whether Williams was sleeping was another matter. Still, he’s sleeping now, that’s for sure and he won’t wake from this particular slumber until the trumpets sound on Judgement Day. Smith was accompanied by the turnkey. The two adorned Williams with handcuffs and leg irons. Also in attendance was Abilene’s regular parson, who had sobered up and was now relishing the opportunity to save the soul of this miserably lost sheep. He had been annoyed to discover that the Preacher had spent the night being, as he saw it, Williams’ confessor.

  The five men moved wordlessly out of the cell, down the corridor, through the office and out into the chill dawn air. The sun was not yet visible, although its entrance onto the stage was heralded by pink streaks in the sky, turning orange. Outside, four deputies were awaiting. With the marshal assisting on one side and the parson on other, Williams was guided onto an upturned box that served as a step into the back of an old flat-top wagon. The parson climbed aboard as did two of the deputies. Williams was seated atop of another box now, sideways on to the direction of travel. It was only after the parson took his place opposite that Williams realized his bench was actually his coffin.

  Williams didn’t have a jacket and the air was chill, so someone draped a blanket over his shoulders, the final act of mercy he’d receive in this world. “Well if he don’t find that comfortable,” a deputy on the ground said, referring to the coffin, “he’s got all eternity to get used to it.”

  The marshal sat up front, alongside a deputy who was also the driver. He flicked the reins across the backs of two mules. Mindlessly the beasts stepped forward and pulled on the tongue of the wagon. The entire frame creaked under the tension before the wheels surrendered to the laws of brute force and began to turn. The Preacher walked behind along with the remaining deputies and a small gathering of the curious, some of whom were singing The Old Rugged Cross. No family members of course, which was just as well thought the Preacher; nothing worse at a hanging than distraught kin. A bit like those executions they had in France when they had their revolution he thought. Tumbrils, weren’t they? Was slicing someone’s head off more merciful than hanging by the neck?

  He could hear the parson reading some verses from his Bible. “And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, the place of a skull...” The Preacher fully expected the prisoner to tell the parson to shut the hell up. But no. Maybe he had found God just in time. Next would be the piece about the two criminals being executed either side of Christ and sure enough, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Today’s criminal had his head bowed and his hands were together, as if in prayer. Could have been the handcuffs though.

  The Preacher’s train of thought came to a halt as the wagon turned off the street into the entrance of the corral adjacent to the livery stable. Then it too stopped. The entrance consisted of a break in the fencing where two upright posts, maybe fifty feet high, were topped off with a bar across the opening. Dangling from this bar was the noose. It was beneath this that the wagon had stopped. Standing alongside, awaiting his customer, was the hangman. No bare-chested, masked axe man like in the picture books. This executioner also doubled as Abilene’s undertaker, so was dressed in his Sunday Best. Business to be done.

  The driver pulled on the brake lever beside his seat and locked the wheels. The hangman clambered into the body of the wagon and he, the marshal and a deputy, assisted Williams to his feet. The Preacher kept his distance, standing at the edge of a gathering of, by now, some twenty people. The marshal had been right about mothers bringing their offspring, for there were at least two family groups standing to the left of the proceedings. The Preacher noted that one of the mothers had her two young bo
ys clutched tightly to her skirts. The three were dressed as if this were a visit to Church, she wearing her best bonnet and skirts, the boys in clean breeches and matching jackets. Shoes well-polished, naturally. The eldest boy was probably no more than seven years. Fair of face and full of grace the two of them, straight blond hair that needed cutting, and freckles. Their mother had her left arm around them both, as if to protect them from a great evil. But her arm also served to stop them running away. In her right hand she had a small black Bible that she held out open in front of her boys. She read fervently to her sons.

  “Your normal gallows?” This the Preacher to a deputy standing beside him.

  The deputy cleared his throat and spat upon the ground. On the opposite side to the Preacher of course, so as not to give offence. “Yup. It does fer us. No need to build no fancy-dan contraption with levers an’ all when we have something as high and effective as that,” nodding to the scene before them.

  “Use it much?”

  This particular deputy was a deal older than the marshal and, in all likelihood, was only sworn in when there was a specific need for his services. Like today. His badge was shiny and well-polished, fastened to the left-hand side of his waistcoat. On the opposite side a silver chain, fastened at one end to a buttonhole, disappeared into his top pocket. Attached to a fob watch no doubt. Both the badge and the watch made the deputy feel he was a man of substance. Maybe in this town he was. Unlike the marshal, he bore a firearm, but that was OK because it was in the line of duty. “Nope. Hard Labor’s sometimes what they gits. Does fer ‘em all the same, only more slowly, if you sees what I mean.”

  The coffin had been moved to the back of the wagon and another two boxes were placed atop of it to gain height. The Preacher still wondered whether the drop was enough to ensure a clean break of the neck. Williams was assisted onto the boxes, and stood pathetic, exposed. A bag had been placed over his head followed by the noose: the ‘California Collar’ that Williams had referred to the previous night. Maybe no one had told him of his right to give a final address to the crowd; maybe he had nothing to say. Nearby, a mother’s grip on her boys intensified, as did her reading of the Psalms. “He hath prepared his throne for judgement. And He shall judge the world in righteousness.” She made her boys listen. And oh, she made them look! No hiding of the face in her skirts. Be warned! This is what happens to sinners.