Innocents' Massacre cont'd

E.

The sun slowly dipped in the sky, spreading long shadows over the town of Necessity. It was seven o’clock on the nose. Guy looked at his pocket-watch for the tenth time in the last half-hour. A fixed grimace locked on his mouth as he again viewed the empty and darkening street into town. Guy was waiting for the Sheriff to come and bring him to the Saloon.
Flipping the top back onto his watch, he dropped it in his pocket and patted the bulge twice. He rose and turned, reentering the drafty deserted stable that was to be his base of operations for the foreseeable future.
“Boy!”
The booming voice of Sheriff Miles interrupted the silence.
“Hey there Guy, we gotta go talk to them witnesses. What you walkin’ away for? C’mon!”
Guy walked over to his pouch. He studied some papers from his bag deliberately, then turned to the entrance.
“I’m ready sir.”

F.

Guy and Barrington stood before the swinging doors of the Saloon. Barrington placed a heavy hand on Guy’s shoulder.
“Listen boy, be careful in there. These folks are edgy and have little ta no tolerance for…outsiders.”
Guy cut his gaze from the Sheriff’s chest and stared resolutely at the room beyond the swinging doors in front of him.
“Sir, if I am nothing else I am careful.”
The Sheriff slid his arm away and shook his head. Turning forward he pushed the doors wide and entered the Saloon followed closely by Guy.
Desperate carousing sounds leaped and thumped through the brightly lit Saloon. The piano player plunked out happy upbeat marches on the shiny wooden piano. Painted women danced through the crowd of male patrons, offering their company to winners and regret to losers at the various card tables. A tenuous sense of refuge existed in this bar, that none of its inhabitants dared abandon while foreboding pervaded the rest of Necessity. Wary faces shifted as Barrington sat in the center of the fray with the Negro stranger.
“Now, you’re gonna talk to five witnesses to the various killings. Only one actually saw the killings and that’s Sammy Meyer, the town drunk. The other four where nearby when the killings occurred and discovered the bodies of the victims and the suspects.”
Guy scanned the room undeterred by the piercing gazes of most of the patrons. He noticed a sullen young dandy sitting alone, a bottle and shot glass in alternate hands. The man seemed to mumble to himself and shake his head vigorously after each drink. Guy tapped on the table to get Sheriff Miles' attention. He nodded in the direction of the man.
“That is Wilson Lindsay the third, the son of one of the victims. His father was a wealthy banker here and one of the founding fathers of Necessity. Word is the boy hated his father livin’ but seems even more at a loss with havin’ him dead.”
Guy acknowledged the Sheriff’s statement wit a small gesture. He then continued to scan the raucous room. In the corner of the bar he discovered what was the crumbled form of Sam Meyer. No one else in the Saloon seems truly lost in their drink as he was, huddled protectively over his bottle as whiskey as he was. Everyone else seemed to only pretend to succumb to their cups. Hair long and ragged, clothes dusty and unkempt, he nursed his drink at the bar as if it was his last.
“That must be Sammy Meyer at the bar. He seems outta place here.”
Sheriff Miles allowed himself a slight smile.
“Sharp eye boy. Sammy’s only allowed in here to talk ta you, so he knows he better enjoy civilized livin’ as long as he can.”
Barrington cleared his throat and leaned closer to Guy.
“And if you think your pickin’ these folks out makes up for that stupid stunt of yours earlier in the jail, you are sorely mistaken. I ain’t impressed.”
Guy looked into the face of the grizzled sheriff. The Buffalo soldier’s face was a mask of complete innocence and sincerity.
“Yes sir. Please describe the others to me.”
Barrington leaned back in his chair. He looked away from the government, agent slightly disturbed. Regaining his composure, as he looked about the room, the Sheriff addressed Guy.
“Well we got the two Jones boys; Matthew and Damien. Those boys ‘bout killed the Injun we arrested for the last killing. Rambunctious pair those two. Finally we have Claudia Grimes, local good-time girl. She was the late Mayor’s favorite “companion.” before he was murdered after one of their evenin’s together. “
Sheriff Miles looked back at Guy, who was no longer maintaining his passive gaze on him. Guy was busy now studying Wilson Lindsey, III.
“May I speak to the witness’ now sir.”
The Sheriff felt comfortable again waving Guy on.
“Aright. Go on talk to the Lindsey boy first. I'll send the rest over to ya directly. And soldier, be civil, these folks are in mourning,”
The Buffalo soldier rose and approached Wilson slowly. Deep in his bottle, Lindsey did not respond to Guy’s approach. The Negro soldier stood in anticipation of some acknowledgement of his presence. Nothing broke Wilson’s ritual of pour raise drink repeat. Grabbing a chair from another table, Guy sat across from the distressed young man. Wilson Lindsey the third was the epitome of a fish out of water in this town. He wore the height of eastern fashion, obviously not made for the rugged southwest environs he currently lived in. Though his chestnut brown hair was mussed a bit, it still was cut precisely.
“So you are the Colored hope of a diseased town.”
The slightly nasal New England accent of the young man hissed from the shadows of his still bowed head.
“I do hope you can end this plague that has lain waste to our beloved founding fathers…father.”
Here his voice faltered and drifted quickly to silence.
“Mister Lindsey, I am here to help as best I can. You did not witness the actual killing?”
The young man’s face rose from shadow unveiling a mask of exhaustion, terror, and ultimately resolution. His bleary hazel eyes attempted to come to life.
Sir, I found my father after a rather brutal beating that I, in my cowardice, heard the length of and yet feared to come to my father’s rescue. In the safety of utter stillness and after the cessation of paralyzing trepidation, I found the blooded and lifeless carcass."
Guy studied the troubled face of this man-child.
“Your father called to you?”
“No he knew better. I am after all a production of his own devious design.”
Tears began to collect in the corner of his eyes.
“You see he knew from the moment I stepped off the train from Harvard. He wanted to be so proud. I was the young genius trophy sent away to the best schools back east from the time I was six years old.”
The grimace on the young man’s face intensified. Anger and regret vied for supremacy on his brow. Lindsey was a man torn.
“Mister Lindsey I am truly sorry for loss, but I need to know what you heard that night.”
Young Lindsey sighed heavily and dropping his head back to its original position. Spilled liquor on the rough-hewn surface of the table twisted the light from above transfixing him. In a haunted voice Wilson spoke from as if from the bottom of a deep pit.
“I heard chanting. I heard a song that penetrated my mind. I felt as if I had taken a great dose of laudlin. My father’s cries became the finale of an horrific symphony.”
His brow drew together as Guy spoke again.
“This chanting-- it was Apache?”
Wilson’s head shook vigorously, his hair becoming wilder by the second.
“I cannot be sure sir, but it was not English, nor any of the five languages I speak fluently. If it was Apache I am shamed more that I do not know a tongue so intimate to my birthplace.”
The bar remained lively but pensive. There was a sense that everyone there was keeping a secret ear to what was said to the government agent. Guy noticed the Jones boys openly glaring at him. They seemed to mumble conspiratorially. Guy looked way and returned his focus to the broken dandy.
“And you found the old Indian standing over your father with the club?”
At this utterance, Lindsey’s slight veneer of emotional control shattered. Heaving sobs and indecipherable lamentations tumbled from the man’s trembling lips. Guy heard the only word he needed.
“…yes…”
The boy crumbled into his seat, his knuckles white with the grip he held on the table. Guy rose and walked away. The sound in the room became centered on Guy. It vibrated. marched, then settled in the pit of his stomach. Burning eyes barely clouded by strong drink burrowed into his soul. Guy walked to the bar. The shattered waste of man that was Sam Meyer sat before him at the bar and the sour smell of human neglect was his herald. Sam was a slight man, whose age could not be determined beneath the disease and deterioration that his addiction bestowed upon him. As Guy approached, filmy gray eyes peered out from a pink pockmarked face looking out and beyond him to the inexplicable. Things conjured at the bottom of rotgut bottles and a whiskey soaked brain.
Noticing the empty bottle Sam clutched in his grimy hands, Guy set coin down to request another from the bartender. The bartender agitated at this double intrusion on his Valhalla turned to Sheriff Miles, currently concentrating on a friendly game of Spades, for approval. Miles gave a distracted nod and the bartender obediently placed a bottle before the drunk, never even acknowledging Guy’s money. Meyer broke the silence.
“Ya cain’t even see beyond the blood sometimes…Sometimes.”
His searching gaze never stopped on Guy.
“But the blood sees ya n’ answers in kind.”
Guy sighed.
“Mister Meyer what can you tell me about the killing you witnessed?”
“Ol’ injun hittin’ and hittin’. Jus’ nothin’ beyond the blood.”
“You saw the killing -?”
Meyer shook his head vigorously, as Guy lean in a bit closer in spite of the stench.
“Heard them kids. Chilren’ don’ understand Necessity. Just right n’ wrong.”
Sam shook violently at this announcement and closed his rheumy slate eyes.
“I know they hate ‘cause they hate me. But I ain’t done nothin’ but destroy myself. Why they judge that n’ not Necessity. Why cain’t they stay where they are and get outta my head. Ain’t I them? Ain’t I white?”
Guys brow deepened as he moved even closer.
“Did you hear anything?”
Sam rocked softly on his stool his mind a portal to mystery.
“Cain’t hear nothin’ but the kids n’ they only want what’s wrong righted. Don’ understand Necessity.”
Meyer burned with impotent fury. He began pounding on the bar. Disruption ran the tense bar to silence. Angry desperate silence. The quiet of the fearful forced to face their fear. Forced to admit the hypocrisy in their revelry. Meyer’ gnarled hands suddenly gripped Guys arms in a vice grip. Sam’s proximity sent a wave of near over-powering nausea across Guy’s face. Distant pupils focused, at last, on Guy.
“Ain’t I them! Them kids growwed n’ growwed but they still kids, and they only want wrong right! It makes sense ta them. Ya gotta hear the kids!”
Guy slipped and lost his footing into Sam’s contorted visage. His look more sober than they had ever been because of this drunken plea. Guy seemed dazed as strong arms loosened Sam’s grip on him and dragged him away. Didn’t even turn as the pulled him screaming from the Saloon. But he heard the despair in his voice. The loneliness desire and truth in his fading plea.
“Ain’t I them.”
“Sorry for Sammy, he can be pretty manic.”
A lush voice broke Guy’s descent. The voice turned into a vision. The dream of lonely cowboys and exhausted highwaymen made flesh. Painted and smelling of lilacs, Claudia Grimes smiled enticingly. Frosted gold locks tumbled gracefully about a cute round face. Pale powder was offset by ruby red lips, pink cheeks and alluring long lashes. She was not beautiful by many social standards, but her effect was far more intoxicating. Claudia did not create herself to be loved but to be desired as well as accessible. She was a woman whose charm and presence seemed to increase her simple physical gifts. Her firm touch on his hand jarred Guy to attention. He recoiled from her touch, as was expected, and collected himself.
“I’m sorry I scared you soldier. You seemed lost.
Guy nodded, maintaining a careful distance from the bouquet of sight, sound, and smell that stood before him. One that could lead him to pain or death.
“I’m fine ma’am. Just lost in thought. Have a seat please so I can ask you some questions please.”
Guy noticed the pattern the grain of the stained wood on the table made around his hand.
“I didn’t know they was sendin’ coloreds, that is the accepted term now isn’t it, to deal with the Indians?”
Her coy voice read as an invitation…Guy nodded still tracing the paths rolling around his fingers. But he inhaled the delicate fragrance that cleared the stench of the drunkard from his nostrils.
“Miss Grimes, you found the mayor dead?”
Claudia crinkled her brow a moment. She shifted in her seat and ran her hand up through her hair. As the strands fell from her fingers the danced haphazardly on her face. She then sat up in a stately pose.
“The Mayor cared very much for me…”
Claudia smiled off into space.
“And I, in my way, was find if him. He was not young, strong, or um vigorous, but he was important. That my dear can take a gal a long way.”
Guy noticed, as he studied the table more, that the lady, Grimes’ trembled faintly. A faint and steady tremble that could not be hidden behind her flirtations or memories of half-spent passions. She was shaken but a good actress.
“So ma’am you were, excuse my presumption, with the Mayor on the night of his murder.”
Claudia deflated. The performance ended and all the color, that was not artificial, drained from her face. Her eyes grew wide in the remembering.
“Yes.”
She answered like a child afraid of punishment after being caught in a lie.”
“Ma’am, I know this is difficult. Just take your time and tell me everything you can remember.”
Claudia smiled, grateful at the man’s patience.
“Thank you dear. Well I was dressin’ and preparin’ to leave his house when hard the most terrible of thuds. William had gone down to get my wrap for me. I thought I heard him humming then thud, thud, thud… then silence.”
“What did you do, ma’am, upon hearing these sounds?”
Claudia leaned in closer to Guy. Her perfumed swirled once more around. Guy looked up and deeply at her. She continued.
“I thought he’d fallen. I ran down the stairs. The old Indian was sittin’ on the…on the floor. It was him. He was hummin’ or mutterin’ real lightly to himself. And Willie was…he…the blood was everywhere!”
Claudia burst into tears and grabbed to Guys hands for comfort. Consumed by her tears, he did not pull away. For a moment she found warmth in their interlaced fingers. Then Guy felt a vise-like grip on his shoulder. Slowly Guy withdrew his hands from Miss Grimes and sat back in his chair. The hand on his shoulder did not retreat and as he turned his focus from the woman, Guy realized another person stood on his other side as well. One of the barmaids came and ushered Claudia away consoling her all the way.
“I ‘spect she told ya all she could boy.”
Matt Jones voice was laced with thick poison, his youth could not mask. He held Guy’s shoulder. Exacting pressure constantly. Guy stood still and studied the young man in the bar mirror. Matt stood on one side as his brother Damien, stood on the other. Matt was tall and broad shouldered with short dark hair. He had abnormally large and knotted hands that went well with his deep brow and rounded jaw. Damien was the antithesis of his brother. Tall and slight, his features seemed more comely. His hair was sandy blond and his gaze was intense. They mimicked the hate in his brother’s words.
“Now Matt, ya should be more careful I’m sure the man was only consoling Miss Claudia.”
The hand on Guy’s shoulder let go its grip. The two young men of Necessity sat down on opposite sides of Guy. And very close to him.
“Sheriff Stone say you wanna know ‘bout the ol’ bastard injun what killed our Paw.”
Matt leered viciously.
“Lucky he arrived when he did, else me n’ Damien woulda had the old boy done.”
Guy continued looking at the two men in the mirror as Matt spoke. They looked at him intently. Matt’s monstrous grin formed brutishly around his words. Damien’s eyes were set. Never moving from inspecting Guy, his mouth a terse rictus. Matt gleefully continued his speech.
“Fer what he did , we shoulda broke every red bone in his red hide.”
Damien put a light hand on Guy’s shoulder his gaze never changing as his voice was easy and informal.
“Matt gets a bit worked up jus’ thinkin’ about our Paw’s death n’ the way that Indian forgot his place. That ol’, dead Indian. I’m sure you know how dangerous it is when some folks forget their place.”
The room chatter, having not recovered from the outburst from the town drunk and the disintegration of Miss Claudia, stayed quiet enough to allow the Jones boy’s words to be heard easily throughout. Guy searched the mirror for Sheriff Miles face. He was, of course, watching the proceedings with an active eye and stilted smile.
“Damien, I don’t think this boy is focusing on our testimony!”
Guy turned his head looking directly at Damien. He seemed completely uninterested in Matt’s plodding words.
“Mister Jones, if you don’t plan to be a help, then don’t be a hindrance.”
Damien’s expression grew wild as he leaped from his chair and lunged at Guy.
“Why you uppity ass nigger!”
Time moved in single steps. Damien’s forward momentum was stifled by Guy’s fist colliding with him. Blood splattered across the handsome man’s face as Guy followed the punch by locking his other hand around Damien’s throat. Fumbling as if stuck in molasses, the Jones boy worked unsuccessfully to free himself from the iron grip. Recovering from his shock, Matt moved sluggishly to his brother’s aid. His massive hands clamped down on Guy’s shoulders once again. A screech let out his mouth as Guy jerked his head back smashing Matt’s nose across his face. He let loose of Guy scrabbling back, shocked, to nurse his wound. Damien’s world went gray from the pressure exerted. Pained and surprised at the man’s wiliness, Matt reached for his revolver. Noticing the movement, Guy let go of his neck and grabbed for Damien’s gun.
Two shots rang out.
The first shot ripped into Matt’s hand knocking the revolver from his grasp. The second shot blew the hat off his head as he yelped, diving desperately to the ground cowering. Turning quickly from his subdued opponents, Guy was met with the barrel of the Sheriff’s gun aimed at his face.
“Fine shooting son, now put the heater down. Now.”
The room was dead silence. Each individual breath was held in anticipation of whatever the next moment would bring. Matt’s hoarse whimpering curses punctuated the void of sound. Guy dropped the pistol and it fell to the Saloon floor with a limp clatter. Sheriff Miles returned his gun to the holster at his waist and offered a hand to Guy.
“I think we’re done here. Let’s go.”
The bar was frozen as they walked out. In the vacuous wind outside the bar Miles turned to Guy.
“Nice shooting. Glad you didn’t hurt no one…seriously.”
Guy walked on. He never looked at the Sheriff. His mind traveled time to more violent places and his jaw clenched at the memories. Blood filled his mind as he smiled briefly.
“Yes. Very lucky.”