Chapter Forty-three

Tweedy peered into the fading light. “They’re loading the women. Damn them furriners’ eyes. They’re using whips, loading them little gals like slaves.”

“They are slaves, Mr. Tweedy,” Lowth pointed out. “Or they will be soon.”

Try as he might, Shawn couldn’t make out Julia Davenport in the crowd, and a sense of failure lay on him. He’d set out to save the Dromore schoolteacher and had only made matters worse. And Tweedy and Lowth would die because of his incompetence.

“It won’t be long now,” Lowth said. “With every tick of the clock I’m dying a little death here. I wonder what my poor, dear wife will think when I tell her what I’ve done?”

“You’ll be going home, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “You’ll know the answer to that question soon enough.”

Lowth took a sharp intake of breath and let out a great, shuddering sigh. “I can’t do it. I’ll die first.”

“You can do it, Thaddeus,” Shawn said. “Uriah is right. A hanging beats getting buried alive with your guts hanging out.”

“In the course of my career, I’ve legally hanged fifty-three men and one woman. One would think that four more would make no difference, but it does. I dread the morning light like an unrepentant sinner dreads the opening gates of Hell.” Lowth shuddered.

“When the time comes, you’ll do what you have to do, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “Here, when this is over will you still follow the hangman’s trade or will you go into the women’s drawers profession with your wife?”

Lowth shook his head, unwilling—or unable—to speak.

“Well, says I, if’n I was in your place, I reckon I could prosper in the drawers profession. Not that I’m an expert in women’s fixins, mind, but I know a fine pair of drawers when I see ’em.”

“You shut the hell up, old man,” Creeds called. “I can die without your damned caterwauling.”

“And what if I don’t, Silas?” Tweedy taunted. “Where are your guns?”

“Damn you!” the gunman shrieked as he tried to hit Tweedy with the back of his bald head, but only succeeded in butting thin air.

Tweedy cackled. “Ain’t much good without your revolvers, are you, sonny? Is it them dead folks o’ your’n that’s makin’ you so plumb out of sorts?”

Creeds was quiet for a while, then he said, almost wistfully, “I always wanted to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Now I’ve run out of time.”

Shawn was surprised, and Tweedy expressed how he felt. “What the hell, boy? Are you losing your mind?”

“You think about it,” Creeds said. “The fall of an empire between the covers of a book. It ain’t natural, I tell you.”

“Bishops within, barbarians without,” Shawn said. “My brother says that sums up the whole three thousand pages.”

“You know nothing, O’Brien,” Creeds muttered. “You’ll die as ignorant as you lived.”

“And you’re nuts, Silas,” Tweedy said. “Like I told you, them spooks is gettin’ to you. That Roman stuff ain’t any kind of a book for a man like you to read. Dime novels will improve your mind and they’re good readin’, every damned one of them.”

Creeds was silent for a while, then he said, “They’re out there, them spooks, waiting for me to get hung. Damn them. They’ll drag me to Hell and me with no breakfast in my belly.”

“Don’t worry, you can eat breakfast in Hell, Silas. But don’t expect no boiled taters. Everything down there is fried.” Tweedy snickered.

The Topock Kid erupted, his voice breaking. “What’s the matter with you? How the hell can you sit around and talk about books and taters when we’re all gonna be hung come morning?”

“What would you like us to talk about, Kid?” Shawn asked.

“See, we’re all goin’ to die like you said, Kid,” Tweedy said, “but there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it. Better to be cheerful afore we breathe our last, I say.”

The kid was silent for a while, and then admitted, “I don’t know how.”

“Don’t know what?” Tweedy asked. “If you’re on speakin’ terms with God, you could pray, I guess.”

“Hell, I don’t know how to pray.”

“Neither does ol’ Ephraim, but he dies like a gentleman,” Tweedy said. “Maybe you should think on that, young feller.”

“I don’t want to die,” The Kid whined.

“Maybe you won’t have to, Kid,” Lowth said. “I do believe I’m making headway.”

“With what, Mr. Lowth?” Tweedy asked, confused.

“Who knows knots better than a hangman, Mr. Tweedy?”

The burning sky faded like the colors of a dying fish and darkness fell on the land. The air grew cooler and a slight breeze wandered off the gulf and explored, rustling the dry brush like paper.

Down by the shore the cooking fires of the Arabs shimmered scarlet and every now and then outlined the passing silhouette of a man. The corsairs laughed and spoke to each other in their strange language, sounding as though they were glad to be leaving the heathen shores and returning to their homeland.

Shawn felt a slight tugging on the rope, and Lowth said, “My hands are free.”

Suddenly he had the undivided attention of his four companions.

“Can you untie the rest of us?” Shawn whispered.

“Yes, but it will take time. The rope that binds us together is knotted behind Mr. Tweedy’s back. Somehow I have to reach it.”

“Then do it quick, damn you,” Creeds ordered. “Don’t waste time talking.”

“Patience, Silas,” Tweedy hissed. “Mr. Lowth is doing his best.”

“Unfortunately only my hands are free.” Lowth wiggled his fingers. “The rope around our chests also binds my upper arms.”

“Is there anything we can do to help you, Thaddeus?” Shawn asked.

“Turn to me as much as you can, Mr. O’Brien. I’ll try to untie your hands and then perhaps you can reach the knot at Mr. Tweedy’s back.”

“An excellent plan, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy congratulated.

“Thank you, Mr. Tweedy,” Lowth said. “And one worthy of you, I should add.”

“Cut the talk, you damned idiots, and get it done,” Creeds insisted.

“Let him be, Creeds,” Shawn said. “He’s doing his best.”

“Damn you, O’Brien. I want the hell away from here.”

“We all want away from here.” Shawn struggled to turn his back in Lowth’s direction, the rope cutting into his chest and shoulders. “As quickly as you can, Thaddeus. As you can tell, Mr. Creeds is getting quite anxious.”

The gunman was furious. “The hell with you, O’Brien.”