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Carter Malone reckoned the hanging man couldn’t have been dead for long. Blood glistened on his lips and the flies had yet to find a home. The body swayed back and forth in the driving rain, its weight dragging an ominous creak from the bough of the dead oak. The contorted face stared unseeingly at the passengers in the stage, frozen forever in the last hideous throws of a painful death.
“Move on, driver,” Carter shouted, leaning out of the window to brave the rain. “None of us need to see this.”
“We sure don’t,” Major Pilgrim Kelley and Marshal McKinney intoned together, while the marshal’s prisoner considered the body with shock widening his eyes.
The prisoner had rarely reacted to anything, but Carter presumed this sight had reminded him of the fate that probably awaited him. The stage’s other traveler, Annie White, kept her head buried in her hands as she had done since the driver had stopped their journey beside the corpse, presumably out of curiosity.
“I’m not here to admire him,” the driver, Vance Rogers, shouted from the seat ahead. “We can’t go on. A landslide’s blocked our way.”
The teaming rain and the oppressive gloom that had accompanied the thunderstorm ensured that Carter couldn’t confirm the situation.
“It might have done, but that doesn’t change the fact you need to move on and get it out of sight. We’ve got a distressed lady back here.”
This plea had the desired effect when Vance urged the horses to move off the trail. As the stage trundled around in a circle taking the swaying man out of view, Carter leaned over to ensure Annie was fine now that they were moving again. She gave a faint smile that suggested even if she wasn’t happy she was at least composed enough to put a brave face on her discomfort.
“I wonder what that man did to get himself strung up beside the trail?” Kelley asked when the hanging man came back into view through the other window, although thankfully he was thirty yards away this time.
“That’s a good question, Major,” McKinney said. “It must have been a crime that affected the folk around here real bad. Displaying him there for everyone to see looks like a warning to me.”
“Who to?”
“Let’s hope we don’t find out,” McKinney said in a low voice.
Vance drew the stage to a halt a hundred yards past the body. Presently, his drenched face appeared at the window.
“As we can’t go forward, I’ll have to use an alternative route,” he reported. “It’s treacherous and it won’t get us to Lonesome until late tonight. I’d hate to risk using it in this weather unless anyone’s got a real urgent reason to get to town.”
The five occupants of the stage had been traveling from Leavenworth bound for Lonesome for four days. Today was their last scheduled day of travel and they had been on time until they’d encountered this landslide.
Everyone had caught the emphasis in Vance’s tone as to what they should decide so, with much shaking of heads, Annie and Major Kelley murmured that their business wasn’t urgent enough to risk taking this other route. In an unconscious gesture Carter reached into his pocket to finger the silver watch and then shook his head.
“My business can wait, too,” he said.
All eyes turned to McKinney. He had been quiet for most of the journey, aside from telling them not to speak to or worry about his prisoner – he hadn’t deemed it necessary to reveal his name – so nobody had inquired further as to his business.
“Like Carter, my business can wait,” he said, shaking his head.
His prisoner grunted a surly and unintelligible response.
“Then what will we do instead?” Annie asked.
“We’ll have to stop somewhere for the night or until this weather clears,” Vance said, gesturing at the thunderous clouds. “Ferry Town is a few miles back.”
“Is that place suitable?”
Vance didn’t reply other than to lick his lips as if he were debating whether to speak his mind. Then he thought better of it and leaned to the side to spit on the ground.
“I guess we haven’t got a choice,” he said, drawing his hat down into the wind to cover his eyes as he headed back to the seat.
When the stage set off, everyone exchanged predictable grumbles about their bad luck in suffering this unforeseen delay, along with some debate about what the town they would have to stay in would be like, before quietness returned. Fifteen minutes later they trundled into Ferry Town.
It was as unpromising as they’d feared, consisting of a handful of rudely constructed buildings set about a short main drag. That drag ended at the river, a ferry-and-winch system for travelers to cross the water showing why this rough town had sprung up here.
In the terrible weather nobody would be foolish enough to use the ferry so it was unmanned. Nobody was out of doors and only one building had a light on, the batwings suggesting it was a saloon.
The stage came to a halt before this building and Vance shouted for the passengers to get inside quickly. Carter was the first to alight. He jumped down into a sea of mud that encased him up to the knees.
With the oozing filth filling his boots and rooting him to the spot, he curled his lip with a disgusted expression to tell the others they should be more careful. Annie and Kelley used more care when they traipsed into the rain.
While they picked a route between the rare islands of drier earth to reach the saloon, Carter took his time, not wanting the mud to drag off his boots. By the time he’d reached drier ground, McKinney was escorting his prisoner out of the stage.
Marshal McKinney was a careful lawman who used the same procedure, whenever they stopped, that gave his prisoner no chance to run or overcome him. Carter had taken it upon himself to keep an unobtrusive eye on this man in case he ever managed to overpower the lawman, but he need not have worried.
The prisoner was as eager as everyone else to get out of the rain so he and the lawman beat Carter into the saloon. Inside Carter flopped down on to the nearest chair and cleaned his boots. Aside from the stage passengers, there were no other customers, so the saloon owner was bristling with good cheer at the unexpected bonus of the stage riding into town.
“What can I get for you gentleman, and lady?” he asked after introducing himself as Walter Pike.
“We want rooms for the night,” Kelley said as outside Vance moved the stage, presumably to a stable.
Walter’s eyes widened with surprise, suggesting nobody had ever asked to stop here before. Then he got his wits about him and hurried to the door behind the bar.
“Louis, get your butt out here,” he shouted into a side room, rubbing his hands with barely suppressed glee. “We’ve got customers.”
Presently, a morose individual shuffled in with his eyes downcast and showing none of the eagerness Walter had displayed. Walter explained the situation to him, but this did nothing to cheer him.
“We haven’t got no rooms,” he said.
“I know that, but the stage is stopping here tonight.” Walter jerked his head up to confirm that this was the case, receiving several unenthusiastic nods. “We can put them all up in here.”
“All?” Annie asked before Louis could respond.
“Yeah,” Walter said with a leering lick of his lips, before his previous cheerful manner returned. “Don’t you go worrying your pretty little head. Louis will take care of you, won’t you, Louis?”
Louis shrugged, but a shove toward the door set him in motion.
“That man needs discipline,” Kelley said. “If he’d been in my squadron I’d have kept him on report until he got himself a backbone.”
“I’m obliged for the idea.” Walter sighed. “To be honest I’d have kicked him out of town already if it were easy to hire decent help these days.”
“Does that mean you’ve had trouble here recently?” McKinney asked.
Walter glanced at McKinney’s star before replying. “It was nothing we couldn’t handle.”
McKinney smiled before he provided the obvious retort.
“We saw the hanging man.”
Walter bit his lip, gulping. His lips moved as he appeared to rehearse an answer, but before he could provide it Louis returned laden down with blankets.
“Get those blankets set up for our good customers,” he ordered, gesturing to the back of the saloon, clearly taking the distraction to avoid giving an answer.
He issued Louis with numerous unnecessary instructions for how he should lay them out and when Louis didn’t respond immediately he gave him a kick to the rump that sent him sprawling to his knees. Anger burned in Louis’s eyes before he got himself under control.
Then he did as ordered and busied himself with setting out the blankets for everyone at the back of the saloon. In accordance with Annie’s request he placed one blanket on its own in the corner. Then he stretched out a rope between two hooks to create a modesty screen for her.
“So as you were saying,” McKinney said when he managed to catch Walter’s eye again. “Who was that hanging man?”
Louis uttered a strangulated screech and dropped the rope. Walter then drew back a foot with an implied threat of kicking him again if he didn’t hurry up with his task. Louis set about replacing the rope, but when he again fumbled it, Carter stopped cleaning his boots and headed over to help him string it up.
“He was nobody,” Walter said.
“What did he do?” McKinney persisted.
“He pushed his luck just once too often.” Walter chuckled. “He won’t do it again.”
McKinney nodded. “I’d be interested in hearing that story later. We haven’t got much of anything else to do tonight other than listen to the major’s tales of his exploits in the Plains Cavalry.”
As Kelley harrumphed at this mild criticism of the endless tedious stories he’d regaled them with over the last few days, Walter’s face reddened.
“Unless you didn’t get the hint I’m not interested in talking about him,” he said. “He’s dead, strung up and rotting. That’s all I care about.”
Walter turned his back on him and headed to the door, while Louis and Carter folded a blanket over the rope.
“I wasn’t interested as a lawman,” McKinney said. “I was worried for our safety.”
Walter muttered something to himself and then turned from the door, his anger gone from his eyes and his jovial saloon-owner persona reappearing.
“Then don’t worry. You’ll be safe with me tonight in Ferry Town. Now, with the arrangements sorted out for the night, would anyone care for a drink?”
When he received several positive responses, he returned to the bar rubbing his hands. While he busied himself with finding glasses and mugs, in the corner of the saloon Louis smiled at Carter now that they’d finished hanging the blanket.
“I’m obliged for your help,” he said.
He moved to return to the bar to help Walter, but Carter stood before him.
“Who was the dead man?” he asked in a low voice.
Despite speaking so softly that nobody but Louis would have heard the question, Louis gulped with concern.
“You’re a stranger here, so know this: it doesn’t pay to ask questions like that,” he whispered.
“The truth doesn’t worry me. Who was he?”
Louis set his jaw firm implying he was suppressing a strong emotion and making Carter think he wouldn’t reply. When Walter ducked down below the bar he jerked forward and whispered in Carter’s ear.
“The hanging man was my brother,” he said. “If anyone finds out I’ve told you that, we’ll be the next ones they hang.”
––––––––
“What in tarnation is that?” Buckley Sharpe asked.
Max Parker broke off from fishing. He put a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the rain that pattered on their heads through the inadequate cover of a cluster of oaks. For long moments he faced the moiling river.
“It looks like a raft,” Max said.
Buckley narrowed his eyes as the object drifted downriver toward them. It was around 200 yards away and did appear to be a raft, albeit a small one. Then the object hit an eddy and swirled around, letting Buckley confirm it was a crate strapped to several boards.
The crate was listing badly with one side of the boards sticking up in the air and submerging half of the crate. This probably meant the contents were heavy and brought up an intriguing possibility that Buckley was the first to voice.
“There’s got to be something in that crate and it could be valuable,” he said.
Anticipation gleamed in Max’s eyes. The heavy rain had swelled the river and the approaching crate could have broken loose, perhaps from Ferry Town ten miles upriver where freight often traveled across the river.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Max said. “Let’s snag it.”
Buckley uttered a hoot of support before he joined Max in organizing what would be a tricky and possibly dangerous maneuver. Buckley hurried into the trees and returned with a fifteen-foot length of deadfall.
He snapped off the extraneous twigs to leave the end branches shaped as a two-pronged fork. While Max removed a rope from his pack and set about making a lasso, Buckley risked wading into the water.
He tentatively edged forward. At each pace he felt the riverbed beneath a questing foot before he trusted putting his whole weight down to ensure he could keep his footing and avoid getting into trouble in the swollen river.
Luckily the bed fell away with a shallow gradient, but even so he stopped wading in when the water reached his hips. Max fed the branch out to him and then he waited, the water swirling around and against him, making him have to fight to keep himself upright.
The crate closed on them, but Buckley’s estimate of its trajectory was that it’d pass around ten yards out from him and several yards farther than the reach of his branch. As he didn’t dare go any deeper his hopes rested on Max, who had now positioned himself upriver on a rock. When the crate was almost at its closest point to him, Max hurled his lasso, but it closed on air ten feet short of the crate and then flopped down into the water.
“Get closer,” Buckley urged, slapping the water in frustration.
Max yanked the rope back and then jumped down off his rock and into the river. He waited until the crate was level with him and then hurled the lasso. This time he threw it too hard and the noose splayed out beyond the crate, but the rope did flop down on the top of the crate.
Buckley shouted words of encouragement as, hand over hand, Max hauled in, scraping the rope over the crate as it headed away from him and toward Buckley. When the noose tipped out of the water to lie on the crate, Max yanked the rope.
The noose closed up on the end of a raised plank. With Buckley whistling in delight, Max drew the rope in. The crate swung around toward land, but the noose was also straining at the very end of the plank.
The crate drifted toward the riverside for another yard, but then the rope tore loose and swirled up into the air. Max cried out in frustrated anguish, but Buckley didn’t join him. Max’s brief tugging on the crate had veered its course three yards nearer to him.
He risked another pace into the water, feeling the cold water surge above his waist, shoved the branch out to the limit of his reach and thrust it in front of the crate. The crate glided into the pronged end of the branch with as much serenity as it could do in the raging river.
It held. The power of the rushing water thrust against Buckley’s arms and he had to take steady paces downriver to avoid the force tipping him over.
“Drag it in,” Max shouted behind him.
“Stop telling me what to do and get in here and help me,” Buckley shouted back.
He took another step backward and this let the crate slip a foot along the branch, angling it in closer to him. Encouraged he backed away again and this helped the crate break off one of the prongs and then embark on a diagonal route toward dry land.
“You’re doing it,” Max shouted.
“I know.” Buckley took another step backward. “I’ve just got to—”
He didn’t get to complete his comment. His foot slipped. The next he knew he was tumbling backward without control of his body and splashing into the water. With all thoughts of his rescue mission forgotten he waved his arms as he fought to reach the surface.
He emerged coughing and blowing in an explosion of water to find he was facing away from the riverside and that there was no sign of his branch or the crate. He started to turn, but his foot again slipped and this time drove him underwater head first.
When he dragged himself back to a standing position, he was drenched and cold and no longer caring about the crate. He waded to the shallower water and, as the water cleared from his ears with a pop, he heard laughter. He turned to Max, who was chortling at his predicament.
“Quit laughing,” Buckley grumbled. “We lost the crate.”
“We didn’t,” Max said, pointing.
Buckley let out a sigh of relief as he stomped on to dry land. While he’d been floundering, Max had rescued the crate and it now sat on the side of the river.
“Let’s hope it was worth it,” he said.
Max nodded and then wedged a knife into the top of the crate. With ease he levered off the topmost planks to reveal the crate’s contents. Both men stood in awed silence for several seconds, their eyes wide and agog.
“I guess that means it sure was worth it,” Max declared.
“Yeah, but who owns all this stuff? Where did it. . . ?”
Max slapped Buckley on the back, silencing him. “I reckon a better question is – what are we going to spend it on?”
They weren’t able to agree on that, but they did agree to dance a jig around the crate. Before long, their merry capering drove all thoughts of how wet and cold they were from their minds.