ten

 

 

AFTER TOO MANY days of snow and grey clouds, the sun decided to make one hell of an entrance. Opening the door on the camp was like staring into God’s own heart. The sunlight blazed white and holy off every flat surface, turning the snow into fire, and the ice into glittering diamond.

The biting wind had died down, and while the day was a brisk one, the cold weren’t too terrible. It felt good to be out, stretching my legs—even if the drifts were taller than me in some places.

Diamond Joe and a few of his hands had set to the grueling work of re-shoveling the camp walkways, and smoke rose from Mrs. Hudson’s cart. For the first time in what seemed too long, the camp was bustling and living again.

Of course, that’s just about the time trouble came to call.

I sat near the small cook fire drinking my coffee and talking about nothing special with some of the other folks when a ruckus erupted from Mrs. Hudson’s repurposed railcar. Pots and pans clattered about while the woman herself shouted a blue streak that would make Satan blush.

I didn’t hesitate, nor did Slaney with his huge shovel. We ran around the back end of the cart and found a scrum of tramps trying to force their way in. Mrs. Hudson whacked at ’em with her best frying pan, both hands wrapped tight around the handle. She struck one of the hobos in the hand and swung back to clock him good in the shoulder, too. His arm hung slack and he went down into the snow with only his pain to keep him warm.

“Hey, rube!” Slaney bellowed. His voice echoed around the camp, and soon more shouts took up the alarm.

“Hey, rube!” came the carnies’ cries. A bell began ringing, too. A veritable call to arms.

Slaney dove in, shovel swinging left and right with reckless abandon. I flattened myself to the car and came up on the backside of a chap that had a mind to rob my favorite woman on this earth. He’d climbed into the cart and began putting his hands on anything that weren’t bolted down. Mrs. Hudson swung at him with her pan, but just missed his kneecaps. His reach, however, was long enough. He lashed out a hand and shoved her on that fine rump of hers.

My vision went red with ire and I didn’t need any more excuse to send this man back into the snow with the nothing more than the bones God gave him. And I wasn’t too particular if those bones were intact at the time.

I grabbed the tramp by the back of his collar and yanked, while at the same time my right foot kicked at the back of his knee. A joint popped as he reeled, and I let him fall to the floor. My boot found his ribs. Twice. As he doubled in on himself and rolled to protect his stomach, I took him by the belt of his trousers and balled up my fist in his scraggly, dishwater hair. With a roar, I sent him flying back from whence he came. He took out a couple of his hobo mates.

“Jim,” Mrs. Hudson called.

I stalked down the stairs and made for the bastard who’d dared lay hands on her form.

He was trying to push himself up, but he broke through the snow and planted his face in the powder. Good, maybe it would numb up his jaw before I gave it a whack or forty.

I kicked him in his arse and he sputtered.

“That’s the one!” someone shouted. “The blackie ol’ Jack took a hating to!”

When he would’ve called me something worse, the sound of a shovel meeting teeth told me that Slaney thought it best our new friend discontinue his talking. This did draw some attention to me, however. Attention I didn’t quite need when I was staring down the crimson tunnel of my rage at a writhing piece of trash.

“Joe, get Dandy’s back!” Mrs. Hudson called from behind.

I reached into the snow and wrapped my fingers around the scum’s throat and yanked him up to his feet. He spat in my face.

“Top o’ the mornin’, Flapjack,” I said, ignoring his salivary problems. I reached into his coat and found a loaf of bread. A couple of raw sausages. A slice of the cheese Mrs. Hudson stocked especially for Hoss.

“They’re trying to steal from us,” Slaney called.

And just as soon as the fighting started, it stopped. A roustabout took each of the tramps around the neck or arms and put them in a hold that couldn’t be broken. Play time for the big boys was over, it seemed. Which just left me standing there eye-to-sorry-eye with Flapjack Hilton.

“Jim,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Jim, back away.”

“Dandy,” Crash said calmly.

I kept my grip around Hilton’s throat tight and looked over my shoulder. Crash and Mrs. Hudson stood a few feet away. His face was placid, but hers flushed red. The fear glittering in her eyes stoked my anger and I hauled a fist into Flapjack’s face.

“Jim!” she shouted.

Crash placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dandy, let go.”

“They tried to steal from us,” I growled.

“I know.”

“And he raised a hand to Martha.”

Crash blinked, swallowed hard, but tightened his fingers on my arm. “Dandy, she’s fine. See?”

Her hand on my back was warm and comforting. At her touch the anger drained from me and I practically fell into her arms. She helped me step away from the hobo.

Flapjack grinned at me, teeth bloody. “Dandy, is it? So you’re a queer and a nigger?”

In a blur, Haus’s fist crashed into the hobo’s stomach, and a massive uppercut from the showrunner sent Hilton flying back into the snow.

 

 

IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Diamond Joe and his roustabouts to tie up the tramps and stack them by the fire. I sat on a bench, Martha at my side. With one hand she held my arm, with the other my fingers.

“What were you doing?” Crash asked me. “We have our own kind of justice here. Our own way of handling things.”

“He tried to hurt Martha. Tried to steal from her.”

“Oh, Jim,” she said. “He wouldn’t have been the first slime to do it.”

“But he’s damn well going to be the last,” I stroked her cheek, rose petal pink beneath my black hand.

Crash cleared his throat. “It seems he had some sort of vendetta against you in particular. Is there something you failed to mention?”

I shrugged. “He wasn’t too keen to help me out when I visited the boarding house, so I gave him a nudge.”

“A nudge?”

“I can be quite persuasive if I have to be, Crash.”

He smiled dryly. “Noted. Care to help me interrogate this lot before we send them off to the tracks?”

“If it’s all the same to you, Crash,” Martha piped up, “I think he’s going to sit this one out and stay right where he’s at.”

She squeezed my arm and I nodded.

“Very well,” Crash said with a bow to the lady.

He whirled around and clapped his hands together. “Slaney! Put a couple rods on the fire!”

The tramps’ eyes widened in unison.

“Gentlemen,” Crash announced, “I’m going to ask you a few questions and you lot are going to sing for me. If I like the tune, you all go home with naught but a few bruises, a few scrapes, but otherwise healthy. If I don’t... well, I’m sure someone can think of something interesting to do with your teeth.”

Diamond Joe’s heavy boots crunched up through the snow and he loomed there, a shadowy promise. With about as much effort as it takes to bat an eye, Joe hefted his sledgehammer and rested it over one shoulder.

Crash let Joe’s presence fall over the assembled tramps before he spoke again. “Now, boys. We had some trouble not one week ago. Some vandals came in, roughed up one of mine and, to put the candle on the cake, they went and ruined Miss Proust’s wedding gown hours before her nuptials. You lot wouldn’t know anything about that business, would you?”

As one, the hobo line up shook their heads. All except Flapjack.

“Why don’t you ask that darkie about it?” he sneered.

Crash kicked Hilton in the jaw. Calm, cool as lemonade, he then put his boot on the nearest bench and leaned down to inspect it. He licked his thumb and polished the toe.

“I don’t like your tone. Especially in regards to my friend over there. Other than the colors God painted him with, you got some beef with him?”

Flapjack spat out a gob of blood and glared up at Haus. “Your friend,” he said with an oozing emphasis, “came round with some yarn about him trying to help out a Maeve with her problems. Was blaming highwaymen and speaking some balderdash about signs.”

I bristled against Martha. “I never told you her name,” I growled.

“Don’t recall sayin’ you did.”

“You said Maeve.”

Flapjack’s eyes narrowed with disgust. “It’s what our ilk call young girls, ijit.”

Crash held up a hand to stall me from getting my dander up again. “He was telling you the truth. The same vandals that set on us have given a friend of ours and his young companion some trouble.”

“Ain’t you just fucking saints?”

“I might just be the angel that delivers you to God, that’s for damn certain, son.”

Flapjack stilled. Thinking about the sinister tone in my friend’s voice. “I told him what I know. Some of them are signs.”

Crash whistled. “Miss Proust! Could you bring me your dress, if you please?” He squatted in front of Flapjack. “While she’s bringing you another sign to read for me, you’re going to tell me why you decided to pay us a visit today.”

Hilton said nothing. He clamped his mouth shut and looked away from Crash with sullen defiance. From down the row, however, a timid voice popped up. “Flapjack said we’d get some grub if we knocked over this place. Got word of it from the dar—” He stopped and eyed me before continuing, “the kid at the boarding house.”

“Oh, do tell,” Crash said. “What was it worth?”

Another tramp—this one barely more than a bag of bones and ratty hair—spoke up. “Said this feller here nearly dirked him. Said if we helped him even the score we could take whatever food we needed.”

“The snow’s been rough. We haven’t had much opportunity for work or a decent meal in a long time.”

Miss Proust appeared with her sullied gown. Crash held it up before them.

“Gents, does this drawing mean anything to you?”

They nodded. The skeleton answered, “Two people under the cross, holding hands? Means they’re married.”

Crash was quiet a moment. “Last question, gents. Are any of you going to come poking your noses around my lot again if I let you walk?”

They shook their heads in a frenzy. All, of course, saving Flapjack.

“Come on,” Crash chided. “All your lads know this is bad business, friend. You wise up and listen to them. You going to come ’round my lot again?”

Grudgingly, he shook his head once.

“Excellent! Mr. Slaney, do the honors of untying them. Hoss, Joseph, please make sure they keep their manners, then you three can escort them off our property.”

“On it, Boss,” Joe grumbled.

Crash put his back to the scene and sidled up in front of me. He stood there thumbing his suspenders, looking mighty proud of himself.

“What was that?” I asked, voice low.

“What was what?”

“That performance. You played him like he was your fiddle.”

He beamed.

“Never heard you bring out that one before.”

Haus shrugged. “Sometimes a mark needs Madame Yvonde. Sometimes a hardass pit boss will do the job nicely. It’s all a matter of reading him, finding his weak spot and exploiting it. Now you simply must tell me what it was you did with a knife on this fellow.”

“Found his weak spot,” I replied darkly.

“Very persuasive indeed.”