A Congregation of Jackals (28 page)

Tension eddied through the wedding guests. Two of the dusty men at the door walked to the head of the aisle and faced the congregation. They holstered their revolvers, grabbed the sawed-off shotguns that hung from straps on the shoulders and aimed the huge-gauge weapons at each side of the church. Two other men remained in the doorway, revolvers out.

“Would somebody like to make a speech?” the minister asked. The congregation was confused by the inquiry.

Mayor Warren John, face red with rage, stood up from his seat, but his frail wife pulled him back down, quietly muttering, “Please don’t. Please, Warren.”

The talker raised the pistol in his right hand and said, “I s’pose I gotta do the speeches since Arthur ain’t got his tongue no more.” He walked past the four bound men, eyeing each one, and stood behind the lectern. His twin stood on the dais steps, guns out.

“I would like to say somethin’ to all of you here today about the groom. He might be a nice fellow now, maybe he’s good at carpentry and knitting and spouting Jesus nonsense—”

“No need to blaspheme, nephew.”

“Sorry. But when I met James Lingham, he rode with these other three men you see standing alongside him. They were outlaws, they were bank robbers and they were killers.”

Beatrice’s insides went cold.

“Jim is not a killer,” she protested.

“And considering the bride’s statement, I’d add liar to the catalog.”

Terror hammered in Beatrice’s heart; an inaudible scream rang in her mind, louder than the pain of her smashed nose, bruised face and broken tooth.

“Jim,” she said.

He did not raise his head.

“Jim,” she said again, her voice weak and wavering.

The talker looked at the groom and said, “Well? You gonna fib in God’s house? You gonna deny that you fellas are the Tall Boxer Gang? That you robbed banks and shot up people? Any of you fellas want to deny that accusation?”

Jim looked over at Beatrice and said, “It was a long time ago.”

“Dear Jesus,” Beatrice said; it felt as if her entire life had just melted. Tears rolled down her bloodied face; pink drops dripped from her chin onto her trembling white hands. Nausea filled her like a bad smell.

The congregation was silent. Beatrice looked at her father: He stared with dire loathing at Jim.

The minister put his left arm around her back, patted her shoulder and said, “It’ll be okay, darlin’.” She faced the holy man and saw that his remark had not been a facetious one, but an earnest condolence—evidence of true psychosis.

The talker said to her father, “I can see you heard of the Tall Boxer Gang.”

Her father nodded, but did not remove his baleful glare from Jim.

Oswell asked the talker, “You goin’ to shoot us?”

“Don’t rush me.” He returned his gaze to the congregation. “There are two things happenin’ in this church today, but—even though you’re dressed up fancy and all—neither’s a weddin’. Sorry.

“You all need to listen close and do what I say. I want to see you nod that you understand—every single one of you. Go and do it.”

Her father, Meredith, her father’s cousin Robert, the Albens, the Johns, the Yardleys, the Taylors, the tailor, Morton the hatmaker, Big Abe, his wife, Lilith Ford, Judy O’Connell, Judge Higgins, Wilfreda, the barmaid Rita, Greg the clerk, Smith and Smiler, the Sallys, Snappy Fa, Paps and the remainder nodded. Everyone in the church heeded the mandate . . . except Goodstead.

Arthur pointed his gun at the deputy’s head.

“I seen him abstain,” the talker remarked. To Goodstead he said, “Stand up.”

The Texan stood.

“Your neck broken, Deputy?”

“It’s a bit stiff,” he said, his eyes fixed on the one who spoke rather than the one who pointed the gun at him.

“You the kind of fellow who likes to make smart?”

“I’m wise.”

“You’re one smart remark away from gettin’ your head blowed off, is what you are.”

Arthur thumbed the hammer on his six-shooter; the click reverberated loudly in the silent church. Even with the gun pointed at his head, Goodstead’s face remained blank.

“Why don’t you take me for hostage instead of that lady you’ve been beatin’ on?”

“I want to know that you’re gonna do what I tell you. You nod or my brother shoots you. Go on and do it now—nod.”

The people seated on the pews adjacent to the standing deputy ducked their heads down. Goodstead looked from the talker over to Beatrice; she mouthed the word “please.”

He nodded.

“My brother thinks you took too long.”

Arthur walked up the pew and slapped Goodstead’s face. The Texan did not react, but stared back at the talker, his cheek glowing brightly.

“Sit down and don’t try to save nobody else. Doin’ what we say is the only way anyone is goin’ to stay alive. Does everyone understand that? Go on and nod.”

The congregation nodded.

“Two things are happenin’ here. The first thing is the only part that involves you directly. We are robbin’ you—me and my crew, not the Tall Boxer Gang who used to do this sort of thing but now go to church and have families. This is how it’s gonna proceed. The church is set up in two halves. This is side one.” He pointed his pistol to his left. “And this is side two.” He indicated to the pews to his right. “I was gonna use left and right, but that might confuse you whether it’s my left or your left, and I want this to be clear at all times.

“Side one”—again he pointed his pistol—“leaves the church. You all go home and get your valuables. All the good stuff. We want gold, we want silver, we want jewels, we want timepieces, we want paper money. Bring all of it here.

“If somebody on side one does not return, we execute somebody on side two. If ten people from side one run off, we’ll execute ten people on side two. James. Oswell. Will I carry out this threat?”

“Yeah,” Jim said.

“With relish,” the rancher remarked.

“You all heard ’em. The minister counted you up, so we know exactly how many you are. If you think your valuables are more important than somebody’s life, I don’t know what kind of person you are anyways.”

“Not a Christian,” the minister remarked.

“Let me warn you about this. Bring us all of the valuables we asked for; don’t hold out on us none. If you keep some baubles for yourself, we’ll find out. We got some guys on the outside checking your houses after you leave, and if they find stuff you hid or left behind, I will execute you for doing so. This is not the time to bluff—this ain’t a poker game.

“One other thing: you come back with a gun or some extra folks with brave notions like this dumb deputy, we will slaughter you by the dozen, grab a few as hostages and win our freedom. We’ve done that play before and we are all still here, alive to do it again.

“After side one gets back, side two goes and does the same thing. Same rules apply. Somebody skips, I execute someone in side one; somebody withholds, they get executed.”

The talker surveyed the stunned crowd and said, “Is anybody confused by anything? Raise your hand if you are.”

Mr. Alben raised his hand and said, “I am in from Colorado and do not have much to offer.”

“Get what you brought. All of the good stuff.”

Big Abe raised his hand, “How much time does each group have?”

“Thirty minutes. If you walked here and live a ways off, take a horse from the second side. They won’t mind none.” To the men at the door, the talker said, “Let’s get those up here!”

The sentries dragged two huge wooden trunks to the podium. They opened the vessels and walked back to their posts.

The talker pointed his pistol at the empty trunks and said, “That’s where you put your stuff. Alphonse!”

The scraping sound of something being dragged through the dirt came through the doors before its source was visible. Beatrice’s apprehensions grew.

A diminutive man with black hair, a thin black mustache, a burgundy suit and matching bowler cap walked into the church. In his left hand he clutched the handle of a small black valise; with his right hand, he dragged a fifteen-foot-tall folding ladder.

Beatrice and the congregation watched the little fellow pull the ladder up the aisle; it left tracks in the blue carpet like dirty skis. He did not look at anyone, though Beatrice did not think it was out of fear, but rather disinterest. This was the Frenchman her father had described.

The ladder clattered as he pulled it up the stairs toward the back of the dais.

Beatrice heard a strange metallic sound at the doorway and looked over. A very tall, oddly-shaped man dressed in a gray suit walked through the portal. The people nearest him shuddered and looked away.

“That’s the boss,” the talker said.

The man’s left leg was made of wood and iron; the hand on the same side was covered over by a bronze gauntlet. His spine was curved—it bent him in a permanent bow. The right side of his forehead had an impression in it that looked like a crater and the eye on
that side was lower than its mate and a mere slit. His bald scalp was crisscrossed with raised scars; a mass of white hair sprouted from the back of his head.

“They turned Quinlan into a grotesque,” Jim said to Oswell.

“Yeah.”

The boss walked up the aisle, deftly maneuvering the crutch wedged beneath his left armpit and the wooden leg that had both an ankle and a knee hinge. His blue and green eyes did not leave the Tall Boxer Gang once. He was the least human man Beatrice had ever seen: he terrified and repulsed her. Something heavy was slung over his shoulder, but she could not yet tell what it was.

Alphonse erected and then opened the ladder.

Quinlan reached the dais and walked over to the Tall Boxer Gang. He pulled the burden from his back and flung it to the floor in front of the four captives.

Upon the dais laid four nooses.

The Tall Boxer Gang said nothing.

Tears poured down Beatrice’s numb face and she knew that despite what he had done, she still had some compassion for Jim. Part of him was still the man she loved.

The talker pointed to the nooses. “That’s the second event. Hang the scoundrels who betrayed us.”

The hatmaker Morton Steinman watched the talkative twin raise a golden timepiece; it swung pendulously from the chain pinched between his thumb and index finger. The congregation observed the smears of light it left in the air.

The talker grabbed the watch, clicked the release button, looked at its face and said, “Side one—get goin’. Be back by eleven thirty.”

Morton Steinman was a member of side one and rose immediately with them. The slender, finely bearded, five-foot-six, thirty-eight-year-old shuffled along the pew behind the Welt family.

The Jewish man had been to church more than a few times during the nine years that he had made and sold hats in Trailspur; he had attended five confirmations, one funeral and eight weddings. Consequently, the exacting Semite knew precisely how long the journey was—twelve minutes. A round-trip home and back would take twice that. The remainder—six minutes—was all the time he had to gather his valuables from the apartment he inhabited above Steinman’s Hats.

He reached the aisle. Big Abe and his small wife paused, allowing him to exit.

“Thank you.”

Big Abe nodded and said, “You have a longer walk than we do.”

While striding up the aisle, Steinman put the tips of
his long fingers together as if touching his hand to a mirror and organized the six minutes in his mind. Like many people in developing towns, he did not trust his savings to a bank, but kept them in his home. He had three hiding places, including a dial safe, the combination of which he knew by memory. Its tumblers were capricious in the summertime when warm air expanded metals. He hoped that they would not misbehave today.

Sunlight glared in his eyes the moment he exited the church; he put on his brown derby and lowered the brim. In the dirt nearby laid three dead horses, their colors obscured by the gray dust that covered them and the black syrup that leaked from their cracked heads. To the east he saw two dark lumps that might have been sprawled human corpses. On the ground to his right lay a dead hawk with its claws in the air, one wing red with blood.

He pulled a timepiece from the watch pocket at the front of his trousers; the time was one minute after eleven o’clock. He hurried the pace of his strides to gain himself a little extra time should his safe behave obtusely or in case he met some unforeseen delay.

As he strode west toward the center of town, one question nagged him continually: how could these outlaws possibly have time to thoroughly search so many homes? They had claimed that they would know if a person withheld valuables from them, but how could they really determine this? If he gave over the contents of all three of his caches, he would have nothing left other than the store, his apartment, four dozen hats and the raw materials to make a few more.

When he was a child in Berlin, he, his parents and his sister had shared an apartment in which privacy was an abstract concept (possibly the source of his
ambivalence in seeking a spouse as an adult). Whenever his father, a cobbler, had a slow week, little Morty knew that they would all eat fewer meals and very little meat. The lean months had deeply impressed the young man. As a successful and independent adult, Morton Steinman had no great plans for the money he had saved over the years, but he always looked at it as a net from the poverty of his childhood. If he gave over all of his savings, he lost the security that made him rest easy when business was slow, the security that forever locked the door to that apartment in Berlin where the drooping wallpaper was discolored yellow and brown, the plaster was soft with mildew, the floor was warped, the shouts of neighbors chased away the few moments of quietude and his father’s Mutter Uta died slowly, wheezing for three years on a cot next to the one he and his sister shared.

Ruminating, Steinman hastily strode past corrals, ranches, barns and houses, toward the main avenue upon which his store and home sat at the far end. He looked at the other people from side one, dispersing like windblown pollen in all directions toward their homes. He wondered if his face looked as distraught as that of Judge Higgins or Rita or Lilith Ford or the Potleys or T.W.’s cousin. Steinman knew that some of them had their life savings at home and were faced with the exact same dilemma that he was.