A Dangerous Man (25 page)

Tam Sullivan was unimpressed by Giddings, Texas, a small, wooden town in the middle of cotton country that had recently become the county seat.

But the settlement had pretensions to greatness. Its two main thoroughfares, Main and Austin, were a hundred feet wide and the Houston and Texas Railway had a depot in the town.

As far as he could see, the main businesses fronting Main Street, apart from a couple of cotton warehouses, were a saloon, general store, blacksmith's shop, a large store catering to ladies hats and dresses, a saddle and harness shop, and an oil mill.

In addition, the town had a church, school, and Masonic Lodge and behind the storefronts were scores of shacks, set down in no particular order as though they'd wandered into town then lost their way.

The ramshackle livery stable with an adjoining pole corral marked the end of Austin Street, and the owner, a middle-aged man with a strong Yankee accent remarked that Sullivan's big stud was the finest horse he'd ever seen in Giddings.

“Then take good care of him.” As he unsaddled the sorrel, Sullivan asked, “Is Bill Longley still here?”

“Wild Bill? He sure is. He's going to get hung later today, though.”

“A great loss to the community.” Sullivan said.

According to a sign tacked to the door outside, the liveryman's name was Jeff Reilly. He gave a cautious nod. The talk around town was that friends of Longley's might try to spring him from jail. The big man with the fine horse and the iron on his hip could easily be one of them.

“I didn't see the jailhouse when I rode in,” Sullivan commented.

That made the livery owner even more circumspect. “That's because we don't have one.” Reilly led the sorrel to a stall, scooped him some oats, and then forked some hay.

When he came back, Sullivan said, “Then where is Longley being held?”

Reilly was suspicious. “You a friend of his, mister?”

“No. I'm an enemy of his.”

Reilly's clouded face cleared. “Bill's stapled to the concrete floor in a shack behind the blacksmith's shop and he's guarded by four Texas Rangers who ain't real friendly folks.”

“I didn't see a gallows, either,” Sullivan said. “Is the blacksmith going to hang him?”

Reilly smiled. “No, sir. The Rangers built the gallows on the rise behind town in a pine grove. They're expecting a big crowd and the trees will stop folks from getting too close.”

“Big crowd, huh?”

“Yeah. A lot of people. There's already a pig on a spit up there and beer barrels and the Giddings Ladies Auxiliary is hinting that there may be cake and ice cream.”

“What time's the hanging?” Sullivan asked.

“Four sharp. Rain or shine.”

“Wind's coming up,” Sullivan said.

Reilly grinned. “Rain, shine, or wind.”

 

 

The only hotel in town was a one story, false-fronted log building with a canvas roof. Canvas walls partitioned the space inside and the Rest And Be Thankful provided an iron cot with a corncob mattress, a table with a pitcher and basin and, a thoughtful touch, a chamber pot.

“Last room available,” the clerk said. “Because of the hanging, you understand.”

After Sullivan stepped outside the clerk hung a sign on the door. S
TUFFED TO THE
G
ILLS.
It was not yet ten, but the town was already crowded with people, many of them blacks who worked for the surrounding cotton industry.

Giddings was a wide-open town with the usual mix of hardy frontier types, but Sullivan saw no one who looked like a gun. The rumor about Longley's pals trying to free him didn't seem to be true.

Gray clouds scudded across the sky as he crossed the red mud of the endless street and made the opposite boardwalk after getting cussed out by a freight wagon driver who figured Sullivan was in his way. He found the blacksmith's shop with ease.

It was a dark, sooty place with a huge charcoal fire glowing in a square-shaped forge. “Out back,” the smith said without looking up from an iron he was shaping.

“That many, huh?” Sullivan asked.

“You're the twelfth this morning. But the Rangers won't let you see him.”

“I'm a friend of his,” Sullivan said.

“So were the other eleven,” the smith said before the clang of his hammer on the anvil ended further conversation.

Sullivan walked through the shop toward the back and collided with a small man dressed in black, a large silver cross dangling on his chest.

“Oh, sorry padre. I wasn't watching where I was going.”

“No harm done,” the priest said. “Are you trying to see Bill Longley?”

“That's the general idea,” Sullivan said.

“The Rangers won't allow it, you know. They're very strict.”

“Well, all I can do is try.”

“Bill is at his holy devotions at the moment.”

“At his what?” Sullivan said.

“He's at prayer.” The little man smiled as he answered the question he knew was coming. “Bill converted to Catholicism. He has embraced Holy Mother Church and the Good Lord has forgiven him his sins.”

Sullivan shook his head. “Look, ah . . .”

“Father Thomas Muldrow.”

“Father Muldrow, he's faking it. Longley's never been near the sound of church bells in his life. He hopes suddenly getting religion will save him from the noose.”

“It won't. I know that and so does Bill. He has hope, yes, but of eternal life in the presence of God.”

Sullivan couldn't believe what he was hearing. “This I have to see.”

“You'll find Bill much changed. Mr.—”

“Sullivan.”

“A good Catholic name.”

“I came here to kill him, Father. There's my confession.”

The priest's serene face didn't change. “Let the law commit the murder, my son. It's so very good at it.”

 

 

The back entrance of the blacksmith's shop led to an open sandy area, much covered with bunch grass and prickly pear cactus. About ten steps from the shop, four big mustaches, each attached to a hard-faced Ranger, stood in front of a timber shed with a tin roof. The lawmen gathered around a charcoal brazier and one of them poured coffee into the tin cups held by the others.

He turned his head when Sullivan stepped from the shop. “You. Get lost.”

“I'm here to see Bill Longley,” Sullivan said.

“You and a lot of other people. Now beat it.” The man laid the coffeepot on the brazier as Sullivan spoke to his back.

“I came to Giddings to kill him.”

That caught the attention of the lawmen and four pairs of cold eyes turned to him as though he'd just crawled from under a rock.

The big Ranger who'd held the coffeepot moved his cup from his right hand to his left. “Shuck that gun belt, mister.”

Sullivan, used to the sudden ways of such men, unbuckled and let his gun drop.

“What's your name?” the Ranger asked.

“Tam Sullivan.”

“The Denver bounty hunter?”

“Denver. And other places.”

“Here, Sergeant Page, ain't he the man who killed Crow Wallace up in the New Mexico Territory?” a young Ranger said.

“Yeah, that would be me.” Sullivan nodded.

“You ridded the country of a damned nuisance,” Sergeant Page said. “How come you want to kill Longley?”

“He murdered friends of mine,” Sullivan said. “I don't want to go into it.”

The Ranger's smile was about as warm as a frozen bullet. “Well, Mr. Sullivan, you ain't killing him.”

“No. I guess not. I'll let the law do it.”

The wind had picked up and the slickers of the lawman slapped around their booted ankles. A scrap of newspaper soared into the air like a flapping dove then swooped to earth again.

“Bill's got religion,” Page said.

“Yeah, the priest told me that.”

“He's crazy. We'll hang a madman today.”

“Maybe he is,” Sullivan said. “I'd still like to see him, talk about old times, like.”

Page said, “You'll get no sense out Longley. But I don't see any harm in a visit.” He turned to the young Ranger. “Luke, take this man inside, but stay with him.” Then to Sullivan, “Fifteen minutes. No longer.”

Wild Bill Longley was a chained animal. The shackles that bound his ankles and wrists were cruelly looped around a great iron staple driven into the concrete floor so that he could not stand but was forced to crouch like a mad dog. Longley's lips moved.

The Ranger said to Sullivan, “He's praying.” To Longley, “Somebody to see you, Bill.”

Longley cocked his head and saw Tam Sullivan. “Welcome. Thrice welcome. I'm sorry I can't offer you a drink.” Then, as though he just remembered, “They're hanging me today, Sullivan. But I've been hung before and this time, Jesus will take care of me when I descend from the gallows.”

“In a pine box, Bill.” The Ranger grinned.

“Why are you doing this, Longley?” Sullivan asked.

“Doing what, my dear friend?”

“Faking your religious conversion. No matter what you pretend, you'll hang at four this afternoon.”

“I welcome that death,” Longley said. “Oh, how I look forward to being gone from this vale of tears.”

“You're a lowdown, lying skunk, Longley,” Sullivan said, his anger flaring. “Do you remember Lisa York? Do you remember killing her?”

Longley's pale face took on the pious but anguished look of a Christian martyr thrown to the lions. “Yes, I remember her. That terrible sin has been forgiven. I have been led to the light, don't you understand?”

A crafty look transformed Longley's face. “
He
doesn't think so. Can you see him, Sullivan? In the corner over there. He's all on fire?” Before Sullivan could say a word, Longley yelled, “I see you, Booker! I know, I know, . . . You want to drag me down to hell because I won't lift you up to heaven.” He yanked on his chains and shrieked, “Don't bring her! No . . . no . . . she's not one of the damned!”

“He's nuts,” the Ranger said.

“How long has he been like this?” Sullivan asked.

“Since we picked him up in Nacogdoches, I guess.”

“A man just doesn't go insane that quick,” Sullivan said.

“He did.” The Ranger motioned with his scattergun. “Seems he killed a few people up in the New Mexico Territory and he says they've come back to haunt him.” The young Ranger smiled and winked. “The popish priest told Sergeant Page that he drove a demon out of ol' Bill, an evil thing that called itself Clotilde. Page says maybe it was the priest that made him nuts.”

“Clotilde
was
an evil thing,” Sullivan said.

The Ranger stared at the big man in surprise, trying to fathom his meaning, but then he was forced to shift his attention to Longley.

“Who the hell are you?” the chained gunman said.

“Me?” Sullivan pointed to himself.

“Yeah, you. I don't know you. Get out of here.” Longley began screaming, “Out! Out! Out!”

“We'd better leave. He's getting agitated and seeing ghosts again.” The Ranger grinned. “Still want to kill him, Sullivan?”

“No. But I'll watch the law kill him.”

 

 

“Damn it all,” said a man in the saloon. “There's never been a wind like this in Giddings.”

“Or anywhere else, for that matter,” another said.

The wind was raging, howling, threatening to tear the roof off the saloon. Looking around him, Sullivan saw that a few faces showed fear. He smiled at a saloon girl in a pinafore dress who clutched a serving tray to her breast.

The girl smiled back, but her eyes were wide and frightened.

Sullivan picked up his beer from the bar and stepped to the window, looking out at the street and a day gone raving mad. Wind-driven sand rampaged wherever it pleased and rat-tat-tatted on windows that were already taking a beating, rattling in their frames. Across the wide street, the canvas roof of the hotel billowed like a ship's mainsail in a storm, threatening to split open and let the sand cover everything inside. The sky was a strange, dull crimson color, flat as a plate with no sun or cloud to be seen.

“Hell of a day for a hanging, huh?”

Sullivan turned to the man who'd stepped beside him. “Seems like.”

The man took a watch from his vest pocket, thumbed it open, and snapped it shut again. “Three-fifteen.”

“Reckon the sandstorm will keep the crowd away?” Sullivan asked.

The man looked at him as though he was crazy. “Not a chance. Wild Bill Longley's is a big, big hanging. You going?”

“I guess,” Sullivan answered.

“I hear there'll be cake and ice cream.”

“Cake, ice cream, and sand.”

The man looked quite distressed. “Hell, I never thought about that.” He walked away.

Sullivan finished his beer, then left in plenty of time to see Bill Longley die.

The tall pines around the gallows tossed their heads in the wind as the thirteen-coil hangman's noose danced a merry little jig.

Hundreds of onlookers had gathered for the big event, some living in makeshift tents. The air smelled of the roasting pig that turned on a spit over a guttering fire. The crowd was noisy, good-humored, eager to the see the Baddest Man in the West, as the local newspaper described him, meet his deserved fate.

As he walked among the throng Sullivan heard all kinds of rumors.

“Wild Bill converted to Catholicism and was having visions of the Virgin Mary.”

“The hangman is an expert brought all the way from the notorious Four Corners district of New York.”

“John Wesley Hardin, killer of forty men, busted out of jail and is on the way with a gang of desperadoes to save his old friend.”

“Bill blamed his downfall on strong drink and fancy women.” “Cake and ice cream is expected . . .”

Sullivan ignored the talk and walked through the trees to the gallows.

The wind had torn away the decorative red, white, and blue bunting that had covered the front of the rickety structure and the drop was visible. He frowned, thinking the distance Longley had to fall before the noose broke his neck didn't seem high enough. He was a tall man, several inches over six feet.

One of the local lawmen, wearing a deputy's badge pinned to the front of his vest, stood on the gallows platform and jumped up and down on booted feet, testing the structure's stability.

Sullivan looked up at the man and yelled above the roar of the wind. “Hey!”

The deputy, a stocky man of medium height who seemed to have lost his hat, looked down at Sullivan and hollered, “What do you want?”

“The drop's too short!”

“What?”

“The damned drop's too short.”

The deputy shrugged. “Look's long enough to me.”

“It won't let the rope tighten and break Longley's neck,” Sullivan said.

“Then go tell that to the Rangers,” the deputy said, waving his hand. “I'm too busy.”

Sullivan wanted to see Bill Longley die, not another bungled hanging. He turned away and made his way through the crowd in search of Sergeant Page.

A huckster selling some kind of patent medicine had attracted a large audience and Sullivan paused long enough to hear him yell his pitch.

“I have this very day, with this very hand”—he slapped his left hand with his right—“paid
one hundred dollars
to the Texas Rangers for yonder rope. Yes, the very rope that will choke the life out of Wild Bill Longley, the most notorious, the deadliest, the lowest down killer who ever walked the west.”

This drew wild cheers, as Sullivan knew it would.

The huckster, whose slicked-down hair didn't move in the gale, held up his hands for silence. “Now, here's bounty for you,” he yelled. “For this day only, every man, woman, or child who buys a bottle of Dr. Drub's Miracle Liver Tonic will receive for free, not one inch! Not two inches! But
three full inches
of the rope that hung Wild Bill Longley!”

There were more cheers and folks seemed eager to buy. Sullivan reckoned the medicine man had already cut up a few hemp ropes into three inches as a reserve.

He found Sergeant Page at the blacksmith's shop.

“You back, Sullivan?” the Ranger said with no particular friendliness.

Sullivan got right to the point. “The drop is too short. It won't kill him.”

It took Page a moment to figure out what the big bounty hunter was telling him. “It looks fine to me.”

“Page, when the trap's sprung, Longley will hit the ground feet first. Like the last time, he'll only be half hung.”

“Then we'll have to hang him twice.” Page noted the horrified look on Sullivan's face and his own features hardened. “I've got a crowd of maybe a thousand people to manage. I have to be on guard against a rescue attempt and I'm hanging a man who's a raving lunatic. Sullivan, I've got more to worry about than the length of the gallows drop. You see how it is with me?”

“I see how it is with you.”

“Good, now get the hell away from here and let me get on with my job.”

“One last thing,” Sullivan said. “Did the priest really chase a demon out of Bill Longley?”

The Ranger's eyes were guarded, uncertain. “The priest called it an exorcism, or a word like that. But I don't know anything about spooks and ha'nts and such.”

“Did you see the . . . whatever it was?”

Page was silent for a long while, so long that Sullivan thought he'd say nothing more. But then, “There was something inside him. I saw it leave.”

“A demon? Did it call itself Clotilde?”

“Whatever it was, it drove Longley crazy.” Page held up a hand. “All right, Sullivan, enough. We go on talking like this, my boys will drag us both to the booby hatch.” He turned his back, then said over his shoulder, “I'll look into the drop.”