The Violent Peace (9 page)

He swung it over the counter and vaulted after it. There was a lot of blood in Binns' mouth, where his teeth had sunk into his tongue. The space behind the counter was restricted, but the area was not visible from the street. Steele's expression showed nothing of what he thought as he unwound the entire length of material and began to bind it tightly around the fat man. He started at the feet and worked upwards. Binns snapped open his eys and spat out blood. He stared in horror at Steele, then down at his body, bound from feet to neck in the material. He could not move a muscle.

“Please, I—”

Steele grabbed the man's thinning hair and jerked his head clear of the ground. Binns gave a low scream which became a muffled groan as a width of cloth was jerked across his bloodied mouth. A further series of groans came from the depths of his helplessness as Steele wound the material around his head twice more, then fastened it with a pin taken from a display box. His work complete, he picked up the CLOSED FOR LUNCH sign and slid over the counter. He found a pencil stub near the cash drawer and began to alter the sign, ignoring the pathetic sounds from the man on the floor.

“My father died quick,” he said casually as Binns' sounds of distress grew weaker. “But I reckon he suffered a lot before the table was finally kicked from under him. Just the thought of dying that way would have terrified a man like him.”

He finished working on the sign and leaned forward to peer over the counter. Binns summoned every iota of strength left in him and managed to roll over on to his side. He gave a gasp, desperately trying to empty his lungs of useless, oxygen-starved air
.
It finished as a death rattle and his dead body rolled back and was still.

Steele picked up the rifle and turned towards the front of the store as the signal bell jangled above the door.

“It's all right, I've seen the soldier and he says—”

Mona pulled up short and curtailed her excited announcement as she saw the figure of Steele approaching her. Steele smiled at her with his mouth, recognizing her as the woman who had come to town on the buckboard-last night.”

“Oh, isn't Harry – Mr. Binns - here?” she asked.

Steele touched his hat brim with a gloved band. “He had a little trouble with his breathing, ma'am,” he replied. “He's lying down.”

Mona's excitement died and she regarded Steele with heavy suspicion. “You aren't the doctor,” she accused.

Steele sidled around her and opened the door, hanging the sign on it. “No, ma'am,” he confirmed. “Binns and I had some business to do. It's all wrapped up now. Good day.”

He stepped out on to the sidewalk and closed the door on Mona's confusion. She could not read from the inside, the sign which swung gently in the draught from the closing door. One word had been scored out, and another added, It read: CLOSED FOR EVER.

CLANCY and Blake sat on a sofa in a comer of the lobby as Steele entered from the street and crossed to the desk. The blood ecrusted right sleeve of Blake's tunic hung limp and empty at his side. His arm was in a sling across his chest.

“Checking out, ma'am,” Steele told the over-painted madam behind tile desk.

“Look, Blakey,” Clancy said earnestly. “You made your mind up by telling the dame she could get lost. It's a lousy army, anyway. With the war over, what's the goddamn point? You're likely to get shipped out to some crummy patch of desert and get your hair lifted by a crazy drunk Indian.”

Steele had to pay for the greasy meal he had been served shortly after he arived at the hotel the previous night.

“But the pay's regular,” Blake argued, wanting to be convinced.

Steele told the madam he would pass up breakfast.

Clancy snorted. “It's so frigging small they can afford to give it to you regular. Why, I hear that in Texas a man can—”  

Mona's scream carried clearly across the sunlit plaza. Steele calmly pocketed the loose change given him by the madam as she and the two troopers swung around to look out through the open doors. Mona's footfalls thudded against the hard-backed dirt of the plaza: then sounded hollowly against the planking of the sidewalk. She burst into the lobby and pulled up abruptly. Her face was drained of color and her body trembled. The agony of her grief Seemed to vibrate in the hot, still air. She raised her hand and pointed a quivering finger at Steele. Time stretched interminably as she summoned the strength to speak.

“He killed him!” she was finally able to rasp.

The trooper and the madam abruptly turned their shock-filled eyes towards Steele. His face was blank of expression as he backed over to a doorway at the foot of a flight of stairs. The rifle was held loose at his side, tilted slightly to point at the floor.

“He shouldn't have lynched my father, ma'am,” Steele said calmly.

Mona shook her head, vigorously, continuing to point the finger of guilt at Steele. “Harry's never harmed anybody in his life,” she flung at him.

Steele narrowed his eyes by a fraction, but in no other way did he show the traumatic effect the woman's statement had on him. She had called Binns
Harry.
The old timer had named one of the lynchers as
Ed
Binns. He kept his voice at an even pitch. “I heard about him from an eye-witness, ma'am,” he said, his mind in a turmoil as he struggled to make himself believe that Harry was Ed called by another name in his home town. “Binns was just one of them. I've got three more to settle with.”

Mona lowered her arm and brought herself under control, “Where?” she demanded, knocking a strand of hair away from her right eye. “Where is he supposed to have—”

“Washington,” Steele replied. “Right after Lincoln was shot.”

Steele, the madam and the two troopers saw the confusion spread across Mona's handsome face, to be suddenly swamped by realization. She gave a hysterical laugh which twisted her features into ugliness. “You kill-crazy fool!” she shrieked. “Harry was the wrong man. You murdered the wrong Binns. He hasn't been to Washington in weeks. It was Ed you wanted. My goddamn, no good husband Ed - Harry's brother.”

Steele was deserted by the capacity to hide his feelings behind an impassive mask. The awful knowledge that he had brought  agonizing death to an innocent man exploded on to his face in a color-draining, immobilizing expression of self-hatred. But as his eyes turned to each person in the lobby, imploring for understanding, begging for consolation, they found none.

Hoofbeats sounded out on the street. He looked through the doorway, beyond the voluptuous form of his accuser, and the sunlight seemed suddenly to darken. He fell back against the door and blinked. The harsh light of morning returned to full intensity and he saw the two riders starkly outlined against the buildings of the plaza. Both were travel-stained and weary looking.  One of them was a mean-faced man in a frock coat. The other was Jim Bishop.

Steele snapped up the rifle and felt his emotions freeze as he turned his blank-eyed stare towards Mona. “My father was innocent too,” he said, giving the door behind him a back-heel kick which crashed it open. “It's a lousy world, ma'am.”

The two riders dismounted, flexing muscles stiffened by long hours in the saddle.

“Thanks for your custom,” the madam called as Steele backed out into the yard behind the hotel. “Come again.”

Lovell and Bishop entered the lobby, brushing through between Mona and the doorframe. Both sensed the tension in the pot air, and looked from the open rear door to the madam.

“We're looking for a man,” the Washington detective announced.

Everyone looked at the newcomers and saw the evil of Lovell and the confusion of Bishop.

“You come to the wrong place, fellers,” the madam replied brightly. “This is a cat house. I hear Aaron Ross over at the livery might accommodate you.”

Clancy grinned. Blake swallowed hard. Mona sagged against the doorpost. Lovell snapped the revolver from the holster at the front of his bent and leveled it as he approached the desk.

“Name's Adam Steele,” he snapped.

The madam had run a house for too long to be intimidated by a gun pointing at her ample bosom. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, her eyes glittering as she held Lovell's resolute stare. “Strange thing. We had a man with the same moniker staying here. He just checked out.”

Realization hit Mona for a second, and the gasp she gave caused both Lovell and Bishop to swing towards her. “Through there!” she shrieked, pointing a shaking finger. “He went through there. Only seconds ago.”

When the two lawmen burst into the yard, both had revolvers in their fists, and the muzzles swung rapidly from side to side, covering the whole cluttered area. Eyes raked over boxes and trash baskets. Lovell waved his gun to one side and Bishop moved as directed, using his free hand and his feet to knock and kick over the rubbish. Lovell did the same on the other side of the yard. They found nothing and looked angrily towards the stairway climbing up the rear of the hotel, and the two empty alleys leading off. 

“I'll look up top,” Bishop said breathlessly, turning to the foot of the steps.

“Forget it!” Lovell snapped, heading into one of the alleys. “He'd know he'd be trapped up there. Check that, then comb the whole frigging town.”

Bishop glanced up the stairway, then shrugged and went into the alley Lovell had indicated.

Steele remained motionless, stretched out full length in the hot sun on the roof, until the sound of the lawmen's angry footfalls had faded. Then he wriggled backwards, away from the roof's edge. He raised his head, but not his body, and glanced around. The otherwise flat surface of the roof was broken by two smoking, chimneys and a number of trapdoor frames. He stayed as flat to the sun-heated boarding as he could, rotating his body until the nearest trapdoor was only inches from his face.

He could hear voices in the bedroom below.

“Now you won't forget?” a man said timorously. “Anyone starts to poke fun at me, you tell 'em.”

A girl trilled with laughter. “That I will, Mr. Ross,” she said, and Steele's mouthline tightened as he recognized Jennie's voice. “It's all been just rumors about you. Ain't no question but that a girl knows which way to turn with you.”

“That's fine,” the man replied. “Yes, that's fine. Goodbye, Miss Jennie. See you again soon.”

Footfalls sounded. “Hope so, Mr. Ross,” Jennie said. “I'll be ready and willing.”

A door opened and closed. “You smelly little creep,” she finished softly.

Steele waited a few more seconds, to make sure the girl did not have a customer immediately after Ross, then inserted his fingers under the edge of the trapdoor and inched it up. He pushed the rifle barrel through the crack, and sighted down it. The hinges creaked and Jennie stared up in frightened surprise. The bed was, immediately beneath the trapdoor and she was spread across it, on top of the counterpane. She was completely naked now, the dress draped over a chair close to the bed. Her body was spread-eagled, as if in readiness to be entered rather than in relaxation after the act. Perhaps because of her profession, which made modesty hypocritical, or because the sight of the pointing rifle terrified her, she remained frozen in position, every secret place of her naked flesh open to Steele's indifferent gaze.

“Some you lay for, some you lie to,” Steele said softly, opening the trapdoor wider and then keeping her covered as he hauled himself into a sitting position, legs hanging through the square hole.

“What's that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“Drapery store man hasn't been to Washington in weeks,” he replied, gripping the Colt Hartford in one hand as he folded up the trapdoor.

She shrugged, the gesture rippling the flesh of her shoulders and quivering the mounds of her breasts. “I get paid for pleasing men, mister,” she said. “You paid and I told you what you wanted to know. I thought it made you happy.”

“It made me a murderer,” he told her.

She gasped as he suddenly dropped through the opening, drawing the door closed after him. His boots sank into the bed at the side of each naked hip and the rifle muzzle jabbed lightly at the white skin of her throat.

“Now I want something for free,” he warned softly. She smiled and drew up her knees, splaying her thighs wider, her feet hooking around his ankles. “Help yourself,” she invited, cupping her breasts, stacking the flesh so that the nipples pointed up at him.

“No," he told her. “Help from you.”