Touched by Angels (29 page)

He took his pipe from his mouth
and pressed the bowl with his thumb. He looked into the boy’s eyes as smoke trickled through his teeth.

“
But
…”

“
Forget it. You don’t stand a chance against Quint. He’s fast…”

“
But I hate him. It’s not the money…”

Sam smiled as he nodded sagely. “Go on. It’s the principle.”

“
Well… yeah! I suppose it is.”

Sam struck another match, plied it to the bowl and said between puffs, “Boy, let me tell you a sad, but true fact of life. You can be up to your
ass
hole in principles, but them and scruples never paid for bread on the table, beer in your belly or a low woman, and so far in my fifty-five years, no amount of prayin’ bought ’em either. It’s a hard ol’ world out there, and only money gets you things, ’cept o’ course, breedin’, respect and affection. Thems you earn.”

He took a fountain pen and an old envelope from his top pocket.

“
I’m going to write here what
I
think is sound advice, which you may take or leave as you please. But remember one thing.”

He stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe.

“
Of all the people you have met so far in your life, you may trust me the most. I’ll not turn my back on you, boy.” He wrote silently for about a minute, while Billy watched on, sometimes glancing out at the unfurling countryside.

T
he sun was high in the sky, so it must be nearly midday. Sam finished writing just before they heard a squealing noise as the train’s brakes were applied so suddenly, Sam found himself in a tumble of arms and legs on the floor, cursing.

Billy was still fixed where he was, with his back pressed into the seat, laughing as he saw Sam getting up, and dusting himself down.

Then he caught a glimpse of the envelope, where it had fallen and four of the words rang on his ears as Sam snatched it up.

…
for your own good…

Whenever he had heard that expression before, it had always been as a harbinger of disappointment, pain or loss.

This time was no different, as he caught a glimpse of his fist as it swung up like lightning under his jaw.

The world went black.

***

Sam looked down at
Billy’s unconscious form, shaking his head at the thin dribble of blood running from the corner of his mouth. He adjusted his hat and tapped out his pipe in the palm of his hand.

He fo
lded the envelope into quarters and tucked it into the boy’s top shirt pocket, half poking out, so he couldn’t miss it and muttered, “As I said, it’s for your own good.” He lowered the window, looked out, and could see they were just short of Holly Springs.

He knew that Quint had pulled the emergency cord.

What he did see at once, as it was directly opposite, was the communal grave of the town’s cholera victims, with a simple marker placed upon it to commemorate them.

He opened the door on the opposite side of the train, so it would hide him, and climbed down onto the baking rails of the oncoming track, hearing the engine going torrr, tishhh, torrr, tishhh, torrr…

An oily smell came to him on the breeze.

He looked up and saw faces peering out; a preacher, whose pince nez fell from his nose, crossing himself, and in the next carriage, a small boy pulling his mother’s sleeve and pointing.

Sam crouched down to see beneath the train as it started to move, with its chimney sending back a sulphurous smog. He wanted to see Quint’s legs, so he could anticipate his next move, but couldn’t see anything except the opposite bank.

He looked behind himself and saw an old storage hut, the door long ago bashed in, hanging against the mildewy inner wall on one rusty hinge.

He stepped inside, just as the train passed. Through the shattered window, where he kept back in the shadows, Sam saw Quint about two hundred yards off, drawing his gun, as he made his way past an old goods train in a siding.

He watched as Quint stopped at the end of the crumbling waiting room, with the town’s name above it, the last letter S hanging upside down.

Beyond this, was the dead world itself.

***

Quint thumbed back the hammer on his gun. In the silence, broken only by a wisp of wind, the clicks sounded deafening.

Wherever she was, she was a dead woman, unless she gave him the money without a fuss.

Robert was watching from a room above the dress shop, where he had been told he must stay, whatever happened.

He had been told not to go near the window under any circumstances, but couldn’t resist the temptation.

He could see the brim of Quint’s hat; not that he could concentrate very hard.

The room smelt of the dead.

He kept thinking a rotting hand would touch his neck, and every so often, he flinched round, thinking something had moved.

He forced himself to look at the suitcase instead.

It stood in the middle of the empty street, alone.

He watched as Quint peeped round.

***

Quint
swallowed hard, unsure whether she could see him or not, though he knew it was a trap. He saw how tempting it would be to simply run, grab it, keep on running, and risk her picking him off from wherever she was hiding.

He nearly did, until
he remembered what Brady had told him of the tin cans and how she’d demolished five in six from ten paces.

He regarded his other surroundings, the terraced wood and brick buildings that lined either side of the street and the boarded sidewalk before them, with crumbling rails for tethering horses.

An old wagon, with
Acme Guns and Saddlery
painted on the side, stood outside a ladies’ dressmaker, with the faded title
Lesley’s Dress Emporium
over the shattered window. From inside, he saw the pointed yellow eyes of a cat, as it watched from amongst rubbish that had blown there.

There was a chapel at the far end, with closed doors at the front and about forty feet above, a single bell in a belfry. The building had once been white, but was now faded, with yard long strips peeling here and there.

A sign next to the door read,
Find salvation, not in the bottle or the gun, but in the house of the good Lord
.

He drew back, out of sight, irritated.
Where was she?

He looked from window to window, rooftop to rooftop, and even beneath some sections of the sidewalk. They were elevated by as much as two feet above the ground, though he found it hard to believe she would dare venture there, because of snakes and spiders.

Directly ahead of him was the town barber. The name of the business,
H Pettigrew Tonsorialist & Dentist
was painted in swooping high letters on the large front window, one of the few not broken. The front door, partly glazed, was closed too, which meant she was unlikely to be hiding inside, as she couldn’t shoot through any of it without attracting attention and ruining her aim.

He braced himself and ran full pelt towards it, half-expecting the crack of a pistol shot. Nothing happened.

He bounded up onto the sidewalk
and kicked the door open in mid-flight. It swung back on its hinges, knocking over a hat-stand.

He quickly closed it, knowing he would be hard to see through the glass, because of the reflection, and was struck instantly by the stale smell as he looked at four chairs with their backs to him. Three were a faded maroon colour, the leather cracked and fissured with age and damp, but the fourth was a washed out black. This was the dentist’s chair, a little like the one he had been strapped into by his wrists and elbows, when he was nine, to have a rotten tooth yanked out with pliers.

He released the hammer on his gun and listened hard, his eyes now on the suitcase again, this time in the reflection of one of the mirrors.

Somebody’s nerve had to give.

Half a mile aw
ay, Billy Tweed opened his eyes and groaned as he held his aching jaw. A silver spike of pain waxed and waned in the centre of his skull.

He pushed himself up
and spat out a mouthful of blood. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, as he remembered what had happened, as anger filled him. He had really liked, trusted and respected Sam Sullivan, and couldn’t believe that, like Quint, he too had stabbed him in the back.

He saw something in the corner of his eye. He plucked the note from his shirt pocket and read it at a snail’s pace, remembering that Sam had scribbled it before knocking him out.

Boy, by the time you read this note, you will be many miles away. You have a lot of growing up to do, and a lot more to learn. I’m sure that one day, you’ll make something of your life, but you’ll never do it from a pine box. You already know the world is an unforgiving place. That is why I had to bushwhack you. It was for your own good. Trust me one last time, and meet me back at the railway station at noon tomorrow.

Sam

Sinking back against the slats of the seat,
Billy crunched the note up and tossed it to the floor, thinking hard, but relieved too, knowing that perhaps he could trust him after all… though if he got himself killed…

***

In Holly Springs
, long minutes had passed and still nothing had happened.

Robert was
still watching.

He could see
the suitcase remained where it was, with dust devils dancing around, while tall weeds in the street and on the sidewalks rustled and twisted in the wind. He heard the wind whistling and thrumming through cracks and holes in the buildings too, and down the alleyways in between.

The cat meowed as it darted down one of them, while a crow cawed from atop the chapel.

No sound was spookier though, than the next one Robert heard. The bell in the chapel was tolling.

***

Sam had heard it too, and
ducked back. He was watching from the same place Quint had stood, at the end of the waiting room. He was hidden as best he could be, but still felt conspicuous. He knew it had to be her and peered around once more, as Robert and Quint watched from the shadows.

***

Quint
walked to the door and stood watching the suitcase again, as the ringing continued.

If it
was
her pulling the rope, he knew she would never hit him, except by fluke, as the chapel was at least two hundred yards away. He opened the door and swallowed hard, as he walked onto the sidewalk. His hand flexed over his gun. His heart thudded as he stepped onto the street.

He started walking. The bell continued to toll, even as his hand closed around the grip.

He picked up the suitcase and carried on walking, knowing in his heart of hearts that something was terribly wrong, but unable for the life of him to put his finger on it.

Then a shot came from nowhere. The bullet hit the clasp of the case and bits of metal and fabric flew off. With the shot came the cry of birds and the tolling stopped abruptly.

The case flipped open, and although he’d half expected it, his heart still sank when not a single jewel or bank note fell out.

It wasn’t empty though.
There was a roll of paper.

As he stooped to pick it up, he wondered how had she managed to ring the bell and prove such outstanding marksmanship from so great a distance.

The mystery was solved when a man stepped out from behind the waiting room, pointing a Remington.

He was vaguely familiar, as was his voice. “Clever dame,” he said. “Knows character at a glance.”

Quint
laughed, though his grin froze as another voice to his side said, “Yes, and a very careful one too.”

Quint
glanced in the direction of the barber’s, to see her pointing her gun from the hip, while her hair flowed in the wind.

***

She was just as shocked as Quint by this stranger’s s
udden appearance, but said to Quint, as she stepped off the sidewalk, “You could have had half the money for helping me, like the gallant gentleman I thought you were.”

He had been looking at the open case, dejectedly, but when he looked up, she could see the question burning in his eyes.

He had to know.

“
It’s all in a safe,” she told him. “Every last penny. A long, long way from here, where you’ll
never
get it.”

Sam dissolved into more laughter, while Quint threw the case down and kicked a nearby rock. It bounced off the side the
Acme Guns and Saddlery
wagon.