“I’ve heard about that, all my life,” Sheriff Thornton said.
“Tell him the rest of it, Bill,” Agent Cranford said.
“They shut down the mining camp at Signal Hill and arrested about fifty men. During those days the two most prosperous businesses in those parts was the Sheriff’s Office and the undertaker. It was rough; it was quite literally hell, and even the Sheriff’s Office was on the take, so Governor Moody sent in the Texas Rangers. When they did, a lot of men scattered. As you know, Sheriff, Archie Carpin owned this ranch. His grandfather was partners with a man named Whitey Walker. Walker and Carpin ran Signal Hill and Borger and practically the whole Panhandle of Texas. Walker fled the Rangers and enjoyed a crime spree down in Central Texas until he was killed during an attempted prison escape. But Carpin and his brother, they simply went home. It looks like they brought somebody home with them.”
We all turned to regard the corpse.
“Jack Johannsen was the U.S. Marshal sent into Signal Hill to investigate rumored prohibition violations. He never made it back to civilization.”
I reached into my shirt pocket and brought out the photo that Agent Cranford had given to me at the rest stop two nights ago.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a photo of three men, all sitting at a table enjoying a drink. The one in the middle is Whitey Walker. The one on the right is Matthew Carpin. The fellow on the left,” I said. “I dunno, but it looks a lot like Jack Johannsen. Him,” I pointed. The man in the photo and the crumbling corpse in the chair were wearing the very same clothing.
If I had a camera that could look backwards through time, what might I see? In my imagination the iris on my camera lens opens to reveal a row of Model-T Fords parked in front of a line of hitching rails near the entrance to a clapboard saloon. There is a red patina from clay dust covering everything and an ever-present fiery glow on the horizon, north and south. That glow is there whether it’s night or day. Right this minute it’s nighttime. The air here is a fume. I can hear shouts, catcalls, and the incidental loud pop of a firearm discharging somewhere the next block over. In essence it is Perdition. It is Mordor. It is 1926 in the North Texas oil patch.
Inside the saloon three men sit at a table that is hardly big enough for the elbows of one man. On the table is a bottle of whiskey and three shot glasses.
One of the men is used to carrying a badge, but he isn’t wearing one now. It’s the wrong thing to possess in this place. In the waistband of his slacks, however, is an old Navy pistol. When he stands the whole world can see it, but right this moment he is sitting, sipping his whiskey. The gun alone is enough to deter trouble in this place, unless of course someone knows his secret. If that turns out to be the case, then he will die the way Wild Bill Hickok died: a bullet to the brain from behind. He knows this. But right now his back is to a wall and he is among men who consider him to be a friend.
The whiskey bottle is nearly drained.
One of the regulars in the saloon wanders by, says: “Blackie, can I take youse guys’ picture wid my new camera?”
“Sure, Slick,” one of the men says. “Go right ahead.”
Smiles fade from three faces.
“Say ‘rotgut’.”
“Rotgut,” the three men say in unison. There is a flash of light.
“Thanks, fellahs.”
Slick waves and moves on.
The man in the middle-the one minus the badge-watches a couple of whores pass by through the window across the way from him, follows them and the sound of their laughter as they pass the front of the saloon.
When he turns back again, one of the two men beside him has a gun drawn and pointed at him. The other man across from him pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and lays it on the table.
“You ever drink with a dead man before, Blackie?” the man with the gun asks to his friend sitting across from him.
“Nope. Have you, Matt?” The man with the note says. He begins to unfold the note.
“This is my first time, too,” Matt says.
“What you got to say about this, Jack?” Blackie asks.
Jack recognizes the note. Not the latest one, but an earlier note. Maybe the latest one got through.
Jack wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “How did you fellows know?” He asks.
“Your friend in Dallas,” Matt says. “He was our friend long before you ever came down the pike.”
“Goddamn you, Roger,” Jack says to the absent traitor. “May you rot in hell.”
“Oh,” Blackie says. “This is hell. Right here. And I have the feeling that our buddy Roger would get along here just fine.”
“You guys gonna kill me? Best get to it.”
“Not yet,” Matt says. “We’re going to ransom you first.”
And outside the window on the hard-packed and heavily rutted Main Street a dust-devil moves desultorily along, kicking up trash and sending it a hundred feet into a smoky, carbon-black sky.
“I think, Sheriff,” I said, “that at the last minute Dallas Sheriff Roger Bailey had a change of heart. Maybe he tried to get Johannsen out. Maybe all he did was send word to the governor. There’s a record of that, at least. Whatever he did, though, it was too little.”
“And too late. That’s what that means, then: ‘for someone that I thought was a friend.’”
I didn’t need to reply. We were in agreement.
“There’s more,” Agent Cranford said. He held out another piece of paper to me. I took it.
It was a telegram.
“Read it,” he said.
“GOVERNOR MOODY STOP THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PAY RANSOM STOP GOOD LUCK GETTING THAT BOY OUT OF THERE STOP SIGNED HH.”
Cranford must have noticed the quizzical look on my face, even in the dim light.
“H.H. stands for Herbert Hoover. At least I’m pretty sure it does.”
The room began to feel even more close than it had when I first entered. I shuddered. Goose bumps stood up on my arm.
“What is it?” Sheriff Thornton asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Like hell. Tell me.”
“It’s just that… You ever been to one of those exhibits where they keep the three thousand year old mummies?”
“Naw. Can’t say as I have.”
“If you did, you’d know the feeling,” I said.
“Okay. Now I don’t want to know,” he laughed. It was a nervous laugh. “But you better go ahead and tell me.”
“It’s being trapped. Not for seventy years, or even a thousand. But for eternity.”
We were quiet for a bit. The men behind us shifted around. I heard quick whispers in the gloom.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get out of this place. But Sheriff Thornton, I’ve got a suggestion for you. You don’t have to do it, but I think we’ll all sleep better.”
“What’s that?”
“After all the dust settles on this thing and all the reporters go home, I’d have your backhoe operator dig out this whole thing and expose it to the open sky.”
Sheriff Thornton laughed. It sounded better than before.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’ll do just that.”
I handed him the satchel of money.
“Sheriff, you should count this, then bag it and tag it. If the proper owner doesn’t claim this in thirty days, then it belongs to Miss Julie Simmons.”
The sheriff took the physician’s bag.
“How much is in here?” he asked me.
“Two million dollars, or thereabouts.”
“And Miss Simmons? Is she your-?”
“Client. Yes.”
“Just what is it you do for a living, Mr. Travis?” Sheriff Thornton asked. I’d been waiting for the question for some time.
“I’m an investment counselor,” I said. “For instance, say you have too much cash, or not enough and you want to-”
EPILOGUE
I had one more phone call to make. The last call.
“Good morning, Bierstone and Travis.”
“Penny. Bill.”