NOVEL NEXT chapter 28 - Detective play, over.
The gentle sound of the Kansas River.
Moonlight veiled by clouds cast a deep shadow.
Out of it, a silhouette popped forth.
‘!’
Thunk.
At the same time he covered the mouth, he slowly drove the Bowie knife up from under the jaw.
The blood vessels in the bulging eyes burst.
Max jammed in the tip of the 9-inch (23 cm) hunting knife, then laid the body down and naturally drew the blade back out.
Meanwhile, the one at the barn kept making all kinds of noise to lure whoever was inside the house.
Mostly an aggravating racket—but luckily the wife and daughters showed no sign of coming out.
Joe Jim said,
— When you live in the middle of nowhere for decades, you pick up a rule on your own. At night, plug your ears to the sounds and don’t get curious.
Night sounds are a requiem of death.
You don’t go confirm fear and terror on purpose.
With the locations already fixed in his head, Max moved in for a silent approach on the second target.
A pile of Timothy hay stacked to the knee. The man crouched behind it was waiting for someone in the house to come out.
But when time passed with no response, he must have felt anxious—no, bored.
Grinning to himself, he kept poking the ground with his knife point, over and over.
Thunk. Thunk.
And that little habit ended only when heat drove up through his throat.
From right to left—the Bowie’s point punched through his neck and blood streamed down.
Wiping wasn’t hard. Pull the knife and rub it off on the man’s clothes. Good enough.
Meanwhile Fitch and the Indian father and son were watching every one of Max’s moves from above.
The way he slipped through the dark like a black cat and finished two of them in a blink drew involuntary admiration.
If there is such a thing as a perfect assassin, the word was made for Max.
Joe Jim’s son, Junior, made up his mind. It was time to let go of the Indian warriors he’d kept in his chest. He would fill that place with Max.
Fitch also had a lesson settle in.
‘I should watch my jokes.’
Seeing the bodies dressed up as Border Ruffians last time, and watching the process of those bodies being made now—there was a gulf between the two.
Humility is learned in the heart, not the head.
Rubbing the goosebumps on her arm, Fitch watched Max wipe his blade on what was now just clothing on a corpse.
‘One left.’
Miss even one and you don’t sleep easy. They were that overly careful.
Of course, there was stupidity too.
For all their show of being thorough, they trusted the night too much.
‘If it were me—’
I’d hit the house by day.
Day makes people bold, and even a little sound from the barn brings them out without fear.
But cowards with brains only for malice loved the night too much.
Having cut two throats, Max gave a short, derisive laugh and fixed his eyes on the barn where the last target was.
The man was still scraping the barn wall.
There was no impatience in that sound. He was even catching a rhythm—no doubt enjoying himself.
In every age there are psychopaths.
‘This one will be tricky.’
For now, he didn’t know where inside the barn the man was. Judging by the scrape alone was risky.
He might be using a long rake.
As Max weighed it, a long pitchfork propped by the hay caught his eye.
Three tines curved like a trident—looked meant for pulling down a high haystack.
With the pitchfork in hand, Max low-crawled to the outer wall of the barn.
Then he raised the pitchfork and scraped the wall.
Screeech.
The iron prongs made a sharp noise as they grated.
Scrrrape.
Screeech.
Scrrrr—
The man broke the duet on the barn wall.
With one corner of his mouth raised, Max kept scraping.
A low growl came from beyond the wall.
— You think this is a time to play, you idiot?
Scrrrape.
— You’re dead.
Scrrrape. Screeech.
— ......
Inside the barn, the killer—Curtin—had a mind gone busy.
‘No one came out of the house…’
Then who the hell was scraping the wall now?
Even his dumb friends wouldn’t do this. And he hadn’t heard a sound to say they were taken.
Curtin whispered a friend’s name.
— Roy.
A voice answered at once.
— What.
‘Damn!’
— Who… are you.
— The one whose people you killed.
Something already broken in Curtin’s head snapped clean. Reason blew out; fear, terror, and rage exploded as he yanked a gun free.
“You… you son of a—!”
Curtin ripped out the pistol and fired toward the voice.
Of course, Max was already off that spot.
BANG BANG BANG!
Rattle-rattle-rattle.
At the big gunshots, the sleeping Kansas River woke. Birds flew up, and a short scream of a woman slipped from the house.
Muzzle flash flared like a flashbang.
Fixing Curtin’s position in the barn, Max dumped six rounds from his revolver into one spot.
BANG BANG BANG!
Then he hurled the Bowie at the holed wood.
Crack.
The wood split—and the thrown blade that followed struck flesh and bone.
“Ghhk.”
A staggering step. Flailing arms dropped tools onto the floor.
And a moment later—
With a thud, Curtin’s body collapsed to the ground.
Trying to pull the knife from his chest, Curtin spat blood and turned his head toward the barn door.
‘I’m not going alone.’
His whole body trembling, he dragged the revolver up with effort and angled the muzzle at the barn opening.
Someone, thinking it was over, would surely show. Then—
‘One shot will do.’
He still had the strength to pull a trigger.
Of course, things didn’t flow as Curtin wished.
Outside the barn. Back against the haystack, Max watched the barn.
“…… Isn’t it over?”
Joe Jim asked cautiously.
Max shook his head.
“I don’t know exactly where I hit, and I haven’t checked with my own eyes. Walk in easy and you can get hit. Even dying, a man might have enough left to pull a trigger—who knows.”
‘Damn…’
The consciousness propped by rage was thinning for Curtin. Even so, he could hear the voices outside. Gold to Fitch’s ears—but despair to Curtin.
“Whether it’s blood loss or organ damage—if you aren’t sure, you give it time and watch. What’s the rush? We do keep the door covered so he can’t run.”
In short: until the breath stops, never relax—that was Max’s advice.
“Jim. Now let’s calm your wife and daughters.”
“Got it!”
Instead of going into the house, Joe Jim called his wife’s name. After a moment the door opened, and the wife and daughters appeared.
The family that had suffered fear and dread fell into each other’s arms and wept with relief.
Fitch spread her arms toward Max—
Then flinched and let them drop.
“Sorry, we said we wouldn’t do that.”
“What are you talking about.”
“Anyway—what now?”
“We wait.”
Max entered the barn ten minutes later. Fitch went in with him and let out a short breath.
The corpse’s eyes looked toward the outside of the barn—and the muzzle of the revolver in his hand pointed that way too.
Fitch stuck out her tongue at Max.
His prediction had hit clean.
And Max, who had predicted it, was quietly surprised.
‘This bastard really was waiting like that.’
Calmly, Max stepped in and checked the gunshot wounds. Three of the six had hit. The most lethal was the Bowie buried in the chest.
Schlup.
As Max drew the knife, Joe Jim’s family crowded into the barn.
“My wife and daughters want to thank you. Me too. If it weren’t for you, Sheriff, I shudder to think what might have happened tonight. And thank you for coming all the way from Lawrence with us.”
“Miss Fitch is the one who uncovered their plan. I only did the labor.”
“Huh?”
“I said detective class, not become a real detective, right? Anyway—good job today.”
Joe Jim’s wife and daughters gave their thanks to Fitch, who blinked.
Feeling strange, she stared blankly at Max.
‘I’m a detective?’
Whether he read her mind or not, Max nodded. Fitch felt a tingle in her chest and murmured the word detective under her breath.
Then she replayed the day.
While Fitch crouched in a corner thinking, Joe Jim’s wife said she’d set a meal even at this late hour and went inside with her daughters.
And Joe Jim and his son, Junior, gathered the bodies to one side of the barn.
****
Joe Jim’s wife and daughters brought out a stew of potatoes, peppers, and cheese, and meat skewered on twigs.
Joe Jim’s wife was the daughter of a Kaw chief who lived around Kansas.
Unlike her husband, she wore loose Indian clothes; she looked neat and easily embarrassed.
Joe Jim interpreted his wife’s halting English; most of it was thanks and gratitude. The daughters, fifteen and thirteen, took after their mother—they only stole glances at Max and didn’t speak.
“My grandmother was Osage, from Vernon County, Missouri. And my grandfather was a trader from France.”
The one talker in the family was Joe Jim.
With the tension gone, he loosened his bag of words.
“Do you know why Topeka is Topeka?”
“Feels like it’s got something to do with potatoes—am I right?”
Joe Jim nodded, laughing.
“You heard it from Mr. Holliday. I told him. In the Osage language it means ‘a place good for growing potatoes.’ Not the common potato, but timsula—a prairie turnip.”
“Ohh, so that’s what it meant.”
Offering the right little sounds, Max thought:
Living apart from the Indians wasn’t about mixed blood.
He was just cheerful and talkative—so he’d become a guide and interpreter, that was all.
“But, Sheriff. What will you do with the bodies?”
“We’ll take them to the town of Delaware. And I intend to see if they tie to other cases.”
‘Other cases?’
Fitch’s eyes lit. The engine that had cooled started spinning again.
It was late, but Max chose to head back to Lawrence. Space was tight, and the clothes soaked in blood were only an annoyance.
Joe Jim hitched the wagon from the barn to the horses Max and Fitch had ridden. They loaded the bodies and lashed them so they wouldn’t fall.
The wife and daughters went to sleep, and with Joe Jim and Junior seeing them off, Max and Fitch set out for Lawrence.
The clouds had cleared; moonlight lit the road bright.
On the slow-moving horses, Fitch puffed her cheeks and worked her mouth side to side.
She had a lot on her mind.
When the air finally whooshed out of her cheeks, she spoke.
“Hey—did you mean it? That I’m like a detective.”
“Do I look like a man for empty words?”
“No.”
Fitch looked up at the sky and went on.
“To be honest, you told me everything today. You planned it, you carried it out.”
“Fitch shadowed, gathered evidence, analyzed, then came all the way and saved an Indian family.”
“Still—I didn’t do much there. «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» I just played at being a detective.”
Max cut her a glance.
“If moonlight makes you moody, let’s talk in daylight.”
Fitch shook her head fast.
And said,
“To tell the truth, I was going to go to Illinois.”
Illinois—Chicago.
Where the Pinkerton office is.
“I know you clipped the ad from the paper. So?”
“I changed my mind. I’ll learn from you!”
“Lessons ended today.”
“Huh?”
Max let her stare slide off him and said,
“Detective play ends tonight.”
“……”
“Miss Fitch. What I need is a partner, not a student who wants detective lessons.”
“Then why did you teach me today?”
“I was curious. Wanted to see if you had the knack.”
“… And? The verdict?”
Looking at Fitch, Max put force into his voice.
“You have it. I need someone right now who’ll work at my side. Someone who won’t drag my feet. If you don’t have that in you, just go to Pinkerton. If you want to learn, learn there.”
“…… You shouldn’t talk under the moon either. You get weird.”
Max snorted. After that, the two of them kept their mouths shut until they reached Lawrence.
Creak, creak.
Back at the sheriff’s office, Max saw Holliday asleep in a corner.
“Big help, that.”
With the cot taken, Max slung his legs up on the desk and sank into the chair.
What was left after a long day was fatigue.
He lit a cigar, drew smoke in, and let it out.
A moment later—
Sleeping Holliday coughed and hacked.
Sizzle.
“Figures.”
Max took another pull and waved the smoke off with his hand.
He hadn’t had his eyes closed long before sleep took him.
****
A few hours later, morning.
Max went to Chairman Charles to arrange disposal of the bodies.
“You’re taking them to Delaware?”
“These were in their effects.”
A victim’s severed little finger. Jewelry spilled out of their clothes.
Max alone knew this.
“That place is full of slave-side men. You sure? If they aren’t the killers, you’ll be in a fix.”
“I’m going to confirm it.”
And the bounty.
Nothing now—but the moment they’re confirmed as the killers, the story changes.
The two towns with victims had each posted $100.
But Max’s real purpose lay elsewhere.
The victim’s father was a defender of slavery—and chairman of the town of Delaware.
A businessman as well.
Max wanted to deal with him.
That afternoon.
With the bodies loaded, Max headed for the town of Delaware. Against contingencies, he was fully armed—two rifles, six revolvers, a Bowie knife, and 300 rounds of ammunition.