Glenn Taylor - A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

With a wave of his hand, Trent excused his accountant and his favorite whore, but it was clear that Rutherford and Faro Fred Reed, each asleep in a straightback chair, were staying put.

Jake respectfully declared that as an officer of the law he was bound to disallow drinking on a Sunday.

Trent laughed.

Jake continued. He said that it was not meant to be funny, and he proclaimed that in addition to enforcing the state’s Sunday liquor laws, he could no longer permit the forced collection of monies from local businesses, an act routinely employed by his fellow officers.

Trent had quit laughing then. He’d worked the stiff muscle in his twice-broken jaw and said, “Now see here Baach.”

That had been the beginning of their falling-out.

Abe could scarcely comprehend it all. He said to his younger brother, “Jake was a officer of the law?” He wondered if Ben Moon had known such a thing.

“Around here,” Sam answered, “they’ll pin a pistol on anybody.” There came the muffled trace of a far-off dynamite blast. The floor trembled beneath their shoes. “Abe,” Sam said, “I believe when he got choked, his brain went addled. Air was cut off too long or some such. After that, he was off his head permanent. He was framing a church up on the hill. I saw the sign he cut. Free Thinkers of something or other — religion words I couldn’t even recognize. He was preaching prohibition and didn’t give a damn what anybody thought.”

“Did he cross Trent?”

“He didn’t so much cross anybody. Frightened em maybe.” Sam was careful about his words then. He looked again at that long wide scar. “He sure didn’t bite his tongue around his highness the mayor though,” he said. “You remember how Jake always knew when to keep his mouth shut, taught us the same?”

“I remember.”

“Well, those days was over. I heard from Rebecca Staples back in March that when Jake turned in his badge, he told Trent his intention to run for council at the interim, and come the general in ’12, he aimed to be mayor of Keystone. Rebecca said Jake got right up close on Trent, right in his ear, and said, ‘I may not win, but there ain’t no politics in heaven, and there ain’t nothin but in hell.’”

Abe spun his empty short glass slow on the bar top. “You think Trent had him killed and pinned it on the Italian?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” Sam breathed deep. “But it doesn’t figure. Jake may have gone a little peculiar, but you know how everybody liked him. He told a good straight story, he was fair. Trent was right fond of him for a few years there. Rutherford and Fred Reed too. Rest of us they’d just as soon piss on, but here they had Jake do a little carpentry at the Alhambra — he built a coat-hook partition wall by the bar, solved the problem of men coat-smuggling things to the Oak Slab — and next thing you know he’s on the police force and taking what he wants to take from whoever he pleases. Trent let him roam free and paid him handsomely to do it.” He shook his head. “Things was fine up to that day he got choked.” Outside, the bell clanged for shift change at the coke yard. “After that, things was bad as ever.”

Abe quit spinning his glass and pointed to it.

Sam poured. He watched a long-legged centipede scurry across the floor.

Abe saw it too. “Saloon shark,” he said. “Step on it.” These were words uttered at one time by each of those who lived and worked in the family saloon. It was ritualistic sport passed down and enjoyed by all.

Sam gave chase and stomped four times, but the little gray bug was fast against the floor trim and took refuge behind a stack of newspapers in the corner.

“You ain’t practiced any killin in seven years?” Abe said.

Sam wiped at the sweat in his mustache with the kerosene rag.

Abe watched his brother’s hands to see just how they shook. “Well,” he said. Then nothing for a time. “Goldie’s well?”

Sam thought on it, then answered. “Yes, though she’s acquired a mean streak. Cusses not a little.” He made a face to indicate the degree. “She runs Fat Ruth’s.”

“Ruth?”

“Disappeared. Most likely dead.” He looked at the wall clock, stopped again and displaying nothing of use. He told Abe, “Mother reckons Jake is holding on until you get there and say goodbye.”

Abe nodded and stood from his stool. “I’m going to put my things upstairs before I go.” All those years gone and he’d kept the key.

He stepped inside his old room and locked the door behind him. It stunk of mildew in there. The window shades were drawn. There were wood crates stacked beside the window, and each wore a uniform watermark on its side — clay-colored stains as proof they’d once resided flood-level in the storeroom. It seemed most everything had come up from below. A straight-knee snow sleigh leaned against the far wall, rusty runners bent from hitting rock. Once, a month after Abe had turned eight, a blizzard left Keystone covered, and he’d lain on Jake’s back astride the sleigh and shot down the mountain, house to town, narrowly missing the bone-hard trunks of thick-coming trees.

The big wardrobe was shoved in a different corner than before. He opened it and bent to the false bottom. He reached behind and tripped the latch and slid the slat and lifted. It had not been touched. He pulled out the money and smelled it. He counted the twelve hundred in notes he’d not been able to rescue the night he had to run. They were neither mildewed nor crinkled.

He put the money back, added most of the seventy-five hundred he’d brought from Baltimore, and slid closed the slat.

His suitcase was open on the bed, and he took from it his suits and shirts, and he hung them. At the bottom of the suitcase were the two boxes Bushels had wrapped in oilcloth. He set them on top of the wardrobe.

He took stock of himself as he always did when the nature of coming circumstances was unpredictable. He double-checked his vest pockets, both the conventional and the hidden variety. He had ample monies and his spur-trigger pistol and his watch and his nail dagger. Because the present circumstances were exceptionally unpredictable, he’d hidden in the barrel cuffs of his shirtsleeves smaller nails to be used, if need be, for picking locks or stabbing a man in the testicles should a desperate situation present itself.

His patting of himself was ritualistic and meant to stir confidence, but this time, it did not work. The weight of what he’d find up at the house pressed on his lungs and moved up his throat, and for a moment he wondered if his lack of sleep might catch him this time.

He walked to the window. He lifted the shade and looked in the street, and there, striding toward the saloon, was Goldie Toothman.

That’s when it caught him and put out his lights, and on his way to the floor, his head banged the very sill where he’d riffled those cards and watched her all those years.

His fall produced two heavy clunks, and from below Sam Baach looked at the ceiling. He knew the sound of a man hitting the floor, and he uttered to himself, “What in blue blazes?” just as Goldie came through the door.

The screen creaked and slapped behind her. She’d drunk a pot of coffee. She asked, “Any word from Baltimore?”

Sam pointed to the ceiling. “He’s in his room,” he said. “I believe he’s just collapsed on the floor.”

When there was no answer to their pounding, Sam fetched the key ring from the empty money box.

When the door was opened, Goldie went quick to Abe. She knelt at his side and held his head against her thighs. There was a pump knot taking shape under the hair above his ear. There was another long-since formed at the back of his skull. “Good Lord he’s beat up,” she said. She ran her finger along the scar at his jaw. She listened to him sleep-breathe.