Glenn Taylor - A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

“You’d have to be able to find it first,” Harold said.

They laughed.

Goldie came in with a tray of fresh drinks. She set one down in front of Harold. “Extra tall for you,” she said.

“Well, I knew you were sweet on me.” He tried to put his arm around her but she was too fast on her feet.

She went around the table and stood next to Abe. She set down his drink and regarded her fingertips. “This hangnail’s a cocklebur,” she said.

Abe put his arm around her waist and stared at Harold Beavers. He smiled and moved his hand to the small of her back. Under the knot of the apron she wore, his five-shot.38 was snug at the base of her spine. He took the gun in his hand and slid his arm down and put it in his lap beneath table’s edge.

To the two other men, it had looked to be only a back rub.

Harold leaned back in his chair. “Madam, you say?”

Rutherford returned from the pantry. He stepped inside and looked at Goldie.

“Sugar, you look pale,” she said. “Did you want somethin different to drink?”

Rutherford said he was fine. He smiled to her and held open the door.

She called him a gentleman as she stepped back through.

He locked it.

Abe had finished his shuffle. He pointed to the deck before him, then leaned back, hands at his lap. “You want to cut that deck?” he asked Rutherford.

Rutherford remained standing. From his side jacket pocket he withdrew both Derringers. He aimed one at Abe’s face and handed the other to Harold Beavers, who stood accordingly and aimed his at the heart.

Abe smiled. He looked at Taffy Reed for tells. The young man was wide-eyed. He swallowed and breathed from his mouth. He’d had no idea.

“Why the hell you smilin!” Rutherford screamed.

Abe said, “Man can’t smile while he’s dyin?”

Rutherford looked at Harold Beavers, who looked him back. They nodded and turned their heads back to Abe and shut one eye each and squeezed.

The shots were loud inside that little brick room.

Taffy put his hands to his ears and shut tight his eyes.

Abe twitched little more than to blink.

Harold and Rutherford looked dumbly at their guns.

Abe drew his own and stood up. He put his back to the wall and his finger inside the guard. He two-handed his weapon’s grip, right arm extended straight. He thumbed back the blued hammer and said, “You didn’t know they made blank cartridges for a.41, did you?”

Harold Beavers recognized his position. He thought it best to go on and make a move straightaway, so he threw the little gun at Abe’s head and was fixing to jump across the table when Abe dodged, aimed, and fired. The sound was thrice as loud as the blanks. He’d hit the man in the dick.

Harold dropped to the floor and curled.

“Lord Jesus,” Taffy Reed whispered.

“Those smokeless soft points bark, don’t they?” Abe said. “I got four left. I think you’ve seen my aim.”

Rutherford dropped his Derringer on the table and put his hands over his head.

Taffy put his own up high.

Harold moaned and cursed unintelligible.

“Oh, hush now Harry,” Abe said. “That snake was syphilitic anyhow.” He moved to the door with his weapon still trained. He unlocked it blind.

Goldie stepped inside with an armful of cut rope lengths, burned at the ends. She took the long way around the table and tossed the whole mess in Taffy Reed’s lap. She took out her own gun then, Abe’s little spur-trigger pistol. “Tie up these other two and after that I’ll tie you,” she said. Then she winked at Taffy Reed.

Abe said to Rutherford, “After he binds Harry, take off your jacket and stanch that blood.” He motioned with his gun at the man’s crotch.

When the blood was stanched and the hands and feet of all three bound, Abe and Goldie sat on the Ashwood Wobbler and looked down at the men, their behinds on the dirt floor, their backs against the brick. Taffy Reed tried his hardest not to cry.

Abe trained his eyes on Rutherford, then Harold, then Rutherford again.

Harold moaned low and worked his jaw and rocked.

Rutherford stared at the floor.

Abe said, “For a while, when I was cooking all this up in my head, I thought I’d interrogate you, play you one off the other, and then for another while I thought I’d just kill you both.”

Harold Beavers growled then. He looked up at Abe and snorted and spat on his pant leg.

“You ought to save that spit,” Goldie said.

He spat again, missing her shinbone.

She shook her head. “Ought to save that spit to grease your shot-up prick. Pig might amble by.” She smiled and looked at Rutherford. “I’m sorry Rutherford,” she said. “I suppose I haven’t worked hard enough on my vulgar woman’s tongue.”

Abe crossed his ankles where they hung from table’s edge. He went on. “I figure both of you was up on Buzzard Branch that day. Figure ole Sneakup is the only man capable of swiping that rifle and climbin up the ridge without a sound.”

Now Harold hung his head as Rutherford had beside him. For once he’d shut his mouth. He’d not argue death. He’d welcome his last bullet with nothing.

Taffy Reed looked on. He’d begun to understand Goldie’s wink. They didn’t aim to kill him. It was the other two they were after.

Abe continued his thought. “Only man capable of the marksmanship with a stranger’s rifle too, I’d imagine.” He considered the thousands on thousands of birds Harold Beavers had shot from the Florida sky in order that rich women might don a more reputable hat. He wondered what that did to a man, such daily taking of life in flight. He looked at the crown of Harold’s bent head, the spiraling whorl of the small bald circle, the overabundance of staled hair dressing. “Maybe Rutherford paid you to pull the trigger,” he said. He remembered what Jake had once told him about the little man. Don’t ever do a thing he asks you to do, and don’t ask from him so much as pass the salt and pepper . His headache had ceased. He spoke without thinking. “More than likely it was Trent told you to track Jake and cut him down.” He uncrossed his ankles and slid from the table and stood. “But I’m not killing any man. My mother spoke nothing on killing. That’s not her way.” He considered a moment. “Not the way of her boys either.” Now Goldie slid from the table and stood at his side. They regarded the bowed heads before them. Abe said, “It’s the taking my mother was after.”

He sat down on his heels in front of them, forearms against his knees. The gun hung lazy in his hand. “I’m taking everything,” he said.

Trent stood on the passenger station platform and took out his watch for the second time. It was a quarter to seven.

In his fist was a bouquet of wildflowers, still wet at the cut stem bottoms. He’d earlier sent Taffy Reed to pick them from a dry midden ditch out back of Fred’s club. “Put em in a dish a water,” he’d told Taffy.

He hadn’t noticed until now the dirt and tiny brown glass shards spoiling the bouquet. The glass caught the station lights and sparkled along purple soapwort petals. He blew on the flower and brushed away the filth. He tried to stand straight.

In the distance, somebody shot off a skyrocket.

Tony Thumbs materialized from the station’s dark overhang. “Evening,” he called to Trent.

The monkey was still on the man’s shoulder, and Trent thought immediately that Rufus had been right. The animal was staring him down. It wore a lethargic scowl.

Tony’s bow tie was brightly colored. His pants were black satin striped. He held forth an old round flask in offering.

“No thank you,” Trent said. He looked again at the monkey. “He looks like he could use it,” he said.