Robert Randisi - Bullets & Lies

Roper stepped back into Harwick’s compartment to check on Cummings and Landau. They were dead. He came out and checked Carl’s body. He was also dead. He ejected the spent shells from his gun, replaced them with live ammunition, and then holstered it.

“Aren’t you glad we exchanged compartments?” he asked.

6

Upon arrival at the first stop in West Virginia, they had to wait for the local police to board the train and ask questions about the three dead men. Roper had the conductor’s testimony that they took him at gunpoint and made him knock on the door. He was also a witness that Roper had acted in self-defense. Harwick—being a West Virginian himself—had some influence, and the train was finally allowed to continue on, with Harwick and Roper aboard.

From the railroad station in Huntington, they took a buggy ride to the town of Hurricane. (Harwick said “Hurri-kin,” not “Hurri-cane.”) On a perfect late summer day, beneath a clear blue sky, the town seemed peaceful and beautiful. Once they arrived there, Roper found that he had been registered in the Rockland Hotel.

“It’s the best we could do here in town,” he said to Roper, almost apologetically.

“When do I see your client?”

“Tomorrow,” Harwick said. “I will go home, and you go to your room. We can both have a good meal tonight, and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. In the morning, refreshed, we will ride out to the Westover home.”

“How far is it?” Roper asked as they stood in front of the desk.

“Just a short buggy ride from town.”

“Then why don’t you meet me in the morning for breakfast?” Roper suggested. “We can have a talk before we leave.”

“Talk?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Roper said. “I still have some questions before we take the final step to see your client.”

“Do you mean—are you implying that you still might, uh, change your mind?”

“I wasn’t implying that at all,” Roper said, “but it is a possibility.”

“I don’t understand,” Harwick said, looking confused. “You’ve come all this way.”

Roper smiled and patted the attorney on the shoulder in a placating manner.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, Harwick,” he said and went upstairs to his room.

He didn’t see why Harwick had felt the need to apologize for the accommodations. The room was well appointed and clean. The bed was large, the mattress deep. The curtains on the window were as fancy as any he’d seen in a Denver hotel. And there was a sink with running water. What more could a man ask for? Roper had stayed in better, fancier, more expensive hotels, and much worse, but truth be told, all he needed was a clean room and bed.

And after twenty-five hours on a train, a bath.

* * *

After his bath, he dressed in clean clothing, donning a long-sleeved shirt and Levi’s. Refreshed, he decided to walk around town. He stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk for the recommendation of a good restaurant.

“Even a small café,” he added. “As long as it’s good.”

“Sir, our restaurant here is excellent—”

“I have no doubt,” Roper said, “and I’m going to try it in the morning, but right now I want to go for a walk, and along the way I’m going to want something to eat.”

“Of course, sir,” the man said. “There’s a small café a few miles from here, if you walk that far.”

“I’m very healthy,” Roper said, “and I’m sure I’ll be able to walk a few miles. Draw me a map, please.”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “Of course.”

Armed with the clerk’s map, Roper began to walk. Hurricane was a small town by most definitions, but a walk of a few miles showed him several churches, many stores, and residences. Oddly, there didn’t seem to be many old buildings—until he reached the “X” marked on the map. Apparently, the café the clerk sent him to was in a part of the town called Old Town.

The buildings here were much older, some wooden, some brick-and-mortar, but most of them falling down. The café was in a brick building that looked as if it had seen some recent repairs and renovations. There were fresh, new brick patches here and there, and some of its windows had been bricked up as well.

He went inside and a middle-aged woman, gray-haired and thickset, wearing a simple cotton dress, came up to him and said, “Welcome to Saint Mary’s.”

“Saint Mary’s?”

“Yes, that’s our name,” she said. “We have a mission.”

“This is a mission?” he asked.

“No,” she said patiently, “we have a mission to see that the less fortunate people are taken care of—fed, clothed, housed. Cared for.”

“I was told this was a café.”

“Oh, it is,” she said. “If you’d like something to eat, you’re welcome.”

“But…I’ll be paying,” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “Please take a table. Tell me what you would like to eat, and after you’re done, you may pay us.”

“How much?” he asked.

She smiled and said, “However much you think the meal was worth. We operate on donations, sir.”

“I see.”

“What would you like?”

“Well, I’ve just had a very long train trip and I’d like something…comforting, and warm.”

“Fall in West Virginia is beautiful,” she told him. “It won’t get very cold, but I know what you need. If you’ll leave it to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I shall return shortly with your meal.”

Roper looked around. The café was simple, with plain walls and fixtures, nothing fancy, and tables and chairs that looked recently handmade. There were no other customers. He wondered why the desk clerk would send him here, rather than other restaurants and cafés he had passed along the way.

He sat back to wait, and the woman reappeared with a coffeepot and cup. She placed both on the table, and then filled the cup for him.

“Your food will be here soon,” she assured him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I am Sister Katherine.”

“Are you…a nun?”

“No,” she said with a shrug. “I am only a sister in that we are all brothers and sisters.”

“I see.”

“Let me get your food.”

She went back to the kitchen and returned shortly with a big bowl of stew. As she set it in front of him, he saw great chunks of meat, squares of boiled potatoes, pearl onions, sliced carrots, and in the center of the bowl, a mound of mashed potatoes.

“Comfort food,” she assured him.

“I can see that.”

He picked up a chunk of meat with a spoon and put it in his mouth. It was perhaps the tenderest, tastiest meat he’d ever eaten. The mashed potatoes were creamy and delicious. The two kinds of potatoes did not seem incongruous; rather, they complemented each other.

“It’s wonderful,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Did you cook it?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We have several cooks, but I am not one of them.”

“Why is there no one else here?”

“I don’t know if you noticed,” she said, “we are off the beaten path.”

“Yes, that’s rather obvious.”

“But people find us,” she assured him.

“Can you sit with me while I eat?” he asked. “Answer some questions?”

“About what?”

“About Saint Mary’s,” he said, “about Hurricane…about someone named Howard Westover. I’m here to see him, but I don’t know anything about him.”

“The Medal of Honor winner?” she asked, sitting across from him. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” he said.

7

The next morning Roper was in the hotel dining room when the lawyer, Harwick, entered. The man saw him and walked quickly across the crowded room to join him. They were dressed similarly in vested suits, Roper blue, and Harwick gray.