shouldered his way through. Then he looked down at the ground below and thought. He turned, dug his fingers into the windowsill, and lowered himself down slowly. His right arm screamed, still tender from the train. He hung there and then dropped to the ground.
He collapsed in a heap and tried to suppress a cough but could not. Someone shouted, “What was that?” and Connelly got to his feet and began running.
Clouds strafed across the midnight sky but there was still light enough to see. He ducked between fences and tottering buildings that slouched on one another like ancient winesots. He checked around a corner, desperately searching for the dancing, roving torchlight that would be searching for him. He saw nothing and bolted forward and scrambled through a lumber yard, great logs leaning and seesawing against the violet sky. He vaulted himself up and over one and it was damp to the touch. As he crested shots rang out. Their hot riptide washed over him and he knew they had been close, buzzing by just over his shoulder. Splinters and chunks dotted his right side as he descended and more shots whined through the air like angry bees. He landed and checked but felt no blood on him, then lay there breathing.
There was no noise, no shouts or calls. He turned and peered through a small gap in the logs, eyes scanning the roads and streets. Still he saw nothing. He crouched, ready to spring, when he heard the vicious snap of a rifle cocking.
“Eh,” warned a voice, high-pitched and friendly. “No. No, no. I wouldn’t do that, I certainly think I wouldn’t.”
Connelly froze.
“Okay, boy. I think you’re in one piece, and it’s a big piece at that. I can see you well and good, and though it may be a tight shot I think I can wing you through them logs. You agree?”
He didn’t answer.
“I said, you agree?”
“Yeah,” said Connelly.
“Okay, then. And you also don’t seem like the kind of fella to be running around with a gun. Otherwise, well, we’d have heard a shot already. So. So, how’s about you put the backs of your hands on the top of that pile so I can see there’s nothing in them? Does that sound agreeable? Does it?”
“Sure,” said Connelly.
“Sure,” purred the voice. “Sure it does. So do it.”
Connelly lifted his hands, placed the backs on the top corner of wood, and slowly pushed them up.
“There we go,” said the voice. “There it is. Okay now, son. You just pull the rest of yourself up. All the way up. Real slow.”
Connelly stood.
“You’re just as big as they said, ain’t you? Well-fed boy. Now turn around, big boy, turn on around.”
He did. His attacker was standing in the lumber yard, rifle gently resting at his shoulder, not hard and alert, but not afraid, either. Connelly squinted to see him in the night. He was a small man, late middle age, with white hair and a gentle baby face and a happy, knowing smile that never left his lips. Connelly could see the man’s blue eyes even in this light, blue as chips of glacial ice, merry and gleeful as though all of this was just a small joke for everyone to enjoy.
“Come on over here, son,” said the man chidingly. “Come on over here and say hey to me.”
Connelly walked over with arms still in the air and stood before the small man.
The man nodded, satisfied. “You boys put on quite a show,” he said.
Two others rounded the far corners of the yard at either end, torch in hand, and Connelly saw one of them was the boy from the inn. He trembled to see Connelly. As the Halloween-orange light washed over them Connelly saw the twinkle and shine of something at his attacker’s breast, something polished silver-bright. A metal star.
Connelly looked at it. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
The man nodded, still smiling. “Yeah,” he said, almost wistfully, like he was reliving a fond memory. “Yeah.”
Then his eyes hardened and the rifle butt flashed up and struck Connelly’s temple. The ground spun around him and everything faded.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Light lanced down at him through the pain. He cracked open an eye. A lone bulb hung from a dark wood ceiling. Someone was smoking a cigarette somewhere, acrid and tangy. His hands were bound behind his back and he was lying on a wood floor, wood shavings and sand worked into every crack. He tried to move his head and saw Roosevelt and Pike sitting on a bench across from him, hands cuffed and in their laps, heads bowed, their faces purple and misshapen.
Roosevelt saw him and tried to smile. “Hey, Connie,” he said. “You got no luck with your head. Every time you turn around someone’s busting it open again.”
Pike shushed him, but it was too late.
“Boss,” said a voice. “Boss.”
“Yes?” came the answer. That high-pitched voice, mild and sweet.
“He’s awake.”
“Oh, that so?” it crooned. “Is he?”
Connelly rolled over. He saw the small man standing over him in jeans and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up. The figure swam in and out of focus and as Connelly thinned his eyes he saw a nasty brand on the sheriff’s inner arm, brown and pink, a circle with a lizard’s head mounted in the middle of the edge, eating itself.
Connelly’s skull pounded. “What’s that on your arm?” he whispered stupidly.
“What’s that?” said the sheriff. “What’s that you say? What?”
“On your… On your…” mumbled Connelly.
“Speak up boy, speak up,” said the sheriff. His mouth quivered and he began savagely kicking Connelly over and over again, in the side, then the arms, and then finally landing one blow on the head.
Things blurred. Darkness melted in from the corner of his vision. He heard someone laughing but was unable to see who before his mind failed once more.
Connelly’s body clanked to life. Air forced its way through his shuddering lungs and when his consciousness rose he doubled up and retched in the corner. He lay there breathing and trying to still the nausea before flexing his fingers, then his arms and toes, then his knees. Nothing seemed broken. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and looked around.
He was in a small, damp cell, no doubt in the jail. Like the rest of the town it was poorly built. The floor was uneven and there seemed to be no straight lines, every board badly cut and every surface warped. Gray light streamed through a window at the top. It was day but he could not pull himself up to see. The door was heavy and there was a slot for food and water, but none had arrived yet.
He checked the money sewn into the cuffs of his pants. It was still there.
“Hey,” said a voice. “Hey.”
Connelly looked around. The cell was empty except for him.
“Over here,” said a voice.
He looked down and saw there was a thin crack at the bottom of the wall that ran through to the other cell. He peered through and saw a sliver of a face, no more than a smiling eye.
“You alive in there?” said the voice.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?” said the voice.
