End Of The Line
by LimeyJack
cc by-nc-sa
5. Fickle Quirks of Fate
Adam Smith Liche's neck itched where the rope had bitten into his skin. The sight of Lon Doogan sitting in that jail cell should have surprised him, but it irritated more than anything else. After days in the bucket of an old buckboard, what Adam really needed was a stiff drink and a warm meal. What Lon Doogan represented to Adam, more than any sort of threat, was one more thing getting in the way of his creature comforts. Any other day, Adam might have warmed to the idea of giving Doogan over for a lynching. Get it over with. God knows, the murdering son-of-gun deserved it. But having lately been at the end of a rope himself, Adam's thoughts of the subject had begun to change. As must as he hated to admit it, a shot and a steak would have to wait.
“Well, I reckon there's no question to your guilt.” Adam said to Lon Doogan though the bars of the cell. The last Doogan brother was laying on a cot, looking up at the sheriff, smiling like a dope fiend.
“Now how's that for justice?” Chuckled Lon.
“A long drop on a short rope is just the sorta justice you deserve, Doogan.”
“Afraid to finish the job yourself, Sheriff? I hear you already got three Doogans planted in that cemetery up there in End of the Line.” Lon sat up and tipped his hat back.
“There's a fourth grave dug and waiting for you, Lon.” Said Adam. “I guess there's some folk out there hell bend on lynching you. Hung from a tree, hung from a gallows... I reckon the sad tale of the Doogan Brothers is gonna end pretty much the same.. ”
“I beg to differ.” Lon said slyly. “You're the law, ain't that right Sheriff? A hanging here, or a hanging at the territorial pen might all end the same for us Doogans, but it makes a whole hell of a difference to you, don't it? That badge you got on there. Right there. That badge says you got to hang me civilized, or all the law and order it stands for don't mean a thing. You hearing that, Sheriff?”
“I hear ya.”
“Yeah, if law and order is going to survive in a little frontier towns like this, there just ain't no room for letting a little lynching slide by. Today they're hanging a fella who surely deserves it. Tomorrow, who knows? Hanging a fella for spitting wrong... How about that?”
“How about it?”
“Yep, if that mob grabs me, we're both done in. Me by my neck, you by your badge.” Lon chucked at the thought. “Ironic, ain't it? The man who planted three Doogan brothers has to save the life of the fourth...”
“I am often mystified by these fickle quirks of fate.” Said Adam, and he turned away from the bars. He looked at Mrs Sears. She looked every bit the worse for her adventures. Both eyes were sunken and black, and her nose was swollen at the break. She gave Adam a pained look, and opened her mouth to speak. It might seem like fate, but Adam knew things had been building to this.
It wasn't but a few nights ago that he was standing on a bolder, his own neck in a nose. Mrs. Sears had fallen back into a freshly dug grave, smacking herself unconscious on the way down. Hooves of the 16th Cavalry receded into the darkness, and the cracks of rifles began to thunder in the distance. Adam was stuck. That noose pulled tight around his neck, his hands bound firmly behind his back. He struggled to maintain his balance. The slightest slip, and he'd never regain his footing on the slick boulder. He tried to call out to Mrs. Sears, but the rope dug deeply into his throat, and a gurgle was all he could manage. A few more minutes, and his legs would tire. He could feel the strain in his knees already. The Cavalry hadn't bothered to finish their hanging, but he was going to die all the same. Alone in the darkness.
The night was intermittently lit by the flashes of battle in the valley below. As the minutes ticked by, and the strain in his legs increased, Adam became aware of a single light approaching. Not from the valley, but along the side it. It was moving slowly, perhaps at a walking pace, in what seemed like no immediate rush. The light got closer and closer, and Adam became aware of the most singular of sights. It was last thing he expected to see in the wilds of Montana Territory, while a Indian War raged nearby. The light source was a lantern, carried by a gray haired man. That in itself might not have been too amazing, but the old man happen to be dressed in the red velvet smoking jacket and bright purple slippers. It couldn't have been more than five degrees above freezing, but the old fellow seemed impervious to the cold. As he came closer, Adam could see silk night clothes emerging from the bottom of the smoking jacket, and two old spindly white legs stuck out naked into the elements.
“Chilly night!” The gray haired man said, when he was in ear shot. He spoke through a large handlebar mustache that had turned brownish yellow from tobacco use. “Not fit for saint or sinner!”
The old man tromped across the grassy hill at a pace that made him puff. Adam tried to speak up, but only manged another gurgle.
“Hold on, hold on! I'll get you down.” Said the man as if Adam was a child stuck in a tree. “However the heck you got yourself into such a mess is beyond me!” Adam manged to cough out something that sounded like 'please hurry', and within a minute, the old man was tugging on the knot that tied the rope to the tree. “Dang, never was very good at knots...” He volunteered. He put down his lamp, and tried with both hands. Not finding success, he wearily pulled himself up onto the boulder. “Lets try this end. Have you out in a second...” Loosening the hangman's noose, he pulled it over Adam's head. “Watch out!” Adam fell forward off the boulder and landed face first in the grass. He breathed in hard like he'd never taken a breath before.
“Jill-” Adam squawked, and tried to stand. He fell forward onto his face again. Trying again, he scrambled to the edge of the fresh grave.
“She's fine! Just a bump!” The old man said. Adam looked down to see the unconscious Mrs. Sears. Her chest moving as she breathed.
“Help me get her out!” Adam struggled against his bonds.
“Hold up there, son! Let me talk to you for a second. She ain't going no where.” Said the old man, climbing down from the boulder.
“Thank you.” Adam's stopped wiggling, and sat still. “That was a tight spot, I was in.”
“I'd say!” The old man laughed. He began to untie Adam's hands.. “Don't reckon it's a right night for a hanging... You must have upset some folks, right properly.”
“You might say. That was some luck. If you hadn't come along...” Adam rubbed at his wrists.
“Oh, it wasn't luck, my boy. I've been watching you.”
“Watching me?” Adam look around into the darkness. “From where?”
“Well...” The old man began, then a confused cloud covered his face. “It's rather hard to explain... Some place a might warmer than here, that I know.”
“Sorry, I'm confused. My name is-”
“I know who you are, Adam, my boy.”
“But, I-” Adam focused on the old man's eyes. So familiar, like something in the mirror... “No, but you're dead!” Then a cold shiver ran down Adam's spine. “Oh no! I'm dead too, ain't I?!” He turned toward the noose hanging from the tree. “I slipped off that boulder, and now you've come to take me to Saint Peter!”
“You ain't dead, son!” Adam's Father chortled. “I might be, but what is for sure, is we're both here right now, in the middle of God forsaken nowhere!”
“But- But, how can you be here?”
“Tell you the truth, I ain't too sure. Last thing I knew I was watching you willingly put your head in that there loop of rope, and then I knew I had to come and do something. What kind of idiot are you, boy? That pretty lady was trying to help you?”
“I- I- I though you had foreseen all of this. Your letters said...”
“I didn't foresee you committing suicide!” Adam's Father scalded. “I might have been able to predict the future, but I didn't predict you being such a dunderhead! Grow up, boy! Putting your head in a noose gets you dead, prognostications or not!”
“Sorry, I thought...”
“Yeah, I wish you had, then I wouldn't be standing out here in the cold!”
“But, you're here. You saved me.”
“Just because you've gone so completely off the rails, my boy.” Adam's Father looked around in bewilderment. “What you doing out here, anyway? You're a long way from End of the Line.”
“The guns...” Adam said as if that was an explanation. “The rifles? Mrs. Sears? The Mounties? Ain't they all part of your plan?”
“I didn't foresee any of this! I definitely didn't foresee anything by the name of a Mountie.”
“But Vert-”
“Ah, Vert.” Adam's Father said knowingly.
“The trapper. You know him?”
“Yeah, you might say.” Adam's father laughed.
“He said I could sell the rifles-” In Adam's head, the wheel turned. “There ain't no mounties, are there?”
“Oh, I dare say there are, but I don't think you were sent out here to sell any guns...”
“This was a trap?”
“Solid as if it was made of steel.”
“But how-”
“Didn't I try and worn you, son?”
“When?”
“Back in The Dogman Saloon. Back in Saint Louis. Didn't I tell you to beware of the Green Man?”
“You were the blind man?”
“Well, you might say...”
“But who- None of this is part of your plan?”
“Not a jot. You're as far of the reservation as them Indians down there.” Rifle fire still lit up the night.
“Then I was-” Adam looked back again at the noose.
“As sure as Sunday, boy.”
“Oh my!” Adam turned a few shades whiter.
“You see why I had to come.”
“I do. Thank you. It couldn't have been easy.”