A Knife in the Heart Read online

  He pushed the dying man forward, letting him fall into the lake of his own blood. The trowel fell as Fallon spun around and grabbed the shotgun. “Stay here!” he roared at the convicts crowded against the unfinished wall. And Fallon stepped into the hallway just as another convict, his head bloody but armed with a scattergun, leaped out of another cell.

  Fallon felt the shotgun kick in his arms. He had no time to aim or brace the stock against his thigh. The gun roared, leaving Fallon’s ears ringing, and the guard’s striped shirt became pockmarked with ragged holes as he slammed against a sawhorse and crashed over onto the floor.

  A guard ran out of a cell two doors down. Fallon would have shot him, but he was just pumping another shell into the twelve-gauge, and spotted the uniform. But a blast roared from inside that cell, and the guard went crashing into the wall, twisted around, and caught another load of buckshot in his throat, upper chest, and jaw. He slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood and gore.

  A crazed voice called out from the cell. “You’re all gonna die now.”

  Screams shrieked from the cell, and Fallon ran toward them, hearing another shotgun blast and the groans of someone. He did not stop, just stepped into the doorway, saw the smoke rising from the barrel of another twelve-gauge, saw bodies on the floor, and as the killer with the gun turned toward Fallon, Fallon touched the trigger. This time, he had the shotgun’s stock tight against his shoulder, and he took careful aim. The man slammed against the wall, twisted, groaned, and fell to the floor on top of his shotgun.

  “Stay right where you are!” Fallon instructed the prisoners. “Keep your hands raised and don’t move.”

  He moved back into the hall, aware that the entire cell block had been turned into chaos.

  Ahead of him, two men in stripes leaped out of the cells, turned away from Fallon—not even seeing him—and ran with their weapons into the open. They were met with gunfire. Living up to that outlaws’ creed, Fallon figured, dying game. The guards would be rushing the place now. Fallon jumped into a cell, swinging the shotgun right, left, up, down, but this one was empty. He turned, stepped into the hallway, and felt the butt of a revolver split his head open just above the ear.

  The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, trying to push himself up, trying to figure out where he had dropped the Winchester pump. Rough hands lifted him to his feet, and Fallon heard the raspy voice.

  “Ben . . . give me that pistol.”

  Fallon’s eyes cleared. A forearm pressed against his throat, and blood poured down the side of Fallon’s head. “Give me the pistol, damn it.”

  Now the hallway was filled with guards. Raymond . . . O’Connor . . . all pointing shotguns at the man whose body Fallon was shielding. Fallon felt the blade against his throat.

  “Put the knife down, Reno!” Big Tim O’Connor roared.

  “No way, man. I ain’t comin’ back here never again.” The blade tightened. “Give me that pistol, Ben. I need that pistol.” The hand jerked, nicking Fallon’s throat slightly. “Don’t move, I tell ya. I’ll kill this man if you don’t lower those barrels.”

  Big Tim O’Connor whispered something to the guards with him, but Fallon could not hear anything, and the muzzles of the shotguns and rifles dropped.

  Then Fallon saw one-eyed Ben Lawless, standing against the wall to his left. “I want that pistol, old man,” Deke Reno said. “Now.” A body lay beside the pistol, but that man was still alive, just unconscious, and Fallon could make out the face on the floor. Indianola Anderson.

  “The gun, damn you. Or you’ll be washed in the blood of this lamb of a warden.”

  “Give him the pistol,” O’Connor ordered. “But you harm Fallon, Reno, and you’ll be blown to hell, you son of a strumpet.”

  Deke Reno laughed.

  Old Ben Lawless stepped over Anderson’s body. He reached down, grabbed the heavy revolver, and let it hang by his side as he looked at Deke Reno, waiting for further instructions.

  “Give me the gun, now, you damned ol’ coot!” Reno roared.

  Ben Lawless stepped forward, gun still in his right hand, barrel pointed at the floor. Another step. Another. Deke Reno breathed a sigh of relief.

  Which turned out to be his last breath.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Fallon didn’t quite see any of it happen. His brain had been so addled by the blow against his head, he didn’t see Ben Lawless cock the revolver, raise the barrel, or pull the trigger. He never recalled seeing a muzzle flash or hearing the bullet zip past his head and slam into Deke Reno’s forehead. The hand holding the shiv dropped away, and Fallon felt a weightlessness as the body of the dead killer danced away from him and dropped into a heap on the floor, still clutching the prison-made knife.

  Fallon felt himself standing there, still not comprehending what had happened, but he did see the smoking Schofield lower in Lawless’s right hand, then drop onto the blood-smeared floor.

  A second later, Fallon felt himself sinking.

  He welcomed blackness, but it did not last long.

  When his eyes opened, his head throbbed, and he saw the blurry figures of two men standing over him, while Raymond found a handkerchief and placed it against the cut.

  Maybe a minute later, Fallon could hear the words Captain Big Tim O’Connor blasted into the convict Ben Lawless.

  “What kind of damned fool stunt was that, you idiot? You could have gotten the warden killed!”

  “Well . . .” Ben Lawless shrugged.

  “You could have missed. Even if you had not missed, hell, old man, Reno could have cut the warden’s jugular. That was foolish. Stupid.”

  “Captain,” Raymond said. “It all worked out.”

  “That is not the point,” Big Tim O’Connor thundered. He wiped his face. Shook his head. Finally, regaining something resembling composure, he said, “I never knew you were a shootist.”

  “I ain’t,” old Lawless said. “Never fired no six-shooter before.”

  “What?” Raymond and O’Connor cried out at the same time.

  “No. Hunted with a scattergun and smoothbore. Fair shot with a long gun. Better’n fair. But I ain’t no hand with no handgun. Hell, why do you think I poisoned all them red devils I kilt? I ain’t no John Wesley Hardin or Wild Bill Hitchcock.”

  “Hitchcock,” Fallon thought he was whispering. “You mean . . . Hickok?”

  “See,” Lawless said. “I don’t even know no gunfighters’ names?”

  * * *

  He didn’t like lying on these blankets, letting a doctor bandage his head. Not the prison doctor, either, for Fallon figured the penitentiary’s sawbones had his hands full.

  Fallon kept trying to stand, but the guard Raymond was under orders not to let him stand. And when Captain Big Tim O’Connor told one of his guards to do something, they never shirked their duties.

  “Where’s Elliott?” Fallon asked.

  “Don’t talk,” the doctor ordered. “Let me finish.”

  Fallon swore underneath his breath.

  The guard Wilson thundered from the gate. “You reporters keep back. Keep back. Nobody’s coming in here till we get this place secure.”

  Fallon found himself focusing on Raymond. “Will you get word to my wife . . . ?”

  “Be still and shut up!” the doctor bellowed.

  “Let her know I’m all right.”

  “Damn you. You might have a concussion. Your skull might be fractured. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t . . .” The doctor looked up.

  Fallon felt the shadow cross his face. It was not comforting, because when he looked up he saw Big Tim O’Connor.

  The doctor quickly tied off the bandage.

  “Jefferson?” Fallon asked.

  O’Connor shook his head slightly.

  “Dead?”

  “Not yet.” O’Connor swore bitterly and tried to stop the tears. “But . . .”

  Fallon tried to rise, but dizziness put him back onto Raymond’s lap. “Get me up,” he ordered.
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  He didn’t remember anything until he was in the cell, which had been turned into a hospital tent. He had to lean on Raymond for support while following O’Connor to another blanket on the hard floor, and there lay young Elliott Jefferson, his face so white Fallon hardly believed it.

  “We think Anderson did it,” O’Connor told Fallon.

  Fallon cursed. “I got him killed.”

  “No.” Fallon looked down, surprised to hear the young Elliott Jefferson’s voice, sounding strong, firm, commanding. It reminded Fallon of the kid’s father, Deputy U.S. Marshal Edward Jefferson.

  Fallon felt his body being lowered beside the youngster, and he sat on the floor and managed to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He tried to squeeze, but Fallon wasn’t sure he had enough strength to be felt.

  “Warden,” Fallon heard the kid whisper. “Anderson cut me good. Before any of this . . . started. Laughed.” Blood trickled from the corner of the kid’s mouth. His eyes closed.

  Fallon pressed his lips together.

  “Will you . . .” The boy coughed. “Let . . . Janice . . . know . . . ?”

  “You’ll tell her yourself,” Fallon said.

  The kid smiled. “They were . . . gonna kill . . . us all,” he said after a long silence. “Knew it was . . . hopeless . . . knew . . .” He clenched his eyelids tight, groaned, turned his head left and right, and shuddered. Again, Fallon thought the boy had died, but the eyes opened again, and he attempted a feeble smile.

  “They were”—again, Jefferson groaned—“planning. . . to . . . kill every . . . last . . . one . . . of us.” He spit out bloody phlegm. “Started”—he laughed—“on . . . me . . .”

  “Damned butchers,” Big Tim O’Connor said.

  “I tried . . .” the boy began. “Tried . . . to . . . stop . . .”

  “You did fine, Elliott,” Fallon said. “Your pa would be proud.”

  There was a light in Elliott Jefferson’s eyes now. He grinned. Color seemed to return to his face.

  “How’d he die?” the kid asked. “Ma never told me.” Fallon pressed the fingers of his left hand against the bandage over his ear. He thought back, shook his head, said, “I don’t know, son. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “But you . . . know.”

  “Yeah,” Fallon said. He knew. He remembered. Edward Jefferson, deputy U.S. marshal with a boy at home and a loving wife. Edward Jefferson, who had served in the court even before Judge Parker took over the district, who had arrested, by his count, seven hundred and thirty-two felons—including the repeat offenders—had wounded thirty-nine of those with gunfire, and had killed another fifteen. Edward Jefferson, who had brought the notorious Cherokee Chepaney in to hang after the outlaw’s murderous, three-year reign . . . who had outfoxed Linc Harper’s gang at a KATY station near McAllister . . . who had survived roughly one hundred shoot-outs and knife fights and countless other brawls with fists, sticks, and ax handles . . . had died when he turned his back on a teenage whiskey runner, who picked up a singletree and broke the lawman’s neck.

  Fallon grabbed Elliott Jefferson’s hand and, this time, squeezed long and hard.

  “He died like a man, son,” Fallon whispered. “Because he was a man. A brave one. So are you, Elliott. So are you. Your pa is mighty proud. I am, too.”

  The kid smiled. A moment later, he was dead.

  * * *

  “We can get the chaplain to call on Mrs. Jefferson,” Tim O’Connor told Fallon.

  “No,” Fallon said. “I’ll do it. It’s my job. My responsibility.”

  “Boss,” the captain protested. “You can’t hardly walk. You need to get into bed and . . .”

  “Get a wagon. Take me to their house.”

  “She won’t be at home, Hank. She’s at the chapel at the old prison. Teaching convicts how to read and write.”

  * * *

  Afterward, O’Connor insisted on taking Fallon home, and Fallon was too tired to argue. His head pounded. Maybe he did have a fractured skull. Maybe a concussion.

  He made himself stay awake the rest of the day, reading, waiting for newspaper reporters to start pounding on his door, but Christina, he later learned, had stopped that. Two city policemen stood guard at the gate to the house, and nobody was getting through this day, or the next, at least until they had to leave for prison to guard Elliott Jefferson’s funeral. There would be several funerals this week, but, from what everyone around the penitentiary and in town was saying, it could have—would have—been much bloodier had the warden not taken immediate and swift action.

  “How’s your headache?” Christina asked after a late coffee. She had stepped out that afternoon, leaving Fallon with Rachel Renee, who had been instructed not to pester her father and just play and be quiet.

  Fallon shrugged.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know.” He looked at his wife. “How’s Janice?”

  She looked up. “How’d you know?”

  He shrugged. “I know you.”

  Smiling, she set her cup on the table and walked over to him, settling beside him on the sofa.

  “Rough day,” she whispered. “For everyone in Leavenworth.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you regret taking this job?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  They talked for another hour, before Christina went into Rachel Renee’s room and put her to bed. Fallon came in, kissed her good night, and told her how much he loved her. She asked if she could touch his bandage. He let her. She kissed the side of his head that hadn’t been split with a Schofield’s hard grip.

  They tucked her in, and went to their own room.

  An hour later, just after Christina blew out the lamp, the door squeaked open, and Rachel Renee came up to Fallon’s side of the bed.

  “Papa . . . can I sleep with you tonight?” he heard her squeaky, frightened voice. “Is that all right, Mommy? I know I’m a big girl but . . .”

  Fallon moved over, lifted this bundle of preciousness, and placed his daughter in the middle. Christina rolled over and kissed Rachel Renee’s forehead.

  “I’m a big boy,” Fallon whispered to his daughter. He smiled. “But . . . yeah . . . it’s good to have a family. Good to be close together. Sweet dreams.”

  PART III

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Summer kept its hold on eastern Kansas, so close to the Missouri River, where heat and humidity hung like cockleburs on linen. Life returned to normal, though memories of the bloody escape attempt remained in the thoughts of guards and prisoners. Especially for the condemned killer Bowen Hardin. And Harry Fallon.

  The clerk, looking even grimmer than normal, tapped on Fallon’s doorjamb and cleared his throat.

  Fallon’s bandage was gone, the cut scabbed over, the headaches slightly less. He lifted his eyes from the tedious studying of reports and sat up straight in his office chair.

  “Yes?”

  “This arrived in the morning post, sir.” Preston lifted the paper held in his trembling right hand as he stepped out of the hallway and quickly covered the distance between the doorway and Fallon’s desk. He slid the paper, facedown, over the myriad reports to Fallon.

  “Death warrant?” Fallon knew what it was before he turned it over.

  “I’m afraid so,” Preston said.

  “Don’t be,” Fallon said. “Bowen Hardin has lived too long already.” He lifted his head and stared at the timid clerk. “And you know I don’t say that lightly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’ll likely have company soon,” Fallon said. One of the documents on his desk was the federal trial docket for the following month, when Indianola Anderson would be tried for the murder of Lieutenant James J. Wilder and guard Elliott Jefferson.

  Preston withdrew another paper from the pocket of his jacket. “Here are the instructions from Judge Mitchum.”

  Fallon took that telegraph and frowned. Mitchum. Not McDowell, who Fallon liked a
s a judge and as a man. Mitchum, who Fallon didn’t like, had ordered the immediate transfer of Bowen Hardin and Indianola Anderson to the holding cells in the basement of the federal courthouse. Aaron Holderman, Sean MacGregor, and a piece of trash named Jimmy Calloway were also being ordered to be moved to the court’s holding cells. Calloway and Holderman had been charged as accessories to the killings, though Fallon expected Holderman to make a plea and testify against the leaders of what the Leavenworth Post was calling “a bloody uprising.” But Fallon did not remember the tiny, conniving American Detective Agency president being anywhere near that deadly cell block.

  The judge had sent the telegraph from Topeka, the state capital. Fallon looked at the docket and saw that Bowen Hardin’s execution was set for the same day the trial of Anderson was to begin. It would be a busy day in Leavenworth.

  Fallon looked up at Preston, “Do you know if Mr. Barker is in town yet?” Abe Barker was the federal solicitor in charge of prosecuting the Anderson case.

  “I believe he arrived yesterday evening. He’s staying at the Prairie Hotel.

  Already standing, Fallon thanked the clerk for his attention to detail, then grabbed his Stetson—he had never found the bowler he lost while running from the opry hall, but he had not looked hard for it, either—and his jacket, as well as his revolver. He had decided that he was too old to break habits and didn’t want to be caught unheeled ever again.

  Fifteen minutes later, he stood in the lobby of the Prairie Hotel.

  The bespectacled clerk looked at the rings holding the keys to hotel’s thirty rooms, then snapped his fingers, and grinned as he turned back to Fallon. “Warden, sir, I just recalled. I saw Mr. Barker heading to our dining hall not fifteen minutes ago.”

  Thanking the clerk, Fallon crossed the lobby and pushed through the batwing doors into the darkened dining hall and watering hole. He saw Abe Barker where he expected to find him—and that wasn’t at a table.

  After bellying up to the bar, Fallon nodded at the bartender and ordered a coffee. Then he smiled up at the ruddy-faced, fat prosecutor and said, “One of these days, the state of Kansas will remember that it passed a prohibition law years ago.”