The Horse Van, Part 3 - A Circle of Blood [Steemit Original Crime Fiction]
To catch up on the action in my Steemit Original pulp crime series, The Horse Van, read Part 1 and Part 2. Read on for Part 3, A Circle of Blood, as events begin to spiral out of control...
The Horse Van, Part 3 - A Circle of Blood
The next morning, I waited alone on the road for the horse van to come by. I wanted Willie out of the way and so I had sent him to school, telling him that Dad was on the warpath, and that he would be better off out of it. I stood there a while, kicking my feet in the dust, and feeling the bile in my stomach rush about. I didn't know if the bile came from fear, or from hatred of Fulton Gully.
Nothing appeared on that road for a good long time. Despite my stomach, I was getting up an appetite when I finally heard the engine and saw dust rising up beyond the bend. When the van itself appeared, I ran straight for it, flapping my arms like a bird. "Mr Gully!", I shouted, "Stop! Please!"
And I didn't give him much choice about stopping, because the road was narrow, the van was a lumbering thing and I was headlong for it. I could see Fulton Gully's fat face, half-shocked and half-annoyed, gasping through the windshield. He pulled up short, and I ran on, planting my hands on the hood so that he couldn't drive off again.
He leant out the window. "What's this?"
"Mr Gully", I said, panting. "It's Willy, he's hurt. Really bad. I need your help".
I could see him hesitate.
"Where are your parents?", he said. The bile was hatred, but I swallowed it.
"Mama's in town, Mr Gully." I said nothing about Dad because, why would I, given Fulton Gully's dealings with us? "I need your van, to run him into the doctor."
And, while he was looking shocked at that, I took my hands off the hood, walked round to the cab and got in.
"Thank you, Mr Gully", I said. I was wringing my cap in hands as I said this, and had a look of gratitude on my face, but, still, his eyes were bulging at my impertinence.
"I've got a busy day", Fulton Gully said, angling his head towards Midnight Runner's compartment. But he must have seen that my eyes were damp because, even as he spoke, I could see that his attitude was changing. He was still affecting to be annoyed, but now he had the look of a man weighing up whether being a hero was worth more than the inconvenience. I think he was half in the cab with me, and half at the bar accepting his due already.
"Where would we put him?", Fulton Gully said. He had already restarted the van and moved off.
"In the compartment, with Midnight Runner", I said, my voice half broken. "There's space. I'll stay back there with him."
"Mmm", Fulton nodded.
"He won't make a mess", I said. "Only of the hay, and I'll clean it out."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of that, of course", Fulton Gully said, and wobbled his neck to reassure me and him both. A few seconds passed, of him thinking on other things. "Yes, we'll pick up your boy. No problem".
Well, I had him now, and no mistake. Fulton Gully had always seemed so large to me: riding past on his magnificent horse, or answering the door while I stood two steps down on the porch with the rent money for Chips in my hand. But, sitting there in the cab, he looked so much smaller, and I had the knife on my belt to level us further if I needed it.
The van bumped along the uneven road. I felt bad for Midnight Runner being shaken around back there.
"Turn here, Mr Gully", I said, because I didn't want him to miss the long path down to our farm.
"Alright", he said and he gave me a reassuring smile. "It will be alright, Joe".
When he spoke, I could smell the sourness of his breath, curdling with the soft drafts of hay coming from the back.
Fulton Gully hummed to himself as we went down the track, no doubt thinking on what a great prize it would be to save a farm boy's life. Since I was after that very same prize, I found it hard to keep up my hating, and I fell instead to worry.
I told him to pull up by the barn, which was a fair step from the house. I jumped out, and shouted "Willie! Mr Gully's here, he's going to drive you to the doctor!"
I was about to run inside the barn, but Fulton Gully was still sat in the van with the engine running.
"Mr Gully, I need you to help me carry him outside", I said, leaning into the cab. "He's real messed up, and if I drop him, or I can't support him, I'm afraid he'll die."
Fulton Gully recoiled at that, but he got out, took off his purple coat, folded it neatly, laid it down on the seat and walked round behind the van to join me. Only he never reappeared, and when I went round to the other side of the van, Fulton Gully was walking away from the barn, towards something that he'd seen. By the time I'd run to catch him up, Fulton Gully was standing over the rust brown patch where Dad had shot and butchered Chips. His mouth was open in horror.
"My God", he said, "is this where it happened? I don't think I can go in there. That poor boy."
I thought he might faint. It did look pretty bad, I admit, because there is a lot of blood in a horse, and only so much you can do to clean up the soil.
"If you went and got Willie", Fulton Gully said, absently, "I could let you drive into town yourself". I didn't know what to do, then, because I needed Fulton Gully inside the barn, and even this offer seemed to make him paler. He was still staring at the ground and patting at his pockets.
The next moment, Fulton Gully dropped to one knee and for a moment I thought he had fainted. But he was looking at something in the dirt, something that I'd missed while cleaning the day before, something that told him this wasn't Willie's blood at all. And when Fulton Gully stood up, he still looked pale, but now he looked frightened - and angry too.
"What happened here?", he said. "Where's my horse?"
"Nothing. It's Willie", I said, and I was stepping backwards because Fulton Gully was advancing on me.
Then Fulton Gully had one eye on the knife on my belt, and his face started to purple up. "Why were you waiting for me? How did you know I would come by?"
"I didn't, Mr Gully, I swear", I said. "You've got it wrong". But, as I said it, I was wondering whether I'd be able to get my knife out before his big body came crashing down on me.
"What game are you trying to play with me, boy?" Fulton Gully was shouting now. All of his paleness was gone and I thought he was going to come at me for sure. And then, all of sudden, he stopped, the fight left him and he was looking past my right shoulder.
There was a click behind me and, when I turned, Randall Wragge had just stepped out from behind the van. "No game here, Mr Gully', he said, and his voice was calm and arrogant. He knocked gently on the rear of the horse van with his stump. "Except maybe the sport of kings - and, much as I loved my mama, she didn't have no title, and I doubt your's did either."
Randall Wragge beckoned me over with his head. Fulton Gully stood gaping at the two of us.
"Mr Gully, I'd like to keep things civil", Randall Wragge said, "and I figure since I am pointing a gun at you, I get to decide what counts as civil. Don't cause me no trouble. Don't call me no names. I ain't decided whether swearing revenge on this boy is civil or not. It ain't something that's ever come up before. But I like choices, Mr Gully, so if you want me to make a choice on that, I will. That clear to you?"
"Yes, sir." Fulton Gully stuttered the words out, and he was back to looking pale.
Randall Wragge was still in his all-black get up, hat and all. He hadn't looked at me this whole time. I couldn't tell how he was feeling about having had to come out of the barn, and it was making me nervous.
"Lucky Joe", Randall Wragge said, "in about 30 seconds, a black man is going to come out of your barn and I don't want you to do nothing stupid."
I turned to look at him, because this was the first I'd heard of any other man, and I didn't understand what he was driving at.
"Keep your eyes on Mr Gully, Lucky Joe. Even a fat man can do you damage if he's desperate."
"I ain't afraid of a black man, Mr Wragge."
"I'm sure you ain't. But you live in a state so scared of a black boxer beating a white boxer, it passed a law to stop 'em trying. I'm sure you ain't afraid, boy, but Oklahoma don't like a fair fight, and I don't want you mistakenly drawing that knife."
I scuffed at the dirt with the heel of my boot, and kept on looking at Fulton Gully. When Randall Wragge spoke, it was like he'd torn up open a sack of corn, and it took me a while to collect the meaning of all those words.
"Lucky Joe", Randall Wragge said, and his voice had the same edge to it that he was turning on Fulton Gully.
I shrugged because, as I saw things, Randall Wragge had drawn his gun twice since we met, while I hadn't so much as raised my voice. We didn't have the chance to disagree on it further because, by then, we could both hear footsteps, and the black man was out from behind the horse van a few seconds after.
"Lucky Joe, this is my associate Caleb Shivers. Caleb Shivers: I wouldn't say that Lucky Joe here owns that barn, as such. But I would say he's the boy responsible for making it so hospitable".
I had thought Randall Wragge's warning was about protecting Caleb Shivers but, now that I had seen him, I realised that the warning was to protect me from myself. Like Randall Wragge, Caleb Shivers must have been in his forties. But where Randall Wragge was bulky, Caleb Shivers was slender and wiry. He had an angular face, with dark sunken cheeks. His tight coat was military-looking and he wore a dusty garrison cap, an old one. Everything about his movements was tight and controlled, like he was coiled to strike. I'd have preferred the odds of getting my knife into Fulton Gully than into Caleb Shivers, I knew that much.
"Thank you for letting us use your barn, son", Caleb Shivers said, deadpan. Randall Wragge shifted his weight in dissatisfaction. His voice sounded as if was from out East someplace. "If I sound less excited than Mr Wragge, here, it's just difficult for me to be truly happy when I'm sleeping in the mud and hay with an animal, even if the host who has put me there is a gracious one."
"You're welcome, Mr Shivers", I said, since this seemed the quickest way to move things along.
Fulton Gully had been gawping at the scene this whole time and I think he couldn't quite believe it was real. The truth is that I felt a little that way myself. My arms and legs were floating, almost, and the words felt fuzzy as they left my mouth - but still the seconds kept passing by, and it all kept on happening, tick after tick, tock after tock.
"Tie him up and bring him inside", Randall Wragge said. Caleb Shivers nodded and Fulton Gully emitted a quiet gurgle of horror.
"And the kid?" Caleb Shivers said, and my stomach lurched.
"No", Randall Wragge said, "I'd say that Lucky Joe did half a good job, and just got unlucky with this half."
"Not this kid", Caleb Shivers said, "that kid".
And now the bile in my stomach was back. Willie must have decided to play hooky from school and was now wandering back down the path. When he saw us he waved and, when he saw the horse van, he smiled and broke into a run. From the look on Willie's face, he thought he was running to feed an apple to Midnight Runner - but by my reckoning he was arrowed straight for the red-rust stain that Chips had left upon the earth.
Part 4 coming soon
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