Soul of a Crow by Abbie Williams

Author:Abbie Williams [Williams, Abbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Published: 2016-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

The jailhouse was lit by two separate lanterns. Within, we were met by Billings, now hatless and with unkempt hair. I had a sudden, absurd picture of him continuously raking his fingers through it; the way it stood on end suggested such a thing. He had been smoking, and removed the cigar from his teeth to inquire, “What the devil?”

“Billings,” acknowledged Marshal Quade. In the yellow light I took stock of the marshal, who was perhaps ten years my senior, with a face baked brown by the sun but for white squint lines in the outer corners of his eyes. I found myself daring to hope that it was a scrap of reasonability I observed in his gaze as he regarded me just as frankly. Quade looked back to the sheriff and said, “You’ve received a wire about this man as of this afternoon, I’d wager. You been to the telegraph office since midday?”

“I’ve had my hands full with the hanging,” Billings said defensively, eyes narrowing. “This fellow’s wife was lost in our town just this afternoon. What’s this about? I swear I’ve not had a longer day since the goddamn Vicksburg Campaign.”

Quade said, “He’ll need a room for the night, at least.”

Billings heaved a sigh and unlocked the cell to the left, into which Quade led me. The iron-slatted door clanged closed with a sense of finality, and I felt once-removed from my own body, a strange sensation that had befallen me many a time after battle. But there was no time to lose focus. Still in irons, I remained standing and said as steadily as I could manage, “I believe I know who has taken my wife.”

Billings released a cloud of cigar smoke; Quade studied me with fists planted on hips. Neither seemed inclined to reply, so I continued, “He is from St. Louis. His name is Jack. I do not know a thing about him, other than he attempted to take Lorie on two separate occasions, the second of which he succeeded.” I beat down the subsequent wad of vicious anger and said as calmly as I could manage, “This Jack killed a man we were travelling with, Angus Warfield, near the Missouri—Iowa border, not a month past. He and two other men took Lorie then, and would have killed her. They were acting on orders of a woman named Ginny Hossiter—”

Quade shifted his weight from one hip to the other and interrupted, “You said ‘would’ have killed her? What prevented this?”

There was no use concocting a story—I would face what decision I had made. I straightened to my full height and said, “I rode day and night to get to her. I came to their camp to find Lorie being strangled…” I gritted my teeth and forced myself to finish explaining, “I killed all three. I believed that I had killed Jack that very night.”

“You’re admitting to killing two men and the attempted murder of a third, in Missouri?” Quade asked.

“I am. I will face whatever charges I must, you have my word.

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