The Survival of Margaret Thomas by Del Howison

Author:Del Howison [Howison, Del]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625674-93-7
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

“It’s coming from the direction of the medicine show!” Gina yelled and ran towards the commotion.

We started following her down the street when a rider burst out of the alley to our left whipping and lashing his large scrub, almost trampling Bantam in the process. His white long coat with flapping collar obscured his face and his hat was pulled down tight to his eyes. He was scooting like a burning bobcat with no thought of the people in his way. Slocum started barking. Bantam jerked to the side, throwing himself against the wheel of a buckboard, narrowly avoiding certain death. He was airin’ his lungs with swear words and the rider was gone from sight before Bantam could pick himself up.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“If that addle-headed barrel boarder ever comes back this way, I will be more than happy to knock a couple of holes in that face of his!”

“Yep, I guess he’s fine,” Gina said.

The screaming and excited talk from down near the bandwagon grew in intensity. As we approached, I could see that some of the dancing girls were huddled together crying. Some were being comforted by some of the menfolk. Many of the crowd had broken off and were up the alley, back towards the working girl shanties. With Gina leading the charge we made our way between people, shoving towards the front edge of the crowd to see what the commotion was all about. There was a space where the people stopped and whatever they were looking at was standing.

As I parted the sea of folks, I realized that nothing was standing, it was hanging. A woman probably in her twenties, although it was hard to tell from all the blood streaming down her, was suspended from the front door of a trug shack. The men were standing about pointing and spitting tobacco. The girl had been nailed to the door; her feet affixed about half a foot above the dirt, splayed spread-eagled with her belly ripped open. Her tranklements hung low to her knees pulling some of her inner organs out with them. Her breasts had been nearly sliced off but hung by the abundance of skin that was stretching out from her chest, slowly lowering their fatty mass toward the earth. She was a good-sized woman who had been attacked viciously. Slocum walked over and gave the scene a couple of sniffs. I whistled once and he joined me back where I stood.

“I’ve never seen anybody take that sort of a toweling outside of an Injun ambush,” Bantam said. “I guess that leaves more room in the vaulting house. That’s probably what those three over there are discussing.”

He indicated the women standing to the side talking low amongst themselves.

“They’re probably worried, like the rest of us, that they could be next,” said Anne. “This isn’t the first death we’ve seen. Some say its hired killing to drive the ladies away from the respectable town of Dallas.”

With that proclamation, she swore and rolled herself up another smoke.

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