The Outliers by Jack Clemons

Author:Jack Clemons [Clemons, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Secant Publishing

18

The waterfront, a two-block section on the town side of the creek, was a jumble of rusted junk, an abandoned shipyard with rotting boats and a dilapidated stable. I don’t know why the town never got around to cleaning it up. Rundown clapboard houses had been slave quarters before the war, and a broken stone wall was all that was left of a fort long gone before most people in town were born.

Sometimes Tommy Dallard stayed in that stable. Tommy’s daddy worked a farm just west of town. Daniel sometimes stayed out there with them when he didn’t want to ride to our place. Or couldn’t. Tommy didn’t take much to hard labor either. He was past forty and still living at home. When his liquor ran low, he’d steer at the piers for the hotel whores like I’d seen him doing the day the marshal came in. Then he’d get drunk again until he was broke.

I guess it was the marshal’s talk about Jimmy’s gang that got me thinking. By himself, Daniel didn’t make much of a gang. But throw in Tommy and a couple more idlers and you might have one. Tommy was the closest thing Daniel had to a friend.

Tommy was down there, moseying around and doing nothing. He was wearing workmen’s clothes—plain pants and a blue shirt. I picked my way down along the wall and traipsed though the mud past a broken axle missing a wagon to the old stable. I was half-afraid to go inside. I squatted down and pried away a broken slat. It was dark and smelled of wood rot. I had to shade my eyes to see in. The barn was empty and there were no tracks in the sodden hay that covered the floor.

I squatted there somewhere between relieved and discouraged. Because Jimmy and Daniel weren’t in there, I hoped the marshal was wrong about the robbery. But seeing Tommy dressed like he was lurking around down here was not a good sign for certain. I got up, brushed the mud off my pants and tried to think of some other place they might hide out. I was halfway back up to the street when I heard somebody shouting—two men going back and forth at each other. I heard a wagon coming over the bridge above me, and when someone cursed and then a gun went off, I took off toward it.

I came up the embankment to the bridge road and saw Tommy Dallard again. He stood on the side closest to me with his back pressed against the handrail. He’d tied a white kerchief over his nose and mouth, but it had slipped down a little. He had the shotgun he hunted with, and he was pointing it at the wagon. He looked nervous. His eyes were flickering around like he was expecting somebody else to show up. He was breathing hard too like he’d been running, and sweat circles under his arms turned his shirt dark.

Two policemen sat in the wagon.

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