A Knife in the Heart. William W. Johnstone

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СКАЧАТЬ men like the weasel and his pards, a deputy U.S. marshal never threw the first punch, never initiated a fight. They were paid to keep the peace, maintain law and order. They didn’t start brawls, especially in respectable businesses in a thriving, law-abiding community like Leavenworth, Kansas.

      They did not know Harry Fallon. Not at all. They did not know what Fallon had been doing for much of his life. Being a federal lawman in the Indian Nations had taught Fallon a lot about staying alive—but being in Joliet, in Yuma, in Jefferson City, and in Huntsville had taught him much, much more.

      The gunfight outside the Stockgrowers’ in Cheyenne had revived those almost dormant instincts after all those years pushing papers and pens across his desk as a U.S. marshal. Fallon wasn’t quite as rusty as he might have been.

      The bone in the big man’s thick arm snapped loudly. In fact, for one brief instant, Fallon thought the thin man had found his revolver and had fired a shot. But the blond-bearded giant screamed loudly and reached out with his left hand. That’s when Fallon lowered the rod, tapping the floor with one end, then quickly jerked it up, catching the brute between the legs, right in that sweet spot.

      His mouth widened like his eyes, and he sucked in a silent breath as what little Fallon could see of his face began to whiten. Fallon let go of the bar, stepped in close, and threw four quick punches, driving the man into the first booth on the far wall. The man fell against the bench, slipped onto the floor, and began muttering nonsensical words, basically blubbering like a baby.

      “You dirty dog.” Buster Jenkins was standing now. And he remembered the gun in his waistband.

      The weasel had the gun out, but the hammer was not cocked, when Fallon slipped between overturned furniture and buried a left in Jenkins’s stomach. Jenkins’s mouth opened, the pistol dropped onto the broken dishes, and Fallon stomped on the man’s left foot with the heel of his own boot. His knee then came up, again connected with the groin, and at the same time Fallon pushed the weasel’s head down while his knee went up again. Jenkins’s forehead connected with the knee, and Fallon shoved him, unconscious, onto the floor.

      Now Fallon whirled around, glanced at the big lug underneath the booth, mumbling like some blithering idiot. Fallon moved through the door, turned to his left, and saw the thin man on his hands and knees, still spitting out blood, shaking his head, likely wondering how this day had turned out so bloody wrong. A quick glance across the streets detected no police officers in sight, so Fallon stepped off the boardwalk and came up to the thin man’s side. He jerked the still-holstered revolver from the holster, spun the gun around, and brought the walnut grips down on the thin man’s head. The man let out a moan and fell onto the bloody planks of the boardwalk.

      A whistle shrieked, but it seemed pretty far away, so Fallon returned inside the café, laid the revolver by the cash register, picked up the weasel’s gun, and set it by the thin man’s revolver.

      The giant kept blubbering on the floor.

      Fallon stared at the cook and the waitress with the gray hair. Massaging his knuckles, he spotted a booth on the other side of the café. His boots crunched glass and shards of crockery before he slipped into the wooden bench. Again, he looked at the small man with the dirty apron and the old waitress.

      “Coffee would be nice,” he told them. “I’m sure the peace officers will want some, as well.”

      Fallon was sipping coffee when the first constable arrived.

      “What’s going on here?” the mustached man asked the cook in a thick Irish brogue.

      The cook tilted his head toward Fallon.

      “My name’s Fallon,” he said. “Harry Fallon. I’m the new warden here. But these three men are for you. At least, for the time being.”

      * * *

      Christina was reading a storybook to Rachel Renee when Fallon came through the front door. He rubbed his knuckles, but they were just scraped.

      “Papa!” his daughter screamed with delight.

      The book closed, and Christina said, “Well?”

      “I don’t think we should go back to that restaurant anytime soon,” Fallon said, and knelt as Rachel Renee charged toward him, leaped into his arms, and he swept her up as he rose.

      “It wasn’t that good anyhow, Papa,” Rachel Renee said. “The waitress didn’t even bring me a lemon drop.”

      “Did you ask for one?” Fallon asked.

      “No. But I never asked for one at Kate’s place in Cheyenne, and I always got one. Can we go see the town now, Papa?” Rachel Renee pleaded. “You promised.”

      “I don’t see why not,” Fallon said. “It’s what we planned to do all day. Although”—he smiled at Christina—“we might stay clear of the street closest to the river.”

      “That’s fine with me, Papa,” Rachel Renee said. “I want to find a place with toys.”

      Fallon kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Well, Rachel Renee, we can look. But I don’t think you need any new toys right now. But you might see if you like anything because your birthday will be coming up in a few months. And you have plenty of toys right now.” His eyes found his wife. “And we might want to skip roast beef and steaks for a while for supper. Eat rather frugally. At least till I collect my first paycheck.”

      “They fined you?” Christina asked.

      “Just damages,” Fallon said. “I mean, I couldn’t argue. I threw the first punch.”

      “And the last one, too,” Christina said.

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      Since Harry Fallon had worked as a deputy United States marshal, he understood how slowly the federal government liked to work. Back in 1895, the U.S. Congress approved the construction of three federal penitentiaries, one in Atlanta, Georgia; one at McNeil Island in Washington State, although that prison had been around for decades now; and here at Leavenworth. Since state prisons were beginning to fill up, Congress and the president figured that the time had come to send enemies of the country—whether they were counterfeiters or smugglers or whatever—to serve time in a U.S. prison. They had been sent to state prisons, usually, to serve their time. Those who committed federal crimes in the Indian Territory usually got sent to the Detroit House of Corrections, although Fallon had been sentenced to his hard labor at Joliet, Illinois.

      Leavenworth, Kansas, of course, had long been holding prisoners. It got its start back in 1827, when Henry Leavenworth, colonel of the Third U.S. Infantry, decided a new military post needed to be established right here, on the banks of the Missouri River, more than twenty miles from the Kansas River, a prime location to protect travelers on the newly opened Santa Fe Trail. For decades, though, the fort had served as a supply depot to frontier posts from Kansas to the Rocky Mountains.

      Soldiers often weren’t the most law-abiding men on the earth, and a lot of men in uniform got into trouble with higher-ranking men in uniform. Guard houses, like post hospitals, were usually full up. And for more serious offenses, a military prison was needed. So back in 1875, the United States Military Prison, also established by Congress—back in 1874—began, starting out in an old supply building that had been fitted with cell blocks and iron bars. Three hundred inmates were incarcerated there a СКАЧАТЬ