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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 140: Brown 332
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 45
Rain continued down, and the Mighty Mississippi had risen to cover most of the swamp near their shack home. If it continued much longer it was going to be in the back yard. The rain was heavy enough that he could not see the far shore, which had of course also retracted. It was a reminder that Mother Nature was a mighty power. Curious, he wondered if in this world she was a Being. He asked the King about it, and got a reply not in words, but in attitude.
What business is that of yours?
Right. Mind your own beeswax then, Derek decided. He did not need to know all the King’s Plan, just what part he was supposed to do next.
The Rambler came and took them to the diner. While they were playing, they heard a scream and a thump from the bathroom. Derek put his instrument down, and rushed over there. He noted that a number of men followed him, including right behind him a familiar hard eyed Texas Ranger. Opening the door, he saw a rough-faced Black man who was unfamiliar. The man was lying on his back, holding his right arm which looked badly broken and heavily bruised.
Derek was suspicious of another game like the one with the man complaining of bad food, but then he smelled food oil all over the floor. He saw a ragged towel hanging from the sink and down to the floor, and matches in the sink basin.
“Haul him out,” he ordered, and readily the man was dragged out. The Ranger took a look inside, cursed, and came back out, his face grim.
“Felony arson. If we were in Texas, I’d have you up for attempted murder as well. I doubt the local authorities are going to be very happy with you. So why don’t you spill, and maybe get some kindness?” Derek marveled at the words. There were a dozen men nearby, and a couple of them had suggested ‘string him up’, and it was Black men, too, in favor of lynching, but the Ranger had been almost civil. Yet somehow he had induced the would-be arsonist to babble out a reply. It had been a mix of politeness, a friendly offer to help, and pure menace that did not cross any laws but made the blood run cold at the same time. Derek wondered if he could learn how to do that.
“I was hired to torch the place. No one would have been hurt, honest. I’d have lit it, ran for the door, and told everyone ‘fire in the bathroom’ before running.” Derek was not at all sure he believed the part about the warning, or that no one would be hurt with a crowded dining room full of customers trying to get out the single front door, but he kept his mouth shut for the moment.
“So you stole some oil from the kitchen, took out a prepared rag and some matches. Seems like you’ve done this before. Like you knew what you were doing. Had a plan,” the Ranger observed. The arsonist nodded.
“And you fell in the oil, slipped.”
The arsonist paused, and then shook his head.
“I swear this is the truth. I had it all prepared, and I reach for the matches to light the wick in the sink, and it will run down the wick to the floor, and I felt an iron hard hand on my forearm. I turned and looked and no one was there. So, I just shove against whatever, and suddenly my arm breaks, and I fall.”
“Huh.” the Ranger said. “That’s not something you hear much in Texas.”
Derek reached over, and with minimal strength pulled out the arsonist’s arm to expose it. The bruises were clear now. They were in the shape of a hand, but a hand that was twice as large as a large man’s hand.
“Well, don’t that beat all. Frederick Black, I followed you from Texas hoping to get your partners in the cattle rustling scheme you and your friends had cooked up, but it seems like New Orleans might have a stronger claim to you. I’m going to arrest you now, and ask some of these good men to fetch the police. We can sort out then who gets to throw the book at you.”
Crestfallen, the arsonist was led away to a side chair by the Texas Ranger who linked the criminal’s good arm to a table leg with a pair of handcuffs. Derek went back to playing and the kitchen staff turned to cleaning up the spilled oil.
Much rejoicing followed, and then songs, and the police arrived and talked and to Derek’s surprise left the arsonist with the Ranger. After Derek and his band finished, and the prayers started up, the Ranger came back to Derek.
“All of you, very nice playing. I wanted to drop a warning in your ear.” He saw Hannah, and beckoned her over with a kind of easy, casual authority. She arrived, and he spoke again softly to the gathered band. “New Orleans has a better claim to Mister Frederick Black, but the police here, well, they were afraid he might ‘escape’ or paperwork be lost. He has not said, but he’s hinted that he works for someone with connections. So I’m taking him back to Texas where his New Orleans connections won’t do him any good.”
Derek and the Ranger looked at each other with wary, worried eyes.
“Watch your back, folks. You have enemies, powerful and ruthless ones who might be willing to murder to get their way. And from what I saw today, you're good people, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to some good people.”
They introduced each other, and Ranger Frank Hill left with the arsonist into the still pouring rain. Derek decided this was a very good time to join in the prayers.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #516: Versers Stymied. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
