Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

A Way With Horses by Therese Greenwood

Therese Greenwood grew up on Wolfe Island, Ontario, the largest of the Thousand Islands, where her family has lived since 1812. The region forms the backdrop for her historical crime fiction, including “Fair Lady,” a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada’s 1999 Arthur Ellis Award for best short story. She has a masters degree in journalism and has worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, and broadcaster.

Sheldon Blacklock had been sitting on top of the hay wagon for a good half-hour. It gave him the best view across the St. Lawrence River to the American town on the opposite shore and he saw Kit the instant she strolled across the main street and onto the big dock at Telegraph Point. Even with the quarter-mile of busy shipping channel between them, boats rushing across the border with lumber and grain and people, he was sure it was Kit. There wasn’t another woman for a hundred miles who wore a red dress on a Tuesday afternoon. Kit didn’t save colors for Saturday nights, she adorned her big curves with reds and purples and yellows like a crazy painting Sheldon had seen in a lawyer’s office in town. She would be extra dolled up today because of their plan, the rest of her beads and frippery packed for Syracuse and points south.

The furthest south Sheldon had ever been was the town he was looking at, Cape Vincent, New York, with its frame houses and hay dealers and grocers who could tell you the day the town got electric lights. His earliest memory was of standing here on Horne’s Point, the southernmost tip of the big Canadian island around which Lake Ontario spilled into the St. Lawrence River. Even then he dreamed of leaving the island for New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Miami, cities he read about in dime novels, where Prohibition made life even faster and things went on day and night. Where he was heading now that Kit had waved the go-ahead signal with one brash move, not repeated because she was sure he was looking. The sun glinted on her silver compact as she turned away to powder her nose.

“Put your eyes back in your head,” said Maddy. He had been looking at Kit so hard he scarcely heard his sister-in-law and his brother Everett pull up the buggy at the end of the island’s longest road.

“Just admiring the view,” said Sheldon, sliding from the top of the wagon, careful not to dislodge the well-packed bales. He was careful, too, of the loaded pistol in his jacket pocket, the one the man from Ogdensburg had given him the day they shot forty-two mallards.

“I know what you’re admiring,” said Maddy, “and I don’t know what you see in it.” She thought Kit was Jezebel, Salome, and Gloria Swanson rolled into one. All the island, even Everett, thought the same, but she was the only one who would say it. To think he had been half in love with Maddy, a slip of a thing with snapping blue eyes and a sharp tongue. He and Everett had taken turns dancing with her to Katie Greenwood’s victrola and partnering her at the euchre games at the church hall. Then Sheldon started guiding the Americans who came north looking for small-mouth bass and pike in the summer and Canada geese and wood duck in the fall. The hunters woke with a shot of whiskey and spent the day polishing off as much drink as wildlife and talking about the three things that mattered: guns, women, and whiskey. The Canadian sidewalks rolled up early and at night Sheldon ferried the Americans back to the Cape for poker and corn liquor, and he met Kit at The Anchor. She was nothing like Maddy. She had brass and laughed like a man while she matched him shot for shot of Jack Daniels, then used quick, wide slashes to replace her bright red Luxor lip pomade. Sheldon smuggled her bottles of Corby’s rye and Kit would laugh her man laugh and say she went for the strong Canadian stuff. Everybody knew she didn’t mean booze.

“When are you going to grow up, Sheldon?” Maddy scolded, the palm of her hand cupped over the swell of her belly where her first baby was growing. It was fine for his brother to settle down at twenty years of age, fenced in with a churchgoing wife and baby and thirty acres of passable pasture. Everett didn’t have the mind’s eye for anything bigger than an island eleven miles long. But Sheldon wouldn’t say that out loud, not in front of his brother.

“Shel, you should’ve waited for me to load the wagon,” said Everett, handing Maddy the lines and jumping off the bench seat, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. To do business in the Cape he wore his Sunday suit, the one Maddy handmade for him, even the tie, and his thick black hair was slicked down, making him look like a kid off to Sunday school.

“I needed to get moving,” said Sheldon. He’d loaded the big wagon before the crack of dawn and maybe he’d hitched the team too early, for the horses had picked up on his nerves and were fidgeting in the traces.

“We ought to make two trips, take the team and then the wagon,” said Everett, giving the horses a once-over, running his hands along the harness, careful not to get horse snot on his clothes. “Tony’s a little frisky.”

“That colt is as green as a grasshopper,” snapped Maddy. Tony was only broke to harness on the island, where there were no stoplights or trains and only a dozen cars, all of which pulled over if they saw Blacklock’s green colt. But the big problem was the middle of the river and Maddy knew it. “If Tony gets spooked on the barge, he’ll take the wagon, the old mare, and everything else straight to the bottom.” Kit would have said straight to hell.

“Now, Maddy, you know Ev can handle any horse,” said Sheldon, surprised to hear pride in his voice. “He’s like those cowboys in the pictures at the Bijou, who get horses to drag them out of quicksand. Anyways, we don’t have time for two trips. The train will be at the station in half an hour and we got to load up before it pulls out.”

“We best get going,” said Everett, cutting off Maddy’s next remark by reaching both hands for the wax-paper-wrapped sandwich she was holding. As he took it, he held her hand a little longer than necessary and gave it a squeeze. Sheldon had never seen them touch, not since they kissed at the altar, and he felt ashamed of noticing.

“I made enough for you, too, Sheldon,” Maddy said, still looking at his brother. “Everett would share his with you anyway.” Then she flicked the lines over the pony’s back and turned back down the road. “Watch yourselves,” she called out over her shoulder.

“A lot of fuss over a ten-minute barge ride,” Sheldon grumbled.

“What can go wrong?” Everett asked as he leapt onto the wagon’s bench seat, the hay towering over him. Of course, he didn’t know the hay was piled two bales thick around ten thousand dollars’ worth of Corby’s whiskey. He didn’t know, either, that smuggling the whiskey to the States was where he came in. Everett really was like those movie cowboys. He never took a drop of liquor, never missed church on Sunday, had never uttered a swearword in his life. Even now, with Pa dead almost six months and no one to live up to anymore, Everett was a rootin’-tootin’ good guy. And he was never, ever searched by the excise men on the other side of the river.

Everett drove the team down the cement incline of the boat ramp with a touch on the lines, calling something Sheldon couldn’t hear. The barge was smallish, just a half-foot bigger around than the wagon and team, and Tony twitched in the tight space until Everett gave the lines another touch and spoke again.

Sheldon climbed aboard and started the motor, the one from the old Chevy truck engine, and it put-putted away as he eased them out into the channel. The wind was up and there was a bit of chop — the water always ran faster on this side of the island — but things went smooth enough for the first hundred yards, until the American patrol boat came up out of nowhere.

They called it a six-bitter, for the half-dozen machine guns mounted along its 75-foot sides. They didn’t even count the one-pound, rapid-fire gun that swivelled to fire in any direction. Sheldon counted it, though; he counted the patrol boat a floating nightmare. Grey as fog and built for the ocean, it had come up the river hunting bootleggers from Detroit and Chicago, the big-time gangsters stealing up from the Great Lakes. Sheldon supposed the gun power must be working, because lately he hadn’t seen any out-of-town thugs in the speakeasies on the wrong side of the Cape’s railway tracks.

But would they turn that gun power on him? The barge was still on the Canadian side of the river, and if Sheldon turned back now the patrol boat couldn’t follow, not legally. He looked back at Everett, who was keeping an eye on the wake the American boat churned up. Then Sheldon looked ahead to Kit, still standing on the point, and she waved with both arms, urging him to her. If he turned back, the G-men would know something was up and he wouldn’t get another chance at a stake that would take Kit out of the town too small to hold her.

As the barge sliced across the invisible border, the patrol boat changed course towards them and someone on the bridge gave Sheldon the sign to cut his engine. He threw the switch and the barge pitched in the boat’s wake. Everett sang out in his soothing voice, but Tony snorted and jerked, lifting one big hoof after another, rocking the wagon back and forth so that one of the top bales tumbled off and into the water. The splash spooked Tony and it spooked Sheldon, too, because that left only one bale between the whiskey and the patrol boat. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and felt the pistol grip, cold as a stone.

Everett slipped off the wagon seat and made his way to the front of the barge, graceful as a girl as he sidestepped the stamping hooves. Everett was a small man, although Sheldon seldom thought of him that way. He didn’t think of himself as small, and he and Everett were much of a size, thin and wiry with almost dainty features. Everett looked even smaller as he took off his jacket, his shirt white as snow, the billowy sleeves held up by garters on his forearms. He wrapped the coat around Tony’s eyes. Maddy would give him hell.

“Everett Blacklock, as I live and breathe,” said a voice from the patrol boat. Sheldon shielded his eyes with his palm and looked up into the sun, recognizing one of the Cape Vincent excise men.

“How’ve you been keeping?” said Everett in his calm, smooth voice, one hand stroking the colt’s neck.

Sheldon silently cursed his brother’s obliging nature and tightened his hold on the gun. His palms were sweaty, the pistol grip had gone damp, and he wondered if he had the nerve to shoot his way out.

“Fair to middling,” said the excise man. “Yourself?”

“Never better,” said Everett. The horse jerked his head up hard and would have smashed Everett in the chin if he hadn’t stepped aside in time.

Sheldon wondered how far he would make it if he jumped into the lake and swam for Canadian water. Maybe they wouldn’t go too hard on Everett. The worst they would give him was three years, if he got a wet judge.

“Everett Blacklock is the most honest man in two counties.” The excise man turned to the ship’s captain, who took his hand from the sidearm strapped to his hip and looked a tad disappointed. “We’d best let him get on about his business.”

“Be seeing you,” said Everett politely, waving with one hand, still stroking the horse’s neck with the other.

The patrol boat pulled away slowly, taking care not to throw up much backwash. Everett kept Tony blindfolded and the horse stayed more or less calm as Sheldon started the motor. They didn’t have far to go, and Sheldon’s heart almost stopped racing by the time they docked at the wharf where Kit stood waiting, hands on her hips.

“My sweet Lord, Shellie,” she called as he cut the engine and aimed the barge plumb at the boat ramp. No one else called him Shellie, but it didn’t sound small from her. “When those G-men pulled up next to you I just about had kittens.”

“Friends of Everett,” he said, tossing her the tie rope.

“Everett has a friendly side?” sassed Kit, wrapping the rope around the cleat and giving him a bold view down the front of her dress. He stepped off the barge and she jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him and kissing him till her lipstick was all over his cheek. Now Everett would see how a woman showed a man she loved him. But when a breathless Sheldon turned around, Everett was going about his business, leading the team off the barge and through the customs check, the excise men waving him past.

“There goes Mr. Friendly,” Kit said, her bosom still heaving.

Everett didn’t speak a word to Kit when Sheldon handed her into the wagon and climbed up after her. Kit stuck close as a whisper to Sheldon, touching him, sighing in his ear, rubbing against him, while a silent Everett drove up the empty street to the Rome-Watertown line. Sheldon was preoccupied, partly with Kit’s carrying on and partly wondering what his brother would do when he saw the real goods. Maybe Everett would keep looking away, the way he did when Kit put her hand up high on Sheldon’s thigh. But he never found out what Everett would have done because they no sooner pulled up the wagon than the man with the Tommy gun stepped out between the horses and the train tracks.

“Hand ’er over, hayseed,” said the Tommy gun.

Sheldon had seen him at the Anchor once or twice, a big operator from Detroit with a silk suit and a loud city tie. Sheldon slid his hand down behind Kit’s back and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He couldn’t make a move, though, not with Kit in the line of fire.

“I expect he’s after that whiskey you hid inside the bales,” said Everett.

Sheldon didn’t register it then, that Everett knew all along; he was still wondering how the gangster had cottoned on to it.

“You’d better hand it over, Shellie,” said Kit. “He means business.”

Everett left the lines on the seat and carefully slid to the ground, taking a cautious step back from the wagon. Sheldon turned to Kit, thinking to get her off the wagon fast and out of harm’s way before he made his stand.

“Sorry, Shellie.” She took out her compact and looked at herself in the mirror, dabbing lip pomade against her full bottom lip with her little finger. “I’m staying for the ride.”

“You stupid bumpkin,” said the Tommy gun. “What’s a woman like that going to do with a yokel like you?”

“Kit?” Sheldon didn’t like the question in his voice, but he couldn’t help it, it gasped out of the hole opening up in his gut.

Kit laughed her man laugh, the one he thought so fine. She smacked her lips, looked in the compact mirror, and said, “You screwed your own brother, Shellie, now which one of us is worse?”

She was right. That’s what Sheldon thought when he pulled out the gun and pointed it between her red lips. She gave him a surprised smile, her eyebrows raised.

“I wouldn’t,” said Tommy-gun, “unless you want me to blow your brother’s head off.”

In the dime novels they called it a Mexican standoff, but it didn’t feel like they described it. Sheldon’s gaze wasn’t steely, his hands shook like a butter churn, and for a nasty moment he thought he would wet himself. It felt like his life went by in a lazy swish of Tony’s tail, guns pointed at the only two people he had loved, and then the train whistle sounded.

“Train’s coming,” said Everett in the soft voice he used with horses.

Sheldon felt his grip on the gun loosen and he turned from Kit to toss it to the ground. Then he slid off the wagon, but he didn’t step back like his brother. Instead, he looked up at Kit one last time as she snapped her compact shut, tossed it in her bag, and shimmied over to let Tommy-gun hop up next to her.

“Nothing personal, Shellie,” said Kit, putting her hand high on the inside of Tommy-gun’s thigh.

“The train,” began Everett, but Sheldon drew back his hand and slapped Tony hard on the rump, sending the team off at a good clip across the tracks. Tommy-gun reached forward to collect the trailing lines and Everett took a few steps forward, calling something after them, his voice lost in the sound of the train.

They used to call trains iron horses, that went through Sheldon’s mind as it happened. He could never picture the crash, exactly how it looked as Tony bolted and overturned the wagon on the tracks. He only remembered the sound, the crunching, grinding mess of steel hitting bone and wood and whiskey. It was so loud he never heard Kit scream. Maybe she never had time. But he could hear a horse screaming, people yelling, the steam engine hissing, and the bells of the fire engine as it raced up the street even though there was no fire.

A single bottle of whiskey rolled to a stop at Sheldon’s feet, somehow unbroken, a little miracle. He uncorked it and tipped the neck high over his head so the liquor burned straight down his throat. When he lowered the bottle Everett was picking up the pistol and checking the load in the chamber, flicking it shut with a sideways flick, like a cowboy. Sheldon took another swig of whiskey and Everett reached out a hand that held the soft linen handkerchief Maddy had sewn.

“You got lipstick on your face,” Everett said.

Sheldon took another slug of the Corby’s and Everett put the hanky back in his pocket and turned to the wreck. Sheldon had never seen Everett with a pistol, but he seemed to know the gun, holding it loosely at his side as he knelt beside Tony, dodging the sharp, flashing hooves and stroking the straining neck for a last second. The single shot went straight into the horse’s brain and there was a little less noise.

The horse’s blood marked the front of Everett’s coat in a stain so deep Maddy would never get it out. He dabbed at it with his handkerchief as he headed to the dock, holding the gun like a hammer and passing Sheldon with no more of a look than he would give a fence post. When Everett reached Telegraph Point he pulled back his arm and, in the only angry gesture Sheldon had seen his brother make, hurled the pistol into deep water.

Sheldon drained the last of the whiskey, the marks of the woman’s lips still on his face, as he watched his brother cross the river home.