Scarecrow Returns

DRAGON ISLAND GASWORKS 1255 HOURS

LIKE IRONBARK and Hartigan before him, Schofield’s body—still attached to the metal bed frame—was immediately and unceremoniously disposed of: it was tossed off the balcony.

The whole cruel contraption, bed frame and corpse, landed on the long industrial conveyor belt on the level below and commenced its journey toward the furnace fifty yards away. Before it reached the furnace, Schofield’s body would pass underneath the broad ramp that stretched out from the railway platform into the gasworks.

Because of this, Schofield’s corpse would be out of sight from the Army of Thieves men on the balcony for perhaps ten seconds.

Schofield’s immobile body passed under the ramp, disappearing from view.

“Fire! Fire!” the crowd chanted furiously, eager to see their enemy’s leader fall into the furnace.

Their eyes were glued to the conveyor belt on the other side of the ramp, waiting for Schofield’s body to reappear.

Marius Calderon also watched, keen to see Schofield destroyed forever.

It was he who frowned first when Schofield’s body didn’t reappear as it should have.

The conveyor belt kept rolling by, but in the spot where Schofield’s body and the bed frame should have been, it was bare, empty.

Calderon blinked, confused. Had something happened to Schofield’s body under the ramp? He sent two men down to check on it—only to hear a brief spray of gunfire from down there shortly after. When the two men didn’t return, Calderon started toward some steel stairs leading down to the lower level—

At which moment Schofield reappeared.

Only he wasn’t cuffed to the bed frame . . .

. . . and he wasn’t dead anymore either.