The Long Ride Out | Page 6

was a mortgage note from the bank. The bottom edge
was damp with blood. "I'll be damned," Marlin said.
Suddenly Eva Kraamer was standing by Wallace's body. She put up her
hands and screamed. Tears started in her eyes. Then she dropped to her
knees and began to go through the dead man's pockets.
Marlin pulled her aside by one arm. "Here's your paper," he said,
holding the mortgage note by one edge. She stared at him for a second
or two, her jaw trembling, and then snatched it away.
"Your daddy got greedy, didn't he? Thought he could sell Britton land
that had been mortgaged, and by the time Britton found out he'd be
long gone, packed up in his brand-new steamer trunk and riding the
first train out."
It was a railroad age, Marlin thought. If you just moved fast enough,
you wouldn't have to answer for anything. Rockefeller and Gould and
Vanderbilt were proof of that. They were building a world that had no
place for him.

He shook off the thought and said, "Then Britton got wise. He called
Wallace in just to throw a scare into the old man, nothing worse than
that. Of course your father didn't know that, and so he sent for me.
"Then you got involved. You figured your daddy was about to wind up
dead. I don't think that bothered you too much, only what happens to
the money if Wallace kills him? So you had a meeting with Wallace,
and by the time it was over, you two had your own deal. Wallace brings
the mortgage paper to you instead of Britton, and you cut him in."
Eva seemed to get calmer and calmer as Marlin talked. It told him he
had the truth of it. "My only question is," he said, "what were you
planning to do with Wallace when you finished with him? You didn't
think your boyfriend Nash could handle him, did you? Or did you think
he'd just go away once he'd run all your errands for you?"
Finally Eva smiled. "Nash is a sweet boy, but he don't know much
about the real world. And neither do you, mister. I might sell my
daddy's share, but not mine. I loved that land. Daddy was about to lose
it all. Everything I did was just to keep the land that belonged to me.
"And I will keep it, too. You can't prove a thing against me."
Marlin realized he still had hold of her arm. He let it go and said, "Land.
You people are crazy. You're all crazy."
He stopped at the bar to put on his greatcoat and take one last shot of
whiskey. "You moving on?" the bartender asked.
"That's right," Marlin said. "Back to Dodge."
The man seemed satisfied. "That's a long ride," he said.
Marlin looked at the body on the floor. "Not as long as some," he said.
He tossed a coin on the bar and walked out into the falling snow.

(c) 1976, 1993 by Lewis Shiner. First published in Fiction Liberation

Front, July, 2007. Some rights reserved.

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