The Violent Peace Read Online Free

inside his jacket. Fear leapt across the features of the old timer as he turned to meet the attack. But his reflexes were far too slow. A foot-long wooden club with a two-inch diameter swung towards his head. it stung the tips of the fingers of his upraised hands and then landed with a sickening crack against his forehead. The ancient skin split open and thin blood squeezed out and flowed towards the closed eyes. The old timer crumpled to the floor with a sigh, his bloodied head thudding on to the highly polished toecap of Carstairs' right .shoe.
    The Englishman pulled back his foot and lashed out with a kick. It caught the unconscious man in the back of the neck and flipped him over on to his stomach. Blood dripped and was soaked up by the sawdust on the floor. The old timer breathed shallowly.
    “Anyone else got any objections?” Logan asked, his eyes raking over the faces of the men as he hefted the club, as if testing its weight.
    The inquiry was greeted with silence, except for the snores of the sleeping drunk.
    “Good,” Logan said.
    Carstairs nodded in satisfaction and fixed the old man with an evil stare. “Make your peace,” he invited.
    For long moments, the old man's anguish struck him dumb. Then, finally, he gasped: “You're making a terrible mistake…”
    His voice trailed away as the strain became too much for his mind to bear. His legs buckled and his hands lost their strength, releasing the grip on the bartop. As he toppled backwards, Binns stepped out of the way and the unconscious form thudded heavily to the floor.
    “Got a rope, Elmer?” Monahan asked. Every man in the bar still in possession of his senses was caught in the grip of a high excitement as the bartender reached behind him and thudded a coil of rope on to the counter top.
    “Lock the doors,” Carstairs ordered and a man stood up from a table to comply.
    Monahan exhibited the strength in his wiry frame by stooping and hoisting the limp form of the old man with utter ease. The drunk under the table spluttered to a degree of awareness and surveyed the scene before him with drink-blurred eyes. His alcohol-sodden brain could not reconcile the tableau with the surroundings in which he had passed out and accepted the images as part of a terrifying dream.
    The old man in the cape was lifted on to a table and slapped into consciousness by Monahan as Binns formed one end of the rope into a noose. For a long time, the old man's brain was as befuddled as that of the drunk. He felt himself being forced to stand upright, then the constriction at his throat. He knew a man was holding him, but was not aware of another looping the free end of the rope over a ceiling beam and knotting it there. He saw a sea of faces in front and below him, but they were merely pale blobs against a blurred background and he was unable to discern their expressions.
    Then, as the drunk sank back into his stupor, the old man's mind and vision cleared. And memory returned, filling him with trembling terror.
    Monahan and Binns jumped to the floor. The men crowded in closer to the table on which the old man stood, their eyes bright with an almost sexual arousal of excitement. Terror rose into the old man's throat, swelling it against the fibrous harshness of the rope. His hands were free and he clawed at the noose, but there was no slack between the knot at the nape of his neck and the stout beam above him.
    “You can't hang a man without a trial!” a voice called weakly.
    The old man's distended eyes sought the source of the plea and focused upon his sole ally, sprawled behind the crowd in a pool of his own blood.
    Carstairs sighed and nodded curtly to the waiting Logan. The fat man approached the old timer, who had rolled on to his back and was starting to struggle into a sitting position. But when he saw Logan looming above him, he groaned and fell back, throwing up his hands to protect his bloodied face.
    Logan grinned and changed his grip on the club, holding it like a