The Violent Peace Read Online Free Page A

dagger, pointing downwards. His arm swung and the flat end of the club's end thudded into the base of the old timer's stomach. The breath rushed out of the toothless mouth and the old timer jack-knifed his body, his hands streaking to clutch at the source of the new pain.
    “Hush up,” Logan instructed softly.
    Nobody witnessed the vicious assault, for attention was divided between the pathetically helpless form of the old man on the table, and the slim figure of Carstairs, who had stepped to the forefront of the watching group.
    “He may have a point,” the Englishman allowed, stroking his clean-shaven chin reflectively as he surveyed the old man. “So you may consider yourself on trial. The charge is conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. As a foreigner, I feel I am sufficiently unbiased to act as a fair judge. How do you plead, old son?”
    The man on the table was still c1utching at the noose, but he was unable to relieve the pressure on his windpipe. “You can't—”, he croaked.
    “He's guilty,” Binns said nonchalantly, picking at his teeth with a filthy fingernail.
    “Sure he's guilty,” Logan agreed, swinging the club before the pain-filled eyes of the old timer.
    Monahan, resting a hand on each of his holstered guns, looked around the ring of eager-faced watchers, his menacing stare daring any man to complain against the arbitrary verdict. “Guilty as all hell,” he muttered.
    “A judge can't argue against, that kind of unanimity,” Carstairs told the trembling old man, then stepped up closer to the table.
    The drunk had ceased snoring again, but his heavy breathing reached stentorian pitch against the blanket of silence which descended over the barroom. Behind the bar, Elmer continued to wipe the glass of the condemned man, his hand movements increasing in speed as the moments were ticked away by the clock on the wall.
    “Anything to say before I pass judgment?” Carstairs asked in a mock funereal tone.
    The old man in the cape suddenly dropped his hands to his sides, but not in dejection. The nightmare in which he had found himself was reaching a climax, and there would be no waking from it. He was going to die and nothing he could do or say would prevent his tormentors from completing the cruel act. Fear became a diamond-hard mass filling his stomach, but it withdrew the physical manifestations of the emotion. He stood stiffly to his full height and his features grew calm. His stance and his expression were composed and dignified.
    “May you all rot in hell,” he whispered.
    “May you welcome us there, old son,” Carstairs said. “Judgment of this court is…” He raised his right leg, then thrust it forward. The table tilted and toppled. Gasps ripped from the throats of the spectators in a single sound as if from one man. The old man's high-buttoned boots slid off the canting surface and there was a sharp crack as his neck was broken. His body swung gently in mid-air above the overturned table.
    Carstairs looked around the faces of the men, many of them betraying the shock of remorse in the knowledge that the senseless act was done and could not be undone. A few turned away from the gruesome sight of the hanging man. The Englishman reached behind him and pushed against the dangling legs of the dead man, setting the body swinging at a faster rate. A personable grin spread across the young man's handsome features as he completed the phrase he had started: “…a suspended sentence.”
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    ADAM Steele reined his bay gelding to a halt at the crest of a rise and split his mouth in a gentle smile as he surveyed the lights of the city spread before him. It had been a long ride from Richmond and he spent a few relaxed moments in quiet contemplation of the end of the journey. Then he sighed, and heeled the horse forward down the gentle incline towards a turnpike which led into Washington.
    He rode upright, but not tall in the Western saddle. He was