The young man had just returned from the front of the train with news of the derailment when he found the door to the refrigerated car open. He peered inside to find his brother marshals leaning against the wall, smoking cigarettes from Layton’s pack, looking at the dead man in front of them.
“Hell’s no longer in the man, but the man’s in hell,” Layton said solemnly before taking a long drag on his cigarette.
“And I’m assuming we’re having a smoke to celebrate?” Haley asked as he walked over to Layton and tried to take a cigarette from the pack he held at his side. But the dismal man, who hadn’t combed his hair since his wife had died four months before, snatched the pack away from Haley’s curious fingers.
“We still have a problem. All we’ve done is replace one murderer with another.”
Haley scoffed. “What makes you think that he was murdered? I just saw people bloody and screaming up and down this train. Who’s to say he didn’t crack that nutshell of a head against that pole?”
“Look at his neck, kid,” Ansel said, gesturing towards the corpse. Hesitatingly, Haley stepped forward and looked at the killer’s neck.
“What do you see?” Ansel asked.
“Bruises.” There was a plumage of angry bruises wrapped like a chain around the neck.
“There is a gash on the back of his head, from where it hit the pole. But the pole couldn’t explain the neck.”
“What about the rope?” Haley asked. “Couldn’t that have choked the bastard?” There was still the coil of rope that joined the body to the pole, the rope stretching the whole way from the dead man’s waist up to his neck.
“The rope is loose at the neck. I made sure of that when I checked on him about two hours ago. Our job was to get him to Cheyenne, not to kill him.” Ansel paused. “You and Mr. Bowman were posted on the rear platform up until about an hour ago, right?”
Haley made a point of taking his gold pocket watch out and looking at the time. He had already checked the time a few minutes prior – he was just showing off his new watch now. “That’s right. It was getting too cold, out there in the elements.”
“And when you two walked through the car then, you didn’t see anything suspicious,” Ansel said, in a voice that wavered between a statement and a question.
“Nothing suspicious,” Haley said, not reading between the lines. Bowman did, however.
“Where are you going with this, Russell?” Bowman demanded.
Ansel cleared his throat. “Nowhere in particular.” He said this, having just realized the implications of what he was about to say. He was about to accuse two federal marshals of conspiring to murder a prisoner in their custody. He was about to accuse them, knowing that he did not have a shred of proof, beyond them being the last people to see McKenna alive. He was about to accuse them, when he was unsure if he wouldn’t have done the same himself.
“Let’s hunt down a suspect,” Ansel said quickly. The other marshals nodded eagerly.