Ice Coach by James Fitzsimmons

Ice Coach by James Fitzsimmons

People gathered at the pound of frozen hooves. Orchard owners anticipated low hanging fruit. Farmers imagined undulating fields. Children awaited ice chips.

Inside the Silversnake jail, Constable Hank Jeffords closed his leather-bound Emerson and lit a pipe. He thought of Evangeline, buried in the graveyard. He thought of Liu, Evangeline’s favorite pupil, buried next to her. He read Emerson’s adage: “Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.” What the hell does that mean? he mused.

He looked up at sixteen-year-old Miguel, trembling in a cell, knees tucked to chin. Miguel was squeezing the bandage on his arm where blood had been drawn to summon the ice coach.

Mayor Pinnock, wearing a cream-colored vested suit, shoe spats, red carnation in lapel, burst into the jail. He was carrying a parasol, which he collapsed and used as a pointer. “Seventy-five degrees out there! Love wintertime in Silversnake!”

Hank looked away and blew a smoke ring.

“Stage’s on its way,” Pinnock added.

“I’m innocent!” Miguel said, grabbing the cell bars.

Pinnock turned to Miguel. “Six-man jury says not. A young tough. How many times did the constable’s good wife have to throw you out of school for fighting? How often did the constable here have to lock you up for running around with gangs, breaking into the general store? I’m thinking the constable will enjoy throwing you in the ice coach. How many killers have you sent to hell, Jeffords? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

Hank chewed the pipe stem, temper flaring.

“Given this kid murdered an innocent girl,” Pinnock continued, “seems you’d enjoy—”

“Enough!” Hank snapped. A week ago, Liu was found beaten to death, the fifteen-year-old whom Evangeline had become fond of, almost as a goddaughter. Liu had been of great help when Evangeline had become pregnant, assisting in class as the woman taught well into term.

“Just saying,” Pinnock continued, “our town’s youth shouldn’t run derelict at night. Gave this devil’s minion an opportunity to—”

“Something hit me!” Miguel pleaded. “I don’t remember what happened. No recuerdo.”

Pinnock laughed and headed for the door, pausing to peruse the titles in a bookcase. “Shakespeare, Milton, Dante’s Inferno. A new Twain. You actually read this stuff, Jeffords?” He slid a tintype in a metal frame of Evangeline out from between two books. “When you gonna put this picture of the misses out?”

“Put it back,” Hank said.

Pinnock grinned, gently sliding the tintype back with the tip of his parasol, and left the jail.

Hank’s mind flew back a month. After years of trying, he and Evangeline were about to welcome their Thanksgiving baby when the woman started bleeding. With the town doctor away, the couple and Liu had set out for a hospital, Evangeline entering labor en route. With Liu wringing out towels, Hank had tried frantically to deliver the baby, losing both mother and child.

Back in Silversnake, Hank tried drowning his pain in books. His wife had amassed an impressive library, which he’d moved into the jail. He read something from the collection every day but couldn’t bear to look at Evangeline’s picture. To comfort him, Liu would bring spring rolls and egg flower soup. A near orphan who lived with an aunt, Liu had become like a goddaughter to Hank.

Much to Hank’s chagrin, Liu had also formed a romantic bond with Miguel. Hank had argued with Liu that Miguel was bad, Liu insisting otherwise. After Liu turned up dead, Hank had gone into a rage, blaming himself for not watching her closely.

“Miguel! Miguel!” a crowd outside the jail was now chanting. Not looking Miguel in the eye, Hank cuffed the boy and marched him out to the boardwalk, citizens parting.

“I’m innocent!” Miguel screamed, black hair disheveled, black eyes filled with tears. “Soy inocente!”

Citizens laughed and chanted, “Soy inocente!”

The air chilled as a stage rambled down Main Street, hooves kicking up dirt clods. Kids leaped into the street, trying to catch ice chips flying off the back of the coach.

The team of four, manes and tails sparkling like ropes of blown glass, coats glistening with snowflakes, stopped in front of the jail. The coach pulsed from sharp to blurry as a mist swirled around it. In the driver’s box, a pale man, expression stoic, dressed in black coat and tails, nodded to Hank. Hank opened the coach door, pushed the boy in, and slammed the door, shaking his hand before his skin could stick to the knob.

With Miguel screaming, the stage roared off toward an abandoned silver mine outside of town. Hank had once followed the rig and watched in amazement as it would magically pass through boards nailed to the entrance. Now, he shivered at the thought of Miguel making that trip and, with the passage of time, found himself questioning the teen’s guilt. Liu had told Hank she wanted to marry Miguel.

After the stage left, the air warmed up and the crowd dispersed. Hank took a walk down Main Street through the town he once loved. He passed windows and storefronts decorated with garlands and nodded politely to holiday shoppers. He came upon a series of booths bearing baskets of plums, pears, peaches, oranges, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. A man stacking an apple pyramid called out to him: “One of my best crops yet, Constable! Can’t pick ‘em fast enough! Heard stalks over in the corn field are shootin’ up like redwoods!”

The man threw Hank a Red Delicious, which Hank caught and bit in one motion. The fruit snapped and ran with juice.

The man laughed. “Try to find a snap like that anywhere else this time of year!”

Hank nodded and munched the apple as he entered the Silversnake saloon. Mayor Pinnock was holding court at a poker table. A piano player was banging out “Joy to the World.”

“Constable!” Pinnock called. “Set a spell. Bartender, eggnog!”

Hank sat across from Pinnock and Pinnock’s handyman, Rudolph Clegg, seven feet tall and half as wide.

“Sorry about your little Liu,” Pinnock said. “You should be glad that Mexican kid’s on his way to habañero heaven.”

The poker players laughed.

The bartender brought the eggnog, and Hank downed it, glancing at Clegg.

Pinnock smirked. “We had an eyewitness, didn’t we, Clegg?”

Clegg lowered his cards. “Well, that’s so, Mr. Pinnock. I saw that Mexican kid humpin’ the girl somethin’ fierce down by the old mill. That’s where kids go at night to, well, you know. I pulled the boy off and socked him one. The girl was a mess.”

Hank’s hairs stood on end as he recalled Clegg’s testimony at trial. Hank had had plenty of run-ins with Clegg, from bar fights to cheating at cards to harassing women, but it was too late now to suggest that Clegg was an unreliable witness.

Pinnock added, “No one believes those two were just kissing. That boy was no bueno.”

After a moment, another player said, “I sell pots and pans throughout this territory. Never seen anything like that stage!”

Pinnock pointed to Hank. “You tell the story, Constable. You never liked the deal. Tell us all about it.”

Hank gnawed a last bit of apple and rolled the core across the table at Pinnock. “Five years ago, the mine ran out of ore. The owner, Dexter Trench, forced his workers to dig until the mine collapsed, Trench with them. The town almost folded, until the night Trench’s ghost appeared at a city council meeting. While the town would supply murderous souls—alive—the citizens would have sun, crops, and clean well water. For five years we’ve had bounty. And every time we have some bastard to execute, that stage rolls in like a Flying Dutchman. That’s Trench himself up in the box, driving the rig.”

“A ghost?” the salesman pressed. “How does it know when to come?”

“We drain a pint of blood from the condemned,” Hank said, “and paint an ‘X’ on the boards blocking off the mine.”

“You painted the ‘X’ this time yourself, Jeffords,” Pinnock said.

Hank’s hairs stood again, remembering his rage at Miguel.

The salesman shook his head. “I’ve heard of ghosts roamin’ mining towns, but a ghost coach . . .”

Pinnock fingered his vest pocket, pulling out a gold watch on a braided chain. “Good day, gentlemen. Business calls. Have to arrange another shipment of denim pants for the general store.”

As Pinnock left, Hank looked at Clegg, who glared back with crater eyes and a crooked grin that split his rocky head like a fissure.

Hank went from poker table to bar and bought himself a bottle of whiskey. Letting the liquor marinate his tongue, he issued a long sigh and imagined the town’s early days. Silversnake, named for a rattler that bit a prospector who discovered the lode, was a boomtown when it hired Jeffords ten years ago. Jeffords locked up drunks, broke up fights, protected the assayer’s office, and fell deeply in love with the young schoolmarm, Evangeline. Since the cave-in, the town had gone from mining ore to profiting from murder, and he’d become a part of it. He remembered Evangeline’s voice, high-pitched, complaining about this feeding of souls to the underworld. Were the deaths of his wife, child, and Liu prices he was being forced to pay? And had he and the town now condemned an innocent soul?

Hank smelled soot as a blacksmith took a spot next to him at the bar.

“Heard you were here, Constable,” the blacksmith said, nursing a bandaged hand. “I saw Trench’s ghost in the bay window of Pinnock’s mansion out the back of my smithy.”

Hank squinted. “Huh?”

“It was a little over a week ago, just before that girl was killed. Afraid to tell anyone. Saw the ghost again this mornin’. Don’t want a run-in with Pinnock or Clegg—or anythin’ else.”

“Show me.”

The men exited the saloon and walked to the smithy at the end of Main Street. Out the back of the shop, resting on five secluded acres, sat Pinnock’s two-story Victorian with carved pillars, pitched roof, turrets, and a grand piano in a bay window. Hank knew Pinnock pulled a good salary as mayor and clothes merchant, but wondered how he could afford a mansion.

Hank saw Pinnock standing beside the piano. A hazy, flickering image of a man in black coat and tails materialized beside Pinnock. Pinnock and the man started conversing.

The blacksmith pointed. “See! There! Dexter Trench! Smashed my hand when I saw that!”

After a moment, the flickering image disappeared. Hank rubbed his eyes. “Going to pay a visit on Mayor Pinnock.”

“Goin’ back to the saloon,” the blacksmith said.

Hank squinted in the sun as he exited the smithy and followed a brick path to Pinnock’s front door and swung the brass knocker. When no one answered, he followed the porch around back and found Pinnock wearing a set of bibs and squatting on the bank of a little creek that wormed through the property. As Hank approached Pinnock, the mayor pulled a pan from the creek and turned it upside down over a pile of gold nuggets on the bank.

“Lord!” Hank said.

Hank heard heavy footsteps behind him, turned, and saw Clegg come at him with a shovel.

& & &

Evangeline rolled her eyes up into her head, her skin turning pale. Blood from her womb had soaked the wooden planks of the buckboard. Moving in and out of consciousness, she nodded toward Liu, who was scrambling back and forth from a stream, wringing out towels. “Hank, take care of Liu.”

Hank bolted from sleep, finding himself on a cot in the jail. He winced at the bruise on his head and squinted at Clegg towering over him. He took a deep breath and maintained composure. “What time is it?”

Clegg flashed his craggy grin. “Eight a.m. the next day. Hit your head when you slipped out there on Main Street. Should watch your drinkin’.”

Pinnock entered the jail and sat in front of Hank.

“You look better in bibs,” Hank said.

“You look like shit, Constable.”

“Giving out gold nuggets this year for Christmas?”

“Gold?”

“How much gold can that tiny creek have?”

“You best forget you saw gold.”

Hank scanned the room for a weapon. Eyes blurry, his gaze settled on a claw hammer sticking out of a toolkit across the room, then noticed Clegg follow his stare and move to the toolkit.

“You and Dexter Trench were partners in the mine,” Hank said.

“So?”

“So, you made a side pact with Trench’s ghost. You had your brute kill Liu and frame the boy. You sold your soul to the devil. How much gold is a soul worth?”

“Enough for a backyard gazebo and a chandelier from Austria arriving at the end of the month.”

Hank stared coldly into Pinnock’s eyes.

Pinnock smiled. “I know everything that goes on in Silversnake, Jeffords. Every little secret, every romance. It was easy to frame our love birds. You know what’s really a shame? Liu’s family died in the mine. I could’ve instigated a sweet little feud between her family and Miguel’s. You know, Chinese versus Mexican? Could’ve delivered a few more souls to Trench.”

Hank’s pulse raced. His feet quivered, wanting to spring at Pinnock.

Pinnock laughed. “Well, no matter. Clegg is going to make sure you didn’t see any gold. Maybe you bashed your head a little too hard, huh? Maybe you got up too fast.” Pinnock nodded to Clegg.

As Clegg picked up the hammer from the toolkit, Hank leaped at Clegg and punched at the back of Clegg’s knees, causing the big man to fall backward. At the same time, a commotion was developing outside the jail, fists banging on door.

A voice yelled, “Goddamn you, Pinnock! Open up! The constable can’t protect you from us!”

The door lock broke at a gunshot, and men barged in. One man grabbed Pinnock by the lapels, squishing the carnation. “We convicted that Mexican kid! You said he was guilty!”

Pinnock squinted in confusion. “So?”

“So, the orchards have shriveled up. Corn and wheat are dying off. The well’s gone dry. Town’s in a panic. Fix this, Pinnock!”

Pinnock pushed the man away and straightened his coat. “Nothing to fix. What’s done is done.”

Another man rushed into the jail. “Snow! Snow!”

All turned to the window. Snow was suddenly covering Main Street, piling up along boardwalks.

While the men gaped at the scene, the hammer left Clegg’s hand and floated across the room to Hank. Hank’s eyes ballooned at the tool hovering in midair. As Clegg twisted and looked down at his empty hand, Hank snatched the hammer and smashed it into Clegg’s head. Clegg fell against the bookcase, knocking himself out, and Hank dragged him into a cell. Hank’s itch to kill Clegg and Pinnock stopped just short of a trigger pull as he turned to the mob. “We’re getting Miguel out of the mine. We’re going now—”

“No way we’re going in there,” another man said. “Make Pinnock go!”

The mob shuffled out of the jail.

Hank knew it was a waste of time to wrangle a posse of Silversnake men. “Looks like it’s you and me, Mayor.”

Pinnock panicked. “No, Jeffords, we can’t go in there! Take Clegg! Clegg killed the girl! Do what you want with him. I’ll pay you in gold.”

Hank drew his pistol.

& & &

When they reached the mine, Hank threw Pinnock the hammer. Shivering from freezing air and slipping in snow, Pinnock pried off the planks. Then Hank lit a torch and they entered the dark hollow.

“Miguel!” Hank yelled. “Miguel!”

Further on they hit beams and rubble, skeleton pieces strewn about. A skull smiled at them from under a railroad tie.

Pinnock rubbed his shoulders. “This is the site of the cave-in, Jeffords. Nowhere to go from here. Need to turn back.”

“Miguel!” Hank yelled.

Dexter Trench suddenly materialized in front of them, glistening and semi-transparent in the torchlight. Hank started.

“You sent an innocent soul,” Trench said, his deep bass vibrating the cave. “He doesn’t belong here.”

“Trench, get me out!” Pinnock pleaded.

“Where’s the boy?” Hank asked.

Trench waved his hand, and a small passageway opened in rock.

Hank poked Pinnock with his gun barrel and they snaked through the passageway, exiting into a high domed cavern with walls of ice where Trench was waiting for them. Encased in the ice were bodies, each face frozen in scream.

Hank’s jaw dropped. “My God! Dante’s ninth circle.” He walked up and down the cavern, running his fingers over the ice, looking at the evil men he’d loaded into the ice coach over the years. He looked over at Trench.

“In punishment forever,” the spirit monotoned.

Hank scanned the lineup again and groaned. “You testified at each trial, Pinnock, or had a minion do it. You had a hand in each of these cases.”

Pinnock waved an arm. “Losers, violent, treacherous. Town’s better off without ‘em.”

“You’ve been instigating these crimes from the beginning,” Hank said. “The town didn’t have enough trouble on its own? You had to cultivate hate?”

Trench waved a hand over another section of rock, and Miguel popped out of an alcove. He ran to the constable, grabbing the lawman’s gun belt. “Señor Jeffords!”

“Take the boy,” Trench said, “but the mayor stays. Payment’s due.”

Huge claws of ice suddenly shot from the wall and skewered Pinnock through the back, lifting him off the ground, coming out his chest and stomach.

Pinnock gurgled, blood running out his mouth. “Jef—! Jef—! Shoooot m-me!”

As Pinnock started melting into the wall, Hank snatched the gold watch from the mayor’s vest. In seconds Pinnock was entombed in ice, mouth and eyes frozen open.

The cavern started to rumble, and Hank and Miguel dashed to the entrance, the passageway closing behind them.

& & &

Back in town, Hank and Miguel looked at Clegg through cell bars, hooves rumbling in the distance.

“Hear that, Clegg?” Hank said. “It’s coming for you.”

“No, Jeffords!” Clegg pleaded. “Shoot me! Hang me! Don’t send me into the cave!”

Hank saw that Miguel’s normally smarmy face had lost its boyish air over the last week, and the lad was now staring at Clegg with a stern focus that made Hank flinch.

With Clegg cuffed and struggling, Hank and Miguel dragged him out to the stage, now throbbing in front of the jail. In the driver’s box, it was Mayor Pinnock at the reins who mechanically turned his head and looked down at Hank. Pinnock was still wearing his vested suit, now sporting the ragged holes made by the ice claws. Frost clung to his eyebrows and nose.

“Ah! Merry Christmas, Mayor!” Hank said. “Trench let you out to make a pickup?” Hank swung Pinnock’s gold watch in the air. “Remember this? It’ll make a fine gift for Liu’s aunt. Probably yield her more money than she’s ever seen. What do you think?”

Pinnock’s expression was flat, eyes blank, lips pressed tight against his teeth. He rotated his head away from Hank and gazed off into the distance. Hank couldn’t tell if Pinnock was alive, dead, or something else.

Hank shoved Clegg into the coach. With Clegg screaming, Pinnock snapped the reins, and the stage took off, snowflakes swirling in air.

& & &

The ice coach never returned to Silversnake. An occasional bar fight or poker game ending in death would prompt the townsfolk to paint the mine with blood and listen for hooves, but Hank argued that drunken stupidity didn’t meet the same level of evil as race hatred.

Growers learned to store food for the winter. Carpenters built an aqueduct to supplement well water. Everyone learned to shovel snow. Hank couldn’t be sure if the town had been redeemed, but it was a start.

Hank made Miguel a junior constable, and they’d place fresh flowers on Evangeline’s and Liu’s graves each week. Miguel would often ask Hank to read from the jail library.

“Inferno,” Miguel requested one fall day, weather turning cool.

“Dante again? Do you understand any of it?”

“Not all of it. I like to hear the words. Tell me about the ninth circle again.”

“Where it’s so cold, sinners can’t scream to release their torment.”

Miguel nodded and gazed out the window. “Then please read that jumping frog story again.”

Hank smiled at the tintype of Evangeline propped up on his desk, and at her smiling back at him teaching literature.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright James Fitzsimmons 2024