Free Strong Darkness by Jon Land

killer’s back for an encore.”

 
    16
    L ANGTRY, T EXAS; 1883
    Judge Roy Bean rode out to the Chinese camp alongside William Ray Strong, the Ranger keeping his pace slow since Bean looked like a man ready to be thrown well before his horse reached a gallop. They hitched their horses to posts under the watchful, suspicious gazes of the Chinese milling about, their eyes widening at sight of William Ray’s Texas Ranger badge proudly displayed on his lapel.
    â€œAnybody here speak good enough English to understand what I’m saying?” Judge Bean asked them.
    Many raised their hands, all of them tentatively.
    â€œWe’re here about the killings of your women and need to be pointed in the right direction.”
    Those who understood him took Bean literally and pointed off to the right, toward a single structure on the camp’s outskirts perched in the shade. The judge and Ranger had just started that way when a thin woman with ash gray hair gathered in a bun grabbed hold of William Ray’s arm.
    â€œMy daughter,” she said in what sounded more like a plea, squeezing his arm even tighter. “My daughter.”
    William Ray saw the sadness of mourning in her eyes and nodded. “I understand, ma’am, I understand,” he said, hoping she did as well.
    The woman released his arm, looking no less sad as she bowed repeatedly. “Thank you, thank you.”
    She moved aside so the two men could continue on, followed the whole way by even more curious stares. The mud-strewn center of the camp was dominated by canvas tents stained dark and dotted with clotheslines, fire pits, and several larger tents, these strung over heavy posts and served as a school for the children and a cafeteria where the workers ate breakfast and dinner. William Ray and the judge noticed a few whites mixed in among the Chinese, talking to them with Bibles held in their grasps and crucifixes dangling from their necks.
    â€œMissionaries,” Bean noted, “trying to turn the Chinks’ skin white.”
    This vantage point afforded a clear view of both the earthen dam up the river to the north and the actual worksite several hundred yards to the south, where Southern Pacific personnel were visible as mere specs checking to see if the land was dry enough to resume work. Normally this time of year the land would be parched, a veritable dirt and gravel bowl laid over a landscape so flat that walking it bored a man’s feet, William Ray’s father used to say. The railroad had chosen, for precisely that reason, to originate this northern spur of the Trans-Pecos line here. The unseasonable rains had taken everyone by surprise, and William Ray heard it told that it had actually been one of the Chinese who suggested the dam’s construction based on a similar experience he’d had on a railroad worksite in California.
    A Chinese man was busy writing something out on an oblong board placed upon an easel in the lee of a grove of trees. William Ray figured it must be the coming week’s work schedule, and he took his hat off, along with the judge, when they got close enough to the man to block out what little light streamed through the trees. He worked with paint and brush, an artist more than a laborer, looking up after he finished the line he was working on.
    â€œI’m Texas Ranger William Ray Strong and this here’s Judge Roy Bean,” William Ray said by way of greeting.
    The man regarded them suspiciously. “Did the railroad send you? Are you going to arrest us all?”
    â€œNo, the railroad didn’t send us, and that would depend on what you did.”
    â€œWe went on strike. After the railroad refused to pay us for building their dam for them. They are very angry, but so are we over them breaking their word.”
    â€œNever trust a man in a suit, friend,” said Judge Roy Bean, hitching his thumbs in his vest pockets. “And it’s these murders of your