A Knife in the Heart. William W. Johnstone
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to kill some imagined inmate or guard coming after him—frightening Fallon’s wife and baby girl.
The only way that wouldn’t happen would be if he stayed awake all night.
He didn’t. The meeting with the Diego family had exhausted him. And he was right. He woke up from the first dream a little after midnight. Two hours later, he fell back asleep, and the nightmares resumed.
When Fallon sat bolt upright on the chaise around four in the morning, he wiped his brow, swallowed, and said, “Welcome back to hell.” At least he wasn’t screaming. At least he had not awakened his wife and daughter. There was no use in trying to sleep anymore. Fallon moved to the winter kitchen, found the coffee grinder and the can of beans, and busied himself.
Two days later, the coffin carrying the remains of Carlos Pablo Diego IV arrived at the Cheyenne depot, and the funeral mass was held that afternoon. Fallon was there, hat in hand, along with Mrs. Diego, young Carlos, his two sisters and brother, and the headmaster of the Abraham Lincoln Academy. Young Carlos shook Fallon’s hand, thanked him for all he had tried to do for his late papa, and helped his sobbing mother away. Two aunts and an uncle assisted with the children. Fallon paid the priest, nodded at the headmaster, and walked back to work.
Two weeks passed. Two weeks of nightmares and anxiety.
Hector French entered Fallon’s office on a Thursday afternoon, and he brought company.
“Governor.” Fallon rose from his desk and shook the hands of his two visitors.
“Hank,” the governor said. “Hector tells me that you already know about the job opening for the new federal prison being built in Leavenworth, Kansas.”
Fallon nodded. “And I hear that Warden Jackson down in Laramie has his eye on that job.” He made himself smile.
“It’s not Jackson they want,” the governor said. “It’s you.”
Fallon stared, realized he had not misheard, understood that the governor and French were serious. He felt like sitting down, but instead he said, “I’ve seen enough walls and bars in my day.”
The governor pulled out a newspaper, slid it onto Fallon’s desk. “You heard about the execution of Slim Boris.”
Fallon had heard. Everyone in Wyoming had heard. The professional hanging of a condemned killer had been botched. Hell, even the hangman at Fort Smith had left men kicking at the end of a rope, but this one had ripped off Boris’s head. But that had been in Rawlings. And it had been a state matter, not federal, so Fallon had not been obligated to attend the execution.
“And did you see this?” The governor tapped another headline.
Fallon nodded. “Helen says I never read the paper, just look over the headlines, but I can read. And I do read.” That article had been picked up by the Cheyenne editor from the telegraphs. In Denver, a young man named McKee had been gunned down by lawmen because he could not stand to return to prison.
“Like I said,” Fallon reminded his guests, “I’ve spent enough time behind the iron.”
“Hank,” Hector French said. “The way the governor and I figure it, Leavenworth needs you. The prisoners need you. Justice needs you.”
Fallon laughed without humor. “You boys are crazy. And I don’t think you do the hiring for the Leavenworth pen.”
“No,” the governor said. “But we know who does. And those boys have been asking about you. That Carlos Diego story made Harper’s Illustrated and the New York Herald. People are starting to think something might be wrong with a prison here and there. And I think those people are right. You … you could make a difference.”
“Talk it over with Christina,” French said. “You’ve got a couple of days to think it over.”
“Otherwise,” the governor said, “M. C. Jackson will most likely be moving to Leavenworth. Good for the state of Wyoming. Not so good for the boys locked up in Kansas.”
* * *
“Well.” Christina stirred sugar in her coffee cup. “How much does it pay?”
Fallon shrugged. “Not much more than this job.”
“Well, Rachel Renee is young enough. It’s not like we’d be uprooting her. Besides, she likes having adventures.”
Shaking his head, Fallon twisted in his chair in the dining room and stared out the window. “I’m not sure I could be a warden.”
“You weren’t sure you could be a U.S. marshal, either, the way I remember it. But you have been a good one.”
“Maybe,” Fallon said. “But the wardens I met—”
“Were not,” she interrupted, “Harry Fallon.”
He smiled.
“You owe it . . .” Christina started.
Their eyes held. “To Carlos Pablo Diego?” Fallon asked.
“To Harry Fallon,” she said. “I think you could make a difference. Better than Jackson.”
“Well,” Fallon said. “It could be the feds have already found their man.”
“I think they have.” Christina reached across the table, found Fallon’s right hand, and gripped it. She squeezed. “And his name is Fallon.”
PART II
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Is it always this windy here?” Christina asked the waitress at the quaint Leavenworth, Kansas, café near the Missouri River.
“Chil’,” the gray-haired, stout woman told her, “’T’ain’t even windy dis afternoon.”
After they ordered coffees to start and a lemonade for Rachel Renee, the waitress walked to the kitchen.
“Don’t they call Chicago the ‘windy city’?” Fallon grinned. “And isn’t that where you grew up and worked?”
“It’s a different kind of wind.” Frowning, Christina sniffed, then sneezed, and a sigh followed that.
“I thought Cheyenne was windy.” Rachel Renee bounced in her seat, staring after the waitress, eagerly awaiting her lemonade.
Christina reached inside her purse and withdrew her handkerchief one more time. She blew her nose.
“Are you sick, Ma?” Rachel Renee asked.
“I think”—she sniffed again—“I think . . . I must have . . . a cold.”
“It’s called hay fever,” Fallon said.
“It’s a cold,” Christina insisted.
They had arrived in Leavenworth, Kansas, late yesterday morning, found the house they had rented on the western part of town, and basically spent the day unpacking. Fallon had not even been by the federal penitentiary, either the old one or the larger one being built. He was supposed to check in on Monday. Today was Saturday. After getting the house arranged to something Christina could live with, and getting all of Rachel Renee’s dolls and other toys arranged to her liking, they had decided to see what all Leavenworth had to offer.
It was bigger than Fallon remembered, but he had not been to the city in years. Like most places, it had grown. Brick buildings dominated the business district, a trend Fallon was seeing as the new century approached. Western towns had learned that wooden buildings burned, and when one caught fire, quite often the whole town went up in smoke. Red brick had replaced whitewashed facades. Many of the streets were paved. The streetlights were gas. Telephone and telegraph lines gave crows and other birds a place to watch the bustling of a thriving town.
One of the reasons Leavenworth thrived, of course, was because of the military fort—and the federal