All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred six)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred six)

 

 

 

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Hard scabby patches that inmates before him had not been set cleaning, muscled into Richard’s head an inspiration.

“Sir, what happened to that girl?”

His cellmate laughed at the innocence of Richard. “Say, Fitz, did I hear right she got robbed?”

“Got something stole, uh huh. Wants to say she didn’t get a look at his face. Can’t be helped.” Fitzpatrick allowed a discontented lapse. “You seem sobered up, get on out.”

The prisoner edged past the constable and shot off, up the way of Mrs. Koker and Rachel.

“Sir,” Richard said. “Is there any board goes with the room?”

“When Mrs. Fitzpatrick comes along with the stew.”

Stew better than gruel, though it didn’t sit well as a picture in the mind, Richard looking at the water he rinsed his rag in. “You wouldn’t tell me who it was I could have hurt, would you?”

“You got the right to answer before the judge.”

A legal mind, his father’s, would be the ticket here. In some way the writ of habeas corpus must contradict Fitzpatrick’s proceedings. But Richard didn’t know exactly what the writ of habeas corpus said.

 

The dead-ender he shared his cell with was named Ballard, or Bard…Bird… Whatever might be slurred among those syllables.

“I put you a bowl on the floor over there,” Richard told him.

His roost was the vacated cot, away from Ballard, to enjoy a little less of Ballard’s odor while he slurped his stew—hitting just the spot starvation overcame revulsion.

Or not quite.

But he ate. He was almost tempted to snatch Ballard’s.

“Poison.”

“Chicken livers, maybe. I don’t know, Mrs. Fitzpatrick might hang onto her chicken livers. Scraps from the butcher’s, off some animal. I got it down okay. You hungry, Ballard?”

“Bayard. What’s wrong with you?”

“Bayard.” To get any useful dirt, Richard asked, “You go down to Hoppers?”

“Hopper’s a murderer.”

“You oughta tell Fitzpatrick.”

“Not him, Sheriff Holland.”

“Well… I might see Holland. You could send me off with a message.”

“Hand me up that bowl.”

This meant waiting on Bayard, Richard getting to his feet, crouching, nudging the bowl to Bayard’s nose, while Bayard continued supine. “You want it or don’t you?”

“Put it on the cot.”

“Gonna spill, when you go to get up.”

He had no reason to be cooperative, but caught Bayard under the arms and sat him. Bayard had sufficient flow of blood by now to accept the bowl in his hands.

“Who’d Hopper kill?”

“Why, Hopper is a dealer in spirits, the weak man’s temptation. When a man is out of countenance with the Lord, he is bounden to find himself prey to every snare of the devil. And none takes the soul more bitterly than intoxication.”

 

 

113

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred seven)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)