A Time to Slaughter (11 page)

Shawn O'Brien huddled close to the hatful of fire he shared with Uriah Tweedy and Thaddeus Lowth. They were protected from the worst of the wind by an upthrust of limestone rock higher than a man.

Tweedy accepted the communal coffee cup from Shawn and looked over the rim at the shivering hangman. “You starting to regret taggin' along, Mr. Lowth?”

“Gracious me, no. I've never before embarked on an adventure and I must admit I'm quite excited.” Lowth hugged his skinny knees to his chest and smiled. “This is a quest, just like those the knights of old rode forth on.”

For a moment Tweedy was puzzled, then he said, “Here, are you talkin' about them McKnight brothers down to the Texas Trinity River country that got hung fer hoss stealin' a few years back?”

“Uriah, he's talking about”—Shawn searched his mind for an explanation that would make sense to the old bear hunter—“old-time cavalry that went looking for stuff.”

“Oh, like scouts, you mean?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

Tweedy looked at Lowth. “We're scouts all right. But scoutin' Zeb Moss's back trail ain't exactly a healthy occupation.”

“And hence the adventure,” Lowth said. “Without danger, there is no quest.”

Random snowflakes filtered through the pine canopy and sizzled on the hot coals. Beyond the orange circle of the firelight, there was only darkness and the restless rustle of the trees.

“Uriah, you reckon Moss is holed up like us?” Shawn asked, talking behind a blue drift of cigar smoke.

“Bet on it, sonny. This is good country fer men and dogs but it's hell on women and horses. Ol' Zeb can't push them females too hard and get them all used up, not if he plans to sell 'em, he can't.”

Tweedy looked hard at Shawn. “What's on your mind?”

“We have to hit him hard and real soon. We can't fall behind.”

“We won't. Zeb's got a wagon slowin' him down, remember?” Tweedy took time to light his pipe, and then said, “Hit him hard how?”

“Ride in shooting, drop a couple, then hightail it out of there.”

“Easier said than done, sonny.”

“I know that,” Shawn said. Then irritably, “Don't you think I already know that?”

“No offense,” Tweedy said. “It's just that sometimes it's easier to pull your freight than your gun.”

“You mean quit?” Shawn exclaimed. “Give it up?”

“Hell no. I'm not quittin' on Trixie. She's my intended, you recollect?” Tweedy studied the glowing coal in the pipe bowl. “What I say is we shadow 'em for a spell before we go to shootin'. Bide our time, like.”

“Then strike while the iron is hot, in other words,” Lowth said.

“Exactly, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said. “Your grasp of the situation does you credit, sir.”

“The hangman sometimes must assess the facts and make up his mind quickly, Mr. Tweedy. He can't dilly-dally when a trap must be sprung.”

“No indeed, Mr. Lowth. True words, every single one of them.”

Shawn accepted the cup from Lowth and refilled it from the pot. “We'll pull out at first light and press Moss close. As you said, Uriah, bide our time and hit him when he least expects it.”

“Trouble is, Zeb always expects it,” Tweedy pointed out.

“He can be fooled, like any other man,” Shawn said.

Tweedy nodded. “Maybe so.”

Suddenly Lowth was alert. “Anybody hear that?” He straightened up, listening into the night.

“I didn't hear nothin'.” Tweedy looked into the darkness.

“I thought I heard a gunshot,” Lowth said softly.

Shawn shook his head. “I didn't hear it.”

“You gettin' spooked, Mr. Lowth?” Tweedy whispered.

“Not at all, Mr. Tweedy, but I do have very acute hearing, something Mrs. Lowth has often commented on. She says it's a most singular gift and would be eminently useful should I ever decide to enter the detective profession.”

“It's getting colder and there's a frost coming down,” Shawn said. “Maybe you heard a pine snap.”

“Perhaps, Mr. O'Brien, but it did sound like gunfire.”

“Zeb and his boys, you think?” Tweedy said to Shawn.

“I don't know, Uriah.”

“Interestin', though,” Tweedy nodded.

“Yeah, real interesting,” Shawn agreed.

After a night of fitful sleep under the thin wool of his blanket and the thinner warmth of the feeble fire, Shawn rose at first light and stretched the frost out of his joints.

Thaddeus Lowth was already awake. He had coffee going and was frying salt pork in a small pan. “Good morning, Mr. O'Brien. Did you sleep well?”

“Hell no,” Shawn said, in little mood for pleasantries.

Snow was falling again and the morning was crisp and cold as frozen glass, as though it would shatter into a million pieces and drop to earth as ice crystals if someone even spoke too loud.

Lowth kneeled by the fire and stirred the brown pork slices with a fork. Without looking at Shawn, he said, “That was a gunshot I heard last night. I have considered it, and there is no doubt in my mind.”

“Then I guess we'll come upon a body today,” Shawn said.

“Someone shooting at a deer, perhaps,” Lowth said.

“This is high country, Thaddeus, above the aspen line. The deer head down to the flatlands in winter.”

Lowth permitted himself a rare smile. “Then they are more sapient than humans.”

“I reckon,” Shawn mumbled, reminding himself to ask Patrick what the hell
sapient
meant.

 

 

Gray land, gray sky, and ahead of them appeared nothing but bitter cold and distance. The horses slowed their pace as the footing under their hooves grew more slick and treacherous with every passing mile.

Tweedy read the muddy trail as a scholar reads a book and his face grew more and more puzzled. “He's swung southwest, O'Brien. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he's headed for Albuquerque.”

“Heading wide around Dromore range, maybe,” Shawn said.

“No need to make a loop this wide.” Tweedy shook his head. “Damn it, boy. I reckon he's gonna head south along the Rio Grande.”

“Take him right into Albuquerque all right,” Lowth said. “I hung a couple rustlers there a while back.”

Snow flurried in the air like sea foam and the breath of the three riders smoked in the cold. The canopies of the pines on the surrounding hills looked like arrowheads of white marble.

Suddenly Zeb Moss's intentions became clear to Shawn. “He's not taking the wagon all the way to Old Mexico. He'll take the Santa Fe railroad and ride the cushions in comfort.”

“With all them captive females?” Tweedy said. “Folks will talk, ask questions.”

“Moss is a rich man who wants to be richer,” Shawn said. “He can afford a private Pullman, away from prying eyes.”

“Well, where do we go from here, Mr. O'Brien?” Lowth questioned.

“Do as we're doing. Follow him.”

“And then what?” Tweedy wasn't so sure of Shawn's plan.

“We take the same train, ride the cushions with Moss, and bide our time, like you said, Uriah.”

“O'Brien,” Tweedy said, “if 'n my intended wasn't with ol' Zeb, I'd quit on you just about now.”

Shawn grinned and waved Tweedy on. “Find me the trail, Uriah.”

Thirty minutes later they came on an old stage station and a dead man.

 

 

“Looks like he was trying to farm bedrock,” Tweedy said. “I never figured grangers were long on smarts, but this'n beats all.”

The dead man lay on his back. Snow had gathered in the hollows of his eyes and turned his black beard white. He lay close to the house and when Lowth scraped scarlet snow off the man's chest he found a single bullet wound. “Right through the heart.”

“That's the gunshot you heard last night, Mr. Lowth,” Tweedy said.

“Indeed it is, Mr. Tweedy. I wish it were otherwise.” Lowth shook his head. “Poor man.”

The stage station had been abandoned years before after one too many Apache raids on the horse corral. It seemed that the dead man had moved in and tried to establish a farm, an impossible dream in the high country.

“You reckon this is Zeb Moss's work?” Tweedy asked Shawn.

“Who else?” Shawn shrugged his shoulders.

“Fer why, you reckon?”

“For the sheer hell of it,” Shawn said angrily.

But when he and Tweedy went inside they found evidence of a woman, young, judging by the cut and slimness of her clothes. A brush on the dresser in the bedroom showed evidence of long red hair.

“Moss wanted the woman,” Shawn said. “And when her husband tried to intervene, he killed him. That's how I piece it together.”

“Looks like,” Tweedy agreed. “Another female for the slave block, and a slim young redhead at that.”

“You still feel like quitting, Uriah?” Shawn said.

“I ain't quitting, sonny. Not until I get my own woman back.”

“Then so be it.” Shawn stepped to the bedroom door. “Look around, see if we can find some grub and extra blankets.”

Then he heard the cry of a baby from a crib behind the bed and froze in the doorway. A baby meant big trouble coming down fast.

His thought was echoed by an anguished yelp from Tweedy. “Mr. Lowth, I reckon your quest has just gone to hell in a handbasket.”

“There's a milk cow out back,” Uriah Tweedy said as he came back into the bedroom after scouting outside. “Babies drink milk, don't they?”

“I reckon,” Shawn said. “I seem to recollect that they live on milk.”

“Then go out there and fill a bucket,” Tweedy boomed.

“Hell, I don't know how to milk a damned cow,” Shawn argued, worry making him testy.

“You're a puncher, ain't you?” Tweedy growled.

“A puncher punches beeves, not milk cows.”

“Well, we need milk. Somebody's got to do it afore that screaming younker drives us all crazy.”

“Then you go fill a bucket.”

“I hunt bears. What do I know about milk?” Tweedy scowled, the baby's shrieks scrambling his brains. “What variety of kid is that anyhow?”

“I don't know,” Shawn snapped back at Tweedy.

“Then take a look, damn it.”

“You take a look. I don't know a thing about babies.”

“You can tell a girl baby from a boy baby, can't you?” Tweedy taunted.

“So can you.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. She's a little girl and she badly needs . . . um . . . a change of garments,” Lowth interrupted the argument.

“You do it,” Shawn and Tweedy said in unison.

“Do either of you know anything about caring for an infant?” Lowth asked as he scouted around the bedroom, the screaming child in his left arm.

“I've seen my sister-in-law do it and it's damned complicated,” Shawn said, his irritation growing. “You have to be trained for that kind of thing.”

“Well, some milk would be a start.” Lowth held up a stack of white cloths. “Look!”

“What's them?” Tweedy frowned. “Some kind of loincloths?”

Lowth smiled. “It's what you tie around the baby to catch . . . well, whatever it catches.”

“Damn it, Thaddeus, you're married,” Shawn said. “Haven't you ever had a baby before?”

“Oh dear no, Mr. O'Brien. Mrs. Lowth doesn't believe in them. Messy little creatures, she always says.”

“Hell, it can't be that complicated,” Tweedy said. “We prop the kid up somewhere and pour milk down her. The milk goes in one end and comes out the other. What's so all-fired difficult about that?”

“Thaddeus, you clean the kid good,” Shawn instructed. Then, his face became grim, like a man about to face a firing squad, and he muttered, “I'll go milk the cow. Is there a bucket out there?”

“No, but there's a water jug in the kitchen,” Lowth said. “I think that will hold enough for a baby.”

“Then we've got to get back on Moss's trail,” Shawn said. “We can't miss the train.”

“What about the kid?” Tweedy asked apprehensively.

“We'll take her with us,” Shawn answered. “We can't leave her here to starve.”

Tweedy groaned. “I knew it. Now we're all gonna die.”

 

 

“I filled the jug,” Shawn said. “Milking is not so bad when you get the hang of it.”

“How do we feed it to her?” Tweedy grumbled.

“The fastest way possible,” Shawn said. “Maybe then she'll quit her caterwauling.”

“Prop her up, Mr. Lowth. Get her to open her mouth an' I'll pour that jug o' milk into her.” Obviously, Tweedy had no idea how to feed a baby.

“I found this, Mr. Tweedy.” Lowth held up a small ceramic dish that looked like a gravy boat with a spout at one end. “I believe we put the milk in here and feed it to her.”

“Looks like you may be right, Thaddeus. But do it fast.” Shawn held his hands over his ears.

Lowth did as he was told. As soon as he put the spout to the baby's lips, she drank greedily and a blessed silence descended on the cabin.

“A baby gettin' wet-nursed by a hangman.” Tweedy shook his head in disbelief. “I never in all my born days seen the like.”

“Mr. O'Brien,” Lowth whispered, “look around the kitchen and see if you can find ajar with a lid. We'll need to carry milk with us, and this feeding thing. And we'll also need a warm blanket and a sack to tote the loincloths.”

“Damn it. Does a baby need all that stuff?” Shawn questioned.

“I'm afraid so.” Lowth nodded his head.

“And we'll need a woman's dress and a hat,” Tweedy added to the list.

“What the hell for?” Shawn muttered.

“To get you on the train without attracting Zeb Moss's lead,” Tweedy answered.

“Tweedy, am I thinking what you're thinking?”

“There's no other way. It has to be done.”

“Well, I ain't doing it,” Shawn declared. “No way am I dressing up like a woman.

Tweedy smiled. “Young feller, don't be such a caterwauling baby.”

 

 

Thaddeus Lowth held the baby in his arms when they took to the trail again and Shawn led the hangman's packhorse.

Uriah Tweedy scouted ahead, but he had no doubt Albuquerque was Zeb Moss's destination.

By the time they reached the Sandia Mountains the wagon tracks were so fresh Shawn and Lowth slowed to a walk. They kept pace but were careful not to dog Moss's back trail too closely.

Tweedy returned and drew rein beside Shawn and glanced up at the sky. “If'n the snow holds off, I reckon we'll reach the city by nightfall.”

Shawn nodded. “I reckon.”

“You'll change into your woman's fixins afore we ride into town, Mrs. Lowth,” Tweedy looked like a mischievous leprechaun from the pages of one of Shawn's childhood books. “I found a black veil in the cabin that will cover your face. I mean, I've seen women with mustaches before, but nary a one with a dead mouse hanging under her nose.”

Shawn grimaced. “Enjoying this, aren't you, Tweedy?”

“Hell boy, ol' Zeb doesn't know me or Mr. Lowth on sight, but he'd sure as hell recognize you, so you're the one's got to wear the dress. Oh, an' you'll carry the baby. Make you look real harmless, like, bein' sickly Mrs. Lowth an' all.”

Shawn glared at the old bear hunter, blue ice in his eyes. “Tweedy, when this is all over, remind me to put a bullet in your belly.”

Tweedy thought this uproariously funny. He slapped his buckskinned thigh and roared, “Damn it, Mrs. Lowth, maybe you ain't as harmless as I figured.”

“Don't listen to him, Mr. O'Brien,” Lowth put in. “I'm quite sure you'll make a charming wife.”

He said it to be kind, but all he managed to do was add fuel to the fires of rage already smoldering in Shawn's belly.