Death Mask (16 page)

Kileen glanced at his nephew and frowned. “Easy, me lad. Mind your manners. The good constable can be comin’ with us if he’s a mind to. ‘Twould be much to our likin’.”

The young man from town stepped up to them and announced with as much bravado as he could muster that he wanted to go with the posse. His voice gave away his age by cracking in midsentence.

Bridgeport put his arm around the man and cocked his head upward toward the Rangers. “Ah, the Imperial Yeomanry is gathering already.” He turned back to Kileen. “By the way, there’s a man—and ‘is lady—who live in that cabin I mentioned. They’re real loners. Never come to town. Farmers, sort of. Got some ‘ogs. Milk cows, too. ‘E’s been suspected of bringing someone else’s cow home for eating from time to time. Not proven, mind you. From Germany. Long gray hair. Thick glasses. Speaks with a German accent. Waulken is the name. Alben Waulken.”

He looked like a man sharing a private joke, smiling slightly.

“Does he own a rifle with a scope? A gray horse?” Kileen asked intently, ignoring the obvious reaction.

“That I not be knowing.” Bridgeport shrugged and examined his sack to see if any candy remained. “Never seen ‘im with either. Never seen either ‘e or ‘is lady in town, for that matter.” He cocked his head. “But I haven’t exactly been spending afternoon tea there. It’s out of my jurisdiction.”

“Not ours,” Carlow snapped, annoyed at Bridgeport’s manner.

Bridgeport nodded agreement and pointed at Carlow’s wolf-dog. “Be this scary fellow with you?”

The young Ranger cocked his head to the side. “Yes. You have a problem with that?”

Shaking his head, Bridgeport chuckled. “Naw, I do not. ‘E bloody well fits you, it seems to this bloke.”

Letting the gray thoroughbred have its head, Tanneman Rose passed four quiet farms and mostly open plains. He knew this country well, having spent most of a week combing the area, disguised as usual as a traveling peddler with a thick Missouri twang. Selling goods from his rickety wagon was an ideal way to move about a region without raising suspicion. No one cared where this odd man came from or where he was going. It had also produced the perfect foil—Alben Waulken.

With his field glasses, Tanneman had observed Mirabile for two days. This yielded a pattern of behavior Tanneman had used to catch the rancher alone. Disguised as the reclusive farmer, he had executed his plan and then headed for Strickland. The bank robbery had gone well; the bank president was a predictable buffoon.

Tanneman had planned the crime as a reinforcement of his disguise as the long-haired German in a black coat, riding a gray horse, carrying a Pedersoli rifle. He had expected a posse to follow his easy-to-read trail, which would lead directly to Alben Waulken’s isolated cabin. The news of Julian Mirabile’s death would catch up with the local law soon enough. Maybe it already had. However, it was necessary to pin both crimes on the unwitting man living at the edge of the timberline.

Tanneman would leave the rifle on the man’s property, along with the black coat and the wooden mask. The long gray wig and pipe he would keep for another time. Actually, the only thing he didn’t like about his current strategy was leaving the gray horse behind. He had actually purchased it from a rancher outside of San Antonio in need of immediate cash.

Laughing as he rode, Tanneman Rose revisited his discovery of Alben Waulken. It had happened almost by accident. Except he didn’t believe in accidents, only fate. He had been looking for the right person to set up and, behold, there he was. Alben Waulken lived alone with his wife at the edge of a wooded area, scratching out a few crops, raising hogs and milking a couple of cows. Through careful questioning as he peddled his wares, Tanneman learned Waulken was suspected of stealing an occasional steer for eating. Better yet, the couple never went to Strickland, so nobody there knew them well. Long gray hair and a pipe were simple props he already had that would be hidden along with many others inside his peddler wagon.

Waulken’s thick German accent was memorable and easy to imitate. Tanneman liked having someone blamed for his assassinations when possible; it gave the law a sense of accomplishment—and kept them from probing further.

“Perfect,
Herr
Waulken,
du
vill never know vhat
ist
happening to
du,
” Tanneman muttered and chuckled at his imitation. He touched the jaguar necklace beneath his shirt. A suitable replacement for the original was secured in a small town he passed through. A Mexican trader had three, just like his first necklace; he had bought all three.

Tanneman’s peddler’s wagon was well hidden in the forest not far from Waulken’s small cabin. Once there, he would reapply his well-developed disguise as a downtrodden peddler and head back to San Antonio. Planning for the execution of the next man on his list would begin. Probably Marshal Timble—or the jury foreman. Unless Carlow and Kileen showed up unexpectedly. He smiled. Just like in his dreams.

“Mirabile, you bastard, I waited a long damn time to put a bullet in your head,” Tanneman muttered. “Sitting there in the courtroom. Smiling at me. You bastard.”

Town was well behind him and forgotten. He had ridden in sight until he saw the young shepherd. That sighting would bring the posse in the right direction—and his trail could be followed by anyone. Anyone.

“Good. Good,” he said, passing a fifth farm, where a man was still working in his field.

Tanneman rode slowly past the south edge of the man’s pasture. The farmer’s description would aid the posse. Of course, he wouldn’t identify the rider as Waulken. He would only state that a black-coated rider—in a full mask—had ridden by on a gray horse. Tanneman grinned and kicked the animal into a smooth lope to move out of range of any further identification.

At the last instant, he avoided the temptation to holler out “
Guten Tag
!” The farmer might know Waulken well enough to recognize it wasn’t his voice.

Suddenly his anger at his former comrades for trying to send him to prison burst through. “Rotten hog meat. Filthy mattresses. Working every stinking day. Being whipped. You bastards wanted me to live like that. Now you’ll pay.” The tirade slipped into a chant only he knew.

Lately, his dreams had been filled with images of Pakistan and a dark hut that had often appeared in his reveries. He assumed the hut had been his home in his previous life. In the dreams, he often changed from a spider to an owl and back again.

An hour of riding took him across the darkening land. He eased past a string of trees lining a fat creek, through a spongy swale of slick wet grass and slipped over a broken hill. A man-high rock passage was the prelude to an open spoon of level earth with a small cabin settled within it. Shadows were twisted and angry around him as he reined up beside a scraggly oak tree thirty yards from the house.

Tanneman dismounted, removed the mask and studied the cabin. He had to be careful not to scratch his nose as he removed the mask. He had already done that with one of them.

A feeble light at the only front window was enough to assure him that the couple were inside. Snickering, he muttered that their lives were about to change. Forever.

With a deep breath for reassurance, he removed a canvas sack filled with oats from his saddle horn. Quietly, he led the gray horse toward what passed for a barn, slipping past a pen of comfortable hogs and a buckboard wagon. The door was ajar and he pushed it open slowly to avoid any squeak. The mount went easily into an empty stall next to two worn cubicles, each containing a disinterested milk cow. Next to them was an old brown horse. It was used to pull the wagon, he guessed.

Looking around, he found a bucket and emptied the sack into it, to assure the horse’s silence. He had carried the sack just for this purpose. He wouldn’t take the time to unsaddle the animal, only removing the saddlebags carrying the bank money and laying them outside the stall. He laid the black coat over the stall door, propped the Pedersoli rifle against the post and flipped the hat, then the mask, on top.

He decided it might fall off and bring the Waulkens, so he laid the wooden disguise on the ground. It had felt good to take the mask off; the closeness to his face always brought unwanted sweat. Besides, his vision was limited through the eyeholes. Actually, he preferred disguising himself and not using the mask, but when he wanted to lay blame on some poor fool, like now, it was important to use the mask and leave it.

He lifted the heavy saddlebags over his shoulder. Why give away such treasure? He would add it to the pile of bank money hidden in the wagon. A cave near the ranch had been a perfect place to keep it. Not even Barnabas, with his childlike mind, had guessed where it was.

There was plenty of evidence already. Satisfied with the picture he had created, he cleared the barn. With gleeful eyes, he glanced down at the pistol rig strapped to his waist. The stiff holster was handsomely accented with woven layers of tan cowhide and soft doeskin throughout the base of dark-brown hard leather. He had bought it from a penniless Mexican and had never seen another like it.

He drew the Colt with the cutaway trigger guard for swifter firing, and checked the loads. He had modified the gun since taking it from the luckless traveler the night he escaped. His fingers caressed the barrel with its filed-off sight and reholstered the weapon. The presence of the gun, any gun, was always comforting.

Even in the dark, the forest was an old friend as he entered. An owl saluted as he entered and he smiled at the welcome. He raised his hand in tribute and whispered, “Good to see you again, Hillis. We missed you. Portland is here with me. Haven’t seen Barnabas. He may not return so fast, you know. It doesn’t always happen that way.”

Had he been an owl once?

To his right were the remains of an old campfire. Lighting the pipe resting in his pocket would taste good, but he decided against it. Even a tiny spark could be seen by a knowing man from a long way off. Something rustled to his left, then disappeared. Presumably a squirrel. He worked his way along a path most men would not have seen in the daylight, but the opening had been wide enough to drive his wagon to the hiding place. Most men riding by the forest would not believe a wagon could ever move through the trees.

Minutes later, Tanneman rose out of a dry creek bed inside the stretch of clustered trees. Smothered within this fortress of trees and overgrown brush was a shallow arroyo connected to the creek bed. He was no more than a half mile from the Waulken cabin, although it could just as easily have been ten miles, as well concealed as it was.

Within this land crease were his wagon and its two unharnessed horses. The two animals—an older bay and a chestnut with two stockings—raised their heads at his advance, then resumed their grazing. Both were hobbled and tied to the wagon on long lead ropes. After laying the saddlebags on the wagon seat, Tanneman buckled the harness into place, keeping the hobbles on for the moment.

Working from the back of the wagon, he sought a small mirror and a bottle of glue to help hold his fake beard he used to disguise himself as the peddler. Deftly, he began to apply the lotion onto his flat cheeks and down onto his thick chin.

“ ‘When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.’” He muttered the Shakespeare passage again. His shrill laugh turned the bay’s head toward him, its ears cocked for understanding.

The only thing bad about this glue was that it was difficult to scrub off, but that was better than having his beard sag or fall off. Finally satisfied with the transformation, he applied fake eyebrows over his own. The arching brows were full and thick, giving an instant scowl to his gray-blue eyes and long eyelashes. Then he inserted tiny rolls of cloth between his lower jaw and cheeks on the inside of his mouth. The cloth was definitely better than the paper he had originally used. The effect made his face more full, but wasn’t uncomfortable.

From a trunk came stomach padding with long strings he used to attach it around his waist and over the back of his neck. Then he added the worn suitcoat of gray woolen heritage, stringed tie and the battered derby, completing his peddler’s appearance.

He decided it was prudent to hide his supposedly removed arm, even though no one was around. It was good discipline. He moved the Colt to his waistband where it could be easily reached. His normally light brown hair was already dyed black to match the beard. There no need to change his pants or boots; both were his regular attire.

“Y’all need some pots today? Got some fine pots an’ pans.” He practiced his affected delivery and felt the jaguar teeth neckace under his clothes for reassurance.

The Missouri drawl, delivered in a high-pitched voice, was effective, as was the slump-shouldered manner in which he carried his body. So was the limp he had perfected using an old cane. Most people with whom he came into contact when disguised as the peddler referred to him simply as “the peddler.” In this disguise, he had no name and never offered one. He chuckled. No one had ever asked.

When this revenge was all over, he would retire to New Orleans, perhaps, and underwrite, direct and play the lead in a production of
The Merchant of Venice,
his father’s favorite play. It would be a grand tribute to the man. Tanneman decided he would attribute the performance to his father’s memory, citing him as a visionary in theater, in the printed program.

Satisfied with the day’s actions, Tanneman removed the hobbles from his wagon horses and returned to the wagon seat. He checked the jar with the spider and was pleased to see it was moving around. Two dead flies he had placed in the jar before leaving were gone.

“You won’t believe who I just saw, Portland. Yeah, it’s Hillis. He’s an owl, you know. Came to watch.”

Making certain the jar was secured among the wagon’s possessions, Tanneman repeated his ritual chant and jigged the horses into a trot. He rode for an hour through the forest. His horses needed no encouragement. They were well rested. The load of man, wagon and goods seemed to disappear into the pounding hooves.

Several loose books continued to slide around. The hidden sack of money bounced and moved sideways. It angered Tanneman that he had not been able to secure either the books or the money sack. The creaky buckboard bounced and leaned as they traveled into the night. Folded clothes, linens, coils of rope, bridles and a saddle, pots and pans, boxes of tobacco, the trunk holding all of the stolen bank money, horseshoes and bullets, and a few guns slid around and behind him as he reined the wagon to a stop.

“Why not?” he said aloud, grabbing the spider jar so it wouldn’t be turned over.

Both horses sought the location of the words, then stood quietly, waiting for more instructions.

Most times he hadn’t been in a position to watch the payoff of his meticulous efforts, to see the set-up man arrested and taken away while protesting his innocence. This time he could. Easily. He could easily watch, unnoticed, from the edge of the woods and see what happened at the cabin when the posse arrived. Even if he was seen—and he wouldn’t be—he would simply pretend he was still working his trade.

It was too joyful to pass up. He would leave for San Antonio after that. Reining the horses, he turned back toward the cabin.