Sathow's Sinners

Warning Shot

“What can I get for ya?” the scrawny bartender asked.

There were three card tables in the place and enough dust caked on them to choke a buffalo. When he spotted the unmarked door at the back of the room, Nate strode past the bar and said, “I can help myself just fine, thanks.”

Nate ignored the bartender's protests. Before he got to the back door, however, he heard heavy footsteps approaching him from behind. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, Nate waited just long enough to read the harmful intent on the faces of the two men who'd been sitting with their drinks just a few moments ago. He snapped a straight punch to the closest one's nose, sending a spray of blood and a stream of obscenities from that one's face. The second reached for a pistol at his side, but wasn't quick enough to clear leather before Nate brought his Remington to bear. Even though the man in front of him knew better than to make another move, Nate smirked and took his shot anyway.

All three men flinched reflexively when the gunshot exploded through the saloon. The man standing in Nate's line of fire paled considerably. It wasn't until he felt the patter of wood splinters and grit from the ceiling against his face that he realized Nate had shifted his aim to send his bullet into the rafters overhead.

Titles by Marcus Galloway

THE ACCOMPLICE

THE ACCOMPLICE: BUCKING THE TIGER

THE ACCOMPLICE: THE SILENT PARTNER

 

SATHOW'S SINNERS

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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SATHOW'S SINNERS

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2015 by Marcus Pelegrimas.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14451-4

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley mass-market edition / January 2015

Cover illustration by Dennis Lyall.

Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Missouri
1886

S
ome folks thought the world was a stage. For Nate Sathow, it was a madhouse. One big, sprawling madhouse. That didn't necessarily make the world a terrible place to be. The sun rose and set in the sky above a madhouse. Cool winds blew around it. Any walls could provide shelter, warmth, or be filled with the scents of freshly baked pies. But make no mistake. It was still a madhouse. The moment a man lost sight of that, he allowed himself to be locked away with the other lost souls.

“What's the matter, Nate? You look troubled.”

The man who'd asked that question rode a tired gray mare that most other men would have sold or put out to pasture long ago. But Francis Waverly didn't give up on any living thing, no matter how poorly regarded by others. As far as Nate could tell, that was the reason Frank associated with those who might be called dregs or unsavory characters by more respectable portions of the world. It's also why Frank wore the plain black shirt and white collar of a preacher whether he had a congregation listening to him or not. His wasn't a blind or childish sort of hope. It had been tempered by fire, which was why Frank also wore a gun. Two of them, in fact. A man could have buckets of faith in his god or fellow mortals, just so long as he didn't let it impede his common sense.

Nate hacked up a breath that had been festering in the back of his throat since his last cigar had gone out, looked over at Frank and told him, “Ain't troubled. Just thinking about madhouses.”

Frank nodded while looking up at the clear Missouri sky. “Suppose it's as good a time as any for that sort of thing.” He savored the touch of a passing breeze against his cheek before shifting his gaze toward a sprawling old mansion at the end of the trail. “Perhaps it'll be a short visit. He may not even be here.”

“He's here. Not like this is the first polecat I've tracked through a field.”

“Three fields,” Frank corrected. “And don't forget the two towns, four camps and three rivers in between.”

Smiling didn't come easy to Nate Sathow, or perhaps it just didn't come often. Most folks didn't spend enough time in his company to decide which. Wide through the shoulders, he filled out his battered duster like a hastily piled stack of bricks. Callused hands gripped the reins of a spotted gelding he'd purchased with the profits he'd made hunting down a pair of escaped killers from Wichita. A .44 Remington was holstered across his belly where it could be quickly drawn in a pinch. The smirk on Nate's face parted a sea of salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin and bent the scar that ran from the corner of his left eye, along his cheek and around to the lower portion of his ear. “He did give us a run, didn't he?”

“Nothing we're not used to. I recall a couple of robbers who led us through every bayou in Louisiana.”

“The Frimodt brothers,” Nate groaned. “Crossed paths with them within a few days of meeting the fellain that house up yonder. They put the fear into an entire county when they busted out of that sorry excuse for a jail in Baton Rouge and shot at you every chance they got.”

Frank looked over to the man beside him and asked, “Why is that? You were there just like I was. In fact, you were the one riding up front with the shotgun in your hands the first time we caught sight of the Frimodts. Why was I the one in their sights?”

“Maybe they don't like preachers,” Nate replied.

Scratching at his white collar as if it had suddenly gotten a little tight, Frank said, “What kind of nonsense is that? Why would they hold a grudge against preachers?”

“I may be the one shooting at these dogs, but you're the one tellin' 'em their souls will burn afterward.”

Frank recoiled as if he'd been struck. “I make it a point to say nothing of the sort!” After a hard glare from Nate, he added, “Not on a regular basis, anyway.”

The grin left Nate's face once he spotted a large sign posted alongside the trail that read
McKeag Sanitarium—Visitors report directly to front desk. Do not approach patients.

“Perhaps I should be the one to go inside,” Frank offered.

“I've tracked down worse than this one,” Nate said. “After all the trouble we been through to get this far, I ain't about to hang back now. Besides, you should be outside in case there's trouble.”

“Only trouble you're likely to find is the trouble you make. I've visited plenty of sick folks. They don't need someone coming in and—”

“The only sickness those folks got is between their ears,” Nate snapped. “And I ain't about to ruffle any feathers. I'm the one in charge of finding this fugitive, so I should be the one to speak to whoever's running this asylum.”

The trail widened a few yards beyond the sign. Judging by the ruts worn into the dirt veering to the right toward a large carriage house, plenty of wagons made the trip to McKeag Sanitarium. Frank reined his horse to a stop and allowed Nate to continue on his own. “If you don't want to ruffle feathers with the staff, you probably shouldn't call this place an asylum,” he called out as Nate was still moving down the path leading to the mansion's front porch. “It's a hospital. Better yet, don't call it anything. Just be respectful. You hear me?”

“Yes, Ma,” Nate grumbled under his breath so just his horse could hear. “Every loon in this damn place can hear you.”

After swinging down from his saddle, Nate tied his horse to a hitching post next to a watering trough, patted the gelding on the neck and climbed the steps to the sprawling front porch. Rocking chairs were situated along the front of the house, one of which was occupied by a young woman with stringy hair and vacant eyes. Nate tipped his hat to her as he strode toward the front door. She watched him for a moment, lowered her head and curled herself into a ball between the rocker's arms.

Inside, the place looked like anything but a mansion. The wide, luxurious spaces of the original design were now smaller rooms partitioned by walls that smelled of freshly cut pine. The desk, a few paces in and to the right of the main entrance, reminded Nate of one that would be found in a hotel. He stepped up to it, removed his hat and addressed the large, stern woman seated behind it who was dressed in a simple, starched dress.

“Pardon me, ma'am. I'd like to have a word if I may.”

She looked him up and down with eyes that had seen more than their share of just about everything ugly in the human condition. “Are you visiting someone?”

“Not as such. I'd just like to ask a few questions.” Although Nate's years as a lawman were well behind him, he'd hung on to a few relics from those days. Most were badges he'd stolen from the lawmen who'd employed him. Those tin stars weren't just handed out like candy, so he would explain their loss by claiming once they were ripped from his chest lost in a fire during a bloody shootout that was still talked about in parts of west Texas another time. He reached into his inner coat pocket for one of the smaller pieces of tin with the word
DEPUTY
engraved in simple lettering. That one, he'd pocketed after riding with a posse in the Dakota Territories. After the hell he went through in the Badlands for so little pay, he didn't feel the first twinge of guilt about the theft. Today, it served to grease the wheels with the woman behind that desk.

Her face brightened somewhat and she sat up while asking, “What can I do for you?”

“I'm here to inquire about someone that may be in your care. Probably only just got here in the last few weeks and might have mentioned spending some time in—”

“Stop that man! He's armed!”

Nate instinctively reached for the pistol in his holster when the voice shattered the calm within the fancy house. He quickly realized, however, that the stomping steps rattling the floor were coming from above his head instead of from anywhere close to him. The woman behind the desk came around to push him toward the door.

“You'll have to step outside,” she said. “We can handle this.”

“But I . . .”

“We don't need any heavy hands in our sanitarium. We are well versed in keeping our patients in line.”

Once the stampede had worked its way to the left side of the house, Nate could pick out the sounds of bare feet slapping heavily against stairs. He allowed himself to be pushed toward the door, if only to get a look into the next room that was filled with more rockers, bookshelves that reached all the way to the ceiling and a wide staircase with a sloping polished banister. A skinny man wrapped in a flimsy cotton gown came down those stairs in a jumble of bony arms and legs. Even though he somehow remained upright, he stumbled in such a rush that it was impossible for Nate to tell if he was racing down to the ground floor or falling.

“Stop right there!” another man shouted from higher up the staircase. “This is just soup! I'm bringing you your lunch. No need for any of this.”

Extending a long arm up the stairs, the man in the gown pointed up at whoever had spoken and shrieked, “I know what you monsters put in that soup! It'll twist my mind! It'll put me to sleep! And when I'm twisted and asleep you'll . . . you'll . . . there's
no telling
what you'll do!”

A young man wearing plain black pants and a rumpled white shirt eased his way down the stairs, closely followed by reinforcements that outweighed him by no fewer than forty pounds each. “Take it easy now. Aren't you hungry?” the smallest orderly asked.

Nate had almost been tossed outside when the screaming man at the bottom of the stairs pulled a paring knife from where it had been stashed beneath his gown. “None of you are gonna get your hands on me!” he shouted before snapping his wrist and sending the knife whistling through the air to skip along the wall. While the men coming down the stairs ducked to avoid the flying silverware, the man in the gown pulled another knife and several other pieces of cutlery from wherever he'd been hiding them.

“I'll burn this corner of hell down before I let one more atrocity get committed here!” the lunatic screamed as he threw another knife.

The young orderly was shoved aside as one of the bigger men vaulted down the stairs, launching himself toward the ranting patient with both arms outstretched. Somehow, the man in the gown managed to hop back and gain enough footing to perch upon the sill of the closest window. He remained there for less than a second before gravity dragged him down again. By the time his feet touched the floor, the second big fellow was coming at him.

“You'll have to leave, sir,” the woman from the front desk said as she continued herding Nate toward the main entrance. “We have a situation here.”

“Sure as hell do,” Nate grunted as he put his back to her and raced outside on his own. The door was immediately slammed shut behind him, which did nothing to mask the sounds of struggle from within the house.

“Need a hand?” Frank asked from his saddle.

“Just stay put and watch the road,” Nate shouted as he stomped past the girl in the rocker to run along the wide porch toward a corner of the mansion. “Make sure nobody gets to that carriage house!”

Before Nate could round the corner, two men shattered a window and spilled outside. One of the big orderlies landed heavily on his back with the man in the gown on top of him. Nate drew his pistol and roared, “Both of you stop!”

Neither man was listening. The slender one in the gown thumped a fist against the orderly's shoulder and cocked his other hand up over his head like a hammer he intended to drop. His raised fist was wrapped around a shiny fork with three wickedly long tines. Nate sighted along his barrel for as long as he dared before squeezing his trigger. The Remington bucked against his palm, sending its bullet through the middle of the crazy man's improvised weapon.

Before Nate could follow up, a heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder and spun him around so he could look into a pair of dark eyes set within a red face atop a thickly veined neck. “No guns around the patients!” a muscular orderly said. “Hand it over, or you'll be hurt worse than him.”

The woman from behind the front desk came outside, hollering, “He's a deputy!”

The orderly let Nate go and grunted, “Just step aside and let us do our jobs.”

Suddenly, something poked Nate in the shoulder. It was a sharp, jabbing impact from something much narrower than a fingertip. When the object fell onto his boot, Nate looked down to find the severed handle of the fork that had been in the patient's hand. Less than a second later, something else hissed through the air. The orderly let out a surprised yelp and twisted around to reach over his shoulder. Lodged in the thick meat a few inches below the back of his neck and just out of his reach was another fork from the same set that had been stolen by the patient.

Another orderly climbed through the window and was promptly dispatched by a spoon. Its tip cracked solidly against the bridge of the orderly's nose, causing the young man to stagger. The patient shoved him back through the window and then bolted for the carriage house.

“To hell with this place!” the escaping madman hollered. “And to hell with all of you!”

By the time Nate yanked the fork from the orderly's back and shoved him aside, he was nearly tripped up by the one with the spoon welt on his face, who was tentatively climbing through the window again. “I'll handle this,” Nate said as he sped by. That was enough to convince the orderly to climb right back inside again.