Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (11 page)

“I never heard a man make a sound like that,” Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy said. “And I never saw a man fall apart the way Burt Becker did.”

“Straw men, you say?” Hamp Sedley said.

“They was skun,” said Utah Beadles, a mean old former range cook Purdy had sworn in as a deputy after the Chinese troubles.

The young sheriff answered the question on Shawn O'Brien's face.

“Both men had been skinned by an expert,” he said. “The skins were stuffed with straw, even the faces and most of the hands.”

“June Lacour and Little Face Denton,” Shawn said. “You're sure it was them?”

“Damn sure,” Beadles said.

The new deputy had a huge head, and a few strands of lank gray hair dripped from under his hat and fell on his shoulders. His left eye was as white as a seashell, but his shooting eye was blue and keen. Beadles was a thin old man, but he was significant.

“It was them all right,” Purdy said. “Becker called out their names over and over.”

“Where is Becker?” Shawn said.

“He was carried into the Streetcar.”

“His eyes rolling in his head, raving like a lunatic,” Beadles said. “I guess ol' Burt never seen fellers skun afore.”

“Have you?” Sedley asked. He'd decided to dislike the old-timer.

Beadles was nonplussed. “Down to the Strawberry River way I seen a puncher after the Utes got through with him. His name was Bob Hughes and he got hisself skun from big toes to scalp. A rum one was ol' Bob, an' no mistake. He was too fond of squaws and in the end that done for him.”

“Some Ute women are said to be real pretty,” Sedley said, warming to the deputy a little.

“I reckon they are,” Beadles said. “But I always was keen on Cheyenne gals myself, the younger the better. Sun dries them out early.”

“Where are the”—Shawn hesitated a heartbeat—“the bodies?”

“At the livery,” Purdy said. “Utah and me got them off the street in a hurry. The folks in this town are scared enough, and those two boys don't need a doctor.”

The four men stood on the boardwalk and now the young sheriff looked in the direction of the Rattlesnake Hills. “Damn those drums,” he said. Then, “O'Brien, do you want to take a look at the—” He waved a despairing hand.

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “I doubt if we'll learn anything, but it's worth a try.”

“Learn anything?” Beadles said. “Hell, sonny, we all know who done it.”

“The crazy doc you mean?” Sedley said.

“None other,” Beadles said. “Listen to the damned drums, sonny. You think they ain't on the brag, telling us he done it?”

It did seem to Shawn that the drums were louder, more insistent and menacing.

Purdy turned bleak, hopeless eyes to him. “This town has five new widows and a grieving mother,” he said. “God knows, the Chinese may have three times that number.”

“You're telling me you won't ride against Clouston?” Shawn said.

“I'm telling you Broken Bridle won't accept more dead men, O'Brien. The women sure as hell won't.”

“What about Becker's hired guns?” Sedley said.

“What hired guns? Now he's only got Pete Caradas and a couple more.”

“Except ol' Burt ain't fit to do anything, not after he saw them straw men,” Beadles said.

“Shawn, you got friends in Washington,” Sedley said. “Call in some favors and get the army here. Hell, a troop of cavalry will be enough to take care of Doc Clouston and his guns.”

“This is a civilian matter and the army is already stretched thin with the Indian problem,” Purdy said. “You can wire Washington, O'Brien, but I don't think you'll get anywhere.”

“I don't think so, either,” Shawn said. “Besides, it's my father who has the ear of the government bigwigs. I reckon we have it to do by ourselves.”

“Tell me how,” Purdy said. He looked incredible young and vulnerable, like a timid twelve-year-old surrounded by bullies.

“I don't know how,” Shawn said. “Not yet I don't. But I think this town is worth saving. Make what you will of that, Sheriff.”

The men shuffled to one side of the boardwalk to let a pretty woman in a poke bonnet pass. She had a couple of young 'uns clinging to her skirt.

But the woman stopped and said to Purdy, “Sheriff, is it true that the Chinese have threatened to murder us all in our beds?”

Purdy managed a smile. “Who told you that, Mrs. Wright?” he said.

“Mrs. McGivney told me. She heard it from Mrs. Scott who heard it from—”

“Madam, I assure you that you're quite safe,” Purdy said. “The Chinese harbor no ill will toward Broken Bridle and its citizens.”

“Well, I hope not,” the woman said. “Mr. Wright is talking about pulling up stakes and heading for Cheyenne where it's safe for a young family like ours.” She put her hands to her ears. “Away from those awful drums.”

“No need to leave, Mrs. Wright,” Purdy said. “You and your husband and children will be perfectly safe and sound, I assure you.”

“I do hope so, Sheriff,” the woman said. “Mr. Wright has been unwell of late and is under the doctor's care. I do worry about him so.”

Shawn O'Brien touched his hat and smiled.

“Give Mr. Wright our regards, ma'am, and tell him we wish him a speedy recovery.”

The woman dropped a little curtsy and said, “Thank you, kind sir.”

Shawn bowed. “Your obedient servant, ma'am.”

After Mrs. Wright left with her brood, Sedley grinned and said, “Shawn, you're still very much the Southern gentleman, aren't you?”

“Is there any other kind of gentleman?” Shawn said.

 

 

The straw men had been removed from their horses and were propped in a corner of the livery and partially covered with hay.

Shawn O'Brien pulled the straw away and his breath caught in his throat. Beside him he heard Hamp Sedley's sharp intake of breath.

The skins were grotesque, stuffed with prairie grass and straw and then held upright with a T-shaped frame before they were tied onto the horses.

There was no longer anything human about them.

The eyes, nose cavities, and mouths looked like holes burned in canvas with a cigar. Shawn couldn't tell June Lacour or Little Face Denton apart.

“This is an obscene thing to do to men,” Sedley said.

“From all I've heard about Clouston, the man himself is an obscenity,” Shawn said. “In the name of medical science he's taken more innocent lives than the West's worst outlaws combined.” He stood and stared at the vile things that once had been men. “Judging by the amount of blood on their hides, Lacour and Denton were not dead when this happened to them,” he said.

“Skinned alive, by God,” Sedley said.

“I reckon that's how it was,” Shawn said. “Nothing they ever did in life deserved such a death.”

He covered up the remains again and said, “Later, I guess this is what we bury and call them bodies.”

“It will be kinda like burying a well-dressed gent's duds instead of him,” Sedley said.

“Yeah. Kinda like that,” Shawn said. He stepped to the barn door. “Let's go talk with Burt Becker.”

“Is that wise, Shawn?” Sedley asked. “He's liable to take one look at you and start shooting.”

“From what I hear, Becker is in no shape to shoot anybody,” Shawn said.

“Unless he's faking it,” Sedley said. “He's a sneaky one is ol' Burt.”

The two D'eth brothers rode across the grass and sagebrush country west of Savage Peak. Ahead of them lay uplifted, craggy mountains of red granite rock, here and there stands of limber pine, aspen, and juniper.

It was wild, untamed country, hard and unforgiving, but no wilder or harder than the two young men who rode among its shadows.

Both were tall, lean as hungry wolves, their eyes, mustaches, and hair black as ink, a mark of their French Roma heritage. Each carried an ivory-handled Colt shoved into his waistband and a boot knife with a three-inch steel blade.

Petsha and Milos D'eth were twins, two separate bodies conjoined in spirit—heartless, pitiless, vicious assassins for hire who came at a bargain rate, two for the price of one.

But lawmen from Texas to Montana would swear that one D'eth twin was plenty more than enough.

When the brothers spotted the sagging clapboard cabin ahead of them they drew rein. A trickle of smoke rose from the chimney and a pregnant sow rooted in the front yard.

At the same time both men kneed their horses forward, and when they were within a few feet of the door they again halted.

After a few moments a dour, bearded man stepped outside. He held a Sharps rifle across his chest.

“Go away. I have nothing for you,” he said.

Now, a man with even a lick of sense should have known that strangers who rode blood horses and dressed in the broadcloth and white linen finery of gentlemen don't seek handouts.

But John Layton, tinpan miner and former farm laborer, was far from being a smart man. Not that it made any difference, since the D'eth brothers planned on killing him anyway, stupid or clever.

Unnerved by the brothers' silence, Layton, who had a reputation as a mean, nasty son-of-a-bitch, said, “On your way. There's no grub or money for you here.”

The D'eth brothers drew at the same moment, and Layton fell with two bullets in his chest. The chickens in a coop at the side of the cabin flapped and clucked in alarm.

A small spotted pup, malnourished and dragging its left hind leg, scrambled out of the cabin and sniffed around the fallen man.

Then, displaying a dog's infinite capacity to forgive and forget, the pup looked up at the twins, whined a little, then sat awkwardly, its injured leg paining the animal.

The brother called Petsha swung out of the saddle as Layton groaned and tried to push up on his arms. Petsha's face expressionless, he casually shot the miner in the back of the head. Layton jerked, then lay still.

Petsha holstered his revolver and picked up the frightened puppy. With gentle hands he soothed the little creature, then checked its leg. The dog yelped a little, and looking concerned, he carried it to his brother.

Milos's hands were as careful as those of his brother. He examined the leg and after a while he kissed the puppy on the top of his head and tucked him into his coat.

He dismounted and both men entered the cabin.

Despite the brightness of the day, it was dark inside and one of the twins lit the oil lamp. The light spread into the cabin, revealing an untidy room but one that was fairly clean.

A coffeepot smoked on the stove. The brother who carried the puppy hefted the pot, then lifted the lid and sniffed.

Satisfied, he found a couple of clean tin cups and poured.

Petsha stepped across the room to a timber pole that was hammered into the wall. The pole served as a clothes hanger for underwear, much worn and stained, a couple of bib overalls, and several patched shirts.

The man grunted and threw the overalls and a couple of shirts on the floor. After some searching he tossed a ragged newsboy cap and a straw boater onto the pile.

Like his brother, he built a cigarette and smoked in silence as he drank coffee.

Later, another search uncovered a can of meat that the D'eth brothers fed to the hungry pup. The little dog had been kicked and his leg might be broken, but only a mule doctor would be able to treat it.

They hoped to find one of those in Broken Bridle.

Quickly the brothers stripped off their fine clothes and carefully laid them over the clothes pole. They each changed into a pair of overalls and Layton's shirts that proved to be too small for them. But they would have to do.

Finally they discarded their flat-brimmed, low-crowned black hats and grinned when they saw each other in the newsboy cap and straw boater.

But they looked like a couple of rubes, and that was exactly the impression they wanted to give.

There was nothing they could do about their tooled Texas boots. It seemed the dead man had only one pair of shoes and he was wearing them. They were too small anyway.

But then, how closely do folks look at a couple of hayseeds in town to see the bright lights and fancy women?

Their big American horses they could stake out on grass a fair ways from town. The man they'd killed had a rawboned yellow mustang in the corral and riding it two-up without a saddle would complete their disguise.

The brothers used string to cinch the waists of their overalls tight, and each shoved his short-barreled Colt into the bib where it would be hidden.

They smoked and drank more coffee, then scooped up the spotted pup and stepped outside.

Once the mustang was bridled the D'eth brothers mounted up and left the dead man where he lay.

The spotted pup wriggled his way upward and licked the face of the brother who held him. Milos grinned and gently patted the little mutt's head.

Like his brother Petsha he hated people . . . but he loved dogs.

“Burt is in no state to see anyone,” Sunny Swanson said. “He is very ill.”

“He'll see me,” Shawn O'Brien said.

“No, I'm afraid he won't.”

This from Pete Caradas who sprawled tall and elegant at a table, a crystal decanter of brandy in front of him.

“No offense, O'Brien,” he said. “I'm sure you understand.”

“Why are you so damned sure he won't see me?” Shawn said.

“He has a brain fever,” Caradas said. Then, “You saw what happened to June and Little Face. Well, so did Burt and he hasn't been right in the head since.”

“Where do you stand, Pete?” Shawn said.

“Right now I'm sitting.” Caradas smiled. “Stand on what? As of today I believe I'm still on Burt Becker's payroll, and I haven't thought it through any further than that.”

“Now on to a more pleasant topic.” He flicked the decanter with a forefinger and after the
ting!
said, “I'm assured, if I can believe the Streetcar mixologist, that this cognac is from a new winery, the Chateau de Triac in France. Oddly enough I find it quite pleasant if a trifle pretentious. May I pour you a snifter? I'd like your opinion.”

Shawn glanced at the decanter. “Judging by the mature color I believe it's a Bonaparte,” he said. “But I've never tried that particular chateau before.”

“Then there's a first time for everything.”

Shawn nodded. “Then you may pour.”

Caradas tipped cognac into a clean glass.

Shawn sniffed, then sampled the alcohol. He rolled the cognac around in his mouth for a while to allow the aromas and flavors to fully develop,
La Minute Mystique
, as the French connoisseurs called it, then swallowed.

“Well?” Caradas said, smiling slightly.

“A tad rustic for my taste, earthy overtones of dried apricot, mushroom, and a hint of cigar leaves, but nonetheless, as you said, a pleasant enough cognac.”

“Another?” Caradas said.

“Not when I'm on business,” Shawn said.

Caradas was silent for a few moments, then he tensed and said, “Not on revolver-fighting business, I trust.”

Shawn smiled. “No, Pete. But when I am, you'll be the first to know.”

“Thank you kindly for the courtesy,” Caradas said.

“Where's Becker?” Shawn said.

Caradas nodded to the balcony that stretched on both sides of the saloon. “In a crib up there. You won't get a lick of sense out of him.”

“He needs to recover quickly,” Shawn said. “Becker is all that stands between Thomas Clouston and this town.”

Suddenly Caradas's gray eyes shrouded, a fleeting moment like the shadow of a scudding cloud on prairie grass. “They made me puke,” he said. “Or, in cruder terms, they made me throw my guts up.”

“Huh?” Shawn said. “I'm not catching your drift.”

“Clouston's men. They scared me so bad I got sick from fright,” Caradas said. “I thought I'd stopped being scared around the time I bought my first Colt. The mad doctor showed me otherwise.”

“Seeing what happened to June Lacour and Little Face, you'd a right to be scared,” Sedley said, speaking for the first time.

“Imagine getting scared and having to hurl in the middle of a gunfight,” Caradas said. “That should never happen to a man who makes his living with a revolver.”

“Tell me about the fight,” Shawn said.

“There isn't much to tell. After Lacour and Denton were caught, Clouston's boys took pots at me with rifles. They weren't trying to hit me, just put the fear of God into me. I guess they figured I was a man who scared real easy.”

“A yellow belly today can be a hero tomorrow,” Sedley said.

“Hamp,” Shawn said, “that really didn't help.”

Caradas smiled. “Look on the bright side, O'Brien,” he said. “If you ever come calling on revolver business I may be so scared I'll cut and run.”

“I don't think I'll put my faith in that happening,” Shawn said.

“Damn right, Pete,” Sedley said. “You're the fastest man with a gun around these parts.”

“That didn't help, either, Hamp,” Shawn said, angling the gambler an irritated glance.

Caradas grinned and slowly rose to his feet, unwinding like a watch spring. “I'll take you to Becker,” he said.

But Sunny Swanson would have none of it. “I told you, Burt is ailing. He's not in a fit state to see anyone,” she said.

More than ever she looked like a scolding school ma'am.

“Sunny, if Burt is that sick, I don't think he's paying our wages any longer,” Caradas said.

“We owe him,” the woman said. “Well, I owe him.”

“I want to talk with him,” Shawn said.

“He can't talk. He raves, but that's not talk,” Sunny said.

“I'd like to find that out for myself,” Shawn said.

Sunny reached into the pocket of her dress and came up with a Remington derringer that she pointed at Shawn's face.

“And I say you won't, Mr. O'Brien.”

“Sunny, put the stinger away,” Caradas said.

“I'll be damned if I will,” the woman said.

“You'll be damned if you don't,” Shawn said.

He moved as fast as a striking rattler. His head darted to one side as his left arm came up and grabbed Sunny by the wrist.

The woman yelled and triggered a shot into the ceiling.

Shawn used his right, battered and painful as it was, to wrench the derringer from Sunny's hand.

The woman rubbed her wrist. “You brute, you hurt me,” she said. “Pete, did you see that? He attacked a woman.”

“What do you want me to do about it, Sunny?” Caradas said, smiling.

“Shoot him! Shoot him now! He's . . . he's a savage.”

Shawn unloaded the Remington and passed it back to the angry woman. “Don't drop it,” he said. “You could break a toe.”

Sunny took a step back from Shawn and her tone bitter she said, “Haven't you done enough to Burt already, O'Brien? You beat him to within an inch of his life and now you want to piss on him when he's down? What kind of man are you?”

“The kind that tells you to get your facts straight, lady,” Shawn said.

He stepped around Sunny and walked to the stairs, feeling his anger on a slow burn.

Pete Caradas was right behind him. “Don't be too hard on Sunny,” he said. “I think she actually loves Becker.”

Shawn turned and smiled slightly. “Wildcat, isn't she?” he said.

Caradas nodded. “She's all of that.”

“My kind of woman,” Shawn said. “In some ways her bravery and loyalty reminds me of my wife.” He shook his head, his face stiff. “Oh hell, why did I say that and open an old wound.”