Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (14 page)

The total casualties from the attack on Chinatown were three: A chicken trampled in the stampede away from the firing, a mule grazed by a flying bullet, and an iron cooking pot holed by a .44-40 rifle slug.

Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy was relieved, but the tent city at the end of the tracks was now a dangerous place for a white man to be. The town was angry, like a wounded, fanged, and clawed beast ready to lash out at its tormentors, and now its rage found a focus, the man who represented the law in Broken Bridle.

“Those who did this will be found and punished,” Purdy said as a hostile crowd gathered around him. “I give you my word the guilty parties will be brought to justice.”

Silence is a terrible weapon.

A sea of faces, their eyes hollowed by darkness, stared at the lawman. No one uttered a sound, but the basilisk breath of the crowd was an ominous hiss in the quiet.

Shawn O'Brien had it figured out. If the crowd broke violent he had five shots to turn it. But if the Chinese took their hits and kept on coming, then he was a dead man. Beside him, Hamp Sedley looked unwell.

Then something incredible happened. The crowd shut down, turned their backs, and silently filed away into the gloom, now and then light from colored paper lanterns gleaming on bent heads and stooped shoulders.

The three white men found themselves alone, surrounded only by darkness.

“Well, don't that beat all,” Sedley said. He sounded relieved.

Purdy turned to Shawn. “What do you make of it?” he asked.

Shawn shook his head. “I don't know what to make of it. They had me scared for a while there.”

“Well, they're quiet now,” Purdy said. “I guess that's the main thing.”

“I reckon it's the lull before the storm,” Sedley said, exactly echoing Shawn's own thought.

“You men should go back to the hotel,” Purdy said. “I'm going after those idiots and bringing them back here.”

As the drums pounded from the Rattlesnake Hills, Shawn said, “Better be quick, Sheriff. Or there will be none left to bring back.”

“There's always a chance Janacek and the others will prevail and drive Clouston and his gang away,” Purdy said.

“And there's always a chance pigs will fly,” Sedley said.

“Look on the bright side, O'Brien,” Pete Caradas said. “Maybe Clouston will ignore them, let Janacek and his boys bumble around in the dark for a while before they come back to town with hangovers and their tails between their legs.”

“You think that's likely?” Shawn said.

“As likely as you being the best man at my wedding,” Caradas said.

“I'm very hurt,” Shawn said.

Caradas's smile fleeted, then his face grew grim. “Those boys are headed into serious trouble. Clouston will lay for them and cut them to pieces. He has fighting men. Do you know what professional guns can do to a drunken rabble?”

“Put them through a meat grinder, especially in the dark,” Sedley said.

“You got that right, gambling man,” Caradas said.

“That's why I'm here,” Shawn said. “We have to get Becker on his feet and put a gun in his hand. After routing Janacek, Clouston could counterattack and drive right into Broken Bridle.”

Caradas looked around at the thinning saloon crowd, then turned back to Shawn and smiled. “O'Brien, I'm not going to fight for this one-horse town and neither is Becker. Is that clear or do I have to put it in writing?”

“If Clouston gets here, you'll have to fight,” Shawn said.

“Why? He's got nothing against me.”

“You killed one of his men,” Shawn said. “Clouston will nail you to a cross or flay your hide for that.”

“He let me go, remember?” Caradas said.

“Only because he knew he'd catch up with you later,” Shawn said. “You haven't tried to leave town recently, have you? I don't think you'd make it a mile before Clouston caught you.”

Uncertainty flickered in Caradas's strange, lifeless eyes. He looked over the saloon patrons again. “Most of them went home after the Chinese were attacked,” he said. “They're scared.”

“And so they should be. They should be scared of both the Chinese and Clouston. Of the two, I'd say Clouston is the worst.”

“What do you say, gambling man?” Caradas said.

“I say this, Pete. You see the clock on the wall over the bar, what is it telling us?” Sedley said.

“That it's thirty minutes after midnight,” Caradas said.

“No, it's telling us that time is running out fast,” Sedley said. “I say at first light we get the hell out of this town.” He turned his attention to Shawn. “You made a promise to a man you barely know to save his son. Well, you discovered that the son isn't worth saving, so cut your losses and move on now, before it's too late.”

“No, Hamp, I'm no longer in the business of saving Connall Purdy's son, I'm trying to save this town. Broken Bridle isn't much, a mean little outpost of civilization on the edge of nowhere, but as a civilized man I recognize its right to exist. Men like Thomas Clouston would take us back to barbarity by destroying the very fabric of our civilization for his own ends. He seeks to end the basic right of freedom, free speech, and the right to live without fear of oppression. Damn it, I'm an American and I won't lick the boots of any tin pot dictator. To me this town represents freedom, ideals, the ability of Americans to strive for something better for our children than we knew, and I won't let madmen like the Thomas Cloustons of this world destroy it.”

Shawn smiled. “And if I ever talk that much again you have my permission to shoot me.”

“Willingly,” Pete Caradas said.

“Well, Abraham Lincoln, does that mean we stay?” Sedley asked.

“It means I stay, Hamp,” Shawn said. “You have to make your own decision.”

“Then I guess I'll stick,” Sedley said. “Right at the moment I've nothing better to do.”

Caradas roused himself from thought. “Here's what I'll do, O'Brien: If Clouston raids into Broken Bridle and fires shots at my valuable person, I'll shoot back. Can I say fairer than that?”

“You obviously didn't take my speech to heart,” Shawn said. “But, yes, I'll accept that for now.”

“Good, now have a glass of this wine and we'll drink on it,” Caradas said. “Afterward, I'll see if I can rouse the sleeping beauty upstairs.”

“What kind of wine is that, Pete?” Sedley said.

“Monkey piss,” Caradas said. “It's what passes for claret in this outpost of American civilization.”

The marching songs had ended, ground away by the jolting misery of the brewer's dray. The whiskey bottles were empty and men yawned and thought of soft beds and warm, drowsy wives. Moonlight lay on the ground like hoar frost, and now that the drums were silenced, there was no sound but the steady creak of the wagon and the soft footfalls of the massive hooves of the Percherons.

Oskar Janacek drew rein when the towering bulk of a Rattlesnake Hills blacked out the stars. His voice loud in the quiet, he said, “Scouts forward.”

The two men designated for the job remained where they were, huddled in the back of the dray. Near them a man coughed up phlegm and spit over the side. A cloud obscured the jolly face of the moon, like a fat man using a handkerchief.

Janacek's voice took on an edge. “McPhee, Baker, forward.”

“Go to hell, Janacek,” the man called Baker said. “There's nothing here but cactus.”

“I say we turn around,” Lou McPhee said. He was a tall, stringy, sour man, and his passion for the expedition had waned an hour before. “What do you say, boys? We can go back and kill some more of them heathen Chinese.”

That last was greeted with little enthusiasm. What in town had seemed a splendid adventure had rapidly become an ordeal. The dray was designed to transport beer barrels, not men, and it was an uncomfortable perch. Add to that burgeoning hangovers and the open hostility of the land around them, and the expedition had started to fall apart. Men whispered to one another that the drums had stopped and wasn't that the whole point of the exercise in the first place?

Janacek was aware that his command was in jeopardy, and he said, “Hell, I'll scout myself. One of you men come up here and take the reins.”

The dray creaked as the brewer stepped to the ground and a man took his place in the driver's seat. Janacek grabbed a lantern and said, “When I yell to come on, bring the wagon forward. And be alert, all of you.”

This was met with no response. Janacek shook his head and stepped into the darkness, the lantern raised in his left hand, a Winchester in his right. Soon he was swallowed by gloom, and the Percherons stirred in their traces, uneasy with the night and the malevolent, hidden things that prowled its vastness.

Several minutes passed. The moon spread a silvery light made for lovers, and the air was sweet and cool on the tongue, like mint.

There was as yet no beckoning call from Oskar Janacek.

 

 

The steel battle-ax is a cleaving weapon. Its honed edge splits bone apart to the marrow and therefore doesn't crush like a club. When used on the human skull the ax doesn't scatter brain but bites deep into the gray matter and inflicts a horrific wound that kills—or so Janacek's loved ones later hoped—instantly.

The lone survivor of what would be called “The Rattlesnake Hills Expedition” by the local newspaper would later testify that Janacek cried out only once and then fell silent.

What is known is that after Dr. Thomas Clouston levered his battle-ax out of Janacek's skull, he pointed his bloody weapon at the brewery dray and ordered his horsemen forward.

Lit fore and aft by lanterns, the wagon was a blazing target in the darkness, its fourteen occupants packed so closely together they had little room to deploy their weapons, and Clouston's riders fell on the men of Broken Bridle like the wrath of God.

Madman though he was, the doctor had chosen his gunmen with care. Raised and trained in the Texan tradition, to a man they understood the ways of revolver fighting on horseback, and when they attacked the wagon they were as hawks descending on doves.

Clouston's riders attacked both flanks of the dray, raking it with a withering crossfire. They opened up as they rode past, then wheeled around and struck again.

Cramming themselves together as untrained men do under fire, the men in the wagon lost half their number in the first two volleys, and suddenly the wood floor of the dray was awash in blood and scarlet beads ticked through the slats onto the ground.

The man in the driver's seat, a normally meek accountant named Lawson, was a dreadful sight. His lower jaw had been shot away, yet driven by some incredible force of will he managed to turn the wagon around before he was blasted into the dirt.

Another man took Lawson's place and urged the terrified team into a lumbering trot. Behind him, a rifleman cheered as he scored a hit, but his triumphant cry went unanswered by the living, the dying, and the dead. The driver had handled a team before, and he rammed the lurching dray into a narrow break between the trees, praying that he didn't shatter an axle. For a few moments there was a respite from the constant, heavy fire as Clouston's men slowed before funneling two abreast into the narrow clearing.

“Can we hold them off?” the man at the reins yelled over his shoulder.

“Hell no!” a voice answered. It sounded like McPhee. “We got mostly dead men back here!”

The driver hoorawed the team, fear sweat trickling down his spine. Moonlight tangled in clouds of billowing dust, and the dray was momentarily lost in amber darkness, the lanterns long since thrown over the side. A couple of men fired into the murk, scored no hits, but a returning volley fire killed a man kneeling next to McPhee. Splattered by the dead man's blood and brains, McPhee shrieked in horror, then mindless panic.

“Damn you, slow down!” McPhee yelled. “We must surrender!”

“Not this wagon!” the driver answered. He slapped the reins and the Percherons stretched into a gallop.

Bullets splitting the air around him, fired by men who had not made a sound since the attack began, McPhee tossed his rifle away and drew a Colt from his waistband. Standing upright on the wagon bed was like balancing on the storm deck of a schooner in a force ten gale, but he held on to the back of the seat and shoved the muzzle of his revolver into the back of the driver's neck.

“Stop this rig now or I'll kill you!” he yelled into the man's ear. McPhee was hysterical with terror and his voice was shrill.

“You go to hell!” the driver said.

McPhee pulled the trigger. The driver fell forward in the seat, and McPhee snatched the reins from his lifeless hands and hauled the team to a shuddering halt.

It was then, as the Percherons steamed in the morning chill and tossed their heads, that a sixteen-year-old orphan who went by the name Bobby Miller made his bid for freedom.

The following dust cloud caught up with the wagon, and shrouded for a moment, the boy dropped over the side and crawled into the brush. Small and skinny for his age, he was soon hidden under a thick cover of sage and wheatgrass.

The youngster looked back in time to see McPhee die.

 

 

The riders had harried the dray and kept up a steady fire. They'd lost two of their number and that added fury to their bloodlust. After the lanterns had been thrown away, in the crimson-seared darkness three surviving Broken Bridle riflemen, two of them former soldiers, had calmly gotten in some plucky work with Winchesters, but now all three lay dead. Before they were gunned down, one of the veterans had hit a third Clouston rider . . . moments before a horn sounded from the hills and the attackers drew rein and ceased firing.

Lou McPhee threw his Colt away and raised his arms. Because of the dust and darkness he saw nothing and heard only the groans of the dying in the bed of the dray.

Long moments passed, then McPhee called out, “I surrender! I'm unarmed.”

His voice sounded hollow in the terrible quiet. Insects chirped, a breeze moved in the trees, and a harness jangled as a Percheron snorted and shook its massive head.

Bobby Miller tried to make himself even smaller, flattening himself against the ground. Scared, he kept his eyes on McPhee. If the man's surrender was accepted, he planned to give himself up.

Time ticked slowly, then a man with long gray hair astride a great horse appeared through the murk. He wore a cloak and Bobby thought he carried himself nobly, like King Arthur in the picture books. Surely such a chivalrous figure would be merciful to his captured enemies? But then Bobby saw the man's bloody battle-ax and he became very afraid.

The statuesque rider drew rein at the wagon, and McPhee swallowed hard and said, “I surrender.”

“Are you sane?” Dr. Thomas Clouston said.

“I just want out of the fight,” McPhee said. “I'm done. There are wounded men here.”

“The fight is over, yet you don't realize that it is,” Clouston said. “Ergo, you are completely insane and a danger to all of us.”

“No . . . no, I'm not. I just want to go home to my wife and kids,” McPhee said.

Clouston took a breath, then roared, “That won't do! I will not release the mentally deranged back into the community. Lord God Almighty, how the souls of your victims would cry out to me for vengeance!”

“I'm a laborer,” McPhee said in a small, timid voice.

“Liar!” Clouston yelled, so loudly the normally placid Percherons jumped and McPhee grabbed the driver's seat for support. “Who but an insane man would admit to being a common laborer?”

The doctor indicated with his ax. “Come, stand before me in tribunal and I will render judgment, both on your sanity and your wanton, spiteful attack on my person.”

“Don't . . . don't hurt me,” McPhee said.

Huddled in the brush, Bobby Miller pressed his face into the dirt, ashamed for Lou McPhee and his cowardice.

“Stand before me, cretin,” Clouston said.

McPhee, sobbing, climbed from the wagon and walked to his fate.

Bobby saw the ax rise and fall, heard the thin sound of its whispering death, then McPhee's shriek as he fell.

Tears welling in his eyes, the boy heard Clouston call out, “Unhitch the great horses, then kill all in the wagon. Let none survive.”

A few minutes later, after the team was unhitched, Clouston's riders systematically and coldly shot both the dying and the dead.

“Search around, make sure none escaped,” Clouston said.

Bobby Miller lay still, hardly daring to breathe. He heard the footfalls of a booted man come close . . . closer . . . then a thick stream of warm water cascaded onto the back of his head. The boy stayed where he was. Better to be pissed on than have his skull split open with an ax.

Finally he heard the man button up and step away.

Then the man on the big horse said, “Let the dogs lie where they fell. Now back to the hills where we will mourn our dead.”

Fifteen minutes later, amid silence, Bobby Miller got to his feet and ran.

And ten minutes after that he met Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy leading a lame horse.