Authors: William W. Johnstone

Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (10 page)

BOOK: Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter

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C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE

Dave Grambling was a man of volatile temperament and deep prejudices, and he had a tendency to violence. He triggered his shotgun at random into the crowd. Two Chinese men fell.

Cursing, Grambling threw his Greener aside and pulled his Colt.

“Pour it into them, boys!” he yelled.

The vigilantes opened up with rifles and revolvers, and two more men and the old woman who'd translated for Purdy went down.

Then the Chinese closed, wielding axes, cleavers, clubs, and knives, screaming war cries that no one understood but them.

Shawn O'Brien watched the group of vigilantes, half of them veterans of the war, stand like a rock until a wave of humanity crashed over them.

Halos of blood erupted above the vigilantes as meat cleavers and axes thudded into bone and flesh.

Above the shrieks of men dying in pain amid clouds of kicked-up dust, Shawn shouted at Hamp Sedley to fall back before they were overwhelmed. Guns in their hands, Shawn and Sedley gave ground. So far neither had fired a shot since the attack began. But soon that had to change.

A section of the mob had noticed the retreat of the two white men.

Screaming, brandishing their bloody weapons, at least two dozen men and a few young women descended on Shawn and Sedley.

“Oh my God,” Shawn yelled. “Not this!”

But suddenly he was in a fight for his life and rational thought gave way to the instinct for survival.

The Colt in Shawn's fist hammered dry. Beside him Sedley fired steadily, his face grim as he beheld the slaughter he and Shawn were inflicting on the Chinese.

Unable to stand against such sustained fire, the survivors broke and ran. Seven bodies lay sprawled on the ground, one of them a young woman.

“What have we done?” Sedley said, his face anguished.

Shawn made no answer. He watched Dave Grambling. Instead of making a run for it, the big man stood firm and tried to reload his revolver. He never made it.

Grambling was engulfed by Chinese and, kicking and screaming, dragged away.

Then suddenly it was all over. The mob, out for blood, followed after Grambling. His end would not be quick or painless.

Shawn reloaded his Colt and shoved it back in the holster.

White and Chinese bodies littered the ground, and two of the dead vigilantes had been beheaded. Close by, Jeremiah Purdy, on his hands and knees, spat blood into the dirt.

Somewhere in town a frightened dog barked endlessly.

Shawn O'Brien stepped to Purdy and took a knee beside him.

He put his hand on the young man's back and said, “How badly are you hurt?”

Purdy turned his head, revealing a bloody mouth.

“Took an elbow from somebody,” he said. “That's all I remember.” Then, “Help me to my feet, O'Brien.”

After the sheriff stood, he looked around him. He'd managed to keep his glasses, and behind the thick lenses his eyes were wide, unbelieving, shocked by the carnage that had taken place.

Now it was a time for widows.

Wailing, sobbing women, both white and Oriental, moved among the dead or lay prostrate in grief beside the bodies of husbands and sons.

One new widow, young, blond, and barely out of childhood, cradled her husband's decapitated head in her lap. She made no sound, already in a midnight place from where she would never return.

Worse, or some might say better, was to come.

Dim drums in the distant Rattlesnake Hills pounded into the dying day, adding to the tension and fear in Broken Bridle. But the drumming took the knife-edge off Dave Grambling's agonized shrieks, though his cries were still raw and primal, the screams of a man dying a hundred small deaths.

Hamp Sedley, a man not easily shaken, looked at Shawn with frantic eyes. “We can't let that happen to a white man,” he said. “Let's go get him.”

“No,” Shawn said. “We'd have to go in with guns and there's been enough killing in this town already.”

“What about you, sonny?” Sedley said to Purdy. The gambler's anger and frustration showed.

“Grambling brought this down on himself,” the sheriff said. “There's nothing we can do for him now except pray that he dies soon.”

“Well, be damned to both of you for cowards,” Sedley said. “I'm going after him.”

Purdy's little revolver came out of his pocket with admirable speed.

“Mr. Sedley, if I have to I'll put a bullet in your brainpan right here and now,” he said. “I will have no more Chinese killed or white men, either.”

A crowd gathered around the three men, watching.

Sedley stared hard at Purdy. “Damn you, you mean it,” he said.

“Don't try me, Mr. Sedley,” the sheriff said. The Smith & Wesson was rock steady in his hand.

And for the first time Shawn O'Brien realized that a fighting man with bark on him lurked under the callow boy.

Distant drums . . . screams . . . a barking dog . . . the widow wails of women . . .

These sounds seemed to penetrate Sedley's fevered brain.

He blinked and his hand dropped from his holstered Colt. “I need a drink,” he said. “I need a lot of drinks.”

Then he turned and walked away.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

Dr. Thomas Clouston was livid, in a killing rage. His plan to goad the Chinese into revolt and destroy Broken Bridle had failed miserably.

The town still stood, a thorn in his side, and no doubt the lowlife Burt Becker was well and plotting more mischief.

But then, he hadn't met his straw men yet. Despite his anger, a smile touched Clouston's lips. Lord, how he'd like to be there and see Becker's reaction. It would be exquisite.

He turned his attention back to business.

“Tell me again,” he said. “I want all the details. Don't go crazy on me.”

The man he addressed was a malodorous, scar-faced brute who went by the name of Nate Tryon. He had a reputation as a killer and that was why Clouston had chosen him for the task of inciting the Orientals.

But the man had bungled, the damned fool.

“I done what you asked,” Tryon said. “Damn it all, I done everything you asked.”

“You're surly, Nate,” Clouston said. “I can't abide surly. I saw enough of surly among the stinking, insane paupers who hung around the gates of my clinic.”

“Sorry, boss,” Tryon said.

“Tell me again.”

“I rode through them like you tole me, guns a-blazing an' a whooping an' a hollering like a demon. You recollect that you tole me to make like a demon.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Oh, five, six, maybe.” Tryon grinned. “One of them was a woman.”

“The gender of the dead is unimportant,” Clouston said. “The woman you killed was probably insane, led astray by all that Confucian nonsense. After the raid you promptly rode out of town. Am I correct?”

“I sure did. And then I took up a position on a hill like you tole me. I could see the whole damn burg through that there spyglass you gave me.”

“And you saw, exactly what?”

“I seen the Chinese charge at a bunch of white men who came to see what had happened. Then all kinds of shootin' started, and by and by the Chinese all ran away, leaving their dead on the ground.”

“How many white men went down?”

“I don't rightly know, boss. Things was real confused down there in town, folks shootin' an' runnin' an' raisin' dust an' all.”

Clouston was silent for a while. He sat in what he called, with bourgeois primness, his parlor. He smoked his S-shaped pipe and his battle-ax lay at his feet, hidden by the blanket that covered his knees.

“You made no effort to return and infiltrate the Chinese mob and tell them that they must take terrible vengeance on the town?”

“Boss, you're joking, right?” Tryon said. “They would have recognized me straight off an' pulled me off my hoss and done fer me right there and then.”

“I never joke. I never speak in jest.”

“But you know they would have recognized me. Hell, I'd just rode through them, killing.”

“You could have changed your appearance, taken off your coat and hat perhaps. The Chinese would have been too agitated to notice.”

“But they'd have sure recognized that snowcap Palouse hoss of mine and this”âhe traced a forefinger down the terrible scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his mouthâ“is a dead giveaway.”

Clouston sighed. “Yes, perhaps you're right, Nate. I blame myself for asking too much of you.”

“I'll get it right the next time, boss. Kill a dozen, maybe, an' get them Chinamen riled up real good.”

“Is that ever so, Nate? Then we are perfect friends again.”

Clouston indicated to the floor in front of him. “Come, kneel before me and I will impart my blessing and pray that we mend fences.”

If Tryon thought that strange, he didn't let it show. He kneeled in front of Clouston, removed his hat, and lowered his head.

He died so quickly it's doubtful he felt the ax blow that split his skull open. Nor did he have time to realize that Dr. Thomas Clouston did not tolerate failure.

As Tryon toppled over onto his side, the doctor yelled, “Somebody!”

A few moments later a couple of his men stepped into the parlor.

“Remove that,” Clouston said. “It's leaking brains all over my floor.”

He puffed his pipe into life and without visible emotion watched his men drag the corpse outside.

“Oh, Hansen,” he called out. “Has Wilson arrived with the new men yet?”

The man called Hansen dropped his part of the deadweight burden and said, “Not yet, boss.”

“Then let me know when they do,” Clouston said. “I want to welcome them to our merry outlaw band.”

The doctor's anger had somewhat abated now the guilty party had been punished, but he vowed he'd no longer put trust in the Chinese.

With the new men he'd recruitedâhopefully Dan Wilson had done his jobâa direct assault on Broken Bridle was the obvious course.

The only real opposition he'd face was Burt Becker and his gunmen, but they could be overwhelmed, especially if his straw men idea went as planned.

Clouston sighed. The burden of command was indeed a heavy one.

Then he sat upright with a jolt, remembering something he'd almost forgotten . . . his reason for journeying to Wyoming in the first place.

Suppose he hadn't cured Hugo Harcourt, one of his last patients before he was booted from the medical profession? Suppose, even after his best efforts, the man had remained stark, raving mad? Could he have imagined the stuff about the Rattlesnake Hills and sent him on a wild goose chase?

Clouston sat back in his chair and thought the problem through.

No, it was impossible of course. When Dr. Thomas Clouston said a madman was cured, then he was cured, especially when his family had paid a small fortune for his treatment.

Hugo's millionaire father had his finger on the pulse of the New York business scene, where rumors were rampant about the hills and the millions that could be made. And old Sanderson Harcourt himself had provided that information, not his idiot son.

Clouston smiled to himself.

No, all was well. But the Chinese still remained the key.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

The Chinese riot had the town of Broken Bridle on high alert as Burt Becker struggled out of bed, fighting back the pain of his broken ribs and fractured jaw.

For a moment he held on to the headboard as the room spun around him and the floor rocked under his feet. But Becker's pain and weakness filled him with a mighty resolve.

For every moment of agony he suffered, Shawn O'Brien would be paid back a hundredfold. In the end the pretty boy would beg for death and Becker would laugh in his face, then kick his damned teeth in.

Unsteadily, the big man made his way to his hotel room window and pulled wide the curtains. Immediately he was bathed in morning light; yet there were already armed men in the street, on guard and ready.

What the hell had happened?

Becker had no time to ponder that question, because the door opened and Sunny Swanson stepped inside. She looked more school ma'am than saloon whore. Her morning dress was gray with white at the collars and cuffs as befitted a respectable young lady, and her hair was pulled back in a severe chignon.

“You shouldn't be out of bed,” she said.

Becker tried to speak but the tight bandage wrapped around his jaw stifled his words.

“Hnn . . . hnn . . . hnn . . .” he said, his head jerking back and forth from the effort. He didn't try to speak again.

Sunny put down the bowl of thin beef broth she carried. “Back to bed and eat this, Mr. Becker,” she said, waggling a forefinger. “You're a very naughty boy.”

Becker ignored that and the broth and slowly, laboriously, and painfully he began to climb into his clothes. As he pulled on his boots Sunny chided him unmercifully, but he ignored her, his mind fixed on what had happened in the town.

He didn't ask himself any more questions. He'd discover all the answers he needed very soon. But now her nursemaid job was apparently over, Sunny decided to fill Becker in on what had happened while he lay unconscious.

“The Chinese rioted yesterday,” she said. “They tortured Dave Grambling to death, turned his body inside out the newspaper says.”

The girl read the question on Becker's surprised face. “Seven white men dead and twice that number of Chinese,” she said. “That's what the paper says.”

The big man's expression changed from amazement to concern.

“Pete Caradas wasn't among them,” she said.

Relief flooded through Becker. He buckled on his revolvers, then shrugged, wincing, into his frockcoat. He got his wallet from the inside pocket and threw some bills onto the bedside table.

“Sssanks,” he said through teeth as tight as a bear trap.

Sunny picked up the money, gave it a onceover, smiled, then said, “You're welcome. You can call on me anytime, Mr. Becker.”

Becker nodded and picked up the soup bowl. He tilted back his head and let the broth trickle into his mouth until it was gone. The bandage under his chin was stained brown.

The beef broth helped, but Becker felt weak and light-headed. He was in no shape for a fight of any kind, not today and probably not tomorrow, or even next week.

For the first time in his life he felt powerless and vulnerable.

He walked to the door, opened it for Sunny . . . and took his first step into hell.

The early morning sun hung in the blue sky like a gold coin as Burt Becker stood on the porch of the hotel and lit a cigar. To his joy a man could still smoke, even with a broken jaw.

Men with rifles lounged on boardwalks and stared at the pretty women who passed, then exchanged grins and whispers.

But most of the riflemen, at least a dozen in number, were concentrated at the western edge of town where they could meet any attack from the Chinese.

Usually at this time of day, the tent city would be noisy, clamoring with Oriental voices, but that morning it was eerily silent, as though holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

A locomotive, two cars and a boxcar attached, hissed and steamed on the track like a snoozing dragon. The engineer leaned out his window and talked to Sheriff Purdy, who looked small and insignificant beside the massive bulk of the 4-4-0.

There were no passengers in sight, and no Chinese, either.

Worrisome that, Becker thought, kind of eerie. But no matter, his fight must be with crazy Tom Clouston, not with a bunch of rioting Orientals.

Becker's battered face and hogtied jaw drew the attention of what he called the local yokels. Some of the men on guard stared in his direction and sniggered.

In no shape to fight, he decided it was high time he was off the street and into the dark, cool confines of the Streetcar Saloon.

And that led to another thought.

Had that mouthy little slut Jane Collins been fed in his absence? If not she must be mighty hungry about now. Ah well, serve her right for being so damned uppity. Becker's grin hurt his jaw.

“Riders coming in,” one of the guards yelled.

Becker's eyes probed the wagon road that led into town. Two men were coming on at a walk, sitting their horses straight, like cavalrymen on parade. Army officers, maybe, he thought.

Becker was about to dismiss the men, but as they drew closer the black and white cowhide vest one of them wore caught his eye.

June Lacour wore a vest like that.

So he and Little Face Denton hadn't been killed! Somehow two of his top gun hands had survived and this was going to be a cause for celebration. A man with a broken jaw could still drink whiskey.

Smiling tight, Becker walked forward to greet his men. But after ten paces he stopped.

And learned that a man with a broken jaw could also scream.

BOOK: Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter

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