Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (21 page)

Dr. Clouston was angry, raving, foaming at the mouth mad.

He'd lost seven of his best men including the loyal Deke Hansen, and one of the wounded was not expected to live. But worse, the Chinese were now refusing to work.

“Boss, they say they haven't been fed since they got here and that undercutting the rock to remove the greenstone will be too damned dangerous.”

A man named Lark Rawlings, a Cajun whom Clouston didn't particularly like, delivered the unwelcome news.

“Are they insane?” the doctor said. “Did you tell them that food is on the way and wagons to haul the ore to the rail depot? Did you tell them I'm increasing their wages to a dollar a day because of the danger of the overhang?”

“Seems they already know them things, boss,” Rawlings said.

“I want work to get started right away on cutting the greenstone so it's ready for loading,” Clouston said. “Haul those Chinese off their lazy butts. Hang a few if you have to. That will make the rest pay attention.”

Rawlings, a tall, unshaven man with black eyes and hair, nodded. “Sure thing, boss. I'll string up half a dozen of the ringleaders and let them dangle for a spell, make a big impression.”

Clouston said, “I wish to attend the hangings,” then waved his hand in dismissal. He'd thought earlier about cleaving a few heads, but six bodies dangling on a makeshift gallows until they rotted would be a potent reminder of his wrath.

He sighed, lit his pipe, and picked up his copy of Dr. J. C. Bucknill's brilliant treatise on the care and control of the insane. It was clear from the words he read that the Chinese were all demented and must be treated most severely, like naughty children.

 

 

In the end, Thomas Clouston hanged the five men and two women who were judged to be the ringleaders of the revolt.

The job was badly bungled by Rawlings and his assistant hangmen, and all seven Chinese strangled to death. Being small and light, their deaths had not been quick or easy.

Clouston, however, was very pleased. The Chinese had learned what happened to those who displeased him, and several hundred men and boys were already hard at work on the greenstone seam, despite the looming threat of the massive rock overhang that looked like a huge, curling wave about to crash onto their heads.

By right of his fast gun and ruthlessness, Rawlings had stepped into the boots of the late Deke Hansen and Clouston pulled him aside, the elongated shadows of the Chinese dead falling on them.

“Do you think six mounted riflemen are enough to keep the diggers in check?” he said.

“Sure, boss. The Chinese know what those six men can bring.”

“Very well, then I'll leave that up to you,” Clouston said. “But at the first sign of discontent and muttering, hang a few more, women preferably. I need the men as workers.”

“You can depend on that,” Rawlings said.

“How many men have you killed in gunfights?” Clouston said.

The man thought for a few moments, then said, “White men?”

“Yes,” Clouston said. “Let's confine it only to those who matter.”

“Seven white men, boss.”

“Anyone of note?”

“Well, I kilt stuttering Willie Newsome down Ellsworth way. He claimed to be the fastest gun and hardest man north of the Red until I taught him the error of his ways.”

“Good, then you are eminently qualified to supervise this enterprise,” Clouston said. “Work the Chinese like slaves, Rawlings, dig, dig, dig, faster, faster, faster, dawn till dusk until they drop. Understand?”

“I got it, boss,” Rawlings said, grinning.

“There's one other thing that's of the greatest moment,” Clouston said. “I will attack Broken Bridle very soon and wipe that accursed town off the map. I want to hear plans from you and your men that I can use or adapt.”

“I fit Indians when I scouted for the army,” Rawlings said. “Wiped out a few Sioux and Cheyenne villages in my time. I know how it's done.”

“Good, then we'll have a consultation soon,” Clouston said.

He glanced up at the seven hanging bodies, the ropes creaking in the wind. “Building a gallows was Hansen's idea and it was a good one,” he said. “All things considered I'd say that our golden enterprise is off to an admirable start.”

“There is one thing, boss, we need to fill the wagons quickly,” Rawlings said. “I don't know how much longer the overhang will hold up, if you catch my drift. It's already dangerously undercut.”

“At your present pace, how long before the entire greenstone seam is removed?” Clouston said, worry suddenly niggling him.

“Three, four weeks if the entire hill doesn't come down before then.”

“We have a thousand Chinese men at the diggings, but we obviously need to increase the workforce. Get the women, children, old people, anyone who can use a pick, shovel, or load wagons.”

Rawlings did a quick calculation and said, “That takes in everybody, say three thousand people. But if that cliff comes down . . .”

“Do you really care, Rawlings?” Clouston said.

“No, can't say as I do.”

“Nor do I. Get them to work and shoot those who won't. One other thing, I want ten, not six, mounted men on guard with orders to shoot to kill. If you need to, step over Chinese bodies to get my wagons to the railhead.”

Coming up from the boom town of Medicine Bow, Deputy United States Marshal Saturday Brown thought of the Union Pacific smoking-car cushions with nostalgic longing as he rode south of the Rattlesnake Hills in a roaring rain.

His ass hurt from the McClellan saddle, designed to favor the horse, not the rider, and his rheumatisms punished him. At fifty-five, he knew he was too old for manhunts, but the law was stretched thin, and the army, their hands full with resettling Indians, had no interest in helping the civil authority.

In fact, Brown wasn't really on a manhunt; he was chasing wild rumors that had percolated down the southern trails as far as Medicine Bow and had ousted him from his cozy berth as the resident law and much sought-after raconteur.

A gray-haired man of medium height and build, he didn't look like much, but Saturday Brown had stories to tell. In the course of a law enforcement career that spanned more than three decades, protecting himself and stopping fleeing felons, he'd killed twenty-eight men. Not one of them troubled his conscience or disturbed his sleep o' nights. A lifelong bachelor, he lived for his work; yet he'd never gained a reputation as a fast gun or found fame as a lawman, and he'd sought neither.

Now in the twilight of his career, the marshal contemplated retirement and a move to Detroit where his younger sister had a hat shop and a spare bedroom.

A man much addicted to a tobacco habit he'd picked up from Texas cowboys, Brown pulled his horse into the shelter of cottonwoods that lined a creek bank and with the steady hands of the gun-skilled built himself a cigarette. He smoked and gloomily stared out at the rain that moved in the wind like a glass curtain.

 

 

“It's an easy assignment, Sat,” U.S. Marshal Cliff Miles had told him. “An afternoon's ride in the park. Gold is a hard-kept secret so believe me all you'll find in the Rattlesnake Hills are rattlesnakes. It's wide-open country with just one quiet town close by where the folks go to church on Sunday and the saloon serves cake and ice cream. You head up there, take a quick look around, then come back to Medicine Bow, make your report, and put your feet up.”

“The word around this town is—”

“Rumor, Sat. And most times rumor is a kinder word for a damned lie. Men killed over a gold strike, drums beating in the middle of the night, and a crazy doctor leading a band of desperadoes.” Miles smiled, his brown eyes bright with sincerity. “I've even heard a big windy that Pete Caradas is there, him and that other feller they call the Town Tamer—”

“Shawn O'Brien,” Brown said.

“Yeah, him. What's a big-time hired gun and a millionaire's son doing in a burg on the edge of the civilized world. Huh? Answer me that.”

“Well, it don't seem likely,” Brown said.

“Damn right it don't seem likely,” Miles said.

“Cliff, them hills are a fair piece, maybe eighty miles,” Brown said. “I'm getting too old to sit on a hoss for that long.”

Miles patted Brown on the shoulder and said, “You can do it, Deputy.”

And that had signified that his talking was done.

 

 

Saturday Brown had started on his second cigarette, rain staining the shoulders of his slicker, when he squinted his brown eyes and stared into distance. He was a long-sighted man who needed spectacles to read a newspaper. A rider emerged through the downpour angling to the west of him into rolling brush country.

Brown did some quick thinking.

No God-fearing white man would ride out on such a day under a sky as black as mortal sin. This wilderness was owlhoot country, filled with hardcases on the scout, and Brown saw his chance to return to Medicine Bow. If, as he suspected, the rider was a wanted man, he'd arrest him and take him back and there would be no wild goose chase into empty hills.

Brown flicked his cigarette butt into the rain, slid a Winchester from the boot under his knee, and kicked his horse into motion. He moved southwest crossing rolling country where prickly pear and bitterroot thrived among the sagebrush. The rider hadn't seen him yet. The man's head was lowered against the onslaught of the rain and he kept his horse to a steady walk. But every now and then he checked his back trail, and on the last of those occasions he caught sight of Saturday Brown. The man immediately kicked his horse into a chaps-flapping run and lashed the animal with the reins.

Brown was not close enough to shout, but he drew rein and snapped off a quick shot. His intention to put a warning round across the rider's bow, but he badly misjudged the speed of the galloping horse and his bullet smacked into the animal's shoulder.

The horse staggered, then cartwheeled into the wet ground, throwing the rider over its head. The man rolled clear of his fallen mount and sprang to his feet, hand clawing for the gun under his slicker.

Brown drew rein and yelled, “Stop that!”

The rider, a youngish man who'd lost his hat in the horse wreck, had a shock of bright red hair and a temper to match. He shouted an angry obscenity at Brown and his right hand come out from under the slicker with a hammer-back Colt.

It was his death warrant.

Brown triggered the Winchester and punched a hole in the redhead's chest. The man took a step back, cursing, and tried to level his revolver. Brown's second shot hit him low in the belly and the redhead was done. The Colt dropped from his fingers and he followed it to the ground.

Brown climbed stiffly out of the saddle and stepped to the dying man who said, “Why did you bushwhack me?” There was blood in his mouth and it trickled down his chin.

“I took ye fer an outlaw,” Brown said. “Figgered that's why you ran.”

“I ain't an outlaw,” the man said. “I am . . . I was a puncher for the Four Ace ranch and I wanted to put a power of git between me and them Rattlesnake Hills.” The man coughed up black blood. “Now I ain't anything but dead.”

“Hell, boy, I'm sorry,” Brown said. “I shot you under false pretenses.” He took his badge from his shirt pocket and pinned it on his chest. “I'm a Deputy U.S. Marshal and right now I'm real sorry for what I done.”

“Well,” the puncher said, “I've never been partial to lawmen. Robbed me a general store one time and spent three years in Lansing mining coal. Damn the law.”

Brown took a knee beside the man. “Son, your time is short and you best make your peace with God. Don't die with a cuss on your lips.”

The puncher's bloody hand grabbed Brown by the front of his shirt. “Say a prayer for me,” he said.

Brown took off his hat and held it above the dying man's face to shield him from the rain. “Sing this with me and the gates of Heaven will surely open wide for you, even though you're a general store robber and a bounder.”

The deputy tilted back his head and in a powerful but tuneless baritone sang . . .

Then louder, warming to his task, Brown launched into the chorus . . .

“Sing it, boy,” Brown said. “Lift your voice . . .” He trailed off, aware that he talked to a dead man. After he replaced his hat, he said, “I don't know your name, feller, but I'm right sorry that I shot you by mistake. I'll make things right an' see that you're planted decent.”

Despite the rheumatisms and a bad back from years of long riding, Brown easily manhandled the dead puncher across the back of his bronc. Besides, the man was a wiry little feller, made only two ounces heavier by lead.

The deputy marshal regained his own saddle and sat head bowed in the rain for long moments. The man had said he was fleeing the Rattlesnake Hills. Did that mean there was a grain of truth in the rumors concerning the place? He should have questioned the man when he'd had the chance, but it didn't seem hardly polite after shooting him over a slight misunderstanding.

Brown glanced up at the leaden sky and then his shoulders slumped and he sighed loud and long. He was too softhearted. That had always been his trouble.

 

 

Saturday Brown picked up the wagon road that led to Broken Bridle and rode into town under a clear sky where a crescent moon horned aside the first stars. Mud lay in the street to a depth of four inches, and the marshal's high-stepping Morgan made a splashy show of it. Brown drew rein when he spotted two men smoking on the front porch of the hotel.

“Howdy, boys,” he said. “Is there a lawman in this burg?” he asked.

“You could call it that,” Hamp Sedley said. “Some don't.”

“What do you have there, stranger?” Shawn O'Brien said.

“Feller I shot by mistake,” Brown said. “I took him fer a bandit.”

“No shortage of them around this neck of the woods,” Sedley said.

Brown opened his slicker and showed his badge. “Name's Saturday Brown. I'm a Deputy United States Marshal. Came up from Medicine Bow and regret every minute of it.”

“So does the ranny on the yellow mustang,” Sedley said.

“Afore he passed away, he told me he was a puncher, worked for the Four Ace ranch. Said he was hightailing it away from the Rattlesnake Hills. That was after I shot him, like.”

“He was a wise man, at least until he met you,” Sedley said. “Name's Hamp Sedley, a knight of the green baize. This handsome feller here is Shawn O'Brien. He's a mick, but we don't hold that against him.”

“Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” Brown said, touching his hat. “Heard of you, O'Brien. Your pa owns half the New Mexico Territory and they call you the Town Tamer.” He looked along the muddy street and the deserted boardwalks and said, “Well, seems like you sure tamed this burg.”

“This town doesn't need taming, Marshal,” Shawn said. “It needs saving.”

Perhaps made restless by the near proximity of the dead man, the Morgan restlessly pawed at the street, sending up great gobs of mud.

Brown said, “I heard all the rumors. That's why I'm here.”

Hamp Sedley said, “No rumors, Marshal. You just rode into hell.”

“Been there afore, boys,” Brown said. “Now where's that law dog?”

“Down the street a ways on the left,” Shawn said.

“Don't expect much,” Sedley said.

Brown touched his hat again, then kneed his horse into motion. “See you boys around,” he said. He stopped again. “I plan to bury this poor feller tomorrow morning. It would be real neighborly of you to come pay your respects to another white man.”

“I don't think—”

Shawn elbowed Sedley into silence, then said, “We'll be there, Marshal.”

“I'm beholden,” Brown said.

After the lawman rode away, Sedley said, “Kind of long in the tooth for a peace officer.”

“Maybe, but he's killed more than his share,” Shawn said.

“How do you know?”

“I read it in his eyes,” Shawn said.