Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (23 page)

Brown nodded and Sedley said, “I reckon Pete Caradas will have something to say about that.”

“I know. That's why O'Brien is going with us.”

“I didn't say I was going anywhere,” Shawn said. “And Hamp is right about Caradas. He's drawing gun wages from Becker and he rides for the brand.”

“I'll handle Caradas,” Brown said. “But if he looks like he's about to draw down on me, kill him.” The marshal seemed irritated. “I'm now the law in this town, and for a hundred miles around, so I'm ordering you two to get into your duds and follow me.”

Suddenly Brown looked appalled. “Don't tell me there ain't a wire in this town.”

“There's a telegraph at the railroad depot, bound to be,” Sedley said.

“Good. We'll stop there first. No, second. Now quit standing there staring at me like a couple of sheep. Get ready.”

“Shawn?” Sedley said.

“We'll do as the man says,” Shawn said. “Maybe I can stop him getting killed.”

“Been there afore, O'Brien, and I ain't been killed yet,” Saturday Brown said.

“Where's the hardware store?” Marshal Saturday Brown said.

“Across the street,” Shawn O'Brien said.

“Then follow me.”

Shawn and Sedley exchanged puzzled glances, then stepped off the boardwalk. When they reached the other side, their boots dripping mud, Brown's face lit up. “Ah, I see the store,” he said.

“It's closed,” Sedley said.

Shawn tried the handle. “And it's locked.”

Brown raised his boot, kicked the door in, smashing glass and splintering wood. His feet crunching on debris he looked around, then said, “Ah-ha! Just what we need.”

The marshal selected a couple of axes for him and Sedley. To Shawn he said, “Nothing for you. I want your gun hand free. Now one more stop before the saloon, boys. Oh, wait a second.” Ajar of pink and white candy cane sticks sat on the counter. “Anybody want one?” he said. “No? Well I do.” The candy stick jutting out of his mouth like a cigar, Brown said, “Let's go.”

Marshal Brown had not been gentle with the hardware store's door, nor was he with the train depot agent. He loudly woke the man from sleep, frogmarched him to his office after telling Shawn and Sedley to stay outside on guard.

“Now set and send the wire I'm about to tell you,” Brown said to the agent, whose sleeping cap was askew on his head. “Is the line between here and Medicine Bow standing?”

“How the hell should I know?” the agent said. “I have a medical condition. I can't be treated this way.”

“You better hope the line hasn't been cut,” Brown said. “If it has I'll put a bullet in you.”

The agent, a small man with the furtive look of someone who momentarily expects a slap up the head, said, “What kind of lawman are you?”

“The worst kind,” the marshal said. “I'm all horns, rattles, and bad attitude, son.” He crunched on the candy stick and it shattered between his teeth, spraying pink and white shrapnel. “And I bite like a female cougar in heat. Now start telegraphin' . . .”

 

 

Saturday Brown stepped out of the depot office and said, “Right, let's get it done, boys.”

“Marshal, you're taking Becker and Pete Caradas too lightly,” Hamp Sedley said. “They're both killers.”

“I'm not taking them lightly, son. I already told you, that's why O'Brien's here.”

“Your confidence in me is touching, Marshal,” Shawn said.

“Is that right?” Brown said. “Well, just see you don't mess things up, huh?”

The marshal led the way to the Streetcar and halted outside the door. The saloon was in darkness and a brooding silence lay over the entire town. Moonlight glistened on the muddy street and cast mysterious shadows in dark places.

“Ready, boys?” Brown said. He stared hard at Sedley. “Son, you don't look too good.”

“He always looks like that,” Shawn said. “Got a gambler's skin.”

“Well let's hope lady luck is on our side tonight,” the marshal said. Then, a hint that he wasn't as cocksure as he seemed. “I got a feeling we're going to need her.”

Brown kicked the door open and rushed inside.

 

 

“Where?” Saturday Brown yelled at Shawn.

“Up the stairs! Becker's room is straight ahead!”

With a spryness that belied the hard years on his back trail, the marshal ran up the stairs and stood on the landing, the ax clutched in both hands. Sedley stepped beside him, wondering why the hell he also had an ax in his grasp.

“Burt Becker!” Brown roared. “Show yourself in the name of the law.”

A bed creaked inside the room and Becker's strained, tight voice said, “What do you want?”

“This is Deputy United States Marshal Saturday Brown and you know what I want, by God.”

“Go to hell,” Becker said, trying and failing to shout.

“Been there!” Brown yelled. He slammed the sole of his boot into the door that collapsed inward. The brass hinges burst apart and sharp shards of timber shredded into the room like shrapnel.

Becker roared and rolled out of bed in his underwear, his hand grabbing for the Colt on the table beside him.

Brown slammed the flat of the ax onto the big man's hand and Becker yelped in pain and fright.

“Where is she?” the marshal hollered.

In answer, Becker swung a right at Brown's chin and missed as the lawman dodged to his right. Brown shrieked like a banshee and raised the ax above his head, the honed blade ready to crash into Becker's skull.

“Nooo!” the big man yelled. His face contorted in fear, he pointed to the blank wall to the right of the ruined door. “In there, both of them!”

Brown kept the ax poised like the blade of a guillotine. “Both of them?” he asked.

Becker said nothing. He hung his head and the rabbit ears of his bandage drooped.

Sedley was already at the wall, his hand moving over the garish wallpaper. “There's a seam here, Marshal,” he said. “Looks like it could be a hidden door.”

“Then open it or chop it down,” Brown said. He turned his attention back to Becker. “You made the right decision, son,” he said, smiling. “I would have sure chopped you into kindling.”

Becker's bloodshot eyes lifted to the lawman. “I'll kill you for this,” he said.

“It's a door, all right,” Sedley cried out suddenly.

Now a woman's muffled voice called out, “Help us! Oh, please help us.”

“Damn you, boy, get it open,” Brown said. “Use the ax.”

Sedley nodded and his ax swung.

 

 

Pete Caradas emerged from the darkness of the balcony. He wore his robe, but his feet were bare and he held a Colt in his right hand. Behind him Sunny Swanson looked as though she'd just wakened from sleep. Her eyes were free of makeup and her unruly hair was bound up with a pink ribbon.

Caradas could be almighty sudden and he had the drop, and Shawn O'Brien knew the danger he represented. “Sorry to wake you, Pete,” he said.

For a moment Caradas was silent, listening to the crash of Sedley's ax, then he said, “What's going on in there?”

“Just a Deputy United States Marshal doing a little remodeling,” Shawn said.

“Has he done anything to Burt?” Sunny said. “Let me past.”

“No, stay where you are,” Caradas said. “I'll go look.” Then to Shawn, “If Becker is hurt, I'll take it hard.”

“I'll take it hard if anyone else gets hurt, Pete,” Shawn said. He would not be pushed and was prepared to draw on Caradas, even though the man would get off the first shot.

Caradas knew that, too, and it gave him pause. O'Brien was fast and he'd go down with a gun in his hand. Caradas estimated the odds at slightly more than even in his favor, but the margin was way too slim for comfort.

The appearance of Burt Becker in his room doorway ended it for now.

The big man saw Sunny and said painfully, “He broke my hand, Sunny.”

Shawn felt a spike of concern. “Your gun hand, Becker?”

“Yes, it's his right hand, O'Brien. Can't you see?” the girl said. She rushed to her lover and took his huge, bruised paw in hers.

“Is it broken?” Shawn said. “Can he move his fingers?”

“Burt, can you move your fingers?” Sunny said. She studied Becker's hand, then said, “Yes, he can move them.”

“Good, it's not broken,” Shawn said, relieved. He needed Becker's gun, probably real soon.

“Thank you for your concern, O'Brien,” Sunny said, stabbing him with her glare.

Shawn smiled and said, “Keep well, Burt,” to which Becker replied, “You go to hell.”

From somewhere inside, Sedley's voice rose to a pitch of horror. “Oh my God,” he said. “Marshal, git over here.”

Then a moment later from Brown, “Don't just stand there, help them!”

Sedley and the marshal helped two women onto the balcony.

Shawn recognized Judy Campbell immediately. The girl shivered, whether from cold or fear he didn't know, but she seemed to be unhurt and the nightgown she wore was clean.

The same could not be said for Jane Collins. A torn, ragged cotton dress, much stained, hung on her emaciated body and her blond hair had been raggedly cut and was stiff with dirt. Her hazel eyes were huge in her pale, thin face and the stench from the hidden room where she'd been held spoke volumes about the horrible conditions of her captivity.

Jane tried to talk, say something, anything, but her tongue refused to work in her mouth. She clung like a leech to the fastidious Sedley, her dirty fingers clawed into his coat, an experience the gambler obviously was not enjoying.

“Becker!” Shawn said, his rage at boiling point. “Give me an excuse to put a bullet in you.”

“Damn you, O'Brien, she was well treated,” Becker said. “If she wanted to live like a pig, that was of her own choosing.”

“You treated her like a caged animal,” Shawn said.

He was aware of Caradas who seemed to be struck dumb, his face revealing only stunned horror. Shawn gave him the benefit of the doubt. It seemed that the gunman had been unaware of Judy Campbell's terrible ordeal.

“Judy!” the cry came from behind Shawn. He turned and saw the girl fling herself, sobbing, into Jeremiah Purdy's arms.

“I knew you'd come,” Judy cried, clinging to him, not caring that Jane was his true love. “I knew you'd find me.”

“Sedley, take her,” Purdy said. He gently pushed the girl away from him. “I'll be back in a moment.”

It was only then that Shawn noticed the shotgun in Purdy's right hand. He wasn't alarmed, didn't expect much. The sheriff would bluster, threaten Becker with jail or some such, and Caradas would soon run him off.

But it didn't happen that way.

The young lawman stepped up to the sneering Becker and swung the shotgun butt. The walnut crashed with a horrifying thud into Becker's broken jaw, and the big man went down shrieking. With snakelike speed, Purdy swung the scattergun and the muzzles gouged hard into Pete Caradas's right cheekbone.

“Give me your gun,” the sheriff said. Then, “Now, damn you! Or I'll paint the wall behind you gray with your brains.”

“Here, that won't do,” Saturday Brown said. “I'm the law in this town.”

“Shut your trap, old man,” Purdy said. “I've already heard enough from you. Caradas, you've got two seconds. One . . .”

“Take it,” the gunman said. He deftly turned the Colt in his hand and extended it butt-first to Purdy. “I never argue with a shotgun when it's stuck in my face.”

The sheriff shoved Caradas's revolver into his waistband. To Sunny he said, “Were you in on this?”

“She was the one who put me in the hidden room,” Judy Campbell said.

Sunny's face contorted in fury. “Yes, and I should have scratched your eyes out.”

“Get Becker on his feet, Sunny,” Purdy said. “I've got a jail cell for both of you. And you, too, Caradas.” He nodded to Brown. “I thank you kindly for what you did.”

“Should have done it yourself, boy,” Brown said.

“Yes, I should have,” Purdy said. “But I was too much in love with Jane to risk losing her.”

“Well, you played the man's part tonight,” Brown said. He smiled at Caradas. “Didn't he, Pete?”

The draw fighter gave an elegant bow. “I can't deny that.”

“Caradas, help Sunny pick up Becker, or what's left of him, then come with me,” Purdy said.

“I'd like to change first, Sheriff, if you don't mind,” Caradas said.

“I do mind,” Purdy said. “You're just fine the way you are. A jail cell doesn't give a damn how you're dressed. Now move!”

Hamp Sedley whispered in Shawn's ear, “The worm turns.”

Shawn nodded. “I've heard of such once before, the consumptive Jim Riley kid who killed all those hardcases over to Newton, Kansas, that time. But I'd never seen it happen until now.”

“There's a second time for everything, I guess,” Sedley said.

Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy ushered his three prisoners out of the saloon into the boardwalk—and was greeted by a hail of gunfire.

Sunny Swanson took a bullet between her breasts and went down. Hit hard in the left leg, Purdy collapsed onto the walk. Becker dived to his right out of the way of flying lead, but Pete Caradas got down on a knee beside the fallen lawman and jerked his Colt from the young man's waistband.

Riders, about a dozen in number, had charged through the mire of the street, churning up mud like a stern wheeler stuck on a sandbank. They'd regrouped at the southern end of the street and now charged again. But this time the raiders met with disaster.

Caradas had his gun up and ready, and Shawn and Sedley flanked him. The riders crowded to the side of the street nearest the saloon, and for close-range draw fighters like Shawn and Caradas this was a perfect opportunity.

Slowed to a slogging canter by the mud, the leading riders met a barrage of rolling thunder from the guns of Shawn and Caradas. Sedley had his hands full with a man who charged his horse along the boardwalk, firing as he came.

Three men and a kicking, screaming horse lay sprawled in the mud of the street. The riders behind them had to swing wide, away from the mayhem, and their whole attention was directed at controlling their terrified mounts.

Sedley fired twice at the raider on the boardwalk, but scored no hits. The man came on at a fast gallop and kicked out at Shawn as he passed, sending him spread-eagled into the street, his face in the mud. The rider drew rein, his horse rearing, and fired a shot at Caradas.

“We got 'em, boys!” he yelled. He grinned, his teeth gleaming.

Such last words would have sounded noble on the lips of a dying Civil War general, but not from one of Thomas Clouston's thugs who was too stupid to realize that the fight was lost.

Sedley now informed him of that fact.

Standing with his back to the saloon wall, he raised his Colt to eye level, sighted on the rider's chest, and pulled the trigger. Sedley got lucky. His shot was way too high but his bullet slammed into the man's temple, just under the hat brim. The rider threw up his arms and crashed onto the boardwalk so hard it shook under Sedley's feet. The horse galloped on until the drum of its hooves was lost in distance.

Caradas, stung across his right shoulder, stepped to the edge of the walk and, as an act of defiance, thumbed off the last round in his Colt at the departing riders. But a moment later gunfire roared from the direction of the livery stable, not the ragged fusillade of amateurs but the measured cadence of professional gunmen.

Then the riders were gone, swallowed by darkness.

Shawn O'Brien pushed himself out of the mud, his eyes and teeth white.

“You look like a gingerbread man,” Sedley said, stepping to the edge of the boardwalk. It was a lame attempt at a joke and the gambler didn't put his heart into it.

Caradas had taken a knee beside Sunny, now he rose to his feet and said, “She's dead.” Then, “How are you, Sheriff ?”

“My leg's shot through and through,” Purdy said. He stared through the gloom at Burt Becker. “Are you hurt?”

“No. And I didn't have a gun,” the big man answered. The bandage had fallen from his head and he slipped it under his chin again, pushed it back into place. “Jaw hurts,” he said.

Dripping mud, Shawn stepped onto the boardwalk.

“You're a sight,” Caradas said.

“I reckon,” Shawn said. “My gun is in the mud somewhere.” He brushed mud from his chest and found that he still had the rosary around his neck. He kissed the crucifix, then let the beads hang again.

“Three dead in the street and a wounded horse,” Caradas said.

“I see that,” Shawn said. Then to Sedley he said, “Let me have your gun, Hamp.”

Sedley handed over his Colt and Shawn checked the loads. “One round left,” he said.

Caradas tensed, an empty gun in his hand, but Shawn stepped into the street to the twitching horse, pushed the Colt muzzle against the animal's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

When he returned to the boardwalk mud had begun to harden on his face, as though he wore a black mask.

Dr. John Walsh, a coat over his night attire, kneeled on the boardwalk beside Sunny's body. He got to his feet and said to the grimacing Purdy, “Straight through the heart, Sheriff. She died instantly. Now let me take a look at that leg.”

Burt Becker looked like a man consciously stifling grief. “Is that all there is? She died instantly?”

Dr. Walsh's austere face was chillingly bleak. “There's nothing I can do for her, Mr. Becker,” he said. “My business is with the living, not the dead.”

He turned his back on Becker and began to examine Purdy's leg.

The young sheriff winced as the doctor probed, then said, “Becker, get back to your room and consider yourself under house arrest. You, too, Caradas. O'Brien, take his gun.”

“May I point out that I helped save your life tonight, Sheriff ?” Caradas said. He handed his Colt to Shawn.

“Yeah, what about that, college boy?” Sedley said in the usual belligerent tone he adopted when talking to Purdy.

Purdy spoke directly to Sedley. “Mr. Caradas is still under the suspicion of aiding and abetting in the kidnap of two young women, a hanging offense.”

He yelped in sudden pain and Dr. Walsh said, “The bullet is still in your thigh. I need to extract it.” Then to the gaping people who'd gathered on the boardwalk, “A couple of you men help the sheriff to my surgery.”

A pair of volunteers stepped forward, got Purdy to his feet; then, his arms over their shoulders, the young lawman limped away.

Dr. Walsh stayed where he was. “Mayor Bromley, the dead men and the horse should be removed from the street as soon as possible,” he said. Then, a slight catch in his voice, “And take care of Sunny. Treat her with . . . kindness.”

Hugo Bromley, a harried, middle-aged man with a magnificent set of gray muttonchop whiskers that hung to the top of his chest, nodded. Then he said, “Deacon Dance says this is the apocalypse, that Broken Bridle is paying for its dalliance with demon drink and loose women. What do you think, Doc? Have the end times truly fallen upon our fair town?”

Walsh said, “The drums have told you all along that this town is in the way of a man's greed for gold. You have only two choices—fight or flee. Some have fled already but those who are left must pick up the gun. Tonight three professional gunmen did our fighting for us but we must be able to rely on ourselves.”

Weakly, Bromley said, “But, Doc . . . what about strong drink and fancy women?”

Walsh smiled the day the War Between the States ended and now he did it again. “Taken in excess, they're both bad for the health,” he said. “Now I must go to my patient.”

Hamp Sedley said, “Seems you're still free to indulge in whiskey and women without the world ending, huh, Mayor?”

Bromley's wife, a shrew of a woman with a nose as sharp as a pen, glared at her husband, but the mayor gave a politician's professional “Harrumph,” then ordered the menfolk on the boardwalk into the street.

“We've got some dirty work to do,” he said.

 

 

Unnoticed, Shawn O'Brien left the others, Pete Caradas's reloaded Colt in his own holster. He walked to the end of the boardwalk, then crossed twenty yards of open ground that was now a river of mud.

He counted two men dead in the street and a third kneeling on hands and knees coughing up frothing pink blood. Shawn shot the suffering man in the head as he walked past. There was no recovering from a bullet through the lungs.

The D'eth brothers stood at the entrance to the barn, each with a gun in his hand. Shawn, covered in a thick layer of mud from the crown of his hat to the toes of his boot, emerged from the gloom like a phantom.

Milos watched him come, then said, “Speak, thou apparition.”

“Name's Shawn O'Brien. I want to talk to you.”

“You ever hear of Jake O'Brien?”

“He's my brother.”

“We like Jake.”

“Everybody likes Jacob. All the ones who didn't are dead.”

“Step inside, O'Brien,” Milos said. “We'll talk.”

Shawn walked into the barn and Milos introduced his brother Petsha. “Petsha doesn't like people but he cottoned to Jake, since they both play the piano.”

“He plays Chopin well,” Petsha said. Then, “You've come to talk about the dead men outside.”

“They were Thomas Clouston's hired guns,” Shawn said.

“We know,” Petsha said.

“Then we have a common enemy,” Shawn said.

“We have an enemy, but not in common,” Milos said. “We told the marshal that we'll kill Clouston alone and in our own way.”

“The attack tonight was to test our strength, and Clouston got his fingers burned,” Shawn said. “Next time he'll plan his attack better.”

Milos shook his head. “He wants as many of his men dead as possible. There will be fewer hungry mouths to feed when the gold is shared.”

Petsha said, “But you are right, O'Brien. Next time he'll wipe this town out to the last man, woman, or child.”

“I don't want that to happen,” Shawn said.

“Then maybe you can stop it,” Milos said. “But I don't know how.”

“I can stop it,” Shawn said. “I can stop it by helping you kill Clouston.”

“We don't want or need your help,” Milos said. “We've done more difficult jobs in the past.”

“Even if I kill Clouston you'll have fulfilled your contract,” Shawn said. “You've got nothing to lose.”

“We don't like to depend on anyone,” Milos said. “At a critical moment you could cut and run.”

“Would my brother Jake cut and run?” Shawn said.

“No. He would not,” Milos said.

“We're of the same stock,” Shawn said.

Milos thought for a moment or two, then said, “My brother and I will talk of this. Tomorrow we will let you know what we decide.”

Shawn knew the D'eth brothers would not back away from that line, and he was forced to accept their terms.

“Until tomorrow then,” he said.

Milos nodded. Then he said, “Tell the people of Broken Bridle to come collect their hurting dead.”