Shadow of the Hangman (7 page)

Chapter Eleven

“I won't choose your requiem just yet, Patrick,” Jacob O'Brien said. “One way or another, we're getting you out of here.” He studied his brother more closely. “You don't look well.”

“I don't feel too good, either,” Patrick said.

“What ails you?” Jacob asked.

Sheriff John Moore said, “He's burnin' up, so I'd say it's jailhouse fever. It can surely make a person feel right poorly pretty damn quick.”

“What does the doctor say?” Jacob said. He laid the palm of his hand against Patrick's sweaty forehead.

“Nothing, on account of how he's out of town,” Moore said.

“The Vigilance Committee can't hang a sick man,” Jacob said. “And my brother is sick.”

“Well, Jake, they've took a different stand on that. Hugh Hamlin, tall, skinny feller that owns the general store, told me, ‘Sheriff, the sight of the gallows will soon restore the condemned to health. The rope is the sovereign remedy for fevers, agues, rheumatisms, the croup, and all derangements of the brain.'”

Moore shrugged. “Sorry, Jake, but you see how it is with me.”

“My brother needs a doctor and care,” Jacob said. “He's got a high fever.”

“Sorry, Jake,” Moore said. The lawman looked miserable and a tic twitched at his left eye. “There's nothing I can do.”

“There's something I can do,” Jake said. Suddenly a Colt was in his hand, the muzzle shoved into Moore's belly. “I never gunned a lawman before,” he said, “but there's a first time for everything.”

Moore took a step back. “Jake,” he said, “you're crazy. Put the gun away.”

“Unbuckle your gunbelt and let it drop, Sheriff,” Jacob said. “I'm not taking any chances with you.”

“Jake—”

“Do as I say, John, or I swear, I'll drop you right where you stand.”

Moore read the warning in Jacob's eyes, and his gunbelt thudded to the floor of the cell.

Jacob turned and looked at Patrick. “Can you ride, Pat?” he said.

“No.” One word, but its quiet feebleness conveyed the fact that Patrick was desperately ill.

“John, your horse is at the rail, so we're all taking a ride,” Jacob said. “Pat will get up with me.”

Moore was worried. “Jake, if any of the committee members see you they'll raise the alarm, and you'll be dead before you can cover a mile.”

“You'll be with us, so I'll take my chances,” Jacob said. “If I leave my brother here, he'll have to be carried to the gallows.” Jacob's eyes hardened into blue steel. “That isn't going to happen.”

Moore shook his head. “Jake, if you go through with this, there'll be hell to pay.”

Jacob said, “You weren't listening. If hell is the price of saving my brother's life, then I'm willing to pay it.”

 

 

The noon sun hung directly over Georgetown, and the street felt as though someone had just opened the door of a blast furnace. The weeds that grew around some of the buildings were brown and shriveled, and the dust was powdered so fine even a faint wisp of breeze lifted it in yellow veils. The dust was everywhere. It lay thick in Georgetown's stores and homes and made its way inside everyone's clothing. Gritty, smelling faintly of horse manure, it made women hot and irritable and frayed the tempers of men as it abraded necks under high, celluloid collars.

The murder of lawyer Dunkley had set the town on edge, and in the relentlessly enervating heat men took quick offense at everything and anything.

It was a day made for a killing, and no one was more aware of that than Jacob O'Brien. Escaping from town without a shooting scrape depended on Sheriff John Moore and his attitude. The big man had sand, and he could decide at any moment that he'd no longer be pushed. If that happened, the ball would open and men would die.

Jacob was prepared for that eventuality. If Moore raised the alarm, he would shoot fast and shoot to kill, wipe out this whole damned town if he had to.

 

 

There was no one in the street when Jacob stepped outside the sheriff's office supporting Patrick, who was now drifting in and out of consciousness.

Jacob's Colt on him, Moore helped to lift Patrick onto Jacob's mount, and then, without protest, he swung into his own saddle.

“Jake, I sure hope you know what you're doing,” he said.

“Saving my brother's life is what I'm doing,” Jacob said.

“Doc Cassidy will be back in a couple of days,” the lawman said.

“My brother could be dead in a couple of days,” Jacob said.

Moore shifted his bulk in the saddle. “Jake, Patrick was condemned to hang. There's nothing you can do to stop that.”

Jacob stepped into the leather behind his brother. Patrick slumped against him, and he took the weight, adjusting his seat in the saddle. When he was settled he looked at Moore. “John, to get at Patrick you'll have to step over my dead body and two dozen others. Do you understand?”

Moore didn't flinch. “I understand this, Jake. Starting today, a hundred different kinds of hell will descend on Dromore.”

“You figure the ball has opened, John?”

“It has.”

“Then you'd better choose a partner,” Jacob said.

“I dance with who I brung, Jake, and I brung the law.” The big lawman kneed his horse into motion. “And don't you ever forget that.”

Chapter Twelve

They crossed the Pecos two miles west of Starvation Peak, and Jacob told Moore he could now return to Georgetown.

“I reckon not, Jake,” the lawman said. “I couldn't talk sense into you, but maybe I can make the colonel see the light.”

They'd drawn rein in the thin shade of some pines, the rugged mesa and canyon country that stretched to the west promising hard going for Jacob's overloaded horse.

Jacob held a canteen to Patrick's lips, and his brother drank deep, parched by fever. When Jacob took the water away, his brother said, “My eyeglasses, Jacob. Did you bring my glasses?”

“Got them here in my pocket, boy,” Moore said. He glared at Jacob. “More'n some would do for you.”

“Thank you kindly, Ma,” Patrick said.

And Moore said, “That boy should be resting, Jake. He's plumb out of his mind with the fever.”

“He'll be in bed soon,” Jacob said. “And I mean in his own room at Dromore.”

Moore shook his head. “We done covered that already, Jake, and I won't say another word on the subject until I talk with the colonel.”

He gave Jacob a belligerent, challenging glare, but the younger man was looking beyond him at a rider emerging through the shimmering heat haze. Moore turned and saw what Jacob saw. Horse and rider were strangely elongated in the rippling distance, as though they were twenty feet tall and thin as rails.

Gradually, as the rider came closer, he and his mount shrank to their normal size, which, as Jacob would recall later, was big enough. The man sat a black American stud that must have gone seventeen hands, and he was huge, the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders apparent under the baggy suit he wore. He sported a plug hat that seemed a size too small for the enormous boulder of his head.

He was, Jacob decided, a man to be reckoned with.

Then Jacob saw his face.

His features had been burned away, no lips, no nose, hollow eye sockets, bereft of lashes and eyebrows, giving him the appearance of a skull. The skin was tight to the bone, white planes of scar tissue and scarlet ridges marking the places where his face had melted.

It was a visage that looms in a child's nightmares, but Jacob passed no judgment. For all he knew this horribly disfigured man could be a good fellow.

Or he could be a monster.

The rider drew rein. His eyes had been spared the tragedy that had befallen his face. They were black, shot through with flecks of gold, the eyes of a snake.

The man looked at Moore, dismissed him, then at Jacob and Patrick. His stare lingered. “He sick?” he said.

“He's got a fever,” Jacob said.

The rider grunted, then turned to Moore again. “Lawman?”

“I'm the sheriff of Georgetown,” Moore said. “North of here, up in the El Barro country.”

The rider's huge bicep bulged under his suit coat as he removed his hat and wiped the sweatband with his fingers. He replaced the hat and said, “I'm looking for a place. They call it El Cerrito.”

“South of here on the Pecos,” Moore said.

“How far?”

“Oh, ten miles, maybe less.” Moore couldn't read the rider's face because all the text had burned away. But the man had the eyes of a carrion-eater, and that troubled the sheriff more than it should. “El Cerrito is a Mex village,” he said. “They don't have a saloon.”

The rider touched his hat. “Obliged,” he said.

“What kind of business do you have in El Cerrito?” Moore said.

“My own,” the man said.

As they rode out of the pines, Moore said to Jacob, “What do you make of that ranny?”

“He isn't pretty,” Jacob said.

“Do you think he's on the scout?”

“Could be.”

“I've got a bad feeling about him, Jake. Real bad.”

Jacob smiled. “Funny you should mention that, John. So do I.”

“I think maybe I'll swing by El Cerrito when my business at Dromore is done.”

“You don't have a gun. Cross that man and you'll need one mighty fast.” Moore lapsed into silence, thinking about that, and Jacob said, “I'll get you one at Dromore.”

“What the hell is he?” Moore said.

“Trouble,” Jacob said.

 

 

“Damn you, Moore, my son's got typhus, and he got it in your filthy, rat-infested cells,” Shamus O'Brien said. “You're not taking him anywhere.”

“It's the law, Colonel,” Moore said.

“It's the law in your dung heap of a town,” Shamus said. “But I'm the law here in Dromore.”

Moore drank from his whiskey glass, taking his time, steeling himself for what he had to say. Finally he said it. “Colonel, when I come back here, I'll have a posse behind me.”

“You mean those damned Georgetown vigilantes?”

“They're sworn to uphold the law,” Moore said.

“They're a sorry bunch of trash,” Shamus said.

“Those men will stand, Colonel.”

“Then more than a few of them will be dead on the ground before this is over,” Shamus said, his eyes blazing.

Moore opened his mouth to speak, but Shamus held up a silencing hand. “Why are you and your vigilantes not looking for the man who murdered lawyer Dunkley,” he said, “instead of hounding a sick boy?”

“Colonel, Patrick was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang,” Moore said. “You must stand aside and let the law take its course.”

Shamus's rage flared. “Dear God and his Blessed Mother, you know Patrick didn't rape and murder Molly Holmes.”

“I know he was incapable of such a crime,” Moore said.

“Damn it, man, then let him be.”

“I can't, Colonel. It's the—”

“Yes, I know, it's the law. Moore, you spout that like a trained parrot. Is that all those damned vigilantes taught you to say?”

Moore was stung, and it showed. “Colonel O'Brien, I'm my own man.”

“Well, you've a funny way of showing it,” Shamus said. “Threatening me under my own roof you are, and be damned to ye.”

The door opened, and Samuel stepped into the study, Luther Ironside behind him.

“How is he?” Shamus said.

“He's not coughing as much, but his fever is still high and he's complaining of a pain in his lower back,” Samuel said.

“You sent a man on a fast horse for the doctor?” Shamus asked.

“Of course,” Samuel replied.

Ironside, tall and terrible, walked up to Moore, his spurs ringing. “John, if that boy dies I'll put a bullet in your belly,” he said. “Depend on it.”

“The fever was none of my doing,” Moore protested.

“He was in your custody,” Ironside said. “That's blame enough for me.”

Ironside was not making an idle threat. Everyone in the room knew he was deadly serious, including Moore.

Luther Ironside was well into middle age that summer, and Shamus referred to him as his segundo, though his actual status was friend and confidant. He'd served with distinction under the colonel during the War Between the States and later had helped him establish Dromore. Ironside had killed men in the past, though he made no count of them, and when he made a threat, it was no small thing.

“Luther,” Shamus said, “Sheriff Moore is a guest in my house. We'll have no more talk of shooting.”

Ironside nodded. “Just as you say, Colonel, no more talk.”

Moore rose to his feet. “I'll be going, Colonel,” he said. “Will you give me the road?”

“No one will harm you, John,” Shamus said.

Moore turned his hat in his hands. “I'm sorry, Colonel.”

“I'm sorry, too, John.”

“You know I'll be back. I have to come back.”

Shamus nodded. “And you know we'll be waiting for you.”

Moore heaved a shuddering sigh. “Everything is in a mess, huh?”

“Seems like,” Shamus said. He rolled his wheelchair to his desk, opened a drawer, and produced a blue Colt. “Take this, John,” he said. “I won't leave a man to ride unarmed.”

Moore shoved the revolver in his waistband. “I'll see you get it back, Colonel.” He shook his head. “I mean when . . . after—”

“I know what you mean,” Shamus said, smiling faintly. “Samuel,” he said, “will you show the sheriff to his horse?”

“I'll do it, Colonel,” Ironside said.

“No, Luther, you'll stay right here where I can keep an eye on you,” Shamus said. “Now, let John pass.”

Ironside gave an exaggerated little bow and swept his hand in the direction of the door. “This way, John,” he said. “And remember what I told you.”

Moore stepped past Ironside. He said nothing, but his face was stiff, his back stiffer.

After the sheriff rode out, Ironside said, “How do we play this, Colonel?”

“I don't know,” Shamus said. He said to Samuel, “I hear Jacob playing the piano. Ask him to come here, and Shawn.” Then, answering the question on his son's face, he said, “I want them in Georgetown. If need be we can defend Dromore with the vaqueros.”

Samuel still looked puzzled, and Shamus said, “Don't ask me the why of it, Samuel. I just know that they have to be there.”

The Irish gift of second sight was not to be discounted, and Samuel said, “What do you see, Pa?”

“Blood,” Shamus said. “A great river of blood.”