A Dangerous Man (11 page)

“The entire lower half of his face was blown away, Mr. Sullivan.” Ebenezer Posey shook his head. “It was a terrible sight.”

“Sharps .50, I reckon. Apaches are right partial to them, or so I've been told.” Sullivan studied the small man. He had narrow shoulders and a tight, clean-shaven face that was as small as a nut. The Butterfield man looked as timid as a house mouse, yet Big Jim Lloyd said he'd shot an Apache, no mean achievement in a running gun battle.

The hour was still early, but Sullivan had insisted that he and Posey repair to the saloon where a brandy would restore the little man to a less nervous state and they could discuss the reward.

Posey sipped his brandy guiltily, like a maiden aunt trying her first sherry at a tin pan cotillion. His eyes moved from side to side as though he feared someone would come up and take his glass away. “Mr. Lloyd assures me that if we can't find a replacement driver he can take the stage back to Santa Fe, leaving first thing tomorrow. My dear wife's business is making . . . ah . . . bloomers for oversized ladies and she does need me to do her daily accounting work. A staff of five and the buying of materials like cotton and lace take a lot of bookkeeping, you understand.”

Then, as though the thought troubled him, “Of course I won't leave until after I've identified the late Mr. Crow Wallace's body.”

“Well, now, that might be difficult,” Sullivan said, selecting a cigar from his silver case. “I mean really difficult.”

“On account of how there's no body.” Buck Bowman stood behind the bar polishing a glass, a sheriff's star pinned to his vest.

“Oh dear,” Posey said. “That is most unfortunate. It's a complication I didn't foresee.”

“The body's been stole,” Bowman said. “With three others, all recently deceased.”

“Oh dear,” Posey said again. He looked like a little gray mouse.

“Well, it was Crow all right.” Sullivan moved uneasily in his chair.

“Who else saw the deceased?” Posey asked.

“Sheriff Frank Harm,” Bowman said, appointing himself as Sullivan's spokesman, much to the bounty hunter's irritation. “But he's dead and one of the missing bodies is his.”

“Did you see the late Mr. Wallace?” Posey asked the bartender.

Bowman shook his head. “Saw the body, but I don't know if it was Crow's. I'd heard of the man but never seen him.”

“Damn it. The man I shot was Crow Wallace, and there's an end to it,” Sullivan said, talking past the cigar in his teeth.

“I'm afraid not, Mr. Sullivan,” Posey said. “Without identifying the body I can't pay the reward. That is the official policy of the Butterfield Stage Company.”

Sullivan's temper, always an uncertain thing, flared, but he fought to keep it in check. “Mr. Posey—”

“You may call me Ebenezer.”

“I've got six thousand dollars of Butterfield money I recovered from Wallace after I shot him. I can take my reward out of that.”

Posey shook his head, his prim lips compressed. “Oh, I'm afraid that won't do. Why . . . why it would be most dishonest.”

“Damn right, Ebenezer.” Bowman grinned, enjoying Sullivan's discomfort. “Agin' the law as ever was.”

“But look on the bright side, Mr. Sullivan,” Posey said. “I'm authorized to pay you five hundred dollars for the return of a gold watch I believe is in your possession, along with ten percent of the stolen monies you recovered.”

“Yeah, I've got it,” Sullivan said, his face glum. The little Butterfield man had him backed into a corner. If he took the reward out of the six thousand, the law, probably the Pinkertons, would come after him. The last thing a professional bounty hunter needed was to get branded by sheriffs and marshals as dishonest on the deal.

“I'll find Crow's body for you,” he said finally.

Posey frowned. “By tomorrow morning?”

“Stay in town a day or two,” Sullivan said.

“I'm afraid that's impossible.” Posey shook his head. “A lady's bloomers wait for no man. A little joke of my wife's there.”

A moment later, the impossible became the inevitable.

Jim Lloyd stepped into the saloon and after exchanging a greeting with Buck Bowman, whom he'd known in the past, he stood at the table, a crestfallen look on his florid face. “Bad news, Mr. Posey. When we bumped over the felled tree trunk that time, we damaged all four wheels of the coach.”

Posey was alarmed. “What does that mean?”

“Well, the damage to the wheels is bad and the wheelwright tells me he'll need a couple days to repair them.”

“This is most distressing.” Posey ran his fingers through his thin brown hair. “What will Mrs. Posey think when I'm late? Her nerves are very delicate.”

Lloyd grinned. “She'll think you're having a grand old time in Comanche Crossing, wine, women, and song, and all that. You're gonna get blamed for it, so you might as well do it.”

“Oh no, I could never do such things. I promised Mrs. Posey on our wedding day that I'd ne'er look at another woman.”

“You haven't met Montana Maine yet.” Lloyd looked at Bowman. “Is Montana coming in tonight?”

Enjoying Posey's flustered look, the bartender said, “She might well show up. What's this . . . Friday? . . . Yeah, this is usually her red dress night.”

Posey said, “I can assure you that my lady wife—”

Lloyd's hearty slap on the back made the little man spill brandy down the front of his fur coat. “Forget the missus for a few days, Ezekiel—”

“It's Ebenezer.”

“And have yourself a grand ol' time.”

“Well, I don't even know if there's room for me at the hotel,” Posey said.

“Room? Room for the Hero of the Cimarron Trail? Of course there's room.” Lloyd laughed heartily. “And if there isn't, the Bon-Ton will toss somebody out and make room.”

“Damn right,” Bowman said. “Nothing is too good for a famous Indian fighter.”

“In fact, I'll go over there right now and reserve rooms for both of us. The Bon-Ton will be honored.” After another slap on the back for Posey, the big guard stepped to the saloon door.

Bowman's words stopped him in mid-stride. “Jim, Bill Longley's in town. And Booker Tate is with him.”

Lloyd's face stiffened. “You think he's still sore at me for putting lead into him that time down to Bastrop County after he shotgunned Wilson Anderson?”

“Jim, Anderson was a boyhood friend of Longley's,” Bowman said. “You any idea what he'll do to an enemy?”

“I'll step careful,” Lloyd said.

“He's a back shooter, Jim, and he favors his left hand on the draw,” Bowman said. “That's all I can tell you.”

Lloyd nodded and stepped out of the saloon.

As he crossed the street, his head constantly turned from side to side on his massive shoulders.

Buck Bowman saw a mild questioning look on Sullivan's face. “Big Jim and me were in the Rangers together.”

“He got lead into Bill Longley, huh?” Sullivan asked. “That's a powerful claim for a man to make.”

“Yeah. Burned him across the shoulder. Jim's shooting was off that day I reckon.”

“How did it come up?” Sullivan was taking a professional interest.

“Do we really need to talk about all this violence?” Posey put in. “I'm starting to feel most unwell.”

As though he hadn't heard, Bowman said, “Like Jim mentioned, it happened down to Bastrop County, Texas, the summer of seventy-five when Longley got work as a farm laborer.”

Sullivan smiled. “Sure don't see ol' Bill as a pumpkin roller.”

“Neither did he as it turned out. How it come up, a cousin of his, feller by the name of Cale Longley, Jr., had gotten into it with Wilson Anderson over the affections of a fancy woman.

“From what I heard, Cale called Anderson a sorry piece of white trash and proceeded to read to him from the book. Well, Anderson closed the last chapter of said book with a dose of double-aught from both barrels of his shotgun. Blew Cale's guts out all over a stack of cotton bales sitting outside a Hill City warehouse.”

“A testy man, that Anderson feller,” Sullivan said.

“Seems like. Ruined about a hundred dollars worth of prime cotton, too, they say.”

Ebenezer Posey held up a pleading hand. “Please, gentlemen, no more.” He looked about to throw up, like a tiny green frog.

“Well, naturally, Bill heard about the death of his kin and went gunning for Anderson. Mind you, him and Anderson had been close boyhood friends, shared blankets and ate out of the same plate, but in Bill's part of Texas the death of kinfolk has to be avenged. The reckoning, you understand?”

Sullivan nodded. “I've come across the reckoning before.”

“Well, Bill saddled up and rode directly to Anderson's farm and caught the man plowing behind an ox team. He blew his belly open with a Greener. An eye for an eye, like.” Bowman laid down the glass he'd been polishing. “They say Anderson's wife cut loose with a Springfield rifle as Bill rode away and that it was her, not Lloyd, that winged him. But I don't know about that. Big Jim caught up to Longley a couple days later, took a pot at him, but then lost all trace of the man in the wild hill and oak country down that way. So who knows?”

“You're the new sheriff, Bowman, huh?” Sullivan said.

“As of yesterday. I was appointed by Mayor York.”

“Then keep an eye on Lloyd. If he did put lead into Bill, he'll sure enough try to kill him.”

“I think I should go to my room and take a nap,” Posey said.

“Finish your brandy and I'll escort you across the street,” Sullivan said.

“Is my life in danger?” the little man said, panic in his eyes.

“Only from Apaches,” Buck Bowman said. “After you shot one of their kin, an' all.”

Posey clutched at his throat. “Don't say that, please.”

Sullivan said, “You're safe enough in town, Ezra.”

“Ebenezer.”

“But watch out on the trail back to Santa Fe,” Bowman said. “Keep that fast Colt of your'n handy.”

“I don't have a fast Colt.” Posey looked lost, lonely, and miserable. “I don't even have a slow Colt. I don't have any kind of Colt.”

Bowman grinned. “That's all right. You can always buy one before you leave town, Injun fighter,” Bowman said.

After Tam Sullivan warned him that he could sink into the mud of the street and vanish from view, Ebenezer Posey did not think it in the least undignified to be carried across in the bounty hunter's strong arms.

Nor it seemed to Sullivan, when Posey reached his room was he self-conscious about disrobing and changing into a white, ankle-length gown and a nightcap with a tassel.

When he settled himself in the brass bed, a pillow at his back, the little man said, “Mrs. Posey always insists that I dress for bed when I take a nap. She says lying down in my day clothes would not be genteel.”

“A refined woman,” Sullivan said. “Knows her manners, huh?”

“Indeed she does. Although a lady of somewhat Junoesque proportions, she can fit into any class of society. And, of course, her knowledge of bloomers and female corsetry is quite unparalleled.”

“A fascinating woman,” Sullivan said, his face empty. “Well, now you're all tucked in, I'll go look for my missing body.”

Posey held up a halting hand and didn't speak for long moments, as though marshaling his thoughts. When he did speak again, he baffled Sullivan completely. “Mr. Sullivan, have you heard of William Burke and William Hare?”

“I can't say as I have. Are there dodgers on them?”

Posey smiled slightly. “Oh dear me, no. They were murderous criminals in old Edinburgh town in Scotland some forty or so years ago.”

“Ah. Well, that's way off my home range.”

“Just so. It is indeed a long way across the Atlantic Ocean. Now let me explain. In Scotland, as in our own country, there was and still is, a chronic shortage of cadavers for the study and teaching of anatomy, so doctors in the Edinburgh medical school turned to grave-robbers to ensure a constant supply.”

Sullivan smiled. “I catch your drift, but Comanche Crossing is a long way from Edinburgh.”

“The body-snatchers dug up the recently dead, tore them from their coffins and smuggled the corpses to the doctors for payments in cash. As more and more graves were desecrated, you can suppose that this caused a great deal of public anger and outrage.”

Sullivan wondered where Posey was headed with this. “Yeah, I can see that. Anger and outrage, I mean.”

“The result was that armed guards were placed in graveyards to discourage the Resurrectionists, for that's what the body-snatchers were called, and the supply of bodies to the medical schools dried up.”

“Inconvenient for the sawbones, huh? Having nobody to cut into.” Sullivan edged toward the door. “Look, it's snowing again outside. I'd better be going.”

“Wait, Mr. Sullivan, please,” Posey said. “Allow me finish. It won't take long.”

Sullivan gave a resigned shrug of the shoulders. “All right, go ahead. I always love to hear about stolen cadavers.”

“Burke and Hare, seeing their fun money vanishing, had to get fresh bodies from somewhere, so they turned to murder. In all, they killed sixteen men and women and sold their bodies to the doctors before they were caught.”

Sullivan tried for a response, but couldn't come up with one and stayed silent.

Posey talked into the quiet. “Bodies are still in huge demand for dissection, Mr. Sullivan. Body-snatching still goes on apace in this country and abroad because it's such a lucrative profession. Is there a doctor in Comanche Crossing?”

“Yeah, I heard the mayor mention a doc. Hardy or a name like that. I don't quite recall.”

Posey lifted an eyebrow and stared hard at Sullivan.

“You mean he might buy bodies to cut them up and take a look at their innards?” the bounty hunter asked.

“It's possible. Four bodies are missing and there's a doctor in town. Who else would be interested in buying cadavers of what were young, healthy specimens?”

“Like Crow and them?”

“Exactly.”

“Nah, that's dime novel stuff,” Sullivan said. “It could never happen in this burg. In Boston or New York maybe, but not in Comanche Crossing.”

“I only offer my rather lurid tale as a suggestion, Mr. Sullivan,” Posey said. “You want to find Mr. Wallace's body and claim your reward. There is a possibility, remote though it may be, that even as we speak he's lying on a steel autopsy table in the good doctor's back room.”

“The doc would be faced with the problem of getting rid of the bodies he'd used,” Sullivan said. “Does he bury them in his backyard? A man the size of Frank Harm would need a big hole.”

“A physician who's expert with the knife and saw would have no trouble cutting a body into small pieces and dumping the parts in the woods. Coyotes and carrion birds would do the rest . . . destroying the evidence at it were.” Posey yawned. “Well, at least it's an avenue to explore. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must take my nap.”