Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (13 page)

Shawn O'Brien was worn out and Hamp Sedley was in no better shape, but they decided to give Burt Becker one more try before they called it a night.

Cigar smoke hung in the Streetcar like a fog, and the wall-to-wall crowd was getting animated. Gambling was going on at three tables, and over by the piano player a saloon girl warbled, “The Quaker Lass Fallen in Shame,” but nobody listened. Shawn was hit by the familiar saloon smells of packed bodies, stale beer, cigars, and cheap perfume. White moths fluttered around the oil lamps like snowflakes, and a drunken rooster wearing a high celluloid collar balanced a glass of whiskey on the crown of his plug hat as he tiptoed along a chalk line drawn on the floor. When he tripped over his own feet and fell, the crowd laughed and one of his companions gave him a playful boot or two in the ribs.

Shawn was big and significant, and he made his way through the crowd like a frontier Moses parting the Red Sea.

Pete Caradas sat at his usual table, and he smiled and motioned Shawn and Sedley over. “Sorry for the dishes,” he said. “I guess they can't find the time to clear them.”

“Hey, Pete, you going to eat that last lamb chop on your plate?” Sedley asked.

“Help yourself,” Caradas said.

“Obliged,” Sedley said. He sat and with surprising daintiness picked up the chop and began to eat. “Good,” he said, chewing out the word.

“You see them, O'Brien?” Caradas said. His elegantly booted foot pushed a chair closer. “Take a load off.”

“Yes, I saw them,” Shawn said. “Pumpkin rollers wearing hundred-dollar boots catch a man's eye.”

“They're not pumpkin rollers,” Caradas said. “Each of them has a gun stuffed into his bib overalls, and their hands have never been near a plow. They're in disguise, and that's how they work. Dredging up some old around-the-stove talk, I'd bet the farm those are the D'eth brothers, come to Broken Bridle to do somebody harm. I've heard about them, but this is the first time I ever saw them in the flesh.”

“Those boys are looking at you, Shawn,” Sedley said. He had an odd, knowing expression on his face. “My guess is they don't like what they see.”

“Yeah, and they've been giving me the mean eye since they sat down as well,” Caradas said. “I've never met them, but they have me pegged. And now you, O'Brien.”

“Pegged you fellers as what?” Sedley said.

“Guns, just like themselves,” Caradas said. “I reckon they don't harbor any animosity against us, but men in their kind of work hate complications.” The man smiled. “Kinda like me finding you in Broken Bridle, O'Brien.”

“Do I need to guess who they're after?” Shawn said, ignoring that last.

“No, you don't need to guess. It has to be Becker.”

“Then you have a hand to play, Pete,” Shawn said.

“Seems like,” Caradas said. He smiled at Shawn. “The good news is I'm not scared.”

“Why should you be, Pete?” Sedley said, amazed. “You shuck that Colt on your hips faster than anyone around.”

“Let's just say I had a bad experience recently and let it go at that,” Caradas said.

Sedley opened his mouth to speak, but Shawn said, “And let it go at that, Hamp.” Ignoring Sedley's disgruntled scowl, he said to Caradas, “Maybe the target is Thomas Clouston. Listen to those drums. Does he know they're here?”

For most residents of Broken Bridle the constant drumming had faded into background noise, like the hum of Chinatown or the constant rumble of freight wagons in the street. But since sundown the relentless racket of the drums had increased in intensity and was now more ominous, threatening, and aggressive.

“Clouston did all his killing back East where it was legal,” Caradas said. “I doubt that back in Philadelphia a relative grieving for a deceased loved one would know how to hire the D'eth brothers, or if it even would enter his thinking. In the big cities you hire lawyers, not guns.”

“Well, there's one way to find out,” Sedley said. “I'll go ask them.”

The protest died on Shawn's lips as Sedley rose and strode purposely in the direction of the D'eth brothers.

Shawn's hand dropped to the Colt on his hip, and beside him Caradas stiffened, watching. But the moment passed. As though of one mind the brothers rose, turned their backs on Sedley, and walked out of the saloon, closing the door quietly behind them.

Sedley stood in the middle of the floor, baffled, as merrymakers milled around him. He turned on his heel and walked back to Shawn and Caradas.

“I guess they didn't want to talk to me,” Sedley said.

Suddenly Caradas was angry. “Sedley, I warn you, don't ever do that again. If they'd drawn down on me you'd have been between me and them, obscuring my targets. That's the only edge the D'eth brothers need.”

Sedley was apologetic and shrugged his shoulders high, hands spread. “Hell, Pete, they don't even know you work for Burt Becker.”

“Maybe they don't, but I can't count on that.” Caradas forced himself to simmer down. “Just don't pull a grandstand play like that again.”

“Shawn?” Sedley said.

“Man's right, Hamp. If they'd had a mind to, the D'eth boys could have used you for cover.” Shawn smiled. “You'd have been a great loss to the gambling profession.”

Caradas nodded. “I usually just shoot people who get in my way, Hamp.” But he said it grinning and Sedley took no offense.

Sedley's rash move had been a minor irritation, nothing more.

But much worse was to come, and soon the death knell would toll in Broken Bridle.

At first Shawn O'Brien thought a fistfight had broken out on the dance floor, but he quickly realized that was not the case . . . it was more serious than that.

Above the noise of the crowd he heard a man yell, “I say we kill every man jack of them and hang the crazy doc!”

“Shut up them damned drums forever!” another man shouted.

That last drew the excited approval of men who'd drunk too much whiskey. They considered themselves as individuals no longer but part of a mob, and that was much more exciting.

A portly man in a broadcloth coat and collarless shirt waved his arms for quiet. “Listen, everybody. Listen to me! Quiet down.”

After the babble of conversation died away, a saloon girl yelled, “Talk to us, Oskar!”

Oskar Janacek, the brewer, puffed up a little with self-importance.

“Every man who can carry a rifle follow me to the brewery,” he said. “I have a wagon big enough to carry all of us and a pair of Percherons to haul it.” When the cheering passed, Janacek yelled, “By God it's high time we rousted out those black-hearted villains in the Rattlesnake Hills!”

Like a conquering general with an army at his back, the big brewer stomped to the door and others followed him.

Whiskey and smoldering resentment is a combustible mix, and Shawn reckoned Janacek had been rabble-rousing for some time before the crowd got worked up and the shouting started.

Beside him, Pete Caradas said, “Oh dear, I have a feeling this isn't going to end well.”

One of the relief bartenders hollered, “Wait for me, boys!” He untied his apron, threw it on the floor, and hurried from behind the bar.

“Here, Joe, you'll need this,” a gray-haired man said. He pulled a four-barreled pepperpot revolver from his pants pocket and passed it to the bartender, a tall, sallow man with a prominent Adam's apple.

“Give 'em hell, Joe,” the gray-haired man said.

Joe grinned and ran to the door, waving the pepperpot above his head to cheers from the thinning crowd.

“I'd better stop this,” Shawn said.

“It's none of your concern, O'Brien,” Caradas said.

“I promised to save this town, not sit back and watch it destroy itself.”

“Then it's a job for the sheriff, not you.”

Shawn rose to his feet and adjusted his gun belt. “I could use your help, Pete,” he said.

The gunman shook his handsome head. “Count me out. My job is to protect Burt Becker and I'll do it right here.”

“A wise move, Pete. Especially now them D'eth brothers are in town,” Sedley said.

“Hamp, you're always such a big help to me,” Shawn said, frowning.

He walked to the door and Sedley followed. Behind them, Pete Caradas shook his head and smiled.

 

 

A glowing moon rode high over Broken Bridle and spread a silver light, but Shawn O'Brien was struck by how dark and gloomy the town seemed, the stores and businesses lining the boardwalks as dreary as a row of slave quarters. North to the Rattlesnake Hills drums pounded a warning into the night, and alarmed coyotes yipped and howled among the shadowed hollows. There was no wind and the air smelled of dust and horse dung.

Their spurs ringing, Shawn and Hamp Sedley walked along the boardwalk toward the brewery where male voices were raised, playfully loud and chiding.

A team of big gray Percherons was already hitched to the brewery dray, a flatbed wagon with two rows of retaining chains on each side. A dozen men had already clambered aboard, carrying an assortment of long guns. Bottles passed around and laughter bellowed with whiskey courage.

When Shawn reached the open ground where the dray stood, he realized he was stepping into a powder keg that was about to blow.

Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy, his arms waving, was exhorting Oskar Janacek to go home to bed. Two men holding rifles and lanterns flanked the big brewer, and he was obviously on the prod.

“No, Sheriff, you go home to bed,” Janacek said. “You're damned useless and that's why we're taking the law into our own hands.”

“Wait until tomorrow and we'll talk then,” Purdy said.

“Talk! That's all you ever do is talk!” the brewer said. He poked Purdy in the chest with a forefinger as thick and stiff as a hickory wheel spoke. “Where are the Chinese who murdered Dave Grambling? Why haven't you hung them? Because you're yellow, Sheriff, and you're weak. Now get the hell out of my way.”

Janacek pushed Purdy aside and stepped to the wagon. “Are we ready to quiet those drums forever, boys?” This drew a ragged cheer, and a man in the dray yelled, “Let's go get 'em, Oskar.”

“Oskar Janacek!”

The brewer turned. Purdy had his .38 at eye level, aimed directly at the big man's head. “You're leading those men nowhere,” the sheriff said. “Go home, and that goes for the rest of you.”

Janacek was a big man who weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, all of it solid, and in all his fifty years he'd stepped aside for no one. He was one of the few merchants in town who'd refused to pay tribute to Burt Becker, and now he did what Shawn O'Brien feared he'd do.

Moving with surprising speed and agility, Janacek stepped in on Purdy, wrenched the revolver from his fist, and backhanded him, a powerful blow that sent the young sheriff to his knees.

Beside him, Shawn heard Sedley groan. But when the brewer steadied himself to get the boot in, Shawn yelled, “No! That's enough!” His Colt was in his hand.

Immediately long guns rattled, and a dozen and more rifles and shotguns were trained on Shawn.

“You dealing yourself a hand, O'Brien?” Janacek said.

“I told you he's had enough,” Shawn said. “If I take cards in this game, you'll be the first to know it, Janacek.”

The big man had sand, but now was not the time to prove it. If the ball opened, O'Brien would not survive, but then neither would he. Janacek let it go.

“Come on, boys,” he said. “We've wasted enough time here.”

He tossed Purdy's revolver into the dirt in front of him, and amid cheers and some jeers directed at Shawn, Janacek clambered into the driver's seat of the dray and slapped the reins.

The Percherons took the strain and the wagon trundled into the street, lanterns bobbing with its every movement. Someone took up a song and the others joined in, singing lustily, the whiskey bottles making their rounds.

“Sing now,” Shawn said, watching the dray leave. “As my father says, you'll soon be supping sorrow with the spoon of grief.”

Jeremiah Purdy struggled to get to his feet. “I have to stop them,” he said.

“You can't stop them,” Shawn said. “Nothing can stop them, not now.”

“Those damned drums . . .” the sheriff said.

“Where those boys are headed there will be plenty of drums and a warm welcoming committee, depend on it,” Shawn said.

“I'm going after them,” Purdy said. “I have to turn them, bring them back. Let me up, O'Brien.”

“You haven't done very well so far, Sheriff,” Sedley said. “What do you plan to do different?”

“I don't know. I'll play it as I see it when I get there.”

“How come that doesn't inspire me with confidence?” Sedley said.

“Hamp, leave him alone. He's had a bad night,” Shawn said. He helped Purdy to get to his feet, gave him his .32, and said, “You're the town sheriff and you've got a job to do. I won't stand in your way.”

Sedley bent and picked up something from the ground. He handed Purdy his round, wire-rimmed glasses and said, “Here, you might need these, help you see better when you set off that little pistol.”

After the young sheriff put on the spectacles he looked like a fourteen-year-old boy. “Don't like me much, do you, Hamp?” he said.

“Nope, I sure don't. I think you should go back East and be a professor or something. You ain't doing much good in this town.”

“Maybe I will go back East, but only when my work here in Broken Bridle is done.”

Sedley shook his head. “You may be a college boy, but I think you're as dumb as a snubbin' post.”

To Shawn's surprise, Purdy smiled. “You know, you could be right,” he said.

 

 

Ragged volleys of gunfire scarred across the dark face of the quiet night.

“Oh God no, not that,” Shawn said. He read the question on Purdy's face. “They're shooting up Chinatown as they drive past.”

Purdy looked stricken. “We have to stop them!” he said.

Without another word he turned on his heel and ran into the street. Shawn and Sedley followed, but they walked. The shooting had stopped and the culprits were well gone. There was no need for hurry. Now the only question was: How many Chinese had been killed?