Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (8 page)

Pete Caradas left his horse at the livery and went looking for Burt Becker. The big man was not at his usual table in the Streetcar, and all of a sudden Caradas was troubled.

“Where is he?” he asked the bartender.

The man nodded in the direction of the street. “At his room in the hotel. Mr. Becker ain't feeling too good.”

Caradas ordered a whiskey, drank it down, and ordered another. As his nerves settled, he said, “What ails him?”

“A feller by the name of Shawn O'Brien is what ails him,” the barman said.

Again anxiety spiked at Caradas. “He isn't shot, is he?”

“Who?”

“Damn it, Becker, of course.”

“No. But O'Brien beat him up real bad.” The bartender made a motion of tying a bandage at the top of his head. “His jaw is broke and so is his nose. Ribs, too, I heard.” The barman laid down the glass he'd been polishing. “Sunny Swanson is with him. Taking care of him, like.”

“That's what he needs, I guess, a whore with a heart of gold.”

The bartender snorted. “Yeah, that's what you think. Becker is paying Sunny to be there in his hour of need.”

Caradas drained his glass. “I better go see him.” Then, “Is Shawn O'Brien still alive?”

“Sure he is. He won the fight, didn't he?”

Caradas shook his head. My God, that was hard to believe.

He'd been told Shawn O'Brien was good with a gun, but also that he was a rich man's son and something of a drawing room ornament. He'd heard nothing about him being a knockdown, drag-out, bareknuckle fist fighter. Who the hell had taught him that?

“I'll go talk to Becker,” Caradas said. It seemed that this was a day to share bad news.

“He can't talk back,” the bartender said, grinning slyly as he again made that tying movement above his head.

The barman's name was Ferguson and Pete Caradas wanted to shoot him real bad.

 

 

Pete Caradas tapped on the door of Becker's room.

A slender brunette in a plain gingham dress, her hair pulled back and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb, answered.

Sunny Swanson didn't look like a whore. But she was. She let Caradas inside, then said, “He's sleeping or unconscious, take your choice.”

“Can I see him?”

“Sure, why not.”

Burt Becker lay in bed, and it looked as if a stampeding buffalo herd had trampled him. His face looked like a strawberry pie dropped onto a bakery floor, and a tight bandage was wound around his jaw and tied off at the top of his head. His breathing was labored, as though his throat was thick with blood.

“Did O'Brien have help?” Caradas asked.

“No,” Sunny said. She had a wide, expressive mouth that now showed the hint of a wry smile. “He did it all by his little self.”

Like most elite shootists, fist fighting was an anathema to Pete Caradas. As John Wesley Hardin once summed it up, “If God wanted me to fight with my fists he would have given me claws.” Caradas considered pugilists lowdown trash and knife fighters not far behind. At one time or another, he'd killed both and it did not trouble his conscience one bit.

Yet O'Brien was fast on the draw and shoot. Beating Becker with his bare hands meant that he was capable of using any means to win a fight, and that made him a more dangerous man than Caradas had originally believed.

Then a thought troubled Pete Caradas. Was Shawn O'Brien in Broken Bridle because he was somehow linked to the crazy doctor Thomas Clouston? Was there something in the Rattlesnake Hills they both wanted and would kill to keep?

He had questions without answers, and Caradas was a worried man when he left the hotel and made his way to Sheriff Purdy's office.

The young lawman was not glad to see him. “What do you want now?” Jeremiah Purdy asked.

“You heard about Becker?” Caradas said.

“Yes.”

“He's still unconscious and his jaw is broken.”

“Yes. I know.”

Caradas took a chair, then said, “I lost Little Face Denton and June Lacour in the Rattlesnake Hills.”

“I'm sure they'll find their own way home,” Purdy said.

“I mean they were taken, roped, and dragged into the brush. I killed one of the attackers and barely made it out of there alive.”

“A white man?”

“Yeah, he was.” Then, “Is Shawn O'Brien in cahoots with the crazy doc?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Purdy said.

“Why does Thomas Clouston want those hills, Purdy?” Caradas said.

“I imagine for the same reason your boss wants them.”

“And why is that?”

“He hasn't told me. But he says the Rattlesnake Hills are worth a pile of money. That might be why O'Brien is interested.”

“There's nothing of value in those hills. I told O'Brien that already,” Caradas said.

“So he is interested?” Purdy sat back in his chair and sighed. “Caradas, I'll wire the United States Marshal and see if he's willing to investigate the disappearance of your friends.”

“Why not take a posse up there yourself?”

“It's way out of my jurisdiction.”

Caradas rose to his feet. “We'll see what Burt Becker has to say about that.” The gunman stepped toward the door, but Purdy's voice stopped him.

“Where is Jane?” he asked.

Caradas turned, surprised. “I don't know,” he said. Then, reading the expression on the young lawman's face, he said, “She's well. That's all I know.”

“Where is she?”

“I told you, I don't know. But the agreement stays the same, Purdy. Do as you're told and your woman will stay well. Step out of line and Becker will kill her.”

“Caradas, how can you have a hand in this and still live with yourself?” Purdy said.

“For money, Sheriff. The best reason of all.”

“You two shall know the truth and the truth will make you madder still,” said Dr. Thomas Clouston. “It will drive you even more insane.”

“What is the truth?” June Lacour said.

“That there is no truth, only falsehoods and deceit. Our entire lives are a lie, a wheel within a wheel of fabrication. Ha, now you understand, straw man. Is that not so?”

“Mister,” Lacour said, “I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Where is Pete Caradas?”

“Is that who he was? He killed one of my followers and escaped. He is mad, like you. Mad as a hatter.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Little Face Denton said.

Clouston shrugged. “As madmen you are both worthless, but I will use you to carry a message to Burt Becker, that vile cretin, that criminal lunatic.”

A rising prairie wind flapped the canvas roof of the ruined cabin that lay between two hogback bluffs, well hidden from anyone entering the Rattlesnake Hills or riding the few thin trails that lay to the east.

The tents of Clouston's men were scattered around the cabin, earth-colored and almost invisible to the naked eye at a distance.

The doctor had chosen his hiding place well. This was wild, desolate country, some of it still known only to God. If the Cheyenne had once hunted here they had left no scars on the land.

The abandoned cabin retained three walls, and canvas substituted for the fourth. But somehow after his disgrace and his demented flight west, Clouston had managed to hold on to some of his furniture. A huge oak bed stood against one wall, a dresser against another, and a fine Persian rug covered the flagstone floor. A crystal chandelier hung from one of the few roof beams, and in the evenings its oil lamps would cast a splendid light for a reader sitting in the overstuffed leather chair by the still intact fireplace.

“You're letting us go?” Denton said. Bound hand and foot and badly beaten, he was scared.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Clouston said. “But you'll save your worthless skin, don't worry.”

One of the two stocky gunmen standing guard sniggered.

Clouston looked at him and smiled slightly, as though at a private joke.

June Lacour, in terrible pain from a smashed cheekbone, had sand enough to ask, “What's in all this for you, Clouston?”

The doctor, sitting in the leather chair, reached inside his coat and took time to light a large, elaborate pipe before answering.

“
Doctor
Clouston, if you please.” He grinned at Lacour. “Here is a riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

The gunman's face was blank, his eyes puzzled.

“Ha, I made a jest,” Clouston said. “That is not the riddle at all. But you may answer this one: Why are the Chinese the key that unlocks the riches that make weak men mad?”

“I don't know,” Lacour said, shaking his head.

“Come now, fellow. Think. Use what little brain you possess.”

Lacour wanted to get out of this alive and he humored the crazy man.

“They build the railroads?”

“Fool. Madman. Straw man. That is not the correct answer. Mr. Stockman, punish him for being such an imbecile.”

One of the guards backhanded Lacour across the face, drawing blood from the gunman's mouth.

“Enough, Mr. Stockman,” Clouston said. Then to Lacour, “Do you wish to know the answer?”

Lacour, bleeding from broken lips, said nothing.

“Well, I'm not going to tell you the answer, so there,” Clouston said. “If I liked you I'd tell you, but I don't, so I won't. Yah!”

He waved his pipe and blue smoke spiraled from the glowing bowl.

“Mr. Stockman, behold, if you will, the obstinacy of the insane,” he said. “When I was in practice, I'd beat such stubbornness out of my patients with a dog whip.” He looked into the guard's grinning face. “Alas, for every five patients I treated I'd cure one and kill four. Still, many mental institutions envied my twenty percent cure rate and that's why they took a set against me.”

Little Face Denton had been in seven gunfights, killed three men and shared another. He was not a coward, but he was up against something he'd never encountered before . . . something so evil that, being a man of limited intelligence, he could not comprehend.

He glanced at Lacour's battered face, then said, “Will you release us now . . . Doctor?”

“Yes, if you solve the riddle: Why are the Chinese the key?”

“I don't know,” Denton said. He hoped his honesty would prevail.

“Numbskull! Straw man!” Clouston yelled. “You don't know the answer because you're psychotic. The mad lose all powers of reason. Mr. Stockman!”

“Yeah, Doc?” the guard said.

“Take them away. I've diagnosed both and they are clinically insane, and it's beyond my power to cure them.”

“What do I do with them, Doc?” Stockman said.

Clouston smiled and motioned with his pipe. “Why, turn them into straw men, of course.”

Judy Campbell knew why Jane Collins was missing. But she had no idea where the girl was being held captive.

Sheriff Jeremiah Purdy had been of little help. “Leave well enough alone, Judy,” he'd warned her. “I don't want to put Jane's life in more danger than it already is.”

She believed him when he said that he had no idea where Jane was, and Burt Becker might intimidate Purdy by claiming he had a gun to Jane's head, but that threat didn't cut any ice with Judy Campbell.

If her best friend wasn't in Broken Bridle, then she must be somewhere close to town. The question was, where?

Now, as she'd done several times in the past month, Judy scouted the rugged country around Broken Bridle. Riding a mountain-bred cow pony, a Winchester in the boot under her knee, she was a dozen miles due north of the old Oregon Trail when she swung toward Saddle Rock, riding across rocky, broken country.

After fetching through a shallow canyon Judy picked up a wisp of a game trail and followed it past Sagehen Hill. A mile to her west lay the eastern slopes of the Rattlesnake Hills, ahead of her Eagles Canyon, where she planned to stop and eat the lunch the ranch cook had packed for her.

She'd left the Four Ace just after sunup and now the sun was almost directly overhead, but she'd seen nothing, no cave, arroyo, or abandoned cabin that could be used to hide a captive.

Judy pulled into the shade of the timber, removed her hat, and with the back of her hand wiped beads of perspiration from her forehead. She decided to ride as far as Eagles Canyon and then call it a day.

The sun was already almost unbearable and would only get hotter.

In the meantime . . .

She untied the lunch sack hanging from the saddle horn, chose an egg salad sandwich, and held it to her nose. Good. It was still fresh. She was chewing on the first bite when she saw a rider come through a rippling heat haze to the north.

At first man and horse seemed elongated, like the tall, angular image of Don Quixote in the yellowed page of an ancient book, but as they emerged from the haze the rider shrank to normal size.

The man came on steadily at a walk, and Judy had no doubt that he'd seen her. Her first instinct was to turn around and head back to the ranch. But Judy Campbell had a streak of Scottish stubbornness that would not allow her to turn tail and run from a stranger who probably meant her no harm.

A few moments later she regretted that decision.

The man who approached her rode a mouse-colored mustang, and despite the stifling heat he wore a bearskin coat that Judy fancied she smelled when the rider was still yards away.

The man drew rein, lifted his sweat-stained plug hat, and grinned. “Howdy, little lady. All by yourself?” He carried a Henry rifle across his saddle.

“No,” Judy said. “My father and brothers are just behind me.”

The man's mud-colored eyes flicked to the girl's back trail and his grin widened. “Now what's a pretty little filly like you doing in this wilderness, and riding a five-hunnerd-dollar cuttin' hoss to boot?”

“I told you, I'm riding with my father and brothers,” Judy said. “Now please be on your way.”

“An' that's a damned lie,” the man said. He swung up the muzzle of his rifle, then, “Git off that pony. Go on now, or I'll blow you off'n it.”

“I have money,” Judy said. Her brain busily calculated how fast she could shuck her rifle. Not fast enough. “You can have it.”

“What I want from you ain't money, little gal,” the man said. “After you get a taste of me you'll beg to become my woman, lay to that.”

“I swear, my father will hang you,” Judy said.

“I'll take my chances.”

The man's lips peeled back from a few black teeth. He had the eyes of a reptile. “Now git off that hoss, girlie. Do it!”

Judy had a Barlow folding knife in the pocket of her canvas riding skirt.

She pinned her hope on its carbon steel blade . . . if she could get to it.

After Judy stepped out of the saddle the bearded rider motioned to a grassy narrow bank wedged between two huge boulders.

“Git over there and lie down,” he said. He grinned. “Smell the flowers.”

Blue and white wildflowers peeped shyly through the grass. It was a shady, peaceful spot where something unspeakable was about to take place.

Judy lay on her back and reached into her pocket. She retrieved the knife but had no way of opening the blade without being seen.

Her heart thumped in her breast and her mouth was dry with fear as the man, massive in the bear fur, swung from the saddle and stepped toward her.

“Git them duds off, little lady,” he said. “And I mean all of them.”

Playing for time, Judy fumbled with the top buttons of her shirt. She smelled the man's rank stench, the animal stink of him.

He shrugged out of the fur coat and let it fall to his feet. “Now it's fun time,” he said. He started to unbutton his pants.

At exactly the same moment Judy Campbell lost all hope, the rapist and murderer named Sam Ball lost a large chunk of his head.

The heavy caliber bullet hit the back of Ball's skull and exited an inch above his right eye, taking with it a great mass of bone and brain. When he dropped at Judy Campbell's feet her would-be rapist was still unbuttoning his pants in hell.

The girl sat up as a handsome, white-haired man on a great dappled gray rode at a walk toward her. He held an elegant English hunting rifle upright on his thigh, and a black cloak hung from his shoulders and draped over the hindquarters of his horse. A steel ax hung from his saddle.

Dr. Thomas Clouston drew rein, a look of concern on his face.

“Are you all right, my dear?” he asked.

Judy nodded. Then, “He was going to—”

“Yes, I know. He was obviously criminally insane and that's why I destroyed him. It is all you can do in cases like his.”

Clouston stared at the girl. She thought his burning eyes strange and intrusive.

“Why are you here?” he said. He nodded in the direction of the dead man. “Step away from that, please. I'll deal with it later.”

“My friend is . . . missing and I'm trying to find her,” Judy said, walking to her horse.

“You won't find her here.”

Judy looked up at the man. A tall man on a tall horse was an impressive combination. “No. I think not,” she said.

“There are many ways a person can disappear in this country, and it has a thousand ways to kill a man, or a woman.”

“I want to thank you for saving my—”

“Think nothing of it, child. I was only doing my duty as a gentleman.”

“I'm so glad you were near.”

“And so am I.”

Clouston pointed behind him. “Stay away from the Rattlesnake Hills,” he said. “There are many perils there to beset the unwary.”

“I doubt my friend is there,” Judy said.

“I know she is not there. It's time for you to go home. Where is your home?”

“My father owns the Four Ace ranch southwest of here.” Judy stepped into the saddle, and then said, “Jane Collins, my friend, was kidnapped by Burt Becker. Do you know him?”

Clouston rubbed his temples with the thumb and fingers of his left hand.

“That name . . . that awful name. It makes my head reel,” he said, his eyes squeezed tight shut. “He wants to take what's rightfully mine.”

Alarmed by the man's evident agitation, Judy said, “Because he has Jane, Becker rules Broken Bridle. I don't think he has anything else in mind.”

“Oh, but he does,” Clouston said. “And it will be his undoing. Unfortunately, the town will also suffer for Becker's ambition, except for the Chinese. They are the key to everything.”

He pointed at Judy. “You are not psychotic. Now there is good news.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” the girl said. She had no idea what psychotic meant.

“Your father owns the Four Ace ranch you said.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Perhaps at a later date I can call on you.”

Without a moment's hesitation the girl said, “You would be most welcome.” She didn't mean a word of it.

“My name is Dr. Thomas Clouston,” the tall rider said. “Have you heard of me?”

“I'm afraid I haven't.”

“No matter, you soon will. Leave now.”

Judy needed no second invitation. She swung her horse around and rode away at a smart trot.

When the girl glanced behind her she saw Clouston staring at her, and she was relieved when she was veiled by dust and distance.