The Murdock's Law (17 page)
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
I dreamed of naked women and oceans of blood, of diabolic, laughing faces erupting from the muzzles of guns and scaly hands slippery to the touch that grasped my limbs in grips like steel cables and strained to pull me apart. One of the laughing faces belonged to Doc Ballard. The hands belonged to Alf, the bartender at the Glory. The blood was mine and so were the naked women, dredged up from my imagination and forgotten since I was fourteen years old. From time to time I'd see a man strapped to a bed and raving. I felt sorry for him, and sympathetic tears would roll down my cheeks and leave burning furrows. I found myself dreaming of him more and more often. He wasn't raving any more and the straps were gone.
“Murdock?”
It was the first time I'd heard human speech in my
dreams. I strained to understand what was being said.
dreams. I strained to understand what was being said.
“Murdock? Wake up.”
My eyelids were weighted at the bottoms, like curtains on a saloon stage. When I got them pried open, I was looking through a red haze. I closed them again and opened them. Again. The haze dissipated slowly, like frost on the inside of a window as a room warms up. The doctor's face hovered over me. He wasn't laughing.
“I've been having some crazy dreams.” It came out gibberish. I started again, but he'd understood.
“That was the laudanum. You've been out for six days. You were feverish when Terwilliger's men brought you in. I didn't dare drug you until it broke. I had to get someone to hold you down when I extracted the bullet. You screamed bloody murder.”
“Alf?”
He looked surprised. “Yes, it was Alf. I didn't think you'd remember. The Glory had the nearest bed. That's where you are now, in the back room. You were delirious for days; I didn't think we'd pull you through.”
I glanced down at my chest. I was shirtless. A white bandage swaddled my right shoulder above a coarse gray blanket.
“You took a bullet in the chest,” he explained. “It just missed your right lung.” He held up a conical lump of dull metal. “You were lucky twice. Ordinarily the lead would have pierced the lung, glanced off the shoulder blade, and torn a path through your vital organs before coming to rest. In this case it
entered at an upward angle, scraped along the bone and became entangled in the muscles and ligaments of your shoulder. There was substantial tissue damage. You may lose some of the use of that arm. It's too early to tell. But it beats dying.”
entered at an upward angle, scraped along the bone and became entangled in the muscles and ligaments of your shoulder. There was substantial tissue damage. You may lose some of the use of that arm. It's too early to tell. But it beats dying.”
I lifted my left arm. My fingers protruded from a plaster cast that reached to my wrist. Cross's jaw had been harder than expected. The doctor smiled.
“When you decide to hurt yourself, you don't stop halfway. It'll take six weeks for those bones to finish knitting, but you can write and feed yourself.”
“When can I get out of here?”
“Whenever you want to. But you won't want to for a while. You lost a lot of blood and you don't take too well to being fed, as this eye can attest.” He indicated his left eye. It did look a little discolored and puffy.
“Shedwell,” I said.
He looked grave. “There was nothing anyone could do for him. He died instantly.” He paused. “Major Brody is gone too. He lived for a day after his arm was amputated, but the shock was just too much for his heart. He had an attack a couple of years ago. I guess you didn't know that.”
I said I didn't. His manner lightened.
“You have a visitor. Shall I show him in?”
I don't remember how I answered. I must have said yes, because he went out and a moment later Yardlinger appeared at the foot of the bed. He was carrying his hat and had a patch over his eyebrow. I levered myself into a sitting position, stifling an exclamation as pain streaked down my weakened right arm.
“How's the head?” I asked.
“Stuck together with crepe and spit.” He fingered the patch. “I won't be as pretty as I used to be, but few people are. How's the shoulder?”
“Ask me again when the laudanum wears off. I'm sorry about the Major. For a bloodthirsty guerrilla he had the makings of a first-class lawman.”
He smiled wearily. “Just as well he didn't live to hear that. You know you left me in the lurch. Randy and I have had the devil's own time keeping our prisoners from being lynched. We had to club a couple of heads last night, but it looks as if they'll live long enough to face the circuit judge this afternoon.”
“Who've we got?”
“Well, Périgueux's the star. It was his idea to form the band of night riders. The two survivors have confirmed that and we've got Mather's testimony that he sold a string of black horses to the Marquis a month before the raids started. He suspected the Frenchman was involved but was afraid those horses would implicate him so he kept quiet. I'm convinced he wasn't in on the raids and that he didn't know his own foreman was leading them. If he's guilty of anything, it's being afraid to ask questions.”
“Where's Périgueux now?”
“Terwilliger's men are guarding him at his place. They're still sworn and they know what's in store for them if anything happens to their prisoner. The jail's at capacity.”
“Who's there, besides the two night riders?”
“Actually, there's only one. Doc Ballard's treating his partner at the Freestone for a hip wound. Both
the men who were still in the line shack were dead when Randy and the others found them. Three Circle T hands involved in the raid on Mather's ranch. The other two rode out that night. I don't have any evidence other than my testimony that they were with Pardee when his brother was brought into Fitch's, but I'm going with that. Then there's Ed Strayhorn and his nephew Arnie.”
the men who were still in the line shack were dead when Randy and the others found them. Three Circle T hands involved in the raid on Mather's ranch. The other two rode out that night. I don't have any evidence other than my testimony that they were with Pardee when his brother was brought into Fitch's, but I'm going with that. Then there's Ed Strayhorn and his nephew Arnie.”
“They were with Turk?”
He shook his head. “The old man thought he was just protecting his boss's interests when the shooting started. I mean to put in a word for him at the trial. As for Arnie, well, I don't see him pulling much more than a suspended sentence considering Shedwell's reputation. The judge takes a dim view of professional killers.”
I was having a hard time keeping up. The laudanum had dulled my comprehension. “What about Turk?”
“Terwilliger got there just in time to see it from a distance.” He spoke slowly. “After he shot you, Turk took cover in what there was of Périgueux's new chateau. Shedwell went in after him standing up. The night rider wounded him first shot. From then on Shedwell might have been invisible the way Turk's bullets just kept stitching up the ground all around him. Shedwell fired once. Just once.”
I considered. “Arnie must have seen it too. When he realized who it was, he must have gone to get the English rifle, thinking that killing Chris Shedwell would make him man enough for his uncle.”
“Men have died for lots less,” he said. “Anyway, Terwilliger's the one to thank for saving your hide.
He threw you in one of the Marquis' wagons and trundled you into town more dead than alive.”
He threw you in one of the Marquis' wagons and trundled you into town more dead than alive.”
“Damn nice of him, considering I saved him a few dead men himself. Any messages?”
“I almost forgot.” He reached inside his coat and drew out a sheaf of telegraph forms. “Guess who.”
“Answer them. Tell the Judge I'll report in person.” I searched his face. “Anything else?”
“No word from her. She hasn't budged from Martha's since you were brought here.” Angrily he thrust the forms back into his breast pocket. “She's no good, Page.”
I laughed nastily. Even that hurt. “Who am I, the Pope?”
“You know what I mean.”
The doctor returned. “That's enough visiting for now. He needs rest.”
As he said it I realized how tired I really was. I held out my left hand. “I can't say you didn't keep me entertained.”
Yardlinger grasped my fingers in the cast. “Don't worry about Doc's bill or the rent on this room. The city's taking care of it, though the council doesn't know that yet. Your horse is at the livery and I've got your gun. Anytime you're ready for them.”
I grinned. “Marshal, are you ordering me out of town?”
“Maybe.” His tight smile flickered behind the lank moustache. “The sooner you're gone the quicker I can get the citizens of Breen accustomed to orthodox law enforcement.” He left. I was asleep before the door closed.
That afternoon I was walking around the room,
and by the next day I could dress myself and venture out to the barroom for a beer and some conversation with Alf. There was no news from the new opera house, where the trial was in its second day. The bartender caught my attention wandering toward the deserted side room.
and by the next day I could dress myself and venture out to the barroom for a beer and some conversation with Alf. There was no news from the new opera house, where the trial was in its second day. The bartender caught my attention wandering toward the deserted side room.
“She ain't been around,” he said, polishing a glass. “Talk is she's leaving.”
I paid for the beer without a word and returned to the back room. My shoulder was beginning to act up in spite of the sling.
The trial lasted three days. Michel d'Oléron, Marquis de Périgueux, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He never spent a day behind bars. The sentence was later commuted to ten to twenty years at hard labor, then suspended. He sold out his holdings in Montana and returned to France, where rumor had it that he married into another fortune after his first wife, a woman of frail constitution, perished during the ocean crossing. The two night riders were hanged in Breen for murder. The jury found Ed Strayhorn innocent of complicity in the raids and he was released. His nephew Arnie received six months on a work detail clearing land for the Great Northern Railroad, scheduled for completion in 1883. After that he joined a theatrical troupe and toured some eastern cities as “The Man Who Shot Chris Shedwell.” I lost track of him in succeeding years.
In a separate action, the circuit judge dismissed out of hand the case against the three Terwilliger
men for lack of evidence. No one ever came to trial for the raid on the Six Bar Six and the murder of three employees of the ranch.
men for lack of evidence. No one ever came to trial for the raid on the Six Bar Six and the murder of three employees of the ranch.
Dick Mather died of consumptive bronchitis in 1882.
By a six-to-four vote of the city council, Oren Yardlinger was appointed to a two-year term as Breen city marshal. The appointment wasn't renewed and he drifted down to Wyoming, where he took a job as deputy sheriff in Cheyenne and was shot in the back by an unknown party while making his rounds. He died with his Navy Colt still in its holster. I didn't hear of Randy Cross again until 1899, when he refereed the Jeffries-Fitzsimmons fight in Coney Island, N.Y. After that, nothing.
The last I heard, Bob Terwilliger was still alive and living in comfortable retirement on his ranch, now under the management of his son.
Against doctor's orders I testified on the last day of the night-rider trial and retired to the Glory during the recess for a drink. Colleen Bower was in the side room, dealing blackjack to a man in a suit with an eastern cut.
I peeled enough off the roll Yardlinger had returned to me for my bills at the hotel and livery, bought some chips out of the rest, and slapped what was left down on the table in front of the easterner. “Try your luck at the wheel.”
He glanced up, annoyed. Then he saw the sling I was wearing and went a little pale. He scooped up the bills and his chips, mumbled polite excuses to the lady, and went out. My reputation was spreading.
“Any news?” She dealt two cards apiece without looking at me. Her hair was done up the way I liked it and she was wearing blue.
“Judge turned it over to the jury. Nothing to do now but wait. Twenty-one.” I turned up the ace of hearts.
“Twenty.”
I took in her ante. She dealt again. “Been sick?” I asked.
“I needed a little vacation. Nineteen.”
“Seventeen.” I watched my chip go onto her stack and fed the pot again. “You knew Chris Shedwell pretty well, didn't you?”
She didn't answer. Cards slithered over the table's polished top. “I'm over.”
I claimed her chip. “Well enough to scout for him, I'd say.”
She hesitated, then resumed dealing. Her eyes never left the cards. I grabbed her hand. She glared.
“It was convenient for Shedwell,” I said. “Not every killer has someone he can blame for his profession. He could fancy himself a soldier until that day in Centralia when Abel Turk made a murderer out of him and the others in Anderson's crew.
“Being confined to a bed gives you a chance to think. I kept wondering what it was that made Shedwell hate him enough to want to kill him. When he told me about Centralia I thought it was because of what Turk had done to those unarmed Union soldiers, but that wasn't it. It was because of what he thought Turk had done to him. It's been eating at him all this time. Maybe he thought destroying Turk
would wipe out the last sixteen years and let him start over clean.”
would wipe out the last sixteen years and let him start over clean.”
Still she didn't say anything. I held on. I knew from experience that she had to be a captive audience to listen.
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