The Taylor County War (8 page)

Logan looked at the dead man’s
face. The lines of pain were gone and the pupils of his eyes were
already fixed and dilated in death.

With his finger and thumb he eased
the eyelids over the unseeing eyeballs, then with a sigh he stood
up and gave the little Irishman a rueful smile as he looked round
the spartanly furnished room. It was one of the ‘superior’ rooms
that Declan occasionally rented out instead of the rows of bunks
that were crammed into two dormitories, yet it was still pretty
basic. Apart from the bed, the only furniture consisted of a cheap
table, a chair and washstand with a chipped jug and bowl. The man’s
bloodstained clothes had been roughly folded up by Declan and
deposited on the table alongside a Remington, an old pepperbox and
a knife that he had kept in his right boot.

“Not much to show for a life,”
Logan mused as he pointed to the table.

“Maybe it wasn’t much of a life,
Dr. Munro,” Declan returned phlegmatically. “I reckon I had better
drop by Elijah Graveley’s funeral parlor and tell the old buzzard
that he has another customer.”

Logan poured water into the bowl
and washed his hands. “I’ll do that, Declan. I have to drop in
later to see another patient.”

Declan gave a short laugh. “Well
good luck, Doc. If you can bring some of his customers back to
life, you are one hell of a doctor!”

***

Elijah Graveley was not renowned
for either his sense of humor or his generosity. He was aware of
this reputation and indeed, he went to some length to foster it. In
his view both life and death were serious matters. Since he made
his living from the serious business of disposing of the dead, he
had long since made a business-like decision to maximize the profit
he made from each dead client. To do that he had to supplement what
he considered to be the meager fees he charged either the family or
the town for the burial. Over the years he had found various ways
of doing so.

First of all, he enjoyed an
informal partnership with Wil Marsh, the local photographer; a
kindred spirit who was also able to see death and the anguish it
caused to grieving relatives as a sure way to earn extra dollars.
Graveley would beautify up the corpses and Marsh would photograph
them in all their glory, as if they had just gone to sleep. Few
widows could resist the little works of art, and saw it as part of
the twosome’s compassionate natures.

On the other hand, if the deceased
had died violently as a result of some disagreement about what side
of the law they were on - well, Graveley could set them out in what
he called their ‘finest gory’ by opening up a wound or two,
scorching the flesh around the wounds and fixing their eyeballs so
that they were turned upward to show only the whites, making them
look like boiled fish eyes. Then Wil Marsh would take the picture
to turn them into the very embodiment of evil; men who deserved to
be slain like the vermin they were. And it worked. The pair found
that many of the fancy magazines back East were willing to pay top
dollar for them.

A second source of income was
derived from another, more clandestine partnership that Gravely had
with Dr. Jefferson Cantrell, the Wolf Creek dentist. Cantrell was a
man to avoid at certain times, especially if you developed
toothache any time after noon. That was about the time that the
effects of the strong liquor he started imbibing in from nine in
the morning would have begun to exert an effect. That was not to
say that his tooth-pulling skills were much affected, it was just
that he was not guaranteed to pull the right one.

Despite all that, the dentist was
much sought after by the toothless hags, crones and the middle aged
and elderly men who wanted either to be able to chew a steak again
or maybe attract a partner. Either way, Cantrell could whip up a
set of false teeth in a few days, for a fairly substantial fee, of
course. It was a lucrative skill that he had developed during the
War when there were so many dead young men who had no need to be
buried with their teeth.

Elijah Graveley had become skilled
at pulling the teeth out of the dead jaws and stuffing the mouth
with rags to make it seem that they still had a mouthful of their
very own ivory. A couple of hidden stitches through gums and lips
prevented any unwanted exposure of his handiwork.

No questions were asked and no one
to that date had ever recognized any of the teeth in the new sets
of dentures that Dr. Jefferson Cantrell made.

The third source of the
undertaker’s extra income he had only discovered by accident. It
was the fact that a few people used their rectums as a kind of
internal purse. In a few miners, outlaws, and a couple of cowboys
he had found little stashes of gold and silver. An old maid had
kept her jewelry there, and in the body of one old man he had even
found a wad of notes wrapped up tight in an oilskin. It was not a
regular occurrence, but he had found it a sufficiently profitable
discovery to make a search of every corpse’s inner regions a part
of his normal examination after death.

“No sense in burying good fortune
in Boot Hill,” he would muse to himself whenever he removed teeth
or made such a find as he prepared the body in his locked embalming
room. It was only when he had finally completed his work and
dressed the deceased in their burial clothes or one of his shrouds
that he would summon his assistant and gravedigger, Caleb Brodie,
and together they would load the body into the coffin ready for the
funeral.

Often, when standing at one or
other of the bars in Dogleg City, Caleb Brodie would complain about
how little Graveley paid. Yet what he never told anyone was the
fact that Elijah Graveley always paid his medical bills for him.
Caleb knew it was because he was the best-damned gravedigger there
was and it was worth keeping him well.

Elijah Graveley was waiting for Dr.
Logan Munro at the door of his funeral parlor. As usual, he was
dressed in a black frock coat and a top hat. He was almost
skeletally thin and had an iron-grey moustache that he allowed to
droop over his upper lip in order to hide the fact that he had no
teeth in his head at all. For personal reasons, he had never
contemplated asking the Wolf Creek dentist to make him a set of
dentures.

“Thank you for coming back, Doctor
Munro. The sooner you use that fancy knockout stuff on Caleb the
better for me. He won’t stop talking. I reckon he is more nervous
than I have ever seen him before.”

“He has every reason to be a touch
scared,” Logan replied as he entered the parlor ahead of the
undertaker. “Having a perianal abscess the size of a hen’s egg is
no fun. The chloroform will help, but he’s going to need pain
relief for a good few days after the work I’m going to be doing on
him. You realize that he’s not going to be able to do any digging
for at least a week.”

Elijah Graveley had removed his hat
upon entering, and automatically ran a hand through his thinning
hair. He smiled and came perilously close to revealing his
edentulous mouth.

“In that case, it is a good thing
that I have no funerals arranged, Doctor Munro. It appears you are
doing your job too well. The Wolf Creek folk simply ain’t dying
these days!”

Logan shook his head regretfully.
“I am afraid that I haven’t been so successful, Elijah. A patient
of mine just passed away. It is not a case that will wait. He needs
a quick burial.”

The undertaker sighed. “He is
decaying fast, I take it? Then it looks as though I will have to
either find a substitute gravedigger or get my own hands dirty.
What’s the client’s name, doctor?”

Logan winced. “I am afraid I have
no idea, Elijah. In my country we’d call just him John Smith.”

Elijah Graveley opened the door
leading to the living quarters where Caleb Brodie could be heard
gabbling and chuckling away to himself.

Logan grinned. Soon, under the
influence of chloroform, Brodie would be as quiet as the grave that
would soon receive Logan’s other un-named patient.

***

After operating on Caleb and
leaving him with a bottle of a specially prepared painkiller of his
own invention, Logan headed along South Street. It was busier than
usual. He tipped his hat to a group of ladies as they made their
way toward the church, their arms laden with flowers and various
cleaning paraphernalia. They belonged to the coterie of devout,
god-fearing women who kept the Reverend Obadiah Stone’s church in
pristine order, garlanded with blooms and smelling like the Garden
of Eden itself. Not only that, but they took turns in keeping the
parsonage as clean and wholesome as a parsonage should be. Some of
the less charitable members of the said reverend’s congregation did
a lot of elbow nudging and chin pointing at some of the prettier
members of his entourage and opined as to which of them kept the
reverend’s bed in order, too.

Up ahead, at the junction with
Second Street, he recognized the familiar plump figure of one of
the prominent ladies of Wolf Creek. Edith Pettigrew was the widow
of Seth Pettigrew, one of the town’s founders, a pedigree that she
wholeheartedly believed gave her and the sewing circle which she
led the right to act as the moral compass for the town. She was
huddled in conversation with a tall, slim Chinese man dressed
dapperly in a suit with a starched collar and tie. By their furtive
manner he knew that a transaction was taking place.

“Good morning, Mrs. Pettigrew,” he
said, tipping his hat as he approached. “And to you, Mr. Tsu.”

Tsu Dong stuffed something in his
pocket, turned and smiled at Logan as he gave a small stiff bow.
“Good morning, Doctor Munro.”

The widow Pettigrew blushed as she
pulled the cords of her purse-string bag closed. “Ah, Dr. Munro, I
am coming to see you later. I have need of your professional
services.”

“I’ll be consulting from ten
o’clock, Mrs. Pettigrew. I will look forward to our meeting.”

Logan smiled as he walked on, well
aware that the widow had just obtained a supply of opium from one
of Tsu Chiao’s “nephews.” And he was ready to bet money that the
reason for her planned consultation with him would be to obtain a
good laxative. The extent of her addiction to the drug was manifest
by her chronic constipation and the pinpoint pupils of her eyes,
which gave her such an unattractive mien.

He made for a plain fronted
building with steamed up windows. A large sign above the door
proclaimed it to be LI’S LAUNDRY. Beneath it in red calligraphic
painting the same thing was more mysteriously and more impressively
written in Chinese:

中国洗衣店

Beside the door
hung a gong, a very public sign of the Li family’s grief. For weeks
it had been rung every day in memory of Li Ch
ang, the youngest son of the family, who had been
trampled to death by an outlaw’s horse when the Danby gang had
attacked the town.

Underneath the gong there was a
bowl on a tripod. It was full of ash from the paper clothes and
paper toys that the family had burned for young Li Chang to enjoy
in the spirit world.

A bell jangled as Logan pushed open
the door and found himself in the steamy atmosphere. Through the
steam he could see Jing Jing, the Li couple’s pretty daughter,
standing behind a counter and going through a wad of laundry
orders. She was dressed in a blue tunic with a bereavement ribbon
around her arm. At one end of the counter a statue of a family god
was covered in a red cloth. At the other end sat a small basket
cage full of straw, which contained the two white mice that had
belonged to young Chang, and which were adoringly looked after by
his three older brothers. Logan knew only too well how important
such links were to bereaved children. He had made a point of
keeping a regular check on the family ever since the tragedy.

“Good morning, Doctor Munro,” Jing
Jing began, her mouth curling into a delightful smile. Then she
hesitated and looked past him as the door opened and Tsu Dong
stepped in. Her expression registered first pleasure, then
embarrassment. She dropped her eyes demurely.

Young love, Logan mused to himself.
He understood both her attraction to the young man, whom he
reckoned to be about twenty-one or twenty-two, just five or six
years older than her. He was a good looking fellow, had impeccable
manners and dressed well, as did all of Tsu Chiao’s “nephews.” Yet,
whether he was actually related to the owner of the Red Chamber or
not, Logan was not sure. What he did know was that Tsu Chiao
expected absolute loyalty and total obedience from his family. The
fact that all of his nephews had the same family name did not
necessarily mean that there was a blood tie, but possibly indicated
that a binding contract or pledge had been made, of fealty to a
master.

Logan had, on several occasions,
had to treat people who had been on the wrong side of the Wolf
Creek opium den’s owner and one or other of his nephews.
Recollecting that brought a suspicion to his mind. Could Tsu Dong
or one of the other nephews have been responsible for the mortal
wound and the protracted death of his unnamed patient?

“Please do not think that I am
following you, Doctor Munro,” Tsu Dong said. “I was hoping to have
a word with Jing Jing.”

The curtain that hung over the
doorway leading into the laundry itself was swept abruptly aside
and Mrs. Li stepped through. She glared at the young man.

“Jing Jing, your father needs you,”
she snapped, without taking her eyes off Tsu Dong.

He looked flustered for a moment,
but quickly recovered and gave a short bow. “Good morning, Mrs Li.
I was just…”

“Quickly, Jing Jing,” Mrs. Li said,
clapping her hands rapidly. “And while you are there, tell Li Wei
that he needs to take a basket of fresh linen to Miss Abby Potter’s
Boarding House. Chop-chop.”