The Book of Murdock (15 page)

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Authors: Loren D. Estleman

BOOK: The Book of Murdock
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Unexpectedly, I found
my suspicions confirmed—or at least supported—the next morning, when the door to the freight office opened away from my hand and I was face to face once again with Fielo, who hesitated, raised and lowered his hand-me-down silk hat, and stepped past me onto the boardwalk. There were any number of reasons why the manservant of a busy ranch owner would have business with a stagecoach line, but I was satisfied that he'd just posted a letter to Denver on Freemason's behalf to test Brother Bernard's story.
It was Monday and a coach stood ready before the door. That meant a waiting line inside and I joined it. Luther Cherry, looking every bit the scarecrow I'd met during the trip from Wichita Falls, in a morning coat plastered with lint and stray hairs, stood at the head of the line, arguing with the friendly clerk behind the counter.
“Four-fifty just to carry a letter to St. Louis? I might as well pay a little more and deliver it in person.”
“I'm sorry, sir; that's the special delivery rate. Undoubtedly it will come down after they string a telegraph line from Wichita Falls. It always does—competition, you understand. But that won't happen until after the railroad comes through.”
“Until which time, Wells, Fargo will behave as arrogantly as any of the Eastern trusts. My God, I could buy a decent suit of clothes and pocket fifty cents!”
Clearly this invited a suggestion, but being affable by nature the clerk made another. “Regular delivery is two dollars, if you don't mind it taking an extra day or so.”
“That won't do.” Muttering to himself, the lawyer produced four banknotes from a lank wallet and laid them on the counter, then snapped open a Scotchman's coin purse and placed a twenty-five-cent piece, two dimes, and a nickel on top of them. The man behind the counter transferred them to a cash box, stamped a postmark on a long envelope in front of him, and poked it into a pigeonhole at his elbow.
On his way to the door, Cherry, grumbling still, nearly passed me without looking up.
“Life in the wilderness is not as reasonably priced as it was centuries ago, Mr. Cherry,” I said.
“Indeed it is not, friend.” He recognized me then and halted. “Good morning, Brother. I worked late Saturday night and overslept the next day, missing your sermon. I heard it brought down the house.”
“Hardly that, but the reception was most kind.”
“I'm sorry you overheard that altercation. I miss my wife, but if I continue to communicate with her at these rates I won't be able to afford her fare.” He glanced down at
the envelope in my hand. “I hope your people are patient. The Overland is no place for a man sworn to poverty.”
“Fortunately, I made a new friend in Wichita Falls. The collection plate won't suffer mortally.”
He was only half listening, preoccupied with the hands of his nicked watch. Presently he apologized for the demands of his workload, said good-bye, and took his leave.
When my turn came I handed the clerk my letter to Mr. J. Smith and paid its freight from the loose change in my pocket. He bent my ear over the excellence of the Sunday services until the people behind me began to clear their throats and shuffle their feet. A man tipped his hat and a woman dipped her chin as I walked past. I touched my brim to both. I understood then, a little, about the seductive nature of the Call. Edwin Booth was no more celebrated a figure on the streets of Chicago and San Francisco than a minister in a desert settlement.
 
 
Dawn comes early
in flat country. I'd just entered the church Tuesday, carrying my second cup of cowboy coffee (paint stirrer required) when the creak of a harness drew me to the door. A Brewster-green Stanhope stood on red wheels beside the boardwalk, hitched to a round-bottomed sorrel with the shoulders of a Percheron; and good job, because it was pulling two passengers already.
Freemason, in a duster and flat-brimmed Stetson, sat holding the lines behind Luther Cherry. Today the sad-faced lawyer wore a straw hat and sturdy tweeds, out at the elbows but a happier union than his town coat. He clutched a battered
leather briefcase on his lap and held down his flapping hat with his other hand against a mild forty-mile-an-hour wind. As I climbed aboard, he pressed in close to the driver to make room on a seat properly built for two.
“Another good morning to you, Brother,” he said. “I apologize for the close quarters. I had a question about the boundaries, and Mr. Freemason was gracious enough to invite me to the ranch to see them for myself. No doubt you're growing tired of me by now.”
He was a drab companion, and I've never warmed to skinflints, but I protested the opposite. Surreptiously I wedged my arm between us to keep him from pressing against the revolver in its scabbard. I didn't want to take the chance of Mrs. McIlvaine finding it in the parsonage, and in any case I wasn't about to venture into open country unarmed.
Freemason measured out a smile of contrition. “I yielded to an impulse. The cabriolet is at the ranch, and all the twoseaters are out on hire from the livery. I had this rig built to my order, so it's sound, and Bess is accustomed to hauling furniture in tandem, but by the time we cross the river I fear we'll be on rather more intimate terms with one another than we bargained for.”
I said, “I don't mind. Mr. Cherry's presence shortened my journey here.”
“A fine piece of fortune,” said the sheepman. “I engaged both of you sight unseen, on the strength of my judge of character. Cherry clerked in the St. Louis firm that handled most of my transactions. When he passed the bar with applied study in real property, I retained him immediately. The man's knowledge is worth ten miles of fence.”
The lawyer laughed. “If I may speak for Brother Bernard as well as for myself, it's handy there's just the one seat. You might otherwise have been tempted to bring along our friend the wire drummer, and expose us all to an exhaustive lecture on the relative merits of Glidden versus Reynolds, and whether Sunderland's Kink is as effective a deterrent as the Brink Twist.”
“I've had my life's portion of those fellows.” Our host released the brake and gave the lines a flip; Bess rolled her haunches and we were in motion. “They make no distinction between the walrus hide of a bull and the tender membrane of a ewe. Great patches of scar tissue are as devastating to the harvest of wool as blight to corn. Barbs are designed to contain cattle, dumb brutes that wander away from sure feed to graze on dead thistle in the desert. A week-old lamb knows better than that. No doubt Bo Peep abused her flock.” No hint of a smile cracked his countenance.
I changed hands on my hat and shouted across the wind. “If you don't mind my asking, why, then, did you lobby so hard to strengthen the fence-cutting law?”
“Not to keep sheep in, you can be sure of that. I fought for it in order to keep the damn cattlemen out.”
At length we crossed Wild Horse Creek at a point where deep ruts left by other vehicles marked the ford. The waters had just begun to recede from the spring runoff, and lapped at our hubs. When we rolled up the bank on the other side, the big mare shrugged, sprinkling us all. “A second baptism,” offered Cherry.
For a mile or so we rode alongside four strands of wire strung between crazy crooked scrubwood posts that any
rancher in good timberland would have scorned in favor of straight pine or cedar, while the tough short stubble of buffalo grass gradually gave ground to a lush expanse of bluestem nearly three feet high, ideal for grazing. Freemason had chosen his location well. The relentless wind combed the tops in hypnotic waves, like the pattern on the surface of an inland ocean. I directed my gaze away from it toward the level horizon to keep from becoming drunk on the sight. The grasses of the High Plains are proof that you can get seasick on dry land.
I spotted the horse and man in the road first, just ahead of the rancher, who stiffened at the sight. The man was out of the saddle and kneeling near the fence in the attitude of cutting the wire. Freemason leaned forward and drew a brass-receiver Winchester from the footboards at the base of the seat onto his lap. This alerted Cherry.
“What a place to come bang up,” he said. “It's lucky for him we happened along.”
Trust a lawyer to size up a situation at one glance. I could see then that the man was too far from the fence to threaten it. At first I thought his horse had thrown a shoe, but as we drew near I saw that the man down on one knee with his back turned toward us was scraping at its right forefoot with a knife, paring the hoof or prying at a stone or some other object that had gotten wedged inside the iron. Our host relaxed, loosening his grip on the pistol stock of the repeater.
“Need help, friend?” he called out.
The man spun on his knee without rising, cocking and leveling a long-barreled Colt at Freemason across the crook of his right arm. He wore a gray hat, range flannels, and a blue bandanna that covered the lower half of his face.
My reflexes were a split second faster than the rancher's; my hand made an entirely involuntary move toward the revolver under my coat, but I stopped it through sheer force of will before it had covered a half inch. The masked man was concentrating on Freemason, who snatched at the carbine across his lap. The Colt flamed and something struck a post holding up the Stanhope's canvas roof. Freemason abandoned the Winchester to seize the lines and calm Bess.
The report seemed to serve double duty as a signal. From the fence and road, the grass-covered ground sloped gently toward the river, forming a shaggy apron some thirty feet wide between hardpack and water. In one smooth motion, a handful of horses scrambled to their feet, seeming to rise from the earth itself as if on hinges and levitating riders into their saddles.
I was more impressed than frightened. It takes more than just good horsemanship to keep eight hundred pounds of nervous animal down on its side without snorting or tossing a head or a tail; two hands are hardly enough to keep it calm and its nostrils covered and man and horse hidden in grass not much more than knee high, and simple athletic ability alone won't let him rise with it, slipping one foot into the stirrup and swinging the other leg over its back in the same movement, man and beast uniting as one. It was like something out of Revelation:
The first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within …
Only there were five beasts, clad in pale dusters, gray hats, and blue bandannas, and when the man in the road swung aboard his horse, the muzzle of his revolver remaining on point like the needle of a compass, we faced six armed men, the others kneeing their mounts forward until they formed a half circle about us with weapons in hand.
A sharp double-clack rang out across the wind, and I turned my head as a seventh rider cantered our way from Freemason's property on the other side of the fence with a fresh round levered into a Spencer rifle. He wore the uniform of the pack, a strip of tanned and weathered face showing between the top of his bandanna and the brim of his hat.
“What does the Good Book say about seven angels?” Cherry asked me in a low voice.
“These aren't angels.”
Ten yards from the fence, the newcomer shouted and smacked his reins across his horse's withers, breaking it into gallop. It closed the distance in seconds and left the earth with no more apparent effort than a balloon rising, clearing the top strand of wire with inches to spare and braking to a halt short of the road, forelegs stiff and its rider leaning back on the reins, the repeater cradled along his right forearm.
Cherry did a foolish thing. Startled by the feat of athletic horsemanship and the thud of the landing, he shifted on the seat and his briefcase slid from his lap. He lunged to catch it. The Spencer bellowed and there was one less lawyer in Texas.
Something hot and
wet splashed the back of my left hand; it was Luther Cherry's blood as he arched his back upon impact, then sagged against me with all his weight. He was breathing, but the nasty sucking sound meant a shot lung and a short life.
For me, there was no harnessing my instincts. Bess tried to rear between the traces, occupying both of Freemason's hands and all of his concentration. The Deane-Adams was in my right hand pointed at the man with the Spencer before I could give any thought to the action.
Six hammers and the lever of the repeater crackled across the wind. Facing seven muzzles, I let the revolver fall to the floorboards and raised my palms to my shoulders.
I was conscious of Freemason's eyes on me, leveled across Cherry's bent frame.
For five minutes—it was more likely seconds—only the wind stirred. Then the man with the Spencer jerked his head
at the rider nearest me, who nudged his mount alongside the buggy, leaned over to slide the Winchester off Freemason's lap, and tossed it to another rider nearby, who caught it onehanded. He scooped up the Deane-Adams and examined it, then flipped it toward the man with the Spencer. The Helena baseball team could have used that bunch in the infield.
“Check out the satchel.”
The lawyer's briefcase was opened and its contents dumped out. Papers fluttered in every direction like bats flushed from a cave. The rider shook his head and dropped it in the road.
“Nice iron for a plug-hat preacher.” The man with the Spencer raised my weapon and sighted down the barrel at a point between my eyes. His voice carried above the wind with the ease of someone accustomed to raising it, with a West Texas accent as flat as the panhandle. I was convinced he was the man Charlie Sweet had heard giving the orders during the Overland robbery. “Too good anyway for potting snakes and such.”
“He's right handy with it, too.” The man who'd picked it up had marbles in his mouth, or more practically a cud in his cheek.
I said nothing. I could feel the muzzle on me as if it were pressing against the bridge of my nose.
At length the Spencer man lowered it, shook the shells out of the cylinder, and flipped the revolver back my way. That was a surprise, but I kept my hands where they were while it dropped at my feet with a clunk; it might have been a trick to make me grab for it and claim self-defense, with
Freemason to furnish eyewitness testimony. Frontier courts didn't always mess with complications like an unloaded firearm.
“What do you want?” asked the rancher, speaking up for the first time. “I don't have much cash on me, and you can't break up my watch seven ways.”
“We don't want your money, sheepman. We thought you was a payroll wagon.”
“You know me?”
“I can smell you.” He nodded to the man who'd disarmed us, who jacked all the shells out of the Winchester and slid it across the buggy's floorboards.
“Why so generous?” Freemason asked.
“Can't use the weight. Comes a choice betwixt gold and iron, I choose gold.” He socked the Spencer into a scabbard slung from his saddle horn and gathered his reins. “You best get help for your friend, for what good it does. He was green or he'd know better than to jump like a jackrabbit when there's guns about.”
He backed his horse off the road, then wheeled, followed closely by the others, in the direction we'd been headed. They bent low, raking their spurs for speed, billows of dust erupting from their horses' heels. We could see them a long time before they turned south away from the road and shrank from sight. Then a moan from Cherry brought us back to more urgent matter.
“He'll never make it to town,” Freemason said.
“He won't make it anyway.”
“We have to do what we can. There's a line shack in a mile.” He snatched the whip from its socket, wrapped the
lines snugly around one wrist, and slashed at the mare's hindquarters.
 
 
Bess was lathered
and broken-winded when we reached the nearest gate, and by the time Freemason drew rein before a swaybacked building constructed of local stone with a patchwork roof of mud and straw, she was used up for the week, and possibly for life. A pair of smudge-bearded line riders came out to greet us with rifles, and when they recognized their employer, laid them down and helped us carry the lawyer inside. The interior was a mulch of soot and grease and tobacco and the stench of burning dung from the pit at the base of the chimney where a two-gallon coffeepot simmered on its hook, with a heavy overlay of man.
Line shacks are self-contained extensions of ranch headquarters. Because of their remoteness during heavy weather, they're as well stocked as any center of civilization. One of the riders produced medical supplies from an oilcloth pouch, cut away Cherry's blood-drenched shirt with scissors, cleaned the bubbling wound in his chest with alcohol, plucking away threads and pieces of lint with forceps, and discarded several yards of sopping red bandage in the tar bucket he and his partner used for a trash receptacle before the bleeding slowed enough to apply a patch. It was all to comfort the wounded man, like the jug whiskey they gave him from a tin cup, supporting his head with a hand while he drank; for his lungs were filling with blood and there was nothing else for it but to prop him up with pillows to slow the process and watch as he drowned on dry land.
Soon he lapsed into unconsciousness, and at a signal from the rancher I accompanied him outside while the man who'd attended to Cherry kept an eye on him and his partner substituted a kettle for the coffeepot in the chimney and coaxed gravy from fatty chunks of mutton with a ladle. I wondered if one or both of them had been among the three hands the governor had pardoned for the murder of a fence cutter from cattle country. They'd looked more comfortable holding those rifles than they did looking after the domestic chores.
Bess had been unhitched and stood motionless in the corral apart from the linemen's mounts, head down and blowing. Freemason, athletic as slight men often are, swung himself over the top rail, seized an empty gunnysack off a nail next to the back door of the shack, and used it to rub the mare down. “I suppose we can console ourselves those road agents' informants misled them for once,” he said. “I've made no new arrangements for a payroll delivery.”
I said, “I see no reason to assume the virtue of truth on their behalf. Perhaps you were their target after all.”
“For what purpose? They didn't rob me.”
“Maybe shooting Mr. Cherry unsettled them.”
“Shooting that shotgun messenger didn't dissuade them from going ahead and robbing the Overland.”
“Maybe they wanted to shoot Cherry.”
“Ludicrous. Granted there's an open season on lawyers, especially with that fence-cutting bill out of committee, but they couldn't have known he'd be with me. I didn't know myself until I invited him last night.”
“Who else knew?”
“Apart from whomever Cherry might have spoken to? Only my wife.”
I watched him, down on one knee scrubbing rivulets of lather from a foreleg. He stopped and looked up at me through the rails. “They made a good point about that weapon you carry. I suppose English revolvers are easier to obtain in Denver.”
“I wouldn't know. It's the first revolver I've ever bought. The man who sold it to me said I'd need it for protection from wolves and red Indians.”
“He must have shown you how to use it. I don't believe any of the men I pay to protect my property could have produced it more quickly.”
“My father told me it isn't enough just to read Scripture. One must understand it as well. It occurred to me the same would hold true for a weapon. I practiced quite a bit.”
“I'm surprised you had time left to contemplate the words of our Lord. Can you hit anything with it?”
“Tins and bottles.”
He rose, flicking dust from the knee of his trousers. “These bandits haven't a history of making mistakes. Perhaps I was the target, but when they shot Cherry they decided it would carry the message as well. Killing me would accomplish nothing; Colleen would appoint someone to manage the ranch in my place, because the alternative would be bankruptcy. If they frighten me off, the fence bill would lose support in Austin, and Big Cattle will continue to dominate Texas. These are not garden-variety highwaymen. Goodnight and his cronies are paying them to harass me and clear the way to claim all the grazing land for themselves.”
“It seems underhanded. They've never been shy about doing battle out in the open.”
“That was when they were winning, and no one in authority would oppose them. I should flatter myself that I've at least driven them to cover.”
“It does help to explain why you've suffered from these robberies more than anyone,” I said. “What did you make of the brand on their horses?”
“I saw no brand. I was too busy looking at their weapons.”
“I got a close look when the one who disarmed us came alongside.” I looked around for a stick, but good luck finding one in that country. Instead I used the toe of my shoe to trace the following symbol in the dust at my feet:
Freemason draped the sweat-soaked gunnysack over the top fence rail and leaned on it as he studied the mark, which disintegrated before our eyes in the incessant wind; in a moment, it was as if it had never existed.
“A Star of David,” he said. “Do you think they're Jews?”
“If so, they'd be foolish to advertise it during robberies, given their history. I think it's more likely whoever owns the brand calls it the Double Triangle or something like that. Have you never seen it?”
“Never. I know some people with the Stock-Raisers Association; they won't let me in, but a band like this is bad business for everyone. If the brand is registered, we'll trace them.”
The man we'd left with Luther Cherry opened the back
door. Freemason looked a question at him, but he turned my way. “He's awake, preacher, but not for long. He wants you.”
I found the lawyer propped into a half-sitting position. He'd bled through his bandages again, draining his face of all color. His lips were moving, but no sound came out. I took off my hat and bent close enough to feel his moist breath on my ear. Freemason and the man who'd come to fetch me stood at the foot of the bed. The other hand continued stirring the kettle over the fire.
“My mother was Catholic.” It took Cherry twice as long to say the words as it takes to write them. “My father wouldn't have it, but she smuggled it in to me. Will you hear my confession?”
I said, “I haven't the authority to forgive you on behalf of God.”
“That's all right. I don't believe a priest does either. I have some things that need saying. I don't care if you pass them on, though I'd take it a kindness if you'd spare my wife.”
“I can promise that.”
He spoke for several moments, drawing whistling breaths between words. The men at the foot of the bed leaned forward, but I could barely hear him with his lips nearly touching my ear. His breath seemed to be cooling as I listened, like embers fading in a hearth. At length he stopped talking in mid-sentence. I turned my head to face him. His eyes grew soft, softer; a cloud passed between them and what lay behind. I lifted my hand and kneaded them shut.
My Bible rode in the side pocket of my coat. I took it out, but I didn't open it.
“‘The Lord is my shepherd,'”I said; “‘I shall not want … .'”

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