A Time to Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  Ironside struggled to his feet and touched his hat to the screaming lady. Not seeing his boss, he yelled, “Colonel, are you all right?”

  A pile of rubble on the floor moved. “Get me the hell out of here, Luther.”

  Ironside turned and called, “Are you hurt?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Shamus said angrily. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the holy saints in Heaven, I might already be as dead as Murphy’s goose.”

  “Hold on, Colonel, I’m on my way.” It took Ironside three frantic minutes to lift debris off the colonel’s body. Fortunately it was just wood and plaster, and fairly light, because the fireplace and brick chimney were not damaged in the blast.

  “Are you in pain, Colonel?” Ironside asked, his face concerned as he raised Shamus to a sitting position. “How is your back?”

  “My back hurts.” Shamus glared at Ironside. “Who did this?”

  Ironside shook his head. “I don’t know, Colonel.”

  “Then whoever he is, may he roast in hell and not have a drop of porter to quench his eternal thirst.”

  “Can you get to your feet?”

  “Take my hand and pull.”

  Ironside hauled Shamus erect. “You feel all right? How are the legs?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure, Colonel?”

  “Don’t fuss, Luther. I told you I’m fine.”

  Sheriff Jim Clitherow kicked debris aside and appeared in the hallway, now just a smoky open space. “You boys hurt?”

  “We’re all right,” Shamus said. “But my ears are still ringing.”

  Ironside nodded to the room across the hall. “The feller over there got his butt burned.”

  The man and the woman were struggling into their clothes, both of them streaked with black soot from the ruined fireplace, as though they’d been sweeping its chimney.

  “That’s Higgy Wells, the church deacon,” Clitherow said.

  “Is he married?” Shamus asked.

  “Yes.” Clitherow nodded. “He’s got a missus who dresses out at around three hundred pounds.”

  “Then he’s got some explaining to do, hasn’t he?” Shamus pointed out.

  Ironside, his shaggy eyebrows and mustache covered in white plaster dust, yelled, “Hey, deacon! How’s your fanny?”

  The man cast Ironside a hurried and worried glance, then stumbled out of the ruined room.

  “Hey. Higgy,” the blonde yelled. “Where’s my money?”

  “Later!” Wells called out over his shoulder.

  “Now, you creep!”

  But the deacon was already gone, barefooting it downstairs, his shoes and coat in his hands.

  The blonde turned her venom on Ironside. “What the hell are you looking at?”

  “I was just wondering if the deacon got his money’s worth before his butt got scorched.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” The woman grabbed her purse, flounced into the shattered hallway, and followed her paramour downstairs.

  “Luther, I wish you wouldn’t bandy words with fancy women in my presence,” Shamus complained. “Especially when we came so close to meeting our Maker.”

  “You were lucky, Shamus,” Clitherow said. “But I don’t think the dynamite was set to kill you. It was a warning.”

  “Hell, Jim,” Ironside sniffed. “Look around you. Half the second floor of the damned hotel blew up. That was some kind of warning.”

  Shamus nodded. “Jim may be right, Luther. If whoever it was wanted us dead, he would’ve used more dynamite.”

  “And blown up the whole hotel,” Clitherow declared.

  “With us in it,” Shamus added. “I think whoever it was wants us away from Recoil and back in Dromore.”

  “Was it them skeleton riders?” Ironside asked.

  “Could be,” Clitherow speculated. “Or someone associated with them.”

  “Who even knows we’re here to help you, Jim?” Ironside asked.

  The sheriff shook his head. “Nobody.”

  “Then it’s a mystery,” Shamus decided.

  “The mystery is how anyone can get a wink of sleep around here.”

  Shamus turned and saw a tall, handsome young man in an elegant gray suit smiling at him. A large diamond glittered in his cravat and another sparkled from the little finger of his left hand.

  The man stared at the destruction. “Someone eat too many refried beans last night?”

  “No,” Ironside snapped. “Some lowdown snake tried to kill us.”

  “Or scare us,” Shamus added.

  “Well, he scared the hell out of me,” the young man said. “And just when I was dreaming that Lily Langtry and I were taking a carriage ride along the Champs-Élysées on our way to breakfast.”

  Ironside looked baffled. “Mister, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  The young man looked Ironside over from his scuffed boots to the top of his battered hat. “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” He touched the rim of his bowler. “Well, good morning, gentlemen, and please don’t play with any more dynamite.” He stepped carefully over the mess and made his way down the stairs.

  Ironside looked at the sheriff. “Jim, who the hell was the dude?”

  “Beats me. Some kind of Yankee drummer maybe.”

  “Well, I don’t like him.”

  Clitherow opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a small, dark man with the scared, furtive eyes of a henpecked husband. “Sheriff,” he wailed, “look what’s happened to my hotel.”

  “I can see it, Orville,” Clitherow said.

  “What . . . I mean . . . how?” the little man sputtered.

  “Dynamite,” Ironside pointed out bluntly.

  “Dynamite?” Orville Askew repeated.

  “Dynamite,” Ironside said again.

  “These gentlemen were the target of a possible assassination attempt,” Clitherow explained.

  “In my hotel?”

  “Seems like, don’t it?” Ironside said.

  Askew wrung his hands. “Who’s going to pay for this?”

  “Talk to the ranny who planted the dynamite, Orville,” Ironside said dryly.

  “Someone has to pay,” Askew said. Getting no response, he pointed to Ironside and Shamus. “You two must leave my hotel at once. Another attempt on your lives and I’ll have no hotel left.”

  “I don’t think it will happen again,” Shamus said calmly. “At least, not with dynamite or giant powder.”

  Orville Askew was unconvinced. “Sheriff, I want these men out of my hotel now. I mean this very minute. My God, we’re all going to be murdered in our beds. Think of my poor wife.”

  Shamus’s face turned red. “We’ll leave. I will not dwell under a man’s roof who doesn’t want me there.”

  “Then see that you do.” Askew pointed to the stairway. “I don’t want troublemakers here, especially damned micks.”

  Ironside grabbed him by the shirtfront and hoisted him until the toes of the man’s boots were not touching the ground.

  “Luther, put him down,” Shamus cried.

  “Can I shake him a little, Colonel?”

  “No. Put him down. The poor man is distraught over his hotel and he speaks out of ignorance.”

  Ironside pulled Askew so close, their noses touched. “Orville, I’m not a mick, though I am closely associated with such.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” Askew stuttered.

  “Don’t apologize to me, Orville. Apologize to Colonel O’Brien.”

  Askew turned his head, his eyes frightened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Your apology is accepted.” Shamus looked at Ironside. “Put him down now, Luther.”

  Ironside opened his hand and let Askew drop. He patted the little man on the head, smiled, and whispered, “If you ever insult the colonel again, Orville, I’ll kill you.”

  Thoroughly frightened, the owner stumbled along the rubble-strewn hallway, stopped at the top of the stairs, and yelled, “I want you two h
oodlums out of my hotel.”

  Then he fled.

  Clitherow crossed his arms. “Luther, you’re not a forgiving man, are you?”

  “Damn right I’m not.”

  Chapter Four

  “Damn it, Luther, we’re too old to sleep in a livery stable,” Shamus complained. “And too old to be spreading our blankets on the ground, come to that. Somehow I always manage to bed down on a rock.”

  “I have a couple empty cells, Shamus,” Clitherow offered. “Iron cots and straw mattresses, I’m afraid, but I can supply clean blankets.”

  “Hell, Jim, anything’s better than lying on horse dung,” Ironside said.

  “You’re very kind,” Shamus said. “But I don’t want to go to any trouble for us.”

  “It’s no problem. I have a cabin at the edge of town,” the sheriff said. “It’s about the size of a closet, but it’s enough for my needs. I sent the orphan kid who slept in the jailhouse to Dromore with my message and he never came back.”

  “Jacob takes all kinds of waifs and strays under his wing and he gave the kid a job at Dromore,” Ironside explained what happened to the boy.

  Exhausted, Shamus quickly put an end to the conversation. “We gratefully accept the hospitality of your jail.”

  The pretty young Ma’s Kitchen waitress refilled coffee cups and smiled, revealing good teeth. “How were your steak and eggs, gentlemen?”

  “Just fine, Molly.” Clitherow help up his cup.

  Ironside looked up at the girl as she filled his cup. “Molly, who is the dude in the gray suit sitting with his back to the wall?”

  The girl smiled again. “Ooh, he’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Ironside said sarcastically. “But who is he?”

  “I don’t know. I expect he’s just passing through, unfortunately.” Molly refilled Shamus’s cup and turned her attention to the next table.

  Shamus took a sip. “Luther, if you’re so all-fired determined to know the man’s name, why don’t you ask him?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not doing that. He might be on the scout and I’d embarrass him.”

  “He troubles you, Luther?” Clitherow asked. “You think he may have planted the dynamite?”

  “Nah, I don’t think that. Dudes like that just grate on me, is all.”

  Shamus coughed. “To change the subject, Jim, when do you expect your deputy to return to Recoil?”

  “He sent a rider to tell me he’d be back today.”

  “I hope he’s got some news for us. We can’t fight an invisible enemy.”

  Ironside eyed the door. “Uh-oh, I see gun trouble coming down.”

  A tall, gaunt man had just stepped inside. Dressed in the black broadcloth pants, boiled white shirt, and string tie of the frontier gunman-gambler, he wore an ivory-handled Colt yellowed with age on his right hip. His eyes were almost hidden in the shadows cast by his shaggy black eyebrows.

  Silence fell on the crowded restaurant.

  A chair scraped. The man in the expensive gray suit tensed.

  Jim Clitherow stood, but the gaunt man nailed him with eyes the color of green ice. “Sit down, lawman. This is none of your concern.”

  Ironside, familiar with the codes and manners of gun fighting men, whispered, “Stay out of it, Jim. He’ll kill you.”

  A look of puzzlement came over Clitherow’s face.

  “He’ll kill you, Jim,” Ironside whispered again.

  Shamus studied the tall man who had stopped in the middle of the floor. “Sit down, Jim,” he said, his voice low and urgent.

  Confused, Clitherow still heeded the colonel’s warning and sat.

  “Some men are better left alone,” Shamus said. “That is one of them.”

  The tall man spoke, his lips barely moving under his mustache. “You know why I’m here, Dallas Steele. I’m calling you out.”

  “I reckoned on this happening, Seth.” The man in the gray suit showed no sign of a weapon. “I thought you might come after me.”

  “Calvin Downs was just twenty-three years old.”

  “Your brother was old enough to kill three men in Horse Neck, working for a rich man who wanted to get richer at the expense of everybody else.”

  “Downs was all right.” Seth shrugged his shoulders.

  “He was a snake, Seth. You knew it then and you know it now.”

  “Damn you, he was my brother, and you killed him. I can’t let that pass.”

  “I guess you can’t, Seth. You know I’ll kill you, don’t you?”

  “I have to try.”

  “Walk away from it, Seth. Downs made his reputation killing old men and farm boys. A tinhorn like that isn’t worth dying for.”

  “I’m faster than Downs, Dallas,” Seth said.

  “Downs wasn’t fast. He didn’t come close to being fast.”

  “I have to try.”

  Dallas nodded, but said nothing. He looked pained, like a man recalling old, unhappy memories of similar situations that had gone before.

  Clitherow tried to rise to his feet, but Ironside held him down. “You’re outclassed here, Jim. You stay put.”

  But Clitherow pulled out of Ironside’s grasp and stood, his hand dropping for his gun.

  “Damn you, Steele!” Seth yelled.

  And he drew.

  He was fast. Lightning fast. His gun had even cleared leather when Dallas Steele’s bullet crashed between his eyes.

  For a single, horrified moment before the darkness took him, Seth Benson, gunman, gambler, man killer, learned what a fast draw really meant.

  Jim Clitherow pulled free of Ironside as scared patrons stampeded for the door. “It’s over,” he yelled. “Go back to your seats and finish breakfast.”

  “Damn you, Clitherow,” a miner in a plaid shirt and lace-up boots said. “You served us up a dead man for breakfast.”

  Another male voice claimed that his wife was “all a-tremble” over the killing and other diners muttered their sympathy.

  Ironside rose to his feet and in a voice like a thunderclap roared, “The sheriff didn’t kill that man.”

  People looked at each other in puzzlement, then at Ironside.

  “I killed him.” Dallas Steele walked into the middle of the floor and looked down at the body. “His name was Seth Benson and he called me out.”

  “Sheriff”—a matronly woman pointed at Steel—“arrest that man.”

  “For what? It was a fair fight.” Ironside was irritated. “Benson went for his gun first and Steele fired in self-defense.”

  Shamus stood up at the table. “I second that. The gentleman here”—he motioned to Steele—“tried to make it go away. You all heard him.”

  Several diners muttered agreement and Steele said, “Seth was informed, but he couldn’t let it go. It was his way.”

  Sheriff Clitherow had been silent, but now he looked up at the shooter and said, “You’re Dallas Steele, the one they call the Fighting Pinkerton.”

  “Yes, I believe that’s what they call me.” Steel gave a little bow. “At your service, Sheriff.”

  “Are you here in Recoil on official business?” Clitherow asked.

  “You could say that. I was asked to assess the situation and report my findings to Washington. This affair with Seth was a complication I neither anticipated nor sought.”

  Ironside had been the first to declare that Steele had acted in self-defense, but he hadn’t warmed to the man. “Where’s your gun, mister? The sheriff may want to take it.”

  Steele pulled back his coat and revealed a short-barreled blue Colt in a shoulder holster. “Do you want my gun, Sheriff?”

  “No, I guess not.” Clitherow looked around the room. “Somebody get Elijah Doddle. We’re sure keeping him busy.”

  Chapter Five

  “First my sleep was interrupted and then my morning coffee. May I join you gentleman and share another pot?” Steele saw the surprise in Shamus’s face and added, “I believe we may have a friend in common, Colo
nel.”

  “Sit here.” The sheriff stood and offered his chair. “I’m going back to my office. Colonel, Luther, I’ll see you later.” He turned and left the restaurant.

  Steele waited to sit down until the sheriff left.

  Shamus offered his hand to the young man. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Oh, we haven’t met before,” Steele said, shaking the colonel’s hand. “But I overheard you addressed as Colonel, and you called this gentleman Luther, therefore I assume you are Colonel Shamus O’Brien of Dromore.”

  Ironside frowned. “Here, have we had gun trouble with you afore?”

  Steele smiled. “No, my friend Jacob O’Brien has told me all about you.”

  Surprised, Ironside asked, “You’re a friend of Jake’s?”

  “Indeed I am. I have him play the piano for me whenever we meet. He’s a fine classical musician. And a very complex man.”

  “It seems that just about everybody knows Jacob,” Shamus noted. “He’s my son.”

  “That was my impression, Colonel.”

  It came grudgingly, but Ironside managed, “Any friend of Jake’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Did you teach Jacob to play the piano, Luther?” Steele asked.

  “My sainted wife Saraid taught him how to play,” Shamus answered before Ironside could speak. “Luther taught Jacob and my three other sons riding, gun fighting, profanity, whoring, and whiskey drinking. You will notice a notable lack of instruction on Holy Scripture and nothing at all about attendance at church and the partaking of the holy sacraments.”

  “Damned popery,” Ironside growled.

  Shamus gave Ironside a sharp look. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, Colonel. I didn’t say nothing.”

  “I should hope not.” Shamus peered hard at his segundo. “Are you sure you didn’t mutter something derogatory about the Holy Mother Church?”

  Ironside shook his head. “Not a word, Colonel.”

  Steele saved Ironside from further embarrassment. “Colonel O’Brien, what do you make of this night rider business?”

  Before Shamus could answer, the waitress laid a pot of coffee on the table. She looked at Steele. “I know what they are, those night riders.”

  “Really? Can you enlighten us?”