Sentinels

by Matt Manochio

  “Might as well just get pillowcases,” the coachman said under his breath.

  Young glared at the kid while Noah continued. “I’ll play it safe and get more than we need to properly cover them. Look, I know we’re dealing with the same piles of excrement we fought against, but if you think it’s wise to treat your fallen brothers’ remains with reverence and the Klansmen’s like shit—in a town full of people who hate us—then be my guest, but don’t ask me to cover your butts when their hysterical relatives come after you.”

  The kid looked at his feet and said nothing.

  “Doc—sorry, Mister Young,” Noah said. “I’ll be back with the supplies as soon as I can. In the meantime, please work with what you got. Whatever sheets of yours you can spare, please get them. These two fine soldiers will be happy to assist you.”

  Deacons and the kid groaned in unison.

  “All right, please hurry,” said Young, casually attired in brown pants and a white shirt. “Allow me to get properly dressed. I hate wearing black in this heat, but I, like you, realize the importance of professionalism, Deputy Chandler.”

  The men turned their attention to a lone individual, a woman wearing a white bonnet and field dress. She held the reins of two horses that pulled a small uncovered wagon down the side street toward the undertaker’s. Even though they stood a distance away from her, Noah and the men saw her aggrieved expression when she spotted the wagon holding what they guessed was her disassembled husband.

  Young turned to the soldiers. “Gentlemen, start picking some cantaloupes.”

  Noah galloped away, passing the woman and tipping his hat to her, not wanting to discuss with Young where the bodies could be stored overnight should no one claim them.

  Chapter Ten

  “How’s he doing?” Noah Chandler looked at Robert Culliver’s sedated body splayed on Doctor Richardson’s operating table. He opted for a quick stop at the doctor’s office before buying the sheets. The physician had stripped the injured Klansman of everything save for his white undershorts. He’d also placed cold, wet rags on his forehead and neck to combat the heat.

  “Cleaned the wound a bit better. I re-stitched him—took my time,” Richardson said. “Someone cut him good—a few inches deeper, based on the direction of the slice, and it would’ve yanked everything out.”

  “He say anything?”

  “In his fleeting moments of lucidity I got his name, Robert Culliver, and asked him what happened? He kept sputtering something about wraiths.”

  “Do what now?”

  “Wraiths—death, like the Grim Reaper,” Richardson said. “I don’t know if he was referring to their appearances or weapons—I’d say weapons, as these men weren’t shot. Based on the cursory looks I gave to the bodies, I saw no powder burns.”

  “Me neither, I’m assuming we all know what they look like by now.” Noah directed the conversation back to what mattered. “Did he describe these wraiths in any more detail?”

  “Sorry, deputy. He grabbed me by the collar when I was examining him and just kept mumbling ‘wraiths, like the dead.’ Over and over, just like that. Oh, and ‘that Mexican should be dead. Rain washed him off my face. How can he live?’ Then he passed out. Probably for the best. Did you find a Mexican out there?”

  The doctor saw Noah’s frustration. “No.”

  “And I haven’t treated one. Keep in mind, deputy, this man could be hallucinating.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’d like to be able to tell the sheriff and, consequently, the public, a little bit more than to keep an eye out for an injured Mexican and some wraiths, and report them if you see them.” Noah bit his lower lip and arched an eyebrow. “What’d he mean by washing a Mexican off his face?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I haven’t the earthliest idea. I’ll keep my ears open to anything and everything he says.”

  Noah eyed Culliver. “Could he take a turn for the worse?”

  “I need to watch his fever,” Richardson said. “He has one, which is to be expected, but he doesn’t seem so bad now. He’s been kept away from insects. I doubt he’ll contract dysentery or that the wound will become gangrenous, but one never knows. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when your hands and clothes are clean, your patients aren’t discarded on planks, and bullets and cannonballs aren’t flying overhead.”

  “I’m gonna send a deputy over here to watch him, Doc, if you don’t mind.”

  “By all means. I suppose the people who did this might want to finish the job, so to speak.” Richardson placed his finger on Culliver’s neck to check his pulse.

  “Steady, strong.” He nodded at the sleeping Culliver. “Keep it up.”

  “I’ll send over Harrison, the one you rode with.” Noah opened the door to leave through the waiting area. “I doubt the sheriff will mind. Better a deputy than a soldier. It’d only make you more of a target.”

  “It’s getting bad out there, Deputy Chandler. It’s tense enough with these Klansmen dead. The Army doesn’t like seeing its own killed, either. Be careful.”

  Noah left, his last thought being How bad could it be?

  A white man wearing wide-brimmed straw hat brought down a black man with a right-hand uppercut. The skirmish erupted in the middle of Main Street.

  “Get up, boy. It’s on account of you my brother’s dead.”

  “I ain’t killed your brother!” The black man’s back was to the ground. He’d propped himself up on his elbows. “I don’t even know your brother. I just came to get a drink, that’s all.”

  “Really? Who else but you boys would wipe out Klansmen like that? Maybe you got carried away when those soldiers tried to break it all up.”

  Noah placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. It’s never easy.

  The white man took up a boxer’s stance. His spear-shaped left hand looked out of place, as if he was going to karate chop—and not punch. The black glove covering the hand told Noah all he needed. Prosthetic hand. War veteran. Probably drunk.

  “Well, I was going that way anyhow,” Noah grumbled. Then he noticed the six-shooter strapped to the white man’s leg, and that the black man lay defenseless. He ran to them before it escalated to shooting.

  “I’ve had enough of you niggers taking our land, taking our jobs, spending our money, and fucking our whores. If I swing for this, so be it. I got no more family anyways.” The pugilist dropped his stance and drew his piece in a fluid motion.

  Noah stopped twenty feet away, drew his Colt, fired square at the white man’s torso, and completely missed.

  The bullet sizzled through the corner of the barber shop’s window. The sound of cracking glass echoed down the street as women screamed.

  The gunman and the black man both twisted their heads toward Noah. Fred Greeley, the barber, stormed out of his shop and into the road.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” Greeley yelled at Noah after seeing the smoking tip of his Colt pointed in the general direction of the window.

  Street traffic halted. The men, women and children who didn’t want to get shot scurried indoors.

  Noah, coming to grips with the population of Henderson realizing what a horrible shot he was, tried regaining control.

  “That was a warning shot,” he barked to the gunman as he steadied his Colt. “Put down your gun, now.”

  “Warning shot my sweaty white ass. You couldn’t shoot a horse even if you shoved a gun in its mouth. Butt out. This is between me and the nigger.”

  “Nossir, it ain’t,” Noah shouted it as one word. He thumbed back his Colt’s hammer, slowly letting the revolver cock to assure he held the gunman’s attention. “Trust me, you won’t get away with shooting an innocent man dead in the street with the law watching. This ain’t Mississippi.”

  “Why’d my brother have to get hacked up like that?” The clearly inebriated gunman looked about thirty. “Why�
��d he have to survive the War only to see his state degraded by these animals?”

  Noah spied in the distance Lyle, Brendan and Franklin emerging from the Tavern, along with the other patrons who’d heard the ruckus. Everyone would see and hear how the town’s new deputy would resolve the mess.

  “I lost my brother too.” Noah trained his revolver on the gunman, who nervously jiggled his piece over the petrified black man. “Killed at Fort Sumter right in front of my eyes as I bled on the ground. I couldn’t do nothing for him. But that’s what happened.”

  “Hurts like hell not having him, don’t it?!” The gunman’s voice cracked. A single tear trickled down his cheek.

  “Does to this day, but I moved on, hard as it was—and still is. And that’s what you’re gonna have to do if you want a chance at a meaningful life. Put down the gun.”

  The white man looked at the black man and then back at Noah.

  “I won’t miss twice,” Noah said.

  “Thought you said it was a warning shot.” The gunman knew a city would watch either his last moments of life or what could be perceived as a cowardly act of surrender. Deep down he wanted to live. The gunman devised a grand finale that, while dramatic, outwardly seemed a bad idea as the rum drowning his brain helped orchestrate it: Cock the gun pointed at the black man, wait a few seconds as if mulling the ramifications of the act, ease down the hammer to indicate he’d spare the life, then toss aside the weapon, but keep staring daggers at the black man. Then say, “I surrender.” He had a plan.

  The gunman looked at the black man breathing heavy on the ground and then cocked the revolver.

  Noah aimed and fired at what he thought was the gunman’s ribs but instead shot him on the back of his trigger hand.

  He screamed as the bullet split apart the bones, forcing him to drop his gun. The black man kicked himself backward from the scene and finally stood and ran. Noah ambled toward the injured drunk, keeping mindful that the louse might have friends watching who might also want to jump into the fray.

  The crying man knelt, trying to cradle his bloody hand with his wooden one.

  “You crazy asshole,” he snapped at the deputy without looking at him. “You shot my hand!”

  “Ain’t you used to that by now?” Noah picked the revolver off the ground and tucked it into his belt.

  “I was gonna surrender. Why didn’t you let me toss aside my gun?”

  “Because I didn’t know you were gonna do that. Cocking a gun and pointing it at a man doesn’t indicate one’s about to surrender. Then again, you stink of booze.”

  The gunman wept.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. He was my baby brother.”

  Noah pitied the blubbering wreck and squatted beside him.

  “I know what you’re feeling. I do. The pain won’t ever go away, but you can manage it. It takes time—and alcohol won’t help it.”

  “All right,” he croaked. “I’d like to apologize to that nigger.”

  “Um, maybe start by not using that word. If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re sorry, I promise.”

  Two soldiers and Deputy Harrison sidled up to Noah, who rose.

  “Where the hell were you boys?” Noah asked.

  “Watching you,” Harrison said. “Damn, what a show. Don’t worry—we had our guns on him just in case you missed again. But good for you. He’s alive and nobody else wound up getting killed today. Nine’s about as much as I can take on my first day of work.”

  Noah pulled rank—even if it was only by one day.

  “Harrison, I’d like you and the soldiers to take our friend here to Richardson and have him look over his hand. Whenever the doctor’s done fixing him up,” Noah spoke to the soldiers, “bring him back to the Sheriff’s Office so we can figure out what to do with him. Harrison, stay at the Doc’s office and keep guard over the Klansman in there. I’ll make it right with the sheriff. Someone’ll relieve you. I’ve got to take care of some business then head back to the undertaker’s. Trust me—you’ve all got the easy jobs.” Noah spoke with enough authority so that the men didn’t question him.

  Noah then walked to Greeley, the barber, and placed a hand on his soldier.

  “I’ll arrange to get your window fixed today, okay?”

  The barber nodded, partly because there was no sense in arguing, and also because he admired what he’d just seen.

  “I’m glad you didn’t kill that boy,” Greeley said.

  Noah, finally realizing he still held his Colt, holstered his weapon. “Upon further reflection, so am I.”

  Greeley didn’t quite get that part, and then it hit him.

  “Take some shooting lessons, son, for all our sakes,” he told Noah before returning to the half-shaved man he left sitting in a chair.

  Henderson returned to its normal pace as Noah Chandler walked into the mercantile and spoke to the shopkeep.

  “I need some of your cheapest bed sheets, or anything close to it.”

  Lyle Kimbrell, alone, sauntered by the mercantile and spied on Noah through the wide glass window. He squinted to get a good look at him. Ten seconds passed and then Lyle smacked his thigh, as two plus two equaled four. Lyle took one more reaffirming glance at Noah, who was examining a large swath of fabric. Convinced he knew all he needed, Lyle walked back to the tavern.

  Chapter Eleven

  Noah stopped by the office to apprise Sheriff Cole of the dead bodies, the sheets, and Harrison’s whereabouts.

  “Shot up any more law-abiding business establishments in the last five minutes?” Cole smirked while sitting behind his desk.

  “You heard about that already?”

  “It’s a small town.”

  “I’m better with a rifle, sheriff. It’s all I used in the War. I’ll practice my quick-draw,” Noah said.

  “I would hope so. Just don’t do it when I’m around.”

  “Look, that’s the first time I really ever had to be fast with a Colt like that. I’m good up close. I mean, like, standing a few feet away.”

  “Just be thankful the guy you shot was drunk, otherwise we might be covering you with sheets. Why don’t you head on back to tend to those bodies? I already sent two widows that way to pick up what’s left of their husbands. The Army’s retrieved their two boys and is boxing them up to send to north.”

  Noah left Cole and unhitched Wilbur to ride back to the undertaker’s. Noah mounted the horse and was met by Toby Jenkins standing in front of Wilbur’s nose.

  “Is it true what they say? Two northerners killed with those Klansmen?” Toby spoke in a resigned monotone and looked off to Wilbur’s side, not making eye contact with anyone, just staring at a dreaded truth and waiting for its audible confirmation.

  “Afraid so,” Noah said. “You know anything about what happened out there last night?”

  Toby closed his eyes and shook his head no.

  “Why? You think I do? I’m just saying those boys didn’t deserve what they got, Deputy,” Toby said. “They were just trying to stop them Klansmen.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  Toby shrugged his shoulders. “Why else would they have been there if not to patrol the roads?”

  “Maybe they heard the Klansmen getting attacked and tried to save them. I mean, what you say makes sense—you just seem, well, distraught over this, for someone who’s not directly impacted by it. Unless you were friends somehow with those Klansmen, which I highly doubt. Or, maybe you knew those soldiers. Did you?”

  “I don’t know any of the soldiers around here. I’m just glad they’re there. It shouldn’t have happened like that.”

  Noah tugged the reins to maneuver Wilbur around Toby.

  “How should it have happened, Toby?”

  “The soldiers should’ve stopped the Klan from doing what they had planned—taken them int
o custody, of course.”

  “Are you upset that the Klan’s members are down by seven, possibly eight?”

  “Do what?”

  “It ain’t a secret that Doc Richardson’s mending up one of those bigots as we speak. The whole town saw Deputy Harrison unload him a couple of hours ago.”

  “They ain’t all dead?” Toby’s eyes widened. He took on the face of someone who’d been punched in the diaphragm.

  “Toby, you’re worrying me. There something you want to tell me?”

  “Too many people are dying around here. I’m afraid more will if the freedmen take action against whoever’s holed up in the doc’s office.”

  “We’ve thought about that. If you know of anyone planning to take action, I’d tell them to stay back—if you’re really concerned about anyone else dying.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Toby turned to head back to, well, Noah didn’t know where, or what business Toby had in town.

  It ain’t for me to know, Noah reasoned. But I ain’t a goddamn fool. Nobody voices that type of concern unless they’re somehow vested in it.

  He’d update the sheriff later.

  The mix of midday heat and butchery made a mockery of anything that smelled decent on the undertaker’s property. Noah galloped to Young’s office to make right what would never be.

  “Four left,” Young said after Noah dismounted. By now Young wore black pants with a white shirt covered by a sleeveless black vest, and a black wide-rimmed preacher’s hat for no other reason than it helped keep out the sun. People needed to know what their undertaker looked like—that meant black attire no matter what the temperature.

  “Each of the widows—well, two widows and one sister—insisted on leaving with every limb that they believed belonged to the body they were taking,” Young said. “We literally almost had a tug of war over a left arm, but a birthmark on the forearm helped identify whose it was.”

  “You able to cover what’s left of them?”

  “One set of sheets, a tarp, and a burlap sack that I cut up to hide the bodies. At least what you’re carrying’ll make things look a bit more uniform.”