The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  Jacob nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s all he was, and now it’s all he’ll ever be.”

  “Get me to a doctor,” White said. “I’m hurtin’ real bad.”

  “I bet the sheepherder hurt real bad too, huh?” Jacob said.

  “You’re a murderer, Ted.” Shawn’s scowl disappeared, replaced by a look of slight sympathy. “We’re going to hang you.”

  The Texan was shocked, incredulous. His eyes widened. “For killing greasers? You can’t do that. You ain’t the law.”

  “Yes, for that. And for taking the wrong side against Dromore, our home ranch.”

  “Damn you, I never heard of Dromore,” White said.

  “Nevertheless, it exists. And when you signed on with Joel Whitney you declared war on Dromore and all who are a part of it.”

  It was Shawn who kneeled next to him, but it was his father’s voice Jacob heard, and his father’s face he saw. He expected to hear a challenge from Patrick or Ironside, pleading for the Texan’s life. But White had admitted his crimes and the brutal crucifixion of the Mexican sheepherder allowed him little leeway.

  Ironside’s face was grim, as was Patrick’s, but Jacob saw no hint of mercy in their eyes. He rose to his feet, drew his Colt, and shot White in the middle of his forehead.

  Shawn, his face suddenly splashed by the Texan’s blood, brain, and bone, sprang to his feet. “Why the hell did you do that?” he yelled.

  As he always did, Jacob replaced the spent round in his revolver.

  “Because I’ve seen enough of hanging, and so have you. He’s dead and there’s an end to it.”

  “Damn it, Jacob”—Shawn’s handsome face flushed—“he died too easy.”

  “No man dies too easy,” Jacob said. “Even in bed, with the priest at his side saying the words, he doesn’t die too easy.”

  “Shawn, let it go,” Patrick said. “I’ve little appetite for hanging a man. How many times over the years have we seen men kicking at the end of ropes with all that was inside them running down their legs?”

  It was left to Ironside. As he’d done so often when the brothers were boys, he put a comforting arm around Shawn’s shoulders. “Jacob did the right thing. Sometimes a man has to shape up to what he thinks is best.”

  Shawn nodded, but said nothing. Finally he looked down at the dead Texan, then at the two others lying sprawled on the ground, snow already gathering on their bodies. “We’ll put them on their horses and take them back to Estancia. It might convince Whitney that his hired guns can’t get away with murder.”

  Patrick nodded to the crucified man and the bodies of the two other Mexicans. “What about them?”

  “We’ll take them, too. It’s kind of fitting that their last journey is beside the men who murdered them.”

  “Luther, help me free the man from the tree,” Patrick said.

  “Sure,” Ironside said, “but it sure as hell ain’t gonna be easy.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The afternoon was so dark it was difficult to determine when the day ended and the night began. But when the O’Briens’ melancholy procession rode into Estancia, lamps already burned in the hotel and saloon. A lantern on the front wall of the general store cast a shifting circle of orange light on the snow-streaked street. The air snapped of the hoarfrost glistening on roofs and lacing every window in town.

  There was no law in Estancia, but there was an undertaker who prospered. Godwin J. Kendrick had the instincts of a buzzard. It was said he could smell death at a ten-mile distance. True or not, he was the first to greet the O’Briens when they brought the bodies into town.

  Kendrick wore a black top hat, a claw-tailed coat of the same color, and a professional expression of the deepest despondency.

  Ironside pegged him at once. “We’ve got business for you.”

  The undertaker did a little hand wringing, then said, “And who are the recently departed?” His eyes roved over the bodies hanging head down over the horses. “Oh dear. So many of them.”

  “Three Texans, three Mexican herders,” Ironside said. “The Mexicans we’ll take back to their village.”

  Kendrick had a strange walk. Listing to one side, he hopped around like a seedy black crow with a broken wing, and looked up at Ironside. “I do a real nice embalming, and extend full viewing privileges to loved ones. In this kind of weather, I can display the deceased for three days if that’s what the grieving families desire. I also provide, at cost mind you, a planed pine coffin with a brass nameplate and chocolate cake and ice cream to refresh the mourners. All this for just ten dollars a head.” He smiled like an animated cadaver. “I could say ten dollars a skull, a little undertaker’s joke, you understand.”

  “Take their horses and traps, sell them for what you can get, and bury the Texans decent,” Ironside said, ignoring the man’s sales pitch. “They don’t need cake and ice cream. There won’t be any mourners.”

  “Trouble,” Patrick said, his voice edged. Ironside turned and looked at him, then followed the younger man’s eyes to the hotel.

  Clay Stanley stood on the porch, flanked by Charlie Packett and a tall, loose-geared man the O’Briens had never seen before.

  Stanley was not wearing a coat, the Russians in his shoulder holsters butt-forward and significant. Packett’s coat was swept back, clearing his gun. The third man slanted a Greener shotgun across his chest, but he seemed relaxed, as though he knew he wasn’t about to get into a shooting scrape any time soon.

  “’Evenin’, Jacob,” Stanley said.

  “Clay,” Jacob acknowledged.

  “You’ve been out riding, huh?” Stanley said. “All of you look half froze.”

  Jacob moved in the saddle, the cold leather creaking. “Frozen some.”

  “What you got there, Jacob?”

  “Three dead Texans and the same number of dead Mexicans. I reckon you’ll know the Texans, Clay.”

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Godwin Kendrick, his lank, pale, shoulder-length hair under his top hat tossing in the wind, had enlisted the help of his assistant, a small, fat man with a jolly face, reminding Patrick of Mr. Dickens’ old Fezziwig. The two undertakers had laid the Mexicans side by side on the street, and were leading away the horses with the dead Texans.

  “Hold on there, bone planters,” Stanley said. “I want to take a look.”

  He examined the bodies closely, even getting Kendrick to help turn them over. Finally, his jaw knotted, he said, “All right, take them away.”

  The snow flurried again, borne on the coldest of wind. Stanley, shivering, stepped back to the porch. “All their wounds are in front, Jacob.”

  “I reckon so, Clay. Those boys killed the Mexicans, and then tried to bushwhack us. Their day went downhill pretty fast after that.”

  “Seems like you boys have taken sides,” Stanley said.

  Shawn could be hot-tempered. “Sure as hell, I’m not going to discuss taking sides sitting a horse out here in the cold. Are you planning to skin those irons, Stanley, or will you give us the road?”

  “This is not the place or the time for gunplay, Mr. O’Brien.” Stanley made a little bow. “The road is yours.”

  Shawn turned in the saddle. “Luther, tell the undertaker to put the Mexicans somewhere until tomorrow. Hell, we can’t leave them lying in the street.”

  Ironside nodded and rode toward Kendrick’s place.

  “Andre, you and me will put up the horses and feed them a bait of oats.” Patrick looked at Ironside’s retreating back. “I guess Luther can fend for himself.”

  “Sí, patron.” Perez swung out of the saddle, as did the others. Jacob handed the reins to the vaquero and was turning away—when Clay Stanley drew and fired.

  The man was fast, blindingly fast. He’d shot both Russians dry by the time Jacob’s hand dropped to his gun. Stanley had triggered the big, bucking .44s so rapidly it sounded like he’d fired only one shot from each.

  Jacob
had time to take only one wild glimpse at the Texan, enough to realize the man was shooting off to his left, away from him and the others.

  Jacob turned in the direction of the shots, Colt in hand, and saw two coyotes writhing in death about twenty-five yards from the hotel. Both had been shot many times, their ragged winter coats splashed scarlet with blood.

  The smoking Russians in his hands, Stanley smiled at Jacob. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Ironside arrived at a gallop, a revolver in his right fist. He drew rein so violently his horse’s rump slammed into the frozen earth. Glancing at Jacob and the others, he saw that everyone was unhurt. He glared at Stanley. “What the hell were you doing, boy?”

  “Shooting at coyotes,” the gunman said. He nodded. “Over there. The smell of the bodies must’ve brought them in close.”

  Ironside kneed his trembling horse forward and looked at the torn-up animals. After a while, he turned in the saddle and called out to Stanley, “Hell, you don’t miss much, do you?”

  “Not as a general rule,” the Texan said. Beside him, Packet grinned, enjoying the show. Jacob’s eyes clashed with Stanley’s. A single shot at their feet would have sent the coyotes scampering, but the man had chosen to gun them. Why? The answer was that he’d sent a message Jacob O’Brien read clear: Don’t mess with me, Jacob, because I’m a lot faster than you.

  A sudden sickness in his belly, Jacob realized that Stanley could be right.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Strange kind of range war this, isn’t it?” Clay Stanley said.

  Shawn O’Brien, firelight reflecting on his face, said nothing.

  “I mean, here we are, sworn enemies, yet we sit in the hotel parlor drinking brandy and listening to Chopin like we were old friends.”

  “We’re not your enemy, Clay,” Ironside said. “At least not yet we ain’t.”

  He sat on an easy chair, facing the fire, Stanley and Shawn on either side of him. All three men held brandy snifters and smoked Havana cigars, the aroma of both heavy in the warm room.

  Jacob, to his joy, had found the parlor’s upright piano was in tune, and his long fingers moved over the keys coaxing Chopin’s genius from ebony and ivory. Befitting the weather, he played the composer’s stormy Polonaise in F-sharp minor, a piece that also fitted his present, unsettled mood.

  “The Mexicans must get off Whitney land,” Stanley said. “That’s the beginning and end of it.”

  Shawn had been staring into the log fire. He shifted his attention to the Texan. “I’ve got no quarrel with what you say, so long as they don’t drive their sheep north of Lobo Hill.”

  “I still can’t guarantee that won’t happen,” Stanley said.

  “I know, and that’s why we’re on opposite sides,” Shawn said.

  “Even if Don Manuel looks like he’s winning, the herders won’t stay put in the middle of a range war. They’ll get the hell out of there.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you can’t win either way.”

  “There is a way to finish it quickly,” Shawn said. “It’s a risk, but it would end the threat to Dromore.”

  Stanley’s interest quickened. “What’s your plan, O’Brien?”

  Shawn smiled. “You don’t really think I’d tell you, do you?”

  Easing back in his chair, the Texan smiled. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

  Jacob played the melancholy middle section of the Polonaise while Patrick and Perez sat at a table arguing over a game of checkers. Judging by the vaquero’s groans and string of Spanish curses, Shawn reckoned he was getting a drubbing. But then, Patrick had read books on how to play checkers—and on just about everything else.

  Now and then drifts of smoke gusted from the fireplace as the wind explored the chimney. The panes of the parlor windows were etched in frost and there were no sounds from outside.

  Shawn rose, poured brandy into Stanley’s glass, refilled his own, and sat back down. “Who ordered the murder of the herders?”

  Stanley seemed surprised. “You think it was me?”

  “Ted White said he took orders from you and Whitney.”

  “I didn’t give that order. Killing sheepherders is not my style. But I did tell White to scare the Mexicans off the land, any way he knew how.”

  Stanley was quiet for a while. “But if it comes to that, and there’s no other way, I’ll kill a Mexican herder as fast I’d kill any other man.”

  “There may be no other way,” Shawn said.

  “Then that’s how the pickle squirts.”

  “I planned to hang White for murder.”

  “And what stopped you?”

  “Jacob shot him. He said he didn’t hold with hanging.”

  “What are you telling me, O’Brien?” Stanley still sat at ease, smiling, but he had tenseness in him nonetheless.

  “That I’ll hang any man I find killing herders.”

  Stanley recognized the implied threat, but felt no need for belligerent talk. He knew how hard he was to kill, let alone hang, and Shawn O’Brien was certainly aware of it. “If the Mexicans move their herds north, you’ll slaughter them. There’s no difference between you and me, O’Brien.”

  “There’s a big difference,” Shawn said. “You fight for wages. I fight to save my land.”

  “And that puts you in the right?”

  “Yes, it does. If it’s for Dromore, then there can be no wrong to it.”

  The wind, coming hard off the flat lands, talked around the building, and if a far-seeing man had stepped outside, he’d have seen more snow clouds building above the Manzano Mountains.

  Stanley stood and tapped ash from his cigar into the fireplace. “Joel Whitney will be here tomorrow or the day after with more Texan guns. I say we call a truce until then.”

  “Sets fine by me.” Shawn glanced at Packett. “If there’s no grandstand plays on your side.”

  “There won’t be. At least, until Whitney arrives.” Stanley studied the glowing end of his cigar at arm’s length, as though it was of immense interest to him. “Ted White was trash and so were the other two.”

  “You’ll get no argument with me on that score,” Shawn said.

  “You’d have been right to hang him. I saw the hands on one of the dead herders.”

  “They crucified him,” Shawn said. “They used fence staples.”

  Stanley nodded. “Well, none of them Texas boys are a great loss. They were as slow on the draw and shoot as molasses in winter.”

  By midnight, most everyone had turned in. Only Shawn, Jacob, and Luther Ironside sat around the dying embers of the fire.

  “So there you have it,” Shawn said. “I don’t see any other way.”

  “As you say, Shawn, it’s a way,” Ironside said. “But it’s a tall order. How many of us will be left standing when the smoke clears?”

  “I guess that depends on how we handle it.” Shawn looked at his brother. “Jacob?”

  “I’ll go along with it, for now. I say we hold fast for a few days and see how things shake out.”

  “Luther, do you feel the same?” Shawn said.

  “Clay Stanley says Whitney will be here tomorrow or the day after. We can wait that long. Hell, we have to wait that long.”

  Shawn was silent for a while, thinking. “All right, we play it your way. But if it goes belly-up all of a sudden, we act. We kill Whitney and Don Manuel and it’s all over.”

  Jacob smiled. “Maybe we should get us a Gatling gun and shoot all the woolies. That would solve our problem.”

  Shawn shook his head. “I wish to hell it was that easy.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  From the dining room window, Donna Aracela saw the O’Brien brothers ride into the village, three bodies draped over the saddles of the horses they led.

  She dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Look outside, Father. It appears we will have more bad news.”

  Don Manuel glanced out the window and swore. Throwing down his napkin, he jump
ed to his feet, bumping the table with such force the coffeepot toppled and a brown stain spread across the white tablecloth. “It’s the dead men, by God. The handiwork of the devil Whitney arrives on my doorstep.”

  From the window, Aracela watched Jacob O’Brien intently, a hard man bred from a hard land that winnowed out the weak and nurtured the strong. His shoulders were wide, his gloved hands large and capable, and the great beak of a nose that dominated his face spoke of determination and power of will.

  She smiled. Truly, he was a man with whom to breed, a man who would give her a fine son. Later, after they’d coupled and his duty was done, she would dispose of him.

  The woman threw her mud-stained cloak over her russet silk morning dress and stepped outside. She made a face. The snow still fell. Lord above, would it never end?

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jacob O’Brien was more convinced than ever that the village surrounding the Hacienda Ortero was an annex of hell.

  Women wailed and cried over the bodies of the three dead herders, all from the village.

  Andre Perez was visibly upset. The vaquero stared at the hacienda, tolling his beads, his lips moving in silent prayer. Ironside noted the man’s deep distress. Now that the rented packhorses were free of their dead, he ordered Perez to return them to Estancia.

  Perez, after casting one last, frightened look at the hacienda, gladly obeyed.

  Ironside frowned in thought. He’d known Andre Perez for a long time and the vaquero had sand. He was a top hand, fast with the iron, and feared no man. But something around the hacienda scared him badly. Ironside, for the life of him, couldn’t figure what it was.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ironside, for returning our dead. It is a sad day for all of us.” Donna Aracela stood at Ironside’s left stirrup, looking up at him, her lush mouth parted in a smile.

  Enchanted by her breathtaking beauty, Ironside touched his hat. “God bless you, ma’am, your concern for the dead men does you credit. But you must go inside. You’ll catch your death of cold out here.”