The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  Whitney looked sourly at Clay Stanley, who sat beside him near the fire. “Does the snow ever stop in this damned country?”

  “Sure boss. Just as soon as spring gets here.” Stanley smiled. “How’s the tooth?”

  Whitney seemed less than amused. “Bad. Damn thing hurts all the way to my back pocket.”

  “The Kid says maybe he can get it out with his knife,” Stanley said.

  Whitney was horrified. “In a pig’s eye, he will. Hell, he can’t even tell the difference between a Mex and an Apache. He’d cut out the wrong damned tooth.”

  Stanley shrugged. “He offered, was all.”

  “Is there a dentist in that godforsaken town? What’s it called?”

  “Estancia.”

  “Hell, yes, that’s the name.” Whitney pulled his fur coat closer around him. “What a damned dung heap.”

  “I heard tell there’s a mule doctor there does teeth pullin’,” Stanley said. “He does regular doctoring as well, or so Mrs. Hazel told me.”

  “I’ll have to go back there and get it done. This goddamned tooth is killing me.”

  “I’ll send the Kid with you. You might run into herders and he can take care of them.”

  Whitney looked at the man, his pinched face reflecting firelight. “You don’t suppose we’ve run ’em all off already?”

  “I doubt it,” Stanley said. “They wouldn’t leave their herds behind.”

  “Then they’re hiding out someplace, maybe at the Ortero hacienda,” Whitney said.

  “Well, we’ll take care of that problem later,” Stanley said.

  A man handed Whitney a cup of coffee and a salt pork sandwich. The little man bit down, then jumped to his feet, threw the sandwich away, and slapped his hand to his jaw. “Damned tooth,” he yelled. “Hell, I can’t stand this any longer.” He glared at Stanley, as though he blamed the Texan for his suffering. “Tell the Kid to saddle up, we’re leaving now.”

  Stanley said, “Shouldn’t you wait until first light, boss?”

  “Hell, no! All we have between Estancia and us is miles of flat. We can’t get lost, and anyhow, this rotten tooth won’t wait.”

  Ten minutes later Whitney and Packett rode out into darkness, snow, and a slicing wind. Huddled in the saddle, nursing his misery, Whitney hoped they’d ride up on some herders so that they could shoot them down and make them pay for the pain they were causing him. Serve them right.

  A mile later, walking their horses through what shaped up to a fair blizzard, Whitney turned to the Kid. Opening his mouth just wide enough to clear his words, he said, “We aren’t lost, are we?”

  “Not if we’re heading west, we ain’t,” Packett said.

  “Are we heading west?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  After wandering in circles most of the night, Whitney and Packett led their exhausted horses into Estancia just after daybreak.

  Mrs. Hazel was not glad to see them.

  “I have no rooms available,” she said. The memory of having to share her quarters with two ousted guests, one of them an old lady who couldn’t control her bladder, still rankled.

  Whitney was tired, irritable, and in pain. The Memphis Kid was merely tired and irritable, and in him, that was a dangerous thing. He pulled his Colt, pressed the muzzle against the woman’s temple, and thumbed back the hammer. “Lady, two rooms or I’ll scatter your brains.”

  Mrs. Hazel could be belligerent at times, but what she read in the Kid’s eyes scared her. She pushed the register in front of Whitney. Then, trying to salvage some shred of dignity, she said sternly, “Any trouble like there was the last time and you’ll have to leave.”

  Whitney signed the register, ignoring her threat. “Where is the mule doctor?”

  “Over to the saloon, where he usually is,” Mrs. Hazel said.

  “At this time of the morning?” Whitney asked

  “You’ll find him there any time of the morning, and any time of the afternoon and night.”

  “I’ve got a tooth needs pulled,” Whitney said. “Damn thing is killing me.”

  “Findlay McLean is not the man for that, Mr. Whitney,” Mrs. Hazel said. “He’s not even a very good mule doctor, and I’ve never known him to pull teeth.”

  Neither Whitney nor Packett paid any attention to the young vaquero filling a cup from the pot simmering on the potbellied stove. When he heard Whitney’s name, he stared hard at the man for a moment, then rushed upstairs.

  “Is there anyone else?” Whitney’s voice rose in a growing note of alarm. His tooth throbbed, and he felt that his whole lower jaw was on fire.

  “Yes, Joe Tuthill. He’ll pull it for a dollar.”

  “Is he a dentist?”

  “No, he’s the town blacksmith.”

  Whitney felt like a man taking the last step onto a gallows platform. He looked at Packett, expecting to see at least a glimmer of sympathy, but the man held a cup of coffee to his mouth, trying to hide a grin.

  His voice hollow, like a man talking inside a tomb, Whitney said, “Can you get him over here? I’m damned if I’m going to sit on an anvil to get a tooth pulled.”

  Mrs. Hazel nodded. “I’ll send my son.” Her face showed concern, and Whitney thought it was for him. But that illusion vanished when the woman said, “Perhaps you should sit on the porch, Mr. Whitney.” She smiled. “It’s the blood, you know. I don’t want it staining my new rugs.”

  Mrs. Hazel’s son, a sullen youth with an overbite, brought bad news. The blacksmith’s wife said her husband was out in the Manzano Mountains making emergency repairs to a freight wagon with a broken axle and she didn’t know when he’d be back. She further added, “If there’s whiskey on that wagon, he won’t be back for days.”

  The Memphis Kid ate breakfast, and then sought his bed, leaving Whitney to suffer alone in the hotel parlor. Mrs. Hazel, who had a fairly kind heart, brought him brandy and a bill, and Whitney was quite tipsy when the blacksmith showed up a little after noon.

  As befitted his profession, Joe Tuthill was a muscular man of medium height with a black beard that spread across the chest of his leather apron. He had tools wrapped in a burlap sack and these he clanked onto the parlor table, much to Mrs. Hazel’s annoyance.

  “Plenty of Apache sign out there by Red Canyon, Mrs. Hazel,” he said, disregarding the woman’s irritation. “I heard they attacked a stage station a couple days ago and stole a mule.”

  “Heaven help us, Mr. Tuthill. Will they come here?”

  The blacksmith smiled, revealing better teeth than Whitney’s. “Bless your heart, no. The army has them on the run and the talk is they’re already headed west into the Sierra Lucero country. And if they did come this way, I reckon we’re ready for ’em.”

  Tuthill looked at Whitney, who sat hunched and miserable. In his fur coat, the little man looked like a sick mouse. “Is this the patient?”

  “Of course I’m the patient,” Whitney said. “Damn it, don’t I look like a man with a toothache?”

  “Open wide.” Tuthill peered into Whitney’s mouth, but the day was gloomy and the parlor dark. “Mrs. Hazel, could you bring a lamp closer?” The woman did, and the blacksmith looked again. “Ah, yes, I see it. ’Tis way at the back and black as the bottom of a dry well.” He gave Whitney a sympathetic glance. “It has to come out.”

  For his part, Whitney had reached the end of tether and his anger flared. “Damn it, man, I know it has to come out. Now, yank the tooth!”

  “Brandy first,” Tuthill said. He picked up the bottle from the table beside the little man’s chair and filled a glass. Whitney reached out a hand, but the blacksmith ignored him, drained the glass, and shuddered. “All right, let’s get to it.”

  Tuthill unrolled the burlap sack and one by one selected a pair of iron tongs, only to reject them. To Whitney the tools looked like artifacts forged by the devil, great metal pincers designed to tear a man to pieces. His terrified eyes as round as coins, he watched the blacksmith work the handles of a small
pair of black tongs, their gleaming metal edges snapping together like fangs.

  “These will do nicely,” Tuthill said, the tongs grasped firmly in his hairy fist. “Open up, Mr. Whitney.”

  Appalled, Whitney made a barrier of his hands, but the blacksmith pushed them aside. “If you please, Mr. Whitney, open your mouth.”

  Whitney rapidly shook his head, his mouth clenched shut. His eyes looked as though they were going to pop right out of his head.

  Tuthill turned and looked at Mrs. Hazel. “Some patients are more difficult than others.”

  The woman nodded. “Isn’t it always the way of things, Mr. Tuthill?”

  The blacksmith sighed. “Ah well, Mrs. Hazel, sometimes we must be cruel to be kind.”

  He grabbed Whitney’s lower jaw in a horny hand as strong as a vise and forced the little man’s mouth open. The tongs clanked against Whitney’s front teeth, opened, then crushed the malignant molar in their steel jaws.

  Whitney tried to scream, but all he could do was kick his feet and strangle out an agonized, “Aaaargh!” He felt the tooth tear free of bone and gum and when he opened his eyes he saw Tuthill holding it aloft in the tongs like a headhunter’s trophy.

  “A tough one indeed, Mrs. Hazel,” he said.

  “Isn’t that always the way of it, Mr. Tuthill?”

  Whitney, frantic, his mouth full of blood, spat on Mrs. Hazel’s new rug and made a dive for the brandy. His hands trembling, he two-fisted the bottle to his mouth and drank deeply, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.

  Tuthill dropped the tongs into the sack and held up the molar for Whitney to see. “Do you mind if I keep this? It’s for a souvenir, like.”

  “Youth a thamned buthter,” Whitney said, aware that he’d lost a chunk of tongue with the tooth.

  “That will be a dollar, Mr. Whitney,” Tuthill said, unfazed.

  The little man reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a coin. “Here, thake your thamned bloth monthey,” he said, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth onto his chin.

  The blacksmith accepted the dollar and rolled his tools in the sack. “A very difficult patient, Mrs. Hazel.”

  “Yours is a thankless job, Mr. Tuthill.” l said.

  The blacksmith nodded. “One learns to accept it, Mrs. Hazel, but it does hurt.”

  Whitney crouched in his chair and suffered in silence. He badly wanted to kill Mr. Tuthill. And Mrs. Hazel.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Luther Ironside was glad to see the lights of Estancia. The afternoon had been so dark that as it shaded into evening, there was little discernable difference. Snow, driven by a determined wind, danced around man and horse, and Ironside’s breath smoked in the raw air.

  He swung out of the saddle and walked stiffly into the hotel, feeling his years. The desk clerk saw a wind-weathered man wearing a blanket-lined canvas coat, chaps, and a wide-brimmed hat. Unhappily, he remembered him as one of the ruffians who’d recently been frequenting his place of business.

  “Room,” Ironside said, his jaw stiff from the cold.

  “I’ll see if we have one available,” the clerk said.

  “What’s your name, son?” Ironside asked. The man was taken aback, as though no one had ever asked him that question before. “It’s Wilfred, sir. Wilfred Spooner.”

  “Well, Wilfred Spooner,” Ironside said, “look real hard because I need a room. I’m getting too damned old to spend another night sleeping on rock.”

  Spooner took a key from a hook. “You’re lucky, sir. We have one available.”

  “Oh, it’s you again, Mr. . . . ah . . .”

  “Ironside, ma’am.”

  “Yes indeed,” Mrs. Hazel said. “Mr. Ironside as ever was.” She smiled. “I remember your face because you’re such a handsome, well set-up man, but names often escape me nowadays.”

  Ironside smiled. “And you, dear lady, are such a sweet distraction a man might easily forget his own name.”

  Mrs. Hazel blushed prettily. “Sir, you are so gallant.”

  Ironside made a little bow. “My gallantry is no more than your due, ma’am.”

  Deciding that his courtliness had reached its limits, Ironside said, “Is there anyone else in the hotel I should know about?”

  “Only my regular guests and”—she made a face—“Mr. Whitney. Oh, and that nasty boy, Mr. Packett.”

  Ironside was puzzled. Why are Whitney and one of his Texas guns here? “Is he sick? Whitney, I mean.”

  “Oh no. He had a tooth pulled earlier today, poor thing,” Mrs. Hazel said, though she seemed less than sympathetic. “He’s in the parlor if you wish to speak with him.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Ironside said.

  “Can I bring you something?” Mrs. Hazel said.

  “A whiskey, and something to eat, if you can manage it.”

  “Why, of course, Mr. Ironside. I have a chicken stew in the pot and a batch of my freshly made buttermilk biscuits.”

  “It sounds just fine, Mrs. Hazel.” Ironside bowed again. “And now, dear lady, if you will excuse me.”

  He entered the parlor. Joel Whitney was sitting in a chair by the fire. The right side of his jaw was swollen, and he stared up at Ironside without interest. Charlie Packett rose from his own chair, not out of respect for the older man, but making room to clear his gun.

  Ironside looked down at Whitney. “How are you doing? I’m sorry to see you laid so low.”

  “Like you care,” Whitney said.

  Ironside stepped to the chair recently vacated by Packett. “I guess you’re tired of sitting, huh?” he said to the young gunman. He settled into the chair and accepted a glass of whiskey from Mrs. Hazel. Behind him Packett, caught flat-footed, stepped away, his eyes angry.

  “Got bad news for you, Whitney,” Ironside said.

  The little man stared at him, but said nothing.

  Ironside took time to light a cigar, waiting for Whitney to snap.

  Finally the man did. “What bad news?”

  “You’re talking funny,” Ironside said.

  “Damned blacksmith pulled my tooth and took a chunk of my tongue.” Whitney said again, “What bad news?”

  Ironside tried his whiskey. “Good. Puts heat back into a man.”

  “Damn it, what bad news?”

  “Answer the boss,” Packett said.

  “All right, I’ll spill it,” Ironside said. “Yesterday, about this time, I found eight of your men dead just north of the salt lakes. Your wagons, horses, and mules were gone. Found a whore who’d been killed with them, but I don’t suppose you’re interested in her.”

  For a few moments Whitney was too shocked to talk, and even the Memphis Kid looked like he’d just been punched in the gut.

  Ironside smiled without humor. “The good news is that I also came across the heads of three Mexican herders, so your boys had been doing their job well before they were wiped out.”

  Whitney struggled to keep his voice level. “How did it happen?”

  “Well, it looked to me like they’d been surprised by a superior force,” Ironside said. “And in this neck of the woods, the only man who can muster a force that size is Don Manuel Ortero.”

  Mrs. Hazel brought Ironside his food on a tray and placed it carefully on his lap.

  “Thank you, dear lady. This cold weather does give a man an appetite.”

  Whitney sat in brooding silence for several long minutes, staring into the fire. Suddenly he jerked upright and slammed his hand into the leather arm of the chair. “Packett, we’re going out again. We’ll round up the men and burn Ortero’s hacienda to the ground.”

  “Judging by what I saw yesterday, you’ll have a fight on your hands, Whitney.”

  The little man rose to his feet. “You stay out of this. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  Speaking around a mouthful of biscuit, Ironside said, “What about the sheep?”

  Whitney glared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

&nbs
p; Ironside smiled. “Speaking for Dromore, we still don’t want woolies on our range. If the herders think Ortero is no longer protecting them, they might pull out and head north. If that happens we’d come after you, Whitney. I reckon you’d find that trying to burn Dromore to the ground ain’t a cakewalk.”

  “We’ll destroy Ortero, then kill every damned sheepherder and wooly in the Estancia Valley.” Whitney sneered at Ironside. “Now you can enjoy your stew.”

  Ironside nodded. “I was just sayin’.”

  Packett said, “Boss, it’s snowing outside. Are you sure you want to do more night riding?”

  “Are you showing yellow on me, Kid?” Whitney asked.

  “I don’t show yellow to any man,” Packett said.

  “Then shut your trap and saddle the horses.”

  “You do what your boss tells you, son,” Ironside said, staring at the gnawed chicken leg in his hand. “If you don’t he might paddle your butt.”

  Packett’s anger flared, but he never got the chance to give it voice. Mrs. Hazel stepped into the room with a cream-colored envelope in her hand. “A Mexican person brought this for you, Mr. Whitney. He said it’s from Donna Aracela Ortero.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Joel Whitney looked baffled as he turned the envelope over in his hands, as though he expected it to impart all its secrets without him having to read what was inside. “Who the hell is she?” he said finally. He was looking at Charlie Packett, but the question was really directed at Ironside.

  “She’s Don Manuel’s daughter.”

  “Why would she write a letter to me?” Whitney asked.

  “Open it and see,” Ironside said.

  Whitney ripped open the envelope and read the enclosed note. “She’s inviting me to dinner tomorrow evening at the hacienda.”

  “It’s a trap, boss,” Packett said.

  “Could be.” Whitney motioned at Ironside with the note. “Why dinner with her and not her pa?”

  Ironside was forced to admit that he was stumped.