Patrick ran toward the burial site and then slowed down in caution. Creeping forward, he pulled his pistol out of its holster, expecting to see the backside of Sheriff Wilcox. Instead, he saw his sister wrenching the lid up off the coffin.
“What the hell are you doing, you stupid bitch?” he snarled.
Margaret gasped and stood up straight. “Patrick! Oh, you startled me.”
“I asked what are you doing?” he snapped.
“Patrick, what you’re doing is a sin!”
He studied Margaret’s face for a moment. He didn’t see the beautiful young girl that he used to adore and hold above all others…his beloved sister; the only thing he saw through the red haze of wrath filling his heart was a bony scarecrow of a woman, a wasted life…an old, scrawny whore. His face flushed purple with rage and frustration, and he flinched when she uttered his name—a name he had not heard in decades…“Paddy!”
Margaret stared at her twin brother as he lifted his gun. She didn’t see the twisted, bitter old man he had become but the fine, black-haired boyo who had once brought her the finest apples from the orchards and the prettiest seashells from their Irish homeland…the youngster who had risked life and limb to present her with an almost priceless heirloom in order to make her feel better.
Remembering the beautiful ballerina that had once swooped and spun to its own music made her smile and she whispered his name before he shot her dead.
Chapter 32
The Kiss
Patrick heard a million mosquitoes humming about his head and ears, and he swatted them away with a shout of fright. Then they were gone and a heavy silence ensued. Looking around and blinking in confusion, he realized that his temper had gotten the better of him again.
Trying to recall the last few moments, Patrick stared into the fog and then down at his feet. What is that? he wondered.
His sister was lying on top of the coffin, her eyes open wide and staring into eternity. His heart skipped a beat and his own eyes filled with tears.
“Sis, what happened? Who did this to you?” he whispered and sat down heavily on the edge of the plot. The hole wasn’t too deep and Patrick was able to straddle the casket easily and pick his sister’s limp body up in his arms.
He placed Margaret on the ground and scrambled back out of the hole. Picking her up again, Patrick stumbled a few feet away, singing an Irish lullaby in her ear and shaking her lightly in frustration.
“Why did you come here, Maggie?” he wept. “See what happens when ye disobey me, colleen?”
Many of Patrick’s closest friends knew about his occasional fugue states—those dangerous red moods that swept him up, unknowing, into acts that he would usually not countenance in a man. None of those men or women, however, possessed the nerve to point them out to him lest those tidal urges surge in their direction.
Most times, Patrick would not remember what he’d done during one of his spells and this was no exception. As he rocked back and forth, wailing over the body of his murdered sibling, a tiny portion of his brain was already assigning blame to the deed…a deed that his heart and soul could and would not embrace as his own.
“It was that goddamned sheriff, wasn’t it?” he muttered. “Yes! He snuck up here and killed you just for the spite of it…YES!” By now, he was screeching in rage and his fury rose up into the night and echoed madly through the cold, gray fog.
Lanny Smith, the last of Donnelly’s hired goons, heard that inarticulate scream and he ran even faster down the street and away from the foul things taking place in the graveyard. Tommy King heard it, too, and turned to Matthew.
“Did ya hear that, sir? Sounds pretty broke up, he does,” he muttered.
Matthew nodded. “Yup, I heard it. We have to be really careful now. When a man sounds off like a wounded beast you know that he is at his most dangerous.” He paused. “Anyway, I want you to stay here while I go ahead. I don’t know how many of Donnelly’s men are left now but I need you to cover my back, okay?”
Tommy frowned but, after some thought, finally agreed. “I don’t like you going out there on yer own, Mr. Wilcox, but I can see how you might need some eyes behind you.”
“Thank you, Tommy,” the sheriff replied.
Moving as slowly and quietly as possible, Matthew saw a figure hunched over a dead body on the ground. The man was muttering and moaning, tearing at his face and hair, and telling the prone figure he would get revenge.
Matthew sat down on his heels and listened for a moment. “It was that goddamn sheriff, wasn’t it? Well, you just wait, Maggie. I’ll get him, you’ll see. I’ll make him pay for what he done to you.”
So, Margaret Donnelly is dead, he thought. No problem as far as he was concerned but he sure hadn’t done the deed. Gazing past the hysterical man, Matthew saw a large mound of dirt.
Standing up, he crept around Patrick and stared into the hole. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes studied the casket and the breathing tube sticking out from the lid. My God… Iris! He gasped and Patrick looked up.
“Ha! There you are, ya murderous prick!” Without another word, he took a running leap and jumped into the hole in the ground. Laughing maniacally, Patrick stood up with the white rubber tube in his hand.
“See how you like losing someone you love!” he screamed and did a little jig on the coffin.
Matthew heard a slight thumping sound coming from inside the casket and his heart almost stopped. The tube Donnelly held in his wildly waving hand had been a source of air for his wife and now she was asphyxiating! He had to decide—and quickly—whether to talk the madman off the lid of the casket or to just shoot him and haul him out by hand. What would take more time? Sweat popped up on the sheriff’s brow as he stood frozen and undecided. Then Patrick made it easy.
An unconscious part of his mind, one that Matthew knew lurked hidden away from view, took over when he saw Donnelly raise his pistol and three shots rang out.
The smell of gunpowder and the sting of smoke filled his nostrils as Matthew jumped into the grave and stared down at Patrick’s dead body. Three holes marched horizontally across Donnelly’s forehead, each one welling up with blood and trickling slowly down his face to fill the man’s open eyes with red tears.
Panicking now that his ears had stopped ringing, Matthew called out, “Iris! Honey, hold on!”
He seized Donnelly by the arms and pulled, grimacing as he saw the blood and brain matter that covered the lid of Iris’s coffin. Groaning with the effort, the sheriff could feel a muscle twinge in his lower back as he grunted against the strain.
Then he heard Tommy say, “Holy Jesus, sir! Here, let me give you a hand.”
Together he and Matthew pulled the bigger man’s lifeless body off the casket and let him fall, wedged between the dug dirt wall and the pine slats of the cheap coffin.
With a cry of fear, Matthew grabbed the front of the lid and tugged with all his might. There was still a lot of soil on the top but it fell away with a hiss as the sheriff heaved and let the wooden plank fall to one side.
Peering inside, Matthew saw his wife covered with streaks of dirt and mud. Her eyes were closed and her face was as pale as a cold, artic moon. One of her hands clutched a thin string that attached to a tiny bell; the other seemed to be frozen in place like a curled claw frantically trying to escape.
Iris was not breathing and Matthew threw his head back, howling in grief.
~
Matthew lifted his wife out of the casket and placed her on the ground by the head of the burial plot. His eyes were red and dry, the tiny part of what was left of his heart dying along with his beloved Iris. Then he crawled out of the hole and sat by her side.
“Sir, I’m so sorry!” Tommy moaned, then yelled, “Hey, Roy! Mr. Wilcox needs you!”
Matthew glanced up as his deputy came out from the tree line, limping heavily on a makeshift crutch. His best friend stared down at Iris’s body and a sorrow Matthew had never seen before filled Roy’s eyes as his lips drew down i
n grief.
“Oh, Mattie,” he murmured.
“We have to get her home, Roy.” Matthew heard his own voice and felt a chill; he did not sound like himself, as if an utter stranger spoke through his lips. But he was past caring. “Tommy, please head back to the playhouse and have a wagon brought around.”
The young man was wringing his cap in his hands, but he nodded. “Yes, sir! Be right back!”
He took off running toward the main entrance but stopped short when a buggy careened around the corner and almost ran him down. The road proper ended about fifty feet away but the carriage kept coming until it was forced to a stop by a line of gravestones and crosses.
Matthew stared as first Amelia, then Gerald—and finally—Lewis Winters stepped down out of the conveyance. Lewis moved as quickly as possible to where he sat by Iris’s side. Falling to his knees, he groaned and held his head. Then he looked at Matthew and asked, “How long has she been like this?”
The sheriff bowed his head. “I don’t know. I found her this way a couple of minutes ago.” A tear escaped from the corner of his eye although he was so numb he didn’t feel it.
Lewis frowned and bent over Iris’s chest, placing his head down and listening. Then he picked up her wrist and rubbed it against his cheek. His eyes grew wide and he said, “She’s still warm, Mattie! I think we can save her.”
He stared at his brother-in-law in disbelief but Lewis reached out and gave him a light slap.
“Matthew, wake up, dammit! You have to breathe for her. It’s something the Orientals do—I’ve seen it and it works. But you have to do it now before it’s too late!”
Reaching down, Matthew lifted his wife’s mouth to his as the people around him gazed in fearful fascination. He breathed into her and watched as his air filled her lungs. Then he did it again…and again and again until he grew dizzy and stars filled his eyes.
“That’s right, that’s how it’s done,” Lewis murmured and smiled when Iris shook her head and gasped for air on her own. She flailed her arms and sat up with a little screech of fear, then stared about in a daze until her eyes landed on Matthew.
“Oh, Mattie!” She lunged forward and he enfolded her in his arms, weeping openly in relief.
They rocked together for a moment and those who watched shook their heads. It had been a long, long night and they all needed sleep; especially Lewis, whose head felt like it might explode. But he was happy, knowing that he had saved his sister and paid the sheriff back a life for a life.
A little while later, the bedraggled procession made their way home.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Matthew sat at his desk looking out the window at the first of the season’s snowflakes drifting down from the heavy-laden sky. A fire crackled in the woodstove and he could smell the aroma of bread wafting upstairs from the kitchen. Hearing a squeal of laughter, he moved forward a bit and gazed down at his son Chance and his new deputy, Dicky McNulty. They were building a snowman.
Dicky had moved to Granville a week ago, about a month after recovering from the infection that had almost killed him. He still moved a little slow as the ripped muscles and tendons in his neck and shoulder pained him sometimes. But his was a bright and sunny disposition, one able to overcome and learn from adversity.
Roy was fond of the kid and called him a “game little rooster”—high praise indeed from the sometimes over-critical deputy. Roy also approved of the positive influence little Sarah was having on the once painfully shy Abner. Since she had come to stay, Abner’s eyes were brighter, his smile quicker, and his confidence was growing by leaps and bounds.
Iris had even heard talk of marriage bells ringing for the young couple as soon as spring and the thought of it made her flush with pleasure. Glancing over his shoulder, Matthew studied her still form huddled under the quilt on their bed with Bandit curled up at her feet, his long gray muzzle resting on her ankles. He shook his head slightly and looked again at the letter in his hand.
Dear Auntie Iris and Uncle Matthew,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am fine and so is Papa, although he tires easily and sometimes experiences bouts of dizziness. He assures me, however, that he is on the mend.
I hope you do not mind too much, but I think I will stay home with him for now. He misses Mama terribly—as do I—and I think my place is by his side. He is teaching me everything Mama knew and thinks I will do fine as his surgical assistant without formal education. And I, for one, have had enough excitement so am happy to stay here and do my duty as a loving daughter should.
Please, if you decide to come back to Seattle for a visit, know that you and your family are always welcome to stay with us.
I can never repay you for what you did to save me. Just know that you will always abide deeply in my heart…
With love and gratitude,
Amelia Winters
Matthew frowned knowing he did have to go back to Seattle sometime next spring. He had been called in to testify against Sheriff Winslow, a number of Donnelly’s henchmen and the crooked police commissioner LeVesque. He had also been asked to stand witness as young Davey Humphries was sworn in as sheriff for the town of Goldbar. Although Matthew relished the idea of all the men getting their just desserts, he was in no hurry to head back to that damp, dark city.
He still couldn’t believe they’d gotten away clean that awful night from Potter’s Field. After he and the others had arrived back at the playhouse and recovered a bit from the harrowing events, they had boarded the train and fled for home. Once there, Matthew had written a number of letters implicating the wrongdoers in the whole sorry affair, safe in the assumption he and his deputies could—and would—remain free of guilt.
Matthew sighed. He and his family had suffered enough and sacrificed too much to let the law itself trouble them any more than necessary. Folding the letter carefully, he put it where Iris would find it. She would be happy to read her niece’s words and know the girl was recovering from her ordeal.
He jumped slightly as the windowpane darkened with a thump; looking up, he saw snow melting on the glass and realized his son had thrown a snowball at his papa’s silhouette.
Standing up with the intention of running downstairs and engaging his son in battle, he stopped when Bandit whined. Iris was tossing and turning in her sleep, crying out in panic; he saw that she was covered in sweat and her hands were like claws, ripping and tearing at the covers.
Matthew ran to her side and gathered her in his arms. Rocking back and forth, he whispered, “Iris, honey…you’re okay. You’re here with me, safe and sound at home. Shh,” he crooned until his wife awoke, sobbing. Bandit had moved to the head of the bed and stared at her with wise, golden eyes. Finally she stopped weeping and stroked the old wolf’s head.
Taking a shuddering breath, Iris whispered, “I wish…” She sniffed and wiped her arm across her face. “I just wish these dreams would stop.”
Matthew sighed again. He did not know if the memories of being buried alive would ever really go away but he hoped and prayed that—one day—they would fade. Meanwhile, he would love her and keep her until time stopped for both of them.
The End
About the Author
Linell Jeppsen is a writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her vampire novel, Detour to Dusk, has received over 44-four and five star reviews. Her novel Story Time, with over 130 “4” and “5” star reviews, is a science fiction, post-apocalyptic novel, and has been touted by the Paranormal Romance Guild, Sandy’s Blog Spot, Coffeetime Romance, Bitten by Books and 64 top reviewers as a five star read, filled with terror, love, loss, and the indomitable beauty and strength of the human spirit. Story Time was also nominated as the best new read of 2011 by the PRG! Her dark fantasy novel, Onio (a story about a half-human Sasquatch who falls in love with a human girl), was released in December 2012 and won 3rd place as the best fantasy romance of 2012 by the PRG reviewers guild! Onio also sports over 50 “4” and “5” star reviews!
&n
bsp; Her novel, The War of Odds, won the IBD award for fantasy fiction and boasts 18 “5” star reviews since its release in February of 2013. It also placed 2nd, as the best YA, paranormal book of 2013 by the PRG!
She is in a collaborative effort with the Welsh author, J. Bryden Lloyd in, The Guardians The Guardians, a science fiction, serialized thriller with over 30 reviews here and in the UK! just won 2nd place as the best serialized science fiction novel of 2013 by the PRG!
Her latest effort, The Beginning of the Story (Story Time Prequel) is a must for those of you who loved Story Time.
… and now Deadman’s Lament a Western novel of Retribution and Revenge! Dead Man’s Lament already boasts over 127-4 and 5 star reviews!
For more fine novels by Linell Jeppsen please go to:
www.wolfpackpublishing.com
Deadman's Fury (The Deadman Series Book 2) Page 21
