“Then thus spake the Lord to me,” Cobb said. “From every man in town ye will collect watches, studs, rings . . . everything they have that’s made of gold.”
Talking into a shocked silence, he continued, “From every woman, jewelry of all kinds. Heed my warning, let no woman wear a ring, bracelet or necklace of gold after this tithe has been made or verily, it will turn molten and burn her like the very fires of hell.”
The silence grew, deepened and stretched for long moments, and then Carstairs’s voice shattered the quiet like a rock thrown through a plate-glass window.
“It’s too much, Brother Matthias,” he said. “You can’t demand such a sacrifice from these people. I say we arm ourselves and form our own police force. Aye, even an army if need be.”
Temple Carstairs didn’t know it then, but Cobb did, that the large number of hear-hears from the crowd after his statement would prove to be his death warrant.
“I don’t demand such a sacrifice from you,” Cobb yelled. “God demands it!”
“A tithe like that would just about wipe me out,” another man said. “I’ve worked hard for what I own.”
“And surely you don’t want our wedding rings?” a woman said.
“I don’t want them, but God surely does,” Cobb said. He saw mouths opening to speak and added, yelling, “Listen to yourselves, people! With God’s help Holy Rood is a heaven on earth. We live free of crime, free of the violence that has so destroyed the Western lands. The only people allowed in our town are those honest souls who come to buy, sell or trade.”
Shel Shannon once again decided to back up his boss.
“Look around you, citizens,” he said. “There are no drunken cowboys or stinking miners staggering from saloon to saloon in search of demon drink, no painted women eager to satisfy their lusts, no pale-faced gamblers to fleece the unwary and no soulless outlaws to visit violence on our women and children. The law never comes to Holy Rood and why? Because they know it is a town of peace and good order.”
His voice rising to a roar, Shannon poked holes in the air with his forefinger and said, “And the skulls of those who have tried to transgress against us are plain to see, a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.”
“Indeed, Brother Uzziah,” Cobb said. “And we owe all this to you and others like you, the holy warriors who have kept the peace in Holy Rood with the gun, the noose and the falling blade. But now, to save this town from terror and witchcraft, we need more of your kind.”
The reaction from the townspeople was lukewarm at best, and Carstairs made things worse when he said, “What you have told us is true, Brother Matthias. Holy Rood is a safe town, a place where women and children can walk without fear. But sometimes the price for such security can come too high.”
“Brother Carstairs, you talk of forming a police force, even a citizens’ army, and that tells me you are a fool,” Cobb said. “All you’d form is a rabble that would flee their first encounter with the terror riders.”
Carstairs looked angry and opened his mouth to object, but Cobb shouted him down.
“Only the men I choose can be trusted with guns,” he said. “We don’t want an armed rabble here. Only the warriors I plan to hire can bring you the peace and security you desire.”
“Peace and security at any price!” a woman yelled, and a few heads nodded in agreement.
“I suggest a meeting of the Grand Council to discuss the matter and that a vote be taken,” Carstairs said. “I propose a citizens’ police force, but others may think that a certain amount of money could be allotted for more armed men. No matter the decision, you’ll have to work within a strict budget, Brother Matthias.”
“I am your obedient servant, Brother Carstairs, and I will abide by the wishes of the Grand Council,” Cobb said. “But know this, the witch who entered this town now leads a band of terror riders and Holy Rood faces a crisis the like of which it has never experienced before.”
Cobb pulled up his hood again. “Bear that in mind when you speak in council, Brother Carstairs.”
“Hell, Hank, that damned fool Carstairs is gonna upset all our plans,” Shel Shannon said. “All that talk of his own police force.”
“No he ain’t,” Cobb said, reaching for the whiskey bottle. “We’ll still wring this hick town dry afore we light a shuck.” He smiled. “An’ I’ll finally be glad to get rid of these holy-roller robes. Damn things are hot and itch like hell.”
“But, Hank, I mean, how we gonna—”
“Part of your problem is that you ain’t too bright, Shel,” Cobb said. “An’ that’s why you don’t think things through.”
“But you do, huh, boss?”
“Damn right I do.”
Cobb picked up his glass, stepped to the sheriff’s office window and stared outside.
The storm still raged and ticked sand against the glass panes. Across the street a sign hung aslant on one chain and somewhere a screen door banged in the wind and a dog barked.
Without turning, Cobb said, “Temple Carstairs dies tonight.”
He heard the grin in Shannon’s voice as the man said, “You want me to gun him, boss?”
Now Cobb turned, took time to sip his whiskey, and said, “No, you idiot, you want to alarm the whole town again?”
Without waiting for an answer, Cobb said, “I don’t want a mark on him, understand? No bullet or knife wounds.”
Shannon’s mind was slow and he looked confused.
“But why fer that, boss?” he said.
Cobb walked to the desk and leaned over Shannon. His face, lit by the oil lamp, was hard, his mouth a thin, white gash.
“I’ll tell you why fer that,” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Because of the shrieking wind and rasping sand Jasper Wolfden leaned from the saddle and yelled into Shawn’s ear, “They’re close!”
Wolfden saw the question on the younger man’s face and said, “I can smell them.”
“In this wind?”
“In any wind.”
Shawn let that go. Raising his voice above the racket of the storm was too much of an effort. Besides, he’d already established in his mind that Wolfden was a mighty peculiar man.
To Shawn’s east rose the massive escarpment of Sand Mountain and beyond that the rocky battlements of the Hurricane Cliffs. But both were lost in darkness. Ahead of him the visibility of the high timber country came and went as the wind gusted, but it was a likely place for a couple of fugitives to hole up for the night.
His hunch was proven correct when Wolfden suddenly swung his horse to the west and pointed into the trees.
“There!” he yelled.
Wolfden, his head bent against the wind, led the way to a narrow creek, then followed its winding course north into the pines.
Here, sheltered by trees, the full force of the windblown sand was blunted and visibility increased to twenty or thirty yards.
Shawn heard growling on the opposite bank of the creek and saw half a dozen gray wolves tear at the belly of a downed whitetail buck. They raised their bloodstained muzzles as he and Wolfden rode past and the deer kicked and tried to rise.
But the wolves ravenously went back to their feast and the buck’s agonized eyes, as soft as a woman’s, fastened on Shawn in a hopeless plea for help.
He shuddered, like a man in an icy draft, and rode on.
“Stay right there and state your intentions. We ain’t sitting on our gun hands here.”
Hamp Sedley stepped out of the trees, a Winchester at the ready and a scowl on his face.
“It’s me, Hamp, Shawn O’Brien. And another feller.”
“Mister, you’d better be who you say you are,” Sedley said, peering into the gloom. “We’re twenty United States marshals here, all well-armed and determined men.”
“Hell, Hamp, all you’ve got there is a woman, and you can’t shoot worth a damn,” Shawn said. “Now put the rifle away before you hurt yourself. We’re coming in.”
&
nbsp; Shawn took the lead and rode toward Sedley.
“Damn it all, O’Brien, it is you,” the gambler said, lowering his gun.
“Of course it’s me,” Shawn said, stepping out of the saddle. “I hope the coffee’s biling.”
“I wish,” Sedley said.
Shawn and Wolfden followed the gambler into the trees.
The girl sat with her back against a pine, her knees drawn up to her chin. Her yellow hair was undone and fell around her face in wind-teased waves.
“How are you holding up?” Shawn said. “Sally, isn’t it?”
The girl nodded. “Sally Bailey.”
She let it go at that and Shawn didn’t push it.
“This here is Jasper Wolfden,” he said. “He saved my life back at Holy Rood. Took on Hank Cobb and his men like they didn’t matter.”
“Here, I recognize you,” Sedley said. “You were the ranny up on the ridge with a head on a pole, scared the hell out of everybody.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic,” Wolfden said. “It comes naturally to a former actor, you see.”
“I’d pegged you fer a preacher or something,” Sedley said. “You mean you were on the stage with folks watching you?”
“Exactly what I mean,” Wolfden said. “I’ve performed with Edwin Booth, playing Horatio to his moody Dane, and with Lillie Langtry, a truly beautiful woman. Let me see, ah yes, I did several turns with Oscar Wilde and on one memorable occasion, James Butler Hickok.”
“You were on stage with Wild Bill in person?” Sedley said.
“Indeed, yes. But an actor he was not. He mouthed the words well enough, when he was sober that is, but never became the character he played.”
“Good with a gun though, was Bill,” Sedley said.
“I don’t know about that,” Wolfden said. “I never saw him shoot anything but blanks.”
“Somehow a gun-fighting actor doesn’t quite add up,” Shawn said.
Wolfden tilted his head to one side and gave Shawn a wry look. “John Wilkes, Edwin’s brother, did all right, didn’t he?”
“Lincoln didn’t have a gun,” Shawn said.
“That is very true,” Wolfden said. “As for me, I was always a keen target shooter. Then Hank Cobb and his rowdies and the good people of Holy Rood made me a gunfighter by necessity when they deemed actors were degenerates and not fit to live.”
“Hank Cobb said he’d killed you,” Sedley said. “We heard that plain. But you aren’t dead, are you?”
The clearing in the trees offered protection from blowing sand, but the wind tossed the tops of the pines, sending down showers of twigs and needles.
For reasons known only to themselves, the wolves howled over their recent kill and Wolfden turned his head and listened, his strange eyes glowing.
“Cobb said he’d killed you,” Sedley prompted. “That’s what he said, plain as ever was.”
“Maybe the man doesn’t want to remember that,” Sally said. Her hair tossed in the wind as she raised her head and stared at Sedley. “Some memories are better left buried.”
“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” Wolfden said. “Right now we’ve got nothing else to do but tell stories, huh? Cobb thought he’d killed me. But his bullet had only grazed my head and I played dead.” The man smiled. “It was one of my finer acting achievements, a consolation for flopping so badly in Silver Reef. I guess the miners didn’t care much for a washed-up actor spouting bad Shakespeare.”
“Nah, silver miners only want to see pretty women in pink tights,” Sedley said. “Did Cobb shoot you in Silver Reef or in Holy Rood?”
“Neither. If it had been in Holy Rood I wouldn’t have gotten away with it. No, it was southwest of here, at a place called Gooseberry Mesa. I was hiding out among thick stands of piñon and juniper, but Cobb drew a bead on me and shot me off of my horse.”
“Why was Cobb so all-fired set on killing you, Wolfden?” Sedley asked.
“After the miners had more or less run me out of Silver Reef, I thought to settle in Holy Rood and write a play. It seemed such a peaceful town. Then I saw what was happening and took a set against Cobb and his men. We became bitter enemies and after a couple of attempts on my life, Cobb arrested me and sentenced me to death.”
“So you were in his jail for a spell?” Sedley said.
“Only a couple of days,” Wolfden said. “And that was bad enough.”
“How the heck did you bust out of the jail in the first place?” Sedley said.
“A man helped me,” Wolfden said. “Strange kind of fellow. I’ve always wondered what happened to him.”
“Cobb’s men killed him,” Shawn said. He’d leave the details until Wolfden had finished his story.
“Too bad,” Wolfden said. “Like I said, he was strange, but I kind of liked him.”
“So you got burned across the head and then played dead until Cobb and his men rode away, huh?” Shawn said.
“Would it were that simple,” Wolfden said. “No, they buried me.”
“Alive?” Sedley said, his face shocked.
“Well, I was still breathing, so they could hardly bury me dead now, could they?” Wolfden said.
“Why did Cobb take time to bury you?” Shawn said. “That’s not his style.”
“As far as I can piece it together, there was a United States marshal nosing around at the time and Cobb didn’t want my body found.”
“So, after Cobb left, you dug yourself out,” Sedley said.
“I tried, but I was deep and no matter how I struggled, I couldn’t dig myself free. Of course, by then I was suffocating, within a few minutes of death.”
“But how—” Sedley began.
“A tame wolf and a tamer Indian saved me.”
The wind had shifted and was blowing from the north. The girl shivered and rubbed her upper arms with her hands.
Shawn took off his coat and draped it around Sally’s shoulders.
“I feel your warmth,” the girl said. She smiled, shyly. “Thank you.”
In that moment, Shawn remembered his dead wife’s smile, shy like that sometimes, and it was like a knife to his heart.
Wolfden, seeing the eager expression on Sedley’s face, spoke again. “The Indian was a Navajo, maybe he was a hundred years old, I don’t know. But he and his wolf pulled me out of my grave. It had been a close-run thing, mighty close.” He smiled. “Mr. Poe would’ve enjoyed that story.”
“And what then?” Sedley said.
“There is no ‘And what then?’” Wolfden said.
“All right, what about the Navajo and his wolf?” Sedley said.
Wolfden smiled. “Maybe they were both wolves. Maybe they were both Navajo. I can’t say. The old man didn’t utter a word. He just left and a while later I heard the howls of hunting lobos in the woods. He did give me this.” Wolfden opened his shirt and showed, on a rawhide thong, a snarling, fanged wolf’s head, carved from bone.
“What does it mean?” Sedley said.
“I don’t know what it means,” Wolfden said.
“But you do, Mr. Wolfden,” Sally said. “You know perfectly well what it means. What the old Navajo gave you means you became blood brother to him and the wolf.”
Both Shawn and Sedley looked at the girl in surprise. But her eyes were hidden in shadow and she said nothing else.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Temple Carstairs was a widower who lived in a gingerbread house at the edge of town. Missing a woman’s touch, the place was rundown and the front yard, where once flowers had bloomed, was overrun with cactus and bunch grass.
Carstairs’s late wife had always polished the brass knocker that Shel Shannon used to a bright shine, but now it was dull with spots of green mildew.
It was almost midnight and the sandstorm had blown itself out, but the wind was now from the north and coldly slapped Shannon’s unshaven cheek.
The hollow rap-rap-rap of the doorknocker echoed inside the house and it took a couple of moments before Ca
rstairs appeared.
The old man wore a long nightgown, a sleeping cap with a tassel falling to his shoulder and a puzzled expression on his face.
“Brother Uzziah, why are you abroad at this time of night?” he said. “Keeping the town safe from harm, I presume.”
“I’ve got an urgent message from the . . . from Brother Matthias,” Shannon said. “He said to give it to you personal like.”
“Then deliver it, brother, and leave me to my slumbers.”
“I think I should come inside, Brother Carstairs,” Shannon said. “It’s a secret message and the night has ears.”
“But there’s no one to hear it but me,” Carstairs said. The lit candle lamp in his hand guttered in the wind. “The whole town is asleep, as good Christian folk should be.”
The old man looked irritated. “If it’s about the tithe, can’t it wait until morning?”
Shannon shook his head. “Sorry, Brother Carstairs, but I was ordered to deliver the message tonight.”
Carstairs sighed. “Oh, very well then, come in, but make it quick.”
“So quick you’ll hardly notice,” Shannon said.
He showed his teeth in a grin.
Candlelight rippled across the ceiling and glistened on flyspecked spider webs as the old man led the way into his study. The house smelled musty, old, like damp earth.
Carstairs laid the lamp on a table and turned.
His eyes widened, first in surprise, then in horror.
Shannon stretched a rope taut between his huge, hairy hands. He grinned like a hyena at a kill.
“What are you doing?” Carstairs said, his voice quivering in his throat.
“Killing you, you old coot, like the boss told me to. You’ve lived too long, old man.”
Temple Carstairs was game, and he was spry.
He made a dash for an open rolltop desk and the Remington derringer stuck into a letter slot.
He never made it.
As fast as a striking cougar, Shannon growled and then looped the rope around the old man’s neck.
Then he had fun.
Giggling like a teenage girl at her first cotillion, Shannon tightened the rope and Carstairs made gagging sounds as the rough hemp dug deep. His eyes popped and his lips peeled back in a grotesque grimace.
Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1 Page 6
