Then he played his hole card.
“D’ye see yonder ridge?” Wolfden said.
He pointed to the ridge where he’d earlier held up the decapitated head for Cobb to see.
“The surrey must be taken there and remain in full view of the town until I smell out every witch and warlock among ye. Only then can the money be returned to the bank in safety.”
Wolfden allowed to himself that there was some convoluted logic in what he said. But now would the good citizens of Holy Rood buy it?
To his surprise, Cobb readily agreed. Too readily.
“That’s as good a plan as any,” he said. “But a couple of my brothers will stay on guard.”
“As will I,” Wolfden said. “I plan to stay on the ridge tonight, where I can pray in peace and have a full view of the town. I will keep good watch for the creatures of darkness who flit through the gloom like phantoms.”
It seemed to Wolfden that most of the townsfolk were really worried about the safety of their money, because they enthusiastically agreed to his plan.
But their bloodlust was still in evidence.
“When will the burnings be, Mr. Starlight?” the pretty woman said. Her eyes were of different colors; one brown, the other green, and she had a mole on her left cheekbone that looked like a speck of mud.
“When the smelling out is done and the evil ones are found,” Wolfden said. “Aye, pile the faggots high, because ye will need them. There will be much burning to be done.”
To Wolfden’s disgust this drew scattered cheers from the crowd and the pretty woman smiled, white teeth gleaming.
The good citizens of the Salem2 of the West were again baying for blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The rabbits, a less than satisfying meal, were eaten and the hot afternoon had begun its slow shade into evening when the Missouri mule walked into camp, a saddle hanging under its belly.
Hamp Sedley grabbed the animal’s trailing reins and patted its neck. “Where did you come from, huh?” he said.
“I’d say the road,” Shawn said. “She smelled our fire, I guess.”
“Must’ve thrown its rider,” Sedley said.
Shawn nodded. “I’ll go take a look.”
Sedley had stripped the mule of its saddle. “Want me to saddle your horse, O’Brien?” he said.
“No. I’ll take the mule.”
“Your funeral,” Sedley said. “She’s got a mean eye.”
“So do I,” Shawn said.
He climbed onto the back of the mule that stood placidly enough, just as Sally Bailey returned from bathing at the creek.
The top buttons of her dress were undone, revealing an expanse of creamy skin and the swell of the top of her breasts. Her hair was damp and hung over her shoulders in tendrils of yellow curl.
The girl looked at the mule, then Shawn. “What did I miss?” she said.
“Jenny just wandered into camp,” Shawn said. “I’m going to look for her rider.”
“Be careful, Shawn,” Sally said. “It would be just like that Hank Cobb person to set a trap.”
Shawn nodded. “I’ll remember that.”
He rode out of the trees and down the incline to the wagon road.
After scouting around he found the mule’s tracks in the hard-packed earth, coming from the south. Around Shawn rawboned ridges thrust themselves from the scrub flat, their furrows and crevasses filled with dark blue shadow.
Shawn pushed the mule south. In front of him a dust devil danced, and in the distance, the land, not yet cooling, still shimmered.
Thus it was that the man who walked the trail ahead of Shawn at first appeared tall and elongated, like a Gothic saint. But then, as he stepped closer out of the dancing heat waves, he settled down to his normal size, and that was small indeed.
Shawn drew rein and watched the man come.
He was a little fellow, wearing a brown-checked, high-button suit and a bowler hat of the same color. A celluloid collar with a dark red tie completed his unlikely appearance. He carried a carpetbag and used a cane to assist his left leg that had a definite limp.
When the man was within speaking distance, Shawn said, “Howdy.”
The small man stopped, wiped off his sweaty face with a handkerchief, and then said, “Found my mule, I see.”
“She found me. Walked into my camp.”
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“The confounded animal got spooked by something in the brush about two miles back and took off.” He looked down at his feet. “Elastic-sided boots were never made for walking.”
Shawn smiled. “No boots are made for walking. Name’s Shawn O’Brien.”
“Fordham J. Platt at your service. Most folks just call me Ford, when they call me anything.” Then, as though he felt it necessary, he added, “I came up from Silver Reef.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Shawn said.
Platt was silent for a few moments, then said, “The cast of your features reminds me of a friend of mine. Would you be related to Jacob O’Brien from down in the Glorieta Mesa country of the New Mexico Territory?”
“I would. He’s my brother.” Then the shock set in and Shawn said, “You’re a friend of Jake’s?”
“Does that surprise you?” Platt said. “I mean, apart from meeting your brother’s friend in the middle of a wilderness.”
“Big country, few people, I guess,” Shawn said. He smiled, taking the sting out of what he was about to say next. “You just don’t seem the type to be a friend of Jake’s. He’s a mighty rough-natured man who lives by his gun.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Mr. O’Brien,” Platt said. “I mean, who could tell by looking at Jacob that he’s an accomplished pianist? I consider his interpretation of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major to border on sublime, like a meteorite through the soul.”
“You ever see him shoot?” Shawn said.
“Again sublime, Mr. O’Brien?” Platt smiled.
“That’s the word for it, all right,” Shawn said. He swung off the mule and extended his hand. “Any friend of Jake’s is a friend of mine.”
“And me likewise. Any brother of Jacob’s . . . et cetera . . . et cetera.”
“Where are you headed, Ford?” Shawn said.
“A town called Holy Rood, to the north of here,” Platt said.
Shawn was taken aback and before he could stop himself, he said, “Don’t go there!”
“I must, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“I was hired by Wells Fargo to investigate the disappearance of a stage, its driver and four passengers.”
Platt spread his hands apologetically, including the one holding the cane.
“Wells Fargo contacted the authorities, of course. But they were told that the loss of a stage was sheer carelessness and hardly a matter for the army, the only authority in these parts.”
“The army is stretched thin,” Shawn said. “It isn’t going to spare men to look for a stage.”
“Ah, yes, so Wells Fargo was informed. And that’s why they hired me.”
“Are you a detective, Ford?” Shawn asked.
“Of sorts. I dabble in many things. I got my start in life in the train-robbing profession. Then one time up in Kansas it all went bad. Held up a train and all I had to show for my efforts was a bunch of bananas, a round of Double Gloucester cheese and eleven dollars and six cents.”
“Too bad,” Shawn said.
“It was even worse than that. The train was passing through buffalo country and it seemed that every ranny on board had a sporting rifle with him. I ended up with about a hundred fellers taking pots at me as I lit a shuck out of there. Lost a two-hundred-dollar horse and chunk out of my leg.”
Platt raised his cane. “As you can see.”
“Train robbing can be a rewarding but dangerous profession,” Shawn said. “Or so I was told.”
“Indeed, it can. But after that disaster I mentioned, I chose a safe
r line of work as a clerk in an assay office in Silver City. That didn’t work out, so I became a lawman down Texas way, then a range detective and now . . . well, you see me.”
“I have news for you, Ford,” Shawn said. “I’m one of your missing passengers.”
Now it was Platt’s turn to be surprised. “You don’t say?”
“I do say. I think you should come back to camp. You’ll meet two more of my fellow travelers there, and we’ve got a tale to tell.”
“I imagine you do,” Platt said. He glanced at the sky. “Be dark soon. I might as well open my investigation here.” Then, remembering his aching feet, “Not far I hope.”
“Our camp is close, such as it is,” Shawn said. “You can ride the mule if you like.”
“The thought of sitting on the bony back of that vile animal fills me with dread,” Platt said. “I’ll walk.”
Shawn smiled. “You should get yourself another horse.”
“One’s quite as bad as the other,” Platt said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After Ford Platt drew himself up to his full five-foot-four, bowed and kissed Sally’s hand, she smiled and declared him, “A most gallant gentleman.”
And, indeed, the others considered the little man an affable companion, especially when he produced a bottle of Old Crow from his bag and shared it around.
As darkness fell, Platt listened intently as Shawn told the story of their dramatic arrival in Holy Rood and what had transpired since.
When Shawn was done talking, Platt said, “And you hope Jasper Wolfden, the actor, will convince Hank Cobb and the townspeople that he’s a witch-finder? How deliciously droll.”
“I want to keep Cobb in town for a couple of days until I can figure a way to deal with him,” Shawn said. He hesitated, then said, “And take back the town.”
“From what you’ve told me, is Holy Rood worth saving?” Platt said.
“Sedley asked me that, and the answer is I don’t know,” Shawn said. “There must be some decent people living there, but I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for the cowboy I told you about, him and others.”
Platt said, “You may have to destroy Holy Rood to save it.”
“If that proves to be the case, then that’s what I’ll do,” Shawn said.
The little man sat thinking for a while, and then said, “I believe Hank Cobb suddenly realizes that he’s in over his head. He’ll want to pull stakes and leave with all he can. Is there a bank in town?”
“Yes, there is,” Shawn said.
Platt nodded. “If he cleans it out, Holy Rood will never recover.”
The little man brooded in silence for a while, and then said, “I’m here because I’m being paid. Miss Sally, Sedley, what’s your stake in this?” He looked at Shawn. “And what about you? You said that your pa is the richest man in the New Mexico Territory. Why don’t you go home and court the beautiful Santa Fe señoritas, or whatever it is the sons of wealthy ranchers do?”
“Not until I see this business through,” Shawn said.
“Mr. O’Brien, you puzzle me. Why are you even here, in this . . . desert?” Platt said.
“Since my wife died, I’ve been drifting, walking a mental gangplank afraid to fall off,” Shawn said. “I guess a rogue wave washed me this way.”
Hamp Sedley stepped into the silence that followed. “For me it’s payback,” he said. “I was badly handled by Cobb and I take that from no man.”
“And you, Miss Sally?” Platt said.
“I want Holy Rood wiped off the map, as though it never existed,” the girl said. “I’ll stay to see it done.”
Sally’s long hair swung on her shoulders and there was a strange glow in her eyes that could not be explained by the firelight or the whiskey.
Shawn noted that glow and wondered at it.
“And I can’t get any of you to change your mind, huh?” Platt said.
“That’s how it stacks up,” Shawn said.
“Then let me say this,” Platt said. “If all what you’ve told me is true, and I’ve no reason to believe that it’s not, there could be gunplay involved. If that becomes the case, I want you to step aside and leave the shooting to me.”
Platt had mild brown eyes and the kind of delicate features that wouldn’t be out of place on a particularly devout nun.
“Gunfighting is not for the faint of heart,” he said. “It is dangerous, violent, bloody and an almighty sudden affair. I will tell this same thing to your actor friend when I see him. I’m afraid that in real life, dead men don’t get up and go for cake and ice cream when the curtain falls.”
Shawn had it in mind to say, “Mister, you couldn’t shade me on your best day,” but was searching for a less belligerent way to express it when something happened that forever changed his opinion of Ford Platt.
It began innocently enough.
Hamp Sedley had stepped into the trees and returned with an armful of firewood. He apparently considered one of the branches too long for his purpose and snapped it across his knee.
This happened behind Platt’s back.
The breaking wood cracked loud.
And Platt moved.
In one smooth motion, as controlled as an athlete, he drew a .36 caliber Remington police revolver from under his coat, turned, threw himself on his belly and laid the sights on Sedley.
“No!” Shawn yelled.
Sedley threw up his arms, his face frozen.
“Don’t shoot!” he said.
Several slow seconds ticked past. Then Platt rose to his feet, the Remington dangling at his side.
“Don’t . . . ever . . . do . . . that . . . again,” he said to Sedley.
“It sure ain’t likely,” Sedley said. “I thought I was done for.”
“Mighty touchy, aren’t you, Ford?” Shawn said.
“Live longer that way,” Platt said.
He slid the revolver into its shoulder holster, then looked around him.
“Sorry,” he said. Something akin to regret flickered in his face, then died. “I didn’t mean to alarm you all.”
“Well, mister, you sure as hell alarmed me,” Sedley said. He picked up his wood. “Where the hell is the bottle?”
As though to make up for the trouble he’d caused, Platt passed the whiskey to Sedley and smiled. “Well, it could’ve been worse, I suppose.”
“That crossed my mind,” Sedley said.
Then he took a swig, his hand holding the bottle trembling slightly.
Platt sat down again, his back against a tree. He saw Shawn watching him, his eyes speculative, and said, “I’ve killed seven men in my life, all in honest fights.”
The little man shrugged, an oddly expressive gesture. “It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but now you know.”
Shawn made no comment. It was not the time for idle boast.
“Where do we go from here?” he said.
Platt stared at the rising moon that had impaled itself on top of a pine. Far off in the darkness a hunting wolf pack howled and an alarmed owl asked its question of the night.
Finally, he said, “Tomorrow morning I’ll ride into Holy Rood and take a room at the hotel. If things are as you told me they are, I’ll start to take down Cobb and his boys one by one.”
“There’s a lot of them,” Shawn said.
“Then I’ll be sneaky.”
“Find a way to get in touch with Jasper Wolfden,” Shawn said. “He’s smart and he’s good with a gun.”
Platt nodded. “Just as you say.”
He reached into his coat and Shawn stiffened, his hand dropping to his holstered Colt.
Platt smiled. “Cigars. I feel like a smoke.” But his hand stayed where it was.
Now it was Shawn’s turn to smile. “You have fast hands, Ford. Slow down the one inside your coat considerable.”
The little man’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
“Could it be that I’ve underestimated you, Mr. O’Brien?”
“A little. I’m faster than Jake.”
“Ah, yes, but no matter the odds, Jacob will stand,” Platt said.
“And so will I.”
“All right then, watch closely, Mr. O’Brien. I’ll be like molasses leaking from a barrel.”
Platt’s right hand moved out from under his coat with exaggerated slowness. It was holding a silver cigar case.
Sally laughed and clapped her hands. “Huzzah for the man from New Mexico!”
“He took my measure, didn’t he, Miss Sally?” Platt said. His grin was wide and good-humored as he extended the case. “Seems like you just won a cigar, Mr. O’Brien.”
But as Shawn reached out to take the cigar case, Platt let it drop and extended his fingers. A Remington derringer suddenly appeared in his fist.
“This is what I meant by being sneaky,” he said.
Shawn was caught flat-footed. The twin muzzles of the belly gun looked like an hourglass, telling him his time was running out.
But Platt shoved the derringer back into his sleeve, then rolled it up to reveal a spring-loaded contraption strapped to his forearm.
“A gunsmith in Dallas made this up for me,” he said. “It’s called a sleeve holster and he said it might come in handy one day.”
“Hell, you ever get the drop on somebody with that rig?” Sedley said.
“Nope. Only Mr. O’Brien here,” Platt said.
Shawn grinned. “There’s one born every minute, huh?”
“It was only a conjurer’s parlor trick,” Platt said. “And you fell for it.”
“And that’s why I’m glad you’re on our side,” Shawn said.
Platt stretched his arms and yawned.
“Well, I think I’ll turn in,” he said. “Busy day tomorrow.”
Shawn rose to his feet.
“Not me,” he said. “It’s time to start shaking up Hank Cobb.”
“I’m not catching your drift,” Platt said.
“Me neither,” Sedley said.
“I promised Jasper Wolfden I’d start to stir things up in Holy Rood and keep Cobb on edge. If I can scare him badly enough, he’ll make mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?” Sedley said.
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