Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1

by W. , Johnstone, William

  In their blind obedience to an evil man and his wicked philosophy, they’d reaped what they’d sowed and there was an end to it.

  Shawn and Sedley met up with Ford Platt and they made camp apart from the others.

  They agreed that they’d pull out at first light and head for Silver Reef and a showdown with Hank Cobb.

  “If it comes down to it, O’Brien, can you shade him?” Sedley asked. “Cobb is good with a gun.”

  Shawn smiled. “If it comes down to it, I’ll learn the answer to that question pretty damn quick.”

  “I hope you’re alive to let us know,” Sedley said. He looked at Platt. “Cat got your tongue?”

  The little man shook his head, as though clearing his thoughts.

  “Ruby’s death was hard to take,” he said. “Sally’s was even harder. She was young and beautiful and I liked her a lot.”

  “Her mother went crazy,” Sedley said. “Maybe it ran in the family.”

  “Maybe so,” Platt said. “But I didn’t realize how much she hated the town. If I’d known that maybe I could have saved her.”

  “She was a witch, and Holy Rood burned witches,” Sedley said. His eyes lifted to the sky where the stars were out. “She wanted to get even, I guess.”

  Platt said, “Shawn, can you make any sense out of it?”

  “Sally’s death? No, I can’t. I can’t make any sense out of Ruby’s death either or Jasper’s or Sammy’s. I do know that the man who is ultimately responsible for it all, including what just befell Holy Rood, is Hank Cobb.”

  Shawn poured coffee into a tin cup. “That’s why I aim to kill him.”

  He started to build a cigarette, then stopped as a woman’s voice, thin, reedy, trembling with emotion, rose from the darkness into the night air. . . .

  “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.

  The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.

  When other comforts fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.”

  One by one, other voices, male and female, took up the hymn. . . .

  “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.

  Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away.

  Change and decay in all around I see.

  Oh thou who changest not, abide with me.”

  Shawn and the others sat silent as the singing rose in volume and intensity as it reached the last verse.

  “Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes.

  Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

  Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain

  shadows flee.

  In life, in death, O Lord abide with me.”

  Platt was the first to speak.

  “People survive,” he said. “Maybe they’ll change for the better and rebuild their town.”

  “They’ll never rebuild their town,” Shawn said. “But maybe they can rebuild their lives.”

  “You think there’s a chance for them, O’Brien?” Sedley said.

  “They’ve turned to their god,” Shawn said. “It’s a hopeful sign.”

  Platt nodded. “And let us hope so. Then maybe all the lives were not lost in vain.”

  Despite the mud and the water ticking from the trees, fires flickered in the refugee encampment.

  The darkness hid the smoke rising from their burned town, but sparks continued to rise into the night sky . . . like tiny, scarlet stars.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  When Shawn O’Brien rode into Silver Reef with Sedley and Platt, the town’s boom years were almost over.

  A hundred businesses still stretched out along its mile-long main street, and the town still boasted six saloons, nine grocery stores, eight dry goods stores, a bank, a Wells Fargo stage depot, a hospital, hotels and boardinghouses and five restaurants.

  But the silver mines were all but played out and the population had dropped to a thousand people, and dozens of miners were leaving every day.

  The signs of decay were everywhere and in a few years, when the last mine closed, Silver Reef would become a ghost town.

  The town marshal was a Texan by the name of John Payton. He was fast on the draw and shoot and he didn’t take any sass.

  Or so the bartender at the Silver Dollar saloon told Shawn and the others as they stood at the bar eating soda crackers and cheese and drinking beer from the local brewery that was still cool from the remaining winter ice.

  The bartender was an exquisite creature with glossy, pomaded hair and a waxed mustache. He wore a brocade vest and a large diamond stickpin glittered in his cravat. Like most mixologists of the time, he was a talking man.

  You boys looking for work?” he said, wiping the bar in front of Shawn with a yellow cloth. “If you are, you’d better ride on. The mines are closing and nobody’s hiring. Hell, just the other day I’d seven men apply for the job of swamper. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have had a single applicant.”

  The bartender smiled, revealing a shiny gold tooth.

  “I guess you boys are catching my drift, huh?”

  “We’re not looking for a job, we’re looking for a man,” Shawn said.

  The bartender was taken aback and his shoulders stiffened.

  “Here, you’re not the law are you?” he said. “Marshal Payton was once engaged in the bank-robbing profession, and he don’t take kindly to lawmen of any kind.”

  “We’re not the law,” Shawn said. He brushed a cracker crumb from his mustache. “We’re looking for a . . . friend of ours. Seems his ma is keeping poorly and wants him to home.”

  “We got folks passing through all the time—drovers, drummers and fancy women and the like. What does your friend look like?”

  “He’s easy to spot,” Shawn said. “He got shot in the shoulder a few days back.”

  The bartender’s eyebrows rose.

  “You sure you aren’t the law, mister?” he said.

  “I didn’t shoot him,” Shawn said. “And no, I’m not the law.”

  “It was an accident, like,” Sedley said.

  “Cleaning his gun,” Platt said. His face was solemn, as though he was the soul of integrity.

  “Well, I haven’t seen a gunshot man in town,” the bartender said. “Well, not recently. Used to see plenty back in the old days.”

  Then, his face brightened, as though he’d just remembered something.

  “Here, you know who’s in town? You’ll never guess in a million years.”

  The bartender stood back, grinning, waiting for an answer.

  “Well, we don’t have a million years, so tell,” Platt said.

  “Mink Morrow, as large as life and as ever was.”

  Shawn pretended surprise and mimed a rube’s jaw drop.

  “You mean the famous gunfighter?” he said.

  The bartender nodded. “Yup, as bold as brass. They say he’s killed more men than John Wesley or that Bill Bonney kid, and I believe it. Yes, sir, he’s a mean one all right and looks it, wears them dark glasses that take away a man’s eyes.”

  “But how is the Marshal Payton handling this?” Shawn said. “I don’t imagine he’s keen to see a man like Mink Morrow in his town.”

  “So long as Morrow keeps his nose clean in this town, Payton don’t much mind,” the bartender said. “When it comes to outlaws an’ sich, on account that a lot of them were his friends, he’s inclined to live and let live. If they’re just passing through, that is.”

  “And Morrow, is he just passing through?” Shawn said.

  “As far as I was told, he saw how things are in Silver Reef, with the mines closing an’ all, and said he plans to light a shuck for Texas. Said something about opening an eating house, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

  “Geez, I’d love to shake his hand,” Sedley said. “Wouldn’t you, O’Brien?”

  “I sure would,” Shawn said. “I’ve never met a real gunfighter in the flesh before.”

  The bartender grinned. “Well, you boys
are in luck. Morrow’s been hanging out at Elmer Brown’s Last Chance saloon at t’other side of town.” He glanced at the railroad clock on the wall. “It’s just past ten and Mink always eats breakfast about this time. Elmer sells the best sowbelly and eggs in Silver Reef.”

  “What a lark,” Shawn said, still playing the wide-eyed hayseed. Then to the others, “Let’s go meet him.”

  “You didn’t fool that bartender for one minute, Shawn,” Platt said.

  “What do you mean?” Shawn said, genuinely puzzled.

  “It’s mud-stained and getting a tad ragged, but you’re still wearing a forty-dollar English coat and no rube ever owned the gun rig you’ve got strapped around your waist,” Platt said.

  “So how did he peg me?” Shawn said.

  “A gun. Just like Morrow.”

  Shawn and the others led their mounts down the main street, rubbing shoulders with miners, cowboys in from the neighboring ranches, a few Chinese and the occasional woman.

  It was still early in the morning and the town’s sporting crowd, gamblers, whores, dance hall loungers and the like, wouldn’t surface until sundown.

  “He was real obliging,” Shawn said, as he led his horse around a loaded brewery dray and then a pile of dung in the street. “A talking man and disposed to be friendly.”

  “Sure, he was friendly,” Platt said. “Look around you, Shawn. This town has lost its snap. A gunfight between you and Morrow would liven things up and give a talking man something to talk about.”

  “I’ve got no problem with Morrow,” Shawn said. “But I reckon he knows where we can find Hank Cobb.”

  “Yeah, but will he tell you?”

  “Why not? He’s got no love for Cobb.”

  “Sedley and me will come with you,” Platt said.

  “Just let me handle Morrow alone,” Shawn said.

  “Then we’ll watch your back,” Platt said.

  “Damn right,” Sedley said.

  Shawn looped his mount to the hitching rail and smiled at Sedley.

  “Hamp, if it comes to shooting, let Ford handle it,” he said. “All of a sudden the Last Chance saloon could become a mighty dangerous place if you cut loose.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Sedley said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  A relic of Silver Reef’s booming past, the saloon’s door was a single sheet of frosted glass adorned with a bucolic scene of naked nymphs feeding bunches of grapes to stalwart silver miners with impressive beards.

  When Shawn opened the door, a brass bell jangled above his head, and every eye turned in his direction.

  There were a dozen patrons in the saloon, mostly business types drinking coffee and brandy in a blue haze of cigar smoke.

  The Last Chance was no frontier gin mill, but a dark-paneled men’s club with overstuffed chairs, polished tables, a stage at the rear and a long mahogany bar that at one time accommodated eight bartenders.

  The saloon looked tired and faded, like an aging belle, and there was dust on the crystal chandelier and in the corners of the windows, a sure sign of neglect.

  Mink Morrow sat with his back to the wall beside the stage, the crockery-littered table in front of him dominated by a silver coffeepot that, like the saloon, showed signs of tarnish.

  Armed men were not rare in Silver Reef, but Shawn’s height and handsome features attracted the attention of saloon patrons as he walked toward Morrow’s table and stopped, looking down at the man.

  “Howdy, Mink,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  The gunfighter said nothing, but with a nod of his head he indicated the chair opposite his.

  Then, “Coffee?” he said.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Shawn said.

  Morrow turned his head and called out to the man behind the bar, “Hey, Elmer, bring us a cup, will you?”

  The man gave Shawn a wary glance as he placed a white cup and saucer with blue pictures of Chinese people on the table.

  “I regret that I can’t offer you breakfast,” Morrow said.

  “I already ate,” Shawn said.

  After a few moments of silence, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses, he said, “You’re here about the money I took, huh?”

  Shawn shook his head. “No, Mink, that’s not why I’m here.”

  But for some reason Morrow didn’t want to let it go.

  “I won’t give it back,” he said.

  “There’s no one to give the money back to, Mink. Holy Rood burned to the ground and as far as I know, all the people are scattered to hell and gone.”

  Morrow poured coffee into Shawn’s cup with his left hand.

  Shawn saw that and knew what it implied.

  “I’m looking for Hank Cobb,” he said.

  “He’s around.”

  “He hasn’t braced you?”

  “Cobb is a man who doesn’t want to die. I saw him, just once in the street, and he ignored me.”

  “I figured he’d want his money back.”

  “I think he’s got something bigger in mind. He’d hooked up with a hard case that goes by the name of Simon Badeaux. Him I don’t know much about. But I’m told he has some kind of reputation as a man killer.”

  “Where is Cobb, Mink?”

  “Chinatown.” Morrow nodded to the south. “About a mile that way.”

  “Why there?” Shawn began to build a cigarette.

  “I don’t know, but here’s a clue: The Chinese don’t trust banks so there’s said to be a lot of silver money in Chinatown.”

  Morrow thumbed a match into flame and lit Shawn’s cigarette.

  “According to John Payton, ol’ Hank already established his bona fides by killing a man. Self-defense, he claimed.”

  “And Payton believed him?”

  “Had to. No jury of Silver Reef miners is going to convict a man for shooting a Chinese who helped undercut their wages.”

  Morrow lifted his head and his glasses silvered in the morning sunlight that streamed through a window.

  He sat forward in his chair. “Are those your compadres I see with you, O’Brien?”

  Shawn smiled. “Yeah, they’re watching my back.”

  “I wouldn’t shoot you in the back, or the front, you being brother to Jake, an’ all.”

  “That’s mighty white of you, Mink.”

  “I’m pulling out tomorrow, heading for Texas.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “I sure thought you’d come here for the money.”

  “Like I told you, I wouldn’t know who to give it to.”

  Morrow smiled. “Give it to Hank Cobb, maybe.”

  “I’ll pay him off all right, but in lead, not gold.”

  “He’s fast, O’Brien. As fast as they come. Step real careful.”

  “As fast as you?”

  “I don’t know. I no longer see too good anymore if the light is bright.” Morrow smiled faintly. “Hell, I don’t see too good if the light ain’t bright. You understand? A doctor told me I’m going to be blind in a year, maybe less.” He shook his head. “Hell of a thing to tell a man.”

  “It is, and I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Well, that’s why I need the money I took from Holy Rood. I plan to open a restaurant and tell big windies to the customers about my gunfighting days.”

  “I wish you well, Mink.”

  Shawn drained his coffee cup and looked up when Morrow spoke again.

  “Maybe Hank isn’t as fast as you, O’Brien, I don’t know. But he’s sneaky. If he throws down his gun and tells you he’s out of it, you can bet your bottom dollar he has a hide-out on him somewhere.”

  Shawn nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “When I saw him, he had his left arm in a sling,” Morrow said. “That’s where he’ll stash a sneaky gun.”

  “Thanks for the advice and the coffee, Mink,” Shawn said.

  He rose to his feet.

  “Wait,” Morrow said.

  Suddenly, his Colt was in his hand, and Shawn, caught fla
tfooted, could only stand and marvel at the speed of the man’s draw.

  Morrow grinned, reversed the revolver in his hand, and held it out to Shawn.

  “Take this,” he said. “It might give you an edge.”

  Shawn was about to refuse, but Morrow held up a silencing hand.

  “This here Colt shoots true to the point of aim and the trigger breaks like a glass rod,” he said. “There’s none better in the Utah Territory or anywhere else.”

  The revolver was a plain blue .45 colt with a hard rubber handle, the barrel cut back to five inches.

  When Shawn took it in his hand the balance of the revolver was superb, and when he tested the action, it cycled as smooth as polished ivory.

  “I can’t take your gun, Mink,” he said.

  “Yes, you can. I’ve got no further use for it. No matter how fine the weapon, it isn’t much use to a blind man.”

  Shawn hesitated and Morrow said, “Take the Colt, O’Brien.”

  After a few moments, Shawn relented. He shoved the revolver into his waistband and said, “I’m beholden to you, Mink.”

  “Empty chamber under the hammer, remember,” Morrow said. He waved a hand. “I think you should go now.”

  Morrow looked weary, used up; a man walking the ragged edge of exhaustion or perhaps despair.

  “Good luck, O’Brien,” Morrow said. “Next time you see Jake, tell him I asked after him.”

  “I surely will,” Shawn said.

  Morrow looked pained for a moment. Then, as though he had to force out the words, he said, “I got to say it straight out, O’Brien, but I’d feel a lot better about things if it was Jake and not you going after Hank Cobb.”

  Shawn smiled. “Me too, Mink. Me too.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  After Shawn O’Brien recounted his conversation with Morrow, Ford Platt said, “So how do we play it?”

  “That’s easy to answer,” Shawn said. “We head for Chinatown and open the ball.”

  He paused with a foot in the stirrup and said, “Ford, you ever heard of this Simon Badeaux feller?”

  Platt shook his head.