A Quiet, Little Town

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Me too,” Red said. “But then I don’t know much about holy monks and their finances.”

  “Miss Addington has also booked a room here,” Buttons said. “I don’t know where Archibald is. He scampered down and vanished as soon as I stopped the stage.”

  The body of the dead woman had been carried into the foyer by Buttons and Red and covered with a sheet awaiting the undertaker. But the hotel manager, a small, harried-looking man named Watson, who was probably a nail-biter, was not entirely happy with the arrangement and had already sent a bellboy running for the sheriff.

  “I have to think of my guests,” Watson told Buttons. “A dead woman in the foyer is bad for business. Who gave you permission to dump her there?”

  Now two things in that speech rubbed Buttons the wrong way. One was that, depressed as he was, the manager’s whining grated on his ears. The second was the man’s use of the word “dump.” The woman was not dumped in the foyer, she was laid on the ground with all the respect and gentleness he and Red could muster. The upshot of all this was that Buttons drew his Remington, thumbed back the hammer, placed the muzzle between Watson’s eyes, and said, “Are you trying to make trouble for me?”

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the business end of a gun barrel shoved into a man’s mug will give him pause for thought . . . and Watson did pause . . . and then said in a rush, “No sir. No, not at all. Not me.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Buttons said. He lifted the big revolver from Watson’s face, lowered the hammer, and holstered the gun. “I can’t abide a man who goes out of his way to cause vexing fuss and bother,” he said.

  Watson, fright ashen on his face, backed away a few steps and then turned and ran into the hotel and took refuge behind his front desk.

  “A bit testy this evening, ain’t we?” Red said.

  “Heck, I didn’t really plan on shooting him,” Buttons said.

  “You could’ve fooled me,” Red said.

  Buttons shrugged. “You’re right, Red, maybe I would’ve plugged him if’n he’d given me sass and backtalk.”

  “Well, thank God we’ll never know,” Red said. “And just in time. Here comes the undertaker, and he’s bringing the law with him.”

  “Ritter!” Buttons said. “He doesn’t cotton to us. Remember the last time we were here with Hannah Huckabee?”

  “I remember,” Red said. “How could I forget.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The undertaker, a little hopping crow of a man in a clawhammer broadcloth coat, stepped onto the shadowed porch lit only by the flickering oil lamps on each side of the inn door. With him was young Sheriff Herman Ritter . . . brown eyes, brown hair, and a serious, almost solemn demeanor. He wore a silver star on the front of his dark blue shirt, and a Colt revolver with an ivory handle was holstered at his waist.

  “Mr. Muldoon,” Ritter said. “What an unpleasant surprise.”

  Buttons said. “No matter what the hotel manager tells you, I wasn’t really aiming to plug him. I was only funning . . . a right knee-slapper.”

  A confused looked flitted across Ritter’s young face. “According to the messenger boy I spoke with, that was not the nature of Mr. Watson’s complaint.”

  “He’s a complaining kind of man,” Buttons said.

  “His complaint is that you dropped a woman’s dead body in his foyer,” Ritter said.

  “We laid a murdered woman in his foyer,” Buttons said. “We found her twenty miles north of here in a dry wash. She died shortly after my shotgun guard here discovered her.”

  “And you are?” Ritter said. “No, wait, I remember you . . . Red Ryan, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, we met about a year ago,” Red said. “The time Miss Hannah Huckabee . . .”

  “A fare-paying passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company,” Buttons interrupted.

  “ . . . shot the gunman Dave Winter,” Red said.

  “Yes, in the Munich Keller beer hall,” Ritter said.

  “The very same,” Red said.

  “Miss Huckabee is an adventuress, and at the time I was not impressed with her respectability, nor with yours, Herr Ryan and Herr Muldoon,” Ritter said. “I’m still not.”

  Right there and then, an irritated Red decided to tattoo the lawman with the facts. “The dead woman was the widow of a deputy sheriff who was gunned down in Austin about a week ago. She was with child, and the killer kidnapped her for his own pleasure. The killer’s name is Donny Bryson and we think he’s still in this area.”

  Ritter’s eyes widened. “Donny Bryson? Here in Fredericksburg?”

  “Donny Bryson,” Buttons said. “And he might be here or he could be anywhere.”

  “Oh, my God,” Ritter said.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Get the good Lord on your side, Sheriff,” Buttons said. “I think you’re gonna need him.”

  A profound silence fell on the group into which the undertaker dropped words that fell like rocks onto a tin roof. “May I take a look at the dear departed now?”

  Ritter nodded. “Yes, go right ahead. I’ll join you.”

  A sweep of the undertaker’s hand took in both Buttons and Red. “I take it that you gentlemen are the chief mourners?” He smiled, revealing teeth as large and yellow as old piano keys. “Oh, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Benjamin Bone, but you can call me Benny Bone. Everyone else does. I want us to be friends.”

  Buttons said, “Benny, we’re no kind of mourners, and we don’t want to be your friend. As I told the sheriff, we found the lady, and then she died.” Then, “Kind of how our luck’s been running.”

  “Ah, most unfortunate,” Bone said. “Now, Sheriff, shall we take a look at the deceased? Burial fee at my usual rates, I trust?”

  Ritter shook his head. “She’s not the city’s responsibility. The Patterson stage found the women, and the company should meet the cost of her interment.”

  “Sheriff, she’s a murder victim,” Red Ryan said. “And you’re the law. It’s time for you to hitch up your gunbelt and go get dirty.”

  “No, it’s the Gillespie county sheriff’s responsibility,” Ritter said. “My authority ends at the city limits.”

  “So where’s the county sheriff at?” Buttons said.

  “Unfortunately, he developed a heart problem and is on extended leave,” Ritter said. “He’s convalescing with his wife’s family in Dallas.”

  “Doesn’t he have a deputy?” Buttons said.

  “He did, but the man left to go gold prospecting, and the position hasn’t yet been filled,” Ritter said. “After all, the county sheriff left for Dallas only six weeks ago.”

  Augusta Addington, now wearing a white cotton day dress with long sleeves, had been standing at a distance listening to this conversation. Now, frowning, she marched to Ritter and confronted him. “What do you call yourself?” she demanded.

  “I’m Sheriff Herman Ritter.” The man seemed taken aback by Augusta’s fierceness.

  “I know what your name is, I meant, do you call yourself a lawman?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Then you’re living under false pretenses,” Augusta said. “There’s a dead woman lying in the hotel was who beaten and raped to death, her killer is still at large, and all you can talk about is who should bury her.”

  “But, I . . .”

  “But . . . but . . . but . . . no buts,” Augusta said. “Do your job, Sheriff. And if you can’t do it, bring in lawmen who can, the Texas Rangers or the marshal from Austin. After all, the dead woman is one of his own.” Augusta folded her arms, her beautiful eyes blazing. “Well,” she said, “I’m waiting.”

  “Are you any kin to a woman by the name of Hannah Huckabee?” Ritter said, appearing to shrink.

  “No, I am not. And I’m still waiting for your decision. Will you handle this matter or not?”

  “Who are you, my liebe Frau?” Ritter said.

  “I am Augusta Addington of the Philadelphia and New Orleans Addingtons, and I am
not without influence. I am also a concerned citizen of these United States, and I demand action. Instanter!”

  “Then I’ll take a look at the body and we’ll go from there,” Ritter said.

  “Be prepared, lawman,” Buttons said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “Danke, mein Herr, but I’ll be the judge of that,” Ritter said.

  * * *

  “Oh, mein Gott! Oh, mein Gott!”

  Sheriff Herman Ritter, turned away from the ravaged body, his face ashen. “What in God’s name did he do? How could he . . .”

  “Do you want me to explain it to you?” Augusta Addington said.

  “No, I don’t want you to explain it to me,” Ritter said. “I saw for myself what happened to her.”

  To Augusta, Ritter looked too young to be a town sheriff or any other kind of lawman, and very vulnerable. “Sheriff, wire Austin and tell them what happened and ask them to send a lawman here,” she said. “And the dead woman may have loved ones who would wish to take her body home.”

  “By Texas law, a body must be buried, embalmed, or placed in a sealed coffin within twenty-four hours, and the woman has already been dead for most of that time,” Ritter said. “Austin is eighty miles away, and a relative would never get here in time. Besides, whoever it was would need to identify the body. Do you want a mother, a father, a sister, or a brother to go through that? She’s so badly beaten, identification might be impossible.”

  “Alas, there’s only so much repairing I can do,” Benny Bone said. “As you say, Sheriff Ritter, identifying the deceased could be a most harrowing ordeal for the bereaved.”

  The young lawman’s face hardened, signaling that he’d made a decision. “Mr. Bone, place the woman in a plain pine coffin. We’ll bury her tomorrow morning in Der Stadt Friedhof.”

  “What the heck is that?” Buttons said.

  “The City Cemetery,” Benny Bone said. “It’s a nice place. She’ll be happy there.”

  “If the woman has kinfolk who want to take her to Austin, they can exhume the body,” Ritter said.

  “And what about Donny Bryson?” Augusta said.

  “As I told you, out of my jurisdiction,” Ritter said. “But I’m sure he’s long gone from Gillespie County.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Food and a soft bed for the night, preferably with a plump woman.

  Donny Bryson figured his needs were few, and the isolated farmhouse a few miles east of Fredericksburg might just provide them.

  He sat his horse in a patch of wild oak and studied the cabin. He was a tall, round-shouldered man in his early thirties with a great beak of a nose and the golden, predatory eyes of a hawk. He was dressed all in black: black shirt, black pants tucked into black boots, a black hat, black gunbelt with two holstered, black-handled Colts. And a black heart. A cautious, organized psychopath, Donny Bryson killed men for challenging him or simply getting in his way. But women were a different matter. He enjoyed using, abusing, and then murdering the female sex. When he was younger, his victims had been mostly whores and older woman. He’d gain their trust and then rape and torture them. As he grew older, Donny branched out, expanding the field of his endeavors to include respectable matrons he kidnapped, married women in isolated farms and ranches, and their daughters and any other women from runaway wives to stagecoach and train passengers that crossed his path. And all the time, the tally of men he killed grew, and Donny became a named man, acknowledged to be one of the West’s premier shootists.

  In the words of Texas Ranger and United States Marshal John Barclay Armstrong, “Donny Bryson was fast on the draw and shoot, but he was an evil off-scouring of society, filth so vile his very shadow polluted the earth he walked on.”

  Vicious beyond reason, a man without a conscience, Donny was a creature of darkness, and he melted into the night, man and murk becoming one.

  The cabin didn’t look like much, a rickety structure held together with baling wire and twine. The roof swayed badly, and the whole structure leaned to one side. There was no corral or any other building to be seen. Donny’s hopes fell. There was little chance a desirable woman would live in such a place . . . or any kind of woman.

  A soft bed for the night? Maybe.

  There was only one window to the front of the shack, and it was roughly boarded over, but the orange glow of an oil lamp showed between the gaps of the timbers, and smoke rose straight as a string from the iron chimney, so there was somebody to home. Donny kneed his horse forward and moved like a wraith toward the cabin.

  At that time in the West it was customary to announce oneself when approaching a stranger’s dwelling. For politeness’s sake, Donny should have sat his horse and called out, “Hello, the cabin!” But then, he was not a polite man. His method of entry was simple . . . kick the door in.

  It took two swift boots to the door before it splintered free of its rawhide hinges and crashed flat inside. Then things happened very quickly. The old man standing at the stove inside had time to register a look of horror before he turned and made a play for the holstered old Walker Colt hanging in its holster from a nail in the far wall.

  Donny knew he had to act fast . . . the eggs and bacon cooking in the frypan might burn. For the sake of speed, he shot the man in the back of his gray head and before he hit the ground, Donny grabbed the pan from the heat of the stove. Hallelujah! The bacon was sputtering and the edges of the egg whites were crispy black, but tonight’s supper was safe.

  Donny scouted around, found a spoon, and stepped outside with the frypan, away from the sweat and pipe smoke stench of the cabin’s interior. He ate quickly, not wanting the eggs to get cold. To his surprise the food was good, pepper and salt, everything seasoned and nicely fried, the bacon just right. He turned his head and said, “You done good, old man.”

  But the dead have no voice, and there was no answer.

  Donny finished eating, tossed the spoon and pan away, went back in the shack, and stepped over the sprawled body. There was a smelly, unmade bunk, a fireplace with an ashy, cold log and on the mantel a tintype of a scantily clad woman in a silver frame. She’d written on the picture, but the ink had faded, and all Donny could make out was, M . . . favori . . . wboy . . . Ellswor . . . 872 . . . Rox . . .

  Donny took the tintype from the frame and stuck it in his pants pocket. A further search of the cabin turned up twenty-seven dollars in a rusty peach can, a nickel railroad watch, a Barlow folding knife, coffee, a small poke of sugar, and a plug of Star of Virginia chewing tobacco. Donny took it all and kicked the dead man in the ribs on his way out. “Not much to show for a life, you old skinflint,” he said.

  * * *

  That night Donny Bryson spread his blankets under the stars, his newly acquired watch telling him the time was ten-thirty. No soft bed, no soft woman, but all in all it had been a successful evening. He’d made a profit of twenty-seven dollars, ate a good meal, and that made a man slumber peacefully o’ nights. A night bird called in the distance, and insects made their small sound in the brush as he closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon occupied two small, cramped rooms at the rear of the Alpenrose Inn that were reserved for stage drivers and shotgun messengers.

  About the time Donny Bryson settled down for the night, Red Ryan awakened with a tap-tap-tap at his door. Thinking it might be another Buttons crisis, he rose, put on his hat, and opened the door, standing there in his long-handled underwear.

  “Did I waken you?” Augusta Addington said. A slight smile tugged at her lips. She was fully dressed and held a brown manila envelope in her hand.

  Red stammered his confusion and embarrassment. “Yes, I mean, no. I mean . . . let me get decent.”

  “You’re decent enough,” Augusta said. She elbowed Red aside and stepped into the room. “Exciting, huh?” she said as her smile grew.

  “Of course, it’s exciting. Do you always come to a man’s room at this time of night looking as pr
etty as a field of bluebonnets?” Red said. He pulled the patchwork quilt from his cot and held it around him.

  “No, not always,” Augusta said. “Just when I need something.”

  Red opened his mouth and tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. That night he thought the woman somewhat beyond beautiful, her face as delicate as bone china, dark eye makeup, full lips glossy pink, eminently kissable. Large breasts swelled against the thin stuff of her dress, and she smelled like . . . Red tried for a way to describe it . . . like a woman who’d just risen from a bed of musky wildflowers.

  “What . . .” he swallowed hard . . . “do you need?”

  “Your help,” Augusta said.

  “What . . . what kind of help?” Red said.

  “The kind of help that saves lives,” Augusta said. She read the disappointment on Red’s face. “Not quite what you were expecting?”

  “A woman shoves her way into a man’s bedroom at night, what should he expect?” Red said.

  “If he was a gentleman, he might expect that being a damsel in distress was her only reason.”

  “Like you?”

  “Like me.”

  Red took a deep breath and said, “There’s a chair. Why don’t you sit and tell me what this is all about? Then I can simmer down and get back to bed.”

  Augusta sat and for a moment played with the springy coil of hair that had fallen over her forehead. Then, she dropped her hand and said, “I’m not a French and English tutor.”

  “And I’m not surprised to hear that. Go on.”

  “But I am a Pinkerton agent.”

  “You mean a detective, like they have in the dime novels?”

  “Yes. I work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”

  “Huh. Now I am surprised.”

  “I was hired by Mr. Allan Pinkerton himself, and it was he who gave me this letter.” Augusta opened the manila envelope and produced a single sheet of paper. “I’d like you to read it.”