A Quiet, Little Town

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  The German pantomimed great pain. “It hurts like the devil.”

  “Kirill Kuznetsov, are you ready?” O’Rourke said.

  The big man wiped away a tear and said, “Yes, I am ready. I will take Helmut to the doctor.”

  “You’re Polish monks, remember, and you don’t speak good English,” O’Rourke said. “Talk to the doctor as little as possible.”

  “Yes, as little as possible,” el Salim said, smiling, his eyes sly. “Don’t tell him you’ll be back tomorrow night to kill him.”

  * * *

  Dr. Ben Bradford escorted the rotund hausefrau Magda Schreiber to his front door, assuring her that she did not have a wandering womb but acute anxiety brought on by her businessman husband’s absence, complicated by a too tightly laced corset.

  “When Herr Schreiber returns safely from San Antonio, you’ll feel much better,” Bradford said. “In the meantime, take one of the pills twice a day until the bottle is empty.”

  “Oh, thank you, Doctor,” Frau Schreiber said, rattling the pill bottle. “Since the savages are running around murdering and scalping, I do worry about poor Hermann so. As you know, like me he is of a most delicate constitution.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be quite safe,” Bradford said. “The Apaches have been chased away by the army, and once Herr Schreiber returns to Fredericksburg, he’ll be as safe as the snuffbox in Grannie’s apron.”

  Magda giggled, her several chins bobbing. She slapped the doctor lightly on the chest with her plump hand and said, “Oh, Dr. Bradford, you’re such a card.”

  As the woman waddled away, Bradford looked beyond her to the two men in monk’s robes walking toward him, the taller of the two supporting the other. “What have we here?” the doctor said.

  Kuznetsov spoke up. “Brother Dominik has bellyache. Very bad.”

  “Bring him inside to my surgery,” Bradford said.

  “I am Brother Lubomir,” the Russian said. “We are Polskie.”

  “Well, come inside, gentlemen,” Bradford said.

  * * *

  Dr. Ben Bradford examined Helmut Klemm, who played his role as the ailing Brother Dominick with aplomb, groaning in pretend pain every time the physician pushed on his belly. Kirill Kuznetsov found himself a chair and held a string of black rosary beads in his hands.

  But his eyes were on Chris Mercer.

  Kuznetsov . . . was aware. He remembered Mercer from the stage station at Cave Springs.

  A gun will always sense the presence of another gun. It’s almost as though they can smell each other. Neither man had a weapon in sight, but both knew that what hung in the air between them was a warning . . . a potential for violence. As Dr. Bradford talked, and Klemm groaned, the two men locked eyes. They each didn’t try to outstare the other, but their message was clear . . . step around me, brother. I am your death.

  To this day, there are some who say that Chris Mercer was such an unimposing little runt that a large muscular man like Kirill Kuznetsov could not be intimidated by him. But that was not the case. William Bonney was small and slight, but a man underestimated him at his peril.

  Kuznetsov never made that mistake. He recognized men like Mercer who bore the gunman’s Mark of Cain and treated them accordingly.

  “I believe you have an ulcer, Brother Dominick,” Dr. Bradford said. “I’ll give you a powder that you mix in water,” he said. “Take a teaspoon twice a day, and it will help reduce the acid in your stomach and ease the pain.”

  Kuznetsov finally broke his belligerent bond with Mercer and said, “If pain gets worse?”

  “Then come back and we’ll try something else,” the doctor said.

  “We pay now,” Kuznetsov said.

  Bradford waved a dismissive hand. “No charge to the clergy.”

  Mercer smiled and indulged in a little mischief. “Even your kind of clergy, brothers.”

  In that moment Kuznetsov and Klemm drew a line and made an enemy.

  The Russian smiled. “Enjoy your life, little man,” he said. He made a show of blessing Mercer. “Your time is short.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Mercer, I didn’t understand all that,” Dr. Ben Bradford said. “What did the monk mean?”

  “When he told me my life is short?” Mercer said.

  “Yes. He seemed very serious.”

  “I don’t know,” Mercer said. At the moment he saw little need to alarm the doctor further. “Let me ask you a question, Dr. Bradford . . . who has a more valuable life, a washed-up drunk or a young physician?”

  “All life is precious, Mr. Mercer,” Bradford said.

  “You mean, in the eyes of God?”

  “I mean that as a healer I never forget how precious it is to be alive. And for that reason, one life is no more valuable than any other.” Bradford looked Mercer in the eye. “Mr. Mercer, it’s never too late for a man to be what he wants to be.”

  He glanced at his pocket watch. “Eleven o’clock. Time for coffee, I think.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  For Donny Bryson it was an easy kill and a profitable score.

  It was the girl with her young eyes who first saw the wagon in the distance as it headed west into the cattle country.

  “Could be a supply wagon,” Donny said, telescope to his eye. “Worth taking a look-see.”

  They’d earlier broken camp, and the girl rode Lucas Bell’s mule. The dead man’s Sharps rifle was too heavy for her to carry, but his gunbelt and holstered Colt hung from her left shoulder and across her chest. “Two people up on the driver’s seat. I think one of them is a woman.”

  “You can see that from here?” Donny said.

  “I can see far,” the girl said. “But up close, not so good.”

  Donny was skeptical. “Even with the glass I can’t see two people. I don’t put that much confidence in your eyesight.”

  “Suit yourself,” the girl said.

  They were in hilly country, and she and Donny sat their mounts in the dip of a shallow saddleback. Stretching away from them lay a seemingly endless wilderness of prairie, here and there dotted with stands of Texas oak, mesquite, and juniper and bright patches of blue, pink, and yellow wildflowers. Under the bowl of a cloudless sapphire sky, the afternoon smelled clean of long grass and the earth, of distant dust and remembered rain . . . but would all too soon reek of gunsmoke, blood, and violent death.

  * * *

  Donny Bryson kneed his horse forward, and the girl followed, cursing at her balky mule. As they drew closer to the wagon, the driver and his companion came into focus, a gray-haired man and a plump, motherly-looking woman wearing a flowered dress, a red shawl draped over her shoulders. A mouse-colored, swaybacked mustang with its ribs showing labored in the traces of a small, four-wheeled farm wagon with a canvas cover carrying a wooden sign that read:

  SAM A. HEIDELBACH

  PEDDLER TO THE GENTRY

  When the peddler was within hailing distance, he drew rein and yelled, “Welcome! Welcome to the Heidelbach mercantile on wheels.” Then when Donny and the girl drew closer, he smiled under his beard and said in his normal tone of voice, “Mister, I have a wide section of goods for your perusal. I got tobacco, cigars, nuts, beans, and nails. I got pails, lanterns, ropes, fabrics, and sewing notions including needles and bobbins of thread. I have combs, soap, medicines, candy, crockery and dishes, pans, cartridges, coffee, pickles, soda crackers, candles, boots and shoes, glasses, beads and ribbons. And, at cost, calico dresses for the young lady.”

  In the West of that era, Jewish peddlers seldom traveled with their spouses, and that made the murders of Sam and Frieda Heidelbach all the more poignant. Early twentieth century historians, unwilling to accept that “gunfighter” Donny Bryson was an insane psychopath, claimed that Sam, suddenly afraid, reached for a revolver concealed under his coat and that Donny drew and fired in self-defense.

  It didn’t happen that way.

  Two events occurred that triggered the killings.

  The first was th
at Donny looked over the contents of the Heidelbach wagon and coveted what he saw.

  The second was the girl’s screech of, “Ooh, Donny, get me a pretty dress.”

  The girl would later testify that Donny didn’t even speak. He just shucked his Colt and shot Sam and Frieda Heidelbach dead. What the girl omitted to say was that after the murders, she bounced up and down on her mule’s back and yelled, “Look for the dresses, Donny! Look for the dresses!”

  * * *

  Donny Bryson and the girl loaded up with stuff they could use or sell in Fredericksburg. In addition, Donny discovered eighty-seven dollars in a cash box and a gold ring he took from Frieda’s finger. The girl was all got up in shoes, underwear, and a yellow dress she found in the wagon. She’d added a straw hat with an artificial pink flower on the brim, a white parasol, and a heart-shaped metal pendant inscribed with the word, Love. Donny found himself a new blue shirt with a small collar and a pair of canvas pants.

  And after they’d finished plundering the wagon, Donny found a couple of cans of kerosene and set it on fire with the Heidelbachs inside. For some reason that’s never been explained, he tore the sign off the canvas cover and tossed it aside. Later the sign would help Texas Rangers identify the murdered couple.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon walked south on Main Street, spotted a landmark beer brewing company building, and then made a left onto Lincoln, past a few frame houses of local merchants and then onto an area of litter-strewn open ground, mostly grass but with some red yucca and a few oaks. A cone-shaped Sibley tent about twelve feet high and eighteen feet in diameter, designed by the army to sleep about a dozen soldiers, dominated the patch and adjoining the tent a small corral held a couple of paint mustangs.

  “Is this the place?” Buttons said. “Doesn’t look very Comanche to me.”

  “It’s got to be,” Red said. “Look at all the Indian signs painted on the canvas.”

  Buttons was down in the mouth. “Don’t make any difference to me anyhow,” he said. “There ain’t no cure for a hat curse. That must be wrote in a book somewhere.”

  Red grabbed Buttons by the front of his shirt and pulled him toward the tent. “Hello, the house,” he yelled.

  “That ain’t a house, it’s a tent,” Buttons said.

  “It’s the Comanche’s tepee, so it’s a house,” Red said.

  The tent flap opened, and an old man with gray braids hanging to his shoulders stepped outside. He wore a collarless shirt, a black frock coat, and pants shoved into knee-high moccasins. His face was wide, heavy cheekbones, and his dark skin was incredibly wrinkled. He could’ve been a hundred years old. The flap opened again and a young woman emerged, smoothing her buckskin dress over her hips. She frowned, looking displeased.

  The old Comanche said, “When white men come to my door, it always means trouble.”

  “No trouble,” Red said. He jerked a thumb at Buttons. “He’s under a curse. And we were told you can remove it.”

  The old Indian looked at Buttons. “What kind of curse?”

  “A hat curse. Can you cure me?”

  The old man sighed. “A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer, but I will try. The answer is, I don’t know.”

  “Damn it, Red, I told you this was a waste of time,” Buttons said.

  “I’ll pay you a dollar to lift the curse,” Red said, desperation edging in his voice.

  “Two dollars,” the Comanche said.

  “Two dollars it is,” Red said.

  The old man nodded. “I am Mukwooru, Spirit Talker in your tongue. I will end the hat curse.” He held out his hand. “Pay me, fire head.”

  Red dug into his pants pocket, produced the required amount, and dropped the coins into the old man’s palm.

  Spirit Talker turned to the woman. “Return later,” he said.

  The girl gave Red a killer look and then walked away, her ample hips swaying.

  “A good woman,” the Indian said. “Wild though. It takes a warrior to tame her spirit.”

  Despite being burned for two dollars, Red decided to be amiable. “And you are that warrior,” he said.

  “Heck, no, I’m not,” the Comanche said. “But she says I’ll do until a real warrior comes along.” He motioned with a hand. “Please enter my lodge.”

  * * *

  The air inside the tent was hot and still and smelled of sweat and tobacco smoke. A firepit filled with gray ashes took up the middle of the floor space, and the rest was filled with a couple of ancient buffalo hides, trade blankets, and some metal pots and pans. An almost-full bottle of Old Crow stood upright by the cold fire.

  Spirit Talker seated Red and Buttons on each side of the firepit and then squatted between them. To Buttons, he said, “Tell me about the curse. Not a white man tell-me that goes on forever and ever, but an Indian tell-me, short and sweet.”

  With an ill grace and using as few words as possible, Buttons told the story of his encounter with the cursed sombrero and the unfortunate events that occurred afterward.

  After Buttons stopped talking, the old Comanche was silent for long moments. Then he said, “Truly, you’ve been cursed, as I am cursed with the gift to see things that are yet to happen . . . and now I see that I will lift the curse.”

  “Then get it done,” Buttons said. “I’m dying here, Injun.”

  “I will contact the spirit world and talk to the one who owned the hat,” the old man said. “It is he who laid the curse and only he can lift it.”

  “Then talk with him,” Buttons said, in a high state of agitation. “Tell him if I had him here, I’d put a bullet into his sorry hide and kill him all over again.”

  “That is not the way to speak to the dead,” Spirit Talker said. “I will address him in only the friendliest of terms and convince him that I am pure of heart.” He uncorked the bourbon, held it close to his mouth and said, “Nothing like whiskey to lay bare a man’s soul.” He took a swig, took another, and put the bottle aside.

  Spirit Talker closed his eyes, rocked back and forth a few times, and then said, “Owner of the cursed hat, do you hear me?” He cocked his head to the side, listening. Then, after a few moments he said to Red, “More whiskey!”

  Red passed the bottle, the old man took another long swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and Buttons said, “Heck, all the Injun’s doing is getting as drunk as a hoedown fiddler. Red, get our money back.”

  Red put up a silencing hand. “Wait. Let’s see what happens.”

  “If he’s pulling my leg, I’ll plug him,” Buttons said. “I swear I will.”

  The old Indian ignored that, closed his eyes again and said, “Spirit of the cursed squashed sombrero, do you hear me?”

  Then something that made both Buttons and Red sit up in surprise.

  In a strangely hollow, sepulchral voice, Spirit Talker said, “I hear you, señor . . .”

  “It’s him,” Buttons said. “It’s the dead vaquero son of a—!”

  “Shh,” Red said. “Let the man talk.”

  In his normal voice, Spirit Talker said, “I humbly ask that you remove your curse from this wretched man, the one who calls himself Buttons Muldoon.”

  After a moment, the old man’s voice changed again, back to the funereal tone. “There is no curse . . . just bad luck to him who moved my hat.”

  Sprit Talker said, “It was a mistake. The loco wretch ran over your hat with the Patterson stage.”

  “I know,” the strange voice said.

  “Then will you end this man’s run of bad luck?” Spirit Talker said.

  “Yes, I will,” the vaquero voice said. “The one you call Buttons Muldoon is a well-meaning idiot, and I will torment him no further.”

  “Thank you, spirit,” the old Indian said.

  “Vaya con dios, Indian,” the dead man’s voice said. “In life, my name was Juan Lopez, and you will hear from me no more.”

  For long moments, Spirit Talker sat where he was, his eyes shut. Th
en they flew open and he said, “Whiskey! A lot of whiskey!”

  * * *

  After he and Buttons stepped out of the tent, Red Ryan took Spirit Talker aside and said, “Thank you, Buttons is back to his old self again.” Red grinned. “First time I’ve seen him smile since he squashed the sombrero. I believe he swallowed every word you said . . . hook, line, and sinker.”

  The old Comanche shook his head. “I don’t remember any of it.”

  “You pretended to talk to the dead vaquero,” Red said. “And Buttons fell for it.”

  “For white men, I drink whiskey, shake a rattle, and talk nonsense, and that seems to please them. I don’t talk to the dead. I never talk to the dead, especially for a white man.”

  “But the vaquero . . .” Buttons said.

  “I didn’t speak with a vaquero,” Spirit talker said. “How does a vaquero speak?”

  “You mean, you didn’t . . .”

  “I drank whiskey and fell asleep,” the Comanche said. “At my age that happens.”

  “The vaquero said his name in life was Juan Lopez,” Red said.

  “Never heard of him,” Spirit Talker said. “You must go now. My woman wants me.”

  * * *

  “I didn’t like those white men,” the Comanche girl said. “The one with the red hair was a gunman. I can tell.”

  Mukwooru smiled. “It is good to play games of the mind with white men. Now the one with the big buttons on his coat thinks I spoke with a dead Mexican.”

  “And did you?” the girl said.

  “I drank whiskey and it helped me speak in a ghost voice,” the old man said. “Like this,” he said, using the funereal tone.

  The girl laughed. “Mukwooru, you are a wise one.”

  The Comanche nodded and smiled. “Wise enough to take the white man’s two dollars.”

  * * *

  “Red, I’m cured, fit as a fiddle,” Buttons Muldoon said. “Since the old medicine man lifted the curse, I feel that there’s a whole weight off my shoulders.”

  “The vaquero said it wasn’t a curse, just bad luck,” Red said.

  “Same thing,” Buttons said.