A Quiet, Little Town

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  And to make matters worse there was . . . Sniffles.

  His name was Elijah Blake, a small, frail, insignificant man who worked as a part-time bookkeeper and was quite a celebrity in Fredericksburg because of his wife, who tipped the scales at three hundred and fifty pounds. Unfortunately, Blake suffered from hay fever and was horribly allergic to ragweed and grass, and he sneezed and sniffed incessantly and drove Buttons Muldoon crazy.

  “If grass makes you sneeze, why the heck are you out here on the damned prairie?” Buttons asked, irritated.

  Blake, riding a pony-sized, mouse-colored mustang he’d rented for the day, wiped his nose with a large blue bandana, sniffed, and said, “It was my lady wife’s idea. She said I must ride out and capture the fugitives and cover myself in glory.” He sneezed several times, then added, “Oh, dear.” The tip of his nose was wet and red.

  “We ain’t gonna cover ourselves in glory on this hunt,” Hans Schmidt the blacksmith said. “Those boys are long gone.”

  “We’ll find them,” Buttons said, without much conviction.

  “When?” Schmidt, a surly man, said.

  “Soon,” Buttons said. His horse shook its head at a fly, and its bridle chimed.

  Blake sneezed.

  “Seems to me we’ll run out of daylight soon,” Anton Bauer, the baker said.

  “At least six hours left,” Buttons said.

  Blake sniffed.

  Annoyed, Buttons said, “This damned posse wasn’t my idea, you know.”

  “You’re the deputy sheriff,” a man toward the rear of the column said. “You’re in charge.”

  “Acting, unpaid,” Buttons said. Blake sniffed again, and Buttons called out, “Can any of you square-heads pick up a trail?”

  “No,” Bauer said. “Can you?”

  “I’m trying,” Buttons said,

  “Then try harder,” Bauer said.

  “Well, we ain’t making much dust,” Buttons said. Again, an attempt at being optimistic.

  “And neither are the men we’re chasing,” somebody said.

  “We’re not chasing anybody,” Schmidt said, his joyless face grim. “I think we’re going around in circles. See that lightning-struck oak over there by the gulch? I think this is the third time we passed it.”

  “The two murderers are headed east and so are we,” Buttons said. “I may not be Dan’l Boone, but I know in what direction we’re going. Blake! Stop that damned sniffing!”

  “I can’t help it,” the little man said, his whiny voice plaintive and penitent. “I’ll have some harsh words to say to my lady wife when I get home.”

  “She’ll sit on you, Blake,” Bauer said. “Squash you like a bug.”

  The men laughed, and Buttons Muldoon took that as a good sign. They were still in fairly good spirits and not quite ready to give up the chase . . . at least for the time being.

  The sun was high, and the day was hot and sultry. Men and horses sweated, and out in a nearby grove of wild oak a quail called. Buttons, as used to heat as he was to snow and rain, held up well, but some of the posse members showed signs of suffering, using their canteens often, especially those that worked indoors.

  Buttons had the advantage of numbers, but he worried over how his men would perform against a couple of professional gunmen. Experience told him that the outcome of this pursuit was far from certain. The only even half-capable gun handler was himself, but he didn’t rate very highly in the shootist hierarchy . . . he figured somewhere near the bottom where mediocrity reigned. But this would probably end up as a long-range rifle duel anyway, and most of the men with him had cut their teeth on squirrel rifles. That gave him hope.

  * * *

  An hour passed. The land held a solemn silence, the only sounds the steady plodding of the horses and the creak of saddle leather. Blake sneezed and sniffled constantly, and the bandana he used had become a damp rag. Buttons considered shooting him.

  Ahead of them stretched an endless sea of rolling hills, mile after mile falling away until blue sky met green grass where the horizon shimmered.

  The biggest and the strongest of them was the first to give up.

  The blacksmith Hans Schmidt, a morose, unpleasant man, said. “That’s it, I quit.” He pulled his horse out of the column. “Anybody else tired of this wild-goose chase?”

  “Schmidt, get back in line.” Buttons said. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to quit.”

  “You tell me nothing, stagecoach driver,” Schmidt said. He looked around at the others. “So, who’s coming with me?”

  Buttons knew he had to save the situation or lose the posse. The men were listening to Schmidt, thinking things through. The big blacksmith was heavily muscled, enormous in the shoulders and arms, and he’d be a handful. But right then Buttons had no alternative, aside from shooting the man . . . and that would cause too many complications, a whole lot of questions asked.

  “These men are going nowhere, and neither are you, Schmidt,” Buttons said.

  Schmidt’s gaze measured Buttons from the toes of his boots to the top of his hat, seeing a solidly built man with some fat on him, especially around the middle. “And you’re going to stop me, I suppose?”

  “If I have to,” Buttons said.

  “Schmidt, get back in line,” Anton Bauer said, coming to Buttons’s rescue. “Deputy Muldoon is in charge here.”

  “The hell he is,” the big man said. Menacing, with a reputation as a dangerous fighter, he swung out of the saddle and stepped toward Buttons. “I don’t like you, driving man, never did,” Schmidt said. “And I plan to ride out of here and take the posse with me. So try and stop me.” His fists hung at his side, as big and as hard as anvils. “I’m waiting,” he said.

  Hans Schmidt didn’t have to wait long. Buttons was not a man to be intimidated.

  He threw a straight left that Schmidt knocked aside with his right, but, as Buttons, a wily old street and saloon fighter, had anticipated, the block left his chin open. Buttons followed up instantly with a wicked right hook that slammed into the blacksmith’s chin and sounded like a sledgehammer striking a tree trunk. The punch staggered Schmidt, and Buttons went after him. The man’s hands were hanging loose by his sides when Buttons hit with a left hook and followed up with a smashing right to the jaw. The right dropped the blacksmith, and, stunned, he went down on all fours, spitting blood. Now, under normal circumstances Buttons would have followed up with a boot to the man’s ribs, but since the entire posse was watching with fascinated interest, he decided to do the decent thing. Very much against his better judgment, he took a step back and let the man get to his feet.

  Schmidt, aware that he was getting pounded by someone who knew how to scrap, came off the ground snarling, his massive arms spread wide for a backbreaking bearhug. As the man lunged at him, for an instant Buttons let him come. Then he quickly stepped inside and cut loose with a mighty right uppercut that snapped Schmidt’s head back and sent the man reeling, his arms and legs cartwheeling. Buttons had enough of playing nice since it very much went against his nature. Riled now, he went after the blacksmith and slammed a left and then a right to his mouth, splitting the man’s lip. Schmidt, his fists flailing ineffectively, stumbled toward Buttons and ran into a straight right for his trouble. This time the blow felled the blacksmith, and he went down, gasping for breath, his face a bloody mess.

  “My advice is for you not to get up again,” Buttons said, head bent as he looked at Schmidt. “I can take you apart piece by piece, and I can keep it up all day.” He shook his head. “What a slaughter that would be. Now state your intentions. Will you quit the chase or soldier on?”

  But Schmidt was through.

  He got slowly to his feet, picked up his hat, and lurched to his horse. One of the other riders had to help him mount. Without a word, the battered blacksmith headed west at a walk, toward Fredericksburg, and Buttons let him go. The man was all used up, and it would be quite a spell before he felt like himself again.

  Buttons swung
into the saddle and said, “Blake, you should go with him.”

  The little man looked frightened. “I’ll stick, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “Suit yourself,” Buttons said. “Anyone else want to leave with Schmidt?”

  A few men muttered under their breath, but one man with a loud voice yelled, “No, sir,” and none disagreed with him.

  “I’m proud of you boys,” Buttons said, smiling. “And from now on we’ll keep it civil, huh?”

  “Anything you say, boss,” the loud man said.

  “Good,” Buttons said. “Now let’s go find those two murdering scoundrels and bring them in to face justice.”

  Caught up in the moment, Elijah Blake yelled, “Huzzah!” And Buttons gave the little man a mental pat on the back.

  Fifteen minutes later, the posse heard the sound of gunshots.

  * * *

  “Where away?” Buttons said, one of the nautical terms he used from time to time.

  A babble of voices and eleven fingers pointing in eleven different directions.

  “Keep quiet, everybody,” Buttons said. He stood in the stirrups and held himself very still, listening.

  There it was again, a flurry of shots and then silence. But this time Buttons got a fix on the direction.

  “The firing is to the southeast of us,” he said. “Forward, men, at the gallop. We’ve got them now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Helmut Klemm was hurt bad. Real bad. During the gunfight at the doctor’s house, he’d taken a stray round that had entered just above his cartridge belt on the left side and exited at the small of his back. He’d lost a lot of blood and rode bent over in the saddle, groaning in pain with every hoof fall of his horse.

  “I’ll take you to a doctor in Austin,” Sean O’Rourke said. “He’ll fix you up in no time.”

  “How far to Austin?” Klemm said, through gritted teeth.

  “Not far. We’ll make camp tonight and be there tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll be dead by then,” Klemm said.

  “No, you won’t,” O’Rourke said. “You’re too tough to die from a bullet wound.”

  “Two wounds,” Klemm said. “One going in, one going out. Eins plus eins ist zwei.”

  Heat waves danced in the distance and high up, buzzards traced lazy loops in the sky. Nothing stirred in the grass, and around the riders lay a vast, ancient silence, as though they rode along the nave of a ruined cathedral.

  Then Klemm said, “Irishman, find me a shady place to die. Under trees. My estate in Bavaria has many trees where the wild boars live, a spruce, pine, and beech forest. Dappled it is. It’s not sunlight that makes a forest beautiful, it’s shadow.” The German gasped as an iron fist of pain hit him. “I’ll never see my beautiful Eingehurn again.”

  O’Rourke said, “What does that mean, Klemm? Keep talking. When you’re talking, you’re not dying, so tell me.”

  “Eingehurn means unicorn, because hundreds of years ago unicorns lived in my forest. But they’re all gone now and only the boar and the red deer are left.” Then, “Irishman, we fulfilled the contract, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, the doctor is dead,” O’Rourke said.

  “When you reach England and meet the Jew Ernest Walzer, tell him my share of the payment is yours.”

  “You’ll be with me,” O’Rourke said. “With your hand out.”

  “I’m in terrible pain,” Klemm said. “Find me a restful spot to lie down.”

  “I think I see trees in the distance,” O’Rourke said. “We’ll linger there for a while.”

  “They’ll be after us,” Klemm said.

  O’Rourke turned in the saddle and checked his back trail. The brassy sunlight was blinding and he raised his hat against the glare. “No one is behind us. I can’t see any dust.”

  “It’s getting dark,” Klemm said. The hand he held at waist level was scarlet with glistening blood. “Darkness is falling fast, and it’s our friend, Irishman.”

  “Yes, it’s getting dark,” O’Rourke said. He realized that the death shadows were gathering around Klemm, and he was dying. He’d never particularly liked the man, but they were in the same profession, and in O’Rourke’s eyes shared experiences forged a bond. He’d stay with Klemm until his soul departed and then give him a blessing. It was the Irish way.

  O’Rourke picked up the reins of Klemm’s horse and took a narrow game trail that led to a clearing in the middle of a grove of mixed wild oak and mesquite. He helped the German from the saddle and sat him in the shade of an oak, his back against the trunk.

  “Drink,” O’Rourke said, holding his canteen to Klemm’s mouth. The man drank a little and then coughed it up again, the water now streaked with blood. A quail called out in the long grass, but O’Rourke paid it no heed. He used a shirtsleeve to mop sweat from his face and he was aware that he smelled rank of sweat and his eyes were red and sore from the pitiless glare of the sun.

  Klemm saw the Irishman’s obvious discomfort and said in a whisper, “It won’t be long now.” He tried a smile. “Strange to think that in all the wide world, only the boar and the red deer will grieve for me.”

  “Even though you hunt them,” O’Rourke said.

  “There is a spiritual covenant between hunter and hunted. They will know when I die, and they’ll rise from sleep and mourn.” Klemm grabbed O’Rourke by the front of his shirt. “Maybe, if there is an afterlife, I will be the hunted and all the men I killed will be the hunters.”

  O’Rourke smiled and shook his head. “There is no hunting in heaven.”

  “No?” Klemm said. “Then what a boring place it must be.”

  “But I don’t know that for sure,” O’Rourke said.

  “Don’t know what?” Klemm said. He was ashen, as though all the blood had fled his face. His skin had a candlewax sheen.

  “I don’t know that there is no hunting in heaven,” O’Rourke said.

  “I think in heaven a deer you kill one day will be alive again the next,” Klemm said.

  O’Rourke nodded. “A good arrangement.”

  “What is that?” Klemm said.

  “What?”

  “The bird call.”

  “It’s a quail, I think. There seems to be a lot of them around.”

  Klemm’s fading eyes moved beyond O’Rourke to the edge of the clearing.

  “Irishman,” he said, “I think we have a problem.”

  * * *

  “Stand up slowly and turn,” Donny Bryson said, his Colt leveled and ready. “Keep your hand away from your pistol.”

  Sean O’Rourke did as he was told. His Adams revolver was fastened in a British army flapped holster, never intended for a fast draw.

  “You too, mister,” Donny said to Klemm. “On your feet, handsomely now.”

  “He’s dying,” O’Rourke said. “He can’t get on his feet. You have no call to get stirred up, mister. We were traveling east toward Austin and just stopped for the night.”

  “Effie,” Donny said, “take care of the dying one. I’ll do my talking to this ranny here.”

  The girl smiled. “I’ll do it, Donny,” she said.

  She carried the Sharps and had made a chaplet of white and pink prairie flowers for her hair. Effie Bell did a sort of faery dance, knees high, toes pointed down, until she stopped in front of Klemm, shoved the muzzle of the rifle against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The man’s head jerked under the bullet’s impact and when it exited at the back of his skull it splashed the trunk of the oak with blood, bone, and brain matter.

  The girl squealed in surprised laughter and ran back to Donny’s side. “Did you see that?” she said. “Boom!”

  Donny grinned. “Yeah, I saw it. The big fifty can put a hurtin’ on a man for sure.”

  “Damn you,” O’Rourke said. “You damned filth.”

  “You keep your trap shut until I tell you to open it,” Donny said. He looked around him. “Where’s the golden staff of Moses?”

  “There is
no staff of Moses, you idiot,” O’Rourke said.

  “Where have you stashed it?” Donny said. “Mister, if you make me mad enough, I’ll shoot you in the belly where it hurts and you’ll scream for days and then you’ll thank God for letting you die.”

  “There is no staff,” O’Rourke said. “That was just a lie I made up to convince folks that me and the others were monks.”

  Donny looked doubtful and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Effie, look around. Start over there near the dead man. Find it.”

  “I’ll find it, Donny,” the girl said. “And if I don’t, we can make that one talk.”

  “We sure can,” Donny said. “I know some Apache tricks with a knife that will open his trap in a hurry.”

  Effie searched the entire clearing and found nothing.

  “There’s grub in the carpetbags,” she said.

  “Good. We’ll need that,” Donny said. He stared at O’Rourke. “You planned to shake the posse and you stashed the golden staff somewhere between here and Fredericksburg, figuring to go back for it. So where is it? Take me there or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  “I can’t take you there, because there is no golden staff and there never was,” O’Rourke said. “You’re a damned fool if you believe otherwise.”

  Donny Bryson dropped his gun. He grimaced, stretched his mouth wide in mortal agony and sudden blood spilled over his chin. He made a strange, strangling “arg . . . arg . . . arg” sound as his throat worked around the strap iron arrowhead lodged deep in his gullet. The arrow had come from Donny’s right and had hit an inch under his ear and penetrated deep. It was a killing wound, and Donny dropped to his knees as a mounted Apache cantered past and threw a lance into his back. He fell forward, skewered like a pinned butterfly in a case, dying a more honorable death than he deserved.

  Half a dozen Apaches dismounted and surrounded Sean O’Rourke, eager for a living prisoner who would provide endless hours of fun. But he thwarted them. At close range O’Rourke fired the double-action Adams with speed and accuracy. He killed three Apaches and wounded another but kept his last round for himself . . . a shot to his right temple. The Irishman fell, dead before he hit the ground.