A Time to Slaughter (13 page)

“What the hell, Jake?” Ironside stood in front of the youngest O'Brien brother. “I know you bring live folks back to Dromore all the time, but this is your first dead 'un.”

“Anybody recognize him?” Jacob O'Brien said to the men gathered around his horse.

Samuel grabbed the dead man's hair, lifted his head, and stared at the dead, bearded face for a moment. “He's nobody I recognize.”

The man wore buckskins and a bear claw necklace. His beard and hair, shaggy and unkempt, gave him a look more animal than human.

“What happened, Jake?” Patrick asked.

“He took a pot at me in the high timber country an hour north of here,” Jacob said. “I fired into his smoke, and he fell out of the brush. He was dead when I got to him.”

“Wolfer by the look of him,” Ironside said. “Since the Apaches were cleared out by the army the deer moved back and the lobos are gettin' fat an' sleek. There's money to be made from prime pelts these days and the ranchers pay a ten-dollar bounty on a dead wolf.”

“He saw you and wanted your horse and guns, Jake,” Samuel guessed. “You were lucky.”

“Seems like.” Jacob looked around him. “Where's Shawn? He out sparking some girl?”

“It's a long story, Jake,” Patrick said.

“How's the colonel?”

“Another long story,” Samuel said.

“Then I'd better hear them.” Jacob thumbed over his shoulder. “But I need to see him buried, first.”

“Seems to me that ain't going to be necessary.” Ironside's far-seeing eyes fixed on the snowy distance. “Two riders, following tracks.”

Jacob let go of the dead man's horse and turned his own mount to face the oncoming men. As they rode closer at a walk, Jacob saw they were big, bearded men bundled up in bearskin coats, both wearing battered top hats adorned with an eagle feather stuck into the brim.

Samuel and Patrick were unarmed, but being a careful man, Ironside was always heeled. “I'll take the one on the right, Jake.”

Jacob nodded, his eyes fixed on the oncoming riders. His great beak of a nose tested the wind as though he smelled something amiss.

“Wolfers,” Ironside said through his teeth, glancing at Jacob. “I guess the man you gunned had kin.”

“Seems like.” Jacob acknowledged and cleared his ragged mackinaw away from his gun.

When the two riders were close enough, Ironside said, “Howdy, gents. Ain't much of a day fer ridin', is it now?”

The two men drew rein and their eyes moved from Ironside to Jacob, but they sat their saddles in silence.

Jacob noted that both riders had a booted rifle under their knees, but he saw no sign of belt guns.

The man on the left, bigger and older than his companion, rode forward and gathered up the reins of the dead man's horse. The younger man kneed his mount closer and silently stared hard into Jacob's face, as though he was committing his every feature to memory.

For his part, Jacob was repelled by the man. At some time in the past, a bullet had destroyed his left cheekbone then ranged upward, taking out his eye. A mass of scar tissue cobwebbed from the corner of his mouth to his eyebrow as though the skin had become molten, then hardened like lava. Whoever he was, the man was a walking nightmare.

“Sorry about your friend,” Jacob said, tense and ready. “He didn't give me any choice.”

Finally the man spoke. “Sorry don't cut it, mister.” He swung his horse away and his companion followed, riding into the tumbling snow, leading the dead man.

“Seems like you made yourself enemies, Jake,” Ironside said, rubbing his stubbly jaw.

Jacob smiled slightly. “Luther, I've got so many of those two more won't make a difference.”

 

 

“So the bottom line is that we don't know where Shawn is,” Jacob said from his chair in the parlor.

“Maybe Santa Fe,” Samuel speculated. “Maybe some other place.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“I came through there with stage line money burning a hole in my pocket. If he'd been there, I'd have seen him.”

“Then your guess is as good as mine, brother,” Samuel said.

Jacob looked at Lorena and changed the subject. “Why can't the colonel walk?”

“Maybe you should ask, ‘Why
won't
the colonel walk?'” Lorena explained.

Jacob said nothing, waiting in silence.

Lorena sighed. “He's afraid, Jacob. He tried and he failed, and he's a proud man who fears he'll fail a second time.”

“Luther, did you try to get him out of bed?” Jacob asked the segundo.

“I gave her a whirl, Jake. But the colonel ain't a man to be railroaded into doing a thing he don't want to do. He's got his gun up there on the table next to him and he'll kill any man who prods him too hard.”

“So what is he doing now?”

“Nothing. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling,” Lorena said. “Sometimes he sleeps, but I don't know if he really is asleep or if he's just faking it because he doesn't want to talk to anyone.”

Jacob glanced out the window. “Hey, Luther, the snow isn't coming down too hard. How about you and me taking a walk?”

For a moment Ironside looked puzzled, then his face cleared into a wide grin. “Sounds like a plan to me, Jake. Sure as shootin'.”

Samuel laid his coffee cup on the table, clattering in the saucer. “Jake, I don't advise it. Pa's as mean as a wounded bull buffalo, and his Colt isn't for show.”

Patrick pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “He told me to get the hell out of his bedroom and not to let the door hit me on the ass on my way out. He never spoke to me like that before. Well, that I can remember anyhow.”

“You were always the colonel's favorite, Pat,” Luther said. Then, with bland insincerity, “And mine.”

Jacob grinned. “Luther, you still got the old battle flag?”

“Sure do.”

“Then get it. We'll need it on our walk.”

“Ain't much of it left, Jake. It was all shot up at Five Forks, mind, and it hasn't fared well since.”

“It'll do. Go get it and meet me outside the colonel's room.”

Samuel shook his head. “Jake, I sure hope you know what you're doing. Pa isn't in a talking frame of mind. Hell, you and Luther could get shot.”

Lorena smiled. “The colonel talks tough, but he won't shoot at Jacob and Luther.”

“Has your mind taken a set on that, Lorena?” Patrick asked grimly.

“No.” Lorena shook her head. “No, it hasn't.”

 

 

Jacob tapped on Shamus's door.

“Go away!” the colonel bellowed.

“It's me, Pa, Jacob.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Here and there, Pa.”

“Then go away and come back later for the wake. Let a man die in peace.”

Jake smiled, but when he opened the door and stepped inside his face was empty. Luther was right behind him, moving carefully as though he was walking on eggshells.

“Hell, boy, what are you doing with the battle flag?” Shamus barked.

“I'd answer that, Colonel,” Jacob said, “but Lorena says you're not in a talking frame of mind.”

“And she's damn right. Now get out of here and put that flag away properly.”

“Pa doesn't want to talk, so we'll be quiet as mice, Luther,” Jacob whispered. “He keeps a bearskin coat in the wardrobe. Bring it here.”

“What are you doing, boy?” Shamus yelled. “Luther, put that damned garment back.”

Jacob continued whispering. “Hang it over the chair there, Luther. Now help me get the colonel on his feet.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and all the saints in Heaven help me,” Shamus roared as he was hauled to a standing position. “You're trying to kill me.”

“Get the coat on him, Luther,” Jacob said.

“Luther Ironside, don't you dare,” Shamus bellowed.

Ironside ignored the colonel and wrapped him in the huge coat.

“Now his boots, Luther. They're by the fireplace.”

“Damn you, Luther,” Shamus yelled. “May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind children chase you so far over the Hills of Damnation that the Lord Himself can't find you with a telescope.”

“Mad, isn't he?” Jacob grinned at Ironside.

“And getting madder. Who's Mary Malone?”

“I've no idea.” Jacob shook his head.

“Both of you will find out soon enough,” the colonel yelled. “Now put me back in bed and the pair of ye be damned.”

“Right. Luther, shove the colonel's hat on his head and we'll carry him downstairs.”

Despite Shamus's angry protests Jacob and Ironside manhandled him down the stairs and out the front door, into a keening wind and falling snow.

“Set him on his feet, Luther,” Jacob instructed.

Shamus continued his rant. “What are you doing to me? You're trying to murder me!”

“We're taking a walk, Pa,” Jacob said calmly.

“I can't walk!” Shamus insisted. Then, “Luther, you're fired. Jacob, you're disinherited.”

“And you're walking,” Jacob said, maintaining his calm demeanor.

“Where to, damn you?”

“To the far corner of the house and back.”

“I can't walk that far.”

“But you will,” Jacob pressed, raising the Confederate battle flag.

Torn by shot and shell, ragged as the Rebs who once marched behind it, the flag snapped bravely in the wind with the same tattered dignity as the soldiers who fought and died for it.

“Walk, Colonel,” Jacob ordered. Snow whitened his mustache and eyebrows.

“Damn you, boy, I can't,” Shamus insisted. “Take me back to bed.”

“Pa, you served honorably under this flag and today you have another battle to fight. Will you shame your banner now?”

Ironside stood next to his commanding officer. “Follow the flag, Colonel. I'll be at your side as I always was.”

Shamus stared at the Stars and Bars for long moments, then straightened his shoulders and stood tall. He looked frail inside the huge bearskin coat, but his voice was as commanding as ever. “Unhand me, you rogues.”

Ironside and Jacob let their hands drop to their sides, but stayed one on each side of the colonel.

Standing without support, Shamus gave the orders. “Jacob, lead on. You won't see me dishonor my flag, not this day and not any day.”

“Colonel, it's just another march,” Ironside said. “We done plenty of those with nothing but parched corn in our bellies and no boots on our feet.”

His eyes fixed on the streaming flag, Shamus took one tottering step. Then another. He stopped. “My legs hurt. They hurt real bad.”

“They'll get stronger with every step you take, Colonel,” Ironside said.

An incongruous figure in an ankle-length fur coat, carpet slippers on his feet, and a battered Stetson on his head, Shamus staggered forward. Despite the numbing cold, sweat popped on his forehead as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other.

Jacob looked to see how the colonel was progressing, then raised his voice in song.

Ironside's rusty baritone joined in on the chorus and Shamus's lips moved, whispering the great song that he remembered so well.

Finally they reached the far corner of Dromore, a tall, rangy old-timer wearing chaps and a sheepskin coat, a raggedy man whose entire wardrobe was probably worth fifty cents, and between them, Shamus. Though his mouth was grim from pain, he never took his eyes off the snapping flag.

Jacob said, “Now we'll help you back, Pa.”

“I'll do it myself,” Shamus declared boldly. “Step away from me, son.” He turned and stumbled forward again.

Led by Samuel and Lorena, the entire staff of Dromore, from butler to scullery maid, stood outside in the snow and watched Shamus's struggle.

“I'll help him,” Patrick said, stepping toward his father.

Samuel put out an arm and stopped him. “No, you won't. Pa has to do this himself.”

Lorena was alarmed. “Samuel, he could get hurt.”

“That's a chance he'll have to take.”

The crowd around the door watched in silence. No one cheered Shamus on, but two dozen people willed him to make it. A couple vaqueros in from the range sat their horses and watched. Like everyone else, they remained silent.

Finally Shamus made it to the door and Lorena moved quickly to his side. To her husband she said, “Help me get him into bed,”

The colonel grinned, his teeth chattering. “No bed, daughter-in-law. Get me into my chair and bring me a brandy.”

“Somebody bring the colonel's wheelchair,” Lorena said.

“The hell with that, woman,” Shamus roared. “Help me to my chair beside Saraid's pink hearthstone.” He turned and looked at Jacob. “We'll walk again tomorrow.”

“That we will, Colonel. And the next day.”

Shamus turned to his longtime friend. “Sergeant Ironside, put our flag away with honor. We won't need it again.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel,” Ironside said, giving the old, palm-forward salute of the Confederate cavalry.

Shamus looked from Ironside to Jacob. “Well done, you scoundrels. Well done, both of you.”

“Well done your ownself, Colonel,” Ironside said.

Shamus smiled. “All in all, I did pretty well, didn't I?”

“Damn right you did.” Ironside's eyes were moist. “Damn right you did, Colonel O'Brien.”