Days of Death

by P McCormac

  ‘Now we can begin.’

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘My name is Beth Rawlinson and this is my sister or rather, half-sister, Aimee. We arrived here a few days ago and found this place empty. We had no idea it belonged to anyone. I’m sorry about your family. I know what it is like to lose someone close.’

  Turlough nodded dumbly, too sunk in misery to speak and the introductions were left to Cyriac.

  ‘Cyriac Halkias, Miss Rawlinson, and this here is Turlough Benedict. Seems to me, this is between you and Turlough here. How you resolve it is up to you. The first thing is to find his ma and take her opinion into consideration. Perhaps she’ll not want to come back again on account it might have too many bad memories.’

  ‘Why don’t we share until things shake out?’ Beth suggested. ‘I would be agreeable to that.’

  She looked questionably at Turlough. He was sitting hunched up in his chair, staring into his coffee.

  ‘The place was empty when we got here,’ Aimee growled, scowling across at Cyriac. ‘Don’t see any reason for sharing.’

  An awkward silence followed, broken by Beth.

  ‘I’m preparing supper and I would like you to join us. There’s nothing like eating a meal together for making folk amiable. While you are waiting, why don’t you have a scout around the camp and see if anyone can tell you more about your family and you can have a think on what you want to do.’

  Both men agreed and left. Cyriac separated from Turlough and carried out his own investigation and learned that Lily Benedict, Turlough’s sister, was found one morning face down in the river. Then Cyriac made the acquaintance of Gerald Hanley who proclaimed to be a friend of the Benedict family. He spoke frankly of his suspicions regarding the drowning.

  ‘She was knocked about when we found her. I know folks might say she got injured when she fell in the water but I reckon there was a lot of bruising and cuts when we pulled her out.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t like to speculate, but maybe there was more to her drowning than folk were putting about. If I were you I’d have a word with Doc McCullough. He’s the sawbones and the coroner with offices in Thomaston. He might be able to tell you more.’

  Cyriac drifted back to the cabin where inside he had to endure the hostile gaze of Aimee and came to the conclusion it was maybe her habitual expression. Certainly he had seen no traces of friendliness from the big woman. He sat stoically, ignoring her. Eventually Turlough came back and strutted inside, smelling heavily of whiskey.

  ‘Nobody knows nothing,’ he stated. ‘They think Ma might have gone into town but no one knows for sure.’

  He slurred his words and stood swaying in the middle of the floor.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Aimee snarled. ‘Your family go missing and you guzzle moonshine to celebrate. Typical bloody man.’

  Turlough tried to focus on his abuser.

  ‘Not only are you ugly but you’re ornery to boot.’

  ‘You sad excuse for a man. Your ma you claim to be so fond of did herself no favours when she didn’t drown you at birth.’

  ‘Don’t you slander my ma.’

  Turlough took a step towards the woman, his hands clenched. Whatever his intentions were, he never got a chance to execute them. Aimee moved swiftly and hooked his feet from under him. Turlough went down like a felled steer with Aimee straddling him.

  ‘You want to fight!’ she yelled, slapping the youth’s face. ‘I’ll rip your bloody arm off and stick it up your butt.’

  ‘Aimee!’ Beth called. ‘For God’s sake, don’t disgrace us brawling like a barroom harpy.’

  The smaller woman was hauling on Aimee’s arm with little or no effect other than preventing her from slapping Turlough again. Aimee scowled at her sister but came reluctantly to her feet. As she was pulled back, she could not resist lashing out at Turlough with her boot. He mumbled drunkenly and curled into a ball. Beth was persistent – pushing her much bigger sister towards a chair.

  ‘Sit there and don’t move. Supper is nearly ready.’ She turned to Cyriac who had sat quietly observing the fracas. ‘And you weren’t much use. Can you not keep your friend under control?’

  ‘He ain’t no friend of mine. I just happen to be travelling with him. He sure as hell can’t hold his liquor.’

  Beth put her fists on her hips and stood glaring at her companions one by one.

  ‘All of you behave,’ she ordered sternly. ‘Anyone steps out of line again gets no supper.’

  No one responded. Cyriac went back to being his usual stoic self. Aimee glowered while Turlough slowly sat up and sent sullen glances at her. The smell of cooking filled the cabin and had a calming effect on the inhabitants, for there were no more disagreements. A truce was in place and for the moment all was quiet while the cook got on with the task of producing the meal.

  The foursome sat down to braised beef and potatoes. No one spoke much until Cyriac broached the subject of Turlough’s family.

  ‘From what I can gather your sister was found drowned. And it is probable when your ma lost so many members of her family she upped and left. I can’t say I blame her. No one knows where she went but I guess Thomaston would be a good place to start.’

  ‘I told you what’ll happen if I go into Thomaston. Sheriff Ginsberg has a noose he’s saving for me. I don’t feel like putting my head in it any time soon.’

  ‘Don’t surprise me they want to hang you,’ Aimee sneered. ‘You’re like a mangy dog no one wants.’

  ‘Would you like me to go in for you?’ Beth asked hastily, trying to stave off more disagreements.

  Turlough looked across at Beth with surprise. ‘You would do that for me?’

  ‘It’s not much to ask,’ she said. ‘I’ll go in first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Typical man,’ Aimee sneered. ‘Can’t do his own dirty work. Got to get a female to help him out. Not only are you a lush but a coward to boot.’

  ‘Aimee, that’s not fair,’ Beth remonstrated with her sister. She turned back to Turlough. ‘What makes you think you are in danger from the sheriff?’

  Turlough had eaten very little of his dinner, pushing it around the plate. Cyriac reached over, took the plate and swapped it for his own empty one.

  ‘What the hell you do that for?’ protested Turlough.

  ‘If I remember right, the last time you had a bellyful of whiskey you couldn’t eat anything. I’m just saving you the embarrassment of leaving this excellent dinner on the plate and humiliating the cook.’

  ‘Damn you, you’ve gone too far this time.’ Turlough staggered to his feet.

  Ignoring the outburst, Cyriac continued eating.

  ‘You cook a mighty fine beef, Miss Beth,’ he said as he chewed. ‘He’ll be a lucky man as throws a loop on you and gets you to the altar. Sit down, Turlough. You are embarrassing everyone as well as making a fool of yourself. Is that any way to thank someone as feeds you and then offers to go into town to help you out?’

  Turlough sat down abruptly. ‘Sorry, miss,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Cyriac continued. ‘How about we all go into town tomorrow and enquire about your family?’

  ‘Huh!’ snorted Aimee. ‘You can count me out. I ain’t going into no town with no gallows bait. If he says as the sheriff wants to hang him I’d more ’an likely give him a hand.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ Cyriac poured the last of the gravy on Turlough’s purloined dinner. ‘We can all go in and watch the hanging.’

  He glanced over at his companion. Turlough was slumped in the chair, fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  Aimee decided after all to accompany them into town. ‘If this jerk is gonna be hanged I want to be there to help,’ she averred.

  She rode a sturdy Belgian sorrel while Beth, in keeping with her own neat shape, had saddled up a compact Mustang. Turlough was slumped on his mount, looking pale and washed out. Cyriac was his usual impassive self.

  Beth tried to draw out T
urlough on his family but the youngster was too sunk in his own misery and fear of what was to come that he was unable to engage with her and thereafter the quartet travelled in silence.

  The town of Thomaston was composed of hastily erected buildings and shacks. The main street was wide and muddy with a few shoddy attempts at boardwalks here and there. It was a settlement that had grown up overnight with the appearance that it might vanish just as quickly. They pulled up just on the outskirts.

  ‘How do you want to do this?’ Beth deferred to Cyriac.

  ‘Best we split up. I’ll mosey along to the sawbones. I was told he is the coroner.’

  Without waiting for a response, he urged his mount forward, leaving them to gaze after him, undecided.

  ‘I guess you’ll make your enquiries in the saloon,’ Aimee mocked Turlough. ‘You have plenty of choice. There’s three to choose from.’

  Turlough pulled his hat low on his face and rode down the street, following behind the sisters.

  Cyriac saw the sign outside the clapboard house, proclaiming it was the residence of Doctor McCullough MD. He tied up his horse outside and knocked. A young woman opened the door to him and welcomed him inside.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I need to see the doc.’

  ‘Take a seat.’ She pointed to a bench. ‘Doctor McCullough is with someone at the moment. What is your name?’

  ‘Halkias.’

  The woman disappeared through a door off the hallway. Within minutes she reappeared with a coffee tray and placed it on a small table beside him. Cyriac nodded appreciatively and poured himself a coffee, thinking the woman was very young to be a doctor’s wife and a hell of an attractive one at that.

  He drank one cup and was contemplating pouring himself another when the door opened and a chubby matron came out into the corridor. She ignored Cyriac and left by the front door. The young woman came into the hall again.

  ‘Mr Halkias, Doctor McCullough will see you now.’

  Cyriac was surprised to discover the doctor was an elderly man with sparse hair and a drooping grey moustache. He realized the error of his first guess that the young woman was the doctor’s wife and concluded she had to be his daughter.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘I’m after some information about a young woman as drowned recently out at Gold Point. Name of Lily Benedict.’

  The doctor squinted at him. ‘You a relative?’

  ‘No, but I’m here on behalf of her brother, Turlough Benedict.’

  ‘Mmm . . . there ain’t much to tell. She fell in the water and drowned.’

  ‘The fella as found her tells me she was badly knocked about. He wondered if there was foul play. Said as you were the coroner you would be able to tell me more.’

  The doctor turned his gaze away from Cyriac. ‘I can’t tell you any more than I just did, mister. Either way it’s hard to say if it was suicide or an accident.’

  Cyriac sensed there was more and wondered if it was worth pursuing the matter but decided against it. He got a sense from the interview the doctor was reluctant to say anything more.

  ‘A young girl dies and no one gives a damn. Thank you, Doc.’

  As he rose to go he heard someone at the front door. After a pause there was a sudden scuffle and he heard a woman cry out. Doctor McCullough came out of his chair and pushed past Cyriac.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Linenan?’ he yelled once he was in the hall. ‘Get the hell outta my house at once.’

  ‘Sure, Doc, as soon as this little filly of yours starts treating me with some respect. I came here asking to walk her out and you slammed the door in my face.’

  ‘Leave me alone, you brute. I wouldn’t walk out with you if you were the last man on earth,’ came a woman’s voice.

  The intruder was almost as big as Cyriac. His face was red; suffused either with rotgut or rage or both. The doctor’s daughter was feisty all right, even though Linenan had her pinned against the wall, his hands roaming over her like he had every right, while she struggled futilely against his greater strength.

  ‘You get out of here at once,’ the doctor yelled. ‘Else I’ll put a charge of buckshot in you.’

  The big man’s face turned to the doctor. He placed his hand on the butt of the six gun strapped to his side.

  ‘You figure on swapping lead with me, Doc. Go ahead. Get your scattergun. See which of us is standing at the end of the shootout.’

  Holding on to the woman’s wrist, he stepped a pace back from her.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ the doctor raged. ‘Get the hell away from here and come back when you’re sober.’

  The outer door opened and another man stepped in, not quite as big as Linenan but bulky with muscle.

  ‘You having problems, Jesse?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ answered Linenan. ‘The doc here wants to have a shootout with me. What way’s that to behave just because a fella comes a-courting?’ He leered at his captive. ‘What’s it to be, Arlene? You gonna behave yourself and come along with me for a sociable drink or will your pa and me have a good old-fashioned shooting match?’

  The intruders either didn’t notice Cyriac standing in the background or chose to ignore him. Now he stepped along the hallway.

  ‘Miss McCullough can’t come with you. She has a prior engagement with me.’

  Linenan’s eyes narrowed. Slowly he turned and it was only then Cyriac saw the star on his chest.

  ‘Mister, I’d advise you to go on about your business and not interfere in this. You’re a stranger around here and obviously don’t know how things work in Thomaston. I’ll give you a piece of friendly advice cos I’m a friendly sorta fella. You go back in doc’s office and wait for him to attend you, or you keep interfering and when Trent and me here have finished working you over, even the doc won’t be able to patch you up. Then again, seeing as I’m in an easy going mood, I might just take you down the calaboose and sling you in jail for disturbing the peace. You and doc go back to your business, and me and Arlene here will go down the Golden Garter for a friendly drink.’

  Cyriac threw his hands wide on either side, palms out.

  ‘I see you got a badge. I didn’t realize you were the law. I guess I’ll mosey along then.’

  He stepped past the doctor. Linenan was smirking as he watched the big man move along the hallway.

  ‘Smart move, mister.’

  As Cyriac drew near the couple, he doffed his hat with his left hand and nodded towards the young woman.

  ‘Good day, miss.’

  He jammed the hat in Linenan’s face and at the same time, his hand snaked out and snatched the gun from the lawman’s holster. Linenan gasped out loud as the gun was rammed hard into his midriff. There was a click sounding loud in that hallway as Cyriac pulled the trigger.

  ‘You crazy son of a bitch,’ Linenan whispered, his voice trembling, ‘you could have shot me then.’

  ‘You were lucky that time, fella. Most folk as carry a gun keep the first chamber empty. I couldn’t be sure but then I didn’t care anyway. So I guess the pin is now resting on a live shell. When next I pull the trigger, you’ll get a lead ball in your guts. Miss, you go on back there and join your pa. I wouldn’t want you to get this fella’s blood over you.’

  Hastily the young woman moved out of danger.

  ‘It’s my turn to give a piece of friendly advice,’ Cyriac continued. ‘You can turn and walk out that door under your own steam or I can pull this trigger and maybe the doc here can save your life or then again, maybe not. I wouldn’t count on him being too anxious to patch you up seeing as you’re not on very friendly terms at the moment.’ The silence was tangible in the hallway until Cyriac spoke again. ‘If your pal by the door doesn’t take his hand away from that gun then he’ll join you on the casualty list.’

  Jesse Linenan, deputy to Sheriff Ginsberg, looked into those dark eyes and thought he saw his own death in the depths.

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll go,’ he croaked.

  Cyriac stuffed the purloined revolver in his belt and watched impassively as the two men scrambled out of the door.

  CHAPTER 13

  The sheriff’s office was situated halfway along the main thoroughfare. A few boards had been thrown down to keep the mud tramping inside to a minimum, though during the rainy season it rarely worked.

  The town drunk – a shabbily dressed man wearing an old peaked cap rusty with age – stomped a few times on the boards and then pushed open the door to the law office. Inside he found two men playing cards.

  ‘Sheriff Ginsberg,’ he wheezed as if he had lung trouble. ‘I need to see the sheriff.’

  ‘Gusty, get outta here. Sheriff ain’t in today.’

  ‘You gotta tell me where he is at. I got something urgent to tell him.’

  ‘Did someone steal a nickel from you?’ teased one, a weasel-faced man with a drooping moustache covering most of his mean mouth.

  ‘Just go back to lying in the gutter,’ his partner said. ‘You look outta place standing upright.’

  The second man was the opposite of the first – bulging out of his vest and with a ruddy rounded face. Gusty was not to be put off by the banter.

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s real important as I see the sheriff.’

  ‘Gusty, I tell you he ain’t here,’ the first man said impatiently. ‘Now get outta here afore I kick your sorry butt back out into the street. I raise you a nickel,’ he said to his partner, chucking money into the small heap of coins on the desk.

  ‘Mmm. . . .’ The tubby man studied his cards with a frown, wrinkling his forehead.

  ‘It’s Turlough Benedict,’ Gusty burst out, unable to contain his news any longer. ‘He’s back in town. I saw him.’

  That got the attention of the two deputies.

  ‘Benedict – are you sure? He wouldn’t show his face back here again. He wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I tell you I seen him.’ Gusty was hopping up and down in his excitement. ‘He got some females with him. I saw him go in the store. He was asking about his ma.’