Death Rattle

by Sean Lynch

  He discarded the thought as quickly as it came. Such an act wouldn’t bring Pritchard back, and would rouse Shipley against him. Worse, the venal mayor would undoubtedly go after his father.

  For now, he simply wanted Pritchard out of the shallow, unmarked hole. He thought he might rebury him alongside his pa, near the pond at what was once their family’s home. He figured he owed his lifelong friend that much.

  Pritchard wasn’t buried deep. Ditch was easily able to scoop away the loose earth. In less than a minute, most of the large, upper body was exposed. He found his friend lying faceup, his head turned to one side. There was a jagged, bloody, circular bullet hole at his hairline over his right eye.

  Ditch was uncovering his legs when Pritchard moaned. The sound startled him so badly he fell back onto his rump. With eyes like saucers and a pounding heart, he scuttled away from the open grave.

  An instant later, Ditch watched in amazement as Pritchard moaned again. Dirt erupted from his nostrils and mouth, and his head lolled from side to side. Samuel was alive!

  Ditch scrambled to the grave, cradled his friend’s head, and gently lifted him to a seated position. As Pritchard coughed and sputtered for air, Ditch examined his wounds.

  The .36 caliber ball, fired from Deputy Eli Gaines’s 1851 Navy Colt, had entered the crown of Pritchard’s forehead at a downward angle because he was on his knees. The projectile skirted the skull beneath the skin and exited the back of his head behind his left ear. What looked like a through-and-through headshot was actually only a grazing wound, albeit under the scalp. The impact rendered Pritchard unconscious, and the graphic appearance of entrance and exit wounds on opposite sides of his head led his would-be murderers to conclude he was dead.

  “Can you hear me, Samuel?” Ditch asked excitedly. Pritchard’s eyes were caked over with dirt.

  “Not so loud,” Pritchard croaked. “My head hurts.”

  Ditch hugged his friend, as his tears turned to laughter. “I’m gonna call you Lazarus from now on!”

  “My noggin feels like somebody drove a railroad spike through it.”

  “Can you stand?”

  “I think so.”

  Ditch helped the shaky Pritchard to his feet and led him to the river. Pritchard dunked his head, washing away dirt and blood, while Ditch unfolded his bedroll and began tearing his only clean shirt into bandages.

  After Pritchard washed up and drank some water, Ditch carefully bandaged his head. He placed him against a tree and covered him with the bedroll. As Pritchard rested, he refilled the hole with dirt, doing his best to replace the scattered leaves and branches that were left by Deputy Crittenden to camouflage the grave. He even placed Deputy Gaines’s cigarette butt back on the mound.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Ditch said, shouldering his rifle and bedroll. “We don’t want to be around if any of Shipley’s men come back to inspect their handiwork. Can you move?”

  “I’m pretty woozy,” Pritchard said, “but I guess I’ll have to.”

  “Only if you want to stay alive,” Ditch said.

  Chapter 10

  “It’s nearly nine o’clock,” Dovie said to Shipley. “You promised to take me out to our place at first light. I must attend to Thomas’s body.”

  Dovie stood on the hotel steps. Shipley was seated, along with Sheriff Foster, in a pair of rocking chairs on the hotel porch. They were sipping coffee, smoking cigars, and surveying the town. Shipley was still wearing his Union uniform.

  “And you will,” Shipley said to her, “as soon as it’s safe to travel. Sheriff Foster sent out a patrol to make sure the roads are free of Confederate raiders. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”

  “That’s true,” Sheriff Foster said. He pushed back his hat and squinted at three riders, coming toward them down the main street. “Speak of the devil. Here comes the patrol now.”

  Deputies Gaines, Crittenden, and Boudroy, his neckerchief wrapped under his chin and tied on top of his head to keep his busted jaw in place, rode up.

  “Roads are all clear,” Gaines drawled his report to the sheriff. “No sign of reb raiders.”

  “What the hell happened to Boudroy?” Foster asked.

  “He let himself get kicked,” Gaines chuckled, displaying his decayed teeth, “by a big, angry, horse.” Boudroy scowled back at him. Crittenden looked sheepish.

  “Get him over to Doc Mauldin’s,” Foster said. “Then bring yourselves back here. You two are going to escort Mrs. Pritchard out to her place. Find some men to go along with you to bury her husband.”

  “But we ain’t had our breakfast yet,” Deputy Crittenden whined.

  “Your breakfast can wait,” Foster said. “Get moving. I want you back here, and ready to go, in five minutes.”

  “C’mon, Merle,” Gaines said to Crittenden. He spat a gob of tobacco juice at Dovie’s feet. The three deputies rode off toward the offices of Atherton’s only physician.

  “Digging two graves in one day,” Crittenden bellyached when they were out of earshot, “and on an empty stomach, to boot. Sheriff Foster sure can be a son of a bitch sometimes.”

  “You can bet things’ll be different,” Gaines said, “when I’m sheriff of this county.”

  “Counting your chickens before they’re hatched, ain’t ya?” Crittenden chuckled.

  “Laugh while you can,” Gaines said, turning in the saddle and looking over his shoulder at his Sheriff Foster, growing smaller in the distance. “You may not be laughing so loud when I’m wearing the sheriff’s star. Hell,” he continued, swiveling back around to stare the mirth off Crittenden’s face, “when I’m sheriff, you may not be laughing at all.”

  * * *

  Ditch made his way around to the back of the schoolhouse, staying low. It was daytime, and he had to exert extra care not to be seen. He carefully peered through the rear window and saw the familiar rows of young children seated in their chairs. Alice Nettles, one of the town’s only two schoolteachers, was at the chalkboard explaining a math problem. Her husband, Rodney Nettles, taught the older children in the room next door. He’d been Pritchard and Ditch’s teacher for the past few years.

  Ditch was looking for Idelle Pritchard. While eavesdropping from his hiding place in the hayloft at the Atherton stables, he overhead Dovie Pritchard tell Samuel that she and Idelle were staying at the Nettleses’s place. Ditch crept silently away from the schoolhouse and made his way across the yard to the house, situated next door.

  He found Idelle sitting on the back porch. She was wearing a rust-colored dress and had her long, blond hair in a ponytail. Her crystal blue eyes were red from lack of sleep and crying. She was aimlessly drawing circles in the dirt with a stick. Ditch didn’t know it, but Dovie left Idelle in Atherton while she went out to inspect what was left of her home and care for her husband’s remains.

  “Hey Idelle,” Ditch whispered from behind the cover of the woodpile. “Over here!”

  She dropped the stick and looked up. “Ditch!” she cried out, and ran over to him.

  “Hush!” he cautioned. “Don’t call out my name, for heaven’s sakes!”

  As Samuel’s best friend, nine-year-old Idelle Pritchard had known Ditch Clemson her entire life and had a crush on him for most of it. Though he wasn’t tall and muscular, like her blond-haired, blue-eyed brother, Ditch possessed an agile, wiry build, and had dark brown, wavy hair and even darker eyes. She thought he was the handsomest fellow she’d ever seen.

  “Why’re you hiding?” she asked. Ditch grabbed her wrist and pulled her down behind the woodpile.

  “Best you don’t ask,” he answered. “All you need to know is if I get found, I’m done.”

  “Why aren’t you in school?” she said.

  “Why aren’t you?” he countered.

  “Mrs. Nettles let me have the day off,” she said softly, “on account of Pa being dead.”

  “I know,” he said. “I helped your brother bury him. I’m powerful sorry, Idelle.”

  She nodded, and fo
r a moment it looked like she might begin crying again.

  “I need your help,” Ditch said. He didn’t have time for her tears. “Samuel does, too.”

  “Do you know where he is?” she said, perking up.

  “I do,” Ditch admitted, “but he’s hurt. He’s hiding out, like me. If he’s found—”

  “—they’ll hang him,” Idelle finished. “I know. I heard some marshals talking. How bad is he hurt?”

  “Bad enough. I need some whiskey and a sheet to make more bandages. I also need some food.”

  “Pa told me whiskey is bad for you,” Idelle said.

  “It ain’t to drink, Idelle. I need it to clean up Samuel’s wounds.”

  Worry lighted the girl’s face. “Please tell me where he is,” she pleaded, “and what happened to him?”

  “I can’t,” Ditch insisted. “All I can tell you, is that some very dangerous folks have reason to believe he’s dead. I want to keep it that way.”

  “But he isn’t dead,” Idelle protested. “Mama said he had to go away, to keep from getting hanged for killing the men who killed Pa. She said he weren’t never coming back.”

  “You’re right,” Ditch said. “He’s alive. But if the men who believe he’s dead discover he ain’t, they’ll come after him, sure as hell. You and your mama, too. Now do you understand why he’s hiding?”

  Idelle nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get the things I asked for and stash them behind this woodpile. I’ll be back after dark to pick ’em up. Can you manage that?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “This ain’t no game,” Ditch said sternly. “If you can’t get it done, say so. I don’t want you to get in trouble doing this.”

  “Samuel needs my help,” Idelle said. She looked into Ditch’s eyes. “You do, too. I’ll get it done.”

  “Thank you,” Ditch said. He kissed her on the forehead. “Remember, no matter what happens, you must never, ever, tell anyone we spoke. Not even your mother. Far as you know, your brother just rode away.”

  “I won’t tell Mama,” Idelle said. She stared at the ground in shame. “I can’t. She’s gonna be takin’ up with Burnell Shipley. She doesn’t think I know, but I do. It makes me sick in my stomach to think about it.”

  “Don’t be so hard on your ma,” Ditch said, lifting her chin. “She’s only doing it for you and Samuel.”

  She nodded and produced a weak smile. She couldn’t help it, looking into Ditch’s eyes.

  “I’ve got to get back to Samuel,” Ditch said. “He’s in a bad way. Wait here until I’m gone, before you come out. It’d go poorly for all of us, especially him, if we were seen together.”

  “When are you and Samuel coming back?”

  “Don’t know if Samuel ever is,” Ditch answered. “He has powerful strong feelings against this place. Can’t say I blame him. But I’ll be back someday, you can count on it. I just don’t know when.”

  “You promise you’ll be coming back?”

  “Sure,” Ditch said. “Atherton is my home. My pa is here, and so’s our ranch. Sooner or later, I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” Idelle said.

  “You don’t have to,” Ditch said, oblivious to her intent. The gap in their ages notwithstanding, he’d known her since she was born and always thought of her as a little sister.

  “I know I don’t,” she said. “But I will.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “Good-bye, Idelle.”

  Idelle sighed, rubbed her forehead where Ditch kissed her, and wistfully watched him make his way silently back into the woods.

  Chapter 11

  Idelle Pritchard strolled past the Sidewinder, across the street from the Atherton Arms Hotel, swinging her basket nonchalantly. She wore a bonnet and blended in with the many other pedestrians walking on either side of Atherton’s main thoroughfare.

  Idelle bided her time until late afternoon, after school let out, knowing that was when the downtown streets would fill with folks buying sundries, children just released from class, and townsmen finishing their workday and heading over to the Sidewinder for a whiskey or beer. For what she had planned, Idelle wanted the streets crowded.

  Idelle knew where she could get the whiskey, food, and bedsheets Ditch wanted all in one place, and it wasn’t from Shipley’s Mercantile and General Store. While the store carried each of those items, she had no money, and stealing them was out of the question. The shopkeeper, Mr. Manning, had the eyes of a prairie hawk.

  The place Idelle planned to obtain the items Ditch and her brother so desperately needed was the Atherton Arms Hotel. To get them, however, she needed to create a distraction.

  Idelle pilfered several matches from the tobacco drawer in Rodney Nettleses’s rolltop desk. As she sidled past the Sidewinder and the array of horses, buckboards, and freight wagons parked in front, she discreetly lit a match and tossed it into one of the larger cargo rigs.

  The wagon she chose was loaded with grain, wood, hay bales, and groceries. Idelle didn’t stick around to see the blaze start, instead choosing to head purposefully across the street to the hotel. She went inside, selected a chair in a corner of the lobby, sat down, and pretended to examine her fingernails.

  In less than a minute, she heard men shouting and the sound of many running feet. She also smelled smoke. Idelle waited patiently until everyone in the lobby, including the hotel’s bartender, the desk clerk, and several maids, as well as a number of guests, ran out through the front doors. One of the men was Burnell Shipley, who waddled from his office behind a mob of guests.

  Once alone in the lobby, Idelle wasted no time. She went directly behind the bar and took two bottles of brown liquid labeled OLD CROW. From there, she slipped into the hotel kitchen and stuffed a slab of dried beef, and as many jars of fruit preserves as she could carry, into the basket. She exited the hotel through the rear kitchen door and snatched a white sheet off the clothesline as she passed.

  Idelle took a moment to cover her plunder in the basket with the sheet and then removed her bonnet and placed it on top to conceal the booty. The basket was very heavy, but she carried it in the crook of her elbow and struggled to pretend it wasn’t. She steadily made her way around the hotel to the street.

  When she reached the plank sidewalk and began walking rapidly toward the Nettleses’s place, she couldn’t resist looking behind her. Idelle saw a dozen men fighting the fire, which engulfed the wagon. Several of them were trying to unhitch the panicked team of horses, while others filled buckets of water from nearby troughs in an attempt to douse the flames. A large crowd of onlookers beheld the spectacle, and smoke filled the late-afternoon air.

  “What’s in the basket, little girl?” a high, scratchy voice demanded. Idelle looked up to find her path on the sidewalk blocked by Eli Gaines. She had never met the deputy, but recognized him as one of Sheriff Foster’s minions. He was at least five years older than Samuel, and all she knew of him was that he had horrific teeth and was disliked by everyone who knew him. Gaines leered down at her, like a menacing scarecrow.

  “Excuse me,” Idelle said, attempting to step around the skeletal figure. He sidestepped, blocking her path again.

  “You’re young, all right,” he said, rubbing his scraggly chin whiskers, “but damn, if you ain’t got your mama’s looks already started. How old are you, anyways?”

  “I’ll be ten in a month,” she declared indignantly. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “How’s about I carry your basket for you?” He reached out a lanky arm. Idelle pulled the basket out of reach.

  “My parents told me not to talk to strangers,” Idelle said.

  “Why, I ain’t no stranger,” Gaines said. “For your information, little lady, I was acquainted with your pa, rest his soul, and your brother, before he suddenly left town. In fact, you might be interested to know I was one of the last people to visit ’em both. Before they departed, I mean.”

  He laughed as
he spoke, a dry, cackling laugh, though Idelle didn’t know what he found so funny. She knew only that she wanted to get away from the creepy lawman as quickly as possible.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Will you let me pass?”

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” Gaines said, removing his hat with a flourish and stepping aside with an elaborate bow. His collar-length hair was as greasy as his smile.

  “Please send my regards again to your ma,” he said. “I just got back from escorting her out to your place. Too bad, about your house burning down.”

  “Good day,” Idelle said, brushing past the deputy.

  “I’ll be keeping my eye on you,” Gaines called after her. He stared at her as she walked away, his foul grin widening even more, if that was possible.

  “Yes, indeed, Idelle Pritchard,” he said to himself. “I’m going to be watchin’ you grow up. You can count on that.”

  Chapter 12

  “Stay quiet,” Ditch whispered to Pritchard. “Something is spookin’ the horses. Wait here, while I check it out.”

  Ditch and Pritchard had spent the better part of the last two days hiding in an abandoned cropper’s shack. They’d been forced to take refuge after only a day on horseback, when Pritchard took a turn for the worse.

  Ditch found the parcel left for him by Idelle, behind the woodpile at the Nettleses’s place, when he returned after dark. Silently thanking her, he tucked the burlap bag under his arm and made his way to the Atherton stables.

  He hid, once again, in the loft, until the stable attendant left for the night. Once he’d gone, Ditch scampered down and saddled and bridled a pair of horses.

  He chose the two finest mounts in the stable, both of which belonged to his father. One was a spirited brown quarter horse named Snake. The other, a two-year-old, chestnut-colored Morgan eighteen hands tall, was called Rusty. Ditch saddle-broke and trained them himself.