Creed said, “Is she hit?”
The boy said to Creed, “No sir, didn’t even flinch. She’s doin’ somethin’ to the prisoner, like a doctor would.”
Creed wiped the grit from his eyes. “I wonder if she’ll leave him blind.”
Creed heard one of his men cock a hammer. “The next man that shoots without my order’ll be executed! We came for prisoners, not corpses.”
The device White Fox placed on Bishop’s face was made of yellow celluloid shaped like the breast of a rooster, and it fit snugly over his mouth and nose, sealing them. The mask was attached by rubber tubing to a small brass and wooden cube, with a music-box-style cranking mechanism on its side. She attached a small leather bellows to a nozzle on the side of the cube, and cranked the handle, expanding the bellows and pumping air through the cube and into the mask.
Bishop’s eyes struggled, the lids sticky with soot, as his lungs heaved, and he spit charcoal-streaked phlegm into the mask. She reversed the crank, drawing the fluid out of the mask, then pressed the bellows to force air in.
One of Creed’s men said, “That’s a long way ’round just to kill somebody.”
Creed said, “You’re a fool.”
More brackish fluid erupted from Bishop’s mouth as White Fox worked the small machine, until Bishop’s lungs swelled with new air and released. White Fox tore the mask away, and pushed hard on his chest, forcing out the pockets of smoke still trapped inside him.
The boy said, “I’ve never seen no miracle before.”
Creed kept his head locked toward Bishop and White Fox as if he could see them, and said, “This is no miracle, boy.”
Blood sprinkled Bishop’s chin as his chest racked. White Fox pulled him forward, and wrapped her arms around him and clamped them together in a fist in the center of his back. She yanked her arms inward, forcing more smoke from his lungs.
Bishop gulped for air, struggling for breath, his lungs burning.
White Fox called, “Water!”
Fat Gut screamed out, “They almost killed me, Cousin! Why the hell you helpin’ ’em?!”
Creed said, “Because we’re not finished.”
Creed handed the canteen from his saddle to the boy. “Give him all he wants.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy tried a salute, his hand tangling in his stalks, before taking the canteen. He hitched up his tattered pants and stepped around two bodies, trying not to look at the faces with mouths and eyes locked open. He stopped a few feet away from White Fox, before looking around at Creed’s men, their guns aimed right at him. A couple of them were smiling.
The only sound was the hack ripping from Bishop’s chest.
Creed said, “Give him the water!”
White Fox snatched the canteen from his hands. “Hold him.”
The boy slipped an arm around Bishop, propping him up. “I swallowed some smoke in the cave myself. It’s god-awful.”
Bishop drank, coughed, drank some more. He looked to White Fox, managing, “Eametanéné.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Coffin Man
Resurrection, Wyoming, was the kind of place that Chaney loved and Lem Wright hated. It was a new border town, being built from the mud up. For Chaney, that meant rail workers and teamsters who could be stupid-drunk with their pay, and ladies who had set themselves up to take as much as they could.
Fresh-cut lumber, glass, and wet paint were everywhere you looked, and the air was full of the noise of saws, men, and working animals. To Chaney, it was music: the sound of cash being made.
But for Lem Wright, Resurrection was something blank, with no tradition or history. The kind of place “that might be something someday,” but wasn’t yet, and likely he wouldn’t live to see it. New places reminded him of his own mortality.
So it was all right that Lem and Chaney guided their horses past the freshly painted porch of a feed store, to Gutterson’s Funeral Parlor. The name was scrolled on the front window, with a discreet crucifix and Jewish star tiny in the corner of the glass.
Lem tied his horse and went for a close look at the symbols. “Wonder who buries the Chinamen?”
The window, backed by purple drapery, bloated Lem’s face, but was kind to his wandering eye.
Three old women in mourning black stepped from Gutterson’s, and Lem moved aside, taking off his hat in elaborate fashion, and half-bowing his head. One of the women was crying, with the other two at her elbow, offering comfort.
The crying woman stared at Lem’s face long enough to get out some words. “My Edward was injured in the war, too. Thank you for your brave sacrifice.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.”
She began sobbing again, guided off by the other two. Chaney watched all this, flicking his tooth with his thumb, thinking what he could do with a widow’s bank account, when Lem’s voice snapped him back. “Ready to take care of some business?”
Chaney joined Lem by the front door. “Haven’t said a damn word in four hours. I got distracted.”
“I’ve been deciding if we should stop or not.”
Chaney slipped his hand inside his jacket, an obvious move for a weapon, before asking, “Why this place?”
“So you can meet another one of your partners.”
Lem opened the door to the funeral parlor, gesturing for Chaney to proceed. Chaney held back, keeping his hand out of sight, ready to draw. Their words were steam in the air.
The pretense meant nothing to Lem. “Your gun belt’s comin’ apart, partner. Better take care of that.”
“In case I haven’t told you, thanks for your brave sacrifice.”
Lem stored his response for later. Chaney kicked the snow from his boots before going in.
The sun sliced the dark of Gutterson’s in long slivers, landing against a small wooden pew, a rude coffin set up on a pair of saw horses, and paper flowers knitted into a wreath. What Chaney could make out in the rest of the room was unfinished: bare walls waiting for paint, against which there were two new rugs neatly rolled, floor planking, and some nail kegs. Ten raw coffin lids were stacked against the opposite wall, with prices scrawled on each. The prices had been crossed out several times, replaced by higher ones.
Lem said, “Howard! Show your worthless ass!”
The response was a dog barking up the street. Lem started for a small door at the back of the parlor, with Chaney following. Chaney regarded the empty pews and coffin, and Lem said, “That’s what you have to look forward to.” He continued into the backroom, adding, “Me too.”
The back room was less finished than the rest of the place, with tools, scrap wood, and several bodies lying in rows on the dirt floor. The bodies were wrapped in heavy cloth, with lengths of rope securing the necks, arms, and feet like so much packed meat.
There was a slapped-together box in the middle of the floor, with a man laid out inside, his huge arms folded on his chest. His mouth was smothered by a drooping moustache that laced into muttonchops along his jowls, covering most of his pitted face.
Lem Wright looked into the box, which was just slightly smaller than a piano crate, then turned to Chaney. “You know a dead man can still break wind?”
The man in the coffin sat up. “You want me to show ya?”
“I think you already did. Jesus, Howard.”
Howard said, “Those boys are just going a little ripe. Get me the hell out of here.”
“You could stuff a family in that thing.”
“All of them, or maybe just me.”
Howard held out his tree-trunk arms, as Lem shouldered him from the crate. Lem bellowed in pain as Howard’s weight almost pushed him to the floor. Howard swung his legs over the side, with Chaney steadying it as best he could. The wood buckled.
“Jesus is crying, hurry up!”
A couple of bent nails tore into Chaney’s hand, prompting Howard to say, “I ain’t much of a carpenter.”
Lem said, “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“There
’s so many killin’s, with all the crews comin’ in. The coolies and the Micks and the Jews all want a piece of each other. Old man Gutterson can’t keep up, so he hired me on.”
Chaney regarded Howard’s work, sucking the blood from his thumb and forefinger. “A gunny’d be nicer.”
“Pulled up the floor for the boards, got a stack of bags for when we run out. One more team of railroad men, and we’re good for at least five shootings. That’s money, man. I gotta finish this one and two more before tomorrow.”
“What about those fellas?”
Howard nodded toward the five on the floor. “Teamsters got ambushed outside of town. Nobody’s claimed ’em, so we’ll dump in the same hole. I’ll give ya each ten if you help me dig it.”
Lem said, “Sounds like you’re doing all right.”
Howard held up a pair of iron pliers and a small chisel. “Between their teeth fillin’s and whatever Gutterson misses in their pockets, yeah, I’m stayin’ out of jail.”
Lem said, “Better that than dead.”
Chaney said, “Especially if you’re handling the funeral.”
“It’s probably a toss-up.”
Lem looked at Howard and said, “We’re going to see Beaudine.”
“Why tell me? I don’t got to do nothing with that crazy son of a bitch. Ever.”
“Howard, Chester Pardee got himself killed.”
“That’s no surprise. Good riddance.”
“By John Bishop.”
The chisel hit the floor, and Howard knelt to pick it up. Lem was right beside him. “Bishop survived, and he tracked Pardee down and shot him.”
Chaney said, “He ain’t lying.”
Howard crossed himself, then pulled a crooked, square-head nail from the side of the coffin crate, tearing through the wood planking like it was paper. He spit.
Chaney said, “I was with Pardee, read Beaudine’s letter.”
“That letter meant squat then, and means double-squat now.”
Chaney said, “It might mean a hell of a lot of money, if it’s true.”
Howard looked up from the coffin, leveling on Chaney. “But it ain’t. You don’t know shit about this, mister.”
Lem said, “Don’t get riled. He’s riding in with me.”
“I don’t like guys who flap their gums. You two do what you want, I got men to bury.”
“Who’s gonna bury you?”
“I ain’t too worried.”
“About dying?”
Howard said, “We make our choices in this life, and I’m at peace with whatever happens. I brought it on myself.”
Lem smiled, “That’s straight from the prison preacher.”
“Go to hell.”
Chaney said, “I’d rather die rich than poor. But you’ve got guts to face what Bishop’s carrying—a double-barreled shotgun, like it’s growing right out of him. If I’ve ever seen the Angel of Death, it’s him.”
Howard said, “Then you ain’t seen shit,” before bringing the hammer down on the square head, missing, and pounding into the coffin’s side, splitting the green pine in half. He hollered from his guts, grabbed two pieces of the crate and hurled them across the room with amazing force. The wood broke apart, crashing into the pile of corpses and tearing open their burlap shrouds.
Chaney took a step back, and Lem reached up to put hands on Howard’s huge shoulders. “This is the time to think, right? Hear me, Howard? Calm down and listen to what we’re sayin’. We need you. If John Bishop’s coming, let’s take care of it together, and not have him pick us off when we’re not looking. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Howard looked to Lem. “You scared, Deadeye?”
Lem said, “No, but I hate unfinished business. Beaudine got us into this.”
Howard nodded. “Uh-huh. The Raiders. Just a gang of thieves.”
“Yeah, shitty ones. Thieves and fools.”
Chaney said, “Maybe Beaudine was right about all that gold.”
Howard moved on Chaney. “You keep talkin’ like an expert ’cause you read a letter? I was there when it was written so don’t tell me shit! If Bishop’s alive, then he’s coming for us for what we done. And we deserve it.”
Lem got Howard to sit down before Chaney said, “Or maybe he’s out to protect what’s his. You boys could have been right all along.”
Howard barked, “There’s no gold, no payroll, no cash.”
Lem said, “Either way, we’ve got to finish this. You want to stay here, building coffins, waiting for death to come through that door? Or ride to Cheyenne, maybe cut it off? If nothing else, you really wouldn’t like a chance to drop Beaudine?”
Howard said, “I’m trying to keep peace in my heart, and you’re tempting me.”
“Maybe you could finally break the Major in half with your bare hands? You’d like that, Howard, I know you would.”
Howard spit again, kicked away the remains of the box, moving to the pile of bodies. He regarded the corpses for a moment, and then looked to the heavens for a sign, a message. The dog down the street started barking again.
Howard said, “The end’s comin’ no matter what I do. Might as well enjoy it, I guess. First, help me bury these fellas.”
Chaney said, “They’re dead. What difference does it make what happens to them now?”
Howard threw one of the corpses over his shoulder. “That’s what I’ve been sayin’ to you, jackass.”
CHAPTER NINE
Eyes of the Dead
Creed sat command-high on his chestnut horse, doing a blind man’s inspection of the shotgun rig, pulling the trigger line, and testing the straps that secured it. He shucked the spent shells, holding the gun next to his ear, snapping it shut, listening for rattles. There were none. He measured the stock with his palms, then ran his thumbs over the end of the barrel for sharp edges or sloppy job where it was sawed off. He gave his silent approval of the gunsmith.
Creed held the rig out in front of him, sensing its weight. “Just move your arm and it fires?”
Bishop’s words were a strain, even as White Fox spread cinnamon oil on his lips with her index finger so he could speak. “My shoulders.”
“Do all the work yourself ?”
“There was a smith, followed my design.”
“Damn clever, but that’s you, Dr. Bishop.”
Creed hung the rig on the saddle horn, while dropping from his tall horse. The chestnut sensed Creed’s every move before he made it and adjusted, patiently helping his blind master.
Creed scratched behind the horse’s ears, “Where’s the boy?”
“Here, sir.”
The straw-haired boy led him around the dead, the smoky kerosene pools, and the bloody snow, to the little clump of trees where Bishop was lying. White Fox, next to him, rose up on her knees, but her hands were always on Bishop’s chest, protecting him.
One of Creed’s men shouted, “She’s startin’ somethin’ !”
Bishop said, “No, she’s not. And you men don’t either.”
Creed was standing over Bishop now, and the doctor’s gaze locked on to Creed’s amber glasses. Creed cocked his head, sensing the moment, and nodded to Bishop in formal recognition. Spread out a few feet behind, Creed’s men casually waited to shoot, guns resting on hips but with hammers back.
Creed said, “Let me see that thing she was after.”
Bishop said, “Your men need to stand down.”
“Apparently, you didn’t leave many.”
“I see a lot of guns.”
Creed ordered, “Holster weapons!”
Some of the men obeyed. The one bleeding from the head didn’t and Bishop said, “There’s still one.”
“And always will be. You fought a good fight, but you’re my prisoners, Doctor. Maybe you better explain to her just what that means.”
White Fox said, “I know.”
“Then toss away that pistol you had aimed at me.”
She threw the gun, with Creed listening for it to land in a bank of sn
ow with a pillowed thud.
Creed said, “I’m entitled to inspect all spoils, even if I can only see them with my hands. Your latest invention, Doctor, the one that saved your life.”
“She saved my life.”
Creed laughed, “Bullshit. Go ahead, boy.”
The boy reached down for the breathing device lying next to White Fox, then stopped. Her eyes cut him.
He swallowed. “Ma’am.”
Bishop asked, “What’s your name, son?”
“Hector Price, sir.”
White Fox kept her other hand hidden in the field kit, clamped around a scalpel. Bishop squeezed her arm, and she let the knife go.
Bishop said, “It’s all right. Otséeme.”
She smiled to herself at being called “brave” and handed the device to Hector, who held it out so Creed could turn the small box over and over, fingers tracing its edges. He fit the mask onto his own face, drawing deep.
Bishop said, “Turn the crank.”
Hector turned the crank, as Creed continued with the mask; then the captain took it off, saying, “I feel my blood pumping.”
Bishop said, “Pure oxygen. The crank draws the air into the device which filters it through a cell filled with purified water, and the bellows pumps it out through the mask.”
“How’d you come to this?”
“Remember the fire at Lynchburg? Our men choking to death, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”
“So, you’re still a soldier.”
“Still a doctor.”
“And you carry your weapons with you.”
“You never know when you’ll need them, Captain.”
“You were an officer, and proud to display your rank on your field kit. Maybe I can’t see, but my vision’s clear.”
Coming up out of some bloody slush, Fat Gut screamed, “What about the bitch with the arrows? She killed near half of us! And me!”
“You survived.” Creed handed White Fox the breather. “Be grateful for that.”
Bishop said, “I remember you saying that before, after a skirmish on the other side of the Shenandoah.”
“Because we have history.”
Shotgun Page 5