Jackson relaxed again. “You’ve been asking the questions,” he went on. “Mind if I ask you a few?”
Everett shook his head. He was puzzled by the request, wondering what Jackson might want to know about him.
“What’s somebody like you doing out here in the first place?” Jackson asked. “Somehow, you don’t strike me as the type a paper would send to the frontier.”
Everett brightened up considerably. “That’s easy to answer,” he said. “There’s a book—you probably haven’t heard of it—called Roughing It by Mark Twain.”
“I’ve read it,” Jackson put in.
Everett tried not to let the surprise he felt show on his face. “Well, my editor really liked that book,” he went on. “He liked the idea of letting the people back East know what it’s really like out here in the West. So he looked around for somebody to send and—”
“Decided to send an innocent abroad,” Jackson finished for him. For the first time, a full-fledged grin stretched across his face.
Embarrassed, Everett looked down at the table again. Even Philomena was smiling at him. He nodded slowly. “I’m afraid you’re right,” he admitted. “So far, I’ve been sending back some good stories, though.”
He didn’t say anything about all the hopes and aspirations that had made the trip West with him. Everett Sidney Howard’s father had been a newspaper reporter, and his father before him. Everett had heard people talk about having ink in their veins instead of blood, and as he grew into manhood, he knew the truth of that statement. Reporting was all he knew, all he wanted, all he could ever hope to do.
But not writing about some party given by a society matron whose idea of high drama was an evening at the theater, seeing and being seen by her cronies.
Everett wanted more than that. He wanted to find the stories that would move people to anger or outrage or tears. He wanted to cover all the laughter and tragedy that made up life.
And this Western journey was a good place to start. He had decided from the first that he was going to find one of the “fast guns” who so fascinated the readers and find out what such a man was really like. A tall, flinty-eyed man with a quick laugh and a quicker draw; a wanderer living constantly on the edge of death; a man who had seen and done it all—
A man like Hell Jackson.
This was going to make—Everett’s lips curved in a wry smile at the thought—one hell of a story.
Now, if only Jackson would agree to Everett’s proposal. More than anything else, he wanted to accompany this man on his travels. Everett was sure that he would encounter everything he needed to know about the West in company with Jackson. All he had to do was convince the gunman that he wouldn’t be in the way. . . .
A shout from outside interrupted the thoughts that were racing through Everett’s head. All three of the people around the table looked up, and Jackson came to his feet in one smooth, efficient motion. He stepped to the door and pushed it open.
“Looks like they’re bringing a body into town,” he said after a moment.
Everett and Philomena joined him, Everett raising himself up on his toes to peer over the older man’s shoulder.
Several cowhands were riding down the main street of Death Head Crossing. One of them led another horse, and draped over its back was a limp figure. At the head of the procession was a young man in a suit, looking uncomfortable in the saddle of a magnificent stallion. The group drew a lot of attention as it made its slow way down the street, and by the time the riders drew up in front of the sheriff’s office, there was quite a crowd on the sidewalks.
Jackson picked up his hat from the bunk and walked down to join the gathering. He didn’t hurry. His interest was a casual one. Everett followed along behind him.
The riders dismounted, and two of them unlashed the burden from the horse they had been leading. They carried the corpse into the sheriff’s office while a shocked murmur went through the crowd. Someone spoke a name—“Luther Berryhill! I know his horse!”—and the speculation started.
Everett stopped in his tracks when he saw the damage that had been done to the dead man’s face. His stomach lurched suddenly. He had never seen a dead man before, let alone one that looked like somebody had set off a dynamite blast right in his face.
Jackson caught the arm of a man standing at the edge of the crowd. “Who is it?” he asked, nodding toward the doorway where the riders and their ghastly load had disappeared.
“Luther Berryhill, they say,” the townie answered. “He’s a hand out at Tillman’s Winged T spread. Should say he was.” The man grimaced. “Never saw the like of that, by God.”
“Speaking of God,” Jackson countered, tight-lipped.
Reverend Driscoll was pushing his way through the press of people. When he reached the door, he went into the sheriff’s office and shut the door behind him.
“I should be in there,” Everett said nervously, as if he were afraid someone would agree with him. “I’m a newspaperman, after all. And there’s a story here.”
“That’s right, Everett,” Jackson told him. “You go right ahead. Just bull right on in there.”
Everett swallowed. “Of course, I’m not sure my press credentials would carry much weight with a local law officer.”
Philomena had appeared beside them. “It is this town,” she said with a sigh. “My grandfather came here to drink when he should have stayed in the hills, and now he is dead. This man, this Berryhill, he came here to drink as well, and now he is dead.” She shrugged. “Some places are evil. This town, it is cursed.”
Jackson smiled again. “There’s your story, Everett,” he said with a chuckle. “The Curse of Death Head Crossing.”
Chapter 5
Everett gathered up his courage as he stood there looking at the closed door of the sheriff ’s office. Quite a few of the townspeople who had been attracted by the commotion still stood on the boardwalk in front of the building. Drawing a deep breath, Everett started trying to push his way through the crowd.
He wasn’t having much luck at it until suddenly the press of people in front of him parted. A glance over his shoulder told him why they were stepping aside. Jackson had moved up right behind him. The citizens of Death Head Crossing were getting out of the gunslinger’s way, not his.
If that was what it took to get the story, then so be it, Everett told himself.
He reached the door and opened it. The corpse had been stretched out on the floor of the sheriff ’s office by the men who had carried it in. The cowboys who had brought the body to town stood to one side looking grim while the sheriff knelt beside the mortal remains of Luther Berryhill. Reverend Driscoll was beside the desk, eyes closed and lips moving slightly. Everett figured he was praying.
With a sigh, the sheriff pushed himself to his feet. He was a tall, barrel-chested man, still powerful despite the fact that his face was weathered by the years and his hair and mustache were white. “Never saw anything like that,” he muttered. “Hope I never do again.” He looked up at Everett and asked, “Who are you, mister?”
“Everett Sidney Howard, from the New York Universe.”
“Oh, yeah, that reporter fella from back East. I heard about you bein’ in town. We ain’t met yet, but I’m Sheriff Ward Brennan.” The lawman’s eyes flicked toward Jackson and narrowed with dislike. “I reckon I know who you are,” he added.
Jackson didn’t say anything. He was accustomed to star-packers not being too happy that he was in their towns.
Everett swallowed hard, gestured toward the mutilated corpse, and asked, “Is this man really Luther Berryhill, as people outside were saying?”
One of the cowhands spoke up. “It’s Lute, all right. Ain’t no doubt about that.”
“His horse came back to the Winged T with an empty saddle,” one of the other men put in. “When we saw that, we knew something must’ve happened to him, so we went lookin’.”
“Found his body a while ago,” the first man said, resuming the story. “We
carried it back to the ranch house first, and Mr. Tillman told us to bring him right on into town.”
Brennan nodded. “You done the right thing, boys.”
“You’re certain about his identity?” Everett said.
“Why the hell wouldn’t they be?” Brennan asked with a frown.
“Well . . .” Everett felt uncomfortable under the lawman’s scrutiny, but he pressed on. “With the face, uh, damaged the way it is, I just wondered how anybody could be sure. . . .”
The cowboy who had done most of the talking said, “Those are Lute’s clothes. He was wearin’ ’em when he rode into town yesterday evenin’.”
Jackson said, “Somebody else’s corpse could’ve been dressed in Berryhill’s clothes.”
The same thought had been going through Everett’s mind. He wanted to give Jackson a look of gratitude, but he refrained.
“Look at his left hand,” the cowhand said. “See that missin’ little finger? Luther lost it when he wasn’t quite careful enough takin’ a dally around his saddle horn one day. Rope caught it and popped it right off when that steer’s weight hit it. And there’s a scar there on his chest where he got stabbed during a brawl when he was drunk. He was mighty lucky that didn’t kill him right there.” The cowboy shook his head. “But his luck sure ran out. Yeah, that’s Luther, all right, no doubt about it.”
Everett was satisfied with the identification now. He said, “Does anyone have any idea what happened to him?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Sheriff Brennan snapped. He looked at the hands from the Winged T and went on. “What the hell happened to him?”
“Looks like somebody set off a stick of dynamite in his face,” one of the men suggested. The same thought had occurred to Everett outside when he first saw the corpse.
Jackson shook his head and said, “No, even one stick of dynamite would have blown his head clean off his shoulders. Something else did that.”
“You sound like a man who’s seen things like that,” Brennan commented in an unfriendly tone.
“I’ve seen a lot of things,” Jackson answered. “Some good, some bad.”
Brennan glared at him for a second, then looked down at the corpse again. “Maybe a shotgun blast.” He glanced at Jackson again. “Unless you want to point out some reason it couldn’t have been that either.”
Jackson just shrugged.
Reverend Driscoll said, “Isn’t the fate of this man’s immortal soul more important than the means of his death? I’ve been praying for him. I think you should all join me.”
“No offense, Reverend,” Brennan said, “but whichever way Luther went when he died, up or down, he’s already been there for ten or twelve hours by this time, so I don’t reckon prayin’ for him’s gonna do him much good either way.”
Driscoll’s mouth thinned in disapproval, but he didn’t say anything else.
Brennan faced Everett and Jackson again and went on. “What business of yours is Berryhill’s death?”
“I’m a reporter,” Everett said, “and I think my readers will be interested in this story.”
“Why would folks back in New York City be interested in anything that happens way out here in Texas?” Brennan looked and sounded genuinely puzzled.
“People back East are always interested in what’s happening on the frontier,” Jackson said in a tone of wry amusement. “That’s why those damn dime novels are so popular.”
The door of the sheriff ’s office opened again. The man who came in was in his thirties, judging by his relatively unlined face and the way he carried himself, but his brown hair had thinned down to almost nothing. The white shirt he wore under a black vest had some dark stains on it, and so did the man’s fingers. That was all Everett had to see to know what profession the newcomer was in.
“Hello, Ward,” he said in a pleasant tone. “I hear there’s been some trouble.”
Brennan nodded. “Yeah. Luther Berryhill’s been killed.” The sheriff waved a hand toward the corpse on the floor.
The balding man looked at the body and grimaced. “Ugly. But then, most death is.”
Everett took a step toward him and held out a hand. “You’d be the publisher of the local newspaper, I take it?”
“Publisher, editor, printer, and I also sweep out the place,” the man replied with a smile as he took Everett’s hand. “I’m Malcolm Graham.”
“Everett Sidney Howard.”
Graham nodded in recognition of the name. “The distinguished representative of the Fourth Estate from New York. I heard about you being in town, Mr. Howard. Why don’t you stop by the office sometime, and we can discuss the practice of journalism.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that.”
“In the meantime, it looks like you’ve beaten me to the punch on the story of this unfortunate man’s death.”
“Not at all,” Everett said. “Any dispatch I file will take some time to be published in New York. You’ll have your story in print in your local paper long before that.”
“That’s true, I suppose.” Graham looked at Sheriff Brennan again. “What can you tell me about this, Ward?”
Brennan grunted. “You can take a look for yourself and know as much as I do. Luther Berryhill got his face blown off somehow. He was in town drinkin’ last night—I saw him in the Big Bend Saloon myself while I was makin’ my rounds—and evidently ran into some mighty bad trouble on his way back out to the Winged T.”
“He was alone?” Graham asked.
Brennan looked at the cowhands, who all shrugged. “Nobody from the ranch was with him,” one of them said.
“I’ll ask around town and see if anybody noticed him ridin’ out, and whether or not anybody was with him if they did,” Brennan said. “And I guess I’d better ride out and take a look at the place his body was found. You boys notice anything strange about it when you went lookin’ for him?”
Head shakes from the men. “There were quite a few hoofprints around,” one of them said, “but hell, it was right close to the main trail, so there was nothin’ unusual about that.”
“All right.” Brennan blew out his breath in an exasperated sigh, fluttering his drooping mustache a little. “Thanks for bringin’ him in. He got any kinfolks around here, do you know?”
“I don’t think so. He was from Georgia or somewhere, came out here after the war like so many others. But Mr. Tillman said to tell you that he’d pay for the buryin’.”
“I’ll tell Cecil Greenwood.” Brennan glanced at Driscoll. “Reckon we’ll have the funeral in your church, Reverend?”
“Of course,” Driscoll answered without hesitation. “I don’t approve of drinking and carousing, but everyone deserves to be laid to rest properly, no matter what sort of scoundrel they were.”
“I’m sure Berryhill would be glad to hear that,” the sheriff replied.
Remembering what Philomena had mentioned outside, Everett said, “Sheriff, this isn’t the first tragic death in the area recently. It’s been suggested that Death Head Crossing is . . . cursed somehow.” Brennan started to glare again, so Everett rushed on. “What do you have to say to that?”
“I say it’s the biggest bunch o’ bull droppings I ever heard!” Brennan replied, his voice rising almost to a roar. “There’s no such thing as a curse.”
Reverend Driscoll said, “I’d have to disagree with you about that, Sheriff. Curses are mentioned numerous times in the Scriptures. What about Job and all the unfortunate things that befell him?”
“That’s different,” Brennan insisted. “Them was Old Testament times, and anyway, God was just testin’ Job.”
“Perhaps He’s testing our community now. Perhaps Death Head Crossing has been judged and been found evil, and this is just the first manifestation of that judgment.”
“Berryhill’s not the first to die,” Jackson said. “Don’t forget that old Indio, Philomena’s grandfather.”
Driscoll almost sneered. “That old heathen was tortured to death by outlaws. It’s no
t the same thing and you know it.” He pointed to Luther Berryhill’s ruined face. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Jackson took hold of Everett’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I never did like the smell of self-righteousness.”
Chapter 6
“Pompous jackass,” Jackson muttered as he and Everett walked toward Philomena’s shack. “Old Julio was no heathen. You could tell that by the things he considered his treasure.”
Everett nodded. “Yes, there were several religious artifacts among them. Clearly that wasn’t enough for the reverend.”
“I’m not sure anybody could be pious enough to suit the reverend,” Jackson said. He shook his head. “No point in worrying about that now, I reckon. What do you think about what happened to Berryhill?”
“I . . . I don’t know what to make of it. I never saw anything quite like it.”
“I never did either,” Jackson admitted. “I think when the sheriff rides out to take a look at the place where Berryhill was found, I might trail him. Wouldn’t mind doing a little poking around myself.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, you want the story, don’t you?” Jackson asked with a grin.
“Yes, but—”
“Let’s just say I’ve taken a liking to you, Everett. I don’t have anywhere else to be or anything else to do right now, so giving you a hand will pass the time.”
Everett’s eyes widened in excitement. “Does this mean you agree to what I suggested earlier? You’ll let me . . . what do they say out here? Partner up with you for a while and write about it?”
“For now. We’ll see how it goes.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Best not to make promises you might not be able to keep,” Jackson advised. “Now, we’re going to have to get you a horse.”
“You mean . . . I’ll have to ride?”
“Only way to get around where I’ll be going, I expect.”
Everett didn’t look too pleased by that prospect. Jackson wondered if he’d ever even been on a horse back there in New York. They had a big park in the middle of the city where folks sometimes went riding, or at least so Jackson had read in Harper’s Weekly, but that didn’t mean Everett had ever done such a thing.
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