Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die

by Johnstone, William W.

  This must be Gila Chacon, Matt realized with a start, the condemned man for whom the gallows waited.

  Osgood stirred, opening his eyes. A red flush overspread his bony, balding head from scalp to chin, giving an illusory glow of good health. “You’re still here? If you won’t go away, I’ll keep on drinking. Then it won’t matter if you’re here or not.”

  “Your problem’s not going to go away so easily,” Matt began.

  “Your problem, not mine,” Osgood said. He drank again from the glass.

  “Our problem—I’m making it your problem, too.”

  Osgood choked, coughing. His face was lobster red. When he coughed it turned a dark beet-red. A moment passed before the coughing fit subsided.

  “Don’t get tough with me, sonny. I’m an officer of the law. I’ll throw you in jail,” Osgood warned.

  “Not tough, just realistic. My pard and I don’t intend to sit around playing nursemaid to a string of dead men until the sheriff gets back to town,” Matt said.

  “Should’ve thought of that before you killed them,” Osgood said, snickering.

  “You trying to be funny?”

  Something in Matt’s no-nonsense demeanor thrust through Osgood’s alcoholic haze, chilling him to the bone.

  Osgood held up a hand palm out, a placatory gesture. “I didn’t mean nothing by it. I was just saying it’s your misfortune and none of my own, as the song goes. Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. It’s sheriff’s business. He don’t like it when the marshal steps on his toes.”

  “He won’t like it if we dump the bodies on his doorstep and walk away from it,”

  Matt said.

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “No? What are you going to do, arrest me? That won’t get the bodies moved.”

  Osgood got to thinking. “Waaaal,” he drawled, “you could run them over to the coroner. Dead folks rightfully come under his jurisdiction. Or you could try the undertaker. He buries the bodies for town and county both. He might take them off your hands if he can figure how to get somebody else to pay the weight.

  “Yes, I’d say the undertaker’s your best bet. What the hell? It’s in his line of business after all.”

  “I knew you’d come up with something if you tried. If it works, I’ll bring you a bottle of something better than that rotgut you’re drinking,” Matt said.

  “Always glad to help out. That’s what I’m here for. Sorry I can’t do more to help you boys out, but I’ve got to stay here and guard the prisoner. He’s got a date with the hangman come Saturday and I’ve got to mother-hen him till Marshal White comes back.”

  “Should be a big show,” Matt said dryly.

  “Oh, they’ll be coming from miles around to see the bad man swing,” Osgood enthused.

  Matt went out. A fair-sized crowd had gathered to gawk at the corpse pack train. On the sidewalks along both sides of the street, people paused to stop and stare. Others came out of stores and shops for a look-see. There were off-shift miners, burly, powerfully built men in shapeless hats, overalls, and work boots; along with cowboys and ranch hands, tinhorns and town dwellers, fancy ladies and freckle-faced kids.

  All kept their distance from the dead.

  From random street chatter he overheard, Matt got the idea that the New Mexico ruffians were fairly well detested, with Justin Vollin and his bunch coming in for more than their share of abuse.

  Of course, that last might have been because Vollin’s gang was unable to revenge insult with injury.

  “What next, Matt?” Sam asked.

  “The undertaker awaits.”

  FIVE

  Fritz Guthrie made his living on the in-betweens. His house stood off by itself on a lot between the business district of Tombstone and the residential area. His trade put him in intimate contact with the living and the dead. Fritz lived and worked in a two-story, wooden frame house. The house was isolated, alone.

  Fritz Guthrie was the undertaker of Tombstone—and business was good.

  Like other towns on the boom, Tombstone had a thriving real estate market, with choice lots in town at high prices being traded and sold many times over by speculators, but nobody was in any hurry to make their home or business in close proximity to the undertaker.

  The house was divided into two sections. The ground floor was devoted to business, while the living quarters were upstairs. A long wooden shed in the backyard served as workshop and storage area.

  Set off from it to one side was a kind of carriage house/barn where horses were stabled and a long black hearse was stored, held in reserve for higher-priced funerals.

  Sam Two Wolves and Matt Bodine had received a ready welcome from the undertaker, who proved most receptive to their proposition of deriving some mutual benefit from the final disposition of the late Justin Vollin and friends.

  The bodies had been unloaded from the horses and taken into the long shed that served as a workshop and storage area. Matt, Sam, Fritz, and Jason Cobb, the undertaker’s assistant, all pitched in to carry the bodies into the shed.

  The horses were tied to a rope line strung between two trees behind the barn, where they grazed on weeds and tall grass growing wild at the edge of the property.

  The shed’s long walls were lined with wooden worktables. The tables had two levels, allowing one body to be laid out on top and another on the lower level. Four bodies were placed on the tables, and the fifth was placed on a wheeled cart not unlike a hospital gurney.

  Fritz Guthrie in no way resembled the popular conception of what an undetaker should look like. He was not gaunt, pale, thin, skeletal, or funereal. He had an air of distinction. He looked like a bank president or a politician of the statesman variety (a breed then, as now, in sadly short supply).

  He was tall, heavyset, with a handsome head of glossy silver hair worn brushed back from the temples, and a neatly clipped mustache. He wore a white shirt, maroon tie and vest, and gray pants. Before joining in the heavy lifting, he had removed a charcoal-gray coat and rolled his shirtsleeves up to the elbows. His hands were covered in thin, wrist-length work gloves.

  His assistant, Jason Cobb, was black bearded, thick set, and dressed in brown. He didn’t say much, speaking only when he was spoken to.

  Fritz eyed the bodies with keen professional interest. He stood beside the remains of Justin Vollin, bending over him to examine the head wound.

  “Interesting angle of entry for the bullet—unique. Shot virtually through the top of the head. That’s something you don’t see every day,” Fritz Guthrie said.

  “I was up on a rock ledge shooting down at him,” Sam said.

  “Umm. Must have been a difficult shot.”

  Sam smiled, shrugging. “Harder on him than on me.”

  Fritz moved on, crossing to the other side of the shed, where Dick Buttolph lay stretched out on a worktable. “That’s a big one! Looks like he would take a lot of killing . . . and he did. Three shots in the chest . . . two in the heart, either one would have proved fatal. The third is just an inch or two off to the side. All three shots are placed in a tight pattern; you could fit all three in the width of a man’s palm,” Fritz said.

  He left off looking, straightened up, and turned to Matt. “Your friend was the rifleman, so you must have been wielding the pistol. Remarkable shooting, young man.”

  Matt wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the tools laid out on an instrument tray: hacksaws; circular saws; keen-edged, wide-bladed knives that looked like butcher’s knives; long, thin, whippy blades that looked like filleting knives; slim, sharp-pointed, shiny probing tools; and even what looked like a meat cleaver.

  Sam elbowed Matt in the ribs. Matt came out of his reverie, and realized that Fritz had been speaking to him. “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere,” Matt said.

  “I said, that was remarkable shooting, such a close placement of all three rounds in the target area,” Fritz said.

  “Oh . . . thanks.”

  “Think nothing of it. Consi
dering the circumstances of being involved in a desperate gun battle, you certainly exhibited an admirable degree of coolness and self-possession, to get that kind of accuracy with a handgun.”

  “Nice of you to say so.” Matt brightened. Compliments were always welcome, even from an undertaker.

  “A simple statement of fact,” Fritz said.

  “Don’t get too swelled up, Matt—you missed the heart with one shot,” Sam said slyly.

  “I did? Let me take a look at that,” Matt said. He went to stand beside Dick Buttolph and examined the wounds, frowning at the single entry wound standing several inches apart from the twin bulletholes placed side by side in the heart area. “Huh. Well, I’ll be darned,” he said, mouth turning down at the corners.

  “I wouldn’t let it bother you; it’s outstanding shooting,” Fritz said.

  “I can do better,” Matt said, silently vowing to spend more time on target practice in the future to hone his skills to an even higher degree of accuracy. It made a difference somehow, knowing that there was an appreciative audience for his work.

  Fritz Guthrie was now examining Hake Craney.

  “You could have done better with that one, too, Matt,” Sam said. “You didn’t kill him on the first try. It took two times for you to kill him dead.” He was engaging in some good-natured ribbing and that’s the spirit in which Matt took it.

  “Things were kind of hectic for a moment there. I neglected to dot my i’s and cross my t’s,” Matt said.

  Fritz peered at the bullethole in Hake Craney’s skull, the one that had finished him off. “Dead center in the forehead. The only other time I’ve seen a shot like that, it was done by John Ringo—and the man he shot wasn’t shooting back at the time.”

  “He didn’t even have a gun in his hand, if that’s the hombre Ringo killed for refusing to take a drink with him,” Matt said.

  All Tombstone knew that story. Ringo had been drunk and on the prod, like usual, only more so, and the unfortunate fellow to whom he offered a shot of whiskey had preferred to stick to his glass of beer. In the West it was considered an insult to refuse a man’s offer of a drink, and the other man had been wearing a gun, so the coroner’s inquest found nothing on Ringo and let him go free.

  Fritz pulled off his gloves, putting them on the instrument tray.

  “Seems like you can tell the difference between a hole made by a gun and one made by a rifle,” Sam said.

  “Oh, yes. When you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you can tell these things at a glance,” Fritz said.

  “You must get a lot of practice, working in Tombstone,” Matt said.

  “I see death from gunshot wounds pretty much on a daily basis, including Sundays,” Fritz said. “Also stabbings, beatings, bludgeonings, axe murders, you name it. Not to mention deaths from chronic illness, acute alcoholism, exposure to the desert sun, blood poisoning, the last stages of syphilis, mining accidents, tramplings by horse or cattle, run over by coach or wagon, fire, drowning. The only thing I rarely or ever see is death by old age.

  “There’s a hundred ways to kill in the West—and a thousand ways to die.”

  The undertaker picked up his jacket from the hook on which he’d hung it, draping it across a forearm. “We’re done here. Look after things, Jason. You know what to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” the assistant said.

  Matt, Sam, and Fritz went out of the shed. “It’s about time for my afternoon pick-me-up,” Fritz said. “Join me in a drink?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Sam said.

  “And how!” Matt seconded.

  They crossed the yard toward the back of the house. “Damned decent of you to take those fellows off our hands,” Matt said.

  “Think nothing of it,” Fritz said expansively. “They were killed in the county and it’s the county’s responsibility to see that they’re interred properly. Can’t have a lot of cadavers lying about littering up the landscape. It’s not hygienic.

  “I doubt any friends or relatives will claim the bodies or sponsor a full-dress funeral, so they’ll all probably wind up on Boot Hill. Still, Jason will pick up a few dollars for planting them in their graves, so it’s not a total loss. Lord knows the county can afford it, with all the taxes they’ve been assessing the citizenry lately.”

  “Maybe the outfit at Waco’s will pay for the funerals,” Matt said.

  “Eh? How’s that again?” Fritz asked.

  Matt quickly explained about the Vollin gang being exiles from Lincoln County. “The New Mexico crowd hangs out at Waco Brindle’s saloon. That’s a dive over to the south side of town.”

  “I know of it. More than a few of their regulars come my way,” Fritz said dryly.

  “Vollin’s gang is supposed to be pards of Waco. Maybe he’ll spring for a proper sendoff.”

  “Soliciting for trade is a bit out of my line, I’m afraid. Besides, I have a feeling that Mr. Brindle and company may not be the best of credit risks,” Fritz said. He looked blandly at Matt and Sam, though there was a twinkle in his eye. “In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those fellows aren’t with us for too much longer here in Tombstone, if you catch my meaning. And I’m sure you do.”

  “You may be on to something there,” Sam said.

  “It’s not a sure thing, but that’s the way to bet it,” Matt agreed.

  They entered the house through the back door, into a kitchen. It was small, clean, and neat. Fritz said, “I’ve got company, so if you’ll excuse me for a minute while I go upstairs. . . .”

  “We don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Matt said.

  “No trouble at all. I’ll be right back.”

  Fritz climbed a back staircase, disappearing in the upstairs area. Sam and Matt could hear him speaking to another party, but they couldn’t make out the words. Fritz reappeared at the head of the stairs. “Come on up, gentlemen.”

  Matt and Sam went upstairs. The surroundings were bright, comfortable, cheery. At the end of the hallway a right-hand door opened into a well-furnished room. There was a writing desk, several handsome brown-leather-cushioned armchairs, and a wall lined with bookshelves. A Persian or Turkish carpet with intricately wrought dark blue and red designs covered the floor.

  “My study. Make yourself comfortable,” Fritz invited.

  Sam and Matt sat down. Their host crossed to a sideboard, reaching for a crystal decanter. “Brandy?”

  Brandy was fine with Sam and Matt. Fritz filled three glasses, raising his in a kind of toast. “Here’s to good health, and fine living.”

  “And dying of old age,” Matt said.

  They drank up, draining their glasses. Sam smacked his lips. A pleasant warmth bloomed in the pit of his stomach, racing through his veins. “This is good brandy,” he said.

  “Have another,” Fritz offered. His guests were quick to take him up on it.

  “Very good brandy,” Sam said, after his second.

  “Glad you like it,” Fritz said, smiling, genial. The brandy had put some red color in his cheeks. He was not shy about passing the decanter around to his visitors, and was no slouch in sampling its wares himself. The general mood grew ever more genial.

  Matt peered over the top of his brandy glass. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Guthrie—”

  “Call me Fritz.”

  “Sure, Fritz. I just want to say, you do pretty well for yourself, and just as good for your guests.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Fine brandy, Fritz, damned fine,” Sam said.

  “Help yourself to some more.”

  “Much obliged.”

  They all had another round.

  “I like to surround myself with the good things of life,” Fritz said. “You may have heard the biblical quote, ‘In the midst of life, we are in death.’ For myself, I believe, in the midst of death, I am in life. Why not enjoy that life to the fullest?”

  They had another drink on that one. Presently, there came a knock on the door. “Come in,”
Fritz said.

  The door opened. Standing in the doorway was a beautiful woman, about twenty-five. Champagne-colored hair was pinned up in great masses at the top of her head. She had deep blue eyes, a pert nose, and a luscious, full-lipped red mouth. Her physique was more than a little sensational. She wore a blue satin dress and white gloves. She stepped into the room.

  Being the gentlemen that they were, Matt and Sam rose to their feet. Sam removed his hat; seeing him, Matt did the same.

  “Come in, Yvonne,” Fritz said, all smiles. “Yvonne, may I introduce Mr. Matt Bodine and Mr. Sam Two Wolves? Gentlemen, this is my friend Miss Yvonne Duval.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am!” Matt said enthusiastically.

  “Delighted!” said Sam.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Yvonne cooed.

  She held out a hand. Matt shook it, holding it as lightly in his hand as if it had been an eggshell. She pressed his hand warmly, her smile widening. When it was Sam’s turn, he took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it.

  “Enchanté, mademoiselle,” Sam said.

  Yvonne’s eyes sparkled. “You are gallant, monsieur.” She turned to Fritz. “Sorry to dsturb you when you have company, Fritz, but I really must go. I have a dinner appointment I must keep.”

  “Quite all right, my dear. I’ll have Jason get the buckboard ready.”

  Matt spoke up. “We’ve taken up enough of your time, Fritz, your time and your hospitality. So we’ll be on our way.”

  “Thanks for everything,” said Sam.

  They excused themselves, again thanked their host, said their good-byes, and exited. They went out the back door into the yard, and crossed to the horses. Sam untied the rope from the trees, lining up the string of horses.

  Matt finished tightening up his horse’s saddle girth. He looked up at the house, at a curtained window on the second floor. “Nice fellow,” he said.

  “Nice lady,” Sam said. They busied themselves securing the extra horses to a lead rope. “That Yvonne is sure something,” Sam ventured.

  “I’ll say,” Matt agreed. “I reckon after handling dead folks all the time, Fritz likes to get his hands on a nice warm body once in a while.”