Brothers in Arms

by Philip McCormac

  ‘Gawd damn it Butch, you were sure right about that butchered steer. You got the smell right but the wrong animal. What we gonna do?’

  Joe was turning his head from side to side like a trapped animal looking for an escape route.

  ‘There are horses out the corral. I say we get on them and ride.’

  ‘Where’ll we go?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess anywhere will do as long as it’s away from this hellhole.’

  ‘Butch, we can’t just ride away. What about those people… those bodies inside?’

  ‘Hell, what can we do for them? It’s a slaughterhouse in there.’

  ‘’You see the blood? It’s like it were painted on the floors and walls.’

  ‘Don’t Joe, don’t say anything about it. I think I’m gonna be sick again.’

  They were silent for a while trying not to think too much of the horror they had just seen inside the way station.

  ‘Butch, did you notice if Sheriff Patterson was among that there… I mean… oh Gawd… if Sheriff Patterson’s dead that means we’re like, we’re free.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess we are, but if we ride around wearing these cuffs we’ll be picked up sooner or later. We ought to go round the back and find something to cut ourselves free.’

  They ran around the back of the station. The dilapidated outhouses yielded up nothing they could use on the cuffs. Uneasily they approached the rear door of the station and stood outside.

  ‘These are the back rooms. There’ll be stores or kitchens or something.’

  At first they only noticed the rows of bunks. Silently they moved inside. Then they saw Sheriff Patterson and his deputy, Uncle John. Once more they had to look on a scene of horror.

  ‘He was a bastard but he didn’t deserve that.’

  The lawmen had been suspended from a beam. Someone with a bizarre sense of the macabre had fashioned proper hanging nooses. Their blackened faces and protruding tongues were some indication they had died from strangulation rather than broken necks. The fugitives stared with sick fascination at the gruesome sight.

  ‘Joe, there’s something mighty strange about all this. We’re assuming it were Injuns as did all this. No Injun would hang a fella like that. No Injun would go to the bother of making a noose just to hang someone.’

  ‘White men you mean?’

  ‘Renegades.’

  The cowboy pointed towards the doorway leading to the front.

  ‘The butchery inside - them fellas outside tied to the stage. And now this.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It weren’t no Injun did this. I reckon a gang of renegades came through here.’

  His eyes widened as a thought struck him.

  ‘You realise we’re alive because we were locked in that there cellar. Those fellas didn’t know about us otherwise you and I would have been butchered too.’

  ‘Let’s cut them down. It doesn’t seem right to leave them hanging like that.’

  While searching for a blade they found Sheriff Patterson’s gun belt lying underneath a bunk; his twin Remington pistols still in the holster but there was no knife.

  ‘Look in his pocket.’

  They found a clasp knife and during the search a bunch of keys.

  ‘Gawd damn it, Joe It looks as if we’re free of these handcuffs without having to file them of.’

  Once they were free of the manacles they cut the ropes and respectfully laid the two bodies on the bunks and covered them with blankets.

  ‘You think we should do the same for the folk out there?’

  ‘Let’s find something to eat first. The kitchen should be around here somewhere.’

  The got the stove going and started a pot boiling for coffee. There was a store of dried beans and they put them in a pan with water. Adding mouldy potatoes they boiled up a mess. The stew along with some stale bread made an unappetising but filling meal. This activity kept them from thinking too much about the butchery that had gone on in the way station.

  ‘Butch, I been thinking. I remember reading once about a Viking funeral.’

  ‘Yeah, what about it?’ the stocky cowboy replied indistinctly, through a mouthful of half-chewed bread.

  ‘These Vikings would put the fella as had died on board his favourite ship and set the whole thing damn alight.’

  For a moment Butch stopped chewing.

  ‘You mean to fire the place? Gawd damn it Joe, we could do it too. There must be kerosene around here somewhere and we can get straw from the stables.’

  He paused for a moment a frown creasing his dirt-encrusted face.

  ‘Would we have to go inside?’

  ‘One of us ought to go in to make sure the place is gonna burn properly. No need to look too closely. Just slosh the kerosene about.’

  They sat in silence as they contemplated the terrible sights they had witnessed inside the main room of the way station; neither wanting to be the one to go inside.

  ‘We could draw straws.’

  ‘The screaming, Joe - that would have been the folk inside there.’

  ‘I guess. Sheriff Patterson and Uncle John surely wouldn’t have been able to scream. Not with a rope round their necks.’

  ‘What makes men do things like that, you reckon?’

  ‘I don’t know, Butch. Sure beats all reason.’ Joe sighed deeply. ‘Let’s get started. The sooner I’m away from this hellish abattoir the better.’

  11.

  Before they started on their ghoulish task of cremating the dead in Empire Fastness Way Station the escapees saddled two of the horses in the corral. They scavenged as much food as was portable and used a third horse as a pack animal.

  Though feeling queasy about wearing a dead man’s rig Butch strapped on the sheriff’s twin Remington pistols while Joe did the same with Uncle John’s Colt. Joe noticed the guard’s shotgun balanced atop the coach and when he climbed up to retrieve it found two boxes of shells.

  In the clear blue sky above them, as they worked at their tasks, the vultures soared in the hot air currents and waited for the activity at the way station to cease. They had tasted the flesh of the slaughtered stage coach driver and his guard and hungered for more.

  ‘What about those fellas tied to the coach?’

  They eyed the grisly remains of the driver and his guard and the stodgy food in their bellies shifted uneasily.

  ‘Couldn’t we just set the coach on fire?’

  ‘I don’t reckon so. The coach will just burn around them. I guess they’ll be better off inside.’

  In the end they draped blankets over the shredded corpses. It made it only slightly easier to cut away the bonds that held them to the wheels. Quickly rolling the torn up bodies in the blankets they carried them separately across the littered yard to the door of the main building. By the time they finished placing the bundles sweat was pouring freely down their faces making streaks in the dirt already there.

  ‘We have to take them inside.’

  ‘Hell Joe we both gotta do this,’ Butch said desperately. ‘We get the kerosene and the straw and then we both rush in and set it.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  Drifting in from the prairie and into the yard the voice of the singer arrived at the Way Station before he did.

  ‘It was Big Nose Kate that done me down.

  I met her in Barwell town.

  She took my gold and she took my life

  I guess I wanted her for my wife.’

  The singer broke off as he stared at the two villainous men confronting him. One pointed a pistol while the other trained a shotgun at him.

  ‘My, it looks as if I’ve fallen amongst desperate men.’

  He was an aged fellow with mahogany skin and eyes an alert, deep brown. He stared unafraid at the desperados confronting him. Shifting a wad of tobacco to his other cheek he spat and sat atop his mount regarding the two saddle bums.

  They were hatless and their faces and clothes were smeared with dirt. Neither of the pair had
shaved for days. There was desperation in their eyes and he saw the gaunt and hollow look on the faces of men pushed to the extremes of endurance.

  ‘What you doing here, mister?’ the bigger of the two asked.

  The old man spat again - a long stringy brown spit before replying.

  ‘I was coming in for supplies.’

  He gestured to the packhorse he was trailing. The two men glanced uncertainly at each other. Waiting patiently on top his horse the old timer spit again as he took in the destruction of the luggage in the yard.

  ‘Looks like there’s been a mite of trouble here.’

  The men regarded him steadily.

  ‘I don’t think he’s one of them, Joe.’

  ‘One of who, young fella?’

  Joe gestured around the yard with his shotgun.

  ‘The fellas as did this.’

  ‘I saw a bunch of mean looking hombres riding hard back a piece.’

  He eyed his captors speculatively.

  ‘You ain’t part of that gang, then, are you?’

  ‘Hell no, old-timer. We was…’ Joe hesitated, ‘we just arrived ourselves. There’s a heap of dead people inside. We was figuring on… hell, we was gonna set fire to the place and let these poor folk rest in peace.’

  Ignoring the weapons pointed at him the newcomer dismounted.

  ‘I could do with a drink. Let’s go inside. You fellas can tell me all about it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go inside, old man. It’s a butcher’s shop in there.’

  ‘That bad, eh? You mind if I have a peek?’

  Joe and Butch followed the man across the littered yard. After regarding the blanket-covered forms resting outside the door the stranger stepped inside. The two friends waited. It was a while before the old man reappeared. His mahogany skin was a shade paler than when he first went in.

  ‘There’s a fella still alive in there,’ he said and went back in.

  Joe and Butch busted out a bunk and carried it through trying not to look too much at the carnage. They found the old man kneeling by the side of a young man. His stomach had been opened and his intestines spilled out on the floor. Gagging on their recently consumed meal the two lifted him on to the makeshift stretcher.

  ‘What about…?’

  Butch was pointing with horrified eyes at the blood-encrusted entrails that had been dragged from the youngster. For answer the old timer gathered up what seemed like yards of intestine and piled it on the bunk beside the mutilated man. They carried their gruesome burden from the room averting their eyes from impaled bodies on tables - some flayed, some hacked about.

  Helplessly they stood about and looked anywhere but at the man they had carried into the sleeping quarters. Joe turned pleading eyes to the old man.

  ‘Ain’t there anything we can do for him?’

  ‘A sip of water – bathe his face. He’s dying. It’s just a matter of when.’

  He spat on to the floor.

  ‘I have seen some bad things in my sixty years but that stuff in there - that’s the stuff of nightmares. If someone tells me the end of the world is just around the corner I reckon I’ll believe him.’

  He wiped at his lips.

  ‘I could do with a drink. You fellas know where there’s any? I don’t feel like going back in that bar again.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a cellar full of the stuff. I’ll fetch some up. We all could do with a drink.’

  Joe disappeared out the back. As he left on his errand there was a low groan from the dying man. Butch stared with horrified expression at the butchered body on the bunk. The cowboy bent closer to the grey face. Suddenly the eyes snapped open.

  ‘Edie!’

  ‘Take it easy, fella. The sawbones is on his way. We’ll look after you till he arrives.’

  ‘Edie… my sister… they took Edie. She’s only a kid.’

  A hand reached up and gripped Butch’s shirt. For a dying man the grip was surprisingly strong. The cowboy stared helplessly unable to move.

  ‘Get her back for me, you hear.’

  The voice was urgent.

  ‘Sure… fella… sure… I’ll get her back.’

  ‘Promise me…!’

  Butch made no reply not knowing what to do. Beside him he heard the old man spit.

  ‘Promise…’

  The dying man’s eyes were wild and staring.

  ‘Promise me you’ll save her from those savages. Promise…!’

  With the last vestiges of his dying strength the man held Butch rigidly before him.

  ‘Promise… I won’t go till you promise… Promise you’ll get my sister back.’

  ‘I promise… I’ll get her back… I promise.’

  Butch was still crouched over the body when Joe appeared carrying a couple of jugs. The old man reached out and prised the dead man’s hand from Butch’s shirt.

  ‘He’s dead, fella. And I reckon it’s a blessing he’s gone.’

  There were tears in the cowboy’s eyes when he looked up.

  ‘Why old-timer? Why butcher people like that?’

  The old man turned and walked over to Joe and took a jug from him. He put it to his head and began to drink. Joe walked across to Butch.

  ‘What happened?’

  Butch took the other jug from him and took a long drink before replying.

  ‘Afore he died he asked me to go after his sister.’

  There were tears streaming down Butch’s face as he stared back at his companion.

  ‘Joe, he made me promise. He made me promise to get back his sister.’

  12.

  They sat their horses and watched the smoke spew up into the clear skies. The dark plume rose up like a cloud of sinister insects swarming into the heavens. No one spoke for a while. They just sat there watching – drained of all emotion. The only sound, from time to time was of the old timer spitting.

  Before they left the way station they had learned a little bit about their new companion. His name was Frank McCrae and he drifted around doing a little trapping and prospecting. He was an occasional visitor at Empire Fastness, stopping off to stock up on liquor and supplies.

  Butch sighed deeply. He was the first to speak.

  ‘I guess this is where we part.’

  Joe pushed his hat back and scratched at his forehead.

  ‘You set on following those killers?’

  ‘I promised. I guess a promise to a dying man is binding.’

  ‘Well, I got nowhere in particular to go. I might just tag along for a piece.’

  The cowboy’s brow cleared slightly.

  ‘I sure would be grateful for any help.’

  ‘Hang on there. I didn’t say I would help. I said as I would tag along for a piece, is all.’

  Beside them Frank spit.

  ‘You know what direction they took?’ Joe asked.

  ‘I guess I’ll cast around for a spell see if I can pick up their trail.’

  ‘I saw them hightailing it yonder.’ The old man pointed. ‘I counted ten or so horses. Some would have been packhorses and if they were taking females as captives that would make mebby six or seven fighters. Seems to me it’s a lot of killers for two fellas to take on.’

  ‘I ain’t said as I was going after those killers,’ Joe protested. ‘I just said as I would tag along for a piece.’

  Butch swung his horse around in the direction the old man had indicated.

  ‘So long, old-timer. Thanks for your help back there.’

  ‘I didn’t do much.’ Spit. ‘Come to think on it, mebby I been alone too long. I guess I’ll ride a piece with you fellas.’

  They camped that night in a dry arroyo. There wasn’t much talk, each sunk in his own thoughts. The terrible sights they had witnessed back at the Empire Fastness Way Station weighing heavily on them all. Frank took out a harmonica and drew forth a haunting tune that left them all feeling nostalgic for better times.

  ‘How you gonna know them fellas?’ Joe asked at last. ‘We none of us saw them. Frank only saw
them from afar.’

  ‘I guess I’ll just follow their tracks. When I meet up with a bunch of fellas as is trailing along a young woman that’ll be them.’

  ‘When you meet up! When you meet up then you’ll be dead. Those fellas are killers. I don’t need to remind you what they done back at that way station. They meant to leave no witnesses. They killed everyone – the people at the way station, the passengers on the stage and Sheriff Patterson and Uncle John. Everyone!’

  After spitting into the fire, Frank eyed the two youngsters.

  ‘How come you know this sheriff and Uncle John? They friends of yours?’

  There was an uneasy silence as the men considered the question.

  ‘Hell Frankie you might as well know. The sheriff was escorting us to the penitentiary. Judge Pleasance, back in Hinkly, sentenced Butch here to ten years for pleasuring his young wife. I got ten for killing a tinhorn cardsharp. I figure it was cause the judge was still mad at Butch I got such a heavy sentence. The sheriff penned us in the root cellar while he and his deputy spent the night comfortable in those bunks. I guess in a way Sheriff Patterson saved our lives putting us in that cellar.’

  ‘Ten years seems a mite harsh for killing a cardsharp. As for pleasuring the judge’s wife, that is serious.’

  ‘How the hell you make that out, old-timer? The way I figure it it’s not as serious as killing someone.’

  ‘I don’t rightly know the details of the killing but if he was a cardsharp as Joe killed, then I guess he must have caught him at the cheating. Could be rightly what they call justifiable homicide. You’d have thought the judge would have taken that into consideration. But to covet another man’s wife.’ The old man shook his head. ‘You deserved all you got.’

  ‘Ah hell, you dried up old fart; you don’t know what you’re on about. If the woman’s willing and the husband don’t find out then what’s the harm? And anyhow the judge didn’t catch me out. He just found me in his garden with no clothes on and he put two and two together.’

  ‘Hell Butch you never told me that part of it. You mean to say you were prancing around the judge’s garden naked!’

  Suddenly Joe started chortling.

  ‘Naked! Well if that doesn’t beat all. I never heard of a naked gardener afore.’