Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1

by W. , Johnstone, William

Platt answered the question. “The kind that gets a man killed.”

  “It might be you that gets killed, Shawn,” Sally said. “Let Mr. Platt do his work first. He’s obviously capable.”

  Platt smiled. “No, Shawn has a point. I think it’s better he goes alone. One man can hide in the dark better than two.”

  He spoke to Sally but looked at Shawn.

  “If Cobb gets irritated enough, he’ll go at the problem like a charging bull,” he said. “That’s when men of patience and reason like myself and Mr. O’Brien can join forces and use clever strategy to take advantage of him.”

  “Stay out of my head, Ford,” Shawn said. “I’ll do this my own way.”

  “Then you have a plan?”

  “Not really.”

  “I advise you to come up with one fast,” Platt said.

  Shawn nodded. “I’m studying on it.” Then, for Sally’s sake, “I’ll be back before first light.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Platt said, “Know this, Shawn, should you fall, I’ll see to it that Miss Sally is taken care of. And I’ll personally shoot Cobb for you, then burn down Holy Rood.”

  “Thanks,” Shawn said. “That makes me feel much better.”

  “I’m glad. Go in peace, Mr. O’Brien,” Platt said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The moon hung high in the sky and, staring at it, Jasper Wolfden felt an ancient stirring, as old as mankind itself, to strip off his clothes and go hunting with the wolves.

  He smiled to himself.

  How wonderful that would be, to run through a pine forest misty with moonlight and howl with the pack, the musky scent of deer strong, like incense in his nostrils.

  But there was no need for that . . . plenty of wolves right here in Holy Rood.

  Two watched him now, predators more cold and deadly than the most ravenous lobo.

  Despite their monk robes, Wolfden recognized them both. Tom Hooper, a mental case who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake, and Jason McCord, a Texas hard-ass of reputation.

  Wolfden pegged the gunmen in his mind as the Deadly Duo, and the alliteration pleased him.

  Both of them had been present when Hank Cobb buried him alive.

  The men sat about twenty feet apart from Wolfden, close enough that a skilled revolver fighter like McCord could get his work in, but far enough away to discourage any gun or knife play the witch-finder might make.

  Wolfden commented on it.

  “You boys don’t trust me, huh?” he said. “Sceered I’ll bring the lightning down on you.”

  Hooper, who’d been honing the edge of his machete with a whetstone, sneered and said, “You don’t scare us, mister.”

  “And why not?” Wolfden said. “Though I have no intention of scaring either of you.”

  “Because there ain’t no such things as witches. And if there ain’t no witches, there ain’t no witch-finders.”

  “Hank Cobb doesn’t think so,” Wolfden said. “That’s why you and McCord are here.”

  “We’re here because of the money,” Hooper said. “Hank hasn’t figured out your angle yet, hunchback. But he will.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he’ll kill you. Or we will.” He turned to McCord. “Pass the damned whiskey, will you? You been hoggin’ it all night.”

  McCord surrendered the bottle, and then said, “Your name is Starlight, ain’t it?”

  “As ever was, man and boy,” Wolfden lied smoothly.

  “Then why don’t you make it easy on yourself, Mr. Starlight?” McCord said. “Admit to Cobb in the presence of the townspeople that you came here to steal the bank’s money and he’ll go easy on you.”

  “Hell, he might cut you in for a share,” Hooper said. “The boss is a generous man.”

  “Shut your trap, Tom,” McCord said. Then to Wolfden, “You know you’re not leaving this burg alive unless Cobb says so.”

  “I have a job to do,” Wolfden said.

  “There ain’t witches in Holy Rood, mister,” McCord said. “I already told you that.”

  Wolfden smiled. “I know. But there’s a bunch of killers and outlaws here. And they’re just as evil as witches.”

  “Listen, hunchback, are you some kind of law?” Hooper said.

  Wolfden shook his head. “No. I’m a witch-finder.”

  Hooper hissed his frustration and held up the machete so the moonlight gleamed on its edge.

  “You know why I’m sharpening this knife?” he said. “Because I blunted it on a feller’s skull this morning. I damn near cut his fool head off. Now I’m thinking about doing the same to you. Maybe cut that hump off’n your back.”

  “He isn’t joking, Mr. Starlight.” McCord grinned. “Good ol’ Tom’s a demon with that there machete.”

  Wolfden had been sitting on a rock. Now he rose to his feet and his back straightened.

  Surprise showed on the faces of the two gunmen as they all at once beheld a tall, straight man, not a hunchback.

  “Good ol’ Tom, try to hit me with the big knife and I’ll kill you before you cover three paces,” Wolfden said. “You really feel like wading through a half dozen bullets to get to me?”

  Hooper was not a smart man, and he might have gone for it.

  But the sudden clangor of the church bell froze him in place, as it did McCord.

  The Texan recovered first. “What the hell?” he said.

  He ran to the rim of the ridge and stared at the moonlit church, then ducked as shots rang out.

  “Is it Cobb?” Hooper yelled above the din.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” McCord said. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “We’d better get down there,” Hooper said.

  “No. You boys stay right where you’re at.”

  The heads of both men swiveled in Wolfden’s direction. He stood tall and terrible in the darkness, Colt in hand.

  “Damn it,” McCord said. “I should’ve pegged you for a gun.”

  Wolfden shook his head. “No, you should’ve pegged me for who I am, Jason.”

  McCord peered hard at Wolfden and the scales fell from his eyes.

  “Jasper Wolfden, by God,” he said. “I helped bury you.”

  “Not deep enough,” Wolfden said.

  “Damn you, then this time I’ll make it stick.”

  McCord drew.

  And died.

  The Texan was fast, but drawing from the leather against a man who already had his own gun out and knew how to shoot it was a doomed play.

  McCord went down with two bullets in his chest that clipped half-moons from the tag of the tobacco sack that dangled from his shirt pocket under the monk’s robe.

  Hooper watched McCord fall. He screamed in rage and charged Wolfden, the machete raised for a killing downward stroke.

  Wolfden had earlier prophesized what would happen.

  Three bullets tracked upward, following the recoil of the Colt.

  Hooper stumbled a few steps with a .45 in his belly, chest and throat.

  He died with his eyes wide open, horrified at the time and manner of his death.

  The demanding bell dinged into silence, its sound replaced by random shots, pounding feet and the hoarse yells of angry men.

  Wolfden smiled.

  Shawn O’Brien was sure playing hob.

  Now it was his turn.

  The idea had come to him out of the blue. To be sure, it was a grandstand play, but he considered it crackerjack. Best of all, it would take the pressure off Shawn, who might even now be fighting for his life.

  Wolfden pried the machete out of Hooper’s dead hand and stepped to the ridge. The unblinking moon rode high, surrounded by a halo of pale blue and red.

  People were flooding into the bone-white street and he thought he heard Hank Cobb yelling orders.

  Wolfden turned his head into the wind. There was a good breeze, sufficient for his purpose.

  Grinning, he set to work.

  He opened the sacks of paper money and shook them
into the wind. The bills fluttered off the ridge and scattered like a flock of released pigeons.

  Now for the coin.

  The keen-edged machete easily slashed the burlap sacks open and Wolfden emptied them into the bottom and the seat of the surrey.

  When every sack was empty, he stepped to the edge of the ridge.

  “Hey, you down there!” he yelled, throwing his actor’s voice.

  Blurred white faces turned in Wolfden’s direction and one of Cobb’s men took a pot at him.

  The bullet went wild and Wolfden laughed and yelled, “Watch this, pilgrims!”

  A strong man, he put his brawny arms to the surrey.

  The carriage tipped and then teetered perilously on two wheels.

  Wolfden put his back into it and the surrey toppled over the edge.

  He stood and listened to the tinny tinkle of coins chime over the rocks, and then a ragged crash as the surrey hit the flat and shattered apart.

  Stepping to the edge of the rim again, Wolfden yelled, “Hey, Hank! You just lost your money!”

  He was answered by loud curses and shots slapped across the night.

  A few of them were close. Too close.

  Standing on the rim, Wolfden realized he was like a duck in a shooting gallery.

  He faded back into the darkness, looking for a way out.

  As far as he could tell, there was none.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Shawn O’Brien waited until the midnight hour before yanking on the bell rope.

  It was gratifying to see how the racket woke up the town, people running this way and that, as though he’d just stepped on an ant nest.

  But when men appeared wearing nothing but long johns and gun belts and bullets rattled into the tower and pinged off the bell, he decided it was high time to scamper.

  His boots pounding on the bell tower’s pine steps, Shawn ran directly into the church and then headed for a door that stood ajar to the right of pulpit.

  He’d come in that way, and it seemed the best bet for an exit.

  But as Shawn stepped through the door, a bullet chipped wood from the jamb and another kicked up dirt at his feet.

  He stared into the darkness, his mouth suddenly dry.

  A man wearing a long red nightshirt stood on the porch of a gingerbread house, a rifle at his shoulder.

  He was not one of Cobb’s gunmen, but one of the good citizens of Holy Rood who’d somehow managed to hold on to his firearm.

  The man fired again, his rifle flaring orange in the moonlight, and Shawn’s anger surged.

  The idiot was shooting at a target he hadn’t even identified as the phantom bell ringer. He was just some rooster who wanted to take pots at somebody . . . anybody.

  Shawn drew and fired, aiming to scare, not kill.

  He thumbed off three fast shots that split the air close to the rifleman’s nightcapped head.

  It was enough. The man squealed, dropped his rifle and ran into his house, the bottom of his nightshirt flapping around his skinny, hairy legs.

  Shawn was pleased that he’d put the crawl on the rifleman, but the sound of firing had alerted Cobb’s men.

  He heard shouts mingled with curses and the sound of feet running across the wooden floor of the church.

  His horse was picketed just north of town, but Shawn decided against making a run for it. Cobb’s men were too close, and those boys knew how to shoot.

  Sweat beading his forehead, he scrambled past the side of the gingerbread house and into an open patch of sandy ground where islands of brush and bunch grass surrounded isolated piñon and juniper trees.

  Shawn ran for the nearest cover, took a knee behind a piñon and studied the situation.

  His heart thumping in his chest, he fed shells into his Colt as his eyes scanned the darkness.

  He’d made only a half-baked plan to begin with. By ringing the bell he’d hoped to put the town on edge and force Cobb into doing something rash. That was the plan, its entire focus and beginning and end.

  Now he’d run out of options and was trapped like a rat.

  Cobb’s men had reacted quicker than Shawn had expected and they were between him and his horse. Not only that, it seemed like every rooster in town was willing to take a pot at him if he could.

  He cursed under his breath and told himself that it was high time to come up with a daring, clever plan.

  But he didn’t have one of them.

  He didn’t even have a timid, stupid plan.

  Three men carrying rifles walked between the church and the gingerbread house. The man in the nightshirt yelled at them to hold up and he stepped off his porch.

  His voice loud and edged with hysteria, he pointed to the waste ground and said, “He went that way. Just a minute ago.”

  “Just one?” a gunman asked.

  “Yeah, and he was a handful,” nightshirt said. “Damn near killed me.”

  The three men stared into the darkness where the moonlight cast long shadows.

  “Let’s go get him,” a man said.

  Shawn wiped his sweaty palm on his pants, and then grasped his Colt again.

  He’d let them get a little closer, then jump to his feet and cut loose.

  Trained in the way of the Colt by grim old Luther Ironside, his pa’s segundo back at Dromore, Shawn suffered the same disadvantage as most revolver fighters.

  The fast draw and shoot was an effective weapon, but only up close at spitting distance. These were Hank Cobb’s handpicked men and they’d be no bargain in a fight . . . at any distance.

  He’d need to wait until they halved the open space between him and them, and even at that range one against three was a mighty uncertain thing.

  Shawn swallowed hard. He had no other option. He had to do it.

  Only one of the gunmen wore boots. The other two had rushed into the street at the sound of gunfire and walked on bare, hesitant feet, wary of rocks and cactus.

  They came on slowly, carefully. Shawn touched his tongue to his dry top lip and waited.

  Ten yards . . .

  Seven. . .

  Five . . .

  One more yard and it would be time to open the ball. . . .

  Gunfire erupted, somewhere in the darkness behind him.

  “Frank, he must’ve made it to the ridge above town,” a man said, his tone urgent.

  The three gunmen stopped in their tracks, and listened into the night.

  “Hell, the money’s up there and so is that damned witch-finder,” the man called Frank said. “He must be in cahoots with the feller we’re chasing. You two stay here and keep a sharp eye out. I’ll go find Cobb and take a looksee on the ridge.”

  “The ranny we’re after ain’t here, Frank,” one of the barefooted men said. He wore a black-and-white cowhide vest over his undershirt. “He must be on the ridge.”

  “We don’t know that,” Frank said. “Maybe McCord and Hooper shot the witch-finder.”

  “We’ll go with you,” the man said.

  “Do like I told you and bide right where you are,” Frank said. “If you see the man we’re after, go get him. I’ll be back.”

  Shawn heard the man’s booted feet make tracks into the street toward the sheriff’s office.

  The barefooted men stood in moonlight, their eyes scanning the waste ground.

  “Damn it, I know he ain’t here,” the man with the cowhide vest said again.

  “Yeah, well, Frank said to bide, so we’ll bide,” the other gunman said.

  “You see anything?”

  “Not a damned thing.”

  “Me neither. I reckon he’s long gone.”

  The odds were reduced by one and Shawn worried that Wolfden was in trouble, maybe badly wounded.

  It was time to jump the broom.

  He sprang to his feet, his Colt coming up fast.

  “Damn—” cowhide vest yelled. It was the last word he’d ever say in his life.

  As the man swung his rifle, Shawn shot him twice, the black-and-
white vest a splendid target in the moonlight.

  Shawn didn’t watch the man go down. He turned on the second gunman and snapped off a fast shot.

  Too fast. A clean miss.

  But it was enough. It seemed that the second gunman had no belly for a fight, at least that night.

  Shawn’s bullet had furrowed the air so close to the man’s head that he threw down his rifle and scampered for the gingerbread house, yelling for nightshirt to open the damned door.

  A quick glance told Shawn that the big .45 rounds had torn great holes in the chest of the downed man and he was as dead as he was ever going to be.

  He took time to reload his Colt, then swung around and ran in the direction of the ridge.

  Shawn pulled to a halt when he heard a splintering crash ahead of him, and then more gunshots.

  What the hell was happening? Was Wolfden playing hob, or had Cobb and his gunmen cornered him?

  Even in moonlight, the darkness held no answers.

  Shawn’s inclination was to clear out of Holy Rood and make a run for his horse. But as soon as the thought entered his head, he dismissed it.

  He couldn’t leave Wolfden alone. For all he knew, the man might be badly wounded or already dead, but he had to find out for sure.

  Besides, the plan was to put Hank Cobb on edge and force him into making a bad move. And that seemed to be succeeding.

  But Shawn was forced to admit that only the first part of his scheme had been successful.

  Judging by the racket of the gunfire ringing from the ridge, it seemed Cobb had the situation well in hand and had cornered Wolfden.

  Since it was located behind the main street, Shawn had never seen this part of Holy Rood before.

  Around him, as though they’d wandered into the wilderness and lost their way, gaunt, tarpaper shacks with tin roofs and crooked iron chimneys were scattered here and there with no sense of planning or order.

  No lights showed in any of the cabins and the ground around them was unmarked by footprints or horse tracks. The air smelled musky of stagnation and slow decay.

  Shawn guessed that these were the hovels where the whores, gamblers and other undesirables lived before Cobb sacrificed them for his own gain.

  Beyond the shacks rose the dark bulk of the ridge. The shooting had stopped, but Shawn was close enough to hear angry yells and curses as men stumbled around in the gloom as though searching for something.