by BJ Holmes
He touched his hat brim. ‘Thanks, ma’am,’ he said and he left. Casually, he walked the length and breadth of the town. At each end the signs proclaiming WODENSBURG were newly painted but that was nothing out of the ordinary. He may have wondered why equally new paint had been used on the town’s name board at the railroad stop––or why the same paint had been used to block out the proprietor’s name on The Star and Garter board over the hotel. But he didn’t.
Instead, he walked the town like a prowling panther––whose senses had been blunted by age––growing frustration in his eyes.
Who and where was Jeremy Brackwell? Who did he want rubbing out ? And what lay behind the door of Number 14 in The Star and Garter? When his head hit the pillow for his second night in the town, he was no wiser.
The next morning he crossed to The Star and Garter with a new determination in his eyes.
‘Anything for me today?’
The clerk shifted awkwardly on his feet. Mr. Blackwell says the deals off, he replied nervously without raising his eyes from his paperwork.
‘Off?’ grunted Queenan. ‘Off ?’ For a moment his lips set tight end his eyes opened wider. Then he lunged across the counter and grabbed the clerk by the lapels. ‘Nobody welshes on John Queenan. Who is this Blackwell? Where is he?’
‘Dunno, sir,’ the clerk gasped, afraid to make any effort to free himself. ‘Look, I’m just the go-between, the message-carrier.’
‘When did he come in ? I been watching from my hotel room across the street.’
‘First thing this morning.’
‘What’s he look like?’
‘It’s hard to say, sir. Just kinda ordinary.’
Queenan growled and pushed the man away roughly. He looked up the stairs. Even from this distance he could see the painted numbers 14 on the door at the top. He was not going to be monkeyed around any further. He was cutting his losses and getting out of this god-forsaken hole for the first-and-last time. But before he did get out of town he was going to lay bare the secret of Room 14.
He returned to his own room and strapped on his gun rig. He tested his guns and slipped them into place.
With the forcefulness of the locomotive that had brought him into town two long days ago he stormed down the stairs, across the street and back into the lobby of The Star and Garter.
Up the stairs and onto the landing. He stood staring at the polished wooden surface of the door. Who or what was behind it? Jeremy Blackwell? The man he was to be paid to kill? Or maybe something else that explained the pig’s ass of a mystery that he’d walked into?
In the circumstances he was not just going to knock and walk right in. He flattened himself against the wall. His gun was in his right hand and he tried the knob with his other––so that when the door opened the only part of his body visible would be his hand.
Damn the knob wouldn’t turn. Unusual, he thought. Even when doors are locked their knobs turn. He tried more strength––to no avail.
He changed his gun to his left hand. Being right-handed, his right had more power. Good, the knob was beginning to move slightly. But leaning over from the cover of the doorway he couldn’t get enough leverage. He put his ear to the woodwork. Not a sound. There was no one in there to cause him any trouble, he concluded. Throwing caution to the wind, he sheathed his gun, stood squarely before the obstinate door and gripped the knob slowly. When it reached the half circle, the knob was wrenched from his hands as the door sprang back with surprising force. The whole thing was so unexpected there was a fractional delay in his reflexes. Enough delay for him to take the full impact of the two-barreled shotgun. Most of the top part of his head fountained upwards as he spanged backwards, hit the rails and cartwheeled over to drop the fifteen feet to the ground floor.
With no brain virtually left in his smashed skull, it was too late for him to figure that his last contract had been on––himself.
George Tyree, the proprietor of The Star and Garter dismantled the apparatus he had so thoughtfully constructed. A cable had led from the door through a pulley on the ceiling, pulled tight by a weight. Clamped to a table, itself screwed to the floor, was a double-barreled shotgun with enough power to drop a mature buffalo bull. A wire round the double triggers had been activated via another pulley by the falling weight.
His reception clerk stood on the bloodstained landing and watched him threw the open door.
Two hired hands were to bury Queenan out of town in an unmarked grave. There was a thousand bucks stuffed in his waistcoat pocket.
A crowd including Ray Ward, Babette and Maisy had gathered outside the hotel as the body was carried out and hoisted unceremoniously onto the back of a buckboard. Other townsfolk had watched as the body was been taken down Main Streets past the railroad stop and out of town. Nobody asked any questions. Because everyone in town had been in on the subterfuge.
There was no such person as Jeremy Blackwell. It was the false name used by George Tyree when commissioning Queenan. Many years ago, when the Union Pacific railroad had first cut across the terrain, there had been no stop here. It had been a man called Tyree who had negotiated with the railroad company for a stopping point. So, in a way he had founded the town. In his honor the people making up the original population had named the town after him.
He had two sons, Peter and George. As they’d grown up together they’d been like oil and water. After their father had died things got worse between them so Peter had left while George remained as the owner of The .Star and Garter. The only thing George knew about his brother was that he was working in some mine. That is until he heard of Peter’s death, murdered by some paid gunslinger for trying to start a union amongst the mineworkers. Then, the only things George could remember were the good times––and that Peter had been his brother. He had set about using his resources to trace Peter’s killer and to lure him to town.
Tyree was no longer a frontier town; it was thought the day of the gun had long been over. Maybe for this reason, George could not bring himself to shoot Queenan cold-bloodedly or even pay someone else to do it––although the townsfolk would not have blamed him if he had. So he’d set up the trap––if Queenan were to die, it was to be by his own hand, his own greed, his own curiosity. Everyone in town, from mayor to chambermaid was aware of the fatal door that was not to be opened.
Now it had been opened and the day of the gun––the gun–– was finally over.
Shatterhand and the Widow McCool
There was a crisp quality to the light, throwing sharp-edged shadows, as a tall figure emerged from a stand of lodge-pole pine and entered a clearing. He breathed deeply in search of new smells that would give him extra information on the locale. His regal bearing as he made progress across the scene matched the bleak splendor of the sun and his surroundings. His deep-tanned skin seemed impervious to winds and low temperature. His wide-brimmed hat, fringed buckskin jacket and leggins had long faded to the color of the earth, making him part of it.
The deep lines cutting the terrain of his face, the white hair, the gnarled leather of his hands, testified to his age. Yet nature, which had cast his limbs in a mould of uncommon strength, had endowed him with a constitution as strong as his
limbs. In the past it had bid defiance to the machinations of climate, fatigue, privation. Now it was the turn of his constitution to challenge the machinations of old age. A task at which it was not always successful, as testified by the occasional creaking of joints and universal stiffness. But sweeping generalizations are the makings of legend. And this was a living legend. This was Shatterhand.
Seconds later he was joined by another figure to emerge into the clearing from another angle. This particular legend bore the name of Winnetou and sported the clothes of an Apache. Son of the famed chief Intschu-tschuna, he had made his own reputation long before his association with the fabled white trapper, huntsman and scout.
Shatterhand felt the wind, looked through the green canopy at the sun, then signaled direction by sil
ently chopping the air with this right hand. The couple could lead quite a complicated conversation by mere, unobtrusive hand signals
General Montborough was in need of guidance through the northern waterways. Having lost his regular scouts, he had requested help. There was not a blade of grass across the vast American continent that was not known to Shatterhand and his faithful companion and thus it was they had been commissioned for the task. They were at present making the journey across the swathe of forest to make the rendezvous.
They nooned in the next clearing they came upon, finishing off the rabbit they had killed that morning for breakfast. Resuming their passage they eventually broke the confines of the forest.
They would have passed right through the clearing and beyond had not there been a rifle crack and splinters of wood gouted out of the trunk close to Winnetou’s head.
‘Gott in Himmel!’ Shatterhand mouthed as he and his companion instinctively dropped to the forest floor. Anyone else might have simply ran away. But the two curmudgeons didn’t cotton to someone trying to plant them in forest mulch.
The two worked their way on their elbows nearer through some tangled growths. There was s log cabin. Looked like a rifle barrel at a window.
‘Why they shoot?’
‘Maybe just cautious,’ Shatterhand said.
‘Maybe hunting.’
‘From a cabin window? More likely they’ve seen us and getting in their retaliation first, as they say.’
‘We proceed?’
‘Shatterhand glanced again at the sun. ‘We are making good time. It intrigues me that someone should want to kill us.’
‘Or maybe frighten us.’
‘Well they haven’t done that. But they’ve made me mighty curious. We have time to pause in our journey and investigate. I’ll keep them occupied from here. You circle round and see what you can access from the rear.’
Once Winnetou had set off, the white man made occasional showings, just enough to elicit gunfire. He spent some ten minutes playing this game before the redman appeared at the door and waved. Rising and walking towards the cabin Shatterhand noticed a freshly heaped grave bearing a crude wooden cross.
Inside the cabin was a rather bloated woman seated in a rough-hewn wooden chair.
‘The is the Widow McCool,’ Winnetou said. ‘May I introduce Der Jäger, otherwise known as Old Shatterhand.’
The huntsman clicked his heels. ‘At your service, gnädige Frau.’
She said nothing and the eyes with which she monitored the white trapper on his entrance had a blankness, almost as though she saw nothing through them.
‘What’s the matter with the good lady?’ Shatterhand asked.
‘She has not yet come to terms with the fact an Indian can be close without wanting to rape, kill or steal from her.’
‘She must have had some bad experience. I hear tell there are some redskins like that.’
‘So have I heard too,’ said Winnetou, rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the conversation being played out.
‘So you’ve had Indian trouble, ma’am?’
Suddenly she broke down. Shatterhand creaked his ancient bones down beside her and gave her what comfort he could. ‘You’re with friends now, ma’am.’
Eventually they got it out of her. She had lived here with her husband and they were expecting a child.
Shatterhand nodded. He had been searching for a reason to explain her rotundity; he hadn’t thought of that
‘Your time not far away, ma’am?’ Winnetou prompted.
‘Two weeks.’
She went on to describe how Indians had attacked a week ago, killed her husband. Killed all the livestock, hogs, chickens everything. The only thing that was spared was their flea-bitten donkey. And that was only because it managed to escape. But it eventually came back of its own accord.
Shatterhand nodded. Her husband being killed explained the newly-dug grave outside.
‘And you want to leave but you can’t because of the blossoming of the kinder…er child within you?’ he said by way of trying to nudge answers from her. ‘Is that it?’
‘That’s right.’
Shatterhand looked around. ‘When did you last eat?’
She raised two fingers. ‘Two days,’ she said weakly. ‘Spend all day at the window in vigilance.’
Shatterhand nodded again––that explained the unfounded firing to which they’d been subjected when they had first hove into view.
He saw a bed at the back. ‘You lie down, ma’am. My friend and I will look after you. But first you must eat. It is in order that we make a meal?’
She pointed vaguely at the cooking area,. ‘Be my guest.’
When they’d had their fill, a mixture of what Winnetou could find in the cabin along with some of their trapped food, Shatterhand clarified his intention. ‘With us here you should sleep well tonight. You are in need of that. Both for yourself and the babe to be. Then, first thing in the morning we set out to deliver you to the nearest civilization where you can be tended properly.’
‘No, no, I can’t travel.’
‘What is the nearest place where you’d feel comfortable?’
‘Fort Kenton. I have friends and some family there.’
‘How far.’
‘Ten miles, but I can’t travel that distance,’ she said patting her unborn child. ‘I am well due.’
‘Trust us, ma’am. We shall see to it that your travel is as with as little stress as possible. But I figure you haven’t slept for some time, so the first thing now is for you is to lie down in that bed, while Winnetou and I guard you and look after the place.’
White man and red took it in turns to watch during the night. There were no menacing developments and Shatterhand took the opportunity on his watches to store some firearms on the veranda. Under a mixture of dull lamplight and moonlight he fixed a Martini- Henry up the back of one of the vertical stanchions. He repeated the exercise with another stanchion. Vertical behind the wood they couldn’t be seen from the front and were fixed so that they could easily be pulled clear at will. When he was sure they were secure he primed them so that they were ready to fire instantaneously. He found some longer screws and in like manner fixed his beloved Barontoter, a monster weapon that could fetch down a bison at half a mile, horizontally within the roof of the veranda, effectively spanning the doorway arch. He checked he could reach it by simply raising his arms. Priming that one too, he retired to the interior to keep watch from a window.
Come morning the trio were preparing to leave. ‘I can’t travel’ the lady repeated as she waddled back to her seat after eating.
‘Yes, you can.’ Shatterhand said. ‘You’re travelling by travois.’
‘We haven’t got one.’
Shatterhand smiled and indicated his friend. ‘Best travois maker amongst the Apache is our Winnetou. In fact amongst the whole of the Peoples, he’s renowned for his travois-making skills.’
Shatterhand went to the door and pointed across the clearing. ‘Enough timber out there, my dear noble savage. Should find some usable boughs.’
‘I’ve never made a travois in my life.’ Winnetou whispered. ‘You keep forgetting. I’m what they call a civilized Indian. Even my family call me a White Apache. Means I know all about how to handle a Sheffield-made knife and fork and dab my lips with a napkin; but fall short of all the Indian skills you stereotype me with.’
‘Listen, you buffalo-fat muncher,’ Shatterhand in a mock growl. ‘We’ve got to keep up the good lady’s spirits. See the exercise as one of morale-boosting. As to the travois, you must have seen pictures of them in encyclopedias in that missionary school of yours. Just remember what you’ve seen and copy it.’
‘Sometimes I think I only wear my Indian get-up to please you. To make you look the part. One day I will expose to the world my role in fabricating the notion of The Legend Called Shaterhand!’
Shatterhand laughed. ‘Get on with it. And make sure the conveyance is comfortable enough f
or a child-bearing woman.’
Winnetou took out his knife and loped across the clearing to the edge of the forest.
Back inside Shatterhand said, ‘While he’s occupied in that, gather your things together for travelling so that’ll we’ll be ready when he’s finished.’
It was some three quarters of an hour later when they heard an Apache whoop.
‘Reckon he’s finished,’ Shatterhand said and went to the door. He could make out Winnetou surrounded by half a dozen Indians.
‘He’s got some buddies.’ He waved back.
‘They’re not his buddies’’ Mrs. McCool bleated as she scanned the figures through the window ‘It’s them! The same ones who killed my dear John.’
‘No reason to panic, my dear. Firstly, are you sure?’
‘I’ll never forget their faces. They’re going to kill us all. That’s why they came back. They’re going to kill us.’
‘No they’re not.’
She dropped back in the chair her head in her hands. ‘With John dead and with all this trouble––the baby will be stillborn I know. I may as well die; then I can join the two of them in heaven where we can be happy again.’
Shatterhand looked back at the group. ‘How are things, Winnetou?’ he shouted in Apache.
‘All right, my friend,’ Winnetou returned in the same Apache dialect. ‘They mean us no harm.’ He hugged one by the shoulder. ‘See, no problem. They merely want to trade.’
‘OK,’ Shatterhand shouted and beckoned with his arm. ‘Let them come as they’re friendly.’
He stepped back. ‘You can use a gun?’ he said out of the corner of his mouth without looking away from the approaching redmen.
‘What did he say?’ she asked
‘He has been asked by the bunch to explain to us–– principally me––that they mean us no harm.’
‘You speak their tongue.’