‘What we gonna do about him, Jed ?’
Jedidiah Dent studied the chess-pieces locked in mortal combat before them. Lewis and Jed played chess every Friday night.
‘Who, Lewis?’ Jedidiah asked, moving his threatened queen.
‘The Colonel. What we gonna do about the Colonel?’
Lewis pushed a knight forward to attack the queen further. Lonsdale was a small farming community. It had been a quiet place to live but that was before the Colonel moved in with his four sons. Offered a service, they claimed, to protect Lonsdale from outside elements. Protection was needed, they had said, there being no official law office and all. The Colonel and his men would protect property for a small fee. Their business prospered enough for them to move into a big two-storey building a year ago, at the quiet end of town near the church and its cemetery. Then they began to solicit business more aggressively. Specifically they made the ante compulsory and raised it to 10% of the turnover of every business in the area.
At first those who refused to pay found themselves the victims of almost immediate vandalism. Then those who wouldn’t cooperate began to disappear or have fatal accidents. The folks living around Lonsdale were peaceful; they led ordinary work-filled lives. They toiled all week and went to church on Sundays. No, that wasn’t strictly true; at least not at the moment. The preacher had died of a heart attack three weeks ago––the whisper around town was that it was the strain of events––and the church had remained empty pending the arrival of a new preacher. As tillers of the land the folk of Lonsdale didn’t know about guns. And so they didn’t know how to handle the Colonel. And things were getting worse. Within the last month, two homelanders had refused to pay the premium and had been openly killed.
Jed moved his queen yet again. ‘How much do you think we could raise from the folk to hire ourselves an outside gun?’
Lewis made a calculation on his fingers before moving one of the roughly-carved pawns. ‘I think we could pull $2000 together.’
‘OK, you check out that figure. Let me know something solid. Then tell the townsfolk not to worry. We’ll get someone into handle the Colonel and his boys.’
Jedidiah smiled as he swept a bishop across the board. ‘Checkmate.’
Abe Hanley knocked the fourth tack into a bottom corner of the notice and stepped back to check that the thing was straight.
NEW PREACHER TO ARRIVE NEXT WEEK – GOD WILLING
read the message. He returned the tack hammer to the tool box and shut the lid. He was just walking down the path from the whiteboard church when he saw the tall frame of Harry Orme making his way down Main Street with a double bore shotgun held aggressively forward.
Orme was a quiet sort of fellow. One of the few locals with cattle, he had a small spread to the south. No one knew until later that, the day before, Orme had refused to pay the Colonel’s protection premium. That morning he had woken up to find his small herd had been taken during the night and driven over the cliff at Blueberry Canyon. It could only have been on the Colonel’s instruction. Despite the protestations of his wife, the usually passive Orme had decided he had a score to settle.
Abe closed the white-painted gate and watched the tall figure pressing determinedly on.
‘Stop him, somebody!’ It was Mrs. Orme at the end of the street, wringing her hands in vain appeal. Folks began to appear at windows on the boardwalk. Whatever Orme was going to do he had an audience.
He stopped at the Colonel’s two-storey mansion that squared off the end of the town’s thoroughfare. He kicked open the gate and leveled the huge hunting gun at the door.
‘Colonel!’ he shouted in a tone of voice no one had ever heard him use before. Dogs could be heard barking in the building.
Mrs. Orme had collapsed against the façade of the hardware store. ‘No, no…’ she repeated incessantly.
‘Colonel!’ Orme bellowed again.
Momentarily there was silence. Then for five seconds guns crackled from the upstairs windows of the Colonel’s residence. There must have been six shots in all and Orme’s body took every one. Mrs. Orme didn’t see the body fall. In a crumpling moaning heap on the boardwalk by this time, her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Knowing what had been her husband’s intention she had no need to witness the inevitable being played out. It had already happened in her imagination.
The front door of the big building was pulled open to reveal the Colonel. The long, white hair was thinning. The only clue to the location of the eyes, virtually obscured by shaggy eyebrows, were the deep grooves radiating outwards from them like the rays of the sun in a reddish-fleshed face. Likewise nearly absent was the chin, a family characteristic.
The opening of the door allowed the ex-army man’s two dogs to push past his leather leggings.
‘Somebody asking after me?’ the Colonel asked, loud enough for the gathered townsfolk to hear. ‘Eh?’ he continued, pretending not to see the bloody remains of a human being which had been impacted back into the street. He walked down the path, closed the gate, still ignoring the body and returned to the house. He clicked his fingers and the dogs followed him obediently.
At that moment Jed rode into town. He sensed something was wrong. There were so many people, yet the place was quiet. And he’d thought he’d heard gunfire minutes before. He reined in near the church where Abe Hanley, the churchwarden, was standing and looking down the street, his face as white as the church he looked after.
‘What’s the matter, Abe? he asked.
‘The Colonel’s men have just gunned down Harry Orme.’
Jedidiah looked in the direction that Abe had nodded in, and saw the body at the end of the street. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, ‘It won’t last much longer. There’s someone being brung in to see to those bastards.’
Some distance out of Lonsdale three men were positioned on a bluff overlooking the trail into town. Two were lying prostrate on the rocky surface, the one holding a cocked carbine at the ready while the other periodically put field-glasses to his eyes. The third man was back with the horses making sure the animals remained out of sight. They were brothers and the fourth had stayed back in town with their father.
One spoke. ‘We’re gonna fry if we stay out on this rock much longer, Kinch.’
It was Slack, the Colonel’s second youngest. Kinch put down the glasses. ‘Oh, quit bellyaching. Ain’t we got a job to do?’
The nearest point that the railroad came to Lonsdale was Plains Halt. The train had stopped there this morning and only one person had disembarked. A paid lookout of the Colonel’s at Plains had telegraphed through with the information that the passenger had hired a blue roan and had taken the trail to Lonsdale. It was the message the Colonel had been waiting for. The description was enough for him to send his boys out to make sure the stranger never reached his destination. Little happened in the town without the Colonel’s knowing; and he was well aware of their little plan to hire a gunslinger.
Slack took his hand from the carbine and pointed. ‘Ain’t that someone coming now, Kinch?’
Kinch steadied the glasses with his elbows and squinted through the apertures. ‘Sure thing, Slack. You can see better without glasses than I can with ‘em, I reckon. Some poke dressed in black. Blue roan. It’s the gunslinger all right.’
It took ten minutes for the rider to get unknowingly into range. While Kinch signaled unobtrusively to the third member of the group, Slack took a bead on the unsuspecting stranger and pulled the trigger. There was an uncanny delay between the sound of the rifle crack and the sight of the rider below them whipping backwards out of his saddle as though lassoed.
‘Serves him right for poking his nose where he hadn’t oughta,’ Slack grunted as he stood up. ‘First shot, too,’ he added, proud of his demonstrated prowess at sharp-shooting. No need to look through them glasses again, Kinch. He’s dead all right. Come on, Curt, Kinch, let’s go and tell pa “mission accomplished”.’
‘We got him, pa,’ said Slack some twenty minutes later as they walked into the Colonel’s study. ‘Just like you wanted.’
As they stood there hats in hand, the dogs sniffed their boots, tails a-wagging.
The youngster brother, Ritchie, had stayed with their father and was sitting at the table playing solitaire. Sometimes the others resented the way their father doted on him. Always had him at his side like one of the dogs. A strong condemner of the sins of the flesh, their father was even blind top Ritchie’s regular brothelizing in the nearby town. “Pa thinks the sun shines out of his ass-hole” was a favorite saying of Slack’s.
The Colonel had been waiting by the window for his boys to come back. ‘You checked? You checked you got him?’
‘Sure thing, pa.’
‘How?’
‘Through the glasses you leant me,’ explained Kinch, taking the leather case from his shoulder and placing it on the table.
‘Through the glasses ?’ snapped the Colonel, picking up the case and shaking it. ‘That ain’t the way to check you got a man. You don’t know the liquor’s drunk until the bottle’s been turned upside down! Let’s get out there and make sure he’s dead and stays dead.’
Half a mile from the bluff they came across a riderless blue roan grazing at the trailside.
‘That’s his horse,’ chuckled Slack.
‘Take a look-see in the saddlebags,’ ordered the Colonel as they reined in.
Slack pulled alongside. He tugged at the buckle of one and flipped up the lid. He thrust his hand inside and fetched out a leatherbound book.
‘Nothing more dangerous that a big book, pa,’ he sneered holding up the weighty tome in his hand. The Colonel grabbed it and examined the gold embossing on the spine.
‘Sacred Mother of Mary,’ he exclaimed, making the sign of the cross over his body with his free hand. ‘Saints preserve us! You’ve killed a man of God!’ He thrust the book back at Slack who replaced it back in the bag.
‘Looks like we made a mistake,’ Slack whined, ‘but, shucks, I didn’t know you’d got religion, pa.’
‘Ain’t I tried to bring you boys up right?’ his gather snapped. ‘There’s three kinds you just don’t kill: women, kids and priests! Come on, let ‘s have a look at the man.’
Three of them spurred onwards to follow the Colonel while the fourth leant down to gather the reins of the stray horse. The man lay exactly where Slack had blown him out of the saddle. A black flat wide-brimmed hat lay near the head and blood glistened against the blackness of the jacket on the right shoulder.
‘It is a priest,’ confirmed the Colonel, espying a silver crucifix around the neck. ‘I saw a notice in town that they’re expecting a new preacher.’ He lowered himself down from his horse and knelt beside the man. Simultaneously with both hands he checked the pulse at the wrist and throat.
‘Mercy on us. There’s still life left.’ He straightened up and grabbed the dismounted Slack by his dirty shirt pulling him close. ‘If he dies, all our souls will rot in hell. But I’m telling you, Slack: you’ll be there first. I’ll make sure of that personally.’ He let the young man free and looked down at the still figure. ‘We gotta get him to the doc.’
Curt, the last man, rode up with the horse and the four brothers draped the wounded man over his saddle.
As the group neared the town, the Colonel took the reins of the blue roan.
‘Ritchie, Curt––you go tell Abe Hanley his new priest’s arrived. You other saloon tramps get back to the house. And remember we don’t know anything about this. The way I see it: there must have been some kind of accident and I just came across the guy laid out on the trail.’
The doctor looked surprised and fearful when he opened the door to the Colonel. He looked even more surprised when the Colonel explained he’d found a wounded man who needed tending. The Colonel normally only put business the undertaker’s way, bypassing the doctor altogether.
‘Just found him, doc,’ the ex-officer man persisted as he helped the medical man to get the unconscious figure inside and onto a couch. ‘Dunno how he got shot up like this. Just found him, I did.’
The doctor nodded enigmatically as he carefully removed the jacket. He was a well-read man and he was reminded of Shakespeare’s observation The lady protesteth too much. He deftly cut the cotton sleeve with a pair of scissors.
‘Funny welcome for the new priest,’ he said as he examined the wound.
‘How’s he gonna be, doc? What do you think?’ the colonel pressed anxiously. ‘Seems mighty sick to me.’
The doctor picked up the delicately fingered hand by the wrist. It was a hand that had seen no manual work, not like the farmers in the community. Almost like a woman’s hand he thought. And a gentlewoman at that, used only to books and light tasks. He checked the pulse again. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll pull through. He’s lost some blood but the wound ain’t serious.’
The Colonel nodded and slipped a big green bill into the medical man’s waistcoat pocket. He left the building and walked back to his house, a weight off his strange mind. He would not be barred from heaven after all!
The man’s eyes began to flicker as the doctor bathed his wound.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ he said, dropping the swab into a basin of blooded water.
The man’s eyes opened. As he returned to a fuller awareness he groaned.
‘No, don’t try to move, son. You’re gonna be stiff and painful for a while. Allow me to put this bandage on.’ The doctor placed some lint against the wound with professional gentleness and finished the bandaging.
‘Where am I ?’
‘Lonsdale. And I’m Doc Swallow. And what do we call you, stranger?’
‘Millwood. Reverend Millwood.’
The doctor was noticeably taken aback. If the Colonel had known who the man was he hadn’t said. The doctor looked at the man in a new light. Studied him in more detail. He put the man in his 30s. He would be tall and lean when standing. He looked at the man’s face. The central prematurely bald patch amid the long black hair. The thin features that one associated with priestly self-denial or the meager diet afforded by a niggardly stipend. Weak, scholarly eyes. Yes, his features had that preacher look. He should have guessed.
‘So you’re our new preacher? Some welcome you got!’
‘Is this kind of,…accident a regular occurrence, doctor?’
‘I have to be frank. It is not unknown these days. If you take my advice you’d best pass right on through when this arm of yours has healed some.’
‘Servants of the lord have met violence before. And, as in his Book, one has good Samaritans too––like the good man who found me and brought me in.’
The doctor passed no comment on the irony. “Good Samaritan” was the last epithet he would use for labeling the evil Colonel.
‘No, I won’t be leaving,’ the injured man continued. ‘I’ve come a long way. The least I can do is give Lonsdale a try.’
‘Suit yourself. Maybe you’ll change your mind when you’ve learnt more about the place.’
Millwood was tended in the churchwarden’s house by Mrs. Hanley for a few days. During this time Abe, her husband, took the opportunity to finish off some repairs in the preacher’s house adjacent to the church in preparation for its new occupant..
Days later, with his arm in a sling but his strength returning, the new man was seated at a table in the Hanley’s parlor. He said ‘grace’ then one-handedly began cutting into a steak.
‘Here,’ Mrs. Hanley said, ‘let me cut it for you. Forgive me, father, I was forgetting.’
When she cut it into convenient pieces she returned to grinding coffee in the corner of the room. ‘Nobody’s going to find out who shot you, you know,’ she said.
‘How come?’ he asked.
‘There ain’t no law in town anymore.’
‘No law?’
‘No, the sheriff was first to be gunned down.’
‘Gunned down?’ he echoed, incredulously. Then: ‘Anybody know who did that?’
‘Not for sure. But it had to be the Colonel and his boys.’ She went on to explain the situation. ‘So you see,’ she finished, ‘the Colonel’s word goes round here.’
‘And people accept it?’
‘Some haven’t. But they go the same way as Harry Orme––got his in broad daylight last week. Abe buried him in our churchyard. Abe’s been saying the words over burials these days while there ain’t no preacher. You see, folk round here are like my Abe. Peaceful people, mainly farmers. All they know is they got a job to do from morning to night, and they do it.’
She screwed on the lid of a full jar of coffee grounds. ‘It’s my thinking you’ve chosen a poor time to take on a new parish. With the killings, worry and such.’
‘On the contrary,’ the preacher said, wiping his platter clean with a hunk of home-made bread. ‘The manuals at the seminary spoke of succor and comfort . One of the main functions of a priest is to provide spiritual support in time of need. Sounds as if your town of Lonsdale has need.’
‘Parasites,’ said Mrs. Hanley, transferring some spoons of ground coffee to the pot. ‘That’s what that Colonel and his boys are.’
‘Didn’t catch that,’ Abe said as he came through the door. ‘Who are parasites?’
‘You know,’ his wife replied.
‘I told you not to bother the reverend with all that stuff yet,’ the churchwarden said in an admonishing tone.
‘I have to know the circumstances of my flock, do I not?’ the preacher said softly as he dabbed his mouth with a napkin, ‘Anyways, I have prevailed upon your hospitality long enough. Mrs. Hanley, that was a superb meal. I thank you.’
She smiled ‘Any time.’
He rose from his chair. ‘Time for me to move across to the preacher’s house and start looking after myself.’
In his capacity as mayor of Lonsdale, Jedidiah paid a visit on the new preacher the day after he had moved in next to the church. Abe was with the new incumbent helping him to move some furniture in the sitting room.
‘How’s the arm?’ Jedidiah asked when introductions were over.
‘Healing fine, thanks,’ the preacher replied.
‘I hear you’ve been told about the situation here,’ Jedidiah continued. ‘With the Colonel and his cronies extorting ten per cent from every enterprise.’
‘That I have.’
‘Ain’t Christian, is it?’
The preacher stroked his angular chin with his good hand. ‘Remember that the psalmists said: Offer the sacrifices of righteousness.’
Jedidiah had hoped to see a glimpse of understanding of the situation in the preacher because he wanted to confide in him and tell him about the hiring of a gunslinger. Not that the preacher could do anything practical but at least the telling of it would be sharing a hope; would let the preacher know there was some optimism. But being handed a quotation like that, he decided the need for courtesy on the part of the mayor had been satisfied and walked to the door.
‘Forgive me, father, but I’m sure that acquiescence to extortion is not what the good book meant. I remember something from Psalms: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.’
The preacher closed the door behind the departing mayor and returned to the sitting room. He stood before the mantle looking down and Abe heard him softly say, I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.’
He gave his first sermon the following Sunday. His arm hung stiffly at his side, out of its sling for the first time. There was a large gathering before him, swollen by those who wanted to see the new preacher. Particularly they were curious to see the man who had decided to remain in town and make a go of being preacher despite having been welcomed to town with a bullet.
Despite the large numbers in church that day there was a still a noticeable gap around the Colonel and his boys who had taken up their usual position at the rear of the congregation. In his way the Colonel was god-fearing man. He had his own Bible at home. In it he underlined lines of significance which helped him justify his actions and those of his sons. Lines such as He that earneth wages puts it into a bag with holes; and I will not be afraid of ten thousand of people that have set themselves against me.
The new preacher chose none of these quotations for his first sermon. For his congregation the harvest was to start the next day and so he preached on the text: Thou shall eat the labor of thine hands from the Book of Psalms.
After the service he stood at the church door left-handedly shaking the hands of people as they passed out with brief introductions being made by the church warden. Outside three distinct groups were forming. As usual the womenfolk were settling into their after-church gossip. The men were stepping aside and striking up their own conversations. And the children, temporarily away from the attentions of their parents, were abusing their Sunday-best clothes one way or another.
Lewis and Jed found themselves side by side.
‘What do you think of the new preacher, Lewis?’
‘A well meaning guy,’ the churchwarden said. They paused to light up smokes. ‘A town needs a preacher,’ he continued.
Lewis indicated with his head for them to draw out of earshot of the other members of the congregation. He lowered his voice. ‘Any news about the gunslinger from Kansas City? We got just over $2000 together.’
‘No. A cousin of mine in the city is making enquiries but I ain’t heard nothing yet. I’ll not chase him on the matter for a while. I don’t suppose it’s quite like ordering groceries from the store––even in an anything-goes, cosmopolitan place like Kansas City.’
The two men finished their smokes and joined their wives. Judging by the overheard snatches of conversation one could tell that the new preacher had made no converts, stirred no hearts. He had tried hard but he had large boots to fill. The previous preacher had been well loved and on occasion could all but invoke the fires of hell. The faithful needed reminding of the inferno in one direction and the ecstasy of paradise in the other.
The people had come, listened and made their judgment. Because of the circumstances of his arrival some would give him another chance But the new preacher would still have a smaller congregation next week.
A week passed. It was harvesting time. Around Lonsdale the fields were dotted with people still cutting down the wheat and tying up the bundles. This was the one time in the year when everyone worked. Women, children. Every saloon bum and down-and-out could find pay for his hands. And it was a time of silence. All that could be heard was the swishing of scythe blades, the crackle of oat-ears as they were crushed together; and the buzz of flies.
Jedidiah Dent was in the yard near his house turning the handle of his grindstone. It was mid-day and a blunted scythe had sent him home. His body moved in rhythm as he turned the handle.
‘Jed! Jed!’
He looked up at the rider bringing his horse to a standstill near the gate. It was a distressed Steve Powell from the next homestead.
‘Somebody’s gunned down Ritchie.’
‘Who’d do a fool thing like that?’
‘Dunno. Body’s by the trail on my spread.’
Jed laid down his scythe and left the wheel spinning under its own momentum. ‘Give me time to saddle up.’
Ten minutes later they were at the scene. The body had been hidden by the corn but the crowd of field hands around it had flattened the surrounding stalks. The blood around the hole over the heart matched the redness of the abundant poppies dotting the landscape acting as a backcloth to the corpse. The receding chin was instantly recognizable as belonging to one the Colonel’s young men. Ritchie, the Colonel’s, favorite, had been the only one of the brothers to go out by himself. He frequently used a bordello in the nearby town and the trail to it ran past the Powell farm.
The young man had had some kind of confrontation because both his guns had been drawn. But his hardware had been no use.
The two men dismounted. Jed picked up the two discarded guns and broke them. Neither had been fired. He returned them to their holsters on the corpse.
‘The Colonel’s gonna think it was me; the body is on my property,’ Steve whispered, his throat dry.
‘Don’t fret,’ Jed assured him. ‘We’ll say the body was on yon trail. We’ll take it into town anyway.’
A gig was brought up and the still form taken to the undertaker’s parlor. Steve fetched the doctor to confirm death and Jed took on the responsibility of informing the Colonel. Someone had to do it and he was the mayor.
At the news the Colonel said nothing for a while. Slowly he turned to his remaining sons. ‘The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground – Genesis 4,10.’
He faced the bearer of the news once more and added, ‘‘The town’s gone pay for this, Dent. You hear me? The whole damn lot of you.’
‘It wasn’t one of our people, Colonel,’ Jed protested. ‘Nobody’d be fool enough to dry-gulch one of your boys. They’d know what your reaction would be. Even if they did, they’d have hid the body. We aren’t hiding anything, Colonel. We found Ritchie and we brung him straight in, all open and above board.’
‘Get out before you join Ritchie right here and now.’
Jed did as he was bid. At the door the Colonel called to him, his voice croaky. ‘Tell that new preacher to organize things. My boy shall have a decent burial.’
The lads were uncomfortable; they had never seen their father like this.
‘Come boys, let’s go see your brother.’ Now there were tears in his eyes
Jed was worried as he walked to the reverend’s house. The Colonel meant what he said. There was going to be trouble and more killings. There and then he decided there was nothing for it but for him to ride into Kansas City and find out what had happened and, if needs be, hire a gunslinger himself.
The harvesting of his own crops would have to go without him, Jed reckoned. He got himself ready and two hours later his wife took him out on the wagon to Plains Halt. He was just in time to catch the daily through train and he was on his way. He arrived in Kansas that evening and took a hotel room with the intention of locating his cousin the next morning.
His cousin worked as a clerk in a beef wholesalers. Jed located him without delay and they arranged to take a bite to eat together in a saloon at mid-day.
‘So you couldn’t get me a paid gun after all?’ he began after he had taken a refreshing sip of malt beer and scanned around to see they weren’t being overheard.. ‘Cos I ain’t heard nothing from you.’
‘Hey, I didn’t let the grass grow under my feet,’ his cousin replied. ‘I gave it top priority when I got your note. Took me a few days to find one, though. You can buy anything in Kansas if you have the money but I ain’t used to that kind of purchase. Anyways a guy called Bo Quintaine said he’d take on the job. He was recommended to me by a friend of a friend.’ He winked. ‘You know how it is. Anyways, got a good reputation they tell me. Specializes in town taming. Reliable, which is what you want, ain’t it?’
‘I don’t know nothing about no Bo Quintaine coming.’
‘But I sent you a letter,’ his cousin protested.
‘Don’t know nothing about no letter either.’
‘Must have got mislaid in the mail. Can’t trust nothing these days. Yeah, sent a letter days ago. If your gunslinger ain’t got there by now he’ll certainly be on his way. Like as not you passed by each other on your way in.’
Jedidiah’s reaction was mixed. Irritated because he’d wasted time in coming when there was harvesting to be done. Relieved that something appeared to be happening.
His cousin described the man he’d hired.
‘Anything else you can tell me about him?’
‘No, he works alone is all.’
‘I’ll catch the next train back,’ Jedidiah concluded. ‘Have another drink afore I go?’
That same day was the day of young Ritchie’s funeral. The Colonel was religious in these matters and wanted his son put into the ground in the proper fashion. There were no townsfolk at the burial. Not only did it seem nothing to do with them but they were uneasy about what was to happen afterwards.
What form would the killing spree take? Who could guess?
They’d all heard of the Colonel’s vow that the town was to pay for the death of his favorite son and they knew the vengeance-seeking was likely to start as soon as the body had earth on it.
The Colonel and his three other sons carried the box shoulder-high from the house to the cemetery. The town was quiet––deathly quiet––but in fear rather than deference for the departed.
The new preacher was waiting at the head of the hole which had been dug the day before. He stood behind a huge lectern on which was a large opened Bible. A black bag was at his feet.
The surviving members of the town’s most hated family struggled with their wooden burden up the slope of the cemetery path. Without a sound, the box was lowered into the ground––awkwardly because the hole was extraordinarily deep and the soil had been heaped at the one side of the hole. The preacher beckoned to the two men with shovels who came and stood at the graveside with heads lowered. The only place now available for the Colonel and his sons to stand was at the other end of the hole directly opposite the priest.
The preacher’s hands rose and disappeared behind the lectern. All stood there in quiet contemplation for a moment, heads bowed. Then the preacher’s voice broke the silence.
‘Jeremiah, 31,29: The father’s have eaten a sour grape and the children’s teeth have been set on edge by it.’
All biblical quotations had a monotonous sameness to the younger men but the Colonel looked up puzzled.
He couldn’t see the appropriateness of the words.
The puzzlement disappeared from his face and his eyes widened as two long-barreled Smith and Wessons appeared from the compartment beneath the bible on the lectern.
The explosions were deafening. Both chambers were fully discharged in six seconds. The four men bunched together at the grave’s end had no chance. Their bodies were thrown backward over ten feet.
The man who had allowed himself to be called the Reverend Millwood placed the hot, smoking guns on the bible before him and patted them. He opened the bag at his feet and took out a gunbelt. He strapped it on, reloaded the extensively-barreled weapons and slipped them expertly into their especially long leather holders. He picked up the bag and surveyed the surrounding stubble-dotted terrain. The cemetery was on a hill and gave a commanding view of the wheat lands. Harvesting was nearly over and stumps of grain were left sticking out of the ground in the fields. To the toilers the sea of slashed stalks represented the satisfying culmination of their work. But to others there was an ugliness about the stubble; broken, jagged stalks.
‘All that do wickedly shall be stubble. Malachi 4,1,’ he said in a low firm, gravelly voice. He nodded in the direction of the gaping chasm. ‘Just drop the scum on top of the coffin and fill the whole thing in.’
The man who had allowed himself, as convenience had it, to be labeled as a certain ‘Reverend Millwood’ dusted down his jacket fastidiously, picked up the bag and prepared to leave.
‘Now I know why he wanted an extra deep hole a-digging,’ one of the sextons muttered to his workmate, looking at the heap of bodies before they turned to the task of filling in.
The mysterious man in black walked down the path from the cemetery, past the church and past the large house inside which two dogs with some sixth sense were already whining, howling, scratching at the door.
He continued along the main street to the livery stable where his blue roan was waiting for him, the instructions for its saddling up having been made earlier that morning.
And Bo Quintaine, hired killer sometimes known as “Preacherman”, rode out of town only stopping to pick up £$2000 from the mayor’s office.