CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Buttons, you ever considered becoming an outlaw, leaving the stagecoach life behind?” Red Ryan said. “I mean like Jesse and Frank James and them.”
He sat with a depressed Buttons Muldoon in the Munich Keller, a shady beer garden set in a grove of ancient oaks on the edge of town.
“This is where Hannah Huckabee shot Dave Winter that time,” Buttons said.
“Held her hat in front of her and shot him right through it, didn’t she?” Red said.
“Something like that,” Buttons said. He looked at Red with bleak eyes. “No, I never considered being an outlaw, and now my luck’s turned bad, it’s the last profession a cursed man should be in.”
“You’re not cursed,” Red said, smiling, a rim of beer foam on his mustache.
“I ran over the hat,” Buttons said. “It’s all up for me.” His voice took on a plaintive tone. “You can tell me, Red, as a friend . . . is it all up for me?”
“Heck, no,” Red said. “You’re in your prime, Buttons. You’ll live to be a hundred. Maybe a hundred and one.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll be lucky if I live long enough to dirty another shirt.” He shook his head. “Me, Patrick Muldoon of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company done in by a hat. It’s hard to believe. Difficult to comprehend. Ain’t that what educated folks say?”
Red was spared having to comment by the unexpected appearance of Chris Mercer. The little man stood behind Buttons rubbing his mouth, his eyes fixed on the foaming tankards of beer on the table. Buttons followed Red’s gaze, turned his head, and said, “Damn you, Archibald. Don’t stand behind me like that, makes me feel like Wild Bill holding aces and eights. What the heck are you doing? Come around and stand where I can see you like a man and not a damned chicken thief.”
“I was passing, and I saw you gentlemen sitting there and thought I’d say hi,” Mercer said.
“Well, you’ve said it, now git,” Buttons said, his gloomy, bitter mood getting the better of him. He looked Mercer up and down from his ragged shirt and pants to the unlaced shoes on his feet. “You ever think of buying yourself a new suit?”
Red smiled. “Sit down, Mercer. I’ll buy you a beer.”
The small man sat down immediately, smiling. After the beer came and Mercer took a few grateful gulps, he said to Buttons, “I’m looking for work, but can’t find any.”
“And no wonder,” Buttons said. “Who the Heck is gonna hire a drunken tramp like you? I wouldn’t put the duds you’re wearing on a scarecrow.”
Mercer’s eyes hardened. “Muldoon . . . there was a time . . .”
Buttons stiffened and his hand dropped to his gun, hearing something in the little man’s voice he didn’t like, an echo from Mercer’s violent past. In his present depressed state, Buttons was unpredictable, and Red headed off any possible trouble. “I can find you a job, maybe.”
“Red, this man ain’t working for the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company,” Buttons said. “I won’t allow it.”
“Take it easy, Buttons, it’s not that kind of job,” Red said.
“I don’t take gun work,” Mercer said.
“Heck, you should be grateful for any kind of work,” Buttons said, scowling.
Red said, “You’d be a watchman, Mercer. Keeping watch to make sure a man stays alive.”
“Sounds like a strange kind of job,” the little man said.
“Finish your beer and then come with me,” Red said. “You’ll find out just how strange it is.”
“Is it dangerous?” Mercer said.
“Damn right it is,” Red said.
And Buttons smiled.
* * *
“Red told me about your problem, Miss Addington,” Buttons said. He grabbed Chris Mercer by the back of the neck and pushed him forward. “And here’s the man that can solve it. You remember Archibald from the stage?”
Red angled a glare at Buttons and said, “May we come in, Augusta?”
The woman opened her hotel room door wider, smiled and said, “Of course you may.” Directed at Red, she said, “Miss Stark has gone to her room to rest.” Then to the others, “Please sit wherever you can.”
“It’s all right, we’ll stand,” Red said. “This won’t take long. I told Mercer here you might have a job for him.”
Augusta seemed confused, “A job? What kind of job?”
“Watchman,” Red said. “He’ll keep watch over Della Stark’s doctor for you.”
The woman looked at Mercer and seemed unimpressed and even more confused.
“Scrawny little runt, ain’t he?” Buttons said. “But there was a time when Archibald here was one of the most feared gunmen on the frontier. Ain’t that true, Archie?”
“My name is Chris Mercer, and yes, it’s true. I wish to God it was not.”
“He won’t carry a gun,” Red said.
“I’ll carry one, but I won’t use it,” Mercer said.
Augusta let that last dangle in the air and said to Red, “Did you talk to Mr. Muldoon about you and him providing protection for Ben Bradford for a few days.”
“Yes, he did,” Buttons said. “And he told me you’re a lady Pinkerton agent, the first one I’ve ever met. But the fact of the matter is that I’m trying to rustle up some passengers, and when I do, me and Red are out of here.” He shook his head. “Miss Addington, I’m a man under a curse, and the way my luck’s been running, I’d just be a hindrance to you. Heck, I had just gotten out of bed this morning when I stubbed my toe on the leg of the dresser. I think it’s broke.”
“The dresser?” Red said.
“No. My toe.”
“You could let Dr. Bradford take a look at it,” Augusta said.
“And then he’d be smitten by some of my bad luck, and get shot fer sure,” Buttons said.
“Who wants this doctor dead, and why?” Mercer said. He suddenly looked alert and interested, like a man who’d just woke from a long sleep.
Using as few words as possible, Augusta told Mercer about the threat to Bradford’s life and how Della Stark suspected that her father might be behind the murder plot.
“And I suspect the assassins are already here in Fredericksburg,” Augusta said.
“Yes, the four monks who are not monks,” Mercer said.
After that statement, Buttons Muldoon suddenly felt the need to sit, the bed squealing under his weight. “The holy monks?” he said. “I don’t believe you said that.”
“Did you see their hands?” Mercer said. “None of those boys has done a hard day’s work in their lives. I’ve made a study of men, especially men with gun rank. Did you ever see the likes of Bill Longley or Wes Hardin walk into a room? No? Well, I have. The moment they step through the door, they fill the place. You take those monks now. Four men, silent, still, but significant. Watchful. Cool, confident men who sit and wait . . . and God help you if they decide to make a play because they’ll come down on you like the hammer of God.” Mercer smiled slightly. “Dangerous men are not loud and boastful. They’re quiet, so quiet you can smell the odor of their dead silence.”
“Heck, I always thought them holy monks smelled funny,” Buttons said.
Red Ryan said, “Mercer, it seems like you should tell Sheriff Ritter what you just told us. He could arrest the four assassins and tell them he’ll free them in exchange for the name of the man who hired them.”
Mercer nodded. “Yes, the rube lawman could do that . . . and guarantee his place in the sweet by-and-by in time for supper. Besides, I’ve got no proof. If I walked into Ritter’s office and accused four rosary-beaded monks of being hired gunmen, I reckon I’d need a bushel basket of it.”
Augusta said, “Mr. Mercer . . .”
“Call me Chris. When I was somebody, Mister sat just fine with me. It doesn’t any longer.”
“Mr. Mercer,” Augusta said, “will you take on the job of guarding Dr. Bradford until I can resolve this problem?”
“Miss Addington is a Pinkerton agent,” Red said.
“I sure didn’t peg you for a schoolmarm,” Mercer said. “Yes, I’ll look out for him. That is, if he’ll have me.”
“Why don’t we go ask him,” Augusta said.
“Ask him if he’ll accept a ragamuffin as a watchman?” Button said. He shook his melancholy head. “I’ll retire to a madhouse.”
Mercer ignored that and said, “Miss Addington, I always demanded expenses when I took on a job. Do the Pinks pay them?”
“Reasonable expenses? Yes, they do.”
“Then I need pants, a shirt, and a pair of shoes,” Mercer said. “And a gun.”
Augusta didn’t hesitate. “I can provide the funds for clothing. As for the gun, I will loan you mine.”
“And leave yourself unarmed, with four killers on the loose?” Red said.
“They haven’t killed yet, Red,” Augusta said. She smiled. “And I have you to protect me.”
“Don’t count on it, lady,” Buttons said. “With or without passengers, me and Red are leaving this burg. The way my luck is running, if I stay here, I’ll end up the one that gets shot. And a word of warning, give Archibald money for duds and a gun, he’ll sell them and buy whiskey.”
“Will you do that, Mr. Mercer, spend the money I give you on whiskey?” Augusta said.
“Look at me. I’ll buy a shirt, pants, and a pair of shoes,” Mercer said.
Augusta opened her bag and brought out her revolver. “It’s a British Bulldog in .450 caliber.”
“Self-cocker, five rounds in the cylinder,” Mercer said. He took the revolver, hefted it for balance and expertly spun it around his trigger finger before it slapped back into his palm. “Fine weapon. One time up Fort Worth way, Luke Short told me he set store by the Bulldog because it hides in the pocket so well.”
“I have a box of ammunition to go with it,” Augusta said.
“I only need five,” Mercer said. “I don’t plan on doing any shooting,”
“Then a great watchman you’ll be,” Buttons said, his face sour. “And I never did like Luke Short, strutting little banty rooster that he is.”
Red said nothing . . . but he had to agree, not about the gunman Luke Short but about Mercer. A watchman who won’t shoot was as useless as tits on a boar hog.