Chapter Six
Stutterin’ Steve Sparrow’s eyes were frozen in his head, like a man who’d stared too long at a sight that had horrified him. Like the other eight men in his posse he sat his tired horse outside the sheriff’s office and made no attempt to dismount.
Shamus and Ironside exchanged glances, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
Jim Clitherow stepped out of his office and stood on the boardwalk. He was silent for a while, then said one word. “Steve?”
Sparrow’s head moved in the sheriff’s direction. “G-g-grangers.” Then, after a struggle, “All dead. M-m-men . . .”
“Women and children, all murdered.” This from a man who rode a dust-covered pony that could’ve been any color. “Three wagons burned, up by Black Mountain Draw.”
“Night riders, Steve?” Clitherow spoke softly, like a man talking to a frightened child.
The deputy nodded.
“How many dead?” Clitherow said.
Sparrow took a deep breath and tried to force out the words as he exhaled. “Th-three men. F-f-four half-grown boys. Six w-w-women and g-g-girls.”
“All shot?” Clitherow said.
Sparrow shook his head. “B-b-b-burned.”
Clitherow closed his eyes slowly, seeing images in his mind, and when he opened them again they were haunted.
“The s-s-smell . . .” Sparrow said. “I’ll never eat m-m-meat again.”
Clitherow nodded. He’d already seen and smelled the massacre in his mind. He looked over the tired posse men. They reminded him of soldiers who’d suffered a crushing defeat in the field. “Any of you men see anything, tracks maybe?”
It took a while before the posse reacted, then a rider reached behind his saddle and produced a piece of board. He held it up for Clitherow to see. Two words had been branded into the pine. Hell Fire.
“Got a ring to it, don’t it,” Ironside said, his face grim.
Shamus turned his head and stared at him for a moment, but said nothing.
“Clem, give me that damned thing,” Clitherow said. “The rest of you men return to your homes and get some rest. Steve, that goes for you as well.”
None of the men made any objection. Clem handed Clitherow the board then rode away with the rest. Only Sparrow still sat his horse and gazed at the sheriff.
“Go home, Steve,” Clitherow said. “Get some rest. You’re all used up, man.”
“Phantoms,” the deputy said. Then, with barely a stutter, “W-we can’t fight phantoms.” He was a compact man of medium height with hard gray eyes and a black, spade-shaped beard. He didn’t scare worth a damn.
But he was scared that morning.
He swung his horse away and rode down the street, his chin on his chest, a man who’d caught his own personal glimpse of hell.
“I surely hate to ask you this, Shamus,” Jim Clitherow said.
“Ask away. That’s why we’re here,” Shamus said.
“Would you and Luther ride out to the massacre site and look around? Those men in the posse were tired and scared. They could’ve missed something.”
“What’s the country like up there?” Ironside said.
“Thorn scrub desert, mostly,” Clitherow said. “It’s long-riding country, to be sure.”
“How far a ride, Jim?” Shamus asked. It was a question a man with a sore back would ask.
“Near thirty miles. Better take supplies. You’ll probably want to make camp tonight and head back tomorrow morning.”
Shamus rose to his feet. “Then we’d better saddle up.”
“I’ll arrange for some grub and a coffeepot,” Clitherow said. “There are creeks in the area, but they might be dry. Better take your own water.”
“Sounds right cozy,” Ironside said.
“I know it’s a hell of a thing to ask you,” Clitherow said, “but I reckon my place is here in town. The night riders have struck here before. They may do it again. Oh, Elijah Doddle pulled out an hour ago with two wagons and a couple helpers. You’ll probably catch up with him.”
“He bringing in the bodies?” Ironside asked.
Clitherow hesitated, then said, “Yeah, what’s left of them. I guess giving those folks a decent burial is the Christian thing to do.”
“It is indeed, Jim,” Shamus said. “And may God bless you for that.”
“You boys take care, huh?” Clitherow said.
Ironside smiled. “Hell, Jim, we’re gettin’ too old to do anything else.”
By noon, Shamus and Ironside were within sight of Turquoise Mountain, known to the Navajo as Tso odzil. The Indians believed the peak was fastened to the earth by a stone knife and covered with a blue-sky blanket decorated with turquoise. But there was little turquoise to be seen, just the grassy slopes of the mountain that ended here and there in stands of piñon, aspen, and up higher, spruce.
The land was vast and empty, hammered by the sun, and the air smelled like newly-sawn timber.
“What the hell were grangers doing in this place?” Ironside said.
“Maybe headed up Silver City way,” Shamus said.
Ironside looked around him. “You can run cattle on this land, but it ain’t fit for sodbusters. I swear maybe two inches of soil sits on top the bedrock.”
Shamus shook his head. “Luther, there’s just no accounting for folks. They do what they want.” He arched his back in the saddle and groaned.
“Hurt some, Colonel, huh?” Ironside said.
“Yes, some. I’m already missing my soft bed at Dromore.”
Ironside said. “Well, maybe tonight we’ll spread our blankets on some nice rock moss.”
Shamus smiled. “Just what I need, Luther.”
The south end of Black Mountain Draw lay between Black Mountain and Coyote Peak in a wilderness of thorn scrub, cactus, and piñon. At two in the afternoon, Shamus and Ironside, saddle weary, caught up with Elijah Doddle and his parked wagons. Scared like everyone else in that part of the territory, he and his assistants greeted the two riders with leveled rifles.
Shamus and Ironside drew rein.
“State your intentions.” Doddle was a tall skinny man dressed in a black claw-hammer coat, collarless white shirt, and a top hat perched precariously on his bald head.
“My name is Colonel Shamus O’Brien and this is my associate Mr. Luther Ironside.”
“Then we’ll give you the road,” Doddle said. “You may be on your way.”
“We’re friends of Sheriff Jim Clitherow. We’re here at his request to investigate this terrible affair.”
Doddle thought that through. Finally he lowered his gun and said, “Well, I didn’t take you fer night riders. The burned-out wagons are in the draw.”
“And the bodies?” Ironside said.
“In the wagons.” Doddle mopped his sweating face with a blue bandana decorated with white spots. “But be warned, it’s not a sight any God-fearing man would wish to see.” Then, as though he’d just remembered, he said, “These are my assistants, Lem Trace and Patrick McGowan.”
Trace was a fat, red-faced man who looked too jolly to be an undertaker. McGowan was younger, a gangling youth with clear blue eyes and fiery hair.
“Mr. McGowan, are you a son of Erin?” Shamus asked.
“I am that, Colonel, like your good self. I hear the music of the glens in your voice.”
“And in yours, my boy.” Shamus was pleased. “We meet in unfortunate circumstances.”
“The Irish are no strangers to those, Colonel,” McGowan said.
“Indeed we’re not,” Shamus sniffed the air. “Is that coffee I smell on yonder fire?”
“It’s just on the bile,” Doddle said, “but you’re welcome to make a trial of it.”
Shamus swung stiffly out of the saddle and limped to the fire, Luther close behind him, his eyes everywhere. “No sign of the night riders, Mr. Doddle?”
“Only of their murderous handiwork. Let’s hope we don’t see them before our task is done and we’re well gone from here.”
“Where were the wagons ambushed?” Shamus said as he drank coffee and tried to work the kinks from his back.
“In the wash, Colonel,” Doddle said. “I assume the poor people had camped there for the night.”
“They were grangers, huh?” Ironside said. “That’s what the deputy said.”
Doddle looked surprised. “No, I would say not. When you inspect the ground you’ll see they carried no farm implements of any kind, just picks and shovels.”
“If they weren’t sodbusters, what were they doing here?” Ironside said.
Doddle shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Shamus had lit a cigar. He stared at its glowing tip and said, “Men, women, and half-grown children brought three wagons and hard-rock mining tools to this wilderness. Does that suggest they were in search of a gold mine?”
“Maybe,” Doddle said. “But my job is to bury them, not inquire why they suddenly changed from folks to customers.”
Shamus tossed away the grounds at the bottom of his cup. “Luther, let’s go scout around the deceased’s wagons. The sheriff’s posse has probably tromped all over the place, so I doubt if we’ll find anything.”
“My men too, Colonel,” Doddle said.
Shamus nodded. “Well, we’ll take a look anyhow and say a prayer to holy Saint Jude that we find something.”
“Who’s he, Colonel?” Ironside said.
“The patron saint of lost causes, Luther, and damn ye for a heathen.”
Ironside muttered something about Jude in particular and Catholic saints in general, but Shamus had his worried mind on other things and did not take him to task.