CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The morning was brightening into afternoon as Shawn O’Brien and Platt took the trail to Holy Rood. Behind them, tied up like a bale of cotton, Shel Shannon sat astride Wolfden’s white horse, a permanent scowl on his face.
“I could’ve handled this by myself, Ford,” Shawn O’Brien said. “In fact, it’s high time I did.”
“Could be. But Wells Fargo isn’t paying me to sit on my butt,” Platt said. “I want to find out what I’m facing in Holy Rood and then get the job done. I was deputized by a U.S. marshal to make arrests, and to dig a grave for them that don’t cotton to being arrested.”
“It’s not difficult to sum it up for you,” Shawn said. “What you’re facing is Hank Cobb and his hired guns.”
“And Mink Morrow, do you think?”
“Maybe. If he throws in with Cobb.”
Platt’s skin tightened on his face. “He could be riding a reputation he doesn’t deserve, you know. A lot of gunmen like Morrow aren’t near as good as folks say they are. You ever see him shoot?”
Shawn thought on that, but only for a moment.
“No, I never saw him shoot, but my brother Jake did. Do you recollect a feller by the name of Scrap Page out of Gonzalez County, Texas?” Shawn said.
“Can’t say as I do,” Platt said.
“Scrap was a gun hand, ran with John Wesley Hardin and the Taylors and that hard crowd, and the word going around was that he’d killed eight white men.”
Platt’s mule decided to act up and when he finally convinced the animal who was boss, Shawn resumed his story.
“Well, one time down in the Colorado River country, Mink and my brother Jake were in a saloon, and Scrap stood with his back to the bar, bragging to all and sundry that he was the fastest man with the iron south of the Red.”
“Was he?” Platt said.
“I’m coming to that,” Shawn said.
“Figured you would.”
“Now Jake was playing a Chopin nocturne on the piano and didn’t pay Scrap any mind, but Mink was losing at poker and the man’s boasting began to irritate him. Finally, he got to his feet, called Scrap for a braggart and a Texas jackass, and then the two of them had it out.”
“And what happened?” Platt said.
“Well, just before he died that night, Scrap Page found out that he was the second fastest man south of the Red.”
“So Mink really is good with a gun like folks say, huh?” Platt said, frowning, as though that realization troubled him.
“Damn it, let me finish my story,” Shawn said. “I’m getting to the best part.”
“Oh, sure, sorry,” Platt said. “Finish away.”
“Well, my brother Jake got real mad, told Mink that his damned shooting had ruined the nocturne’s last movement for everybody.”
“Is that a natural fact?” Platt said.
“Yeah, it’s a natural fact. Mink was so sorry about kicking Chopin up the ass, he set up the bar and he bought Jake a shirt.”
“A shirt?”
“Shawn nodded. “Jake is always kind of raggedy, so Mink bought him a new shirt.”
“All things considered, that was playing the white man,” Platt said.
“I guess so. But it all happened a good few years ago and a man changes,” Shawn said.
“Let’s hope it’s for the better,” Platt said. “But I doubt it.”
Behind them, astride Wolfden’s white horse, a scowling Shel Shannon said, “Hell, that ain’t a good story. There ain’t no whores in it and what kind of man who plays a pianny needs a shirt?”
“I could tell you what kind of man, Shel,” Shawn said, “But I don’t think you’d understand.”
He turned to Platt. “What do you—”
But Shawn didn’t finish his sentence.
Platt stared straight ahead of him, his sharp little features chalky.
“This is an obscenity, and outrage,” he said, drawing rein on his mule.
They’d ridden up on the skulls lining the wagon road. The skulls grinned at them amid a vast silence.
“Who are they?” he said to Shawn.
“Folks Hank Cobb and the good people of Holy Rood deemed undesirables,” Shawn said.
His hands were bound behind his back, but Shannon kneed his mount forward and the blackness of his soul blazed in his eyes.
“Whores, pimps, gamblers, goldbrick artists, drunks, dancehall loungers, wasters . . . we got rid of them all,” he said, grinning. “They weren’t fit to live.”
Platt, small, slender and insignificant, nonetheless surprised Shawn by his sudden burst of violence.
He jumped from his mule, stepped to Shannon’s horse, and like David toppling Goliath, he dragged the big man from the saddle.
Shannon’s back hit the ground and Platt immediately put the boot in.
Thud-thud-thud . . . kicks pounded into the gunman’s ribs and Shannon cried out in pain and rage.
“Is the Wells Fargo driver among the skulls?” Platt’s lips snarled back from his teeth. “And is the dead passenger there?”
Shannon was finding it hard to breathe. But he glared at his tormentor and managed, “Damn you, I’ll kill you.”
“Are their skulls on posts?” Platt yelled. “Tell me!”
“You go to hell,” Shannon said.
The little man didn’t say anything, but he screamed like a wounded cougar.
His Remington flashed from under his coat and he two-handed the revolver and aimed at Shannon’s head.
“No!” Shawn hollered in sudden panic. “Ford, we need him!”
Platt’s gun didn’t waver. Shannon’s eyes were as big and fear-shiny as silver dollars and he didn’t move a muscle.
A tense moment passed . . . then another. . . .
Platt’s stiff shoulders relaxed and he slid the gun into his shoulder holster. He was breathing hard and said to Shawn, who stood by his side, “I . . . I don’t get angry often because when I do, bad things happen.”
“I can see that for my ownself,” Shawn said.
“You, get the hell up,” Platt said to Shannon.
His face wary, the big man struggled to his feet, his boot heels gouging the sandy gravel of the road in his haste.
“Turn your back,” Platt said.
His face like stone, he quickly untied the gunman’s hands, then said, “Now, get to work.”
“Damn you, runt, doin’ what?” Shannon said.
“You’ll walk ahead of us all the way to Holy Rood and remove the skulls from the posts. You’ll lay each one by the side of the road so they can be collected and later given a decent burial.”
Platt read insolence and hesitation in Shannon’s eyes and said, “Please, give me any excuse to kill you. You’ve already run out of room on the dance floor.”
Shannon stood for a moment, read signs he didn’t like, and then stepped to the nearest post.
He removed the skull and threw it into the brush.
“I said lay it by the side of the road,” Platt said. “Now pick that up carefully and do what I told you.”
Shawn stared into the distance, where the Holy Rood buildings rode the heat waves like a white fleet bobbing at anchor.
“Ford, this is going to take a lot of time,” he said.
“We can spare it,” Platt said. “Cobb will be in no hurry to kill Jasper Wolfden. I’ve got the feeling he’ll want to draw it out and enjoy it.”
Unfortunately, in that he was right.