CHAPTER FOUR
More sleep was out of the question, so Buttons Muldoon ripped up floorboards and lit a fire in the saloon stove for coffee. A coffee-drinking man, he kept a sooty pot and a supply of Arbuckle for himself and passengers. Just after first light he hitched up the team and set Palmer’s mare loose, telling her to run with the mustangs. “Now what do we do with the reverend’s body?”
Red said. “I guess we should bury him.”
“It’s the decent thing to do, huh?” Buttons said.
“Seems like. Us being decent-minded folks and all.”
“Speak for yourself,” Buttons said. “I’m keeping that picture of Roxie.” He sighed. “I saw shovels in the livery. But we’ll drive over there. I ain’t walking through a foot of mud.”
Under a flaming sky, Red threw a couple of shovels on top of the stage and then climbed into his accustomed place in the driver’s box. Buttons gathered up the reins and glanced behind him. His eyes bugged. “What the hell?”
Red turned and saw what Buttons saw—a column of fire and smoke rising into the air in the direction of the Palmer cabin.
“Has the preacher come back to life and set his place on fire?” Buttons said.
“I doubt it,” Red said. “More like somebody is covering his tracks by destroying the evidence. Let’s drive up there and take a look-see.”
Buttons had a difficult time turning the team in the muddy street. When they finally got close to the Palmer place, the cabin was ablaze and a nearby store was also on fire. Despite the recent rain, like most Western towns Cottondale was tinder dry and the conflagration was spreading fast. It had already started fires in buildings across the street.
“No need for a burying,” Buttons said.
“Seems like,” Red said. “Now get the hell out of here before we burn up with the whole damned town.”
Buttons saw the danger and didn’t need to use his whip to get the team moving. The closeness of the fires, burning smell, and the red-hot cinders cartwheeling through the air had the horses spooked, and the stage rocked along the street. Great globs of mud flew from the wheels, the coffin bouncing as though Brother Morgan was doing his best to get out. Black smoke shot through with streaks of scarlet hung in the air like a stranded thundercloud as Buttons drove the big Concord through a roaring tunnel of fire and finally reached the town limits. Suddenly he was in the clear, racing across a sandy flat scattered with soap weed, prickly pear, and mesquite. He reined the team back to a walk and then turned, heading south. Red looked to his right and saw that half the town was ablaze, and the remaining half would surely follow.
“Red, is the box still secure?” Buttons said.
Red tested the coffin ropes and said, “Yeah, it’s still tight.”
“I’ll be glad when we deliver the damn thing.” Buttons said. “Him jumping around up there makes me think of death and judgment day.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Ain’t much left of Cottondale.”
Red nodded. “And I guess there ain’t much left of the Reverend Palmer.”
* * *
The afternoon came with an oppressive heat, the sun like a ball of flame in the blue sky. The air was still, without the slightest hint of a breeze, and the day lay heavily on Red and Buttons, the ornate coffin a constant and baleful presence. Around them, the land was dry and stony. Here and there were patches of short, sparse grass and stands of creosote bush, scrub brush, mesquite, and cactus. In the distance, purple mountains that neither Buttons nor Red could name looked cool. A parched-mouthed man might fancy that hidden among their craggy peaks were hanging valleys where, with a soft plop! lime-green frogs dived through ferns into ice-cold pools.
But Buttons and Red were far from the mountains.
That part of Texas was a vast, inhospitable wilderness, dry as a bone, that travelers crossed only by necessity on their way to somewhere else. As the sun dropped in the sky, Buttons took a three-mile detour to the west and found to his relief that Bill Stanton’s station still stood, apparently unharmed by the recent Apache troubles.
“Strange cargo, Buttons,” Stanton said as he stood in front of his cabin, watching the stage drive in. Then, “Howdy, Red.”
Buttons nodded as he applied the brake. “The first time and the last, Bill. The man in the box went by the name of Morgan Ford and we’re taking him to his loved ones for burial down the Brazos way.”
“Well, at least he won’t eat much,” Stanton said, smiling. “Got a nice team for you, Buttons, four of them grays. Good horses, grays, if you can stand the smell.”
“Grays don’t bother me none,” Buttons said. “They still smell better than people.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Stanton said. “Killed me a hog recent, so I got a nice pork stew in the pot and biscuits to go along with it. You staying the night?”
“Nope, gonna eat and run, Bill. The sooner me and Red get rid of the damned coffin, the better.”
“Well, change the team and come inside. The grub will be waiting,” Stanton said. He was a tall, thin man with a sparse black beard and sad, hound-dog eyes. “How’s ol’ Abe Patterson?”
“Prospering, the last I seen him,” Buttons said.
“He still living with that high-yeller gal?”
“Sophie?”
“Is that her name?”
“Yeah, Sophie. They seem happy enough.”
“Glad to hear it. Red, come inside. You look all tuckered out.”
Red nodded. “I guess so. I haven’t been sleeping well real recent.”
Stanton hesitated. “Before we go inside, there’s one thing you and Buttons should know. I got Charlie Brownlow in there. You gents got a problem with that?”
“You mean the Nacogdoches gunslinger they all talk about?” Buttons said. “I heard he never goes west of the Colorado.”
“Well, a hemp posse will chase a man west of hell if it’s determined enough, and Charlie says that posse was determined enough,” Stanton said. “It seems he shot a rancher’s son down Caldwell way and the boy’s old man took it hard. Charlie had a clear-cut choice . . . get hung or cross the Colorado. He chose to cross the Colorado.”
“So how come Brownlow is here, Bill?” Red asked him.
“Me and Charlie go back a ways, to a time when I was studying on taking up the bank-robbing profession. Later, we wrote back and forth, and I told him I’d given up on the outlaw impulse and was running this here stage station. Well, a week ago he showed up on my doorstep and he’s been here since.”
“They say Brownlow’s killed thirty men,” Buttons said.
“That’s what they say,” Stanton said. “Charlie may stay east of the Colorado, but he gets around.”
“He won’t have any trouble from us. What a man does for a living is his business.”
“Wise words, Red,” Stanton said. “Now, are we gonna stay out here jawing, or will you come inside?”
“I reckon I’ll make a trial of that stew. I’m coming inside.”
“Leave the scattergun with the stage, Red,” Stanton said. “It could signal that a man has less than peaceful intentions.”
“I’ll take it. Red, you go ahead and eat. I’ll change the team and then join you.” As Red climbed down from the driver’s perch, Buttons said, “That Brownlow feller may have killed thirty men, but don’t let him give you any sass or backtalk, you hear?”
Red said, “Sure thing. I’ll keep that in mind.”