The Brothers O'Brien by J.A. Johnstone

Author:J.A. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2013-07-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

The afternoon was so dark it was difficult to determine when the day ended and the night began. But when the O’Briens’ melancholy procession rode into Estancia, lamps already burned in the hotel and saloon. A lantern on the front wall of the general store cast a shifting circle of orange light on the snow-streaked street. The air snapped of the hoarfrost glistening on roofs and lacing every window in town.

There was no law in Estancia, but there was an undertaker who prospered. Godwin J. Kendrick had the instincts of a buzzard. It was said he could smell death at a ten-mile distance. True or not, he was the first to greet the O’Briens when they brought the bodies into town.

Kendrick wore a black top hat, a claw-tailed coat of the same color, and a professional expression of the deepest despondency.

Ironside pegged him at once. “We’ve got business for you.”

The undertaker did a little hand wringing, then said, “And who are the recently departed?” His eyes roved over the bodies hanging head down over the horses. “Oh dear. So many of them.”

“Three Texans, three Mexican herders,” Ironside said. “The Mexicans we’ll take back to their village.”

Kendrick had a strange walk. Listing to one side, he hopped around like a seedy black crow with a broken wing, and looked up at Ironside. “I do a real nice embalming, and extend full viewing privileges to loved ones. In this kind of weather, I can display the deceased for three days if that’s what the grieving families desire. I also provide, at cost mind you, a planed pine coffin with a brass nameplate and chocolate cake and ice cream to refresh the mourners. All this for just ten dollars a head.” He smiled like an animated cadaver. “I could say ten dollars a skull, a little undertaker’s joke, you understand.”

“Take their horses and traps, sell them for what you can get, and bury the Texans decent,” Ironside said, ignoring the man’s sales pitch. “They don’t need cake and ice cream. There won’t be any mourners.”

“Trouble,” Patrick said, his voice edged. Ironside turned and looked at him, then followed the younger man’s eyes to the hotel.

Clay Stanley stood on the porch, flanked by Charlie Packett and a tall, loose-geared man the O’Briens had never seen before.

Stanley was not wearing a coat, the Russians in his shoulder holsters butt-forward and significant. Packett’s coat was swept back, clearing his gun. The third man slanted a Greener shotgun across his chest, but he seemed relaxed, as though he knew he wasn’t about to get into a shooting scrape any time soon.

“’Evenin’, Jacob,” Stanley said.

“Clay,” Jacob acknowledged.

“You’ve been out riding, huh?” Stanley said. “All of you look half froze.”

Jacob moved in the saddle, the cold leather creaking. “Frozen some.”

“What you got there, Jacob?”

“Three dead Texans and the same number of dead Mexicans. I reckon you’ll know the Texans, Clay.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“Go right ahead.”

Godwin Kendrick, his lank, pale, shoulder-length hair under his top hat tossing

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