Better Off Dead Read online

  It was said that old Queen Victoria, on being introduced to a 9-pounder Abaddon cannon that had recently caused great execution among a native army, patted the barrel and declared that the artillery piece was “one of her most precious children.” This caused one of the queen’s more irreverent regiments of artillery to call their Abaddon 9-pounders Vickie’s Bastards, until using that term was made punishable by court-martial.

  In bad weather, rain fell around the foundry dirty with soot and the building’s sulfur, hot tar, and smoked ham stench permeated the plains country for miles in every direction. It would be no exaggeration to call the factory an annex of hell, as many of its unfortunate occupants did.

  Day and night, armed guards surrounded the foundry. Four of them gathered in front of the main entrance and gave Shawn and Sedley hard, unfriendly stares. The men had the look of brawlers and in a scrap, they’d be a handful.

  “I don’t think we’re wanted here,” Sedley said under his breath.

  “Seems like,” Shawn said. “ I wish the place had glass walls. It would make finding Manuel Cantrell a hell of a lot easier.”

  “If he’s even there. He might just as likely be down Mexicali way sparking some pretty señorita.”

  “Maybe the old lady can tell us something.”

  “Yeah, she’ll tell us that our boy Manuel is sparking some señorita—”

  “Down Mexicali way,” Shawn finished. “I get the point, Hamp.”

  “Uh-oh. I think we’ve got trouble. Sure glad I went back to the hotel for my revolver.”

  The four guards—one of them the blond kid with the reckless eyes from the saloon—crossed the rutted wagon road outside the foundry, Winchesters in their hands. They walked toward Shawn and Sedley, kicking up dust with every step.

  The sun was high and the day was hot. Their leader, a well-built bruiser wearing a bowler hat and goggles, red suspenders holding up his pants, leveled his rifle at Shawn. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Admiring your fine factory,” Shawn answered. “It’s truly a wonder to behold. I bet you make some real nice cannons in there.”

  “Don’t tell me any damned lies,” Suspenders said. “You’re spying.”

  “Spying on what? All I see is a building the size of a small mountain and four hardcases set to guard it.”

  “Only four hardcases, is it? Look across the road, bully boy.”

  Shawn did. Another five riflemen stood in line, their rifles trained on him and Sedley.

  “Seems like you got the drop on us, so we’ll be on our way,” Shawn said. “We’ll come back another day when you’re in a more hospitable frame of mind.”

  “You were warned to stay away from the foundry,” the big man said. “Better you’d left and shook the dust of Big Buck off your boots, Mr. O’Brien. You were told the man you hope to find doesn’t work at Abaddon. Maybe you just don’t hear so good.”

  Shawn frowned. “You have my name. Who are you?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I might meet you in a saloon one day. I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll talk about the old happy times we had in Big Buck.”

  “Name’s Blaine Keeners, but I’ll never drink with a fine setup gent like you, not when it would take me a year to save enough to match the coat like the one you’re wearing.”

  “He thinks we’re trash, Blaine,” the towhead said, grinning. “I can see it in his eyes.”

  “Trash is it, mister high and mighty?” Keeners said.

  “You said it, not me.” Shawn never saw it coming. He had expected Keeners to make a pistol play of some kind, but it was the towheaded kid who moved.

  He grinned and fired from the hip, and Shawn felt that he’d just been hit on the right side of his head with a sledgehammer.

  Suddenly the ground rushed up to meet him and he fell facedown in the dirt. He heard the sound of a Colt—Sedley getting off a shot—then boots slammed into his face and ribs and he was lost in a world of pain. He tried to fight to his feet, but a kick to the face put him down again. Thud! Thud! Thud! Boots pounded into him.

  Mercifully, the ground opened up under him and Shawn found himself tumbling headlong into the bloodred depths of a bottomless pit.

  * * *

  Shawn O’Brien woke to the concerned face of an angel. For a moment, he thought it was Judith, his dead wife, welcoming him to eternity. As his vision cleared, he realized it was not Judith, but another woman, just as beautiful but not an English rose, rather a dark-eyed señorita with tender hands.

  A man’s voice said, “I thought he was done for. It’s a miracle he survived after the beating he took.”

  Shawn recognized the voice of Ambrose Hellen the bartender. Then he heard a croak, like a lime green frog beside a pool, and it took him a moment to realize that it came from his own throat.

  “He’s far gone,” the woman said. “I hope I can bring him back.”

  “Do what you can, Maria,” Hellen said. “If God wills it, O’Brien will pull through . . . or he won’t.”

  Shawn raised his head and tried to talk again, his broken lips working.

  The woman said, “Hush now. We can talk later.” She lifted Shawn’s head and helped him drink something bitter from an earthen cup. “Now you will sleep. The herbs will lower your fever but they may make you dream.”

  She was right. Shawn lowered his battered head and immediately fell deep into troubled slumber . . .

  * * *

  A moon as thin as a slice of cucumber hung high above England’s Dartmoor Swamp, its wan light glittering on the hoarfrost that enameled every tree, bush, and blade of grass.

  Shawn O’Brien’s breath smoked in the air as he turned to Sir James Lovell and said, “Did you bring your revolver?”

  His father-in-law, wearing a caped riding cloak and top hat, nodded. “I have an Enfield, my old service revolver.”

  “Then keep it close. I have a feeling that before this night is out you may need it.”

  Alarm showed in Sir James’s face, but he said nothing. Under the shadow of his hat brim, his eyes were haunted.

  Shawn rose in the stirrups and studied the bridle path though the marsh. In the moonlight, it looked like a twisting white ribbon fallen from a woman’s hair. “The tracks of Judith’s horse are headed west as though she headed straight for the tor. We’ll search there first.”

  “Shawn, Drago Castle is a couple miles west of the tor,” Sir James said. “Judith may have been overtaken by darkness and headed to the castle to spend the night. She and Lady Harcourt have been friends since childhood.”

  “The tor first.” Shawn’s face was grim, lines of concern cutting deep like wires. “If I was an escaped convict, that’s where I’d hole up. From the top of the hill, a man could hide among the rocks and scout the moor for miles around.”

  “There are other tors on the moor, Shawn.”

  “I know. And I’ll search each and every one of them.”

  Sir James reached inside his coat and produced his pocket watch. “It’s almost midnight. There are storm clouds coming in from the north. Soon it will be too dark to see.”

  “Then let’s press on. Now every minute counts.” Shawn saw the exhaustion on his father-in-law’s face, the deep shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. Sir James was no longer young and the search for his daughter was taking a toll on him.

  But he was a proud man and it didn’t enter into Shawn’s thinking to suggest he turn tail and head for home. Sir James Lovell would be wounded deeply by such urging, a terrible slight to his honor that he would neither forget nor forgive.

  “I reckon we should leave the horses here and cover the rest of the way to the tor on foot. The police inspector said the convicts had raided the prison armory before they broke out, and they may have rifles.”

  Sir James nodded. “A sound plan, Shawn. We’re sitting ducks on horseback. Damned Afghans taught the British army that lesson.”

  As gently as he could, Sha
wn asked, “How are you holding up?”

  “Oh I can’t complain, old boy. Elderly English gentlemen with weak hearts love to take midnight strolls on dangerous moors in the middle of winter, don’t ye know?”

  Shawn managed a slight smile. “To say nothing of hunting down dangerous escaped convicts.”

  “Oh, yes, I’d quite forgotten about those,” Sir James said.

  But he hadn’t, of course . . . and neither had Shawn O’Brien.

  Both had a feeling, for better or worse, the dreary, dreadful night would end with men dead on the ground.

  The tor was a rugged outcropping of bare granite rock that rose fifteen hundred feet above the surrounding mire. Scoured by the winds, snows, and rains of many centuries, the treeless hill looked like the skeletal backbone of an enormous hound. Gray mist hung above the marshes like smoke and ice fringed the mud puddles. The hard night air was saw-toothed with frost and painful to breathe.

  Shawn suddenly stopped, took a knee, and closely studied the bridle path. “Whatever happened, happened right here.” His face was bitter. “Damn them. Damn them to hell.”

  Even Sir James, never schooled in the tracker’s art, could read the sign plain. “Judith was dragged from her horse at this spot. There are boot prints of several assailants.” He looked like a man who’d just read his own death notice in The Times of London.

  Shawn nodded. “Three men. Judging by the depths of their boot prints and the lengths of their strides, all of them are tall and heavy.”

  “Just the kind who could kill their guards and escape from a prison,” Sir James said.

  Shawn nodded, studying the tracks, most already obscured by snow and ice. “They dragged Judith toward the tor and one of them led her horse.”

  Sir James suddenly looked old and tired. “Shawn, there are two hundred tors on Dartmoor. This may not be the one.”

  “It’s the one.” Even in the gloom, Shawn’s eyes gleamed with blue fire. “There can be no other.”

  Sir James looked confused. He’d never understood, or quite believed, the Celtic gift of second sight.

  Cursing the ability, Shawn did not consider it a gift, for it imposed a terrible burden—the faculty to sense death, be it near or far. He felt death reach out to him, its thin fingers as cold as the night, and he knew in that single, awful moment that his wife was no longer alive.

  Sir James Lovell watched the change in Shawn’s face, saw his son-in-law’s skin draw tight to the bone, the mouth become a hard line. Shawn had a fearful, haunted look, as though a wild, ancient war song heard in a dream had intruded into his waking consciousness.

  And then the older man knew what Shawn knew. “We’re too late, aren’t we, Shawn? My daughter is dead, isn’t she?”

  Shawn had no answer, or at least none he wished to make. He opened his coat and drew his Colt from the leather. With numb fingers he fed a round into the empty chamber that had been under the hammer and holstered the revolver again. “Let’s get it done.”

  Sir James remembered words like those from his time in the West, said by hard men committed to following the code of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, no matter the cost or the consequences.

  When uttered by a man like Shawn O’Brien, there was no turning back. Not now. Not ever.

  It was Sir James who first saw the man walking along the path through the mire, appearing through the mist like a gray ghost.

  Shawn, the instincts of the gunfighter honed sharp in him, saw the older man’s eyes narrow and he swung around to face the danger, the Colt coming up fast.

  “No shooting!” the stranger yelled, his voice croaking from cold and frost. “It’s only harmless old Ben Lestrange as ever was. I mean harm to no one but goodwill to all.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Shawn growled. “I could’ve plugged you square.” He knew the ragged, bent old man was not one of the convicts, but he wanted to kill him real bad. It was as though an unwelcome stranger had walked into a private funeral.

  “What am I doing here, ye say. And I answer that old Ben has walked this moor, man and boy, for nigh on fifty year.” Lestrange laid the pack he carried on his back at his feet and winked. “I know the secret places and where the ancient bodies lie buried.”

  “Did you see men on the tor?” Sir James asked, his breath smoking in the frigid air. The moon was high and white as bone. “Come now, man, speak up.”

  Lestrange’s wrinkled face, weathered to the color of mahogany, took on a sly look. “What old Ben seen was a dead ’un, squire.”

  “Where?” Shawn commanded. “Was it a man or a woman? Tell us.”

  “At the foot of the tor. It wasn’t a man.” Lestrange shook his head. “Oh dear no, she were a lady.” He reached inside his filthy greatcoat and brought out a silver chain with a heart-shaped locket. “Took this from her, and if it’s what you’re wanting, well, it’s old Ben’s, not yours. Finders keepers, that’s the way of Dartmoor.”

  “Let me see that.” Sir James reached out his gloved hand.

  Lestrange turned away, the locket pressed against his upper chest. “It’s old Ben’s. Why would a fine gentleman like yourself want to steal what’s mine?”

  “I warn you, my man, let me examine the locket or I’ll have you in the dock at the next assizes, charged with vagrancy and theft from the dead,” Sir James said. “You’ll end your days at a penal colony in the West Indies.”

  Lestrange angrily shoved the locket at Sir James. “Here, take it and damn you for a thieving toff.”

  Sir James ignored that and examined the locket, turning it over in his gloved hands.

  “Is it Judith’s?” Shawn asked. “It’s not something I’ve seen her wear.”

  “No, it’s not Judith’s. The chain is silver, but the locket is cheap, made of tin.” Sir James opened the locket, turned it to the pale moonlight, and stared at it for a long while.

  “What do you see?” Shawn asked, stepping closer.

  “Two people and I recognize their likenesses.” He held out the open locket to Shawn. “It’s George Simpson the blacksmith and his wife Martha. Their daughter Mavis was abducted from the village shortly after the convicts escaped.”

  Shawn swung on Ben Lestrange. “Take us to the girl.”

  “I told you, she’s a dead ’un. You need have no truck with her, young gentleman.”

  “Take us to her,” Shawn said. “Show us where she lies.”

  Lestrange looked sly. “Do I get my chain back?”

  “Here.” Sir James dropped the locket into Lestrange’s hand. “I rather fancy that Mavis has no further use for it.”

  The old man grinned, knuckled his forehead, and picked up his pack. “Follow me, gent. Mind you don’t step into the mire”—he cackled—“or you’ll end up dead ’uns like poor Mavis Simpson, God rest her.”

  The girl’s plump, naked body lay tangled in a gorse bush at the base of the tor. That she’d been badly abused and raped was obvious.

  “Found her lying there,” Lestrange said. “There’s frost all over her and that’s why at first I thought she was a silver woman. There are some who will pay plenty for a woman made out of silver.”

  Shawn’s bleak eyes searched the top of the hill, then he lowered them to the tramp. “Go away. Get the hell out of here.”

  “Can you spare me a shilling, squire? Then you’ll never see old Ben again.”

  “No, Shawn!” Sir James placed his hand on the younger man’s gun arm. “Killing this poor, demented creature won’t bring Judith back to you.”

  For a moment, Shawn teetered on the edge, breathing hard. Finally he brought himself under control. To Lestrange he said again, “Just . . . go away.”

  Sir James fished in his pants pocket and came up with a coin. “Here, Lestrange, take this and go. You’ve done us a service.”

  The tramp stared big-eyed at the gold sovereign in his palm and knuckled his forehead. “Thankee. You’re a real gent, as old Ben knowed when he first set eyes on you.” After
a quick, frightened glance at Shawn, the old man shuffled quickly down the path, the moonlight casting his rippling shadow on the frozen earth.

  “I’d say the girl was murdered and then her body was thrown from the crest of the tor,” Sir James said.

  Shawn nodded. “Seems like.”

  The older man was quiet for a few moments as though he was taking time to choose his words carefully. Finally he said, “Shawn, let me go alone. I can use a revolver quite well.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because”—Sir James searched for the words—“because I don’t want you to see Judith like”—his eyes moved to the girl’s stark body—“like her.”

  “You’re her father. Do you think that you can stand it?”

  “No. No, I can’t. But I’m an old man. You are young, Shawn. If you don’t keep seeing one terrible picture in your mind, you can recover from this.”

  “Recover if I don’t see what happened to my wife? Is that it?”

  Sir James floundered, his face strained. “Something like that.” He shook his head. “Be damned to it all, Shawn, I just don’t have the words.”

  Shawn looked at the sky. “It will rain soon and we’ll lose the moon to clouds.”

  “Then we both must face what’s before us and drink grief’s cup in full measure,” Sir James said. “Are you sure there can be no sparing you?”

  “No, I can’t be spared. There’s no stepping away from it.”

  Sir James nodded. “Then let us climb the hill together.”

  The way up the tor was difficult, especially in darkness and a cold, ticking rain. Shawn and Sir James scrambled through gorse bushes and grabbed the twisted limbs of stunted birch trees to navigate the icy slope. Every now and then, the moon entered a break in the black clouds and afforded a view of the granite rocks at the crest of the tor. Nothing moved and no sound carried in the rising wind.