Death Rattle Read online

  “Cut down Pa, will ya?”

  “Sure, Samuel,” Ditch answered solemnly, taking the knife.

  Pritchard kicked Bedgley over onto his back. The bearded deputy was conscious and still clutching his stomach. His face was contorted in agony. He looked up at Pritchard looming over him.

  “You’re in a heap of trouble, boy,” Bedgley grunted, straining to get the words out. He punctuated his sentence by spitting blood.

  “And you’re gut-shot,” Pritchard said. “You won’t see morning.”

  “Get me into town,” Bedgley ordered, “to the doctor.”

  Pritchard ignored him. He tossed the hatchet aside and picked up Bedgley’s dropped revolvers. He had never before held a pistol. The weapons were heavier than he anticipated.

  “Give me a hand, will ya?” Ditch called out. He’d cut the rope and was struggling with Thomas Pritchard’s large, heavy, body.

  Pritchard lowered the revolver’s hammers, stuck both guns into his belt, and helped his friend lower his father to the ground.

  “Looks like he put up a fight,” Ditch said, pointing to the skinned knuckles on both of Thomas Pritchard’s hands. Pritchard parted his father’s shirt and saw several gunshot wounds on his torso.

  “As much fight as one unarmed man can put up,” Pritchard said grimly, “against a pack of armed cowards.” He took some solace in hoping his father might have already been dead when they hanged him.

  “Get Toole’s gun,” Pritchard told Ditch.

  “No thanks,” Ditch said. “I ain’t takin’ a gun out of a dead man’s fist.” He pointed to the dismembered hand, still wrapped around the Navy Colt. It lay several feet from Toole’s body.

  “Safest way to take a gun from a man is when he’s dead, I reckon,” Pritchard said. He picked up the detached hand and pried it from the gun. Then he tossed the hand aside and examined the pistol. Holding the weapon up to the fading firelight, he checked the load.

  “Only four unfired,” he announced. “Toole shot Pa at least once.” He spat on Toole’s body, tossed the gun to Ditch, who reluctantly caught it, and walked back over to where the deputy lay writhing.

  “How about you, Deputy?” Pritchard said, examining one of the Remingtons in his belt. The revolver was unfired, and all six of the chambers in the cylinder were still loaded. The Remington revolver was designed with safety notches between the cylinder’s charge holes. This meant the pistol could be safely carried with all six chambers fully loaded. Everyone knew only five chambers in a Colt’s cylinder could be loaded, if the bearer didn’t want to shoot off his own foot.

  The second Remington, however, had only four cylinder holes still charged, and the barrel was blackened with burnt powder. “Looks like you put a couple into Pa, didn’t you?”

  “Go to hell,” the deputy hissed. He turned his head and vomited blood.

  “Who else was riding with you?” Pritchard asked.

  “I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’,” came the reply. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get me on a horse and into town to Dr. Mauldin.”

  “Where’re my ma and sister?” Pritchard said. “They’d have been home before dark unless something was keeping them.”

  Deputy Bedgley’s face broke into a lewd grin. “Your ma is at the Atherton Hotel. Right about now, I’m guessin’, she’s getting the high hard one from Burn Shipley. Your little sister is probably watchin’, so she can learn how to take it when she gets old enough.” He cackled and spat more blood. “Course, there’s some say she’s old enough to take it now.” His voice trailed off into tortured laughter.

  Pritchard reached over and took the knife from Ditch’s belt. He knelt over Bedgley and held the shiny blade in front of the deputy’s eyes.

  “You’d best think against that,” Bedgley said, all the mirth instantly gone from his voice. His eyes widened from pain to terror.

  “This is for my pa,” Pritchard said. He thrust the knife into the deputy’s bulging abdomen, just above the pelvis, and started carving upward. Bedgley howled and weakly tried to grab the knife. Pritchard easily slapped his hands away and continued slicing.

  “Don’t look for Pa when you get to hell,” Pritchard said. He stopped cutting when the blade reached breastbone. He withdrew the knife and stood up.

  Deputy Glenn Bedgley twitched, his eyes rolled back, and he began to make gurgling noises from deep within his throat. Blood bubbled from his mouth, and the sound of choking, clucking, and gasping increased. It sounded like he was drowning in his own blood. He convulsed once, ceased moving, and died.

  Neither boy spoke for long seconds. “I never saw a man die before,” Ditch finally said, looking away from the bodies of Toole and Bedgley.

  “Me, either.”

  “Did you hear that sound he made?” Ditch said. “That was spooky as hell. Pa told me about something called the ‘death rattle.’ He said when you hear it, you know the reaper’s at the door. He also told me once you hear it, you never forget.”

  “Best get used to it,” Pritchard said, wiping Ditch’s blade on the dead deputy’s shirt. “I reckon you’ll be hearing it again.”

  Chapter 4

  “You have no right to keep us here,” Dovie Pritchard said to Burnell Shipley, the mayor of Atherton. “We must leave Atherton and go home.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow it.” Shipley shook his head. “It’s especially unsafe for a woman such as yourself, and your young daughter, to be out on the road. There are reb raiders about. I couldn’t call myself a Christian man if I allowed two defenseless gals to go gallivanting off into the night amid these troubles.”

  “I didn’t realize you called yourself a Christian at all,” Dovie said.

  Mayor Burnell Shipley had doffed his usual wool suit and derby and donned his blue Federal uniform and wide-brimmed military hat. He was a portly man, of less-than-medium-height, in his mid-forties. He sported a florid complexion, a bald head with a comb-over, and elaborately groomed facial hair, of which he was known to be uncommonly proud. He stood on the steps of his hotel, the Atherton Arms, before a growing flock of armed men and townsfolk.

  It was clear he was about to speak not as mayor, but as Federal district provost marshal. Shipley was flanked by the Jackson County sheriff, dour-faced Horace Foster, and Atherton’s skittish town marshal, Elton Stacy. Several sheriff’s deputies and marshals were posted around the hotel’s entrance.

  “I’m worried about Thomas and Samuel,” Dovie insisted. Her daughter, Idelle, held her mother’s hand. Concern framed both their faces. “Others are worried about their kin, as well. We must be allowed to leave.”

  “We’re all worried,” Shipley said, patting her arm. She instinctively pulled away. “And I promise, tomorrow morning, I’ll have some men escort you out to your place. But right now, it’s just too dangerous. You and your daughter are welcome to stay the night at the hotel, as my guests, free of charge.”

  “I thank you kindly,” Dovie said, “but your hotel is not the sort of place a married woman or a decent young girl would patronize. If you will not allow us to leave Atherton, I will seek lodging elsewhere.”

  Shipley raised his eyebrows at Dovie and her daughter. “Too good for the Atherton Arms, are you?”

  “Most women are,” Dovie said.

  “You’ll excuse me,” Shipley said. “I have important duties to attend to.”

  “Of course.”

  Shipley turned away from the Pritchard women to face the crowd. He cleared his throat and raised his hands. The crowd quieted.

  “As you’ve probably all heard,” he began in his booming voice, “rebel raiders are on the march in Jackson County. We’ve received word that several farms and ranches have been attacked.”

  “What ’n hell do you intend to do about it?” a voice called out from the crowd.

  “The telegraph lines are down,” Shipley went on, “but I’ve sent riders to Kansas City to summon Federal troops.”

  “Kansas City’s bettern’n twenty
miles away,” another man shouted. “It could be a day or more before help arrives.”

  “That’s why,” Shipley continued, “as of this moment, I’m declaring martial law. As Federal district provost marshal, I’m taking command of all of Jackson County. I’m going to assign men to protect Atherton’s critical resources, to keep them from falling into Confederate hands. I will need volunteers to guard the train depot, the loading docks, the stockyards, the sawmill, and to assist the town marshal in patrolling the streets. My number one job is to keep the town of Atherton safe.”

  “Of course it is,” another angry voice challenged, “because you own the whole damned town!”

  “What about the folks living outside of town?” another voice yelled. “Who’s going to keep them safe?”

  “I would like nothing more than to send out forces to begin checking on the outlying areas,” Shipley smoothly responded, “but it’s nighttime, if you haven’t noticed. We don’t know how many Confederate raiders are out there, perhaps lying in ambush. We barely have enough men to secure the town. If we deplete our ranks by sending our menfolk out into the county, in the dark, we run the risk of being overrun here in town if we’re attacked. Tomorrow morning, at first light, we can send out a troop of volunteers. But tonight, as much as it pains me, I must keep all available guns here in town.”

  “Lots of townsfolk have family in the county,” still another voice rang out. It belonged to a warehouseman employed at Shipley’s Mercantile and General Store. “Especially men like me, who work in town but live outside town limits. You can’t expect us to just sit here on our butts in Atherton while our wives and children are left defenseless?”

  “You’re tellin’ us the stockyards,” another indignant voice joined in, “and the damned train depot are more important than our families? Is that what you’re tellin’ us?”

  “I’m sorry,” Shipley said, “but you all heard me declare martial law. No one will be allowed to leave Atherton until morning. Anyone caught doing so will be shot. My orders are final.”

  “That’s a load of bull,” another man hollered. Others clamored in agreement. The outraged crowd was quickly becoming a mob, a mob hostile to the authority of Federal District Provost Marshal Burnell Shipley.

  Shipley looked to the sheriff and marshal.

  “Last thing we need is a riot,” Marshal Stacy said.

  “I ain’t got enough men to quell one, if it starts,” Sheriff Foster said to Shipley. He scanned the crowd. “We may have a problem on our hands, Burnell.”

  “Ain’t no problem,” said Eli Gaines. He was one of Foster’s junior deputies. In his early twenties, he was tall, anemically thin, stoop shouldered, with a sallow complexion and brown, corroded teeth. He was also known to be the fastest, and most lethal, gunman in Jackson County. Though only a deputy for a couple of years, Gaines had already gunned down three men. Rumor had it, two of them were back-shot, and the third unarmed.

  “All you’ve got to do is plug the biggest loudmouth in the mob,” Gaines drawled in his high-pitched voice, “and the rest of the rabble will wilt and fall into line.”

  “There’s wisdom in what Gaines says,” Marshal Stacy said.

  “Then do it,” Shipley ordered. “Before things get out of hand.”

  Sheriff Foster nodded, and Gaines flashed his dirt-brown grin in return. He drew one of his two Navy Colts and started down the steps of the Atherton Arms Hotel.

  Suddenly a gunshot rang out, instantly silencing the crowd. Everyone looked in the direction from where it came.

  Samuel Pritchard rode alone into town, straight down the middle of Main Street. He was leading a second horse with two bodies, wearing gray coats, draped over the saddle. A smoking .44 revolver was in his hand.

  “No need to send out a rescue party,” Pritchard announced. “There ain’t no Confederate raiders.”

  Chapter 5

  “You heard me,” Pritchard said, parting the crowd and riding up to the steps of the Atherton Arms. He dismounted and stuck the revolver in his belt along with the other gun.

  “There are no reb raiders,” he declared again to the assembled townsfolk. “Only Burnell Shipley’s men, dressed up like Confederate rebels.”

  “Samuel,” his mother cried out. Dovie and Idelle scurried past the gawkers to his side.

  “Pa’s dead,” Pritchard said, as he took his mother and sister into his arms. “He was murdered by these two men, along with four of their friends. They burned down our house, too.”

  Dovie looked into the exhausted face of her son and knew immediately his words were true. She and Idelle began to cry. He pressed them both to his chest.

  Earlier that night, with Ditch’s help, Pritchard had buried his father, using shovels from the barn. They planted Thomas Pritchard at the edge of his property, overlooking the pond. Then they constructed a makeshift cross from scrap lumber and placed it at the head of the grave.

  “You want to say any words?” Ditch asked. He knelt and bowed his head, leaning on his shovel. Pritchard knelt next to him.

  “Ain’t much to say,” Pritchard said as tears slowly fell down his dirt-streaked face. “Pa was a good Christian man, Lord, and a good husband and father. He was peaceful by nature. His only mistake was trying not to take sides in a fight that wasn’t his to begin with. I know it ain’t for us to question your ways, but Pa didn’t deserve what he got. He didn’t go looking for trouble. He just didn’t want to shed the blood of his fellow man.”

  Pritchard wiped his eyes and stood up. “I’ll be takin’ a different path, Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Ditch repeated.

  Ditch helped Pritchard lift the bodies of Bob Toole and Deputy Glenn Bedgley and lash them over the saddle of one of their horses. Pritchard took the two Remingtons, leaving Ditch the Colt, and mounted the other horse.

  Ditch protested when Pritchard refused to allow his friend to accompany him into town.

  “Nobody knows you’re involved,” Pritchard told him. “You already saved my life tonight, twice. I’ll never forget it, or how you helped me bury Pa. There isn’t any reason for you to get mixed up in what I’ve got to do, and no point in both of us catching a ball. You’d best get home and check on your own father.”

  Ditch recognized the logic in his friend’s words. With his mother long dead and his only brother off fighting the war, there was only Ditch and his pa, and the meager horse ranch they operated. The boys hadn’t heard any more gunshots or seen any more smoke on the horizon, but Ditch had been worried all night that raiders might have visited his home, too.

  The two friends shook hands. Ditch grabbed his rifle and departed on foot, through the woods, back to his place. Pritchard steered the horses to Atherton, only a few miles away.

  While Pritchard held his sobbing mother and sister, Marshal Stacy, Sheriff Foster, and several deputies examined the carcasses slung over the saddle.

  “It’s Bob Toole,” the marshal said, after lifting the head of one of the bodies. “He’s been stabbed. One of his hands has been cut off.”

  “Who’s the other?” the sheriff demanded.

  “One of your deputies. Glenn Bedgley. He’s been shot and gutted like a hog.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Sheriff Foster said, moving toward Pritchard.

  Pritchard pushed his mother and sister aside and drew both revolvers. He pointed one at Shipley, standing above him on the hotel stoop, and the other at the approaching sheriff. All the deputies and marshals drew their own pistols and aimed them at him.

  “You murdered a deputy sheriff,” Foster said, still approaching Pritchard. “Drop them guns. You’re under arrest.”

  “These men killed my pa,” Pritchard said, “and torched my home. I caught them red-handed. They got what was coming to them. You take one more step, Sheriff, and you’ll get yours. Your boss Shipley, too.”

  “I’ve got a dozen guns on you, boy,” Sheriff Foster said, but he stopped advancing. “You’ve got no chance. This is the last time I’ll te
ll you. Drop them pistols.”

  “These men murdered my father on Shipley’s orders.”

  “That’s your story,” he said. “For all we know, you murdered them yourself.”

  “If I did, would I dress them up in reb gray and freight them back into town?”

  “Stand by to fire,” Foster said to the deputies and marshals, “on my signal.”

  “Go ahead and tell ’em to shoot,” Pritchard said, raising the pistol pointed at Foster’s chest up to his face. “But you’ll never hear the shots. You’ll be smokin’ in hell before I will.”

  “No!” Dovie shouted, and ran to stand between her son and the lawmen’s guns. “I won’t let you kill him!”

  “Get clear, Mrs. Pritchard,” Sheriff Foster said.

  “I will not,” she said defiantly. “If you cowards are going to gun down a seventeen-year-old boy, you may as well shoot his mother along with him.”

  “Mama!” Idelle cried out, and joined her mother and brother.

  “Get that child away from there,” Sheriff Foster demanded. “I don’t want to shoot a woman and child, but if I have to, I will.”

  “Like hell, you will,” a voice from the crowd called out. Two dozen rifles and pistols were instantly directed at Sheriff Foster, Marshal Stacy, and their men.

  “I don’t know if what the boy says is true,” a different man’s voice said, “but either way, nobody is gonna shoot no woman or child.”

  “Damned straight!” another man said. “Hell no!” still another said.

  Observing from the hotel porch, Burnell Shipley realized things were rapidly getting out of control. The arrival of Samuel Pritchard, towing the bodies of two of the men he’d dispatched to eliminate Thomas Pritchard, was a wild card he didn’t even know was in the deck.

  Shipley’s false-flag operation, carried out with help from the marshal and sheriff, and the martial law he’d declared as a result, were supposed to get him custody of the sawmill and further cement Union sentiment within the county. The Pritchard Lumber Company was the only utility he didn’t have control of, and he needed to gain possession of it quickly. Only a week before, during a business trip to Jefferson City, his connections within the government informed him that a huge lumber contract was soon to be awarded.