The Stranger from Abilene

The undertaker handed Kelly and Clayton mourning garments, and asked, “Will there be more?”

The marshal shook his head. “We’re it, Sam. Get him planted. Be dark soon.”

“Do you plan to guard the body, Marshal?” Sam asked.

Kelly shook his head. “No. He’ll have to fend for himself.”

The burial ceremony was brief. Sam said the words, the grave diggers smoked their pipes and waited, and the wind slapped the black cotton of the mourning garments against the legs of Clayton and Kelly.

It was full dark, the moon rising, when the last shovelful of dirt fell on Seth Wilson’s pine box.

“Let’s go,” Kelly said.

“Hold up, Marshal,” Sam said. He pointed to his assistants. “Are you sure the mayor didn’t say anything about paying one of these men to guard the grave?”

Kelly said he hadn’t.

Then one of the grave diggers said, “Don’t make no difference anyhow. Neither of us is staying.” He spat into the dirt at his feet. “If the resurrectionists come after the stiff, they’d leave with two bodies instead of one an’ count their blessings.”

Sam looked crestfallen, the wind tangling in his beard. “I plant them, the resurrectionists dig ’em up.” His eyes sought Kelly’s in the gloom. “Don’t seem fair, do it, Marshal?”

Kelly smiled. “Life ain’t fair, Sam. Nobody should know that better than you.”

The undertaker nodded. “True, so very true.” A talking man by nature, he said, “Why, look at young Mrs. Brown, the poor little creature, gone at such a tender . . .”

But Kelly and Clayton had already shed the mourning garments and walked away, leaving Sam to talk into uncaring darkness.

Chapter 10

The two men rode in silence for a while; then Clayton said, “What the hell is a resurrectionist?”

“Fancy name for a body snatcher.”

Clayton’s face showed his surprise. “I thought all that was over.”

“The hell it is. There’s a steady market for stiffs in the medical schools back east, and they pay well.”

“I reckon Seth Wilson’s body would smell pretty high before they got it to New York or Boston or wherever.”

“Not if was loaded into a refrigerated railroad car.” Kelly turned and looked at Clayton, his face a blur in the crowding darkness. “There’s a spur line of the Denver and Rio Grande to the north of town, ends up at a small freight yard. Some of the local ranchers ship cattle from there and occasionally the trains have a passenger car.

“I rode up there one time and saw a bunch of men loading long packing cases into one of them new refrigerator cars I was talking about.”

“You figure they were shipping bodies?”

“Sure of it.”

Clayton laughed, the first time in a long while, and it felt good. “I didn’t know so many folks died around these parts.”

“They don’t,” Kelly said, “at least not white folks, but plenty of Apaches do.”

“Apaches?”

“Yeah, starving or dying of disease up there in the mountains.”

“So somebody is making money shipping dead Apaches to medical schools back east.”

“That’s about the size of it, only the Apaches say their people are mysteriously disappearing, especially women and children. They can’t account for that and I got to say it’s troubling me some.”

Kelly’s face was grim. “All we need in these parts is another Apache uprising. A few years back Geronimo raised enough hell around here to last white folks a lifetime.”

“Did you inspect those packing cases?”

“No. I’m only a town marshal and I was way off my home range. I wired the county sheriff and he told me to forget the damned Apaches and keep an eye on the graves of white folks. The United States Marshal’s office said pretty much the same thing.”

“The army?”

“Stretched too thin. They already have all the work they can handle, and disappearing Apaches is pretty low on their list of priorities.”

“Take a lot of dead Apaches for a man to make a living at it.”

“It’s a sideline, I reckon. If you’re already shipping beef, why not throw in a few dead bodies and make yourself some extra bucks? Unlike cows, you don’t have to feed and care for Apaches, so it’s all profit.”

“Hell, Kelly, I thought you said you were bored,” Clayton said. “It seems to me like there’s plenty breaking loose around these parts.”

“Maybe so, but it doesn’t concern me. If Apaches are murdered and shipped east like sides of beef, it’s happening outside my jurisdiction. Take one step beyond the town limits of Bighorn Point and I’m nobody.”

Kelly’s horse tossed its head, the bit chiming. “So you see, Mr. Clayton, I am bored. Or at least I was until you rode into town.”

Chapter 11

Cage Clayton rose with the dawn. He was hungry, but had no desire to eat in the saloon again. That left Mom’s Kitchen and its uncertain culinary arts, but it was the only restaurant in town and he started to cross the street. He almost never made it.