door.
The coach was followed by six more riders in three ranks of two.
“John, you asked about Lucas Meacham?” Matt asked.
“Yes.”
“There he is,” Matt said, pointing to the rider who was leading the others. “Have you ever seen him before?”
“No, I haven’t,” John said. “Not only have I never seen him with Denbigh, I’ve never even seen him in town before. He must be new.”
“New to you, but not to me,” Matt said. “I’ve been seeing him for several days, now.”
As the coach passed the newspaper office, Matt saw its occupant looking toward him with great interest.
“That,” John said, “is Nigel Denbigh.”
The hollow, clopping of hoofbeats from seventeen horses filled the street with sound, and much of the town turned out to watch the parade.
“Does he always make such an arrival?” Matt asked.
“He always arrives by coach, and he always has a group of men who come with him,” Millie said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this many before. I guess he has brought more than usual for the funeral.”
“The funeral?”
“Millie ran into Fay Lisenby at the mercantile. Her husband is the undertaker, and she told Millie that Denbigh wanted a big funeral for Butrum.”
“Has anyone else who works for him ever died or been killed? What I’m asking is, is this unusual?”
“I don’t know that anyone who worked for him died or was killed before now,” John said. “That said, this is still a very unusual event. Butrum wasn’t that well liked of a man.” He made a scoffing sound that might have been a laugh. “What am I talking about? Butrum was hated. Nobody ever had one good thing to say about him, not even the others who rode for Denbigh. You have to wonder why Denbigh would even bother to have a funeral for him.”
“To send me a message, I suspect,” Matt replied.
“You think he knows about you already?” John asked. “Wait, what am I saying? Of course he knows about you. Everyone in town, probably in all of Elm Valley, knows by now that you killed Butrum. And my bet is, they are all cheering the fact.”
“Maybe I’ll just make it easier for him to know me,” Matt suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to the funeral.”
“I don’t know how you can conduct a funeral for that man,” Millie said to her father. “He was pure evil.”
“All have sinned and fallen short of God, daughter,” Reverend Landers replied. “And I would preach a funeral for him if I were asked, but I have already been told that there will be no funeral per se, in that no prayers will said and no words will be spoken. Denbigh wanted to hold the service, such as it is, in the church, but I told him that, without words being spoken, there would be no service in the church.”
“Good for you,” Millie said, hugging her father. “Why is it that the only two men who will stand up to Denbigh are my father and my husband?”
“I don’t think we are the only two, Millie,” John said. “Seems to me as if Matt has already started.”
“Oh,” Millie said. “Yes, I guess you are right at that.”
Butrum’s body lay in state at the Lisenby Undertaker Parlor, displayed in a black lacquer coffin that was extensively decorated with silver trim. The top half of the lid was open so that anyone who wished could view his body. The death grimace on his pasty face made him even uglier in death than he had been in life. Because he was so small, his burial suit had to be cut to fit, and it made him look more like a grotesque gargoyle than a human being.
Quite a few citizens of the town came, some because they did business with Denbigh and thought it would be to their advantage to come, but most out of a sense of morbid curiosity. As they filed by the open coffin to look down at the pale face of the deceased, someone would occasionally, more out of habit than conviction, cross himself, then walk away. The expression on the faces of most, however, showed no sympathy for the man, and a few even showed satisfaction that he was dead.
Matt stood in the back of the room and watched as residents of the town filed by, never once venturing up toward the coffin. He recognized Logan, Caleb, and Ben, Denbigh’s men who’d happened into the saloon shortly after he had killed Butrum, as well as Carver and Bleeker, the two men he had encountered at the tollgate on the road into town. He could tell that they recognized him as well, but neither of them approached him, nor did he see either of them say anything to Denbigh about it. He was sure that they’d never even told Denbigh about their encounter. He saw Logan point him out to two other men who had ridden into town with Denbigh’s entourage.
“That’s Slater and Dillon,” John whispered, indicating the two men that Logan was talking to. “They are every bit as evil as Butrum was. I just don’t think they are quite as good with a gun.”
Although Matt didn’t see anyone else point him out specifically, he knew that word had spread because at one time or the other, he saw every one of Denbigh’s men take a glance his way. Usually, though, when he looked back, they looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you would kindly step back from the bier, we can load the coffin into the hearse and proceed to the cemetery for the interment,” Lisenby said.
The visitors began filing out of the room where the body had been displayed, while six of the men who had come to town with Denbigh acted as pallbearers, picking up the coffin and carrying it out to a glass-sided hearse, its ebony wood glistening in the morning sun. Four white horses stood in harness, each horse draped with a purple pall, their manes adorned by a black feather plume.
