Claussen dropped to the floor and didn't move.
Lauters, panting with exertion, alcohol sweating out of his bloated face in rivers, rubbed his cut, bleeding fists. 'This isn't over yet, Reverend.' He took a china pitcher from its stand and filled a basin with water and dumped it on the still, broken heap of the minister.
Claussen came to, his good eye focusing and unfocusing, his head swimming with dizziness. Lauters picked him up and dropped him on the bed.
'I want you out of this town, Reverend. If you're still here day after tomorrow, I'll kill you. Is that clear?'
Claussen attempted a nod.
Lauters patted him on the chest and put his badge back on, then his coat. He stood in the doorway and smiled. 'School's out.'
27
Wynona was doing what she did best.
After she had stitched up the gaping wounds in Dewey Mayhew's hide (just so nothing would spill out, mind you), she dressed the man in an old suit provided by his widow. It was no easy task. Mayhew had curled up in a semi-fetal position as he lay dying behind the smithy's shop. Rigor mortis and a nasty wind out of the north had done their best to freeze up his ligaments and muscles permanently in that position. They'd straightened him out some when Doc Perry had done his little autopsy…but not enough.
It was Wynona's job to force things into their proper places. Otherwise, Mayhew wouldn't fit in the box. Dressing the cadaver was one thing, but making him lie flat was quite another.
'Come on, Dewey,' Wynona grunted, 'work with me, old man.'
Wynona was up on the slab with him.
She'd gotten his legs straightened and one arm flat, but the other was no easy task. Every time she pressed his shoulder down that arm swung up from internal stress and slapped her. Wynona was kneeling on Mayhew's bicep and bearing down on his wrist with everything she had. Handling the dead had made her strong. She could toss around 200 pound cadavers like a farm woman handling feed sacks.
But sometimes, the dead were not cooperative.
Dewey was every bit as stubborn in death as he had been in life.
'Come on, you sonofabitch,' Wynona groaned. 'No need for this now…just help…me out here…uhh…' Wynona gasped for breath. She'd moved the arm enough to fit it in the box, but she wanted to lay it over the breast with the other. It was the traditional position. 'You're going in that coffin whether you like it or not…so, please, cooperate…'
Wynona mopped her brow, pushed aside clumps of hair that hung in her face, took a deep breath, and waded back into battle. With a gruesome snap, she got Mayhew's other arm into position. 'There,' she panted, 'that wasn't so bad, now was it?'
'What in the name of the Devil are you doing?'
Wynona, not accustomed to anyone speaking in the preparation room, nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned and saw Mike Ryan standing in the doorway.
'Oh, Mr. Ryan… ' Wynona giggled. 'You scared the death out of me.'
'What in blazes are you doing, woman?'
She smiled, straddling the corpse, very much aware of how it looked. How indecent it might have seemed. 'Why, Mr. Ryan…what do you think I was doing?'
'Well, it's just that…'
Wynona giggled again, slid off the slab. 'Sometimes you have to straighten them to fit them in the casket. Unpleasant…but necessary. Every job has its unpleasantries, does it not?'
Ryan ignored her, staring at the body. 'That Mayhew?' It was hard to tell. Ryan had known Dewey Mayhew for years, but this…this was only vaguely human. It was a bloated, discolored, stitched-up grotesquerie out of a sideshow.
'Yes,' Wynona said, covering the body quickly with a sheet.
'My God, he looks worse than they said.'
Wynona looked hurt. 'There's only so much that could be done.'
Mike Ryan was a big man with bushy eyebrows, a hard face, and an intense glare that looked right through a man. He was a local rancher and a very rich man. He dressed in fine vested suits from St. Louis, owned hotels in both Virginia and Nevada Cities, and controlled stock in several copper and silver mining companies. He was a man to be reckoned with. If he liked you, you were set; if he didn't, he could destroy you, being that he owned just about everything and everyone in and around Wolf Creek. He was a good friend of Sheriff Lauters and had been the primary mover in getting Lauters his current post. He was also the mayor and the city council all rolled into one.
Wynona washed her hands in a basin and dried them, powdered them. 'What can I do for you this fine day, Mr. Ryan?'
'Fine day?' Ryan said angrily. 'What's fine about it, Wynona? Men are being killed out there!'
'A figure of speech.'
He looked at her with complete loathing. He didn't care for undertakers in general and a woman undertaker…well, it was just plain unnatural. 'Yes…well, I didn't come here to chat with the likes of you.' He pulled out a gold pocket watch. 'I need a headstone.'
'Oh, I see,' Wynona said, putting on her best synthetic demeanor. 'Has there been a death in the family?' She controlled her voice carefully; didn't want to sound excited.
'No, no death,' Ryan said slowly. 'Not yet. It's for me. I want a headstone and a coffin. The best you can get. When people see my stone, I want them to stop and think, 'Here lies a man of worth.' Got it? The very best.'
'I know of a fine sculptor and mason in Virginia City, Mr. Ryan, he can create something befitting a man of your station.'
'Marble. The finest marble money can buy. Get the very best. Imported. Can you do that? I have imported Italian marble in my bathhouse. I fancy it.'
'Oh, you can be assured-'
'Don't assure me, dammit, just do it!'
'Yes, sir. It will be done.'
'Fine,' Ryan said. 'Get on it, woman. I'll be back day after tomorrow to discuss the particulars.'
Ryan stormed out, leaving Wynona with a widening grin on her pale face. Whistling a happy tune, she went about pressing Mayhew into his cheap pine casket.
Life was rich.
And so was death.
28
Dr. Perry, his back a catalog of discomfort with the sudden change in the weather, made his way to see Claussen. He moved up the rutted road, cursing as he slipped and slid on the melting pockets of snow.
'If I fall,' he said under his breath, 'God knows I'll never get up again.'
Wagons rolled past him and riders and people out going about their business. Everyone waved at him. More than a few wanted to chat. But Perry wasn't in the mood for any of that. He'd been trying to keep his injections of morphine to a bare minimum and such was the way of the drug that, what was enough to blot out the pain a week ago, was only enough to tease him now.
But he had to be careful.